Why Nobody is Having Sex Anymore (& why it matters) - Dr Debra Soh - #1072

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Is people having less sex a big deal?

**Debra Soh** (0:02)
It is a big deal. Well, ask anyone who's not having sex if it's a big deal. I think they'll tell you, yeah, it is a problem. Especially considering that it is young men who are typically in their prime and at the peak of their sexual drive. So not only is it, I think, quite frustrating for them, but also when you're in a situation like that where you're struggling, and it's not just about the sex, it's also about the connection and the emotional intimacy and the larger feeling of connectiveness and community. So sex extinction is very much about the sex recession and the fact that young people, millennials and Gen Z in particular, are having less sex than previous generations. I was skeptical at first. I thought that this talk about the sex recession and sexlessness was overblown. But after I sat down, I got a chance to go through the data myself, look at the media reportage, talk to people. We see consistently with multiple datasets that one in three men and one in five women have not had sex in the past 12 months, which is a large number of people. And so I was interested with this book. What is taking the place of sex? And what does that say about where we're headed in the future?

**Chris Williamson** (1:14)
How different is modern sexual activity to what we understand about the past?

**Debra Soh** (1:21)
Well, in terms of, say, the outlets that we have available. So one question has been, is sex really on the decline? Or is it that other outlets are taking the place like porn with some masturbation, things like OnlyFans or now AI Companions? So each of these subjects have a different chapter in the book to themselves and in myself explaining, trying to understand what the trend is about. Is it convincing? I test them out myself, which was a lot of fun in many cases. Going through the scientific research in terms of what we do know about these technologies and then also talking about the evolutionary biology and psychology that is underpinning them. So what makes these technologies alluring to human beings?
And why is it that is potentially dangerous or distracting us from real life sex?

**Chris Williamson** (1:59)
How different is the amount of sex, person on person sex, that modern people are having compared with what we understand about the past?

**Debra Soh** (2:08)
Well, everyone across the board is having less sex. So regardless of whether you are married or in a relationship or single, it's in Eastern countries, Western countries, basically all developed countries and all age cohorts. But as I mentioned, more specifically among young people. But your question earlier about, is it taking the place of potentially masturbation or other sexual outlets? If you look at studies that are asking about adolescent sexuality, so this is a understandably uncomfortable subject to think about adolescent sexual awakening, but they have parental consent, so it's a legitimate study.
What they found is even among adolescents, they are having lower rates of masturbation and across the board with everyone less partnered sex, less intercourse, less anal sex, less all types of sex, oral sex, partner masturbation, I said, solo masturbation as well. So across the board, there's been this decline. So it's not that people are just preferring masturbation, although I do think that is something that is happening, especially when we look at pornography and AI girlfriends and boyfriends and that type of thing. But it seems like there's something else, there's a larger phenomenon and I also speak to the role of endocrine disruptors in one chapter because I think there's something else biologically happening.

**Chris Williamson** (3:22)
So it's not just that the pie of sexual activity has been redistributed from person on person to solo person or person with machine or person with doll or whatever. It's that the overall size of the pie has gotten smaller too. There is less sexual activity happening as an aggregate.

**Debra Soh** (3:43)
Yeah. That seems to be the case. What I find interesting as you mentioned with dolls and robots, with the technology improving over time, I didn't think this was going to be the case. I always thought people would prefer in person real life sex, but I'm beginning to think people are actually preferring the solo methods. And it's potentially dangerous if it comes to the point where we have these surrogates like robots where you can implant an AI, and they are no different from real life person. I really think people are eventually going to, some people will be turning that way, but it's going to be much more popular than I had anticipated.