THE SEX RECESSION

In 1990, more than half of Americans—55%—reported having sex weekly. Today, that number has plunged to just 37%, according to new research from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS). The think tanks are calling it a “sex recession,” as though desire has simply gone out of fashion. But let’s be precise: this isn’t about prudishness, nor some Gen Z allergy to human touch. What’s happening is that women are increasingly choosing abstinence, not because they don’t want sex, but because America has made sex too expensive, too dangerous, and too unrewarding.

We’re living in a country where women’s bodies have been turned into political battlegrounds, where the cost of pregnancy rivals the cost of a house down payment, and where reproductive rights are being dismantled one courtroom at a time. Against this backdrop, choosing abstinence isn’t withholding. It’s survival.

Desire in a Hostile Economy

It’s impossible to separate sex from economics. Dating requires disposable income—drinks, dinners, Ubers, even a new outfit. Once upon a time, bars buzzed with generosity: “this round is on me.” Today, cocktails can run $18, student debt strangles paychecks, and wages lag behind rent. For young adults, many of whom were locked away during their formative years by COVID, intimacy feels less like possibility and more like another bill they can’t afford to pay.

But here’s the real kicker: sex is no longer But here’s the real kicker: sex is no longer just about a night out. It carries enormous financial consequences. America’s fertility rate is projected to average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, well below the replacement level of 2.1. Why? Because every pregnancy here comes with a price tag of nearly $19,000, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. And that’s before you pay for childcare, formula, or college. When sex comes with the risk of lifelong debt, women are making the rational choice to say no.

Men love to suggest that women are “withholding.” But what they rarely account for is the state of America’s healthcare system. One in four American women of childbearing age has no or inadequate insurance. Maternal mortality rates are the highest among wealthy nations, especially for Black women, who are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Add to that the patchwork of states banning abortion, restricting contraception, or prosecuting women for miscarriages, and suddenly sex becomes less about pleasure and more about gambling with your life.

Desire doesn’t flourish in a minefield. Reproductive rights aren’t just abstract—they’re the conditions under which women can say yes without risking everything. When those rights vanish, intimacy becomes a liability. Abstinence, then, is not lack of desire. It is a form of bodily autonomy in a country determined to strip it away.

When Women Say No: America’s Sex Recession Is a Protest

The data bears this out most starkly among Gen Z. A 2022 Kinsey Institute/Lovehoney survey found that 1 in 4 Gen Z adults had never had partnered sex. The gender gap is telling: 1 in 3 men reported never having sex, compared to 1 in 5 women. This isn’t because women are uninterested—it’s because they’re uninterested in men who arrive at the table with less than nothing.

Consider what young women see when they look across the dating pool: men more likely to live with their parents, less likely to have savings, more likely to spend nights scrolling than socializing. Over the past decade, the share of young adults aged 18 to 29 living with a partner has dropped from 42% to 32%. Women are opting out of sex not because they’re prudish, but because their potential partners are unprepared, economically unstable, or politically hostile to their autonomy. Put simply: the juice is not worth the squeeze.

Even inside marriage, abstinence is rising. The IFS study found that married adults are still more likely to have sex weekly than their single peers (46% vs. 34%), but those numbers have been declining for decades. Between 1996 and 2008, 59% of married adults reported weekly sex. From 2010 to 2024, that dropped to 49%.

Why? Because women inside marriages are just as aware as women outside them: sex is not worth it when it comes with unpaid labor, unequal childcare, and no safety net. Exhaustion is the new contraception. When two-income households can barely stay afloat, when aftercare and emotional labor fall disproportionately on women, abstinence is less a choice than a form of resistance.

Women are opting out of sex not because they’re prudish, but because their potential partners are unprepared, economically unstable, or politically hostile to their autonomy.

Of course, the cultural critics love to point fingers at technology. Phones, they say, are the new fertility control. And yes, TikTok and Netflix have become cheap substitutes for intimacy. But the real story isn’t the screen—it’s the man holding it. The fuck boy, once king of casual sex, is aging into irrelevance. His hairline recedes, his job prospects stall, his charisma doesn’t pay rent. Women have stopped indulging him because his swagger can’t cover the bill. For years, women were accused of being “gold diggers,” but the truth is, many men have turned into labor diggers—searching for a nurse or a purse. Women are done supplying either. Abstinence is not about screens. It’s about refusing to trade intimacy for exploitation.

Why Abstinence Is Rational

The sex recession is best understood not as an accident, but as a referendum. Women are abstaining because:

• Sex carries outsized risks in a country without reproductive rights.

• The cost of pregnancy and childcare is crushing.

• Partners often arrive without stability or accountability.

• Healthcare failures make pregnancy dangerous, especially for Black and poor women.

• Cultural misogyny—from red pill podcasts to policy decisions—makes intimacy feel less safe.

So yes, America is having less sex. But don’t mistake that for diminished desire. What you are witnessing is women voting with their bodies, withdrawing from a rigged system. America’s fertility rate is already falling, and politicians are panicking. J.D. Vance, now Vice President, recently lamented that “we failed a generation” by permitting abortion and neglecting young parents. But he, like so many others, misses the point. Women aren’t withholding sex because they don’t value family. They’re withholding because men and governments alike have made family life impossible.

And unless wages rise, rights return, and healthcare becomes humane, the abstinence trend will continue. Because women will not risk everything for intimacy that gives them nothing back.

America loves to police women’s choices. For centuries, they were scolded for saying yes. Now, they’re being blamed for saying no. But here’s the truth: abstinence is not a crisis. It is a conscious act of self-preservation.

What looks like a sex recession is, in fact, a women’s revolution—quiet, unannounced, but deeply rational. Until this country makes sex safe, affordable, and worth it, women will continue to choose themselves over a system that treats their bodies like collateral.

The real headline isn’t that Americans are having less sex. The real headline is that women have decided they deserve better.