--- title: Millennials Are Having Less Sex Than Their Parents Did description: More young adults—millennials and younger—are choosing not to have sex. They're twice as likely to be virgins compared to to GenX'ers canonical: https://time.com/4435058/millennials-virgins-sex/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-03T14:25:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:43:18.547Z article:section: Health og:title: Millennials Are Having Less Sex Than Their Parents Did og:description: Millennials are twice as likely to be sexually inactive compared to GenX'ers og:url: https://time.com/4435058/millennials-virgins-sex/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc95ff195039e0a2a/6987788d06f2c104f33333f0/condom-sex-4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock photos Condoms Sex og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Millennials Are Having Less Sex Than Their Parents Did twitter:description: Millennials are twice as likely to be sexually inactive compared to GenX'ers twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc95ff195039e0a2a/6987788d06f2c104f33333f0/condom-sex-4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Millennials Are Having Way Less Sex Than Their Parents > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 3, 2016 2:25 PM UTC  Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 3, 2016 2:25 PM UTC It appears that Boyz II Men, plus the entire golden age of baby-making music, is wasted on millennials. More young adults born in the 1980s and 1990s are choosing not to have sex, according to the results of a new study published in the _Archives of Sexual Behavior_. In fact, they’re twice as likely to be virgins, compared to GenXers—people born in the 1960s and ’70s—when they were the same age. “A few years ago, I would have been very surprised at this result,” says study author Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of the book [_Generation Me_](http://www.generationme.org/). It certainly _seems_ surprising, given Twenge’s recent data that [same-sex hookup rates have doubled in the U.S.](http://time.com/4352899/sex-relationships-hookups/?iid=sr-link2) and young Americans are more sexually free and less traditional. But other recent research, and some from the CDC, all points in this direction: that [young adults these days have fewer sexual partners](http://time.com/3852117/millennials-sex-parents-boomers/?iid=sr-link6) and are starting to have sex later. Twenge and her team wondered if people who weren’t having any sex at all were contributing to this sexless trend. So they analyzed data from a nationally representative group of 26,707 adults, focusing on GenX’ers, Millennials and the generation after them, which some people call iGen. Fifteen percent of young adults ages 20-24 who were born in the 1990s said they had no sex partners since age 18, while just 6% of GenX’ers admitted the same when recalling the romps of their early twenties. How, for all the handwringing over today’s hookup culture, can this be true? And why are more young adults pushing off sex? They’re impossible questions to answer without conducting a randomized controlled trial (which you just can’t do in this area) so researchers can only speculate. But Twenge has some compelling ideas. “There’s been a general pattern over the last few generations for people to become adults or cross adult milestones later: things like getting married, having a child, settling into a stable career, buying a house,” she says. An extended adolescence used to mean that people were starting to have sex but putting off marriage and kids. “Now, it seems Millennials and iGen are putting off everything—including sex,” she said. Another intriguing explanation is that Millennials and the generation after them have grown up with a strong emphasis on safety. “That may potentially impact their sexual behavior, if they’ve gotten the message that you can get sick or even die from sex,” Twenge said. The safer-is-better state of mind is reflected elsewhere as well: underage drinking is at an all-time low, and protests on college campuses often call for safe spaces and safer sex. It could be, too, that young adults are increasingly living on their phones. “If you’re on your phone communicating with people more often, and not seeing your peers in person as much, that could lead to less sex,” Twenge says. And while phones may be helping some people get laid, dating apps like Tinder likely leave out a whole segment of the population—perhaps the one not having sex. “Maybe if someone who isn’t physically attractive meets someone in a bar, they can charm the other person with their engaging personality and humor,” Twenge explains. “On Tinder, it’s a picture.” More young adults are likely choosing to forgo sex for a range of reasons. 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