The worm that is killing married love
by Carolyn Moynihan, MercatorNet:
Why are young adults turning out on the streets more, raging against unwelcome guest speakers on their campuses more? Why are they parading Nazi emblems or smashing statues of yesterday’s heroes? What are they not doing that gives them so much time and energy to burn?
Sex. In America, anyway, they are not doing sex. According to an expert on the subject, sociologist Mark Regnerus, “people born in the 1930s had the most sex, whereas those born in the 1990s are reporting the least.” That’s what research published recently in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior reveals.
And this despite the fact that, as Regnerus argues in a new book, sex has become so cheap. “Fifty years on from the advent of the sexual revolution, we are witnessing the demise of eros,” he writes in an article in the October issue of First Things.
While this revelation will shock some people, it was only to be expected. Even today, he continues, “most sex happens within long-term, well-defined relationships.” But look what has happened to marriage: in the few short years between 2000 and 2014 the proportion of Americans who were married declined from 55 percent to 41 percent. Young Americans are now more likely to express passion for Black Lives Matter or saving the planet than for another person.
Even younger Americans who are married may find more excitement in the “ping of an incoming text message or new Facebook post” than in intimacy with their spouse. Pornography provides another substitute. And some of the under-40s are, no doubt, among the 1 in 8 adults taking anti-depressant medication, which commonly decreases libido.
Behind the pills and the pings and the porn, however, Regnerus finds something much bigger going on: the deadening effect on eros of the idea that men and women must be equal in every domain. The data is in, he says: “Equality between the sexes is leading to the demise of sex.”
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