Have More Sex, Please (opens in new tab)

I don't get the central premise of the article. Why would a NYT author asking "please" be the deciding factor in whether me and someone else has sex? It's something we do for us and ourselves, not because an author is upset at statistics. The author correctly points out that having sex is a political and social statement, but then fails to understand what motivates most people to make such statements.

I suspect the decline is associated with the unrealistic hyper-attractive humans we see in media. Insecurity about body image seems to be on the rise. And then there's stuff like this: https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2022/s...

Anecdotally, I've noticed young men seem more insecure about taking their shirts off in public, even in contexts like at the beach, than they were in my generation (a couple decades ago). If you think your body is some gross thing that others shouldn't be subjected to, and that nudity is extremely awkward and embarrassing, I imagine sex is rather anxiety-inducing.

The article links to results from the General Social Survey (https://www.docdroid.net/Ow9GtjA/tables-sda3-pdf#page=2). The numbers for 2014 are remarkably different from the other years, showing for example 3% for "no sex at all" vs 20-25% in all other years. That can't be right. Does anyone know more?

Well, last time I checked, at least two people were needed to have sex. Makes it hard to follow this request for some…

Jeez Magdalene, you ask so politely but as one of the many young men you described as "displacing their sexual desires, relying entirely on porn or other online stimuli," I could have used some tips or something because you sure make it sound like it's easy for you