Americans’ sex lives have gone limp—lovemaking fell ~15% since the ’90s

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Sexy times in the US are declining, according to a new study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

American adults reported having nine fewer romps a year in the early 2010s than they did in the late 1990s—dropping from an average of about 62 times a year between 1995 and 2000 to around 53 a year between 2010 and 2014. Researchers saw declines across ages, races, religions, education levels, employment statuses, and regions. They linked the sagging numbers to two trends: an increase in singletons over that period—who tend to have less sex than married or partnered people—plus a slow-down in the sex lives of married and coupled people. But the drivers of those trends are still unclear.

The study is based on data from a long-standing national survey called the General Social Survey (GSS). It involves a nationally representative sample of Americans over 18 years old, surveyed most years between 1972 and 2014. The new study involved responses from 26,620 Americans.