Researchers at Aarhus University have found that the number of young men not having sex is on the rise, a health issue that hasn’t gotten enough attention. The study was published in the journal Journal of Bioethics.
The authors report that between 2000-2002 and 2016-2018, the proportion of men aged 18 to 24 who had never reported any sexual activity in the past year increased from approximately 19% to 31%. However, this trend did not include women. A similar pattern has been confirmed in other studies.
At the same time, the proportion of men reporting multiple sexual partners is also increasing. In other words, while the most sexually active 5% of American heterosexual men had 38 partners as of 2002, this number increased to 50 in 2012. There was no change in the number of sexual partners of heterosexual women during this period.
“Only 5% of heterosexual relationships in the world account for half. The distribution of sexual partners for both men and women is as unequal as the distribution of wealth in countries with the greatest economic inequality. Such sexual inaccessibility can pose a public health problem. Scientists have noted that sexual activity, or rather its absence, can adversely affect both the mental and physical health of the person.
This picture of sexual loneliness is not unique to the United States. In Finland, for example, the number of men struggling to find partners doubled from 1992 to 2015.