Comments
- Married adults have markedly more sex than their unmarried peers, but the sex recession is also making inroads among married couples.
- When it comes to sexlessness (“no sex in the last year”) among young adults, the biggest change comes post-2010.
- Between 2010 and 2019, the average time young adults spent with friends in a given week fell by nearly 50%, from 12.8 hours to just 6.5 hours.
Source: Institute for Family Studies.
I didn’t mean anything negative toward antidepressants other than that lowered sex drive is often a side effect of many of the most commonly prescribed medications. And yes, there are many real reasons we see a consistent plague of depression in modern society.
I would argue though that we are in one of the most food secure times in all of history. And are actually positively positioned for meeting our energy and resource needs.
Our problem has more to do with management and greed than with actual reality of our situation as a species. If we were making better choices collectively we could reduce a tremendous amount of the harm we associate with population sizes and lifestyle. But many old systems would have to die, we have to let go of a lot of what we just assume to be ‘facts of life’ and start evaluating the intrinsic value of things differently. Meaning measuring success with a new set of rules.
But it’s very hard to even consider when most of us are just trying to get from one day to the next. We feel trapped in someone else’s fabricated cage. Hence, the depression and hopelessness that’s universally felt. But all in all, I think we’re going to make it to be honest. We have to, or we will indeed fail as a species. The cage looks small but it’s not real. That’s what I remind myself anyway.