Millennial hookup culture may not be a real thing
Rise of hookup culture may dissuade sexual activity as young people shy away from committed relationships
"The misperception that millennials have a hook-up culture may be driven by the most promiscuous members of the generation, who are now able to advertise their exploits through social media," said lead study author Jean Twenge, a psychology researcher at San Diego State University in California.
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In reality, millennials born in the 1990s are more than twice as likely to be sexually inactive as young GenX'ers born in the late 1960s, Twenge and colleagues report in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Instead of having middle aged adults complaining about 'kids these days' at lunch or at the water cooler, they are doing it on blogs and open-source news websites.- Joshua Grubbs
Previous research has also found that millennials — born from the 1980s to 2000 — have fewer sexual partners than Generation X'ers or baby boomers, Twenge said.
To look at generational shifts in sexual activity, researchers examined survey data from a nationally representative sample of more than 26,000 adults in the U.S.
Still, the findings suggest that millennials may be experiencing a unique set of circumstances that, combined, may make them less likely to have sex in their 20s, the authors conclude.
Criticism across generations in a digital age
Oddly, the rise of hookup culture may dissuade sexual activity as teens and young adults shy away from committed relationships.
The mismatch between how adults perceive the millennial hookup culture and the reality of what 20-somethings are actually doing in bed speaks to a larger story about how older generations tend to view the kids that come after them, said Joshua Grubbs, a researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who wasn't involved in the study.
"However, the millennial generation is the first real generation to face that criticism in the digital age, where hot takes and instant opinions are ubiquitous," Grubbs added. "So, instead of having middle aged adults complaining about 'kids these days' at lunch or at the water cooler, they are doing it on blogs and open-source news websites."
"I think there is some data to indicate that young adults in the U.S. are perhaps a little more comfortable talking about their sexuality and that there is a greater emphasis on sexual self-awareness now, but there's also evidence (per the referenced studies) that young adults may actually be having less sex or fewer sexual partners," Grubbs noted.