The End of (Coupled) Sex?
June 26, 2026
Having taught about intimate relationships for more than a decade in the Leonard Pavilion at the Esalen Institute, I finally got around to reading a book by the man for whom the pavilion was named. Published in 1983, The End of Sex: Erotic Love After the Sexual Revolution argues that the sexual revolution produced a culture of physical gratification so efficiently delivered that it severed sex from anything resembling intimacy. Leonard's concern was that sex without real intimacy generates a particular type of loneliness, one that casual encounters can't cure and that multiplying partners only compounds. Unfortunately, George did not live to see the logical endpoint of his prognosis, which is that a significant portion of the population has stopped having coupled sex at all. And this isn’t because of some form of enlightenment à la Lenny Kravitz; it’s because they're scared, isolated, deluded by social media, and avoidant.
According to a study published in JAMA Network Open using General Social Survey data, the share of men aged 18–24 who reported no sex in the past year climbed from 19% in 2002 to 31 percent by 2018. More recent CDC data tells a grimmer story: by 2022–2023, 24% of men aged 22–34 reported having had no sex — up from just 9% a decade earlier. This is not a blip. From 2010 to 2024, the share of young adults reporting no sex in the past year doubled, from 12 to 24%, according to General Social Survey data compiled by the Institute for Family Studies.
