Why Churchgoers Escaped the ‘Sex Recession’
October 7, 2026
A new report from the Institute for Family Studies found that religious married couples—those who attend church at least twice a month—have sex at significantly higher rates than secular married couples and enjoy it more.
Sixty-two percent of religious couples are intimate weekly, compared with just 48 percent of nonreligious couples. This situation is new. In the 2000s, married couples were having sex at similar rates, whether they were religious or not. In the last 20 years, a major gap in sexual activity has opened between religious and secular marriages.
