Through a difficult time for social interaction, I looked into what this meant for young adults in Kent. 

After speaking with Dr Chris Gilbert, an Integrative and Holistic Medicine physician, about a study in the US, she explained why young people were having less sexual interations, even before the pandemic. 

Now, as we start to emerge from the pandemic, the effects on young people’s sex lives are resounding, even as covid restrictions were lifted this week. But why is that?

The study Dr Gilbert analysed was conducted by Peter Ueda and colleagues from the University of Chicago examined the trends in frequency of sexual activity among adults in the U.S. from 2000 to 2018.

The survey, which included more than 4,000 men and 5,000 women, asked how often those men and women had sex in the past year and how many sex partners they had in the past year.

The results include the following:

• Most men and women reported having had only one sex partner in the last year. 
• More men (14.5%) than women (7.1%) reported having 3 or more partners in the last year.
• Weekly or more sexual frequency was reported by 60.4% of men in 2000 and in 46.7% of men in 2018 with a steady decrease from 2000 to 2018.
• Weekly or more sexual frequency was reported by 66.4% of women ages 25 to 34 in 2000 and in 54.2% of women ages 25 to 34 in 2018.
• In general, reported sexual activity decreased over the years among men and women aged 18 to 34. About 1 in 3 men aged 18 to 24 reported no sexual activity in the past year. This sexual inactivity was greater among unmarried men, among men with lower income, and among students.

So we took to Kent to find out what 18 – 24-year-olds think.

A 20-year-old man from Kent said; “I think we have sex to build better connections, to make us feel alive. Some people just do it to do it, but I do it to feel a deeper connection with someone. Some people only do it for the pleasure.”

A 21-year-old woman also said she wants connections through sexual activity. 

“People don’t care about the emotional side, especially students. They want to have fun. But I think they realised what they missed with the lockdowns and now are lonely.”

A group of friends aged 19 to 22, all agreed that their sex lives have been ‘boring’ and ‘uneventful’. 

One of the younger girls said; “I don’t know how to meet people, I’m scared too, with covid and me being able to talk to people.

“My sex life has been uneventful to say the least. And it makes us all more introverted, we can’t have fun.”

A 23-year-old non-binary member of the group said; “It has been boring, it’s hard to trust people when you havent been around others your age. I think we have sex beacuse it feels good and it’s part of our nature. But being locked in isn’t. 

“Even being out now, it feels really weird still. With no restrictions now, we can do as we want, but maybe mentally we can’t”

With no covid restrictions currently in place, young people can filter back into society, but this doesn’t mean we are mentally prepared to do so. Perhaps the physical connections we made will remain in the past, a new wave of online dating will take over. One thing is for certain, our human drive and instinct to reproduce will remain, but will our attitude to who we want as a mate change? Will we be more choosy in our pair bonding? 

Not only are students having less sex, they are struggling with more mental health issues because of the isolation. So perhaps it is crucial that we begin to socialise and enjoy those close connections again.