Ep 90: Why Are Millennials Having So Little Sex?

Sarah: Hey, what's up? Hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake, but Okay, a podcast we're an aro ace girl. I'm Sarah, that's me.

Kayla: And a demi straight girl, that's me, Kayla.

Sarah: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.

Kayla: On today's episode, millennials ruining everything.

Sarah: Sounds fake, but okay.

Kayla: Sounds fake, but okay.

Sarah: Welcome back to the pod...

Kayla: M'illennials. That doesn't really work.

Sarah: Oh yeah. It didn't because none of them work.

Kayla: False.

Sarah: All right, so Kayla, what are we talking about this week?

Kayla: Today? First of all, my cat is on top of me.

Sarah: She wants to be a part of the fun.

Kayla: What are doing? Oh my God, I'm sorry if you hear cat noises everywhere, her butt is inside the mic right now.

Sarah: Good.

Kayla: Sorry. She's like trying to step on my computer. Okay. This week we're talking about how millennials have just ruined everything. Malls, Toys R Us.

Sarah: Specifically though. Sex.

Kayla: Sex. They've ruined sex. They've done it, folks.

Sarah: Yeah. So we encountered this article entitled-

Kayla: Someone sent it to us.

Sarah: Yeah, someone sent it to us. Right?

Kayla: So someone sent this to us.

Sarah: It's called Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? It's from The Atlantic. It's from the December, 2018 issue. It's by Kate Julian.

Kayla: It was sent to us by Sarah @Caged_Dear on Twitter.

Sarah: Hello. We got that such a long time ago.

Kayla: Yeah. She's also been listening for a long time.

Sarah: Sorry, Sarah.

Kayla: Yeah, she has.

Sarah: But the article is a pretty in depth article, basically talking about all the work a bunch of people have done in terms of figuring out/proving/discussing why young people are having so little sex. And it's a rollercoaster.

Kayla: It's a very long article.

Sarah: It was really long.

Kayla: Because it goes through everything and a lot of research, so it's very interesting, but very long. We'll link it in the episode description.

Sarah: What were your initial reactions to it other than it's long?

Kayla: So it went through a lot of stuff. So basically the article was saying all of these studies have shown that people today, not just Millennials actually, Baby Boomers and other generations too, are just having less sex. There's a lot of people that do studies every year and they'll ask people how often they're having sex or whatever. And so I guess people are just finding that people now are just having sex less times a week or less times a month. So the whole article was basically talking to researchers and talking to people and being like, "Why do you think this is happening?" So it was interesting because there was a lot of different reasons. It was like technology, porn, dating sites, the economy, school, just cultural um-

Sarah: Helicopter parents.

Kayla: And stuff in general. So I thought that was interesting. And there was definitely some that I just agreed with more that I was like, oh yeah, I think that is probably a reason more than anything else. But more than anything else, I was kind of like, "Yeah, all of these reasons together is probably what it is."

Sarah: It was just really-

Kayla: Yeah, I just don't think there's any one thing that you can put it on, but a lot of the points that were made, I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Sarah: It was just really interesting because my initial reaction to the beginning part of this article was, because they basically it was talking about how a lot of countries are like, "Oh shit, our people are having less sex. What do we do?" And my instinct was like, "Do nothing. We're fucking overpopulating the earth." Everyone's always going on about needing to continue humanity. It's like, "No, humanity's going to be fine except for the fact that we're overheating the earth and killing us all anyway." But then I was thinking, I was like, all right, but with the rise of various birth controls and other ways of having sex that are becoming more mainstream, a lot of sex isn't going to lead to pregnancy anyway. So why do governments of developed countries care so much about their people having what they deem as enough sex? And then it was like, well, on average, people who have more sex are happier. And I was like, all right, whatever. Sure, I get that, but I'm never going to fully understand that.

But then at the end, there's a quote where it says, "One answer, which I heard from a few quarters, is that our sexual appetites are meant to be easily extinguished. The human race needs sex, but individual humans don't." It sounds to me the reason governments are so concerned about people having enough sex, that is my big theory. It's all about capitalism, they need more people to procreate so that there's more people to consume goods.

Kayla: Okay. I think I have a less pessimistic outlook, but it also might be because I am someone that does participate in sex. And I got that too, of reading it. I was kind of like, why are people so concerned about this? Why do we need to study this? But also, I understand it because one part of the article that was like, oh, okay, this kind of makes any more sense, is humans are one of the only species that have sex like we do. A lot of species only have sex during certain times of the year when it's mating season and they do it just to have offspring. And that's it. And it's something that is really unique about humans, that humans have sex whenever or sex is something that some humans actually desire and seek out outside of procreation. That is something that's very unique to humans.

Sarah: You know what else is unique to humans? The fact that we're causing major global warming. Do all things that humans do really need to be continued? This is just very ace. It's fine, continue.

Kayla: I get where you're coming from.

Sarah: I'm playing the pessimist for this pod.

Kayla: No, I know. It makes sense that you are, because obviously this is something that isn't the most relatable to you.

Sarah: Yeah. It's one of the things that I am probably never going to fully get my head around in terms of discussing allosexual people or people who have sex.

Kayla: Which totally makes sense. Yeah, it's interesting because I think I just have a different perspective because as someone who has sex, I just have a different perspective. But I do understand why it's interesting to people or why it's concerning. So I get it because it's a big part of a lot of people's lives and a big part of health and wellness in general. And so any trend that isn't expected, because I think people are probably expecting with the rise of birth control and people not caring as much about the decorum of whatever, people probably expected sex to be on the rise. So I get why it's something that people are concerned about if it's not what they're expecting.

Sarah: Yeah, I guess.

Kayla: Well, I just think it's hard because part of the article too was there's been studies proving that sex makes you happier and it makes you healthier and stuff, which is hard because for people that do want to have sex and enjoy sex, it probably does make them happier because there's hormonal stuff and body stuff and it probably is really healthy, but it's also obviously not something that you need to do to live a happy and healthy life. So I was trying to think of anything else in life that was like that, where it's like it's healthy to do, but you don't need to do it. And I was like vitamins? But I was like, no, but you should take vitamins.

Sarah: Even if you don't take the vitamins, you still need to get the vitamins from elsewhere.

Kayla: Right. And then I was exercise? But then I was like, no, you really should exercise. So I couldn't even think of an equivalent of something of, yeah, it is healthy to do and it is good for you ultimately, but you don't need it. I couldn't even think of anything.

Sarah: Yeah. Well, because that rubbed me the wrong way a little bit, but I also totally understood where they were coming from. Because it's hard when you're writing an article like this to be like, here's 1,000 caveats for 1,000 different things. And this article did actually mention asexuality at one point.

Kayla: It did. Yeah.

Sarah: It said, "And some people today might feel less pressured into sex they don't want to have, thanks to changing gender," it says mores, I think it's supposed to say roles, "And growing awareness of diverse sexual orientations, including asexuality."

Kayla: It mentioned that. And I think there was a lot of other parts of the article that kind of read in an ace way. One of the parts of the article was like, oh, maybe one reason is because people don't feel pressured into having sex and they feel empowered to say no, thank you. So part of the article did go into that of part of the reason might be that before people felt like it was something they had to do and now they don't.

Sarah: Yeah. So I understand why they weren't like, here's a caveat for asexual people and not even all asexual people, just the ones who don't have sex. I understand why they didn't include that, but just coming from my perspective, it's always going to be something that I look for. Also though, this is kind of bringing us back to the real roots of Sounds Fake, but Okay, the podcast.

Some of the numbers it gave at the beginning of how often people have sex and they're like, "Oh, it's down from this number to this number." And I was looking at that and I was like, that still seems like so much.

Kayla: What number seemed like too much to you?

Sarah: My ace self, well, not even too much. It's like in my perfect little world I get to imagine that no one has sex ever, but when you throw numbers at me. And I can't even find them. I think it was like-

Kayla: Hold on. I'm sorry. There's like a dog or something like screaming outside my window.

Sarah: I think I can hear it.

Kayla: Can you hear it?

Sarah: Yeah I can hear it.

Kayla: Oh no. Hold on. Let me look outside. What is happening? Hello? Where's this dog? Oh, is that the dog? Oh, that dog's just standing outside. Does that dog need help? Should I go check on this dog?

Sarah: I can really hear that quite clearly through my headphones.

Kayla: Well now I'm next to the window and I brought you with me.

Sarah: Yeah, but still.

Kayla: Oh wait, now there's someone outside. Oh, the dog has a cast on his leg?

Sarah: Oh no.

Kayla: Keep this all in. I'm going to sound very far away, but honestly keep it all in. Dog is now laying down. Someone rolled by with their trash can. The cat is watching this dog.

Sarah: Since it stopped yelling, can we go back to podding?

Kayla: Yeah. Let me just take a picture of it. Oh, it's going. Oh, the woman is talking to the dog. This woman knows this dog. She's walking.

Sarah: Hello, dog.

Kayla: Come back. I want to take a picture, now behind a car.

Sarah: How big is this dog?

Kayla: Eh it's not like huge I mean it's chubby.

Sarah: Okay.

Kayla: Okay. I think it's done doing that.

Sarah: All right. Well, while you were giving us a play by play.

Kayla: Oh. Oh it started again. No, are you kidding me? I think its person went back inside. Oh, it's so loud.

Sarah: Oh boy.

Kayla: Okay. Well I guess this dog is on the podcast now, I guess.

Sarah: All right. Well, welcome to the pod. While you were giving us a play-by-play of the dog, I found the quote. It says, "From the late 1990s to 2014, Twinge found, drawing on data from a general social survey, the average adult went from having sex 62 times zero to 54 times." That's more than once a week.

Kayla: Yeah. I think one of them I saw was it went from six times a month to five.

Sarah: That is so many times.

Kayla: I mean it's like not though.

Sarah: But I'm ace and I like to pretend that no one has sex ever, Kayla.

Kayla: I mean, I know. I like to pretend that people don't have penises so I get it. But if you think about it, if you're living with your partner.

Sarah: I would still just be like, that's too much.

Kayla: I guess. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.

Sarah: This is classic Sounds Fake where I'm just like, I don't understand.

Kayla: I don't know how to explain this to you. I just don't.

Sarah: Anyway, TLDR, when you throw numbers at me like that I can't pretend that no one has sex and it's alarming.

Kayla: I'm very sorry.

Sarah: Thank you.

Kayla: That really is a classic Sounds Fake.

Sarah: It truly is.

Kayla: That's like oof a classic.

Sarah: Yeah. You know what just, the one part of the article I was just like, can't this be over? It was when they were talking about porn and masturbation.

Kayla: That was a long section.

Sarah: It was a long section. There's been so much drama and controversy about porn in so many different circles. Within queer communities, within religious communities, within neither. And I'm just sick of it. I don't care. As long as the porn is being made in a consensual and safe and non-exploitative way, I don't care. Stop talking about it.

Kayla: People really care about it. I think because there's just so much access to it now that people are like, "Well, it must be a bad thing. It must be."

Sarah: Yeah.

Kayla: But if you think about it, that's the same conversation people have had about every new thing. The newspaper came out, people were like, "No, this is horrible." Books came out. I've read ancient articles-

Sarah: About how books are bad?

Kayla: About how books, fiction books, are trash and people that read them are trash. And then radio came out. Trash. TV melts your brain. Movies, the worst. It happens with everything.

Sarah: Absolutely.

Kayla: I'm sure ancient forms of porn, just those magazines and whatever people are like ah! And now those are like whatever.

Sarah: Well, yeah. The one thing that I did think was a very good point towards the end of the article was it said, "Studies show that in the absence of high quality sex education, teen boys look to porn for help understanding sex. Anal sex and other acts women can find painful are ubiquitous in mainstream porn. This isn't to say that anal sex has to be painful, but rather that the version most women are experiencing is." Which is a good point, but I would argue that that is an argument for more high quality sex education.

Kayla: Yeah, I think the last section of the article was all about just bad sex. And I thought that part was really interesting because it kind of tied together a lot of the parts of the article. Because part of the article was talking about how people aren't having sex for the first time until later in their lives. And sex is a thing where it takes practice to be good at like anything else. You're not just going to be good at it. And so if you're not having sex for the first time until later, and then you're going to be not good at it, and then a lot of your knowledge is coming from porn, which is really unrealistic.

Sarah: Yeah. Well, and it was also talking about how with hookup culture people don't know their sexual partners as well. And so then they're not having as good of sex and then it makes them not want to have as much sex. And that was one of the arguments for one of the reasons why it might be going down.

Kayla: Yeah. Which that argument, I was like, yeah, that totally makes sense because people might be hooking up a lot, but it takes a while to learn what someone wants. It's a two person or more thing. I don't know. It's a sport. It takes practice to work as a team.

Sarah: Yes. Give me that sports analogy.

Kayla: Okay, but it is. I don't know how else to describe it in a non-gross way of you're just not... The first, it's going to be not as good. The thing in movies where people meet and then they have amazing sex is like, no.

Sarah: Yeah. You know what else happens a lot in movies? That was one of the things that was kind of talked about, they talked about things parallel to this. They were talking a lot about dating apps and how that was causing problems because people aren't as good at interacting with each other face to face. And there was also some really good points about the Me Too movement and how people are just a little bit more wary about just asking people out. Which I think on one hand that's good because people are being more careful.

Part of the problem is that there are now a lot of men who are being like, "I'm afraid to ask a woman out," because they've been socialized in this toxic masculinity. So they can't tell the difference between what's okay and what's not. And that's kind of astounding to me, but also it makes sense. If society has been telling them to pursue women in a certain way all their lives, and suddenly people are like, "Wait, be more careful. Don't do that," it makes sense that they would kind of freak out.

Kayla: I know. On one hand I do want to be like, "Oh, men are so stupid for not being able to know the difference," but also thinking about it, even if someone approached me in a perfectly fine way at a bar or anything, I have been approached at bars before of someone being like, "Let me buy you a drink." And even if it's completely nice and they are being very respectful, it still does kind of freak me out because it's a stranger and it's a man coming up to you. And even though that used to be how everything was done, I totally understand that because it is weird because even if you do it in a perfectly fine way, on one hand I do really understand men's concern because it is weird.

Sarah: Right. Well and it's also just now people are more empowered to not just feel like they have to go with it, especially in straight relationships, when you have a man pursuing a woman. Women now, I think because of the Me Too movement and all sorts of, Time's Up and all that sort of thing, they feel more empowered and they feel like they're going to be supported if they do just be like, "I'm not interested in this," rather than they just kind of go with it. And it was kind of circling back, going back to the dating apps. They were saying how a lot of these young people that they were talking to, some of them were kind of romanticizing the meet cute or that sort of thing. And some of them were kind of, "I don't know, it's a little bit weird." But between the meet cute and dating apps and it was saying how dating apps aren't actually really that successful, even just for hookups, just because of the time spent versus outcome/output. It's not as effective as people would make it seem.

But in my experience, the majority of relationships, romantic and sexual relationships, of people my age, or at least the majority of successful ones, they met through an activity or some sort of overlapping friend group. And historically that's got to be the most common way to meet. You can write fan fiction about meet cutes all you want, but we meet most of the people we know in this way, romantic partners or not. And so I think people are relying a ton on dating apps and dreaming of their meet cute. But the reality is that most people do meet potential romantic and sexual partners from an organized activity or a friend group. And I think that is one thing that the article didn't really touch on, which I understand why because it doesn't really go with their argument.

Kayla: Well, I also think it's hard though. Because there's this podcast I listen to called Why Won't You Date Me, would Recommend, it's very funny. So she, Nicole Byer, the comedian, lives in LA and she was like, "Yeah, when I lived in New York, it was super easy to meet people and you would go to a bar, run into people you had never met, and by the end of the night you'd be best friends. But in LA everyone's really flaky and that doesn't happen." So then it kind of depends on where you are.

And also the article did talk about this one guy was saying, "Oh, I was in a volleyball league or something and there was someone I played with I thought was cute, but I wasn't going to ask them out cause it felt wrong and weird." Which I get because it's like you don't want to ruin whatever. And also as a new adult learning, for us in college, a lot of the people we knew that were dating met through activities and organizations and clubs and whatever. But what I have realized recently is as an adult, those things don't exist.

Sarah: Yeah, I mean they do.

Kayla: In abundance.

Sarah: Yeah.

Kayla: They're there, but meeting people as an adult is a lot different I have realized recently.

Sarah: That's fair. I just think a lot of the people who I know who are in relationships, even if they are older, they did meet in high school or college.

Kayla: Well yeah, but you have to think about people older than us stopped dating after college because that's when they met their person.

Sarah: Things are changing.

Kayla: People are just getting married earlier.

Sarah: Well, and I think the article touched on this, that's part of the appeal of something like a dating app or a dating website because they're saying that, "Okay, we've each opted into this. I'm at least a little bit interested in you so I don't feel as nervous being like, 'Hey, let's get coffee or something.'" And having it not be misconstrued. It's like, "Yes, this is a date. This is definitely a date."

Kayla: Well, yeah, that part definitely does make it easier. Because one of the other parts of the article too was talking about how people are the labels of dating and the terminology is really confusing. You're exclusive or you're dating or you're seeing each other, whatever. And yeah, I think an app does help clear that up because then you're clearly like, "Oh, I'm not just asking you to the movies as a friend, but maybe it's a date, but maybe not." On a dating app you know.

Sarah: Yeah, exactly. Another thing I found interesting in this article was it was talking about, and I think they honestly could have even gone into more detail on this, but it was long enough as it was, they were basically talking about how millennials now, to quote this, "Millennials don't like to get naked." If you go to the gym now, everyone under 30 will put their underwear on under the towel, which is a massive cultural shift, which I think is true. But then there's also this idea of because of the media, I think the expectations of what an attractive body looks like has become more and more prevalent and worse and worse because you're looking at Kim K and her new shapewear line that has a problematic name and she looks like that because she has a billion dollars.

Kayla: Wait, what's the name of it?

Sarah: Kimono.

Kayla: Oh boy.

Sarah: And she's trying to trademark it.

Kayla: Oh, you can't.

Sarah: But there's these huge expectations of what a person should look like and so people are more and more uncomfortable showing their bodies to people. And so it does kind of make sense that a lot of people may be less comfortable having sex because of that.

Kayla: Yeah. I was just going to say, I think that trope is something I've heard even in media of bigger women being like, "Oh, I need the lights off." Or, "He touched me where..." What was the movie on Netflix? Dumpling?

Sarah: Yeah.

Kayla: Really good movie. Loved it. But I did see some fat activists being like, "I'm really sick of the story of..." Because in the movie she's kissing this guy who she really likes, then he touches her back and she freaks out because she's like, "Oh no, I'm fat." And people are like, "I'm really sick of this narrative of fat people not just owning their bodies and loving them." Having to accept them.

Sarah: I think that's true of skinny people too. Just the culture is so toxic that everyone's like, "Everything about me is wrong." And I think that's especially true in America.

Kayla: I would say in everywhere.

Sarah: Well, here's the thing though. The whole idea of people being less comfortable naked, I think I've mentioned this maybe on the pod before, but when I was in Germany, we were at Quidditch Nationals and we were all staying in this gym thing and all the showers were just openly out in the bathroom. And so people were just straight up showering and naked.

Kayla: Weird.

Sarah: I was like, "No, I'm not doing this." I walked in and I was just super uncomfortable even the fact that other people were showering in there, I was like, "I'm not doing this." But it was a big cultural difference because my one friend who was also there with me, she was also uncomfortable with it even though she was German. But it was more of I think body image issues or just not being comfortable with people seeing her with no clothes on. And so I definitely think there are a lot of cultural differences that make it worse in America in terms of not being comfortable with your body and not being comfortable with other people seeing your body.

Kayla: I was mostly thinking of a lot of Asian cultures where body modification is really big and maybe that has to do more with the face. But a lot of Asian cultures, facial surgery and facial just modifications are really big. So obviously it isn't just America where body standards are fucked up.

Sarah: Yeah. It's just in a different manner.

Kayla: Yeah.

Sarah: Another thing that I would like to touch on is this idea of the reason people are having less sex is because of helicopter parents.

Kayla: This is something I totally agree with.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Kayla: Especially because of where I work now. I work in a place that helps kids get into college and so we work with a lot of kids that are really smart and do like 1,000 extracurricular activities and stuff because they are trying to get into college and they're really smart. And I was thinking about it and I was thinking about my own stuff in high school and I was like it totally makes sense if getting into college now is so hard and getting a job is so hard that you have to work really hard in high school to get to college, you have to work really hard in college to be able to get a job, and then you get a job and you have to work really hard to keep it. There really is no time for sex.

Sarah: There's all this pressure to do super well in school and in your career that a lot of times, and I've seen this firsthand with people I know, who their parents are like, "School, school, school, school, school, career, career, career. Don't focus on a relationship."

Kayla: And I think one of the things in the article was some college kids saying that they actively tried to not fall in love in college because they were like, "It might mess up my plans." Which makes sense. It does complicate things. Yeah. I can tell you. But I thought that was totally accurate because even thinking about when I was in high school, my parents pushed me very hard for sure, but they still emphasized the importance of me being happy and whatever. But I did have a no dating until you're 16 rule. And I know other people that had that too.

Sarah: I did too. I had people who did no dating until you're a freshman, no dating until you're 16.

Kayla: Yeah. And so I wonder, it seems to not be uncommon, those kind of rules. And I wonder if that's also part of it.

Sarah: Yeah, definitely. And honestly, just the extracurricular activities one is so freaking true. Because I remember at one point in high school when someone asked me out, we talked about this on a pod many moons ago, not going to go into the details, but I panicked because I didn't understand that I was ace yet, but I was like, "I don't want this." And the main reason I gave was I just don't have time for a relationship, which wasn't untrue because I was in school, I was taking AP classes, I was doing gymnastics 20 hours a week. It's a lot. And one of the things that was so interesting to me in the article was that they were saying when there's a decline of unsupervised free time people are just less likely to have sex. If you have free time and you don't know what to do when you're not doing anything, then you might get a little handsy, have some sexual activities. But even if it's not supervised, but if it's just organized, no one has time for that.

Kayla: Well, yeah, it's like you're at school and then you're studying, and even if you are studying with someone else, you got to study, you have an AP History test tomorrow. And then you have baseball, and then you have debate. So it's like, even when you are hanging out with your friends, you're still doing things that need to get done. There's truly no time. Which is weird to say because in my mind I'm like, "Yeah, there's no time to be a kid." And also I'm like, "Okay, but do I really want kids having sex when sex ed is so bad?" If sex ed was better, I'd be like, "Fine, do whatever you want." But I don't trust them when sex education is so bad and it's not their fault, but whatever. And so it's a weird thing because now in my mind I'm like, oh, I am concerned about how much sex people are having. So yeah, it is this weird thing.

Sarah: Yeah, I mean I get freaked out about young people having sex too and I think that's in part just because I'm like, ah, sex. I am freaked out by it to begin with. And so it makes me feel even weirder when I think of young people. But also it's just this idea that it's an adult thing, which is true because you have to understand what you're doing and understand the possible repercussions and understand consent and stuff. But it's still just in my head where it's like, well, once you're 18, it's fine. Yeah. There's still that weird hurdle.

Kayla: To me, even once you're 16, probably. I feel like you probably-

Sarah: 16 still just feels so young to me. When I think about how old a 16 year old is, I'm like, what?

Kayla: I mean same. But also I think about some 16 year olds I've met or that I see doing things and they still have development to happen, but they're not dumb.

Sarah: Well, it's also the whole argument that 16 year olds should be able to vote in America, I think that there's a fairly strong argument there. So it's like, how can I be in support of that and also be like, "Oh yeah, they can drive a car, but I don't trust them to have sex." It's a combination of society telling me certain things and then just being super ace.

Kayla: That's super true though. If you think about it, driving a car is extremely dangerous and we let 15 year olds do it. Yeah. That's when in America you start learning.

Sarah: Depending on the state.

Kayla: Oh really?

Sarah: It's different state by state. But the average is you can get your license around 16, so you can start learning to drive before then.

Kayla: So it's like, "Oh, but you can't have sex." I don't know. It is this really weird thing because now in my head, because you think about how much pressure is being put on kids and even adults in the workforce and it seems like having less sex is just kind of a symptom of that, which does make me sad that people are having less sex, not because they're having less sex necessarily, but because it's coming from something else.

Sarah: Well, and also just then thinking about what age is an okay age to start having sex. It's like, well, I don't think you should be sexualizing anyone if they don't want to be. You shouldn't sexualize children, but at what point does a child become old enough?

Kayla: Yeah.

Sarah: So many questions.

Kayla: Yeah.

Sarah: This went off the rails.

Kayla: It really did.

Sarah: I have thoughts.

Kayla: Here they are.

Sarah: Here they are. I mean, I think in general this was a very interesting article and I think it made some good points. And I agree with what you said earlier about some of them seemed more legit to me than others, but I think there's something to basically everything they were saying. And they did mention that this sex recession, as they're calling it, may be a mostly heterosexual phenomenon.

Kayla: Yeah.

Sarah: Because they were saying sexual minorities tend to use online dating services at much higher rates than straight people. And if you're looking at these issues of men being afraid to approach because it's all about the context, but adult men are never taught the context and so they just don't do it. That you don't have those inherent gender roles running the show in queer relationships. And so I can see there being fewer issues there.

Kayla: Yeah. I did wonder, because a lot of this stuff came from studies and surveys, and I did wonder what the demographic of those surveys were.

Sarah: Yeah. But there hasn't been a lot of research on it. But it did say there are definitely some reasons that are very positive. It was saying that we might be seeing people having less sex because there's a retreat from coercive or otherwise unwanted sex. And that's a very good thing.

Kayla: Yeah. That was definitely a positive. And it was interesting because I think it is probably a mixture of a lot of these things altogether, but I do think part of it has to be that rise of people feeling more comfortable saying no.

Sarah: Yeah. And that's a good thing to my mind. Full stop.

Kayla: Yeah. I definitely think it's interesting, even from an asexual perspective. Just like anything, I was saying sex is a really big part of human life. Even if you're not having it, obviously, it's how people are born, whatever. And so it is interesting to think about, okay, something that is very important to human life is declining. Why?

Sarah: Yeah. And there were some things in this article that definitely did rub me the wrong way, but a lot of it was the author quoting other people. And overall, I think this article, the writer, Kate something, did a pretty good job. Kate Julian. Although she was talking primarily about straight sex and straight relationships, I think she did a pretty good job of being inclusive and looking at all of the perspectives. So I would recommend this article if anyone's curious.

Kayla: Yeah. It's very long, but I do think it's interesting.

Sarah: Do you have anything else to add?

Kayla: There's a cat licking my foot.

Sarah: That's not helpful.

Kayla: I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, it's a long article, but I definitely think it's an interesting read.

Sarah: And one of the things too that it mentioned was that people seem to think that other people around them are having more sex than they really are.

Kayla: Yeah that's so true.

Sarah: So although people may be having less sex, we don't necessarily realize it socially.

Kayla: Oh yeah. In my mind, it seems like people are having a ton of sex. Especially in the college environment. But then, it's weird. I was thinking, because in college I kind of assumed that everyone was having sex and there was a lot of hookups, but then I met people during my senior year that were like, "I've never had sex before, and that's not something I'm really interested in." And they were guys, and I was like, "Oh." So yeah, I think you just assume that something that everyone's doing, especially guys. But then I met several people that were like, "No."

Sarah: Yeah. Oh, so what's the poll? Open-ended question, because we are full of those these days.

Kayla: Remember when polls were easy?

Sarah: I know. For two episodes.

Kayla: The first two episodes you did them.

Sarah: All right. So why do you think people are having less sex? Tell me. Kayla, I assume that you don't have beef and juice prepared. Because I have a lot prepared.

Kayla: Okay, go ahead.

Sarah: Okay. I have one beef that is several interrelated beefs, and I have four juices, so get ready.

Kayla: Oh my God.

Sarah: My beef is this humidity and heat. As I've mentioned before, my house does not have air conditioning. Basically, the entire world is in a heat wave right now and it's fucking hot. I can always sleep. I'm a master sleeper. But last night it took me, get this, four hours to fall asleep. I tried to go to bed at 11:30 and I didn't fall asleep until 3:30 in the morning because A, I had accidentally taken a nap earlier in the day and B, it was just so hot and it was awful. Also, my back was hurting.

Kayla: It's been really hot here too.

Sarah: And I was like, wow. Last night I was thinking, I never would've survived before the invention of air conditioning. But then I remember that I'm white and my body really isn't designed for this kind of heat anyway. But also that in the time of no air conditioning, the earth wasn't so fucking hot from climate change.

Kayla: That's a very good point.

Sarah: Also, I don't really sweat much. I'm not a sweaty person. It was actually kind of like a problem for a while because I was like, do I just not produce sweat?

Kayla: Am I Okay?

Sarah: I am sweating so much at this very moment.

Kayla: Oh no.

Sarah: Because I can't have my fan on when I'm recording and my room is upstairs so, heat rises.

Kayla: Yeah, your room gets really hot.

Sarah: And I feel disgusting right now. So that's my beef. My juice.

Kayla: You hate to sweat.

Sarah: Juice number one, women's soccer World Cup, I think women's soccer is great, I wish I followed it more, to be honest. I just watched the USA versus England game, United States won, but it was pretty stressful. The day this comes out, it'll be the finals between the United States and either Sweden or the Netherlands, depending on who wins tomorrow because we're recording this on Tuesday. That'll be Sunday so if you listen to it the day it comes out, it'll be very exciting. That's all number two, the book, the Hate the Book, the Hate You Give by Angie Thomas, I bought it so many months ago and I was going to read it before the movie came out, and then it didn't happen. But I've started reading it now. I already cried three times in the first 80 pages. That's all. My next juice.

Kayla: Oh my God.

Sarah: Is this thing. It's a musical podcast called 36 Questions. It is, I believe the first musical podcast that ever existed. I listened to the entire thing today. There's kind of three speaking characters, but there's really only two speaking characters.

Kayla: Who's in it?

Sarah: What?

Kayla: Who is in it?

Sarah: Jonathan Groff is in it.

Kayla: Okay. Yeah. That's been on my list for literally two years and I still haven't listened to it.

Sarah: I listened to the entire thing today, because it's three acts, but it's like 45 minutes, 55 minutes, and an hour. So I just listened to the whole thing. I cried. It was good.

Kayla: Good.

Sarah: Number four, my last juice. So the other day they were finishing up World Pride in New York City and the Broadway League did this Performance of Seasons of Love with a bunch of Broadway people. And the solos were sung by Shoshana Bean and George Salazar. And I was thinking about how I've seen both of them perform live. And I was like, wow, this is the perfect storm of things I love. But anyway, so George Salazar, he made a video about it because he started the YouTube channel and I was watching his video about it when I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night last night because it was so fucking hot.

And the way he was talking about it, it just made me feel very proud of being a part of this community. Granted, it was the middle of the night I was supposed to be sleeping. I was very hot. There was a lot going on. But it made me realize that I don't often feel actively proud of being. It's just kind of another thing in my life. And especially because I'm ace, sometimes I feel outside the bubble and Pride Month is this whole thing about love. But because I'm aro ace, that identity is often not associated with love, even though there's no reason for it not to be. It's just like when people think love, they think romantic love. But I mean, the reality is that ace identities are no less about love than any other queer identity.

And so I was watching this and George was doing a little bit of commentary, and then he showed the video and there's this moment before the solos where Shoshana, who is a white woman, I don't know what her sexuality is, but she reached out and she grabbed George's hand. And George is this gay, mixed race man. They're in very different shows, behind them is this long line of other people from other shows of different genders and races and sexualities. And they walked forward holding hands and they were slaying their solos. And it was so unified. And I just cried.

Kayla: Oh my God.

Sarah: And then in the background, because it was at Times Square and in the background there was this billboard that was talking about Pride at Stonewall. And it had the hashtag See Us, Hear Us. And yeah, it was a commercialized hashtag advertising Twitter. Twitter. But for a second I was like, wait, I feel seen. And I feel heard, which is another throwback to Be More Chill the musical. And the song is just so joyful. It's about dying of aids, but also there's a certain celebratory tone of rent. And it was so joyful. I just felt very nice in that moment. And you know what, I'm going to say it again, maybe it was because my room was 5,000 degrees and it was the middle of the night and I was supposed to be sleeping, but that hit me hard.

Kayla: Wow. What a spiritual experience you had.

Sarah: Those are my juices. Kayla, what's your beef and juice?

Kayla: Okay. My beef is that my body rhythm has been very off recently. I've been having a hard time being an adult. Anyway, you don't need to hear about that.

Sarah: Adulthood.

Kayla: It's been really bad. Wouldn't recommend. Anyway, but part of it has made my body just reverse. So in the morning, in the early afternoon, I'll be very sick feeling and it's really bad and I'll be crying and it's just bad. But then it hits a certain time in the afternoon and night and I feel great and really energetic. So then I don't want to sleep. So then I stay up late. But then I've been waking up at six because my body hates me and then I'm really tired and it's this whole weird thing and I just hate it. I'm sick of it.

Sarah: Wow. I'm sorry.

Kayla: That's my beef. Yeah, it's really bad. I need to talk to a doctor about it because it's honestly becoming a problem. Anyway.

Sarah: All right.

Kayla: My juices are. One, I get to go home on Thursday for the 4th of July.

Sarah: Not seeing me?

Kayla: No, I'm going to a different part of Michigan, so I don't get to see Sarah, but I'm very, very excited to go home and see my family

Sarah: America, am I right, ladies?

Kayla: You're so Right. Even though I see my family every day, because I call them every day now because that's who I am now. That's who I've become. My other juices, podcasts, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts.

Sarah: Big move.

Kayla: I got into My Brother, My Brother and Me recently. Very good podcast.

Sarah: I've heard good things.

Kayla: I think you'd like it. It's good. I keep forgetting to mention it. And then someone brought it up in the Discord and then everyone is excited about it. And I've realized that I had never really told anyone, but the DND podcast I'm doing has an episode, maybe two by now, out on Linked Apple Below.

Sarah: Into the gridge.

Kayla: Into the gridge.

Sarah: So that's fun.

Kayla: That's it. Plus I have a cat.

Sarah: Yay. All right. Well, if you want to tell us about your beef, your juice, I was going to say your sweat just because I was thinking about how gross I am.

Kayla: Maybe do. Maybe do tell us about your sweat.

Sarah: I don't know that I want to know about your sweat, but whatever makes you happy. You can find us at Sounds Fake Pod everywhere. Or if you want to help continue to support us, you can support us on Patreon. Patreon.com/soundsfakepod. Our $2 patrons are Keith McBlane, Roxanne, Alice is in Space, Anonymous, Nathan Dennison, Mariah Walter, and Jonathan. $5. Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Drew Finny, Perry Fiero, my Aunt Jeanie, D, Megan Roul, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins. $10 patrons are Kevin and Tessa at Dirty Uncle Kevin and @Tessa_M_K, Sarah Jones @eternalloli and Arcness who would like to promote the Trevor Project. Also, Benjamin Ibarra moved up from five to 10. Thank you.

Kayla: Whoa, we stan?

Sarah: We haven't talked to him about what he wants to promote, but I'm going to just promote him right now.

Kayla: Yes, thank you.

Sarah: Thanks, Ben. I don't know if you like being called Ben, sorry. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White nathanieljwhitedesigns.com and my mom who would like to promote Free Mom Hugs. Thank you for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.

Kayla: And until then, take good care of your cows.