The Rise of Masturbation, the Decline of Sex

The last few decades have seen two parallel developments that are usually considered naturally at odds with one another.

1. An increase in the acceptance of masturbation. This means more options available, less social stigma on the practice, and a decline in any cultural or legal restrictions on engaging in self-pleasure.

2. An increase in real life sex-negativity. When it comes to cisgendered heterosexuals at least, fewer conditions under which people are supposed to have sex, and increasing taboos on more kinds of relationships: namely age gaps and those involving power disparities, particularly bosses and their subordinates. Even behavior that might lead to sex like aggressive flirting is seen as more problematic.

In Harper’s Magazine, Daniel Kolitz recently wrote about communities of men who meet online and masturbate together. The details are shocking and disgusting, but there is no hint that there are any obstacles in the way of the subjects fulfilling any fantasy they have, as long as it comes in virtual form. There was a time not that long ago when states tried to ban sex toys. Ted Cruz in 2007 defended one such law as solicitor general of Texas, but by 2016 this had turned him into a laughing stock. Legal restrictions on adult self-pleasure are practically unthinkable.

Perhaps 2% of American women between the ages of 18 and 45 are or have been OnlyFans creators.1 I looked for data expecting to see evidence for an increase in pornography consumption, but at least one survey shows that the number of American men and women who report having “seen an X-rated movie in the last year” was stable between the mid-1980s and 2012. Nonetheless, there is relatively little moral panic about porn, in the US at least, even as there are increasing worries about what social media does to minors. The attitude is generally live and let live.

Meanwhile, sex has been increasingly made problematic. Age gaps between consenting adults are stigmatized. The desire to protect minors reaches the height of absurdity when we lock up adult women for having sexual relations with teenage boys. We did this in the 1990s too, but there was a cultural understanding that the only reason this happened was because the law needed to treat the sexes equally as a matter of principle. Now it is not that unusual to see these lucky young lads referred to as victims of “pedophilia.”

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