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I've analysed this NSFG data myself and found different results for past-year sexlessness and virginity in the 2022-23 wave. Lyman Stone, the author of that article, has admitted there was some kind of coding mistake made. You'll notice the same widening gap doesn't appear for the 'past 3 months' measure. The sample was also smaller than usual due to being limited to offline respondents in the post-COVID survey for consistency with prior waves, so the sex gap wouldn't likely be statistically significant. I'll also note that this gap only beginning to emerge post-COVID doesn't seem consistent with the narrative that the sexual revolution or dating apps enabled this dynamic. The small gap that does exist can be explained by age gaps in relationships as well as a slight male surplus among young adults.
Data showing similar sex partner distributions for men and women isn't sensational and lacks the same emotional pull or viral potential. Hopefully with how pervasive this narrative has become this data will slowly begin to get more attention.
The idea that dating apps are facilitating sexual inequality hinges on women swiping right on fewer profiles and fewer of men's swipes resulting in matches. What this doesn't take into account is 1. the skewed sex ratio on dating apps, and 2. how the swipes are distributed. However, a lower rate of right-swipes doesn't seem to mean that these swipes are more concentrated on the most desirable profiles, and matches actually tend to be very close in terms of within-sex desirability. Moreover, looking at actual outcomes like dates and sexual encounters, we see no population-level sex imbalance, and sexual partner data post-dating apps don't show increasing concentration among the most promiscuous men, nor do we see the expected divergence in heterosexual men and women's STD rates.
I appreciate that you're bringing some actual data and nuance.
But its still slamming headfirst into the reports that half of young men just... aren't dating.
And that the average # of sexual partners reported by females (prior to marriage) has climbed over decades... even as marriage rates fall. Women are clearly having more sex with a variety of men.
This can still all track if the average man is having more sex than they used to. But that doesn't appear in any data, although we can see signs that some small subset of men are getting laid a ton. Women are not having sex with a random selection of the male population. There's a lot of overlap in who they're having sex with.
Whether this rises to an 80/20 ratio is debatable, but I don't think you can look at one of those guys in the 50% of non-daters and say with a straight face "statistically, you're having sex somewhat regularly."
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