Just like in their work preferences and affinity for technology, millennials are doing things differently than previous generations in their sexual lives. It’s just that the rest of society might be surprised by what exactly those differences are.

Millennials are bucking the trend of previous generations and stepping away from sex, according to a study just published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior by a Widener University professor and her colleagues.

“The study, based on surveys conducted between 1972 and 2014, found that the number of 20- to 24-year-olds who said they have not had any sexual partners since age 18 was more than twice as high for Millennials born in the 1990s than for Generation Xers born in the late 1960s: 15 percent versus 6 percent,” Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Stacey Burling and Casey Gilman wrote in a report for the Duluth News Tribune.

Professor Brooke Wells of Widener’s Center for Human Sexuality Studies and her peers noted that new definitions of sex, less independent living arrangements, delayed acceptance of responsibility and marriage vows, and the disparity between social and physical connections all factor into the latest statistics.

“Certainly, living with your parents makes having sex a little more complicated,” Wells said. “… (And) you can spend all night on Tinder swiping faces and never hook up with anybody.”

Read more about the Widener-born research in the Duluth News Tribune here.
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