Pandemic Sex
A complaint I often hear about empirical studies is that they contradict each other. Studies linking diet and health, for example. Should we eat more fat? Less fat? Different fat? It seems like every month a new study appears with new conclusions.
Conflicting findings may be traceable to the studies themselves, or, as we'll see in this newsletter, to the way the findings are presented in the news and social media. My focus will be on media reports about pandemic sex. The dilemma here is simple: According to some reports, studies show that people are having less sex during the pandemic. According to other reports, studies show that people are now having more (and more adventurous) sex.
So, are the data truly contradictory, or is one set of findings more accurate? Are they all accurate in some sense.
Self-report data on sex and other sensitive topics isn't perfectly reliable. Survey respondents sometimes misrepresent themselves, in order to look good (or naughty, or whatever). And, even the best research could only tell us about the real-life sexual behavior of people who are willing to disclose. We may always know more about the sex lives of extroverts than the sex lives of people in general.
All the same, this newsletter will offer some relatively straightforward conclusions about pandemic sex, and I will argue that media misrepresentation of data rather than the studies themselves has given rise to what seem like contradictory findings.
Let's start with studies claiming that people are having more sex during the pandemic. To put it bluntly, all the ones I found are textbook examples of what can go wrong when media reports tell you that "studies show..." or "surveys reveal..." For instance, several reports on a 2021 Sex & Intimacy Survey led me to the website of SKYN, a manufacturer of sex products, where the only statement about survey methods is that data were provided "on behalf of SKYN via a private third party research firm based on a study conducted among 2,000 nationally representative U.S. adults ages 18-39, between January 12th and January 21st, 2021." (see here).
Naturally you should be concerned about the lack of methodological detail, the exclusion of older participants, and the absence of peer review. But even giving SKYN the benefit of the doubt, the data themselves provide limited support for their conclusion "Sex in quarantine is more frequent, and even more adventurous". Their evidence for this conclusion? 39% of people reported more masturbation, 29% reported more virtual sex, and 49% reported watching more porn. That's it. Evidently, SKYN relied on a very narrow definition of "sex" – one that seems awfully convenient for a manufacturer of sex products. The website also provides some descriptive stats, all of which lack essential context. (For example, we're told that 41% of participants started a "friends with benefits" relationship during the pandemic, but we’re not told whether that's more or less than before – nor is it clear what kind of sex was involved.)
SKYN’s survey focused on people under 40. How about older folks? The AARP ran a cheerful story about the pandemic's impact on sexual behavior (see here), but their stats came from non-peer reviewed studies, and none of those stats actually supported their optimism. For example, "13 percent of those 45 to 54 and 5 percent of those 55 and older reported having more sex during the pandemic". This tells us that some people are having more sex, but this is only good news if the other 87 percent experienced no change; it's bad news if they're having less sex.
In sum, media reports claiming that people are having more sex during the pandemic are drawn from two kinds of non-peer reviewed studies: (a) Methodologically problematic studies of a limited range of sexual activities, and (b) studies that don't actually support the generalization.
How about media reports that people are having less sex during the pandemic?
Here the reports lead to a mix of non-peer reviewed and peer-reviewed research. One example would be stories (e.g., here) referencing a survey conducted by Basic Hard Seltzer (survey here). Although I wouldn't call their methodology ideal, the folks at Basic Hard outdid SKYN in both methodology and reportage. For instance, they found that 52% of their 2,000 participants reported having "less sex than usual" with others during the pandemic (with 29% having more than usual, and 19% having about the same). In addition, 43% of respondents reported masturbating more than usual (vs. 32% indicating less than usual, and 25% about the same). These findings (less sex with others, more masturbation) are a bit more nuanced than media reports about people having more or less sex during the pandemic. And, they're consistent with what peer-reviewed studies are finding. (Evidently, the absence of peer review doesn't guarantee that results will be wrong, any more than peer review guarantees accuracy.)
Peer-reviewed research on pandemic sex includes individual studies (e.g., here), a cross-national meta-analysis, and an extensive review of both peer-reviewed research and media surveys. Two observations about these studies:
1. Peer review doesn't guarantee reliable, credible findings. For example, the meta-analysis (focusing on 6,929 people of various sexual orientations) only included studies with clear definitions of sexual behavior, but the authors said nothing about what those definitions were, or about what types of sex were studied. Rather, the meta-analysis reported global changes in "sex" or "sexual activity", with no explanation of what this means, or even whether the same types of sex were measured across studies. As a result, no clear conclusions can be drawn from the meta-analysis. (Even Basic Hard Seltzer gave us more clarity with their "more masturbation, less sex with others" finding.)
2. Although it doesn't guarantee anything, peer review is part of an academic culture that promotes diverse inquiry, careful methodology, and nuanced conclusions. A good example is a 2121 Kinsey Institute study in which 1,559 adults were surveyed online.
One strength of this study is that it didn’t just focus on frequencies and types of sex. Quality was also considered. 43.5% of respondents reported a decline in the quality of their sex lives since the beginning of the pandemic, 42.8% reported no change, and only 13.6% reported improvement. That’s news, in my opinion. I suspect that most people would agree that changes in the quality of sex are at least as important as changes in quantity.
A second strength of the Kinsey study is that participants were explicitly asked about frequency of sex during the 12 months prior to the pandemic and, in a separate question, during the pandemic. (Moreover, many different kinds of sex were distinguished, an improvement over studies that merely looked at "sex", or "sex" vs. "masturbation".) The results can be easily summarized: Participants reported less of everything during the pandemic. Less intercourse, less oral sex, less masturbation, etc. (Note for stats people: the absolute differences were small, but all dependent-sample t-test comparisons were significant thanks in part to highly-powered analyses.) These findings are fairly consistent with those of other studies.
A third strength of the Kinsey study is the inclusion of some simple inferential stats linking sexual behavior to demographics and sexual satisfaction. For example, although the results for quality-related changes weren’t promising on the whole (see above), participants who reported trying something new during the pandemic were more likely to report improved sex lives than participants who didn't try something new. (Perhaps that's an obvious finding, perhaps not.)
All the same, the Kinsey study isn't perfect. (No study is.) One limitation is the absence of comparative data for questions about new sexual behavior during the pandemic. For example, 9.2% of participants reported having cybersex for the first time in their lives during the pandemic (which had existed for roughly a year at that point). This statistic isn’t meaningful without additional context. In particular, you'd want to know what percentage of people had cybersex for the first time in their lives during a roughly one-year period prior to the pandemic.
More meaningful are some of the researchers' other findings: For instance, only 20.3% of participants reported trying something new during the pandemic, and among these folks, use of sex-related technology was not prevalent. These findings contradict media reports that people have been a lot more adventurous under quarantine. On the other hand, these data are fairly consistent with other peer-reviewed studies on the topic.
Bottom line: When media reports indicate contradictory research findings, the contradictions may stem not from the studies but from the reports themselves. Although some reports claim that studies show an increase in sex (and sexual adventurousness) during the pandemic, actual peer-reviewed studies on this topic suggest a slight decline overall. Among those who report some sort of change in their sex lives during the pandemic, decreases in quantity and quality seem to be more common than increases. (Meanwhile, some people still don’t respond to sex surveys…)
Thanks for reading!