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Liked the caption.

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Dec 28, 2021·edited Dec 28, 2021

Yeah... there's a lot going on behind these stats.

A brief perusal of the GSS website yields this quote:

"The GSS has adapted questions from earlier surveys, thereby allowing researchers to conduct comparisons for up to 80 years."

So my life spans 3/4ths of that time period, and I can tell you that any question asked 40 years ago, no matter how "adapted" it is, will be pretty much a total crapshoot when asked today, if the goal is an apples/apples comparison over the last couple of decades in the West. There is just too much cultural fluidity between observations, given that the "adapted" question is interpreted in a milieu that prior generations might not even recognize. (Disagree? Then consider the Supreme Court Obergefell decision, and how that factor would get "adapted" in a survey question.) Such are the blessings of liberty, and of a post-secularized society.

There may be a pendulum swing happening back to more traditional mores based on the stats shown, but maybe not - hard to tell. Currently, we in the US are pretty much unmoored from any recognizable social/cultural mores, if you go by the signals given us by social media or public policy signalers. So the pendulum is pretty much done swinging in one direction. What Americans writ large believe though is probably "behind" these indicators - that is, we as a whole are still more "traditional". Plus there is simple human behavior in play, like gender (here I mean "traditional" m/f) differences - it would be interesting to see breakdowns on these stats by gender. My gut feel is that if there is less sexual activity happening, it is due more to women discerning that there are no (male) partners available that they are willing to be "stuck with" in the event a pregnancy should result (you know, the "traditional" consideration ;). But I could be wrong.

Then there is the whole issue of: if there is less sex happening, what is now happening instead? Bible study? TikTok-ing? Post-graduate degrees? Cribbage? The mind boggles...

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