Are the Chads Having More Sex than Ever?

The data doesn't support the "soft polygyny" narrative

With all this talk of the differential romantic desires of men and women, the rise of hookup culture, the decrease in sex and the impact of dating apps I thought I’d take a look at the data.

Ruxandra Teslo

shared some charts posted by @nuance_enjoyer on Twitter which showed that the most sexually successful young men are not in fact having sex with more women than they were in the past. However, his post didn’t address women or unsuccessful men, and given that the people who seem to talk the most about this topic are men that aren’t having sex I decided to look into that as well.

First, The Narrative: dating apps + loose women = frustrated men

What I’ve been told by

Andras L

, my informant on the red-pilled male community, is that the ubiquity of dating apps in concert with a decrease in the degree of moral opprobrium for women who engage in casual sex has led to a winner-takes-all market and an increase in incels. The argument goes as follows:

1. Young women, most of whom use dating apps, are exposed to a larger pool of available men than ever. This means they come into contact with a larger absolute number of very attractive men than they would in the wild.

2. Young men have a low bar for casual sex, so many of them will swipe right on women who are less attractive than they are. This means women get matched with many men who are “out of their league”.

3. Because women find matches with many men who are more attractive than them, they increase their bar for swiping right as they rationally want to match with the most attractive men that are available to them.

4. Since men on average enjoy being promiscuous much more than women do, the most attractive men have sex with more partners than do the most attractive women. And while this has always been true, because more women come into contact with these very attractive men than did before (because of dating apps) the very attractive men have more sexual options than ever.

5. Because of sex-positive feminism many women are willing to have sex with men before they get any sign of commitment. Therefore, the most attractive men end up having sex with most of the single women. And because they have so many options and no sexual incentive to commit they remain single (these men are known as “Chads” among men and as “Fuck boys” among women).

6. Most of the women the attractive men have slept with are left confused about why they’re alone and not able to get a guy to commit, not realizing that they’re almost exclusively dating men who are out of their league. And most of the men are left sexless leading them to resent women for what they view as their shallow selection criteria and inability to appreciate how much of a “good guy” they are.

7. Women “hit the wall” and start panicking about finding a husband. They lower (or change) their standards and attempt to marry non-Chads. But some men, the most terminally black-pilled, have left the market. They are the MGTOWs, unwilling to now offer material and emotional support to the Beckys who refused to have sex with them in their youth.

But, the Chads aren’t having more sexual partners

As I mentioned, @nuance_enjoyer and others have shared research indicating that the most successful men aren’t having any more partners than before, and I found that the women aren’t either. Below is data from the National Survey of Families and Growth¹ (NSFG) on the number of lifetime sexual partners for males and females between the ages of 23 and 35 (this chart looked more or less the same when I filtered for never married, that excel file is here):

Data is here. Python file used to analyze data is here. Excel output with chart is here.

And here’s the same chart using data from the General Social Survey² (GSS), which has fewer observations but a longer timeseries:

Data is here. Python file used to analyze data is here. Excel output with chart is here.

So promiscuous people don’t appear to be having more sex in the post-dating app world. But what about the other side of the distribution? Maybe it’s not that the successful men are having more sex, but that the unsuccessful men are having less.

More men are reporting no sex in the past year… but more women are too

There has been a rise in the percentage of men who report that they had no sexual partners in the past year, which lines up with perceived rising levels of male frustration and resentment. But more women are also reporting 0 sex… which doesn’t fit the narrative that it’s the Chads having sex with all the women which is resulting in more unmatched men. It looks like there’s just more unmatched people in general. At least

Louise Perry

and

Mary Harrington

can feel relieved knowing that perhaps less women are having sex out of politeness than they seem to think.

Data is here. Python file used to analyze data is here. Excel output with chart is here.

It could be that the rise in sexlessness is just reflecting lower levels of relationship formation, but even when I filtered for never married individuals (which also excludes people who are cohabitating) you can still see an apparent rise in the percentage of people reporting 0 sexual partners in the past year:

Data is here. Python file used to analyze data is here. Excel output with chart is here.

This suggests that single people, male and female, are more likely to be having extended dry spells than in the past. But what about the female side of the story? Is it harder to find a relationship as a young woman than it used to be?

Less people are marrying and cohabitating, but the gender gap hasn’t changed

The complaint from some women, that they’re struggling to find men who are interested in relationships is reflected in a lower percentage of young people being married or cohabitating with a romantic partner:

Data is here. Python file used to analyze data is here. Excel output with chart is here.

Note that the gender gap should be expected in any age-matched data since, on average, women date men a few years older than them, but the size of the gap hasn’t changed. However, the overall decrease could reflect more young men refusing to settle down given they have (at least the appearance of) more options to engage in uncommitted sex. But while common sense and evolutionary biology both strongly suggest that women are more concerned about finding relationships, data from a Pew Research survey shows that men and women between 18 and 34 are about equally likely to say they’d like to get married someday. And among young adults without children men were more likely than women to say they’d like to be parents:

Still, I expect that the “someday” men have in mind is further into the future than the “someday” women their age would hope for. And the difference in percent wanting to be a parent likely reflects the fact that, because of the moderate average age gaps in hetero relationships, more young women have kids already and those that don’t are more likely to have decided if they want to or not given our short fertility window.

And now for a largely unrelated aside on ethical non monogamy and political tribes:

When I was looking at the GSS data I took a look at the percentage of people who say that sex outside of marriage is always wrong (other options are almost always wrong, sometimes wrong or not wrong at all). I wanted to see if, as polyamory has gained more acceptance among the libs, a difference would emerge in how extramarital sex was viewed by political party, and sure enough:

Data is here. Python file used to analyze data is here. Excel output with chart is here.

The recently widening gap between poly-friendly Dems and monogamous Republicans is explained by more Dems answering that extramarital sex is only “Sometimes wrong” (24% of Dems vs. 5% of Republicans) or “Almost always wrong” (34% of Dems vs. 13% of Republicans):

Data is here. Python file used to analyze data is here. Excel output with chart is here.

Of course this doesn’t imply that more Dems are actually having more sex outside of marriage, just that they seem to have accepted polyamory as a morally ok option.

Takeaways for the single Beckys and the sexless non-Chads?

Obviously a lot of people aren’t happy with contemporary dating dynamics. I’m sure they never were, but it does seem like the intensity of complaints and the perceived unfairness of the current norms have gotten worse (from both the male and female perspective). But while I don’t doubt that dating apps have changed the incentive structures at play, they don’t appear to be leading to a significant change in the distribution of sex, at least not as far as I can see in the most representative US datasets I know of. And while men may want to stay single longer, it seems like just as many men as women want to find a partner “someday”.

I can see how someone could read my response to the Desperation of female neediness by

Stella Tsantekidou

as a depressing (or offensive) suggestion to settle. And to some degree it is a suggestion to settle. But I’m only suggesting “settling” on things that you can, upon real reflection do without, like (at least for most of us) physical attractiveness. And I’m with Bryan Caplan in that I think men should be less picky with respect to looks too. I think there are some things that you should have very high standards for, the things which are required for or predictive of a happy, healthy and stable long term relationship (for you). But, if what you really want is a relationship and you’re struggling to find one it’s probably worth relaxing your standards where you can.

As Ruxandra points out in Female neediness is real, but it’s not a tragedy, there are sex differences which will inevitably lead to some degree of tension between men and women, regardless of social norms. You may not like where the market settles and you might resent the degree to which the other sex values (or doesn’t value!) various traits, but there’s not much you can do about it. You just have to respond to the incentives and value judgements that the market produces and adjust your behavior and standards as accordingly. And, at the margin, you can use your voice and actions to push norms in the direction that you think makes for a happy and healthy society, or that you think would make for a happy and healthy you.

1. National Center for Health Statistics. National Survey of Family Growth, 2006-2010, 2011-2013, 2013-2015, 2015-2017 and 2017-2019. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

2. National Opinion Research Center. 2022. General Social Survey 2022. NORC at the University of Chicago.