So, barmaid, bring a pitcher, another round of brew
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and screw?
—Jimmy Buffett, Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw)
It’s not just sex: Alcohol consumption has dropped by 54%, with youth (18 to 34) drinking falling ANOTHER 9% just between 2023 and 2025.
From TIME magazine’s article, “Why Gen Z is Drinking Less”:
[R]esearch from the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows that lifetime drinking, past month drinking, and past year drinking among young people began to decline around the year 2000. That means that such declines have especially impacted Generation Z, defined as anyone born from 1997 to 2012, and some Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996.
[…]
“It is becoming clear that, for whatever reasons, today’s younger generations are just less interested in alcohol and are more likely than older generations to see it as risky for their health and to participate in periods of abstinence like Dry January,” said National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism George F. Koob in a statement.
Maybe that’s not coincidental. Perhaps there’s a causal link (as famed philosopher Jimmy Buffett suggested). Maybe, just like peanut butter and jelly are complementary products, sex and alcohol are, too.
Koob seemed to agree with Buffett:
Another contributing factor has to do with the changing socialization patterns of younger generations. “Alcohol tends to be a social drug, even for young people, so part of the decline in underage drinking could be related to less in-person socializing,” said Koob. On average, the amount of time people spent with friends in-person decreased from 30 hours a month in 2003 to 10 hours a month in 2020, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the epidemic of loneliness. That decline was especially marked for people aged 15 to 24.
Back in 1991, more than half — 54.1% of all high school students — were sexually active. (The other 45.9% lied about it.) By 2007, the number fell to 47.8%. Four years later, it dropped again to 43%. By 2017, it was just 39.5%.
As of 2023, it’s 31.6%.
What’s going on with kids today, with their wild, out-of-control abstinence and crazy teetotalling?!
It’s one of the strangest, most inexplicable cultural shifts in recent memory. I was certainly blindsided: I figured our sex drive was so biologically ingrained, it would never go away!
But it has. And with it, so has the U.S. birthrate: It’s now at a 40-year low.
We need a birthrate of 2.1 babies per woman to maintain our population. We’re currently at 1.6.
For decades, our shrinking birthrate was masked by immigration growth. In 1991, the U.S. population was 253 million. By 2025, it grew to 343.6 million.
Since 2020, immigration has been the #1 driver of American population growth.
With the new crackdown on illegal immigration, we’re flirting with our first-ever population decline. And it’s not just an American phenomenon — all over the world, birthrates have collapsed.
At least one geopolitical strategist and demographic expert predicts it’ll lead to the end of China within the next 10 years:
And three months ago, the Chinese government updated the data. They’re now reporting a 70% drop in the birthrate since 2017. That’s a faster decline than what was suffered by the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust.
And the Shanghai Academy of Sciences, which is kind of the Wiseman organization of statisticians in China that interprets all the data, says that this is still wrong. They estimate that the Chinese system has overestimated its population by over 100 million people. With all of the missing millions being people who would’ve been born during the one-child era, which is a rather sterile way of saying that all the missing millions are under age 40 suggesting that these yellow bars don’t even exist.
China has, at most, 10 years before it faces national dissolution. They will not be a unified industrialized nation state 10 years from now. [emphasis added]
—Peter Zeihan
So why aren’t young people drinking, hooking up, and having babies? How the heck did we go from Free Love to no love — and a hookup culture where nobody hooks up?
As with most cultural trends, there’s more than one root cause.
Smartphones are a contributing factor. At first, many experts predicted that dating apps and matchmaking sites would increase sexual activity. You could meet the next great love of your life while sitting in your bathrobe, drinking a cup of coffee, and scrolling on your phone. What could be easier than that?
But it sure hasn’t worked out that way.
Perhaps it’s analysis paralysis: In a world with near-limitless dating options, it’s tough to make a decision and stick to it. And if social media has skewed your perception of reality, perhaps none of your real-life options are ever as appealing as the Photoshopped fantasies you see on Instagram.
Or, perhaps, the BILLIONS of free “adult content” sites, videos, and stimuli are all you need to satisfy your sex drive. Why subject yourself to a real-life boyfriend/girlfriend and risk having your heart broken (or, since #MeToo, your reputation destroyed) when you can fantasize about someone different every single day?
I’ve got two teenage boys. I’ve heard how they talk around their friends: The fear of being “outed” for something they didn’t even do is a very real thing.
You’re always one TikTok upload away from being a social pariah.
COVID could be a factor. We normalized being alone. The 15-year-old who wasn’t allowed to leave his house, go to school, or play with friends in 2020 is now 21. For a kid like that, hanging out in a bar with strangers is weird and creepy.
Either way, we’ve reached the point where loneliness is the #1 self-reported threat to Gen Z’s mental health:
Exclusive: Half of young people plagued by loneliness, family problems https://t.co/EyxNjYjSp7
— Axios (@axios) September 16, 2025
An additional factor might be the shift from alcohol to marijuana. We’ve gone from a drinking culture to a pot-smoking culture, with more Americans consuming marijuana than alcohol.
In 1992, fewer than 1 million Americans used marijuana daily. By 2012, it was 6 million.
Today, it’s 18 million.
The alcohol culture was ultra-extroverted: You went to bars, attended parties, met new people… and made horrible decisions 'round closing time. (And how!)
The marijuana culture is introverted: It’s something you do alone to placate your boredom.
None other than South Park succinctly explained this phenomenon:
A dark, misanthropic worldview is yet another factor: If you dislike humanity, you’re probably not inclined to prioritize the perpetuation of our species.Does being more conservative mean having more kids? Several studies suggest that people in red states have more babies than those in blue states. And now a new report from a conservative-leaning group argues that that could have implications for politics and culture in the U.S. down the road.
[…]
[T]hese authors looked at young adults ages 25 to 35 who self-identify as liberal or conservative. They found that young liberal women today are much less likely to have children than young conservative women, with a gap of more than 30 percentage points. And that's a big change since the 1980s, when there was a much smaller gap between liberal and conservative women. [emphasis added]
The political implications are obvious, both in the short term:
In the 2024 election, there was a remarkable correlation between a state's fertility rate and the share voting for Trump!
— More Births (@MoreBirths) November 6, 2024
The partisan gap around families continues to intensify. This also helps explain why Trump nearly won New Jersey! 🧵 https://t.co/CCM4xBlRAL pic.twitter.com/Bm4lhLiBis
And in the long:
The analysis of reapportionment is even worse for Democrats.
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) January 27, 2026
Blue states losing 11 electoral college votes
Purple states gaining 1
Red States gaining 10 electoral college votes.
If Republicans hold North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona, they win the presidency for a decade https://t.co/jh5xpJYehg
The final reason why kids aren’t having sex may be the biggest — but fortunately, it’s also the one we have the most societal control over: Sex leads to babies, and babies are REALLY expensive.
That wasn’t true when we were a rural society. If you were a farmer in the 1800s, kids were an economic asset: They were free labor that helped you be more productive.
The more, the merrier.
But in urban environments, kids are an economic liability. Kids cost $23,000 a year — and by age 18, that’s $414,000!
Because of sky-high housing costs, the average age of a first-time homebuyer is 40 years old. For female homeowners, that’s not the best math for having babies.
If they can’t even afford their own home until they’re 40, how the heck are they ever gonna reach 2.1 kids?
Government policies that lower housing costs would go a long way to reversing this trend. We want young people to be able to afford their first home when they’re still in their 30s.
In the 1980s, the average age of a first-time homebuyer was the late 20s. (Made it a helluva lot easier to have multiple children.)
Vice President JD Vance connected the housing market to illegal immigration:
🇺🇸 VP VANCE: 30 MILLION ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS PUSHED HOUSING COSTS THROUGH THE ROOF
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 13, 2025
"A lot of young people are saying housing is way too expensive.
Why is that? Because we flooded the country with 30 million illegal immigrants who were taking houses that all by right go to… https://t.co/v4Grpae3z9 pic.twitter.com/l52OY0hcSe
So did the Department of Homeland Security:
“Rent is too high!”
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) November 20, 2025
There are tens of millions of criminal illegals in our country.
“Groceries cost too much!”
There are tens of millions of criminal illegals in our country.
“There aren’t enough jobs!”
There are tens of millions of criminal illegals in our country.
“Women…
There is no magic bullet solution, alas. No single law or policy change will reverse this no-nookie trend. But that’s to be expected; a problem with multiple causes requires multiple solutions.
It can’t be any one thing; it must be many different things.
Because, if it turns out the biggest problem of all is “adult content” on the Internet, things are about to get so much worse. With AI advances and video generation, we’re rapidly approaching the day when a teenage kid will be able to describe ANY fantasy to his AI — and instantly receive a video that’s specifically tailored to his/her tastes. Teens will even be able to hear their AI fantasy screaming their names.
That’ll enhance the illusion of intimacy and personal relationships. It’ll make their digital fantasies increasingly indistinguishable from reality.
Which will ultimately leave them lonelier than ever.
Recommended: The Lying Liars at USA Today Accuse the GOP of Disenfranchising… REPUBLICAN Women?
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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