There’s more porn than there’s ever been, it’s easier to access and there’s a video out there for every person and every kink. Apps like Tinder and Grindr are making causal hook-up sex as easy to get as ice-cream. Sex is on TV, it’s discussed openly on the news, birth control and morning after pills are part of most health care plans, sexting is a typical pastime and polyamory is becoming a staple of many marriages.

Sex is finally being accepted by American society as a normal thing. The vision of the “free Love” era has finally been achieved in this country, it seems.

So why then, are young Americans having less sex than ever?

It’s a puzzling question, I know. But the numbers don’t lie: between 1991 and 2017 the percentage of high school student’s who’ve gotten lucky, dropped from 54 to 40 percent. Meaning that, these days, your typical high schooler still has their V-card. Sure, they’ve probably watched a lot of sex on the internet, they’ve probably sexted and maybe even sent nudes.

But 4 out of 10 haven’t done the dirty.

That’s according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Study. And those stats have left much of the scientific world scratching their heads. Why, in a era and culture with so much sexual discussion, imagery and access, would kids have less sex?

Some experts, like Helen Fisher, who studies love and sex and directs Match.com’s yearly Singles in America survey, says it’s because kids are “coupling up” less. She points to the fact that, for three generations Americans have been marrying less, and also living with their romantic partners less. Couples who cohabitate have more sex than singles and couples who don’t, she says.

That could surely have something to do with it. But, it can’t explain the entire phenomenon.

So what else? Is it the surging anxiety rates among young Americans? Hookup culture? Easy access to an endless library of porn?  The media? Information overload? Obesity?

Sure. It could (and probably is) partly all of that. No one really knows for sure why sex rates are on the decline in America. We just know that they are. And we know that we aren’t alone.

Take Japan, for instance. In the Land of the Rising Sun, almost a third of adults are entering their 30’s without any kind of real sexual experience (more like the Land of the 30-year-old Virgins), and a quarter of 50-year old men are unmarried. Many Japanese men say they find women “scary” and the women say the men “can’t be bothered” to go on a real date when they could just look up manga porn at home.

The speculative reasons for the Japanese sexual state of affairs are many: some blame rising rates of “herbivore men” (dudes who have no urge to pursue real women and real relationships), “shut-ins” (who just play video games and watch TV/porn for their sexual kicks) and/or “parasite singles” (young men past the age of 20 who still live with their parents).

As a result, deaths are outpacing births, job and housing markets are being destabilized, as well as consumer spending and long-term investment plans. The situation in Japan has gotten so bad, that their National Institute of Population and Social Security Research anticipates the country’s population will tank by nearly 40-percent by 2065.

It has been dubbed a “demographic timebomb.”

Similar trends are happening in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and, of course, here in the US. (Though, Japan’s predicament is notably more serious than these others.)

It’s not an issue that looks like it’s going to get any better in the near future, either. Porn isn’t going away or becoming any less popular any time soon. In fact, it’s only getting better, more diverse and more immersive: Cam girls (or guys) now offer people a way to have an interactive porn experience (and thanks to teledildonics, it’s even fun for the ladies!). Then there’s the inevitable issue of e-sex brothels, where Johns will be able get their rocks off with silicone sex dolls that look and act mostly human.

And, of course, VR sex games are coming soon too.

All of this new sex/porn tech isn’t going to incentivize people to go out there and get some of the real thing. It will likely have the opposite effect: singles and couples will start having less sex as this kind of technology improves. Why not? When VR porn games start coming out, that are nearly indistinguishable from reality, where “players” can pick and choose their sex partner from a library of any celebrity, politician, historical figure, friend or family member, what’s the motivation to go out and actually date someone real? Why risk the rejection?

This is a silly problem for a nation or a generation to have, let’s be honest. We all want to have sex — no matter what your sexual preference, kink, or bent is, everybody wants to bang (except maybe asexuals). It’s human nature; we’re all a bunch of horny monkeys. We’re all walking around eyeing each other, undressing one another with our eyes, fantasizing about fucking our friends or random strangers at the bar or on the street.

It’s a sexual buffet out there. So who’s fault is it, then, that today's youth are all inside starving themselves into sexlessness?

We can point fingers, we can blame society and the times, this evil Zeitgeist of ours. But in the end, if the youth aren’t having sex, that’s the youth’s fault. They have the tools to get laid, they have the knowledge, they have the ability — the question is, do they have the willpower?

Only time will tell. But until then, I encourage everyone reading this to go try your luck. For the good of this great nation, please, go get laid.

America needs it.