Disconnected: Why a Generation Is Rewriting Sex, Love, and the Rules of Commitment

By Ian Primmer – CommonX Contributor

As dating apps, economic anxiety, and digital marketplaces redefine intimacy, young men and women are rethinking what relationships — and even desire — mean in 2025.

Something strange is happening in the love economy.

Across the U.S. and much of the developed world, young adults are quietly stepping away from the very rituals that defined adulthood for decades. Fewer are having sex, fewer are getting married, and many are questioning whether traditional relationships are worth the cost—financially or emotionally.

According to research from Pew Research Center and the UCL Social Research Institute, the share of adults under 35 who reported no sexual activity in the past year has nearly doubled since the early 2000s. Marriage rates have plunged, and the average age at first marriage now hovers near 30 for women and 32 for men—an all-time high. The generational gap isn’t about prudishness; it’s about priorities. Love still matters—but it’s competing with rent, student loans, burnout, and a sense that the game itself has changed.

The Male Retreat

For many young men, intimacy now feels like a high-risk investment with diminishing returns. Housing prices soar, divorce rates linger around 40 percent, and stories of financial ruin circulate online like cautionary folklore. Meanwhile, digital substitutes—everything from short-form video escapism to AI chat companions—offer instant validation without heartbreak or half a paycheck disappearing in a settlement.

This isn’t necessarily apathy. It’s self-preservation. A generation raised on instability is choosing control over chaos, even if that control means going it alone.

The Female Revolution

On the other side of the equation, women have achieved unprecedented autonomy. Economic independence and reproductive rights have rewritten what partnership looks like—and whether it’s even required. Many are embracing freedom, delaying marriage, or building careers and communities that exist outside domestic expectations. The result is empowerment, but also a dating marketplace that feels less predictable, less reciprocal, and sometimes less trusting.

Both shifts are rooted in the same story: choice. For the first time, both sexes can truly opt out—and some are exercising that option.

The Digital Marketplace

Technology has become the new matchmaker and the new wall between people. Apps promise infinite options, yet endless choice can make commitment feel obsolete. Subscription platforms like OnlyFans and the influencer economy have further blurred the line between attention, affection, and income. To some men, intimacy now looks transactional; to many women, monetizing image and autonomy is empowerment. Both views are valid—and both leave people wondering if genuine connection can survive an algorithm.

The irony? Everyone is still searching for meaning, but the signals are jammed by noise.

Recalibrating Connection

What’s emerging isn’t the death of love—it’s the recalibration of it. Relationships are being redefined by transparency, equality, and timing rather than obligation. For some, that feels liberating. For others, it’s isolating. Either way, the script has changed: sex and marriage are no longer prerequisites for adulthood, and emotional independence has become its own badge of honor.

Maybe that’s progress. Or maybe, as Gen X watchers like us suspect, it’s a symptom of a world that’s traded depth for options.

The CommonX Take

This moment says less about romance and more about society’s bandwidth. We’ve built technology that connects everyone—but rarely long enough to stay. We’ve made freedom the ultimate goal, yet we’re lonelier than ever. The next evolution of intimacy may not be about choosing sides at all—it might be about learning how to stay human in a world that rewards disconnection.

Because love, even now, still cuts through the static. It just has to fight harder to be heard.