Will physical (in-person) sexual activity be very uncommon relative to current (2020s) levels by 2060?

probability: 21%

rationale:

Evidence suggests partnered sexual frequency has been gradually but genuinely declining in several high-income countries since the 1990s, driven largely by delayed partnering and the displacement of offline socializing by screens and smartphones 2 sources. In the United States, General Social Survey (GSS) data indicates the share of adults aged 18–64 reporting weekly sex fell from 55% in 1990 to 37% in 2024, while past-year sexlessness among those aged 18–29 doubled from 12% in 2010 to 24% in 2024 ifstudies.org. Similar, albeit more modest, multi-decade declines have been observed in Britain's Natsal data 2 sources and in other developed nations. However, average frequency has fallen gradually—the U.S. mean dropped only around 13% over a roughly 20-year period pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov—rather than collapsing, indicating a slow compositional shift rather than an abrupt behavioral abandonment.

The specific thresholds for a "very uncommon" outcome present a unique mechanical tension. Under the 2024 GSS distribution, roughly 40–44% of all U.S. adults already report having sex only once or twice a year or not at all 2 sources. Because this baseline is surprisingly close to a mathematical majority, demographic drift—particularly population aging, with the U.S. 65+ share projected to rise to ~23% by 2060—could plausibly push the "no or rare" group over 50%. However, drifting from 44% to 51% over 35 years would likely read as "only modestly lower," which the criteria explicitly classify as a negative outcome. Achieving a positive outcome requires either a much more dramatic acceleration, such as halving the average frequency from 2020s levels, or clear evidence of broad-based technological substitution making physical sex genuinely atypical.

The clearest pathway to a sharp decline involves digital intimacy technologies, but current evidence strongly suggests these remain supplements rather than population-scale substitutes. AI companionship is growing rapidly, with survey data indicating that 27% of U.S. adult internet users interact with AI for social or emotional purposes imaginingthedigitalfuture.org. However, only 9% of these users engage in sexual chat or roleplay 2 sources. Furthermore, less than 1% of under-40s report having an actual AI romantic partner ifstudies.org. While a 34-year horizon leaves ample room for transformative advances in full-immersion VR, haptics, and embodied robotics, prior waves of intimacy technology—from decades of ubiquitous pornography to highly hyped sex robots—have consistently failed to displace partnered sex as a fundamental biological and relational norm businessinsider.com.

A positive resolution requires physical sex to be thoroughly marginalized, which is a high hurdle. While continued linear extrapolation of recent youth trends might seem to approach this, multi-decade extrapolations of social behaviors frequently overshoot due to saturation effects, and recent survey waves already show hints of plateaus ifstudies.org. The core uncertainty rests on whether the current cohort of highly engaged teen AI-companion users commonsensemedia.org will carry these digital-first intimacy habits into midlife, and whether future technologies can deliver a frictionless substitute superior to human interaction. While this technology-driven tail risk is genuine and the timeline is long, the resilience of human biological drives and the explicit stringency of the criteria make a continuation of a gradual, modest decline much more probable than radical transformation.