Bad romance | 7 February 2019

I interviewed a prominent 1970s women’s liberationist recently and ended up discussing the sexual culture of her political heyday. ‘Everyone was sleeping with everyone,’ she said. ‘You had to have a good reason not to sleep with someone.’

I felt a stab of envy, a sharpened version of what I feel browsing black-and-white snaps from back in the day. There is often a dishevelled sexiness. There are the gleefully knowing expressions from women newly unafraid of unwanted pregnancy, and the ‘why not?’ insouciance of slouching shaggy-haired men and their slender sheepskin-coated girlfriends leaning against doorposts.

What a dreary distance we’ve travelled to get to the present dating landscape. How pleasure-free it all seems as Valentine’s Day approaches. Dating apps and online porn have bred numbness and indifference.

The quality of sex is getting worse, but so is the quantity. Rates of sexual intercourse are plummeting across a relatively wide bracket of young people — including those meant to be having babies.