Adult male "virginity" soars

Virginity is a social construct traditionally used to control young women, but for young men in the last decade, the social construct has haunted them instead. About 27% of men under thirty report that they haven't had sex since turning 18, according to this chart attributed to the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, up from 8% in 2008.

For most of the past three decades, 20-something men and women reported similar rates of sexlessness. But that has changed in recent years. Since 2008, the share of men younger than 30 reporting no sex has nearly tripled, to 28 percent. That's a much steeper increase than the 8 percentage point increase reported among their female peers.

Something to bear in mind, in discussion of this trend: "incel" refers to an ideology and an associated subculture of alienated men and is not a useful desriptor for involuntary/incidental celibacy in general. If you're not getting any but don't entertain a weird complicated mythology concerning gynocratic totalitarianism, another term is strongly recommended.

The #metoo movement and increased scrutiny (and social rejection) of sexual misconduct is also given too much emphasis as a cause, I think. There are far more merciless forces in play, not least dating and hookup success being forced onto the same algorithmic curve as everything else on social media; the increasingly hypnotic impulse to live lives online; and the generally hopeless economic circumstances of young people who are getting very little out of life, but haven't yet decided to burn it all down.