It looks like "Netflix and chill" might not be a euphemistic phrase. Maybe we're actually all just watching Netflix and chilling the heck out. We're talking Dorito dust all over your tracksuit, wiggly toes in socks, Jolene on. Straight up chilling. Even in the circumstance of our partner lying half-dressed next to us in bed, we might actually all just be falling asleep with our laptops open instead of getting down to business. Less of the blue stuff, more of the blue light.
Well, this is according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor and statistician at Cambridge University who's blaming the prevalent culture of binge-watching series for our lack of sex. At first we were all like, "Whatever David, we're definitely shagging all the time". Then we were like, "Oh, wait hold up. I think I did watch 24 in 24 hours, and I'm definitely currently more familiar with the contours of Kit Harrington's face than my boyfriends, and, wait, I'm more excited about Versailles than the weekend...". Damn you, Spiegelhalter, you might be onto something.
According to Spiegelhalter, in the prehistoric no-iPhone zone that was the '90s, when all you could watch at 11pm was re-runs of Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond (no one loves that show for the record), everyone was at it like insatiable nymphos. Sort of. He states that on average, couples were dancing between the sheets five times a month. Sounds rather tame, but apparently that number is dipping to even more boring depths. That number was a chilly three in 2010, according to the The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.
At the Hay Festival, Spiegelhalter, who was discussing his book, Sex By Numbers, discussed people's growing attachments to their iPhones and tablets in regards to their seeming increasing disinterest in orgasming. “I think it’s the box set, Netflix," he said. "‘OMG, I’ve got to watch the entire second series of Game of Thrones.’ The point is that this massive connectivity, the constant checking of our phones, compared with just a few years ago when TV closed down at 10.30pm or whatever, and there was nothing else to do.” Then he did some maths: “By 2030 couples are not going to be having any sex at all."
So next time thingy-majigy from Tinder messages you asking if you want to "catch up on last week's GOT" maybe you should park your cynicism, and get your grossest tracksuit on. Then again, maybe not...
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