The recession: When sex is the default option

Money can’t buy you love, said Charisse Jones in USA Today, which makes love the ideal recreation for these recessionary times.

Money can’t buy you love, said Charisse Jones in USA Today, which makes love the ideal recreation for these recessionary times. With most U.S. manufacturing sectors in abject free-fall, sales of one particular product—the humble condom—are up an impressive 6 percent from last year, as the economic implosion forces “millions of cash-strapped Americans to entertain themselves at home.” Not only is lovemaking a low-cost alternative to shopping or dining out, said Abby Ellin in The New York Times, it’s a source of emotional therapy. Some matchmaking agencies have seen a 40 percent spike in business in only the last four months, as hordes of previously freewheeling singles “seek the comfort of relationships during difficult times.” We may be facing the worst economic downturn in a century, but “isn’t it romantic?”

No, said William Saletan in Slate.com, financial insecurity is not romantic. The main purpose of a condom is not to facilitate lovemaking but to prevent conception—and the birth, nine months later, of another hungry mouth to feed. The uptick in condom sales likely has far more to do with Americans “controlling the family payroll” than with any nationwide epidemic of affection. In fact, said TheDailybeast.com in an editorial, our recent poll shows that American “romantic lives are undergoing a meltdown of their own.” Fully 25 percent said their relationship was suffering as a result of the downturn, with 21 percent saying they see themselves having less sex this year than last. Sex may indeed be “one of the world’s least expensive activities,” but if both parties have an icy fist of money worries clenched around their hearts, it’s not going to happen.

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