The Sexless Marriage - What Would You Do About It?

Pea digs into data showing Americans are having significantly less sex than previous generations and connects it to a broader global trend that includes the Philippines. She explains the Filipino-specific concept of "lashang" — when married women let themselves go — and examines how different cultures handle sexless marriages, including Japan's strikingly pragmatic approach.

The data on declining sexual frequency ​

• In the 1990s, American couples averaged 73 times per year (about 1.5 times/week)
• Twenty-five years later, that dropped to 55 times per year (about once/week) — a 25% decline
• The decline is accelerating, not leveling off
• Even teenagers are having less sex: the percentage who'd had sex dropped from 58% in the '90s to 44% a few decades later
• Pea finds the teenage decline especially odd given easier access to birth control, more dating options via social media, and fewer moral constraints on casual sex — yet people still aren't connecting

Sexless relationships defined ​

• No official definition, but most studies use fewer than 10 times per year as the threshold
• Western marriage counselors are seeing a huge spike in sexless couples

Why this is happening — Pea's diagnosis ​

• Studies blame diet, fatigue, and video games, but Pea says the professionals are "missing the elephant in the room"
• Men don't feel welcome to approach women anymore, so fewer relationships form in the first place
• Both men and women are increasingly taking care of their own needs and no longer see relationships as necessary or even desirable
• "Women are giving up on men and men are returning the favor"

The single-by-choice lifestyle ​

• Pea plays a clip of a woman in her 30s describing her ideal weekend: waking up hungover, FaceTiming friends, walking the dog, going to Beer Olympics, then country night line dancing
• The woman credited her freedom to having no children
• Pea's concern: she has the right to live this way, but when a majority of women feel like this, you get a birth rate that can't sustain itself

The Philippines is feeling it too ​

• In 2017, the average Filipina had 2.7 children
• By 2022, that dropped to 1.9 — below the replacement level
• In a country that frowns on birth control, fewer babies strongly correlates with less sex
• Pea pushes back on the stereotype that Filipinas are "sex-starved energizer bunnies" — that early passion is partly about sealing the deal and impressing the partner

"Lashang" — when Filipinas let themselves go after marriage ​

• Pea introduces the Filipino term "lashang" (also spelled "blang" in the transcript): when a married woman stops maintaining her appearance because she feels she no longer needs to look hot or be sexy
• This is culturally accepted in the Philippines — everyone understands that once you're married with children, the sex is pretty much going to stop
• Privacy disappears anyway because Filipino kids don't get their own bedrooms
• Filipino men don't like this any more than Western men would — their solution is to have affairs, and Filipinas "pretend to look the other way"
• Pea's advice: warn your Filipina girlfriend early that you're "not playing by Filipino rules when it comes to lashang"

The bait-and-switch argument ​

• Pea plays a clip from another creator making the case that women lure men in with high sexual frequency at the beginning of the relationship, then drastically reduce it after marriage
• The argument: women set the sexual standard early on, and when the man expects that to continue, they get angry at him for it — which is "manipulative, deceiving, and hurtful"
• Pea frames this as a widespread pattern, not unique to any culture

Japan's solution: 68% of Japanese marriages are sexless ​

• More than half of Japanese people don't consider paying for professional adult services as cheating
• Three reasons Japanese give for this view: (1) it's just a service, nothing more; (2) it's not cheating if there are no emotions involved; (3) it should be allowed if you don't feel guilt
• 53% of Japanese women and 60% of Japanese men hold this view
• One woman said she'd feel bad stopping her husband from being fulfilled since she can't offer what he wants
• Another said she'd rather her husband spend money on professionals than get involved with regular women who might cause drama or make false accusations
• Pea's take: "If it works for them, who am I to judge?"

What Western men face — limited options ​

• Western women are "perfectly happy to divorce you for cheating, then take as much as they can as they push you out the door of your own house" — so the Japanese approach doesn't translate
• Option 1: Stay for the kids, sacrifice your own desires out of duty and responsibility — "as many men often do"
• Option 2: Pursue desires outside the marriage or negotiate a "don't ask, don't tell" policy — works in some cultures, harder in others
• Option 3: Decide you're not willing to give up an active sex life and go searching for a new reality
• Option 4: Ignore women and relationships altogether — an increasing number of men are choosing this

70% of divorces are initiated by wives ​

• The vast majority of those are by women over 40
• These women say they don't need a husband anymore and are often done with sex entirely
• Only 15% will ever remarry — they're permanently removing themselves from the dating pool

Pea's conclusion ​

• She refuses to criticize any man's choice in how to handle a sexless marriage — "No one knows better than you what you want out of life"
• She's just sorry it's an issue men have to deal with at all
• The sexless relationship "might be here to stay"

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