Last night on the radio I heard a talk show host talk about a recent survey of over 12,000 men and women in France.

20% of males 18 -24 years old were asexual. No interest in sex what-so-ever.

People calling into the show came up with all kinds of reasons for this phenomenon: To much soy in the diet from an early age. It’s common knowledge soy stimulates estrogen. A reduction of testosterone reduces libido. Another cause could be a combination of additives, hormones and such put into the diet… and yes, computers and video games were also mentioned.

Then there was the psychological aspects like, no male role models, purposeful feminization of boys and boys being influenced by their culture to subdue, deny and feel humiliated about their sexuality.

Normally I would have have been bored and tuned-in another station.

What got my attention was that both men and women who were in their 40’s and 50’s were calling in with their personal observations of young men they knew, who fit into the asexual category. It made me recall that I too had made similar observations about certain young men I had interacted with in business and social situations.

There seemed to be a lack of normal male “vitality” (sexual energy).

Speaking from the standpoint of a man, it’s the kind of vital energy that is so common and normal in men that it only gets your attention when it’s not there. It seems like there is a hole in the man that is lacking it. It was something you very seldom encountered years ago…but is becoming more commonplace. So much so that it’s now apparently being tracked as a statistic, so far at least, in France.

Are we raising a generation of boy-men?

Before puberty a boy is asexual. He doesn’t have the physiological basis for sexual energy. During and after puberty this changes he is supposed to be interested sex. It’s part of our genetic code.

A man’s sexual energy does not only fuel his libido.

It’s long been known that a diminished level of testosterone can make a man feel tired, confused, uncreative and disinterested. Is it possible that some combination of diet, social pressure and what we are teaching boys about what it means to be a man, is contributing to some kind of generational shut-down of normal male virility?

When I was single a few years ago, it was fairly common for a single woman to tell me that she enjoyed my company because there weren’t any “real men” around anymore. Maybe those women were referring to the growing scientific proof of the lack of virility in men.

I was so naive, I thought they were just paying me a compliment!

-Bob Baran