Claims have emerged that members of Generation Z (who were born between the late ’90s and the late aughts and who are also unfortunately known as Zoomers) are “puriteens,” and this moment in time is a “sex recession.” Over the past few years, a number of studies have shown that Gen Z is dating less and having less casual sex, even at a time when both have never been more accessible thanks to the proliferation of dating apps and other social media. But the truth is far more complicated, less puritanical, and has quite a lot to do with recent sexual politics.
“Culturally, our definition of what sex is has shifted big time,” says Saleema Noon, a Vancouver-based sexual health educator who has worked with children, youth, and parents. “Sex isn’t just penis and vagina.”
Shows like Netflix’s Heartstopper and Sex Education, for example, offer representations of different sexual identities and expressions that historically weren’t featured in media or taught in schools, says twenty-three-year-old journalist Honey Wyatt based in London, UK. The Teens and Screens survey by the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at the University of California Los Angeles recently found that a near majority of respondents felt romance is overused in media, while nearly 40 percent said they want to see more non-romantic relationships and/or asexual characters on screen.
Those numbers indicate how young adults seem to be approaching their own sex lives. A 2021 survey of 2,000 US adults aged eighteen to twenty-four, conducted by the Kinsey Institute and sex toy brand Lovehoney, found that about 25 percent of them were yet to have partnered sex (a.k.a. in-person intercourse with one or more people, whether casual or committed). The survey also found that 57 percent reported having engaged in another type of sexual activity that they don’t consider partnered sex—for example, 31 percent reported having indulged in cybersex and sexting. Gen Z was found to be the “kinkiest” generation; when they are having in-person sex, they are the most likely to fantasize about and try BDSM.
It’s important to consider that this generation has come of age in a post-#MeToo world. When the hashtag went viral in 2017, it brought mass awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual violence and the importance of consent. Five years later, Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court ruling which guaranteed a right to abortion, was overturned in the US. In the wake of the decision, according to another Lovehoney report, 40 percent of Gen Z adults said they were less likely to have casual sex, with 37 percent of women worried about becoming pregnant and nearly a fifth of women afraid to have sex at all.
The list of stressors doesn’t stop there. This is also a generation that is living with their parents longer and facing more mental health challenges. They’re having a tough time finding work and are living economically precarious lives. All of which is to say they’re stressed as hell, so sex may not always be top of mind. But finding a place of comfort is.
“For us, sex is more about physical and emotional intimacy, and that isn’t reserved just for our partners,” says twenty-two-year-old Londoner Namrata Harish. “That is also probably why we’re having less sex—we’re not just looking at meeting our sexual needs, we’re also looking to fulfill others.” For some Gen Zers, first base is about building an emotional connection, and second base is about setting boundaries. These two things can build confidence for third base—the space and safety to openly share desires. And this can make for a smooth slide into home base: really great sex.
Take the original Mean Girls, released in 2004. Many consider it the quintessential high school movie for millennials. In a telling scene, Coach Carr exemplifies the extent of sex education at the time (read: he’s a gym teacher playing double duty and doesn’t dive all that deep). He declares: “Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don’t have sex in the missionary position, don’t have sex standing up, just don’t do it, promise? Okay, everybody take some rubbers.”
Cut to this year’s film adaptation of the musical based on that film, which has been updated for a newer, younger audience, emphasized by the trailer for the film. The kids take an actual health and human sexuality class, again taught by Coach Carr (played this time by Jon Hamm). He does indeed dive quite deep, telling them, “We’ll be getting into abstinence, followed by, in the spring, condoms, then choking.” Cut to a millennial mom telling her child, “You are learning things now that I don’t know how to teach.” On the nose? A little. But it certainly illustrates how far we’ve come. Gen Z is exploring the spectrum of sexual identity comfortably and more openly, partly thanks to widely available online porn and the normalization of conversations around sex and sexuality by various social media communities.
That isn’t, of course, without consequences. But modern Coach Carr’s sex ed is unfortunately not ubiquitous—and the lack of consent-focused sex ed isn’t without consequences. One 2020 US survey found that a substantial percentage of Americans reported having engaged in behaviours often perceived as rough, aggressive, and/or associated with sexual harassment or violence, and that 58 percent of female college students have been choked during sex.
In a 2021 qualitative study of twenty-four undergraduate and graduate women students aged eighteen to thirty-three, many reported being choked without giving consent. In an interview with Business Insider about the study, the lead researcher said that “many of the young people we’ve interviewed just don’t see choking as that big of a deal” and didn’t talk about it in the same way many don’t talk about, say, engaging in oral sex before doing it. All of which suggests this generation’s prudence may be slightly exaggerated.
According to recent research by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada, young people do want comprehensive sexual health education that includes subjects like pleasure, communication, sexual and reproductive rights, and prevention of negative outcomes (e.g. gender-based violence, consent, and the ethics and values related to interpersonal relationships). Around 80 percent are keen for the material to be inclusive and scientifically accurate and for it to promote gender equality.
It’s clear that, on the more cautious end of the spectrum, Gen Zers are more selective and prioritize platonic relationships above all else. In a 2022 YPulse survey of 1,500 Canadian and American people aged thirteen to thirty-nine, 55 percent said friendship is more important to them than a romantic relationship.
“My friends are my lifeline, my everything. I couldn’t imagine prioritizing romance over my friendships,” says Sidney, a twenty-three-year-old Toronto-based researcher who asked to speak under a pseudonym because of his work. He notes romance tends to last briefly in his peer group, while friends are for life. “My friendships have made me into the person I am, and my friends have stood by me during my best and worst moments. Friendship is also unconditional—they love me for me—but I find romance to be rather conditional and a bit shallow even.”
“There are other things that are more important than sex or a relationship,” says Dharmesh Patel, a twenty-four-year-old Mumbai-based screenwriter. “For me, my friends, creative pursuits, learning new things, and career ambitions take priority over spending time [finding] a romantic interest.”
“There’s a huge trend towards romanticizing your life, and I think having people who have seen you grow up and accepted you in different phases of your life lends itself naturally to that,” says Wyatt. “There is something so film-esque about the fact that your friends are the people who will be in your life forever, while romantic partners come and go.”
As Noon points out, for many young people, some of their most intimate relationships aren’t playing out in the physical world. “Their best friends are people they haven’t even met, and their romantic and sexual relationships progress and evolve through text.” That may make opportunities for things like partnered sex less frequent, she says. But there are upsides.
Without the watchful, judgmental eyes of others, the internet has become a prime resource for sex education. According to a 2020 study by the British Board of Film Classification, as reported in the Guardian, “one side effect of early exposure to online pornography is that gay, lesbian or bisexual respondents often understood their sexuality at a younger age.”
For better or for worse, the internet has handed Gen Z the reins. For instance, Wyatt co-created a podcast and magazine called Sextras when she was just twenty years old, expressly to discuss sex and relationships with her generation. “Sex education is so bad at school that I think young people have endless questions, so the internet is a place for them to seek it out and feel validated in their experiences,” she says. “Any medium that allows us to encourage younger generations to have constructive conversations about sex, away from peer pressure, is really important and allows them to lead the way on what information they need and want.”
Gen Z now has greater access to language that best describes their unique lived experiences—terms like asexual, aromantic, and polysexual. So, too, has come greater normalization of other identities. For instance, American Gen Zers are more likely to report identifying as trans or non-binary than people from other generations, according to the US Census Bureau’s 2021 HouseholdPulse Survey.
And according to a 2024 Gallup poll, more of them identify as LGBTQ+ than those from any other generation. LGBTQ+ people could make up 10 to 15 percent of the adult population “in the not-too-distant future,” Jeff Jones, the author of a previous iteration of the Gallup poll, told Axios in 2022. That suggests an increasingly diverse political outlook and changing societal norms. As it turns out, the future has never looked brighter.
By being intentional about who they are intimate with, Gen Z has found space for authenticity. With more information and greater accessibility, they get to make more informed choices about what is best for them. Ultimately, that resembles a path toward healthier relationships and, perhaps, stronger communication skills, more confidence in their desires, and a truly liberated and empowered adulthood.
“People are evaluating their options and realizing it’s okay to not date or have sex,” says Wyatt.
When they do choose sex and romance, they’ve got a set of rules at the ready. If you can’t follow them? They’ll show you the door and find someone who can.
