A quick scroll through TikTok or Instagram and it won’t be long until you notice the hyper-sexualised profiles of many young people.
Switch on Netflix or HBO, and you’ve got a smorgasbord of series like Euphoria, Sex Education and Elite – where the secret sex lives of Gen Z take center stage.
And that got us thinking – is Gen Z getting more sex?
Well, it depends on how you look at it.
Australia Talks, a research-based initiative developed by the ABC, last surveyed Gen Zs about their sex lives in 2019.
And at first glance, the results suggest that rather than having more sex than previous generations, Gen Zs are actually in a ‘sex recession’.
For example, when asked how frequently they have sex, a whopping 40% of Gen Zs said they ‘never’ have sex, while 13% said they have sex once or less than once per year.
Just 37% said they have sex once a month or more.
Now that contrasts wildly with the current sex habits of Millennials, with 67% of those over 30 having sex once a month or more.
In fact, these stats make Gen Z about as sexually active as people aged 75 and over.
Yup. We’re as shocked as you are.
But before we get too hysterical and start calling Gen Z the ‘sexless’ generation, let’s take a look at comparative data – which disproves claims that Gen Z’s the least sex-positive generation in quite some time.
For example, a female Year 12 student back in 2018 was 11.3% more likely to be having sex than a Year 12 student in 1992 (who’d fall into the Gen X category).
She was also 10% more likely to have received oral sex than a young woman who graduated in 2002.
Psychologist Dr Richard de Visser, who contributes to the comprehensive Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR), told The Guardian that describing Gen Z as being in the midst of a “sex recession” is “probably a bit extreme”.
On the flip side, he suggests any shifts in young people’s sex habits could actually be attributed to some pretty positive changes: the shift to choosing quality over quantity, an increase in healthy masturbation, or people feeling more comfortable saying ‘no’ to a partner.
Now that’s pretty sexy.
