Sex isn't cool and you shouldn't be doing it

Takes me a long ole time to get to the point in this one

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the negative impact of growing up online during the height of the sex positivity movement. I would recommend reading that essay, Sex is cool and you should be doing it, before this one. Sex positivity was the lens I chose to look through, but the real problem, in my opinion, is the way that information travels and grows on the internet, as well as the degree that young people use the things they see online to construct their identities. The sex positivity movement of the early 2010s meant that a large number of terminally-online teenagers grew up believing that sexual empowerment meant having all the sex all the time. This belief is a symptom of a wider disease, and that disease is the internet. Online, there are no prizes for nuance, but there are rewards for the people with the ‘hottest’ takes and the most scandalous opinions. It’s all aesthetic and no substance. This week, I want to talk about how online attitudes towards sex have changed in the last decade or so, and show that this shift is also rooted in a misunderstanding of sex and its relationship with culture.

I’m twenty-five, which means that although I’m very much part of Gen Z, I don’t really feel like I am. These generational markers are pretty meaningless; useful to have but by no means definitive. I feel like the most important distinction here is between ‘old people’ and ‘young people’. Where the exact cuts offs lie for these categories is up to you; I’m sure some of you think that 25 is old, and some of you think that it’s breathtakingly young (and I agree with you both, depending on where I’m at in my menstrual cycle). Basically, I’m generalising wildly about a big group of people in this post, and if you’re reading it and getting angry because you don’t think I’ve captured you accurately, that’s fine. I’m not talking about you.

Anyway, the word that I think most directly defines young people today is LESS. At first glance, this might seem incorrect, considering the way young people scroll and buy shit, surely the operative word is MORE, right? More screen-time, more consumption etc. But in their real lives, less is the operative word. Young people are dating less. Drinking less. Partying less. Having less sex. Less friends. Less time outside¹. Less time to succeed. Obviously, there is some good here. Sober curiosity is healthy, and it seems like now there are more options for young people in universities and social groups than getting shitfaced all the time and hoping that the act will someday lead you to friendship². But on a whole, I find it depressing. I feel so deeply sad for people who had their formative years stolen by the pandemic and were forced to spend their prime coming-of-age time in their bedrooms on zoom calls. Losing the messy teenage years means that a whole generation of young people are graduating into adulthood with different goals and ideas of what they should be doing. It’s all She-EOs (is that how you write that) and 75 hards and clean girl aesthetics and self-discipline. It’s all about preserving a youth you aren’t even living. Like, you’re nineteen, why do you know what mouth tape is? You should be having a laugh. I’m sure this is the right path for some people, but it sure as hell is not the universal path to happiness.

And now I’ve filled in the backdrop… Let’s talk about sex. Young people are having less sex than ever, for a ton of reasons. Everyone’s mental health is bad, technology is the main form of connection, social isolation is higher amongst young people than it ever has been (and again I’m looking at you, pandemic). Young people aren’t fucking anymore, but they are watching porn, and because of this, attitudes towards sex seems to have regressed hugely. Honestly, it’s getting a bit Handmaid’s Tale guys! You’re all so left-wing, but when you talk about sex, it gets a bit conservative. All sex is being characterised as ‘problematic’ in a way that feels puritanical. I’m sure you’ve seen the articles: Do we have to have sex scenes in movies? no kink at pride, Sabrina Carpenter is scaring me, this dance is too sexy, this outfit is too sexy, this book was too smutty, I’m scared of sex etc. etc. Paraphrased, obviously, but essentially true.

The push for no sex scenes in moves is the one that really gets me. Calling to blanket censor a key part of the human experience because… because why? Why the demonisation? Here, we have the dirty disease of the internet coming back to do its thing. Young people have grown up in the era of #MeToo and choice feminism. They know terms like ‘male gaze’ and ‘Bechdel test’ and ‘rape culture’ and now it’s like ALL sex is bad and gross. Complicated discussions have been boiled down to the belief that overt sexuality is always misogynistic, and although I know these takes come from a good place, it’s pretty terrifying. Girls being sexy is not and has never been the problem. The problem is girls being made to feel that sexiness is their only asset. The problem is girls being forced into having sex they don’t want to have. The problem is children being objectified by adults. Sabrina Carpenter - an adult with agency and power - wearing sexy outfits on HER album tour and making horny jokes about blow-jobs is not the problem. Grow up!

Sometimes, it feels like this mass online prudishness is an over-correction for the sex positivity movement that directly preceded it. You know, we used to think that all sex was good, but now we’re saying that it’s all bad. Much like everything, the truth here is in the middle. Sex is amorphous and specific and contradictory. It’s good and bad and something else. What I do know is that it’s important; a key part of the human experience that should not be erased. Songs, movies, novels and essays (most of them better than this one) will keep trying to capture the experience, to pick it apart and drool over it. Whether we’re doing it or not, we’re obsessed with it, and trying to erase it from the discourse is an attempt to make the world less colourful. Smaller, bleaker, less offensive and easier to understand. Nobody ever hurts anyone’s feelings and nobody ever feels uncomfortable. What a sad little life, right?

1. Doesn’t even feel like a word anymore

2. Hey, worked for me!