Why don’t young people today have sex anymore?
“Gen Z”, the current 'young people', not only have less and less sex, but they don't even want to hear about it. Thus the 'Puriteens' were born, which the British press also dubbed "new Victorians", in reference to the proverbial rigidity of Queen Victoria's habits. James Hansen's diplomatic note
For the most part, our readers belong to the generations born in the half century after the Second World War, those who discovered sex as a sort of sport, to be practiced often and for simple pleasure. This was especially true starting from the 1960s, after the advent of the contraceptive 'pill'. Well, now the winds are changing. An emerging 'new puritanism' – the other side of the coin compared to the more trumpeted multiplication of 'gender' – is taking hold among Anglo-Saxon cultures and beyond, but the statistical obsession of Anglophone countries highlights the phenomenon particularly.
The widespread decline in sexual activity – initially attributed to aging populations – had already been noted in the United States. Then, an influential 2016 study highlighted how the increase in the tendency towards 'erotic inactivity' was more marked among those born in the 80s and 90s compared to previous generations. Subsequently, similar data emerged regarding Great Britain. In both cases, the effects of the decline were initially masked by population growth, however due to strong immigration.
Put in these terms, it would be more of a question for epidemiologists. However, with the further acceleration of the phenomenon among the young people of the current "Generation Z" – that is, those born after 1995 – cultural and consumption-related effects are also starting to appear, well summarized in the title of a recent launch by the agency Bloomberg : “ We're raising a generation of prudes ”. That is to say, “We are raising a generation of bigots.”
“Gen Z”, the current 'young people', not only have less and less sex, but they don't even want to hear about it. This is how the ' puriteens ' were born – a play on words between puritans and teenagers – who feel a violent disgust for pornography and scold their classmates on social media when they use terms that are too 'vulgar'. The British press christened them the "new Victorians", a reference to the long reign of Queen Victoria, characterized by a rigidity of customs that remained proverbial. The question, however, is not that simple. These same young people are instead – again according to research – rather 'flexible' regarding the debated gender issues. Perhaps in addition to a moral judgment, this is rather an indication of carelessness, given that they tend to be less 'operational'…
In any case, there is another possible reading, along the lines of: 'Do whatever you want, but don't come and tell me about it…' Yes, because a generational objection to 'obscenities' in the broad sense also emerges. In social evolutions there is always a sort of 'pendulum' that moves between opposite extremes. Perhaps, since mass society has reached an extreme point on one side, all we have to do is begin the slow process of oscillation towards the opposite side…
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/perche-i-giovani-di-oggi-non-fanno-piu-sesso/ on Sun, 10 Dec 2023 07:03:41 +0000.