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Welcome to Playboy’s Gen Z Sex Survey. In partnership with The Kinsey Institute and the sexual health brand Julie, we talked to 2,373 adults ages 18 to 29 about their sex lives to get to the bottom of the so-called sex recession, and to get more insight on what’s really going on in the bedroom. Check out the full survey results here. This survey also appears in our Fall 2026 print issue. To have Playboy delivered to your door, subscribe here.
To jubilantly suck and fuck in the face of mass catastrophe—could any response be more sensible? Just look at what we’re dealing with.
The death of the planet, sure, but also have you been to Walgreens lately? Have you heard, in the center of your skull, a raging medley of the apocalypse while waiting for someone to free your eight-ounce cylinder of nighttime moisturizer from its cage? This indignity and thousands like it attest to one thing: a population so beaten down, so financially despondent, that it will accept absolutely anything. From such dire economic straits, the stirrings of widespread sexual libertinism have more than once been born.
And yet the results of Playboy’s Gen Z Sex Survey could not be clearer. Rather than increasing overall rates of sucking/fucking—let alone rates of romance—the diminished financial prospects of Gen Z are tanking those rates even further: 43 percent of respondents said that financial concerns have made it harder to date or maintain romantic relationships; 39 percent said that those concerns have made them less likely to pursue those things in the first place. A 2025 study by the University of Chicago and Northwestern University projects that older Gen Zers “will reach retirement with a homeownership rate roughly 9.6 percent lower than that of their parents’ generation.” It turns out that the AI era’s much-discussed drought of entry-level jobs—down 35 percent from 2024, per the World Economic Forum—is affecting far more than Gen Z’s lifetime earning potential.
Now, plenty of dead-broke individuals have managed more or less active sex lives. At the risk of bragging, I’ll say that I myself am psychotically broke, and spend my days hounded by creditors, and was, for complicated reasons, recently told by an accountant to instantly transfer any money I do receive from my bank to a carefully hidden box beneath my bed—and while, yes, I did go a few years of my 20s without sex, that was mostly related to drugs, in the sense that I preferred doing them. By and large, I’ve been dating. But as a millennial, it may be the case that I am better-equipped to pull off the rakish, fucked-up writer thing; Gen Z seems less inclined to emulate, or forgive, this particular archetype.
Who can blame them? You’ve seen the tweets. Women irate that potential suitors won’t spring for first-date chauffeurs. Men convinced that their income, if not their imperfect bone structure, has doomed them to permanent celibacy. Even if your mind is secured against these intrusions, in a world of $30 cocktails, the economics are inescapable. Unsurprisingly, 39 percent of respondents said the cost of dating limited their opportunities for sex or romance.
There are two ways out of this mess. One is a glorious economic upswing that would make Clinton’s ’90s look like the bleakest days of the Dust Bowl. The other is, simply, more honesty—a willingness to cast fear aside, part with preconceived notions, and have some fun, whatever that term might mean for you. A stroll through the park is free, as is, theoretically, falling in love. And last I checked, such healthful activities as fingering or getting fingered don’t cost a dime, in most contexts. All of which, as conditions continue to deteriorate, the young would be wise to keep in mind.
For the full breakdown of The Playboy 2026 Gen Z Sex Survey with the Kinsey Institute and Julie, go to sexsurvey.playboy.com.