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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.
Gen Z has plenty of hurdles when it comes to having sex: Dating exhaustion, fear of rejection, and being straight up too broke for the whole thing rank as some of the most popular reasons to skip getting laid among men and women ages 18 to 29 across the sexual orientation spectrum. But the sex recession’s sneakiest culprit is also, famously, one of the most fun ways to pass the time: making out.
Almost half of all participants (49 percent) in Playboy‘s Gen Z Sex Survey reported kissing nearly every day, while 72 percent of those in relationships reported the same. It makes sense when you think about it. A generation that’s become synonymous with rampant prudishness would be drawn to an act that’s marginally less chaste than sitting on a hot person’s lap at a party. But what further sets Gen Z apart from those who have gleefully sucked face in the past is that … it sort of stops there. Making out is the opening act and the headliner rolled into one.
I can’t help but remember a viral Vine clip in which a young man incredulously asks, “So no head?” before smashing his phone on the ground and cracking his skateboard in half with a dramatic jump. He’d probably hate to hear that 51 percent of single participants hadn’t received or given oral in the past three months. While the socioeconomic and psychological barriers to having sex can’t be solved with a cheeky Playboy article, the making-out dilemma can be rectified with a small shift in perspective.
It’s crucial to see making out for what it’s been since the dawn of time: a gateway drug to hand and/or mouth stuff, and maybe, just maybe, getting it in. If penetrative sex is totally out of the question, that’s fine. But losing yourself in an embodied, passionate make-out session can help make further intimacy feel a little less daunting. You might even want to go all the way.
For the full breakdown of The Playboy 2026 Gen Z Sex Survey with the Kinsey Institute and Julie, go to sexsurvey.playboy.com.