Sex positivity is not cool. Some of us might even go so far as to call it “cringe.” At the same time, we’ve all seen the stats: just about every generation, but especially Gen Z, is having less sex. That would be fine, of course, if we aren’t all reporting increasing feelings of sadness, having fewer friends and becoming more unlikely to form relationships. It isn’t simply that people are choosing to be more traditional in their romantic lives — it’s that people are so isolated from others that they haven’t been given much of a choice. Is there a future of sex positivity that might be the fix?
I can remember a time, early in high school, when there was something about the concepts of sex positivity that felt radical to my virgin eyes: the bold belief that women should not feel shame for wanting pleasure the same way men do, or the assertion made through events like Slut Walk that dressing provocatively wasn’t an invitation for assault. But with sex positivity were also certain consequences and critiques. Yes, sex is good and fun and can be something frivolous, but there are also many of us for whom committed, meaningful sex is more our style. In recent years, many young men and women alike have suggested that the style of hookup culture that sex positivity promoted in part did them harm, emotionally or otherwise.
Sex positivity, moreover, reached a level of oversaturation. Its ideas practically felt like you’d find them as a slogan on a t-shirt at Target. For younger Gen Z, who have grown up online and with nearly unfettered access to sexuality ranging from PornHub to Instagram, sex positivity was a dominant attitude for much of their upbringing, at least on the Internet. And naturally, they’ve rebelled against it — just as Gen Z is reporting having less sex, they are also reporting increasingly puritanical attitudes towards it.
All this brings me back to my core question: could it be time for the pendulum to swing back once again, and for a revitalized, reconsidered version of sex positivity to take the ideological lead?
It will first and foremost have to come from ourselves: a confident assertion that sex is a cultural and personal benefit, whatever that might mean to you. This itself might require a reacquainting with the sex positivity of the past, picking out what works and what didn’t. Desire, eroticism and enjoyment? Let’s keep those. An obsession with labels, public approval and pressure to pursue things we don’t actually want? These can remain in 2015.
While it may begin with ourselves, there’s evidence of this shift elsewhere, too. Dating apps like Feeld and Pure have been taking a shot at some of this reconsideration, framing sex and desire not as a requirement in the way many viewed early sex positivity but as something personal, fun and exploratory. While Feeld positions itself as the app for the “curious,” functional for those pursuing nearly any number of sexual or romantic arrangements, Pure is almost explicitly marketed as an app for hooking up, at least in large part: “Pure helps escape the predictability and boredom of modern dating and opt for something more exciting and hedonistic,” the website’s FAQ reads. “This is the place where we can all explore and indulge safely, prioritising open, intriguing connections based on mutual respect.” Pure, moreover, has been campaigning in recent months to a Gen Z audience — just look at its marketing.
A few weeks back, I spoke with Avril Clarke, the brand and partnerships lead for Pure who is also a sexologist. Embracing sex positivity without the cringe has been a goal not just for the app, but for the field of sexology writ large. “A lot of my practice has been in understanding sex positivity as an umbrella term,” she said. “It’s not something that means that you’re someone who is sexually active and is dating actively and has multiple partners. It’s actually someone who is just simply understanding and respectful of anyone’s relationship towards sex and sexuality, period.”
By her view, one possibility for redefining sex positivity is maybe to drop all the labels we associate with it: “Millennials were super about labels, being out and proud, labeling their sexuality and their sexual orientation and how they want to choose to date and move in the world of relationships and sex,” she told me. “I feel like now we’re each reaching that other side of the spectrum where we’re understanding that everything is a spectrum, we don’t need a label, and we don’t need to talk about it all the time.”
But not talking about it all the time doesn’t need to mean that we shy away from sex completely. Maybe instead it just means accepting sex as a part of life, one that can be messy and complicated but is still to be embraced as something fun and human.
In film and television, I’ve begun noticing an uptick in sex scenes that feel less sadistically voyeuristic (I’m looking at you, Euphoria) but are rather cheeky, playful and filled with humor, like the opening scene in HBO’s latest Rachel Sennott project, I Love LA. In it, Sennott’s character is having sex with her boyfriend in the morning when an earthquake hits, and it turns out, having sex during an earthquake feels pretty good. The scene adds little to the overall plot and is never discussed again — it’s just a quick moment of zest, and that’s all it needs to be. Maybe it’s time for us to start looking at sex with a little bit of this sort of levity again. It doesn’t require explanation or overthinking or deep analysis: its value is self-explanatory.
We don’t have to be sex positive, but being sex negative doesn’t seem to be doing us much good, either. How about we try something else?
