Sex as Social Cachet: Why Our Generation is Having Sex and Not Enjoying It
- Dema Raye
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Are we not having enough sex?
I was having lunch with my girlfriends after a night out, and we were all recapping and debriefing, who went home with whom, who’s hungover, any blackmail videos from the sober friend, when one of them mentioned that an old hinge match ended up coming over to her flat. We all cooed and proceeded to bombard her with questions, “Was it better than it was the last time?” She said it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Another one asked, “Then why did you ask him to come over?” Her response is exactly why I am writing this article: “Because I was bored”.
What struck me wasn’t the fact that she was hooking up with someone she stopped talking to, rather it was the fact that enjoyment didn’t seem to be the purpose of their encounter. It seemed as though it was more about companionship, a way to combat loneliness. And at the brunch, it was about turning that lacklustre interaction into an anecdote, a funny story to tell over matcha.
The New Yorker article: “Are young people having enough sex?” proclaims that this generation is experiencing what they deem to be a ‘sex recession’. In the article, Joe Tolentino questions why this generation isn’t as sexually active as the previous generation, especially when sex has never been more accessible and less taboo, writing, “casual sex can be arranged as efficiently as a burrito delivery from DoorDash.” Personally, I question if the accessibility of sex (through dating apps like Tinder and Hinge) is perhaps making us want it less? I wonder if the stubborn part of our brain that always wants what we can't have now wants it even more as we’re told we shouldn’t want it. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with a lot of what was said in that article. So, I decided to explore how our generation is having sex.
Sex, and the pleasure obtained from it, has become more interpersonal than intrapersonal. In my experience, the idea of a sex recession was ludicrous, considering many people in my social circle, in London, have active sexual lives. However, I did notice a major shift in the purpose and incentive to have sex in the first place.
The shift being, how sex is no longer something we do for ourselves, but rather something we do to say something about ourselves. The purpose behind having sex is less about the experience of the moment but more about the aftermath; the anecdotes we tell our friends, the social cachet that implies we’re desirable, experienced and ultimately “cool”. I use air quotes as I don't believe there is one way to define what cool is anymore. Again, sex adds to our social currency. This seeps into the factors we consider when choosing a sexual partner. It’s not only about chemistry and attraction; now it's about what this will add to our reputation and how impressive the person is to talk about. We can see this in the way we discuss our sexual encounters. The partners themselves often get pushed into the background, replaced by the story they enable. Details are selected not for their emotional significance, but for their narrative value: was it fun, impressive, unexpected, hot, or did it end too quickly? Such questions arise when we discuss our sex lives. Now it may sound superficial and slightly demeaning, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Private acts have now become public narratives. Either they’re boastful narratives or a funny anecdote to tell over drinks or post on our close friends' stories.
This is why I believe our generation is having enough sex, but we’re not having enough good sex. And the solution isn’t to abstain from casual sex; plenty of casual sex is pleasurable and fun, but to reframe the purpose of having it in the first place. Our libido might be high, but our desire is low. Our sexual lives have turned into a distraction, a social currency, a cure for boredom, even. I think right now in this current social climate, we are highly anxious, insecure and disconnected from ourselves and our desires. It makes me think of a lyric from the opening track of the 1975’s latest album Being Funny in A Foreign Language “I’m feeling apathetic after scrolling through hell, I think I’ve got a boner, but I can't really tell”. I’ve always interpreted this line as feeling so numb and overstimulated by all the different content available online, e.g., thirst traps, shirtless men, and girls in bikinis, that a severe disconnect emerges between the body and brain. Your body may be having a biological reaction, but you’re mentally checked out, unable to feel it. And thus, you are less satisfied.
Sex becomes thin when it’s pursued less as an experience and more as a social symbol. It lacks enthusiasm and joy when we want to do it just to do it. Our culture may be sexually expressive and open, but ultimately, we are alienated from both pleasure and desire. So maybe we shouldn’t be questioning if we’re having enough sex, but rather why we are not enjoying sex as much. Once we pose that question, the argument shifts from a sex recession to a lack of desire epidemic. Sex is not disappearing. It is being hollowed out by the performance of it. Until we start talking about that, we will keep mistaking the decline in frequency to mean we’re being less active and more conservative, when what may really be vanishing is the concept that sex is something we do for ourselves, rather than something we do to mean something about ourselves.
Edited by Zarah Hashim, Sex and Relationships Editor
