Why Is Gen Z Having Less Sex? What the Research Actually Says
Young adults are having less sex than any generation before them, and a lot of them are not even masturbating. The reasons are not what the hot takes say, and what they stand to lose is bigger than sex.
Here is the short answer. Gen Z is having less sex because they are dating less, going out less, spending less money, and spending far more time alone with a phone than any generation before them. It is not because they have stopped wanting it. In the biggest new survey of 18 to 29 year olds, most of them still report moderate to high sexual desire. The want is there. The opportunities, the money, and the practice are not.
That gap matters more than the headline number. Sex, solo or partnered, does real things for your body and your mood. And the habits that lead to sex, like flirting, asking someone out, getting turned down and trying again, are the same habits that build friendships, relationships, and the kind of social confidence that carries a person through life. When those habits fade, more than your sex life takes the hit.
What the numbers actually say
The trend has been building for well over a decade, and it shows up in nearly every serious dataset. The General Social Survey, one of the longest running surveys of American life, is the one most researchers lean on.
The drop is not only about partners. In that same Kinsey Institute survey, run with Playboy and the contraceptive brand Julie, about a third of Gen Z men and close to half of Gen Z women had not masturbated in the past three months. As Playboy put it when the results came out, Gen Z is not just having less sex with each other, a lot of them are having less sex with themselves, too.
But they still want it
This is the part the doom headlines skip. In the Kinsey Institute data, 74% of young adults reported moderate to very high sexual desire. Garcia has said his own research finds about 80% of Gen Z want a romantic relationship, while about 55% say they are not ready for one. Want and readiness have come apart.
It is also worth saying that not every dataset agrees on how steep the slide is. A study of nearly 28,000 people from the women's health app Flo found 87.2% of Gen Z respondents had partnered sexual experience, close to the 89.9% of older groups, although that sample was mostly women. And half of young adults in the Kinsey Institute survey said they do not think there is a sex recession at all. The fair reading is that fewer young people are having sex, and the ones who are have it less often, but the picture is not as empty as the internet likes to suggest.
Dating costs money they do not have
Money came up again and again. In the Kinsey Institute survey, 43% said money worries make it harder to date and keep a relationship going, 37% said financial stress hurts their sex life, and 39% said the cost of dating limits their chances to meet someone. Coverage of the survey gave the trend a name, affordating, which is a cute word for a not very cute problem. Dinner, drinks, and a ride home add up fast when rent eats half your paycheck, and so does living with your parents well into your twenties, which is not exactly a sexy logistical setup.
The phone in every pocket
Time with friends has fallen off a cliff. The Institute for Family Studies reports young adults spent about 12.8 hours a week with friends in 2010 and just 5.1 hours in 2024. In the Kinsey Institute survey, 28% said device use reduces their motivation to connect in person, and 34% of young men said porn fully satisfies their sexual desire. A scroll is always available. A person you have to text first, then meet, then risk being turned down by, is not.
They skipped the practice round
A lot of us learned how to be with another person badly, as teenagers, with low stakes. Awkward first kisses, school dances, a breakup that felt like the end of the world and was over by spring. That practice round is disappearing. The Survey Center on American Life found 44% of Gen Z men never dated as teenagers, roughly double the rate of older men.
Garcia frames it as a skills problem rather than a desire problem. He calls the sex recession "really a symptom of a lack of sexual literacy." Nobody taught most of us how to ask for what we want, and fewer young people are getting the trial and error that used to fill the gap. If that sounds familiar, my guide on how to tell your partner what you're curious about has scripts you can borrow.
Games that do the talking for you
Some of it is a good thing
Not all of this is a crisis. Young people are more comfortable saying no, more open about asexuality, and less willing to stay in situationships that make them miserable. Debby Herbenick, a sex researcher at Indiana University who has studied this decline for years, has pushed back on the idea that there is a right amount of sex to be having.
Peter Ueda, the Karolinska Institute epidemiologist who led the JAMA Network Open study, made the same point plainly: "Sexual inactivity should not be subject to shame or ridicule." If you are choosing a quieter season on purpose and you feel good about it, that is a valid choice. The concern is for the people who want connection and cannot find their way to it.
Why sex and masturbation are good for you
This is not just about pleasure, although pleasure is a perfectly good reason on its own. There is research behind the idea that a regular sex life, including the one you have with yourself, is good for your body.
That last point is worth sitting with. Solo play is not a lesser version of sex. It is how most people learn what their body likes, which makes partnered sex better when it does happen. If you are new to it, my list of the best beginner vibrators is a gentle place to start.
Easy toys for a solo start
What this generation could lose
The bigger risk is not fewer orgasms. It is fewer people. The former Surgeon General's advisory on loneliness found that it raises the risk of early death by nearly 30%, with a health impact compared to smoking about 12 cigarettes a day. A Global Web Index study found roughly 8 in 10 Gen Z adults felt lonely in the past year.
Sex is not the cure for loneliness, but the road to it runs through the same places. You meet people, you flirt, you take a risk, you get it wrong, you try again. Each of those steps builds social muscle you use everywhere, from a job interview to making friends in a new city. Fewer young adults are moving in together, too. The share of 18 to 29 year olds living with a partner fell from 42% in 2014 to 32% in 2024. Skip enough of those steps and you can end up wanting connection, and not knowing how to start it.
Garcia has a good line about the newest shortcut, AI companions and chatbots standing in for real flirting: "If you use AI like training wheels, at some point you have to take them off." The same goes for porn, for endless swiping, and for the comfort of staying in. They can be fine. They are not the whole meal.
If this sounds like you
You do not need a dramatic life overhaul. You need a few small, repeatable reps.
Pick one in-person thing a week. A class, a run club, a standing coffee with a friend. Not to find a partner. Just to be around people with your phone in your pocket.
Lower the stakes on asking. Try something like, "I've liked talking to you. Want to grab a coffee this week?" If the answer is no, you have practiced, which was the point.
Get to know your own body. Solo play is research, not a consolation prize. Knowing what you like makes it far easier to say it out loud later.
Talk about it before it gets physical. A card game or a question deck sounds corny until it gets two nervous people talking openly in ten minutes.
What I keep coming back to
I am 41, which makes me a very interested outsider here. When I read this research, what stands out is not that a generation has gone off sex. It is that a lot of young people want closeness and do not have the money, the time, or the practice to reach it. That is fixable, and most of the fixes are small.
If you are choosing a quiet season, enjoy it without apology. If you are lonely and quietly wishing things were different, start with one small rep this week. And if your desire has gone missing and you are not sure why, my guide on where your sex drive might have gone is a good next read. For more on enjoying your own company, my Solo Era page collects it all in one place.
Want is not the problem. Practice is.
Pleasure, connection and confidence are all skills. Every one of them gets easier with reps.
Have a question? Email us →Sources
- Institute for Family Studies, The Sex Recession: The Share of Americans Having Regular Sex Keeps Dropping, 2025 (General Social Survey data).
- Ueda, Mercer, Ghaznavi and Herbenick, JAMA Network Open, 2020, via PsyPost.
- Kinsey Institute with Playboy and Julie, 2026 Gen Z survey, via Fast Company, IFLScience and YPulse.
- Survey Center on American Life, Gen Z's Romance Gap, 2024.
- Justin Garcia interview, WIRED, via An Intimacy Crisis Is Driving the Dating Divide.
- Flo study of 28,000 participants, via Newsweek, 2026.
- Debby Herbenick, WBUR Here and Now, 2022.
- Rider et al., European Urology, 2016, via Boston University School of Public Health.
- Stuart Brody, University of Paisley, via News-Medical, 2006.
- Lastella et al., Sex and Sleep, Frontiers in Public Health, 2019.
- Cleveland Clinic, Masturbation.
- U.S. Surgeon General's advisory on loneliness, via AP, 2023; Global Web Index via Newsweek.
About Zoey
Everything we sell is here because I chose it. I opened The White Unicorn in 2016, I still do all the buying myself, and I have tested most of what I sell. Ten years of answering the same questions is how I learned what people actually need, and it is why I will happily tell you when something is not worth your money.