Gen Z has surprising stance on marriage — and they think their beliefs are ‘more exciting’
Sex with strings attached, please!
It’s how Gen Zers prefer to get down and dirty, according to a new survey which shockingly found that today’s increasingly conservative 20-somethings can’t stand one-night stands — unlike millennials, who were totally down to hit-it-and-quit-it 20 years ago.
And when it comes to settling down and tying the knot, the Zs are way more on board with traditional values than kids of the Y2K were in the 2000s.
But Gen Z’s willingness to forgo unmeaningful flings to, instead, say “I Do,” isn’t due to the conservative persuasion.
It’s simply rooted in their interest in leading “more exciting” lives than previous generations.
Charlie Sawyer, 25, a Gen Z media specialist, told The Times, “Young people’s life philosophy has baked into it the idea that divorce is a possibility. And because we don’t see marriage as a forever thing, we are more open to trying it.”
“We don’t always need to be doing things that society deems to be the normal path,” she added, in part.
And it seems that the Gen Z way is anything but normal.
Researchers for The Times surveyed over 1,000 Zoomers, asking whether their cohorts “do commonly” or “don’t commonly” engage in specific sexual behaviors. They also posed questions to assess the demographic’s opinions on marriage, pornography and transgender rights.
The experts discovered that a surprising 62% of Gen Zers are widely opposed to having spur-of-the-moment sex with strangers.
Investigators compared their responses to those of millennials — folks born between 1981 and 1996, who are now either in their late 20s, their 30s or early 40s — who were presented with the same set of questions back in 2004.
At the time, 78% of millennials admitted that their pals were all in favor of a little commitment-free fornication. Only 19% of the then-whippersnappers said their friends did not commonly do “the do” with complete unknowns.
But Gen Z’s aversion to casual shagging might be less about their ethics and more about the toxicity of social media.
“Young people have been uniquely inundated with toxic messaging surrounding sex that has actually disrupted our abilities to feel pleasure,” sexpert Maria Yagoda wrote in 2023 tome, “Laid and Confused: Why we tolerate bad sex and how to stop.”
“Kids are getting sex info from TV, from magazines, from TikTok, and I don’t recall seeing a lot of discourse around sex that is not necessarily horrible, maybe just slightly awkward, maybe sort of ‘meh,’” she explained to Vogue, noting that Gen Z may be facing a sex recession.
Therapists have, too, noticed a steep decline in the generation’s interest in intercourse, blaming it on their technology addictions, as well as increased stress, mental health issues and social stunting due to the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The Z’s apathy towards hanky-panky aside, they’re absolutely mad about holy matrimony, per The Times’ survey.
An eye-popping 61% of respondents regard marriage as relevant, while only 21% feel it’s “irrelevant.”
In 2004, millennials shared similar sentiments, seeing 59% deem the sacred institution relevant, while 39% disagreed.
Perspectives on pornography are also alike between the youngsters of today and those of yesteryear.
Probers discovered that 40% of Gen Zs say their chums commonly watch internet porn, and 36% say they do not. Of the millennials — first-hand witnesses to the dawn of digital porn in the early aughts — 58% said their bud enjoyed worldwide web smut, while 37% said no to the XXX clickbait.
And when it came to better understanding Gen Z’s position on more pressing social issues of the day, like transgender equality, the analysts — who excluded millennials’ take on the matter — found that Zoomers are highly in support of inclusivity.
When asked if they felt trans-women should be permitted to use the ladies room, 56% of Gen Zers, men and women, answered “Yes.”
A whopping 61% of the group also argued that academic institutions should allow students to socially transition at schools.
