Doesn't Anybody F**k Any More? — Reddit edition

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https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1brlkbi/is_the_lack_of_sex_that_gen_z_is_having_actually/

An excerpt:

As far as the last comment, I’m a bit wary when it comes to stories like this, especially ones that are shared on social media platforms like Reddit. (I’m also wary of alleged professors.) I would be interested to hear the woman’s side of things in the interaction. Sometimes inappropriate behavior is not so obvious to someone else. Maybe the observer missed something unless his eyes were glued on the people involved during the entire interaction which would be weird.

Another reason why I’m skeptical: sometimes people think something isn’t that bad when it is to others.

The rest seems like anecdotal evidence although there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it if it’s true. People are under no obligation to flirt or f**k.

If that is this professor's "experiment" there's a lot of missing information. The first being, the 30 students in his college class may (probably?) have partners outside of the class, and are not interested in flirting. Maybe they stick with their own genders because they find it less distracting, and classes can be stressful enough, and this is what works for them. Does he have evidence the students perform better or worse if they are in mixed groups or not? Shouldn't their success in class come first? What exactly is this professor prioritizing, and why does he feel these two or three dozen young adults who spend a few hours a week in the same room need to be flirting with each other? This is a strange observation to me.

^ It seems strange coming from a professor who should know better. The sample size is too small to come to any conclusion.

I would add, a lot of flirting happens over the phone....

Damn kids these days (joking)

Yeah, I mean it's all anecdotal isn't it? I see articles occasionally on how young people are having less sex. In some publications there's always a push to blame this on culture war issues - i.e. young people being too sensitive, offending each other, not sure what sex anyone is etc. I tend not to trust that because it's always the people who think this is a bad thing pushing the idea, I never hear anyone from the so-called sensitive, easily-offended side talking about it. It doesn't seem to be an issue for them.

I do think something has happened in popular culture regarding sex. When I see sex on TV or movies, it tends to fall into one of two categories. It's either the culmination of a long, troublesome courtship - a lifechanging event in other words, a literal and figurative climax, or it's a sex crime (another life-changing event).

I see very little in the way of casual sex portrayed. There are probably good reasons for this, safe sex being one. Also, in terms of narrative building, casual sex isn't very useful.

That's still anecdotal, but I do feel that the idea of sex being fun, frivolous, unthreatening is something we used to have but it's become something heavier, for better or worse.

^I want to be completely clear that I'm not in any way saying that what anybody has gone through was not a big deal or that they shouldn't feel exactly how they feel about it.

All I'm saying is that if culture teaches us that sex is only ever life-changingly good, or life-changingly bad, what are we supposed to do with the experiences that are neither? How should we parse those experiences? Without representation of the meaningless/casual experiences is there a danger that we see them through the lens of the extremes? (In either direction)

Again, not saying that the extremes don't exist, just that we might be missing something if we make them the baseline.

Bear in mind that anything life changing can be scary, good as well as bad, and that might be contributing to a recent cultural lack of enthusiasm for experimenting (if indeed that is real).

Well I agree with the professor anyway

Cultural norms didn’t play much of a role in terms of my own experience or perception which is part of the reason why I might be a bit skeptical. I didn’t know that some of my experiences were criminal or abnormal at the time. I homeschooled, was highly sheltered, and had no sex education. Of course, sex was viewed as something private, so I didn’t share what I was going through either. When I learned that I had a right to feel the way I did, it was…liberating. When I thought it was normal, I tended to blame myself more and in different ways - for my feelings and even for the experiences.

Not every episode of nonconsent was abusive in an overtly violent or intentionally cruel sense. I found them harmful, a big deal, and not something I could just shrug off even though I didn’t know they were abnormal or technically the r word. It is degrading not to have a say in something that concerns your own body, especially in such an intrusive sense.

I think we view sex as a big deal because it can be a big deal in a variety of ways. Of course, I’m not saying that society can’t have a big impact on our perspectives as well. Maybe a bit of both is going on.