Achi news desk-
Recent data suggests that Generation Z, people born between 1997 and 2012, are less sexually active than older generations. Why? Possible reasons include increased use of smartphones and social media, high levels of stress, mental health struggles and the effects of COVID lockdowns and legislative restrictions on abortion rights, just to name a few.
According to a survey by the Kinsey and Lovehoney Institute in 2021, one in four Gen Z adults in the United States say they have never had sex in a partnership. However, 31% of people who have not had sex with a partner say they have taken part in virtual sex or sexting.
“So when young adults say they’re not having sex, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sexually inexperienced; instead, many of them seem to be expressing their sexuality in a different way—and, increasingly, that’s through an internet connection,” gender researcher Justin Lehmiller wrote in a blog post about the survey.
Still, statistics don’t paint the full picture. Therapists who work with Gen Z clients are familiar with their innermost thoughts, struggles and fears around sex. These mental health professionals were asked to share some of the gender-related concerns they hear most often from people in this cohort.
1. Trouble communicating boundaries and wishes with their partners.
Although young people tend to embrace values such as consent, bodily autonomy and pleasure, New York City therapist Keanu Jackson said he sees many Gen Z clients who continue to struggle with expressing their boundaries and desires in their relationships .
“I actually come across a bunch of people who are looking for support to learn how to advocate for themselves and speak the truth in their sexual and relational needs,” says Jackson, who is part of The Expansive Group therapy practice, to HuffPost.
“There is a widespread misconception that if you want to have a healthy long-term relationship, you need to be ready to meet 100% of your partner’s needs 100% of the time. Not only is this an extremely dangerous and unrealistic expectation, but it also teaches people that your personal boundaries are not that important. This is especially true when there are clear power differentials present in the relationship and management behaviours.”
To help his clients who struggle in this area, Jackson begins by modeling his own boundaries in the therapeutic relationship, “leaving room for them to ask questions and explore their own,” he says.
“The therapeutic relationship is still a relationship, after all, and a powerful source to help someone build or expand on their own voice.”
2. Pressure to define or label their sexuality.
Los Angeles therapist Torri Efron Pelton said a unique concern she hears from her Gen Z clients is about social pressure to “examine [their] sexuality freely” when they are not yet ready or interested in doing so.
“With the openness of social media and the recognition of multiple sexual identities, teenagers feel more acceptance and pressure to explore themselves and not fit into a box,” she told HuffPost. “Sexual freedom has led to concerns about, ‘What if I don’t want sex to be casual?’ ‘What if I don’t know what I like and what everyone else does?’”
For some younger Gen Zers, this effort to define their sexuality “comes with its own set of issues,” Efron said.
“While expanding our selection of labels is meant to be inclusive, many of my Gen Z clients feel pressured to pick a label early and stick with it rather than truly explore who they are and what they want ,” Efron said.
In their sessions, Efron and her clients explore this pressure to discover their sexual preferences by some arbitrary deadline.
“Often, the individual is able to let go of this imaginary timeline and get back to developing at the rate they want,” he said.
“I often hear, ‘I don’t know what I am,’ referring to sexual preferences,” Efron continued. “To that I simply ask, ‘Why do you need to do that [know] right at this moment?’”
3. Feeling marginalized or excluded from sexual communities.
Jackson said that as a “queer, kinky, Black therapist,” he often gets inquiries from other people of color who want to find connections within sexual communities.
“However, for one reason or another, they have felt excluded and/or others in supposedly ‘safe’ spaces,” she told HuffPost. “Racism, exoticism, and fetishization pose enormous risks to people of color, as our humanity is often dismissed in favor of nonconsensual objectification. There are also various other barriers to entry such as lack of accessibility or deliberately high fees.”
In fact, he has come across adverts for private events where they are”restrict access based on physical appearance — race, weight, height, etc. — or have heard of people who paid to attend a gathering being turned away for no particular reason,” he said. “Any person of color can assume what really happened.”
Olga Rolenko via Getty Images
In their sessions, Jackson helps them realize that the inner shame they feel “has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with ideological and institutional oppression,” he explained.
“I help them continue to locate their power and find connection in places that are actually affirming for them,” Jackson said.
4. Accept spontaneous clear pictures.
Efron’s Gen Z clients also talk to her about people sending them unwanted sexual pictures on Snapchat and other apps where the images disappear after a certain amount of time so there’s “no evidence left.”
“I once had a young male client, about 15. He opened his Snapchat and saw a clear picture being sent to him. He felt completely unsafe returning to school around that age group and was unsure how to process what he had just seen,” he said.
Receiving an unsolicited nude photo can be upsetting and offensive.
“We processed boundaries and sexual concerns and not only that it was okay to say no in person, but to let this partner know that it wasn’t okay. We had to work on this image without turning into an intrusive thought,” Efron said.
“For many of these kids, there’s no warning when they open Snapchat of what they’re about to see. So regardless of setting the boundary that he does not want to engage sexually with this person, he has to live with the image in their mind that he never asked for it. ”
5. Performance anxiety.
From his Gen Z clients, Jackson hears concerns about erection issues and “nervousness with anal sex in general,” especially among the queer, cisgender men he sees, “whether that’s top, bottom, or don’t want to do either.”
“We live in a culture of shame, unfortunately, that determines value judgment based on what your body looks like, and perceived sexual ability,” she said.
“What I mean by this, for example, is that based on how you look, someone can assign you a sexual script before you even have the chance to introduce yourself. If you somehow don’t fit the mold that was created for you, then chances are you will be abused or shamed just for being yourself, which of course could lead to more anxiety when you try to have sex or be intimate. with someone.”
When working with clients dealing with performance anxiety, Jackson often first asks them about their early models for sexual behavior. And although comprehensive sex education has become more accessible over the past decade, “There are still very pervasive and harmful messages about sex and intimacy that are deeply embedded in our culture that will not go away for some time,” she said.
In their sessions, Jackson said he listens for generalizations and judgments and “gets curious with them about what has driven those beliefs to be true,” he said.
Sometimes, he even talks openly about his own experiences with erectile dysfunction or sex-related anxiety “in an attempt to reveal that what we go through alone is more common than we realize we believe it at first,” he said.
