When the Supreme Court canceled Roe V. Wade In 2022, the decision not only eliminated federal law from abortion; He also inaugurated “a generational change in the way people approach sex,” said journalist Carter Sherman.
Sherman is a journalist in reproductive health and judge The guardian Where she has covered the real world’s results of abortion prohibitions, access to health care for trans people and how technology resumes our vision of our body and our choices. In his new book, The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation Fight for his future, Sherman writes that generation Z – that the Pew Research Center defines as people born between 1997 and 2012 – have fewer sexual relations than previous generations.
Sherman conducted more than 100 interviews with adolescents, young adults and experts for the book. She says that the decline of interest in sex goes beyond the issue of abortion rights.
“We have the power of the Internet, smartphones, social media, porn. We too have the pandemic,” she said. “Often, we consider sex as one thing that occurs between two or more people in a room. But in reality, the terms of our sex life are often fixed for us in schools and school boards and audience rooms and legislatures at the congress and the White House.”
Sherman notes that during the pandemic, many courses in sex education were carried out on zoom or completely eliminated: “The emerging studies that we have on this subject show that teachers have become very nervous, that parents would hear what was going on and that they would oppose it,” says Sherman. “And indeed, it is true that parents have become incredibly exasperated on sex during the pandemic. And we really see that taking shape after the pandemic.”
Sherman says that a large part of the sex that now exists in American public schools focuses solely on abstinence, rather than offering a more complete vision of questions of consent and sexual health. But, she adds: “I do not think you can really make the stopwatch go back into the technological inventions that we have seen since the 1950s, birth control, internet, women’s rights in many ways. … I hope people can really look to the future and see what we live now, as being opposed to trying to do what I call conservatism.”
Strengths of the interview
On young people who learn porn sex
Something I really wanted to do in the book is to understand what the Internet teaches young people sex. And in previous generations, you may be limited to seeing the sex glimpsed by your father Playboy that he left behind. But today you can activate your computer or watch your phone and google for any type of sex you want, and probably some you don’t have.
What I found really interesting to talk to young people about porn is that I was in a way expected a range of perspectives on this subject. I had thought that some people, especially the people who are on the left, would have a warmer view on this subject. People on the right would be more anti-Porn. But instead, what I found was that young people felt really bad in their relationship with porn. And they estimated that porn had sexually distorted them and normalized particularly “raw sex” in such a way that they had the impression that their sex life had been transformed forever.
On sexual educators clarifying that porn is not a real intimacy model
What the sexual educators to whom I spoke really tried to emphasize when they talked to young people is, as, it is Hollywood. You do not see people driving cars in an action movie and think, oh I should drive my car in this way. But because we have so much eliminated the possibility of full sex in so many schools, it is really the only outlet that many young people must not only look at porn, but also look in particular what sexual pleasure looks like. How can someone feel good? How to do me good? These are questions to which porn does not hesitate to answer, but does not always provide the best answers.
On the lasting impact of the #MeToo movement for girls
For many young women, what the movement me too did helped to understand that it was unfair that they were haunted by their first sexual experiences. They understood, I think that much earlier than I did, and much earlier than many older generations than if something had happened to them, they felt in a way, that in fact it could have been a sexual assault or sexual harassment and that it is false, that they deserve better resources. Because at the same time, however, what I did not do too was really leading to a mass institutional change. The biggest lasting reforms that came out of the Me Too movement were things that had to do with work places, with better HR training, with the NDA reform. And so for many young women, especially with whom I spoke, they ended up with this understanding that “OK, sexual harassment and assault are everywhere and it is bad, but I have no means to repair this situation if something bad happens to me.” And it finally creates anxiety, right? If you walk as the world is very dangerous, it is not good for the way you try to live your life.
On the trend of young men moving to the right and feeling demonized
There was a young man whom I really appreciated how simple he was on this subject, where he is a defender of reproductive justice. He is a democrat. He really believes in the mission of the movement me too, but he told me that he thought he could be a very anti-qui man. And I think it is the feeling that many young men felt where they felt like they were the bad guys, that they had done something wrong, even if they felt like they had never had, or that they were going to be bad guys just by virtue of men. … During the elections in 2024, because we saw a shocking number of men occur for Trump. Normally, young men behave like young people, that is to say that they are on the left. But instead, what we see in young men is that they behave more like men, which is said that moves to the right.
And I just wanted to emphasize, however, that there is this resentment that occurs in young men, then there is this fear that always occurs in young women. I think that for me, in the declaration of this book, the things I was trying to keep in my mind is to understand as, OK, the young men could have the impression of being demonized, and perhaps that they were really demonized by this movement, but on the other hand, the dangers faced by young women are so real. And in fact, the dangers faced by men are even more real. False accusations of sexual assault are extremely rare. Men are more likely to be sexually assaulted than they should be falsely accused of sexual assault. And I think that in this kind of push to the right by men, this truth can be obscured. The fact that men can also be victims and that they also deserve resources if something is wrong, which is put aside.
Sam Briger and Susan Nyakundi produced and published this interview for Broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.
