When the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade in 2022, the ruling didn't just eliminate the federal right to abortion; it also ushered in "a generational change in the way that people approach sex," journalist Carter Sherman says.
Sherman is a reproductive health and justice reporter at The Guardian where she's covered the real-world results of abortion bans, access to healthcare for trans people, and how technology is reshaping our view of our bodies and our choices. In her new book, The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation's Fight Over its Future, Sherman writes that Gen Z — which the Pew Research Center defines as people born between 1997 and 2012 — are having less sex than previous generations.
Sherman conducted more than 100 interviews with teenagers, young adults and experts for the book. She says the decline of interest in sex goes beyond the issue of abortion rights.
"We have the rise of the internet, smartphones, social media, porn. We have Me Too, we have the pandemic," she says. "Oftentimes, we think about sex as a thing that happens between two or more people in a bedroom. But in reality, the terms of our sex lives are often set for us in schools and school boards and courtrooms and legislatures in Congress and in the White House."
Sherman notes that during the pandemic, many sex education classes were conducted over Zoom or eliminated completely: "The emerging studies that we have on this topic show that teachers became very nervous, that parents would hear what was going on and that they would object to it," Sherman says. "And indeed, it is true that parents got incredibly incensed over sex ed over the course of the pandemic. And we really see that take shape after the pandemic."
Sherman says that much of the sex ed that now exists in American public schools focuses on abstinence only, rather than offering a more comprehensive take on issues of consent and sexual health. But, she adds, "I don't think you can really roll back the clock at all given the technological inventions that we've seen since the 1950s, birth control, the internet, women's rights in many ways. ... Instead, I really hope that people can look ahead towards the future and see what it is that we're living in now, as opposed to trying to do what I call sexual conservatism."
Interview highlights
On young people learning about sex from porn
Something I really wanted to do in the book is to understand what the internet is teaching young people about sex. And in previous generations, you might be limited to seeing sex glimpsed through your father's Playboy that he left behind. But today, you can turn on your computer or look at your phone and Google for any kind of sex you want, and probably a few that you don't.
What I found really interesting in talking to young people about porn is that I had sort of expected a range of perspectives on it. I had thought that some people, particularly people who are on the Left, would have more of a warm view of it. People on the Right would be more anti-porn. But instead what I found is that young people felt really bad about their relationship with porn. And they felt that porn had warped them sexually and normalized particularly "rough sex" in such a way that they felt like their sex lives had been transformed forever by it.
On sex educators clarifying that porn isn't a model for real intimacy
What sex educators who I talked to really tried to emphasize when they talked to young people is, like, this is Hollywood. You don't see people driving cars in an action movie and think, oh I should drive my car that way. But because we have so eliminated the possibility of comprehensive sex ed in so many schools, this is really the only outlet that a lot of young people have to not only look at porn, but to look at in particular what sexual pleasure looks like. How do I make someone feel good? How do I make myself feel good? Those are questions that porn is not shy about answering, but doesn't always provide the best answers to.
On the lasting impact of the #MeToo movement for girls
For a lot of young women, what the Me Too movement did was help them understand that it was unfair that they were haunted by their early sexual experiences. They understood, I think far earlier than certainly I did, and far earlier then a lot of older generations, that if something had happened to them that they felt might be sort of off, that in fact it could have been sexual assault or sexual harassment and that it is wrong, that they deserve better resources. Because at the same time though, what Me Too did not do was really lead to mass institutional change. The biggest lasting reforms that came out of the Me Too movement were things that had to do with workplaces, with having better HR trainings, with reforming NDAs. And so for many of the young women, in particular who I spoke with, they were left with this understanding that, "OK, sexual harassment and assault is everywhere and it's wrong, but I don't actually have ways to fix that situation if something bad happens to me." And that ultimately creates anxiety, right? If you're walking around feeling like the world is very dangerous, that's not good for the way that you try to live your life.
On the trend of young men moving to the Right and feeling demonized
There was one young man who I really appreciated how straightforward he was about this, where he is a reproductive justice advocate. He's a Democrat. He very much believes in the Me Too movement's mission, but he did tell me that he felt that it could be very anti-cis male. And I think that this is a feeling that a lot of young men felt where they were made to feel like they were the bad guys, that they had done something wrong, even if they felt like they never had, or that they were going to be bad guys just by virtue of being men. ... In the 2024 elections, as we saw a shocking number of men turn out for Trump. Normally, young men behave like young people, which is to say that they are on the Left. But instead, what we're seeing among young men is that they're behaving more like men, which is say that are moving to the Right.
And I wanted to just emphasize, though, that there is this resentfulness that's happening among young men and then there is this fear that's still happening among young women. I think for me in reporting this book, the things I was trying to hold in my mind is understanding like, OK, young men might have felt like they were demonized, and maybe they really were demonize by this movement, but on the other hand, the dangers that are facing young women are so real. And in fact, the dangers that are are facing men are still more real. False accusations of sexual assault are extremely uncommon. Men are more likely to be sexually assaulted than they are to be falsely accused of sexual assault. And I think in this sort of rightward push by men, that truth can get obscured. The fact that men, too, can be victims and that they, too deserve resources if something goes wrong, that is being pushed aside.
Sam Briger and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.
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