Futurists Identify the Sexual Taboo Next Generation Will Shatter

Those times may be difficult to remember now, and even more difficult for younger generations to wrap their brains around, but there was an era not too long ago when blowjobs were considered an exotic sexual taboo. But as writer Almara Abgarian explains her new article for the “Future of Everything” project, each successive generation defines itself by the sexual taboo it breaks—and then normalizes. But what sexual taboo will today’s teens, as they move into adulthood, smash and then adopt? “Generation X, people born in the early to mid-’60s to early ’80s, were influenced by the sexual revolution and ruled by the blowjob,” writes Abgarian in her piece published by the British newspaper Metro, which curates the “Future of Everything” endeavor.  The next taboo to be broken, when the “Millennial” generation came along: anal sex. Between 1992 and today, Abgarian reports, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-old women who say they have experienced anal intercourse has spiked from 16 percent to 40 percent. In fact, anal sex has become so normalized that according to data cited by Abgarian, women are now more likely to report achieving orgasm during anal sex than vaginal or oral sex. The subsequent generation, Generation Z—broadly defined as the generation born between 1995 and 2010—took on another exotic taboo: pegging. “LoveHoney reported a 200% increase in sales of strap-ons in 2017 and it has continued to grow since then,” Abgarian reported, noting that presumably the increase is being driven largely by heterosexual couples who want to experiment with the sexual role-reversal involved in pegging, “a woman wearing a strap-on and inserting this into the man’s anus.” So what’s next? According to sex expert Sienna Halliburton, the next generation is growing up in a physically disconnected social environment, “concentrated on social media and technology, where interaction can be confined to a computer or smartphone.”  “So what is still a taboo subject that can be broken?” Haliburton asks. “Mutual masturbation.” "Sexual content is at their fingertips 24/7 as they navigate the world via smartphones, tablets, and laptops," Chelsea Reynolds, of California State University, told Abgarian. "Because they are exposed to porn, sexting, and online dating at a young age, they feel online-mediated sexuality is natural. What they aren’t comfortable with is face-to-face communication." Statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control show that rates of sexual intercourse among high school-age teens has been steadily declining not only in the last few years, but since 1991. In that year, 54.2 percent of teens in ninth through 12th grades reported that they had experienced sexual intercourse at least once. By 2015, that number was 41.2 percent. Reynolds attributes that fact not to a reduced sexual desire in teens, but rather to the fact that “teens have a million sexual outlets today that don’t involve genital contact.” “If Gen X’s thing was the blowjob, millennials’ thing was anal, and Gen Z is into pegging, the next generation will likely be the masturbation generation,” she explained. Sex therapist Sally Baker also sees a future for the next generation—sometimes called “Generation A” — in which the physically interactive aspects of sexuality will be de-emphasized, and when young people do choose to engage in sexual activity, they may simply masturbate together—or engage in other “non-penetrative” acts. "If they do have sex together, the emphasis would be on mutual extended foreplay,” she told Abgarian. “This ensures the sex they experience is non-hierarchical and non-binary.” Photo By Michael / Wikimedia Commons