Biedermann’s days are over. Kink is in. After all, since “Fifty Shades of Grey” it has become chic to be tied to the bed with cable ties. And instead of old-fashioned “condom over banana” films, series like “Sex Education” are increasingly taking over the educational work of today’s youth. You could almost think that you have shaken off the shackles of shame and are now having better and freer sex than ever before.
Unfortunately that’s not true.
The streaming provider Netflix and the health education experts for young people from “F/A/Q – The Better Health Group” wanted to know more about the sex lives of Germans and surveyed 10,000 people aged 16 and over. Things don’t seem to be really satisfactory in the beds. Although 80 percent of those surveyed said that mutual satisfaction during sex was the most important thing for them, one in five were undecided about what their sexual partner actually wanted in bed. The result: only about one in two people are satisfied with their own sex life. Every third man is even dissatisfied.
Shame plays a big role, especially among younger people between 16 and 29 years old. About a third are embarrassed by their own desire. “The fact that a third of young people feel shame for their desire is worrying from the perspective of healthy education,” says Roman Malessa from the “Better Health Group” about the results of the sex report. Confident decisions, including when dealing with sexuality, require shame-free access to education and health topics.
One problem: the majority of educational work is still carried out in schools, but does not adequately cover many of the current questions that young people have. What exactly is good sex and how do you get it? What should I know about human anatomy? What contraceptive methods are there apart from the pill and condom? And how do I protect myself from chlamydia and the like? For many younger people, what they hear about these topics at school and from their parents is not enough and they would like more depth.
Topics such as diversity, queer love and consent are particularly important to Generation Z. They then look for answers in social media, among other things, primarily Tiktok (almost 18 percent), and in porn (a good 17 percent). Series and films make up almost 10 percent of educational work.
Sexual pleasure is a huge issue for young people. Issues such as women’s “pleasure gap” will no longer be ignored, says Malissa. He says: “The new awareness of the health function of sex doesn’t necessarily make sex life any easier – but it does make people talk about it more openly and that’s the beginning of real change.”
Restriction: The survey is based on self-reports. How reliable the results are depends, among other things, on the honesty of the participants.
Source: Study
