At LELO’s Spotlight on Pleasure Party, Sex Isn’t Gone, It Just Evolved

New York City has entered a new era. Fashion Week dropped the guillotine on the clean girl aesthetic; punk is in and old money is out. As the present reacts to the past; one is seemingly allowed to be messy again, from the crimped hair and latex on the runways to prison abolitionists declaring cancel culture cop behavior. So, as I dressed for luxury sex toy brand LELO’s “Spotlight on Pleasure” party, a braid of fake hair pinned into my real length, Free Maison chainmail over vintage American Apparel, all I could think about was: Is Gen Z really not having sex, or is that another rage-bait headline? As the desire to forsake both eyeliner and orgasms in the supposed sexless clean girl era had always felt connected, if there was anywhere to find the answer, an event held at the Georgia Room (named after Georgia O'Keeffe) thrown by a company who added red light therapy to sex toys with the MONA Spectra was the place to do it.

Inside the event, the space was lit in red light to match the vibrator. There was aura photography available, reading vibes of all colors, not unlike the settings of LELO’s LED light technology. One could then get a custom scented body oil by Scentique to reflect your energy. Food was shared, music played. The age range of attendees, which included Xixi, founder of the grassroots organization Asians for Sex Positivity, and Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO of Make Love Not Porn, who recently took Meta to court to have their Instagram reinstated, spanned across decades.

The question of Gen Z having less sex, as reported on by The New York Times, NPR, and recently investigated by Playboy is of course more nuanced and complicated than what one headline can contain. As Playboy found, while 42% of their respondents said sex wasn’t a high priority, 74% of singles also reported a moderate to very high sexual desire, and 66.5% of singles cited limited opportunities to meet partners as part of the explanation for all this. Wages haven't kept up while the price of dates is up, and people are turning to porn and AI over humans. There is also, of course, the stress of the political climate. Yet despite being the ones most often affected by a rise in conservatism, the stats do show that the gays are still having plenty of human sex.

While the Playboy survey was quite cohesive in its definitions of sex, perhaps the reason older generations think Gen Z is doing less is more the fault of outdated parameters, rather than pleasure. LELO goodie bag in hand, I asked New York City-based dominatrix Satine Laurent about the Gen Z sex recession. “What is sex?” Laurent asked back. “I think it’s true that we’re in a connection crisis and I also think it’s true that maybe our definition of sex is expanding. As we move away from heteronormative sex, or whatever that definition might be, we’re open to more queer experiences and understanding of what intimacy is.”

When the panel began at LELO’s contribution to nightlife, the audience in leather and studs, hosted by sex therapist Casey Tanner in conversation with gender and sexuality professor Latham Thomas and sexologist Emily Morse, the need for in-person connection quickly led the conversation. Perhaps it’s because, being tangible, sex toys have the ability to ground us in the messy, rebellious present. “Masturbation is anti-purity culture,” Morse said. “You’re not doing it to make babies, and you’re not doing it for a partner, you really are just doing it for yourself. Somebody who knows how to self-pleasure doesn’t need anybody else to authorize their sexuality. I think that is powerful and I also think it’s very threatening to the state, the literal state.”

Thomas, who is also the founder of Mama Glow, spoke to sexual wellness as part of beauty by saying, “Pleasure is not something you deserve or have to earn. It is part of our life, and should be integrated as such.” Perhaps the clean girl era wasn’t so much beheaded, but simply smudged into a smokey eye by the blending of the sacred and profane that LELO represents.

But the night truly came to a head when history and politics content creator Nikita Redkar, previously featured in PAPER’s Always Scrolling, told the panel: “It’s hard to have this conversation without acknowledging the fact that nobody is horny anymore. Not because we don’t want to be, but we’re bogged down with the cost of living, dating apps are draining, and the manosphere makes it scary to trust men,” adding that it can feel that celibacy and not prioritizing sex is the empowering message right now. Redkar asked the panel how they are fighting and debunking that.

Tanner, the panel moderator, noted that part of what’s happening isn’t just because of the economy, or the government, or AI, but a rebellion in Gen Z’s own right, as they react to Millennials’ “hyper sex-positivity,” going on to say that “Latham [Thomas] talked earlier about the way we need to learn from our elders, and I’ll also shout out needing to learn from people younger than you. I don’t think we have the answer to your question yet, frankly. I think the people who have the answer to your question are the people who are right now teenagers, and right now being born, and are going to be growing up and reacting to what is happening in your generation.”

As a millennial, the younger generation is probably rebelling against, I admittedly very much want those who desire sex to find it. Good sex is punk; it’s messy; it’s godly. A diverse range of generations gathered in the Georgia Room Wednesday night to talk about the role vibrators such as the MONA Spectra have in offering a more pleasurable option than a guy with a bad aura, whether it’s enhancing queer sex or much-needed alone time after a night out, mascara smeared on your pillow. The notable attendees show that LELO is not only at the forefront of merging sex toys and beauty, but interested in providing tangible answers to the question of the sex recession, while also giving New Yorkers a party worth dressing up for.

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This article is a collaboration between LELO and PAPER.