Generation Z is Demanding Equal Orgasms And We're Here For It

My 15-year-old sister recently had sex for the first time. In true teen form, she sent a Snapchat selfie to inform me of this life event. Her calm face, with a hint of amusement and a chin distorted by a low camera angle, was captioned only “so...Marco* and I had sex,” and dissolved after 10 seconds, leaving me to call her with the traditional bombardment of questions.

Millennials Vs. Post-Millennials

Given the eight-year interval between our births, my sister and I technically belong to different generations. I’m a Generation Y millennial, also disparagingly known as ‘Generation Me.’ She’s a member of Generation Z, a post-millennial cohort that bears the similarly scornful moniker ‘the iGeneration.’

Indeed, she grew up in a smartphone-saturated world. She cares desperately about emoji updates and mourned the loss of Vine more than that of our family cat.

It’s tempting to decry Gen Z teens and tweens as self-centred and tech-crazed, growing cynical too fast and wise too slowly. But that would only serve to reproduce the accusations with which each generation has bemoaned the fate of ‘their’ culture in the hands of the next. As much-maligned millennials, accused of everything from ‘Peter Pan syndrome’ to rampant narcissism, we can break this cycle of shame and misunderstanding.

There are things we can learn from our younger compatriots. 

We millennials may be ‘digitally native,’ but Gen Z has never known life without the Internet. The World Wide Web nurtures a bastion of anti-feminism, from Twitter trolls who threaten to rape female journalists to traditional porn, which, despite its seemingly endless variety, rarely places women’s sexual experiences at the centre of the narrative (enter...Bellesa!).

We often forget that the Internet also serves its original intended function: a space for information, community, and organizing. 

In a media environment that publicizes and normalizes baseless controversies and fringe opinions, we often forget that the Internet also serves its original intended function: a space for information, community, and organizing. While social media has yet to live up to the promise it once seemed to hold in activism and organizing, on a smaller scale platforms like Tumblr allow marginalized folks to create their own spaces. Online, people can commiserate, share stories, celebrate bodies and beauties of all kinds, discuss kinks and safe sexual practices, and expose patriarchal myths and practices.

Females in Generation Z Feel Entitled to Orgasms 

As they damn should.

As you might imagine, Concerned Older Sister wanted the details of Gen Z’s personal experience. In answer to my manic questioning, my sister was the essence of chill: “It was cool. I don’t feel much different.” Tellingly, she and this high school boy made sure that both parties were able to get off. They had penis-in-vagina sex in her bed, and he ate her out on the couch afterward. More importantly, she informed me of this interaction as a matter of course: this girl knows what she wants and deserves. It never even occurred to her that her desires would not be met during a sexual encounter.

And that, more than anything, gives me hope for future generations.

*Names in this piece have been changed to protect anonymity.