Generation Z is celebrating sexual positivity and unexpectedly reclaiming bodily autonomy through celibacy. 

Voluntary celibacy is growing amongst young women for both personal and political reasons. Despite “hookup culture” being closely associated with Generation Z, young people have been found to engage in less sexual intercourse than previous generations.

Just last year, a trend circulated on social media platforms promoting the concept of being “boysober.” The trend calls for women to abstain from sex and dating for a year as a way to mend their relationships with themselves.

Hope Woodward, the comedian who coined the term, reflected how being “boysober” changed her life.

“I’m a little bit angry at myself and angry at all the sex that I’ve had that I feel like I didn’t choose,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. “For the first time ever, I just feel like I have ownership over my body.”

For many women across the world, adopting celibacy is a means of political resistance. 

The South Korean feminist 4B movement has called for women to wholly reject patriarchal society, advocating for abstaining from dating (“biyeonae”), sex (“bisekseu”), heterosexual marriage (“bihon”) and childbirth (“bichulsan”).

The South Korean government has been reported to enforce misogynistic cultural norms and often neglect or dismiss acts of violence committed against women. When these cases are thoroughly investigated, the perpetrator often receives minimal to no punishment. The BBC documentary “Burning Sun” shows how two female Korean journalists in 2019 exposed big-name K-pop idols who had sexually assaulted several women and shared videos documenting the assaults. 

Jung Joon-Young, a former musician, and Choi Jong-Hoon, a former member of the band F.T. ISLAND, were found guilty of gang-rape and illegal distribution of the videos of the acts. Joon-Young served five years in prison, whilst Jong-Hoon served a mere two-and-a-half years in jail.

Anti-feminist sentiment has also spread throughout South Korea. Sexism has been amplified in the country with President Yoon Suk Yeol, who ran his campaign on anti-feminism to appeal to young men. Yeol has planned to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, a ministry dedicated to helping survivors of domestic and sexual violence. However, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family remains in operation. His current impeachment has lessened the fears that the important ministry will be abolished.

South Korea also currently holds the world’s lowest birth rate at 0.72. The statistic refers to the average number of children that women are expected to bear throughout their lives.

Researchers say that despite South Korea’s population having high levels of educated women, their salaries do not afford them the choice of having both children and a career, leaving many to choose the latter. The country is also known for having one of the worst gender pay gaps among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

In an interview with NPR, Ju Hui Judy Han, a gender studies professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, expressed how those against the 4B movement have missed the point entirely in attributing blame to feminists for the declining birth rates.

“It’s about young women saying to policymakers: ‘You want us to get married and have children, you have to make this world a better place for us to live,’” she said.

In November 2024, the 4B movement caught the attention of thousands of people, especially young liberal women, after the election of President Donald J. Trump. Posts on X and TikTok circulated throughout both platforms, calling for women to join the movement after it was found many Generation Z men voted for Trump.

Trump’s liability for sexual abuse, limitations on reproductive rights and comments about women has prompted many women to take a radical stand against his presidency.

However, doubts have arisen over the 4B movement ever reaching the same level of popularity in the United States as in South Korea.

In an interview with TIME Magazine, journalist and feminist author Hawon Jung elaborated on the role of cultural differences in relationships.

“In a conservative society in South Korea, dating is largely considered, especially by men, the prelude to marriage, and marriage the prelude for childbirth, so many of those who wish to remain single or childless end up not dating,” Jung said.

Conversely, Jung expressed that American women preferred less overt sexualization of women in relationships with men rather than a rejection of relationships and dating as a whole.

Members of Generation Z’s embracement of singlehood and delayed parenthood has become increasingly politicized in recent years due to fears of declining birth rates.

According to data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, birth rates in the U.S. have sunk to the lowest they have ever been in 40 years. 

In America, the birth rate for women over the age of 30 has increased while the birth rate for teenagers has declined. This statistic reflects ongoing societal shifts, with women having more access to education, conception and abortion than decades prior.

According to a 2024 Pew Research study, 57% of women under the age of 50 state that they do not want to have children because “they just don’t want to.” Additionally, 44% of women under the age of 50 said “they wanted to focus on other things” and 38% had “concerns about the state of the world.”

Vice President JD Vance has infamously criticized top Democratic politicians for promoting supposed anti-family values, saying that they’re “childless cat ladies.” 

Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, has previously stated that “If people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words.”

Musk is just one of the many tech giants pushing for pronatalism, a movement advocating for reproduction through policy-making. These Silicon Valley moguls see technology as a means of propelling the future of civilization.

TIME Magazine writer Maria Yagoda discussed how the choice increasingly made by women to be celibate strikes fear in people due to its supposed contradictory nature. 

“Increasingly, women are both sexual and celibate at once, and perhaps that makes them doubly threatening: A new generation is proving that sexual empowerment doesn’t hinge on having lots of sex, or even sex at all.”

She expressed how the blame is often solely attributed to women and not other social factors.

“Rather than examining the social, economic, and political conditions that may make sex and dating unappealing for individuals, particularly women, the impetus is put on the individuals to fix it.”

In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Nobel Prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin wrote about how people’s desire to have children could have a dramatic increase if resources were used to address child care disparities.

“But if fathers and husbands can credibly commit to providing the time and the resources, the difference in the fertility desires between the genders would disappear.”

Sexual positivity has manifested in a drastically different way, with members of Generation Z prioritizing themselves and their values over sexual relationships. Despite criticism over these lifestyle choices, young people continue to redefine sexuality for themselves.