This summer's cinema releases are notably preoccupied with sex, reflecting cultural anxiety over so-called "gen Z celibacy" and a broader recalibration in books, podcasts and prestige TV towards frank depictions of desire. Films such as One Night Only and Gregg Araki's I Want Your Sex use raunchy, sometimes absurdist plots to probe why younger generations, despite being the most sexually progressive cohort yet, are having less sex than their predecessors. The trend matters because it exposes a contradiction: gen Z's openness coexists with rising sexual conservatism and anxiety, partly linked to political shifts such as the overturning of Roe v Wade.

One Night Only imagines a dystopian America where premarital sex is banned except for one legal night a year, using obstacles like $2,000 black-market condoms to drive its romcom plot between characters played by Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro. The article argues the film misreads the "sex recession" as a lack of desire rather than an existential problem rooted in internet-driven alienation and pandemic-era isolation. By contrast, I Want Your Sex, starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, is praised for recognising that sex cannot resolve the deeper loneliness of modern life, particularly in a pivotal, messy threesome scene exploring confused desire among its characters.