With dating and sexual habits changing, the way younger Czechs interact and form relationships has left experts pondering over what it means for the social fabric.
Jules Eisenchteter
For years, falling rates of sexual activity have been reported across Europe and the Western world, particularly driven by an apparent disregard for sex among Gen Z and younger, who are sometimes – somewhat simplistically – described as a “sexless generation”.
Similar trends have, a bit more recently, also been documented in the Czech Republic, despite its long-held reputation for liberal and permissive views on sex – marital, extramarital, premarital, or otherwise.
According to a study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NUDZ), Czechs are having much less sex than before, on average engaging in sexual intercourse less than once in the previous month (0.7 times for women, 0.99 times for men).
At the same time, more than half of Czech men and nearly a third of women aged between 18 and 25 say they’ve never had sex. Across generations, sexual abstinence – whether by choice or not – concerns 8.5 per cent of men and 6 per cent of women.
“It seems that young people are having less sex and fewer relationships,” Marketa Setinova, a psychotherapist and research team member of the study, pointed out in a podcast, adding that while the average age of the first sexual experience has remained roughly the same, it now comes hand-in-hand with higher shares of young Czechs not having any sexual experience whatsoever until a later age.
“For some young people, lower sexual activity is neutral: lower risk of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, greater emphasis on quality and consent,” Marek Broul, head of the Sexology department at Masaryk Hospital in Usti nad Labem and chairman of the Czech Society for Sexual Medicine, tells BIRN. “For others, it is related to loneliness, anxiety, body image, or digital addictions.”
While conceding that rates and frequency of sexual activity are “surprisingly low” among today’s younger generations, including in view of the general lack of stigma about “casual sex”, experts agree that it’s not a monolithic bloc, and that the structural factors and personal motivations underpinning this trend are complex, many, and intertwined.
“Less sex may also mean that people are focusing on quality rather than quantity,” Setinova said in an interview. “People are looking for the form of relationship that will be best for them, so they are reviewing mainstream norms.”
The sexologist Petr Weiss agrees. “It is clear that Czechs are increasingly enjoying sex,” he assesses, echoing others who point out that women especially now have greater control over their sexual and dating lives – which in some cases, might mean none – and show more freedom than before in admitting to having more sexual partners.
According to Broul of Masaryk Hospital, “we talk about a problem only when lower sexual activity is associated with distress, isolation or untreated dysfunction.” From a wider perspective, “it is more of a change in the way people meet and spend their time,” he tells BIRN.
