Generation Z is Tired of Hook-Up Culture and Wanting Higher Standards

“It’s a familiar pattern,” wrote Ruby Conway in The Times. “I download the dating apps again; I swipe half-heartedly, I trepidatiously go on a date. It’s a process detached from real desire, my hand guided by that of external pressure.” No, Conway is not simply expressing her vexations with the modern dating landscape. She’s addressing hook-up culture and how she, and apparently a notable percentage of Generation Z, are leaving it behind.

As great as this sounds at the onset, in reality, it’s not necessarily worth celebration. Mostly — if not entirely — because the reasons for this withdrawal from hook-up culture are far less about swapping a bad lifestyle for a good one. Rather, as Conway herself conveys, it’s about “dating app fatigue,” societal pressures, and lousy men leading to exhaustion and disillusionment. But don’t take it from me.

“For me, as a 25-year-old woman, periods without sex come and go,” Conway wrote. She explained how, after extended periods of celibacy, “a kind of social pressure to sleep with someone starts to accumulate. I resist it for long stretches, until I eventually acquiesce.” Her dating experiences are telling: the guy who treated her like she was invisible, for one, or the one who wanted nothing but to take her to bed. Yet, despite her lack of enthusiasm for these men, Conway admits to engaging in “unsatisfying sex” — with men she didn’t even care for. “Going from having sex when you’re in love to this is, of course, a disappointment,” she noted.

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Here are some statistics Conway addresses: “A Psychology Today survey found that one in six American women are celibate by choice.” Additionally, a Forbes health survey found 79% of Gen Z claim to have “dating app burnout.” Conway said one woman, “who hasn’t been having sex for the past year,” told her that Gen Z believes “it’s quite easy to have sex if you want to have sex.” But that’s not the problem. To some, allegedly, “we’re tired of the abundance of options that actually aren’t worth your time. There are so many people on there [dating apps], but also nobody at all.”

And so, Conway lays her case: “I see it this way: there are people who desire to frequently date and have sex, and those whose desire is spontaneously sparked when a compatible person presents themselves.”

This brings me to an alternative case — one rooted in a biblical worldview, which offers a framework that could address the emptiness, loneliness, and vulnerability to societal pressures Conway describes. These pressures that she notes are undeniably real. I’m not here to judge Conway and her experiences. After all, she’s clearly writing from a secular point of view. As such, I will not hold her statements to a higher standard than that. What I will do, however, is compare them.

Conway references Melissa Febos’s memoir, “The Dry Season,” where the author “explores a year of sexual abstinence, a choice intended to radically alter a pattern of serial monogamy. In her state of celibacy, she observes those ‘high off the fumes of other people’ — sex and seduction like a drug, celibacy something of a cure.” But this isn’t proper thinking.

Sex is only a drug, and celibacy is only the “cure,” from a secular standpoint, where flippant promiscuity is used as a band aid over our gunshot wounds of loneliness or lust. Celibacy may seem like a sort of cure from a toxic dating culture, but then what? Conway never expresses true contentment in her celibacy. She only describes it as some form of escapism from, as mentioned before, “dating app fatigue,” societal pressures, and lousy men. But when viewed biblically, sex and celibacy take on entirely different meanings.

First, sex is a gift — specifically within the covenant of marriage. Second, celibacy is a choice — an act of obedience, so that we may honor God’s intended purpose for sex as an act between man and wife for both mutual pleasure and creating life. Marriage itself is expounded upon within the entire book of Song of Solomon as something beautiful and worth cherishing. Unfortunately, the entirety of Conway’s article shows just how cheap that relationship has become in the eyes of secular society.

I can appreciate Conway’s confession, that she does not “feel the need to define myself in relation to the frequency of the sex I’m having — or not having.” No one should define themselves using this metric. And I can certainly agree with her that modern feminism starting in the 2010s made it so that women believed “liberation equates to having lots of sex.” This way of thinking does describe much of modern feminism, and Conway is right in pointing that out. But from a biblical perspective, a woman’s true worth is found in who she is in Christ, not her attractiveness to men or how many people she’s slept with. As Proverbs 31:30 states, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Conway concluded that celibacy, “named or unnamed,” reframes “the script around sex, marking a shift among women towards independence and choice. Liberation might just look like making better, informed choices and setting firmer boundaries when it comes to sex, which is showing up culturally as less sex and more periods of celibacy.” She states that “empty consent” is a trap many women fall into, and that she’d “rather wait for a connection” before engaging in sex. “It can be casual and inconsequential,” she wrote, “but it should be truly of free will — and that doesn’t feel like a regressive step backwards to me.”

I’ll conclude by going a step further. Celibacy, named or unnamed, should reframe the script around singleness, marking a shift towards contentment and a God-glorifying lifestyle. In John 8:32, Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Scripture calls us to honor our bodies as temples, saving sex for marriage — a holy union between one man and one woman. Gen Z’s step back from hook-up culture is a start, but stopping there misses the bigger picture. The reasons for this shift — burnout, disappointment, exhaustion — aren’t enough. True freedom comes from anchoring your life in God’s truth.

Genesis 2:18 reminds us, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” We’re wired for connection — first with Christ, whose love fills every void, and then with others: family, friends, church, and maybe, one day, a spouse. If you’re single, don’t let the longing for romance consume you. Instead, seize this time to grow, serve, and chase a life that honors God. Some of Gen Z is done with meaningless flings — and that’s great. But let’s pray this shift leads to a deeper transformation, one that sees sex, singleness, and relationships through the lens of God’s design.

Conway’s experiences, including her perspective on the whole issue, are by no means unique. In fact, they’re so common that 79% of an entire generation resonates with it. But here’s the catch: while her views hold glimmers of truth, they offer no real answers, no clear diagnosis of what’s truly broken. No one should be satisfied with ongoing social pressures or lousy partners. But we also won’t fix the problem by merely complaining about it. Nor will we fix it by walking away from a lifestyle but adopting no real heart change.

Without rooting ourselves in Christ, we’re doomed to chase fleeting connections and pleasures that leave us empty and wounded. And as Christians, we’re called to embrace this truth, live it boldly, and share its life-changing power with everyone around us.

LifeNews Note: Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand, where this originally appeared.

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