The Pleasure Recession

Young people are apparently not having sex, or dating, or drinking, or going clubbing. Every other person – well, 1 in 8 Americans – is on Ozempic. And looksmaxxing is pushing beauty practices to dangerous extremes, emphasising attractiveness that’s online-approved over fulfilment that’s physically-felt. Looking around, we seem to find ourselves in the midst of a pleasure recession. 

Our bodies were once thought of as centres for sensory delight, yet they’re now largely seen as systems to optimise and invest in, discussed in the co-opted language of venture capital. A piece published in The Guardian last month defined this state of joyless self-indulgence as the “era of decadence without pleasure”. A culture that views restraint as a virtue to flex. 

Across human history, bliss has sprung from two primary sources: food and sex. Both release powerful chemicals into our bloodstream: dopamine, endorphins and oxytocin igniting sensations that span euphoria to serenity. But new technology threatens these organic systems, interrupting them with ensnaring loops of shallow, synthetic delights. 

We fill ourselves up, yet still crave more. The answer to enduring, satiating pleasure is delayed gratification and an intentional pursuit of it.  A theme we explored in our Spring 2026 BRIEFING, outlining how brands can re-introduce friction to spark more rewarding experiences. 

Pleasure can be simple, like little treat culture, or grand, like extravagant summers spent on the Côte d’Azur. But what’s increasingly apparent is that pleasure has become more about self-obsession than collective joy. Brands occupy a powerful position to relight the fire.

The Big Eroticism Shortage

The psychotherapist Esther Perel’s book, Mating in Captivity, reflects the pattern that she’d kept encountering in her practice: couples, very much in love, but not physically intimate. 20 years on, data shows this dwindling flame has only spread. According to the Institute for Family Studies, weekly sexual activity among U.S. adults fell from 55% in 1990 to 37% in 2024, while 24% of 18 to 29 year olds had no sex at all in the past year, doubling since 2010.

But Perel doesn’t think reading into “unsexy” statistics is the solution. She proposes there’s something larger at play: an eroticism shortage, to borrow from Faith Hill in The Atlantic. As Hill explains, “erotic” can encompass sex, but it’s more of “a state one enters into when they’re playful, intrigued, open to the unknown.” Several of the strategies in the Protein Stupid REPORT echo this, proposing how brands can facilitate curiosity, exploration and spontaneity – relief from a tightly clenched culture. 

The age-old saying “sex sells” defined the pin-ups of the 1940s, stripped-down Calvin Klein campaigns of the ‘90s and lewd Lynx ads of the 2000s, heavily implying that their products would make you wildly irresistible. Fantasy and desire in marketing will always play their part, even if the misogyny is now less blatant, but brands must refresh this strategy for a more expansive and inclusive approach to sex. Dating apps such as Feeld, and their newly-launched Reflections quiz, potently embody this. Tinder also recently rebranded for the first time in almost a decade to clarify its position in today's dating landscape.

Perhaps most interesting shift comes from what Raquel S. Benedict surmised of today’s culture: “Everyone is beautiful and no one is horny”. In her 2021 piece for Blood Knife, Benedict assesses the simultaneous fetishisation and de-sexualisation of the body. “Even when they have sex, no one is horny. No one is attracted to anyone else,” she observes of contemporary cinema. “No one is hungry for anyone else.” The total absence of sex in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey – despite the original tale being packed full of it – is in keeping with what Benedict describes as the director’s “inexplicably sexless oeuvre”. 

The physical intimacy crisis has become so dire that Stück, a café-cum-co-working space-cum-club, in Dalston, is encouraging its members to consummate between meetings. Described by some as a mix of “ yoga and Berghain”, Stück costs £45 a month and includes complimentary tea, coffee and condoms.