As part of their wide-ranging “Contemporary Czech Family project” aimed at mapping sociological changes in the structure of Czech families and relationships, researchers from Prague’s Charles University and Brno’s Masaryk University recently took a closer look at Czechia’s growing cohorts of single people, which comprise about a fifth of Czech adults today.
Their findings highlight huge discrepancies in how Czech men (more often single involuntarily) and women (way more likely to remain alone by choice) experience life without a partner. “A large group of men are looking for a relationship but cannot find one,” explains Martin Kreidl, head of the research project.
Gabriela Knizkova, writing in Heroine.cz, explains these results by pointing out that “for many men, a heterosexual relationship is still an extremely advantageous offer.” She argues that is much less often the case for women, highlighting a growing gender gap in the arena of personal relationships and intimacy which hints at larger sociological trends at play.
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.
As it often is, what may or may not be happening in the bedroom is the sign of wider social changes affecting how people meet, interact and nurture relationships.
In the Czech Republic and beyond, experts have long documented the plethora of factors influencing younger generations’ dating habits and views on intimacy, sexual or otherwise.
Some of these factors have made relationships more complex to start, keep and navigate, especially for people just coming of age. The clear effects of the Covid pandemic, along with economic pressures that led many young Europeans to live with their parents longer, have also made dating feel like an investment that some may choose to avoid.
More intricate factors have simply pushed the issue of sex well beyond the mere topic of physical gratification and emotional connection. The post-#MeToo era, for instance, has directly linked the topic in the public sphere to issues of risk, violence and abuse, while evolving gender norms for many means that sex in now intimately linked to issues of gender, personal identity and individual fulfillment, losing its “casual” nature.
More prosaic developments are also well known: the wide accessibility of pornography, now being complemented with AI-based additions; the amount of time spent in the digital space to the detriment of actual interactions; the impact of social media on teenagers’ conflicted feelings of self-worth and body image, etc.
“In times and places where people live longer and education takes longer, the whole development trajectory slows down,” explained Jean Twenge, psychology professor at San Diego State University in the US. “For teens and young adults, one place that you’re going to notice that is in terms of dating and romantic relationships and sexuality.”
Research has indeed shown that the trend among younger generations of being in “no rush” to have sex – seen as a healthy and wholesome outlook by some, as involuntary and self-justificatory by others – was accelerated by but predated the pandemic years.
