John Tucker Must Die, She’s All That, Never Been Kissed, Bring It On, American Pie, Gossip Girl, Cosmopolitan, Sex and The City and Mean Girls — if you were a millennial lucky enough to grow up in the sticky haze of saddle bags, Juicy Couture tracksuits and Sean Paul bops that were the noughties, these pop culture cornerstones made up the bible with which you would navigate the murky world of love, sex and relationships. The messages that they gave out were simple and completely useless.
The media wasn’t much better than the cinema, there were body-shaming tabloids and women’s magazines actually suggesting we eat donuts off our boyfriends’ dicks. But it only takes a cursory glance at Twitter, Tumblr or YouTube to see that the sex ed landscape has changed. LGBTQ, sex positive and feminist bloggers like Arielle Scarcella, Hannah Witton and Laci Green are open and honest about their sexuality and are helping to educate a younger generation. Things are different on TV too, from the #MeToo movement to teen shows like 13 Reasons Why, Riverdale and OITNB, which have all together sparked an international conversation about consent, rape culture and sexual harassment. What all this means, then, is that Gen Z have a vastly different experience to millennials when it comes to discovering themselves, and navigating the murky world of relationships.
