Juliette (all witnesses requested anonymity), blonde bob and piercing between her nostrils, spent a good part of her adolescence devouring episodes of Vampire Diaries or some Scott Brothers – ultra-popular series in the 2000s, where the characters spend their time fervently undressing. At the moment when she discovers her own desire, she quickly becomes aware that, in real life, sexuality is not always this place of absolute abandonment, of forgetting oneself and all the worries. “I have pain linked to endometriosis, perineum problems due to stress… My desire fluctuates, and forcing myself is not an option. With my two exes, we spent years almost without sex. Once I got really comfortable, my libido faded.”remembers the thirty-year-old, who today works in publishing.
From the start of their relationship, two years ago, Juliette warned her current boyfriend that her desire would perhaps one day end up eroding: “He told me that it didn’t matter, that we had nothing to prove”, she says. For some time now, she has understood that she is not “abnormal” and seeks to accept variations in his libido. She put aside penetration, which could stress her or cause pain. And learned to value other moments of shared pleasure just as much: “Finding good meals from caterers, eating them in front of a movie in the evening, can provide more security than sex”she assures.
The 2000s were those of the emergence of a mass pornographic culture, arriving with the major platforms for streaming X-rated sequences shot by amateurs. At the dawn of the 2020s, an opposing discourse is emerging. More and more people are demanding the right to give up sexuality, temporarily or forever, because they do not have a partner, the desire has faded or simply to put their energy elsewhere. The Covid-19 years, marked by a distancing from bodies, have passed this way: according to an IFOP barometer of February 2022, 43% of young people aged 15 to 24 have not had sexual relations in 2021 – they were only 25% in 2002. At the time of the second confinement, in November 2020, the French also much more missed “of tenderness and hugs” than sex, according to another IFOP survey published in December 2020.
A quest for affection taking precedence over carnal desire: some sexologists have also observed this in their consultations, like Magali Croset-Calisto, author of The No Sex Revolution. Short treatise on asexuality and abstinence (The Observatory, 2023). In her office, she receives more and more patients who come to confide about their sexual continence. “In life, almost all of us go through moments of absence of desire. The difference is that the younger generation tends to assume it and claim it much more easily. », notes the therapist. According to her, over the last ten years, men first consulted to discuss their performance anxiety, women to try to compensate for a drop in libido. “Many women in relationships had difficulty experiencing their lack of desire, because the societal outlook was very stigmatizing, including among health professionals: we were often taught that sex is life », regrets Magali Croset-Calisto. For the sexologist, “this movement of sexual decline is also a movement of resistance to patriarchal patterns. Sexuality is not necessarily a harmonious area of well-being. In these cases, abstinence can be a movement of resistance against unfulfilling or even traumatic behaviors.”
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