Jimmy Kimmel took aim at Gen Z Thursday night after a new UCLA study revealed today’s teenagers want to see less sex on screen.
The study, which was released Wednesday, found that more than half of the 1,500 adolescents and young adults surveyed want to see more platonic relationships or friendships on TV rather than romantic relationships or sex scenes. The ages of participants ranged from 10 to 24 years old.
“I’ve never felt more out of touch with a generation,” Kimmel said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “I try not to be the old guy complaining about these kids today, but sometimes I feel like I have to. Isn’t this supposed to be the live and let live generation?”
The ABC host then asked his audience to remember a time when nudity was less accessible and the only way to see steamy scenes was by stealing “Playboys from our uncles” and squinting at “scrambled porn on cable TV.”
“Don’t you know how hard we had it?” Kimmel asked. “We earned these sex scenes.”
He then told Gen Z that if they don’t want to see sex onscreen, they don’t have watch shows and movies that feature them.
“Go back to watching ‘Planet Earth.’ Watch your creep-o ASMR videos or whatever the hell you want. But for the love of God and Selma Hayek, stay the hell out of our naked stuff,” Kimmel said.
Of those surveyed, only 15.2% of teens and young adults said they preferred friendship over romantic relationship-centered content. The remaining 33.3% were neutral to the question.
Additionally, nearly a majority of those surveyed (44.3%) felt that romance in the media was overused, and 39% wanted to see more aromantic and/or asexual characters in media. Nearly half, or 47.5%, said that sex “isn’t needed for the plot of most TV shows and movies.”
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