In the US, nearly half of adults are single. A quarter of men suffer from loneliness. Rates of depression are on the rise. And one in four Gen Z adults—the so-called kinkiest generation, according to one study—have never had partnered sex.
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In an age of endless connection, where hooking up happens with the ease of a swipe and nontraditional relationship structures like polyamory are celebrated, why are people seemingly so disconnected and alone?
Chalk it up to changing social norms or shifting generational attitudes around relationships. But the bigger issue at play, according to Justin Garcia, is that we just don’t crave intimacy in the same way we used to. “Our species is on the precipice of what I have come to think of as an intimacy crisis,” Garcia writes in his new book, The Intimate Animal: The Science of Sex, Fidelity, and Why We Die for Love. Garcia suggests in the book that intimacy—not sex—is the “the most powerful evolutionary motivator of modern relationships,” but that our hunger for it “has been stifled by and misdirected in today’s digital world.”
An evolutionary biologist and anthropologist who began his career studying hookup culture, Garcia is the executive director of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, a research lab known for its pioneering work on sexuality, online dating, and aging. (Sex may in fact improve with age, a recent report found). He’s held the position since 2019, and in that time he has also served as the chief scientific advisor to Match, where he provides expertise for its annual Singles in America survey. In 2023, Indiana lawmakers voted to block public funding from the institute—state senator Lorissa Sweet, a Republican, falsely claimed that Kinsey was studying orgasms in minors—but, the following year, the school’s Board of Trustees voted to abandon its plans to separate the institute into a nonprofit.
Garcia’s book covers a lot of ground—the “cognitive overload” of dating apps, why humans are wired to be socially monogamous but not sexually monogamous, the science of breakups—but its throughline is how “even in this bewildering era, where moments of human connection are becoming increasingly elusive, the search for intimacy remains the most human of human impulses.”
On a recent afternoon over Zoom, I spoke with Garcia about the biggest misconception about the sex recession among Gen Z, the attack on sexual literacy in the current political climate, and why an AI chatbot won’t save your relationship. It’s all connected, he says.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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