Relationships, Like Sexuality & Gender Identity, Now Embrace Fluidity
Every emerging generation pushes on the rules, boundaries, and labels of the world they are inheriting. While it's often acknowledged that digital has dissolved the boundaries of influence and discovery across geography and communities, we sometimes overlook, in the same context, the influence emerging generations now have on older demographics. For example, a recent report found a 57% rise in Boomers using TikTok since 2021. So, it’s not surprising, that as we see Gen Z’s culture blur the lines to color within across everything from gender, to sexuality, to music genre, the world's definition of a “relationship” too is changing.
Oxford Dictionary’s runner up for word of the year in 2023 was “Situationship”, which we wrote about here. An extension of that conversation, we’re seeing a cultural push on the concept of monogamy. A recent PEW Research study found that over half (51%) of adults under age 30 say open marriages are acceptable. That study also found that a fifth (19%) of young people say they have participated in a polyamorous, or “consensually non-monogamous” relationship. Feeld, “the dating app for the curious”, originally began as a platform for couples to date, has reported over 100% YOY growth following a rebrand that more broadly covers the fluidity of modern relationships – boasting now dozens of sexuality and gender identities, and desires. "Once the province of utopian free-love communities, consensual non-monogamy is now the stuff of Park Slope marriages and prestige television," as The New Yorker put it.
Consider that in the past year, or even week, some of the biggest pop culture stories have revolved around cheating scandals. From Tom Scandoval, to Jada Pinkett Smith shocking the world by revealing that her and Will have been living apart for seven years, to this past week when the internet’s “Mr. Perfect”, Andrew Huberman, was revealed to have five lovers while undergoing IVF with his girlfriend. If it’s true that pop culture boils to the surface the things that audiences are working through, it makes you wonder if really these stories shook the internet not because they are traditional celebrity cheating scandals, but instead that they are serving as common ground for what’s right and wrong, what to do and what not to do, in a moment when culture is re-visiting its relationship with…relationships, or at least the ethics of newly emerging relationship dynamics.