LoveLens asks if steep rents make intimacy impossible

It’s been said that Gen-Z is experiencing a “sex recession.” Boomers and Gen-X seem to panic at the thought of the younger generation abstaining from sex, but are they justified? As everything seems to get more and more expensive– dinners, cocktails, even TFL fare, rent– is the cost of living blocking Gen-Z from intimacy?

In 2019, the British Medical Journal published a study on the frequency of sex in the UK across several age groups. It found that participants under 25 were the most sexually inactive, while sexual activity was more frequent among participants who were either married or cohabitating. The study also found that sexual frequency was higher among fully employed or “financially better off” participants.

According to the Centre for London, the average house in London cost the equivalent of 12 years’ salary in 2022, a much higher average than elsewhere in the UK. Now, the Government said that the cost of living is the number one issue impacting working people.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) reported that the average monthly private rent in the UK increased by 3.4% between March 2025 and 2026. SpareRoom reported that the average monthly privately-rented flat cost is 78% higher than the average room in a UK flat share, including bills.

It’s no secret that London is one of the world’s most expensive cities, but is the cost of living really impacting its young residents’ sex lives?

Louis Gomes, 24, lives in a house share with four other men. They each have their own rooms, but that doesn’t guarantee complete privacy. The walls are thin, and the rooms are close together. Since he moved to London in September 2024, Louis has found himself having less sex than he did in his more spacious accommodation in Guildford, where he lived before.

“Financially speaking, as someone who’s pretty new to London and someone who’s just starting out in their career and does not get paid the most, [it] definitely is the more common, reasonable decision to live with people,” he says.

Although  living with roommates makes London cheaper, it comes with a price. Louis says he’s even considered cheap hotel rooms for privacy. He’s currently single and maintains the attitude of “if I wanted to, I would.”

“The fact that it’s become so much more tedious to plan to have an intimate moment with someone over the past year and a half has kind of led me to subconsciously choose not to partake in things like this, and intimate moments with people as much anymore,” he says.

He adds: “I’m the type of person who generally is not the most comfortable in intimate situations if it’s not with someone I really know or trust,” he says. “It has to be someone I’ve known for a while, or someone that I’m in a committed relationship with.”

Maddie Winchester, 21, lives in Whitechapel in a two-bedroom flat with a friend. While she says the cost of living partially impacted her decision, she genuinely enjoys living with a friend.

She and her flatmate don’t have a particular protocol in place when it comes to sex in a flat share. While they generally let each other know if someone is coming over, Maddie says that isn’t always the case. “Sometimes things are spontaneous and impromptu, and I think that maybe could be a source of frustration at times,” she says.

Maddie says: “When it comes to conversations around intimacy in my living space, I do think that’s maybe something that we don’t talk about that much because it’s slightly awkward and taboo, and maybe we should discuss it more.”

While Maddie and her flatmate don’t talk much about intimacy in a flat share, she has spoken about it with a guest.

“I had a friend staying with me at one point for a prolonged period of time, and I asked her to stay somewhere else for a night because I was seeing someone,” she says. “So she did, because she was staying in my living room, and I didn’t really want to subject her to that.”

“I would never say to someone I live with ‘you can’t be in the house.’ But when I have friends visiting, I would gladly tell them to be out or to stay elsewhere,” she says. “It’s a little bit different with my roommate. It’s much more optional.”

Sara, 24, lives in a two-bedroom flat with her flatmate. They both have partners, and before they moved in together, they had a conversation around intimacy in a flat share. Sara’s partner lives alone, and she says she often goes over to his flat, where they’re afforded privacy.

“It’s a courtesy thing,” she says. “On my birthday, [my roommate] will leave. She’ll be like, ‘I’m gonna go stay with [my boyfriend] for the weekend.’ And when it was [her boyfriend’s]  birthday, I was like, ‘I’m going to fuck off.’”

For Sara, the cost of living impacted her decision to live with a roommate: “I cannot afford a studio. I mean, to be completely honest at the time I probably could have, but it’s just not a very smart option, considering how much of my salary would disappear, and I like to live life.”

After living together for almost a year, Sara and her flatmate have come to an understanding around intimacy in a shared space that works for them.

“Let’s say her boyfriend stays over for a weekend,” Sara says. “On Monday, when she’s back from work and it’s just us in the flat, we might talk about it. She’ll tell me about her weekend, and then she’ll be like, ‘did you hear us by any chance?’ And I tell her, ‘no, that’s okay.’ Then she’ll give me details anyway. She’ll tell me the pros and the cons. We’re very open with each other in that way.”

But, Sara adds: “In a lot of ways, I think sneaking around, trying to be quiet, is really stimulating, so sometimes there’s the added factor of feeling even closer with your partner, because you guys are hiding something.”

“I think that’s a really fun dynamic in a relationship. It’s not sustainable. It’s very teenage. It’s very childish in that way. But I do think that’s one of the things that develops a relationship early on. Now I can kind of balance the joy of being able to fully be myself versus sort of the thrill of needing to keep things under wraps.”

Neither Londoners nor Gen-Zers are a monolith. There’s not a single group of people on Earth that are. While the data around sex and the cost of living are indisputable, many Gen-Zers have found ways to balance the two. For some, it’s easy to have open dialogue; for others, it can be awkward.

And some people are even hooking up with or dating their roommates. The Cut recently published a Sex Diaries feature from a woman who started hooking up with one of her roommates after two weeks of living in their shared apartment.