Parents' Guide to I Want Your Sex

You can't be surprised when this problematic "satire" force-feeds you a barrage of sexual images: The title, the poster, and the tagline—"Don't worry. You'll like it."—all supplied the warning. The marketing materials for I Want Your Sex aren't subtle, and director and co-writer Gregg Araki, a New Queer Cinema pioneer, is absolutely not being coy: The script has attractive, powerful, frequently naked artist Erika expound intelligently that what's wrong with Gen Z is that they're not having sex, and she supplies (superficially) supporting evidence of why they need to start. But what 66-year-old Araki and his 40-year-old co-writer Karley Sciortino aren't understanding is that Gen Z—whom they target by name in the film—isn't rejecting sex-positive depictions, they're rejecting gratuitous, oversexualized situations. Research shows that Gen Z craves fulfilling, authentic relationships on the screen, not abusive Stockholm Syndrome characterizations. Young people raised in a culture of consent will, hopefully, also turn away from entertainment that suggests that someone twice your age knows what you want better than you do, so you should keep your mouth shut and take it. Whether teens see the movie's central relationship as seductive or deeply troubling may depend on their maturity, which is exactly why parents should approach this one with caution.