Baby boomers want friends with benefits, study concludes

More than a quarter of baby boomers are seeking friendships with physically intimate relations. Photo / Getty Images
Gen Z people seek fidelity but are “more fluid in their gender and sexuality” compared to millennials and Gen Xers, according to the Kinsey Institute.
Baby boomers are looking for friends with benefits more than any other form of relationship, a report has found.
More than a quarter (27%) of boomers are seeking a friends with benefits arrangement over other relationship styles.
However, younger people, including those in Gen Z, place a higher premium on fidelity, data show.
Monogamy was the single most preferred type of relationship for Gen Z, according to the study from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, which was done in collaboration with the dating app Feeld.
Some 23% of Gen Zers sought a classical, monogamous relationship, whereas for Millennials and Gen X – who together span from 28 to 59 years old – the most preferred relationship was “ethical non-monogamy”, at 24% and 27% respectively.
“This is interesting in light of a flood of popular media reports characterising Gen Z as the generation of polyamory and non-traditional relationships,” Dr Justin Lehmille, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute and study author, wrote.
“While it is certainly true that today’s young adults seem more open than ever to deviating from monogamy compared to generations that came before, they are hardly a monolith. Surprisingly, monogamy retains a distinct appeal to many Gen Zers.”
The report contains data on more than 3300 people who are members of the Feeld dating app, including Britons. Feeld started in 2014 as a dating app for people looking for more exploratory types of relationships.
Now it markets itself as a “dating app for the curious”, and the partnership with the Kinsey Institute analysed anonymous responses to a questionnaire sent to users.
Although data shows Gen Z is seeking monogamy, the report says this generation is “kinkier and more fluid in both their gender and sexuality compared to millennials, Gen X, and boomers”.
For example, one in 10 Gen Z people reported a gender identity change, compared to zero in boomers. More than half (55%) of the Gen Z respondents also said they had fantasised about BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism), compared to just one in eight boomers.
The Kinsey Institute created the “heterosexual-homosexual rating scale” in the 1940s, which gives each person a score from zero to six to describe their sexual orientation.
It was co-created by Dr Alfred Kinsey and dubbed the Kinsey Scale, with zero signifying “exclusively heterosexual” and six meaning “exclusively homosexual”.
“Despite the long-standing tendency of humans to narrowly categorise sexuality and relationships, they have always existed on a continuum, and that continuum will only evolve and expand further as Gen Z and future generations continue their pursuit of sexual and relational self-discovery,” the report authors wrote.
“The more that we can understand and embrace this simple fact of human life, the better suited we will all be to pursuing pleasure and happiness.”