Category: Business

Gen Z is having a tough time in and out of the bedroom, it seems, as according to a new survery, 39 percent say ‘the cost of dating limited their opportunities for sex or romance’.

Playboy, in collaboration with the Kinsey Institute and Julie, asked 2,373 US adults aged 18 to 29 about their sex lives for The 2026 Gen Z Sex Survey.

And the results aren’t pretty.

It showed that 43 percent say the state of their finances make it harder to date, even though 74 percent show a ‘moderate to very high sexual desire’.

While it’s not that they don’t want to have sex, around 34 percent of men worryingly reported that porn has replaced the need for a real-life relationship. And one in three said they won’t hesitate to go for a digital partner sometimes.

So, why is it that this generation is seemingly holding back from intimacy?

Why are younger people have less sex?

Playboy explains: “The sex recession appears to be real, but nuanced. Most respondents report relatively low activity despite moderate to high desire.

“Most young adults are not particularly stressed about their sex lives. Most describe their sex lives as average or better than average. Fatigue from dating apps, fear of rejection, and lack of finances are making connection more difficult.

“Young people are finding other outlets for intimacy: in friendships, online, and alone. Where Gen Z lives shapes the picture. Two-thirds of single people living with their parents had no partners at all in the last three months.

“They’re having less sex, but not safer sex. Protection is inconsistent, and a third have never been tested for STIs.”

No ‘nerve, privacy or money’ to get down and dirty

Speaking to The Sun, one Gen Z’er admitted that it is also ‘hard’ for their peer group to find anywhere for a ‘bit of peace and quiet’.

“My parents both moved out when they were 18 or 19, and my grandparents around the same ages, so they had the freedom to do what they liked,” they said. “It’s just not the same with our generation – which is pretty unfair really.”

“They have the desire. They just don’t have the nerve, privacy or money to act on it,” Playboy adds.

Well, the NHS says ‘having an active sex life can have health benefits such as improving the condition of your heart, reducing stress and improving mental health‘.

“Being part of a happy, healthy relationship can also reduce depression and anxiety,” the health service notes, adding that ‘even a hug can reduce your blood pressure and improve your sense of well-being’.

Are there negative side effects of not having sex at all?

While we all know the benefits of being intimate, there are actually some negatives to not getting enough action.

While abstaining from sex can reduce the risk of contracting a STI or STD and improve mental health, it can also lead to certain physical issues.

For women, a lack of sexual activity can trigger decreased blood flow to the pelvic area, resulting in vaginal dryness and atrophy. A lack of stimulation can also cause pelvic floor weakness.

And for men, infrequent sexual activity can cause issues with erectile function due to the decreased blood flow to penile tissues. Prostate health can also become a concern, as frequent ejaculation has been statistically associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer, according to Web MD.

Donald Trump has now called off the plans to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood attacker.

Nidal Hasan had been set to become the first person to be publicly executed in the US in almost 90 years.

The former US army major had killed 13 people and injured more than 30 others in a mass shooting at the Texas army base in 2009, and has been incarcerated awaiting his death.

But following major criticism over the plans for the public display, Trump said on Thursday that ‘many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die’.

Hasan’s execution was due to be streamed to public

It had previously been announced by the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth that the public would be able to tune in to to watch the firing squad execution in real time.

Hasan had been sentenced to death by a military court and is set to become the first service member to be executed by armed forces since 1961.

At Hasan’s trial, he said he had ‘switched sides’ and claimed he’d carried out the deadly attack out of a wish to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders from US troops.

Trump had previously said he approved of the livestream, before the apparent U-turn. He had been due to be killed on 3 December.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement on last week: “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by US Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009.

“He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack.

“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”

Parnell also explained why the Pentagon had decided to go ahead with a public execution, saying: “People need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

Livestream decision sparked criticism

The decision to broadcast the state-sanctioned killing sparked fierce debate among lawmakers and human rights advocates.

Vice President JD Vance also weighed in, saying he was not sure if the federal government would have actually livestreamed the execution, adding that if it did he would not watch it.

A senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga. also criticised the decision, writing on social media:”I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that.”

The decision was also described as being ‘unprecedented in the modern era’ by death row lawyer John Mills.

He told the BBC: “Seeking to make it live-streamed, a firing squad execution, is little more than attention-seeking by the Trump administration and is unlikely to occur, much less deliver any semblance of justice.”

A video shared on social media claims to illustrate what may happen to your body when you don’t eat for 36 hours.

Intermittent fasting has seen a big explosion in popularity, with many people claiming that it has helped them in their lives, including none other than former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak.

Sunak reportedly had regular 36 hour fasts, including during his time in number 10 itself, and there are some experts who claim that there may be health benefits to the practice.

The video on the FoodVFact account shared a timeline, saying that after four hours your digestion stops and insulin levels drop.

After eight hours your blood sugar has dropped, and after 12 hours fat burning in the body may also start to happen, entering ketosis.

After 16 hours autophagy starts, and then after a full 24 hours it describes ‘major repair mode’ in the body.

When you get to 30 hours growth hormones go up, and fat loss is accelerated. Finally after 36 hours the video describes ‘deep cleaning’ in the body.

However, experts have also warned that while there may be evidence that some people may get some benefit from the practice, intermittent fasting is very much not for everyone.

Adam Collins is an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Surrey, and warned that people who have an eating disorder or are pregnant should not try intermittent fasting, He also said that people who have diabetes should also be very careful if attempting it, though there may be some evidence of a benefit in people with pre-diabetes.

Weight loss is of course one of the big driving forces behind the popularity of intermittent fasting, with the video showing that after a certain point the body enters ketosis, effectively where it starts burning fat in order to sustain itself.

Collins has himself conducted research which compared people who underwent a period of intermittent fasting with people who followed a strict calorie-counting diet over the same period.

“In essence, what you’re doing is shifting the body from using fundamental carbohydrates for fuel towards using fat as a fuel over that 36-hour period,” he told The Guardian.

And ketosis is not the only process which there is evidence that fasting could trigger, there is also one called autophagy.

Collins compared this to spring cleaning, saying: “Your cells start to break down cellular components and then recycle those components for other things.”

One popular form for intermittent fasting is called the 5:2 diet.

This is effectively dividing up your week into five days and two days, where you eat your normal diet on five of those days, but then reduce it down to a quarter of your usual diet on two of the days.

It’s less drastic than fully fasting for 36 hours, but the idea is that you reduce your intake for that shorter period, and there is less of a big impact on your body than might be produced by fasting completely.

Fasting itself is considered to be among the most extreme diets out there, and Frank Modeo, a professor of the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at Karl-Franzens University of Graz in Austria, warned that ‘it has not been sufficiently investigated within randomised controlled trials’ to know for sure if there are health benefits, Healthline reports.

The definition of ‘fasting’ can also be loose, with some people still drinking tea and coffee, and others including bone broth in their fasting, while even stricter people go for just water.

A video of a boy from Quebec has gone viral on the internet, leaving many people wondering what is happening in the clip.

The video originates from a TV show called Soirée canadienne, which aired on TV in Quebec between 1960 and 1983.

It would be broadcast on Saturday evenings, with the set built to resemble a Canadian home, and all of the guests in a given episode being invited from the same town or village.

Over the course of the show members of the audience would take turns singing traditional songs from Quebec, as well as performing dances, with the whole room sometimes joining in for call and response songs.

It was intended as a celebration and showcasing of Quebec folk traditions, and the clip shows a boy called Serge Veilleux dressed in a two piece suit showing off his singing and dancing in the song, with everyone else also joining in on the chorus.

The song itself is called Le Docteur Guerit Tout, which means ‘Doctor Cure-All’, and is about a doctor who cuts off his patients’ body parts.

The structure of the song works as a list, with each verse introducing a new body part that a patient is complaining about, which the doctor then cuts off. As the song continues, the list of lost body parts gets progressively longer and longer.

Veilleux has since gone viral on social media, with the clip resurfacing over 40 years after its original broadcast.

One account called @UCCavalier, shared the clip with the post: “POV: You told a rude Québécois kid who gave you grief for daring to speak English that fries are better with ketchup than as poutine, so now he’s folk-dancing to defend the village’s honour.”

The clip went on to rack up over 5.7 million views around the world, even leading to the former premier of Alberta Jason Kenney shared a post on the clip to his social media page.

“Everyone seems to be talking about these fun Quebec chansons à réponses from Soirée Canadienne in the 70s,” he wrote.

“To Québecers: English Canadians are not mocking this tradition, but admiring it. I think the fascination is that in our fractured, atomized society, we can see a beautiful expression of real community.

“Everyone, from kids to grandparents, knows the words and sings them together. The joyfulness of the tradition is also a wonderful antidote to our hyper cynical age.

“And the authenticity of the music itself is a beautiful contrast to the auto tuned and hyper engineered noise that passes for a lot of today’s popular music.”

He added: “It’s obvious these songs were passed on from generation to generation, and represent a sense of shared culture and love of home.

“They make us nostalgic for a simpler time of shared meaning and identity.”

People took to the comment section on social media to share their thoughts about the music, with several other songs from the show also popping up on social media as well.

“Quebec has taken over the timeline completely. Amazing,” wrote one.

Another shared: “Being at a Quebec pub when the house band fires up one of these bangers is confirmed fantastic.”

A neighbour of William Chapman said he had changed in the past few months to become more sociable and ‘very friendly’.

Chapman, 23, was killed by a tiger on Saturday (10 October) when he jumped into its enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park and approached the animal, with it mauling him.

The emergency services were called but William was pronounced dead at the scene, it has been confirmed that the tiger will not be put down.

Speaking to the Mirror, William’s neighbour Josh Anderton said he’d moved in next door a few months ago and found him to be a ‘lovely, lovely man’.

The neighbour said that while William ‘definitely struggled’ with mental health problems he was ‘absolutely harmless’ and changed over time to interact more with people.

Their flats were situated near the Ballers Sports Bar and Anderton said that William would often go in there, and while he initially didn’t talk very much he became more sociable.

He said: “For the first year in the pub he would come in and he would struggle to speak to people. He would come in and just linger and wouldn’t speak.

“But for the past six months he had become very approachable, very friendly.”

Anderton said that William was a big fan of Formula One and it was ‘all he’d ever speak about’, also mentioning that ‘he told me he used to be on a kids’ TV show’.

That’s true, as he’d been on the 2009 ITV show May Contain Nuts alongside Shirley Henderson and then in 2012 appeared in a BBC educational video for their True Stories series where he portrayed the young version of the scientist Edward Jenner.

The neighbour said they’d been walking to the bus stop and he’d been watching something on his phone when William had said ‘oh, I used to be on TV’.

William’s family said he had been a ‘bright, warm and engaging‘ man, with them saying in a statement that he’d ‘suffered significant mental illness’ over the years and they ‘dearly loved’ him.

The family asked people to ‘respect the process’ of the coroner, with a hearing being told that William had been prescribed medication and been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

A full inquest will go ahead in March next year.

William’s former school, the Jackie Palmer Stage School & Agency, offered their condolences to his family and said they had ‘loved watching William grow, both as a person and as a performer’.

They said: “It was a privilege to be part of his journey, and he will be remembered with great fondness by everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him.

“William will be truly missed, and he will always hold a special place in our hearts. Rest in peace, William.”