Gregg Araki: 'I Want Your Sex' Is About the Sex Gen Z Isn't Having

This story originally appeared on Out.Gregg Araki found the spark for I Want Your Sex in an unlikely place: a statistic about Gen Z's dwindling sex lives.Directed and co-written by Araki, along with co-writer Karley Sciortino, the erotic comedy centers on the sexual relationship between renowned provocative artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde) and naive new intern Elliot (Cooper Hoffman). During one of the later passes on the script, Araki read that about 30 percent of Gen Z hadn't had sex in the previous year, and the shape of the film changed as a result. "That's actually a real article that I had read, sort of as I was doing the last drafts of the script, probably maybe the very last or the second last, and it became kind of the major theme of the movie," he tells Out. The stat shows up almost verbatim in the film, as a piece of information Erika uses to make a point to Elliot. Erika may be Araki's clearest on-screen surrogate in years. Like Araki, she's an artist whose reputation has been built on provoking audiences. "This notion of the Erika Tracy character, in a way, very much speaks for me because she, like myself, is an artist who deals with a lot of sexual themes and sexuality in her work," Araki says. "Her work is controversial; it's provocative. All the things people have said about my movies all these years." Olivia Wilde as Erika Tracy in 'I Want Your Sex.'Photo courtesy of Magnolia PicturesLooking at a generation raised on phones, constant surveillance, and a pandemic that reshaped intimacy, Erika argues that openness about sex hasn't necessarily translated into sexual freedom. She's an older artist who built a career on sexual candor, looking at a culture that talks more openly about kink and desire than any before it, and still can't quite parse why so many of its members are opting out entirely.Elliot serves as a counterpoint. "As sort of representative of Gen Z, very eloquently I think presents what's going on with his generation and why their contex