This 2026 Comedy Aims To Anger Everyone — And Explore Gen Z In The Process

In the immortal words of George Michael, "Sex is something that we should do. Sex is something for me and you. Sex is natural, sex is good. Not everybody does it, but everybody should." These lyrics from his controversial hit single "I Want Your Sex" exemplify the beating heart at the core of New Queer Cinema pioneer Gregg Araki's latest feature film of the same name, his first in over a decade. Araki's work has been somewhat synonymous with the Gen X and Millennial audiences that made them their identities, but "I Want Your Sex" is speaking directly to Gen Z. It's a sermon cloaked in a leather harness from one of pop culture's most provocative elder statesmen begging the Youth of America to stop talking about the hypotheticals of sex and intimacy with strangers you meet in Discord servers and actually go out there and experience the complexities of life — the titillating and the heartbreaking.

Araki himself is a baby boomer, but there's clear empathy for the younger generations raised in a surveillance state. At the same time, he rightfully points out that even though it sucks that everyone is seemingly recording everything everyone does at every given moment, the best way to combat the constant threat of shame is to become shameless. None of us feel truly seen despite being constantly observed, but there's liberation in hedonism, and lust is supposed to be destabilizing. A horny, campy hybrid of "Sunset Boulevard" and "Secretary" by way of Tex Avery cartoons for the post-#MeToo era, Araki and "Now Apocalypse" co-writer Karley Sciortino's script tells the story of pretentious provocateur artist Erika Tracy (a career-best Olivia Wilde) and her clueless, submissive, much-younger assistant, Elliot (a delightfully charming Cooper Hoffman) in an unethical relationship from mouthwateringly toxic sex-hell.

Olivia Wilde is having a hell of a year between "I Want Your Sex" and her directorial comeback, "The Invite," but Erika Tracy is a role built in a lab for her to dominate. Much of the film centers on Elliot's naiveté when it comes to his submissive role with his boss, 14 years his senior, so much so that he explains to the detectives interrogating him about their relationship (expertly deployed by Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville), "strangely, the power imbalance made it more sexy," and it genuinely sounds like he's realizing why the taboo is hot in real time. Elliott and Erika's situation breaks his brain on a foundational level, because he's been taught as a member of Gen Z that a worse fate than death is to be "cringe" or "problematic," and yet the greatest pleasure he's ever known has been in a relationship that's both.

At the same time, "I Want Your Sex" doesn't posit the older generation as inherently "better" for being more sexually liberated. Erika has made overt sexuality her brand as an artist, but it's clear that she's using kinky and oftentimes coercive sex as a balm for her own trauma and insecurities. It's why the two of them make so much sense together, because they're both coming from polar opposites of the spectrum and meeting at the comedic, coital center.

Like "Pillion" from earlier this year, Erika and Elliot's relationship is not meant to be a guide into healthy BDSM relationships or "positive representation." Instead, it's an exploration of how physical intimacy can be the greatest avenue for humans to learn more about themselves and tear down the barriers they've built up to protect themselves from discomfort.

While recent studies prove that Gen Z is having less sex than the generations that came before (and whining about sex scenes in media despite data showing there are actually fewer depictions these days), "I Want Your Sex" refuses to paint an entire generation with a singular brush. On one hand, Elliot's best friend and roommate, Apple (a delightful Chase Sui Wonders) is so out of touch with her own sexuality that she can't recognize what the audience could clock from moment one (APPLE. YOU'RE GAY!), but Elliot's co-worker, Zap (the always wonderful Mason Gooding), openly talks about the gangbangs he's having on the regular. Meanwhile, Elliot's girlfriend Minerva (Charli XCX in a hilariously terrible American accent) seems completely disinterested in sex, but the film asserts that maybe she's just dissatisfied with the kind of sex she has with Elliot.

"I Want Your Sex" has all of the ingredients of a classic Araki movie, but instead of lingering in the familiar haze of dreamy ennui and stoned philosophizing, he's bending the audience over his knee and asking them to count their spankings. The result is one of his most invigorating films, where mistakes matter but they aren't the end of the story. Araki has spent three decades warning audiences that the apocalypse is coming (or already here), but "I Want Your Sex is practically a hopeful proclamation for embracing ambiguity and letting failure be life's greatest teacher.

Erika Tracy feels like someone Amy Blue from "The Doom Generation" would have admired, while Elliot feels like the natural evolution of the alienated Araki protagonists of yesteryear usually played by James Duval (who does have a perfect cameo here). For once, Araki isn't trying to predict the future, but to end the generational wars by having a necessary conversation for the present; we all need to get laid.

"I Want Your Sex" is now in theaters.