Magic Wand Report: Gen Z Is Redefining Sex Solo

The Magic Wand report arrives with a blunt reframing of how younger adults relate to sex. Vibratex, the company behind the Magic Wand brand, released the 2026 Sexual Wellness Trends Report from its Magic Wand Wellness Study, which surveyed one thousand participants chosen from an applicant pool of five thousand, according to the company announcement carried by PR Newswire. The participants were women and nonbinary adults with vulvas living in North America, and the findings are organized by generation, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Three numbers set the tone for the whole Magic Wand report. Ninety-nine percent of participants masturbate, ninety-seven percent own at least one sex toy, and seventy-four percent enjoy their sex life even while dealing with common sexual health challenges, according to the report. Those figures describe a group the report itself calls sexually informed, so they say more about people already comfortable with sexual wellness than about the general public. Still, within that group, satisfaction runs high.

Solo sex is where the generation gap shows

The clearest split in the Magic Wand report is between solo sex and partnered sex. Age, sexual orientation, and gender identity shaped desire for solo sex and how often people had it more than any other factor the researchers tracked, according to the report. Gen Z participants, queer participants, and gender expansive participants explored their sexuality more often through solo sex, while heterosexual cisgender women more regularly had partnered sex, according to the report.

Dr. Candice Hargons, a professor and sex researcher at Emory University, said younger people are redefining sex in the survey data. Hargons said Gen Z is having more regular solo sex, which may help younger adults place less emphasis on partnered sex, according to the announcement. Partnered sex has not disappeared. In the Magic Wand report, solo sex now carries more of the weight in how younger adults experience their own sexuality.

The Kinsey survey points the same way

Outside research lines up with that reading. A Kinsey Institute survey of adults aged eighteen to twenty-nine, released in September, found nearly three in ten respondents had no sexual partners in the previous three months and nearly one in five had never had a partner at all, according to coverage of the survey in Fast Company. Yet only about eighteen percent of respondents said they were unsatisfied with their sex lives, while more than half said they were satisfied, according to the same coverage. Kinsey researcher Camilla Peterson said the pattern comes down to opportunity.

GenZNewZ previously reported on that Kinsey survey and its finding that money and screens were blocking younger adults from partnered sex. Read that earlier coverage here: The Gen Z sex recession is real, and it is not about desire. The Magic Wand report adds a second half to that story. Where the Kinsey data showed partnered sex slowing down, the Magic Wand report shows solo sex filling more of the space, at least among people already engaged with sexual wellness products and information.

What the report does not claim

The Magic Wand report is careful about its own limits, even if the headlines will not be. Its sample comes from an applicant pool, not a random draw of the population, and every participant was already connected enough to sexual wellness to apply for the study, according to the announcement. That makes the findings a portrait of a particular audience: North American women and nonbinary adults with vulvas who sought out a sexual wellness study. Generalizing the percentages to all young adults would stretch the data past what it supports.

Beyond the headline figures, the Magic Wand report covers sexual desire and satisfaction, difficulty reaching orgasm, common sexual health concerns, and trends in sex toy purchasing, according to the announcement. Those sections matter because they treat solo sex as ordinary health behavior rather than a consolation prize for a missing partner. Hargons said participants navigated common sexual health challenges without letting those challenges stop them from getting the sex they wanted, according to the announcement.

That framing is the reason the Magic Wand report is worth paying attention to beyond its percentages. For years, public conversation about young adults and sex has focused on decline: less dating, fewer partners, later milestones. The Magic Wand report, read alongside the Kinsey survey, suggests a different shape to the change. Partnered sex is harder to arrange, for reasons that include cost, housing, and screen time, and solo sex is becoming a larger and more accepted part of how younger adults meet their own needs.

GenZNewZ previously reported on another corner of this shift, in which young adults turned to chatbots for sexual health answers: Gen Z is asking chatbots to diagnose STIs. The through line across all three stories is a generation handling intimate questions on its own terms, sometimes with better tools than the clinic or the dating market offers. For more on how peer support is changing sexual health access, see Peer-led sexual health is getting teens to use HIV prevention.