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Sex is everywhere – in popular music and TV programmes, in toothpaste adverts and on social media. Yet in real life, regular sex no longer seems to be such a big priority for people in their 20s. Research in countries including Britain, the United States and Japan has shown that young people are having less sex than previous generations.

Twenty-one-year-old student Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty talks to people her own age to find out why. She meets Kohsuke from Japan, who has high expectations of his ideal girlfriend because of the airbrushed images he sees on Instagram, but feels shy about approaching girls because he doesn’t have much money or a stellar career.

Mercedes and Esme, both from the UK, are wrestling with new understandings of relationships which make emotional attachment frightening; while Penelope and Darren use labels like demi sexual or homo romantic asexual to explain why they only want sex in very specific circumstances. And, Tory, a Christian from the US, who went from a strict no-sex-before-marriage upbringing straight to hook-up culture – meeting partners online for sex.

Expert comment is provided by Prof Kaye Wellings, who has conducted one of the largest research projects in the world on sexual behaviour, and Anjula Mutanda, a relationship psychologist.

(Photo: A couple in bed peeking over a blanket. Credit: Getty Images)