Everyone Has Thoughts About Gen Z and Sex. 'Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma' Gets It Right

This essay contains spoilers about Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Half an hour into Jane Schoenbrun’s viscous new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, I saw my own psyche on screen. While rising filmmaker Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) sits across from Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the final girl from the ‘80s slasher B-movie she hopes to reboot, she unpacks her tendency to intellectualize art that evokes deep feeling within her. Billy implies that Kris’ rumination is a means of avoiding said feeling—something I’ve been known to do, too, and I think a fair share of people my age would agree.

Kris and Billy’s exchange over fried chicken and dipping sauces isn’t just an astute table topic; it becomes essential to understanding Schoenbrun’s film—and offers more nuance to Gen Z's oft-discussed attitude toward sex and intimacy than any pundit to date. Like Schoenbrun’s previous works (I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair), Teenage Sex and Death hides a human story under metatextual commentary on genre media. I went in as blind as possible, only knowing that the film was a send-up of franchises like Sleepaway Camp, and followed Kris as she attempted to recruit Billy for her remake of a property deemed “zombie IP” due to its failed sequels and transphobic roots. Teenage Sex and Death’s true plot reveals itself to be a journey of reawakening, as both women grapple with how the in-universe killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), shaped their early views on sex. As reality and fiction dissolve in hilarious ways involving “flesh and fluids,” Kris goes from repressed prude to the star of her secret fantasy.

In one scene, while Kris and Billy lay on a fireside bed of gummy candies, Kris admits, “Sex seems so easy for so many people, but I’ve never been able to get there unless I’m really far away in my head.” That line gave voice to a part of me that I’ve never had the language for. Sex, like dating, was something that felt at a distance while I was growing up, even though I came of age amid peak hookup culture. Like many queer teenage outsiders, any curiosity I felt was eclipsed by a subconscious fear of what would happen if I stepped outside societal norms. That survival-mode mindset continued into my 20s, living through career insecurity, major depressive disorder co-mingled with undiagnosed ADHD, the first Trump presidency, and the COVID-19 epidemic. It wasn’t until 31 that a deep craving for intimacy came rushing to the surface, with enough force that it was physically painful. As I now set out to explore my sexuality, I realize that even if my first adolescence had gone the typical route, I’d never been set up for success. The only high school sex-ed I’d retained was a female guest speaker who described every time she had sex as giving away a piece of herself, until she was empty.

Kris is heavily coded as Gen Z, from her cynical-idealist views on modern Hollywood to the casting of the actress behind Hacks’ woke young writer Ava Daniels. (Like me, Einbinder actually falls on the millennial side of the cusp). Though I typically hold on to my millennial bona fides with an iron grip, I’ve always related to Gen Z as the so-called “sexless generation.” The practice of telling younger generations that they’re doing sex wrong without actually talking to them about their choices is nothing new. As Carter Sherman reported in her book The Second Coming, the falling stats around Gen Z’s sexual activity can be linked to trepidation and insecurity, but also to a growing discernment towards the sex they want and deserve. The sensationalized moral-panic takes on “puriteens” refuse to acknowledge that today’s teens and 20-somethings are responding to a surplus of information about a rapidly-changing world (the fall of Roe, the rise in abstinence-only sex-ed, the COVID-19 lockdowns, the internet, etc.).

While Kris amplifies my and a number of my peers’ complicated feelings about sex, Billy shows their possible evolution. Part of the film is dedicated to scenes from the original Camp Miasma, with Amanda Fix playing Billy as the final girl. In a pivotal scene that mystified a young Kris, Billy loses her virginity to another camp counselor. She’s clearly uncomfortable and starts to dissociate, just as Little Death enters the cabin and adds the teens to their body count. Schoenbrun themself has described the scene as “a sexual assault,” and a “litmus test” for the gentle coercion that’s become a staple of dating culture. Their film ties together Billy’s harrowing first sexual experience and Kris’ struggles with dissociation to not only give voice to a generation’s reluctance—but also to show them a path forward.

Teenage Sex and Death ends by dropping Kris into her own remake. Braless in a baby tee and underwear, she flees Little Death across the campgrounds and finds refuge in Billy’s cabin. As the women have sex, Billy encourages Kris to split her consciousness and see through both her own and Little Death’s eyes as the slasher rams his spear into their cores. On my first watch, I left the theater wondering if the third act was Kris’ dream, her vivid imagination staging taboo roleplay as her and Billy’s corporeal forms were still by the fire. On the second watch, I let go of my constant need to break down stories into intellectual patterns and concepts. I quieted my brain and let my soul feel it.

Kris and Billy's journey through sexual trauma and repression towards ecstasy made me contend with something I've never admitted: I’m not sure if I’ve ever had an orgasm. I’ve tried. I have watched the Beducated videos and listened to the Dipsea tutorials and read fanfiction and purchased LELO’s finest, but something in me gets overwhelmed before I can approach anything close to a “little death.” Only when I’m in a fantasy, imagining a body like mine—stomach a little smaller, tits a little perkier—moving with all self-consciousness evaporated, do I get close. In a sense, if I really think through these fantasies, they would probably all have a throughline—my version of Kris’ third-act Miasma. Maybe if I’m lucky enough to find a Billy, someone safe to explore my deepest self without shame, I can find a similar bliss.

This euphoric, blood-soaked epiphany of a movie has left me with a Catch-22. It’s the kind of film that makes me excited to go out and live life, but I know those same vicarious feelings aren’t always easy to come by. It takes a certain amount of optimism, openness, and faith in human connection to be truly vulnerable. All it takes is a few minutes of watching the news, scrolling through a toxic social feed, or even watching a popular dating show to be reminded of the infinite ways that the search for connection can lead to pain. These are the types of thorny societal dilemmas that movies were made to explore; with Teenage Sex and Death, Schoenbrun has presented their answer to a sexual anxiety affecting an entire demographic. And, for me at least, they’ve given hope that we’ll find people willing to help us out of our brains and into the fleshy, messy world.