Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs • Hacker News Board

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#111

Post by valueprop » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

ronnier wrote: post #35

The world is changing rapidly. The magic year of 2012 is when Tinder was release and then grew rapidly. Move forward to today: a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice), they do not have sex, they have no hope of getting into a relationship. The reverse is not true for women, who have countless options and can at any time open their phone and have their pick of men. In gener…

To make an analogy: a singer artist in his town used to be 'good enough'. Now he competes with YouTube and tours from 'alpha' artists in nearby cities.

So yeah, women can pick adventures with alpha males (especially considering looks) instead of a long term relationship with the average guy. This leaves almost nothing (ok-ish) for the average guy.

What's an average guy supposed to do? I'm genuinely interested in answers.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#112

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

aianus wrote: post #63

EliRivers wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are conflating "being in the market" with "not being successful in the market". You said they're not in the market ("totally removed"). If they're not in the market, attempting to make a sale, the odds of ever making sale are zero. If you're in the market, and nobody is buying, you need to improve your product or target other potential customers. If this was about software or other such, everyone would…

It's possible that any given person can, as you say, work harder and achieve success in dating, and that it is impossible for everyone to do it because of structural reasons. For example, if there are 800 million men in your country and 700 million women, "try harder" will only work for 700 million men and will never work for the other 100 million (assuming they want long-term monogamous marriages etc.) SF isn't Chin…

[deleted]

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#113

Post by RangerScience » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

valueprop wrote: post #111

ronnier wrote: post #35

The world is changing rapidly. The magic year of 2012 is when Tinder was release and then grew rapidly. Move forward to today: a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice), they do not have sex, they have no hope of getting into a relationship. The reverse is not true for women, who have countless options and can at any time open their phone and have their pick of men. In gener…

To make an analogy: a singer artist in his town used to be 'good enough'. Now he competes with YouTube and tours from 'alpha' artists in nearby cities. So yeah, women can pick adventures with alpha males (especially considering looks) instead of a long term relationship with the average guy. This leaves almost nothing (ok-ish) for the average guy. What's an average guy supposed to do? I'm genuinely interested in answ…

Evolve? Or, in more words:

When you are experiencing something you'd call "hardship"; first, go slower with yourself; then consider: Are you trying to become numb to something unpleasant or painful, or are you in an opportunity to become more than who you once were?

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#114

Post by EliRivers » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

big_chungus wrote: post #96

EliRivers wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are conflating "being in the market" with "not being successful in the market". You said they're not in the market ("totally removed"). If they're not in the market, attempting to make a sale, the odds of ever making sale are zero. If you're in the market, and nobody is buying, you need to improve your product or target other potential customers. If this was about software or other such, everyone would…

Right, but with humans, the only viable option to fulfill this proposition is a positional arms race of plastic surgery. Innovation in a market is usually good and has brought huge benefits; you can't really "improve" your looks after possibly weight loss and personal care without a doctor. Of course you can usually improve yourself, but dating apps usually mean judgement by attractiveness. It's basically the differe…

I disagree. There is a huge section of the market that is not simply chasing the most physically attractive purchase possible. It is also the case that, despite the suspiciously homoerotic incel obsession with looking like "Chad" (cf. chin implant hypothesis), there's more to being attractive than looking like Chad and there's by no means only one measure of it.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#115

Post by RangerScience » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #19

The sexual marketplace, like all marketplaces with few restrictions, has returned to a “winner take all” state. Fewer men have sex with more women. Thus STDs rise as more people have a smaller and smaller “sexual range.”

Do you have any sources for this?

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#116

Post by buboard » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

analyst74 wrote: post #109

ronnier wrote: post #35

The world is changing rapidly. The magic year of 2012 is when Tinder was release and then grew rapidly. Move forward to today: a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice), they do not have sex, they have no hope of getting into a relationship. The reverse is not true for women, who have countless options and can at any time open their phone and have their pick of men. In gener…

> The world changed, women do not need your money or your protection. This is a good thing, we men will need to evolve to what women desire if we want to be competitive in the dating market. Speaking as someone who has lost tremendous amount of competitiveness by moving to US. > The fancy jobs do not matter like they did before, nor does having a ton of money. Fancy jobs and tons of money still matter, just the bar i…

> evolve or become obsolete

People seem to weigh the pros and cons and choose to not play the game rather than entering a rat race. Its not clear for what thing they "become obsolete", esp. considering these data are not about marriage / reproduction

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#117

Post by manicdee » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

ReptileMan wrote: post #101

bilbo0s wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And unless the women want to date down they have to accept it. And, these women. They are so averse to the "date down" idea in your view, that they are willing to contract HIV to avoid dating firemen or truck drivers? I'm probably too old to understand anymore. But I'll just say that in my day, more women were in college than men. Even so, that idea of risky sex because a guy has a degree would have been patent non…

The HIV scare was strongest by the time the older millennials were born. I am not sure that it is on the top of anyone's mind right now. Since I entered the dating market I have observed that women prefer men being taller, at least comparable smartness and earning a bit more than them. The couples around for which this isn't true are probably < 10% of all.

Same as it ever was.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#118

Post by throwaway87378 » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #108

throwaway87378 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Move forward to today: a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice), they do not have sex, they have no hope of getting into a relationship. The reverse is not true for women, who have countless options and can at any time open their phone and have their pick of men. You are totally ignoring the demographic of women over 40. Older women have a very hard time dating. > So, whe…

> " I have never heard anyone say that male birth should be limited, but it obviously should… we can steer ourselves towards a population with a predominance of females, and those females should have only one child, and 75% of those children should also be female. " Yikes. So how does this mesh with the idea that the modern left is about gender equality? That's pretty much naked eugenics and this individual does not…

There is no such thing as the "modern left," except as a straw-man used by various people in US corporate television and radio.

Mary Daly was a Catholic professor of theology and prominent second-wave feminist in the late 1960s/1970s, and according to her "If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." Valerie Solanas argued for total androcide in her 1967 SCUM Manifesto (IMO a very underrated book).

These ideas are not new, are not liberal, and should not be particularly surprising if you stop emotionally investing in consumer society, corporate indoctrination, and "traditional" (authoritarian and misogynist) cultural values, and instead look at where the life-carrying capacity of the Earth has been, where we currently have reduced it to, and where it is heading towards if present trends continue.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#119

Post by big_chungus » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #114

big_chungus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but with humans, the only viable option to fulfill this proposition is a positional arms race of plastic surgery. Innovation in a market is usually good and has brought huge benefits; you can't really "improve" your looks after possibly weight loss and personal care without a doctor. Of course you can usually improve yourself, but dating apps usually mean judgement by attractiveness. It's basically the differe…

I disagree. There is a huge section of the market that is not simply chasing the most physically attractive purchase possible. It is also the case that, despite the suspiciously homoerotic incel obsession with looking like "Chad" (cf. chin implant hypothesis), there's more to being attractive than looking like Chad and there's by no means only one measure of it.

Of course that's true, but a move towards platforms like tinder leads to increased reliance on physical attractiveness. The portion of the market which is focused on attractiveness seems to be shrinking as time goes on.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#120

Post by manicdee » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

pushcx wrote: post #80

ronnier wrote: post #35

The world is changing rapidly. The magic year of 2012 is when Tinder was release and then grew rapidly. Move forward to today: a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice), they do not have sex, they have no hope of getting into a relationship. The reverse is not true for women, who have countless options and can at any time open their phone and have their pick of men. In gener…

> a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice) Please don't make up things like this. There's tons of well-researched data available from the CDC and NIH. None of it supports this misogynist conspiracy that men have stopped having sex. > Regarding opposite-sex sexual behavior, 95.3% of women and 93.5% of men aged 18–44 had ever had any opposite-sex sexual contact. There are pag…

Trends in STDs are going to be caused by people who are having a lot of unprotected sex. So those people who "have had actual sex with another human" count for nothing. What you need is a study that shows which people have been having more sex, and why they have been having unprotected sex.

Now compare that "have had actual sex with another human" study with studies from places like OK Cupid where they found that:

- women overall got the most messages on dating sites

- the second decile of women got more than 50% of the attention (ie: the hottest women got a lot of messages but the "in my league" hot women got far more)

- most women got some attention (even just 1 message during the study)

- only the most attractive men got attention, but closer to the level of the least attractive women

- the most attractive men will "date down" to improve their chances of having sex on their terms

- women in general will "date up"

Informal study with ten invented people: http://jonmillward.com/blog/attraction-dating/cupid-on-trial...

OK Cupid has plenty of studies, but here's one that looks at who sends the first message (overwhelmingly men): https://theblog.okcupid.com/a-womans-advantage-82d5074dde2d (there's another study based on interracial relations, and it turns out that all women prefer white men).

Spreading STDs isn't about how much sex you have, it's whether the one person you had sex with had an STD. Given the extremely asymmetrical nature of the dating and hookup successes, it's highly likely that the one person you had sex with this month had sex with a lot more people than you.

It doesn't help that the news agencies are reporting "cure for AIDs" and nonsense like that, so people don't take STDs seriously — we basically have an anti-awareness campaign making people more cavalier about sexual health.

There's no real puzzle here, just lots of contributing factors.