Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows • Hacker News Board

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#181

Post by watwut » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

pacija wrote: post #110

lordleft wrote: post #3

The conservative political commentator (and never-Trumper) David Frum has commented about this and the general decline in coupling between the sexes among young people. He believes that part of the reason comes from the economic hurdles facing many millennials; it's harder to get your own place or have a sense of financial confidence, so starting a family or embarking on a relationship may seem more daunting. He also…

Back in a day, quite some time ago, I started screwing around when I was 16. Most of the parents were quite conservative so they didn't allow kids to do it at their places where we, kids, lived, at least not to their knowledge. But we used every occasion to do it while they were at work. Or at birthdays and other home parties. In parks. At the graveyards. On roofs. In basements. Any place where we could get half an h…

The thing that primary predicts less teenage sex is sexual education. Which is better then used to be.

The conservativism of parents where you lived likely contributed to kids having sax in the park hoping nobody will arrest them and charge them with public sex.

And honestly, I never witnessed what you described here and I am kinda happy I did not.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#182

Post by Vysero » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

joelbluminator wrote: post #163

Vysero wrote: post #47

It's become harder to approach women. Based on my experience, they are far more likely this day in age to reject you than ever before. That coupled with the constant barrage men receive on the sexual misconduct front coupled with the notion that women only want exceedingly wealthy, attractive, muscular men makes it very easy for men to slink away into their rooms after work, and play video games all night rather than…

Most women are people just like you, they want a real relationship and want love. I know it's shocking, but they're not all after sleeping with muscular wealthy men any more than you are with sleeping with an 18 year old blonde with huge breasts. Stop being so superficial and start looking at women as real people.

What makes you think I am not interested in sleeping with an 18 year old blonde with huge breasts? That's EXACTLY who I am interested in sleeping with... personally, I am not interested in a relationship at all nor am I attacking women here so I am not sure where you are coming from.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#183

Post by throwaway287391 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

deathhand wrote: post #159

throwaway287391 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they do not see them as equals, as they have been having casual sex with men way out of their league for years. This is the part of this whole theory that I don't really get -- why would these presumably superficial men bother sleeping with women "way below their league" when they could be sleeping with women in, or at least near, their "league" all the time? Is the novelty of a constant huge supply of new part…

> Is the novelty of new partners really that important? Yes. It is biologically programmed into us and can be seen with such colloquialism as "Variety is the spice of life"

Sure, but what does it mean for someone to be "way below your league"? I take it to mean they're unattractive to you. Unless I'm misinterpreting that I just don't see the appeal of sleeping with someone who you're not attracted to.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#184

Post by mmsimanga » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #142

mmsimanga wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious, as you approach a door with a woman, do you open the door for her and let her through first or it's a matter of who get to the door first goes first? Is it saying the words that is weird or the action of letting ladies go first that is weird? I am in my forties and let the ladies go first.

As a young person, I just open doors for everyone, because it's a nice thing to do. There's no reason to restrict nice things to people based on gender and it can be viewed as patronizing to do so.

Ah but my question was specific to ladies. You didn't have enough information from my answer to conclude I only open the door for ladies. I open doors for men too.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#185

Post by jeffreyrogers » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

ponker wrote: post #150

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enforced monogamy doesn't mean what you think it does. Catholics, for example, have enforced monogamy as part of their culture. Most Western cultures have (or did until recently) similar norms. It's talking about cultural pressures, not literal force. Even the wokest cultural groups have their own forms of "enforced" norms.

Surely, you and GP can differ on what you mean by “enforced monogamy.” Certainly some countries do enforce it with literal force, with premarital and extramarital sex being punishable by, in some cases, death.

The person I replied to was relaying their understanding of "enforced monogamy" as used by right-wing people. In that context, enforced monogamy is not being used to describe the things you are describing. Of course, you are right that what you described does occur in some places.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#186

Post by georgiecasey » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

codingslave wrote: post #50

This is a widespread societal change that I think most people are completely unaware of. The majority of women are sleeping with the top 10% of men, sometimes only the top 3-5%, with the rest barely getting any at all. the sexual revolution was never about free love or sexual freedom, it was about womens rights to sleep with the few men they are all attracted to. The lower 80% of men instead saw their sexual freedom…

What age range are you? I'm 36 and never really noticed this back in my younger years.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#187

Post by abeppu » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

People in this thread are talking a lot about the availability of non-sex ways to spend attention (porn, social media, netflix), and of loosely power-law effects where a small number of men can have a lot of sex because of good looks and money.

What about the other economic factors?

- aren't more young people in living situations with greater sharing and less privacy than 20 years ago?

- given the relative stagnation of wage increases over those intervening years, aren't more young people having to work more hours to keep that room in a shared apartment?

- maybe the crushing stress of student debt is sometimes a turnoff?

(edited for spacing)

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#188

Post by luckylion » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #128

vsareto wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a powder keg because we really don't suffer as a society if the excluded men don't get to have kids.

That's not how it's worked out in any society where family formation has been limited for large numbers of young men. The research on the calming effect of family formation on young men is very straightforward: when a population of young men doesn't have the opportunity to form families, _they_ become the powder keg. It's true at multiple scales, from individual criminality to societal unrest.

There is a difference though: Western societies don't strongly couple "allowing" young men to have a family to them having a job. Lots of unemployed, bored, frustrated single young men is different from having employed, frustrated young men.

I have no idea how class plays into this dynamic, but I assume it's not the poorest that aren't having sex, unlike in the societies where this dynamic works as a powder keg.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#189

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #24

tharne wrote: post #12

They buried the lede here. > Sexual activity was largely unchanged among unmarried women, along with no notable decline among gay men, researchers reported. Basically sex is following the pattern of wealth. Men as a group aren't having less sex, instead there's a winner take all effect where a small number of men are having a lot of sex with a lot of women while a large number of men are having little to no sex. It'l…

I don't have data for this but I believe that legal polygamy is a big contributor to political extremism. Sexual frustration leads to inferiority complexes that result in aggression against the norm. As an example I see the Middle East where polygamy is not unheard of and the rise of the Islamic State or the Taliban. Would be interesting if anybody has data on this.

The 20th century was probably the most consequential one in terms of political extremism in the world and there wasn't a lot of polygamy or online dating happening in Europe at least.

Japan and South Korea, two of the most stable and conformist countries politically are notorious for their low rates of sex, particular among young men.

This sounds purely like folk psychology to be honest, people just love somehow attributing sexual motivations to just about everything. To me, this feels like plotting skyscraper construction against sex rates in Asia and then concluding that male architects are channelling their phallic energy into architecture, you can really apply this to everything

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#190

Post by vsareto » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #128

vsareto wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a powder keg because we really don't suffer as a society if the excluded men don't get to have kids.

That's not how it's worked out in any society where family formation has been limited for large numbers of young men. The research on the calming effect of family formation on young men is very straightforward: when a population of young men doesn't have the opportunity to form families, _they_ become the powder keg. It's true at multiple scales, from individual criminality to societal unrest.

So, "give us families, or we'll do crime and destabilize society"?

Sounds like mental health problems are even more rampant than we guessed. We should probably handle that.