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

reuters.com

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

#721

Post by bjourne »

pas wrote: post #692
bjourne wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory has not borne out in reality. Japan and China are the countries with the most young incels/sexless men/male virgins per capita are among the most peaceful in the world. It's a good theory, sexual frustration => violence, but it's just not happening.

A causal link might be still there, but the theory might only explain a few percent of the variance, due to many other (confounding) factors.

Not sure what variance has to do with it? Thing is, you can always "patch" an X leads to Y theory when faced with opposing evidence by blaming confounding factors. But that is not very scientific. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

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

#722

Post by distant_hat »

quasarj wrote: post #345
tonystubblebine wrote: post #175

There are two coaching perspectives that I think are useful for single men. We don't have many dating coaches in the coaching community I run, but I've been in long conversations with coaches outside that community whose job it is to help men date. One perspective is that it's almost always faster to focus on being more interested rather than more interesting. That means focusing on status and alpha male activities i…

I'm glad you brought up the friend-zone thing. I feel like I'm extremely good at all the things you listed before that, and I have a ton of female friends (which I love, don't get me wrong). I just have no idea to turn that into sex.

I have turned a few friendzones into sexual relationships. You have to risk losing the friendship though, which if you have a ton of friends isn't that much of an issue.

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

#723

Post by harambae »

seppel wrote: post #580
sebwi wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I guess they theorize that in stable relationships, men are more likely to have sex. If forming relationships gets more difficult, the majority of men have less sex. I'm not sure if the argument is actually valid but from a historical perspective I can understand the thought process.

If men have more sex in stable relationships, and for women it does not matter, then with whom do the women sleep with?

The argument I typically see (and no, I don't agree with it) is that 80% of the women are sleeping with 20% of the men.

So in the broadest sense, the 5th chart on this financial times page [0], is typically explained with this chart [1]

[0] https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/12/02/1575302514000/-thank-... [1] https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1578799051033.png

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

#724

Post by Stupulous »

bjourne wrote: post #720
Stupulous wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you have a comparison between unrest in Chinese people who are starting families and those that are not? You keep trying to push this analogy into a territory where the evidence is a lot stronger than what you've given. You compared the country to other countries, and it's analogous to comparing a city with a higher cancer rate to a city with a higher smoking rate and saying that smoking cannot cause cancer. Data…

You don't seem to realize is that you have a theory X -> Y and I can find some X for which X -> Y is false, then the theory is false. Regardless of the theory. I have found such X. In principle you agree, but you want to save your theory so you say "Well, if X and not Z then Y!" and that explains my counter example because my group probably had Z. Here Z being the racist idea that Asian people are less violent than o…

The theory is that an increase in X causes an increase in Y. You've pointed out cases that have a high X and low Y as counterpoints. But in order to make the point you're making you need to provide evidence that increases in X have not lead to increases in Y, so we can control for initial X.

Back to cancer, heavy smokers who did not develop cancer are an example of some X for which X->Y is false. Like you said, you would need to take a random sample of cases and see whether Y correlates with X against a control group.

You introduced the concept of Asian countries having lower rates of social unrest, and I have never said this is related to race at all. Perhaps you are reading into the genetic confound in the cancer example, but it was just intended as an example of a confound within the analogy. There are plenty of differences between life in these countries and elsewhere that can act as confounds.

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

#725

Post by sigotirandolas »

sjg007 wrote: post #453
downerending wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this among the young men in my extended family and friends. One guy is model cute, and goes out on Tinder "dates" whenever he wants (new girl weekly, at least). He had a live-in girlfriend, but with an open relationship. And if I were one of these women, I'd probably do the same thing. Even if you can't marry a hottie, if you can have sex with one a few times, that still sounds like fun. The other guys,…

The advice to the normal guy in this scenario is to stop smoking pot and hit the gym. That will make up for a lot.

If you assume that the system is that a woman select the most attractive man out of a pool of candidates, which seems right to me as a gross approximation, that does nothing to change the dynamics of the system. It just gives more chances to an individual to the detriment of the rest of the candidates. It's a zero sum game. Just another treadmill for the everyone to run, if you mind the pun.

The systematic problem is that all developments in the last decades have made dating/sex a very efficient market that is skewed towards winner-take-all. There is zero commitment required, the pools are very large, and selection is straightforward.

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

#726

Post by scarmig »

seppel wrote: post #58

This article awkwardly dances around reasons why young men have less sex. First it is "social media and electronic gaming", then the reasons "may also include stress of juggling work and intimate relationships, as well as the prevalence of other forms of solo entertainment." But then, they notice that "[s]exual activity was largely unchanged among unmarried women, along with no notable decline among gay men, research…

The reader is left draw their own conclusions, which isn't hard for the average person to do. The alternative of laying it out explicitly will invariably draw lots of blow back, which is good for neither careers nor interpersonal relationships if your name is attached to it.

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

#727

Post by lenkite »

harambae wrote: post #723
seppel wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If men have more sex in stable relationships, and for women it does not matter, then with whom do the women sleep with?

The argument I typically see (and no, I don't agree with it) is that 80% of the women are sleeping with 20% of the men. So in the broadest sense, the 5th chart on this financial times page [0], is typically explained with this chart [1] [0] https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/12/02/1575302514000/-thank-... [1] https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1578799051033.png

From my personal anecdotal experience, there is a large grain of truth in that "chart". Women are the primary decision makers of any sexual activity, they have a much higher bar than (most) men on sexual desirability and amongst those who don't care about any relationships - a large number choose the same men.

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

#728

Post by lenkite »

bjl wrote: post #373
SwiftyBug wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

having willpower and time are two of the most dificult things in life.

Heartily disagree. If you have time to play video games and endlessly post on reddit, then you have time to get in shape and take a shower. Willpower's even easier barring mental illness (in which case they should see a doctor, not whine about women on the internet).

You can have a good body with a six-pack and still fail in a relationship - this is more true for men than women.

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

#729

Post by pas »

bjourne wrote: post #721
pas wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A causal link might be still there, but the theory might only explain a few percent of the variance, due to many other (confounding) factors.

Not sure what variance has to do with it? Thing is, you can always "patch" an X leads to Y theory when faced with opposing evidence by blaming confounding factors. But that is not very scientific. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Sure, you're right (also https://www.gwern.net/Causality#overview-the-current-situati... )

I'm just trying to say that very few things are actually that causal in big complex systems. I'm trying to say that such issues are very likely have many-many factors, and we see an aggregate effect.

And so in case of such aggregates arguing for-against them with very simple first-order reasoning is kind of useless. Because each piece of data (supporting or counter evidence) just explains a part of the big picture. So, without accounting for all data we can't really make general statements about what causes the aggregate effect that we see.

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

#730

Post by walls »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #435
Nav_Panel wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I think many people are missing the point, which is that all these failures of intimacy are downstream from failures of community, of sociality in general (cf. "Bowling Alone"). Our culture has shifted further toward valuing the individual over the group, which means that many individuals no longer have recourse to a group in order to find partners, friends, etc. Men are not just "not having sex", they are lonel…

This is the comment I most agree with. We've created a world where there aren't many neutral venues for men and women to get to rub elbows with each other and get to know each other. Combine that with the US's culture of fear and here we are.

This is pure nonsense, there's never been more things to do and places to go to meet people.

There are hundreds to thousands of meetups on any given week for any given interest or hobby.

If you're not aware of any of these things happening, it's possible that you need to find some interests or hobbies.

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