Why are fewer young adults having casual sex? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#251

Post by mrkramer » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

imbnwa wrote: post #215

ars wrote: post #15

Historically causal sex was rare, and it could be that the recent increase in this was an aberration, and people are just going back to the way it used to be done. This line: "On the other hand, sexual inactivity may hinder young adults’ psychosocial development and diminish their physical and emotional gratification (Julian 2018)." is just bizzare. People have done without casual sex for most of human history, I thi…

Wrong. Warfare for most of human history was an opportunity for rape, sexual slavery, and pillaging valuables. That's the entire reason one stranger would be willing to risk their life for someone they absolutely have no relationship to. The vast Roman legions ran on the prospect of these outcomes. Only in the last 200 years or so, scoping to continental Europe, has it even been considered that warfare become an occa…

> That's the entire reason one stranger would be willing to risk their life for someone they absolutely have no relationship to.

People had to go to wars because you could get death penalty for treason (if you refuse to serve your empire, kingdom etc.) The things you are talking about were opportunistic, wars were always started by rulers motivated by expansionism and not by ordinary people motivated by greed and lust.

And yea all wars had mercenaries but they were minority not majority of the army.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#252

Post by robotastronaut » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 12:40 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #93

robotastronaut wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that there are many parts of our society that are broken, I don’t think that living with parents (or grandparents) is part of that. If anything, I think the constant pressure to be fully independent by the time you’re in your early 20s is the indicator. In much of the world, it’s very common and even encouraged to live with previous generations, sometimes after marriage. There are a ton of benefits from…

I agree, but also "built-in care for younger and older folks" means that "women are expected to do that work". The "women do that work" is achievable without living together with parents. But, even if you do live together, that work does not happen automatically by itself. Someone actually have to spend additional time doing that additional care work. Just living together wont magically provide care without someone s…

You’re absolutely right, and if we can skip over the gender roles real quick, I think it’s another indication of a broader dysfunction that a family can’t support itself on a single income, requiring paid childcare of some form.

But yes, you’re right that the weight of that family care role would typically fall on the woman. I’m hoping that continues to change. I’ve seen real movement in that direction through quarantine as families have been forced to face financial realities.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#253

Post by 838812052807016 » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

throwaway8581 wrote: post #26

Many comments are ignoring the most important aspect. The decline is almost all among men not women: > Using a slightly different age range and time frame, Ueda et al. (2020) found that the percentage of sexually inactive men ages 18 to 24 increased from 18.9 percent in 2000–2002 to 30.9 percent in 2016–2018, and the percentage of sexually inactive young women increased from 15.1 percent to 19.1 percent over the same…

You can swap the sexes and apply the same argument, predicting the opposite result. So I don't think you have it quite right.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#254

Post by halfnormalform » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

quacked wrote: post #119

akamaka wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you do know men like this and you disagree with me, please elaborate. I think your hypothesis is mostly correct, except for the idea that the men who are having more sex are “tremendous specimens”. I don’t think they need to be especially attractive or powerful. It could be cultural or psychological differences that make some men put more energy into their pursuits. For example, compare Jimmy Carter to Bill Clin…

You just mentioned two of the most powerful and charismatic men in history. Can you elaborate on the comparison?

If you got in front of a room and said “I’m here to talk about one of the most powerful and charismatic men in history: Jimmy Carter.” people would assume you were joking.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#255

Post by swat535 » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 5:46 AM UTC

quacked wrote: post #243

testfoobar wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you to a point. "could I get a better mate" is absolutely true when you can swipe across hundreds of profiles. Where it is not true is that attraction is a multi-dimensional process that is very poorly captured by online dating. Men in particular are disadvantaged by it. This is well studied. The false conclusion to draw is that if you fail at online dating, you will fail at real life dating. This false…

I agree with you that attraction is a multi-dimensional process which is very poorly captured by online dating. What I am trying to explain is mine and others' observations that men who don't succeed at present-day online dating , that would have succeeded at real-life dating in the past, are not succeeding today in real life. I am blaming online dating and social media for this phenomena, and attempting to use that…

I agree with the OP on this one at least speaking personally I'm fairly average and not even that tall (~5'6) and I've never had issues dating.

You are right on point that given a choice, most women would most likely rather date a 6'ft tall Brad Pitt however that choice is not always present for them and different women prioritize different things, you can't just lump them all in a single category..

Further attractiveness is only one of _many_ factors that they look at when making a selection and most of them will gladly compromise if you have other higher qualities.

Stability, financial security, appearances, social network, education , interests,.. all come in to play.

Basically, what I'm saying is that dating & relationships are a lot more complex than they seem.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#256

Post by watwut » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 7:52 AM UTC

robotastronaut wrote: post #252

watwut wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but also "built-in care for younger and older folks" means that "women are expected to do that work". The "women do that work" is achievable without living together with parents. But, even if you do live together, that work does not happen automatically by itself. Someone actually have to spend additional time doing that additional care work. Just living together wont magically provide care without someone s…

You’re absolutely right, and if we can skip over the gender roles real quick, I think it’s another indication of a broader dysfunction that a family can’t support itself on a single income, requiring paid childcare of some form. But yes, you’re right that the weight of that family care role would typically fall on the woman. I’m hoping that continues to change. I’ve seen real movement in that direction through quaran…

Quarantine did made women with children loose their jobs a lot more then men. But it is not because they would want to loose income, it is because most childcare falls more on women even if both partners work from home. It is not voluntary single income or no income, it is struggling by.

You also cant ignore gender in the aspect of "who is the one with income and who is the dependent one seemingly spending money he earned while seemingly not working". The ressentments the stemed from that and unsolvable dysfunction made too many families life into suffering.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#257

Post by ovi256 » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 8:28 AM UTC

Beaver117 wrote: post #116

ovi256 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study does not address hormonal changes, but I'd like to see the secular testosterone decline studied. Testosterone directly mediates sexual desire, so that should play a role.

I think this is the reason too. There could be many possible reasons why young men have less testosterone than their ancenstors. Maybe the high child obesity rates? Chemicals in foods?

The high obesity rate is both caused and causing the lower testosterone. Endocrine disruptors (estrogen-like chemicals everywhere, not just in foods, originating from plastic manufacture, among others) are the biggest suspect IMO. They're probably causing both obesity and testosterone decline. It's an emerging topic of research with growing evidence.

I think in a century we're going to be looked upon as barbarians by our ancestors for some of the things we did to our bodies, just as we look upon the earlier generations who leaded gasoline, or smoked pervasively.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#258

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

kar5pt wrote: post #211

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this explanation often, but it ignores the fact that only a small fraction of population uses Tinder. I don't know the real reason, but if I was to guess, the most obvious one is that there are so many interesting things to do, learn, engage in, that making considerable effort in order to have sex simply doesn't seem worth it, that's all.

50% of Americans in their 20s and roughly a third of Americans in all age groups report having used dating apps. What do you mean "a small percentage of the population"? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/06/10-facts-ab...

Well, I also used Tinder. For 5 minutes, because everyone was talking about it. I felt embarrassed I did. Felt like superficiality maxed out.

In any case, if we accept the stats as true[0] and 15% of people under 30 use Tinder, this still leaves us with a huge majority of people who don't use it, so explaining significant social dynamics changes by an app doesn't seem convincing to me. Yes, I know there are other dating apps, but they don't come close to Tinder in terms of popularity.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/814698/share-of-us-inter...

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#259

Post by ilammy » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #154

liaukovv wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if society takes it upon itself(upon undateable men really) to rear all offspring

I wouldn't mind not having sex, if society and labour code wouldn't force me into supporting not my children - who have both parents, by single mothers who made wrong choice, or single mothers who went through in-vitro. If there was a way to avoid it...

> If there was a way to avoid it

You can: move to a shack in the wood, be self-sufficient, don't use society's benefits, and hence don't pay taxes. Otherwise society is interested in baby taxpayers, regardless of who's raising them. Even if you don't use roads, your taxes are still used to build them. Ditto with children.

Re: Why are fewer young adults having casual sex?

#260

Post by volkk » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #245

volkk wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because i understand it's not perfect, and probably never will be. so i adapted. i think all of the positive experiences that i had outweighed all of the negative. that's all there really is to it for me. it also allowed me to meet my now gf. something i've noticed from people that didn't have much luck on these apps is that they fall into two buckets. unfortunately for some, it's really tough since they might not ha…

That's about the farthest explanation from "mostly positive" you can get without admitting to physical pain. It sounds more like you learned how to navigate in an apathetic and disconnected bartering economy. "City life is mostly positive, you just have to make sure never to handle cash where anyone can see you and not go out after 9PM." Furthermore, the fact that you actually work for a dating app will likely make i…

> That's about the farthest explanation from "mostly positive" you can get without admitting to physical pain. It sounds more like you learned how to navigate in an apathetic and disconnected bartering economy. "City life is mostly positive, you just have to make sure never to handle cash where anyone can see you and not go out after 9PM."

you're not wrong. i think a lot of people feel this way on dating apps. it's far too disconnected from real life and removes any sort of mutual respect you've agreed to give people in a society.

> Furthermore, the fact that you actually work for a dating app will likely make it very difficult to convince you of any of its potential secondary negative effects on what's left of society

trust me, my eyes are very open to all of the negative consequences of dating apps, but i think this argument can be extended to a lot of the rest of the internet, general media, etc.

> The claim I and others on this thread are making is that this subset of people would not have had such a hard time in real life before the advent of social media and dating apps.

i'm not convinced on this. i'm not putting my hands over my ears. i'm open to hear an argument, but i don't see why someone who sucks at dating apps and can't write something relatively interesting to somebody would magically turn into a different person in real life. i would guess very few people are this way and the majority that are boring online are boring face to face