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On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

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Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#231

Post by BlargMcLarg »

scarmig wrote: post #188
burlesona wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correlations are clear but causality less so. What if it’s not marriage that makes men happier, less prone to crime, and longer-lived - rather it is that women select for partners who are happier, less prone to crime, and healthier?

To figure out the causality, you'd need an experiment where people are randomly removed from relationships though random external events. We do have an imperfect example of this, in the case of widowers. When someone is widowed, does their happiness tend to increase, remain level, or decrease?

That's not enough. One of the often espoused counterarguments is "do happy people marry more, or does marriage make people happier?". You'd have to continuously check happy people and keep a control group from marrying. Checking just the widowers doesn't account for the severity of the loss.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#232

Post by colanderman »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #197
colanderman wrote: post #154

I feel a common issue with such "dead bedroom" discussions is the seeming lack of capacity of some parties (including some prominent toplevel comments here) to understand how deep a need for sex many people have. To think sex can be replaced with "strong friendships" is laughable to anyone who actually feels a strong desire for sex. The dead bedroom situations I've seen with my friends (M->F equally as well as F->M)…

Agreed. This is also ancient wisdom. The major religions all maintain that spouses have a duty to sexually please each other.

Unfortunately major religions seem to approach this subject with a cudgel. I think a more charitable reading of their approach is often recognizing that sexual incompatibility is just cause for (otherwise taboo) divorce.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#233

Post by slg »

dudul wrote: post #151
waythro123123 wrote: post #52

My pet theory is that the developed or post-industrialized world is becoming increasingly two-classed. I have had the privilege of having a decent job (being so-called "economically desirable") and decent education and was able to find someone who I think loves me for who I am, for some definition of "I am". That being said, the "incel" problem concerns me. I think the existence of this entire class of individuals sh…

> Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. I genuinely don't understand how someone can reconcile these in their head.

They aren't contradictory. One is an assessment of the currently perceived reality and one is a stated goal. The mindset is simply that we haven't reached the goal yet.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#234

Post by jedberg »

openasocket wrote: post #148

> if 51% of young men are single and only 31% of women in the same age bracket are, that implies something is up So that statistic really confuses me, how could that be the case? The data seems to imply a significant number of women are dating men far older than themselves, which just doesn't seem true to me. I'm wondering if that is a sampling error or different genders are interpreting the question differently. It…

> the average number of relationships for men and women should be identical!

When those studies say average they usually mean median.

Imagine a population with 10 men and 10 women.

3 of the men sleep with each woman once.

The average hookups for both men and women are three each, but the median for men is none while the median for women is three.

This is a contrived example, normally in each population you'd have outliers, but the point is the data presented here shows that "hookups" are more evenly distributed amongst women than men.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#235

Post by benlivengood »

nicoburns wrote: post #25
benlivengood wrote: post #4

> I got absurdly lucky when I found my wife, but I spent every day without her more or less miserable. It’s arguable she’s the only reason I’m able to be happy. I imagine some of these men are similar to me in the loneliness and not as lucky in finding someone, and it’s impossible for me to not feel something. This is basically a red flag for any relationship. If the only thing making or allowing a person to be happy…

> the best explanation that I've heard for the feeling men have of basic unhappiness without romance and sex is toxic masculinity; the general societal rejection of deep emotional relationships between straight men. Lonely? Make strong friendships! Spend your time with other men who like you and enjoy your company and validate you I'm not sure I buy this. I'm a man who has lots of close friendships (many of which are…

> I'm not sure I buy this. I'm a man who has lots of close friendships (many of which are with women, but some of which are with men), and I still feel like it's not enough and that I want a romantic/sexual partner. A partner is not a replacement for a close circle of friends, but neither is close circle of friends a replacement for a partner.

I think the difference is between wants and needs. Aside from a very small number of people most of us need friends and family who care about us and meet our emotional needs. Children need this unconditionally but adults have to take responsibility of their emotional needs and fulfill them in a healthy way by making and keeping friends. I think sexual and romantic desires are not needs; they are very strong desires and their fulfillment is definitely wonderful but life can be happy and fulfilling without them.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#236

Post by sudosysgen »

textgel wrote: post #206
sudosysgen wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely isn't. Progressives, when they see inequality of outcomes at the group level , correctly identify an inequality of opportunity. There's no progressive in the world that thinks that everyone should have the same outcomes. That's different from wanting similar outcomes between groups of millions of people, because those almost invariably come from inequality of opportunity. I don't know of any left tenden…

You believe in quotas, you believe in equality of outcome. In fact I could be inclined to agree with you in some ways; its more accurate to state that progressives don't believe in equality of outcome in much the same way as they don't really hold any disdain for racism/sexism or any of the other causes that claim to champion but they like the power that comes from doing so. For example no progressive has any issues…

I don't believe in quotas. I don't think people from every different group should do the exact same in every job. I don't think that quotas are an effective way of dealing with inequalities either.

I do believe that roughly speaking, for an equal amount of work, black and white people should have similar salaries, for example. Something that is not the case today.

This is a disparity that can't be explained away by choice, or innate supremacy, but is instead à result of inequality of opportunity. So you have to fix the opportunity gap.

I do have an issue with the imbalance in nursing. That's because there is a strong stigma against men in nursing and men in nursing often suffer strong discrimination. In a society where these stigmas don't exist but men in general decide not to become nurses, that's fine.

Same in tech. There are stigmas and discrimination against women in tech at every level. For example, different countries have massively different amounts of women in engineering. Women in countries where this amount is lower often report discrimination. So this is clearly not a question of choice, and is thus a gap in opportunities led by sexism.

It would be nice if you wouldn't assume the absolute worst possible interpretation of the argument of your interlocutor. This is against HN's guideline and generally increases the amount of noise. It's also quite rude.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#237

Post by matheusmoreira »

benlivengood wrote: post #93
tachyonbeam wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one bitter truth about life: (almost) everyone needs some amount of physical intimacy to be happy, but it's not something anyone is entitled to. Those of us who have access to that are privileged. I agree with the author though. IMO the existence of so many "incels" is some expression of a real societal problem. Many young men are suffering, and we don't acknowledge their suffering as genuine. We just tell the…

At least in the bay area there are plenty of cuddle parties for platonic physical touch. Feminism has a pretty convincing answer to the problem like I edited my original comment to include. Toxic masculinity is the social exclusion of deep emotional relationships between men, including the "suck it up" culture. The key is that only men can really participate in that healing because it's entirely a problem between men…

So feminism's answer to the the problem is "cuddle parties"? Are you serious?

I remember people used to argue that feminism was good because sexual liberation of women meant everyone was gonna get to have lots of sex. Obviously, these incels were not invited to the party. Women are having lots of sex, just not with them. And you actually believe "deep emotional relationships between men" are the cure for this unrest?

This is about deeper issues than friendship. It's about people's essential worth as human beings. People don't just have sex with anyone, they select partners and this implies selection criteria which implies value judgement. By seeking intimacy, we all risk judgement and rejection. Can you imagine what constant rejection by everyone must do to a person's self-worth?

"Cuddle parties" won't solve anything because they fail to understand the problem. Even proposing something like this compounds the issue because it's like saying "you are not good enough to have sex, enjoy this platonic activity instead". The root cause of this issue is society and women especially have decided these men are unattractive and therefore worthless. There is no fixing incels without fixing this inequality.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#238

Post by Sakos »

at_a_remove wrote: post #172
toomuchredbull wrote: post #124

I think it's fair to say his data shows a high percentage of "incels" are not the incels on the internet that are bad, but just guys who can't get women and they don't deserve our hatred. Similar to the Japanese phenomenon of "grass eaters"

"Not deserving hatred" isn't enough today. Nuance is too much to ask for. Lump them all together and despise them, that is the order of the day.

It's easier that way. If they're demonized, it means we don't have to grapple with the deeper issues and try to find some sort of solution to these issues. They're incels, thus (according to mainstream thought) they aren't deserving of empathy or help. They're sexists, racists and alt-right scumbags. Who cares if they die alone? Sympathize with them and you're lumped in with them too.

It's not surprising, considering how difficult the topics are that are at the base of these issues, but it's still depressing. We're no closer to bridging the gap between the genders than we were 40 years ago, and it seems to be getting worse in different ways.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#240

Post by ceilingcorner »

These issues are far more serious than is known and commenters saying “too bad, you don’t deserve to date someone” really don’t understand how ineffective this approach is. You can’t just shame tens of thousands of men into accepting a substandard life.

Disclaimer: I am not making any ethical judgments here, just observing.

This problem didn’t really exist before for three reasons.

One, widespread access to prostitution and its social acceptability. Reading books from earlier centuries, it’s noticeable how common this was and how little anyone seemed to be socially stigmatized by going to a brothel.

Two, enforced monogamy. Our current culture is centered on removing restrictions. And as with every market, removing the restrictions on sexual access means the top players get more “resources” while the bottom get none. Monogamy was historically the solution to this.

Three, the primary model of marriage being one of love or connection, and not of uniting families, having children, or passing on property. This, combined with our consumeristic society, leads people to always assume that a better option is available. Add easy divorce laws and Tinder, and the incentives for trying to work out any problems (or even get into a relationship in the first place) are nearly nonexistent.

It really doesn’t seem like the culture is going to accept enforcing monogamy (2) or restrictions on divorce (3), but it does seem like (1) might be legalized at some point. Personally, that seems something of a dystopian solution to the problem, but that’s just me.

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