On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by rafaelero » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #517

rafaelero wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing with your main point, but twin studies show that marriage status account for only 1% of variance in happiness. So maybe the idea that most people need a romantic relationship to be happy is a little overblown?

Do you have a particular study you could point me to? I do find twin studies useful. I found https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3629371/ which addresses a variation of the question. The unpaired half of twins with discordant marital status show significantly (in the case of men) higher rates of depression; women also seem to too, but because there were so few twins of discordant marital status in general, t…

Sure, here it is: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb...

Thanks for sharing the findings of your quick research. Depression score is indeed not exactly the same as happiness, or life satisfaction, but for the purpose of our conversation I would say they are all close enough to what matter to us, so they are all sufficiently meaningful (and probably very correlated to each other).

Eyeballing the paper you cited, there appears to be evidence that widowed and divorced people are more depressed, but not single people (compared to the baseline, married people). At least when running the regression with all the other important variables controlled. Am I reading it wrong?

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

#592

Post by dqpb » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #449

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)…

>> 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. When I first saw Maslow's hierarchy of needs sex appeared on it TWICE. Once on the bottom level as a basic physical need (to what extent varies of course) and again I think on the 3rd level or so as a for…

> That's as absurd as saying the need for food justifies armed robbery

Before considering lofty philosophical ideas like "Justification", it's useful to consider basic system dynamics:

"This paper provides an overview of the link between food insecurity and violent conflict, addressing both traditional and emerging threats to security and political stability."

https://www.wfp.org/publications/occasional-paper-24-food-in...

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

#593

Post by betwixthewires » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

spoonjim wrote: post #476

sjg007 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a research study on this? I'm not sure I buy into the Don Juan hypothesis.

The numbers in the article itself state that more 18-29 year old women than men are having sex. Excluding gay sex this implies the “Don Juan hypothesis” as you call it.

Not if you take into account people having sex with large age disparities.

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

#594

Post by indigochill » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

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…

> For myself, these hard statistical realities have increasingly robbed me of the romantic impulse. Marriage to me now seems absurd. An empty, pyrrhic victory.

I don't follow why that is. Just because the world's fucked up doesn't mean exclusive devotion to another person doesn't have its romantic appeal.

There was some philosopher I was reading about the other day who posited that the "free love" crowd weren't really free because they were slaves to whims and circumstance. A truly free person, as I gather, is one who decides and acts independently of personal feelings and circumstance.

Ergo, if you don't want to give yourself to your partner, do it anyway. Not out of external obligation, but out of the commitment you decided to make to them. In that perspective, committing to lifelong unconditional love is one of the few victories we have over being mechanical cogs in a sensational machine.

What makes this even better, though, is when you're loving someone unconditionally, it's usually hard for them not to return some of that love sooner or later. So you build a gradual virtuous cycle. Someone's just gotta make the first move.

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

#595

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #581

willcipriano wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antidepressants and antianxiety medications decrease libido as well.

Depression and anxiety usually reduce libido. Edit: Also an unhappy relationship often can lead to poor sex, depression, and anxiety.

Sounds like we need to address depression and anxiety with something other than drugs.

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

#596

Post by rrradical » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #190

>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. This will be downvoted and poorly received, but the fact is that women despise weak men. If a man is in a poor state, most women will be visibly disgusted by him. A man generally should not expect sym…

I don't mean to be glib, but, are you saying women who are in a poor state are desirable? I don't think so... Is it bad that women don't find some men attractive, when those same men probably wouldn't find some women attractive?

I apologize if that misconstrues your opinion, but I've heard it elsewhere before: that somehow women 'should' be more forgiving of unattractiveness than men are, and that's really weird to me. Women don't owe it to any men to find them desirable, and vice-versa.

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

#597

Post by IkmoIkmo » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #416

schnevets wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am frequently surprised by the number of "dead bedrooms" I know about among friends, and I sincerely believe the problem is the western world's secretly coy perception of sex. There is a superficial surface level that is extremely wrong (for example, Successful people have sex, the most successful people have the hottest sex with the hottest partners; Sex isn't about planning it's about letting the desire overcome…

> I think this is a very Americanized perspective, though, so I would be especially interested in hearing perspectives from other cultures. I agree this is very Americanised, I can chime from two different perspectives and cultures: Brazil and Sweden. Brazil is... Very Americanised, I believe that the same issues the USA has with sex are present in Brazil, it's expressed in some different ways but the underlying issu…

> I was surprised by how many of my girlfriends here had at least one instance of rape or sexual abuse, usually from partners.

Same here, absolutely appalling. Whenever I speak about it with guy friends they don't quite believe me and try to rationalise it (which is a common response for me on many topics as well), often by arguing semantics of what is considered rape or abuse etc, or the integrity of the person in question.

I'm not sure what prompts this skepticism exactly. The friends I've discussed this with who are skeptical, tend to otherwise be quite understanding and well thinking individuals. It's a bit akin to my own first reactions to allegations of Chinese genocide against Uyghurs, the concentration camps, etc. That can't be... There's probably some nuance I'm missing. I was only convinced after reading more and being exposed to more information and evidence.

It's very hard to have these conversations with some guy friends as none of my female friends have wanted me to share any part of their experiences with anyone else. That makes it really tricky to convince anyone else of the veracity of their claims. If I could, I could say 'well it's actually my partner, who I fully trust, or my mother who is completely honest, or our mutual best friend for the past 15 years', people whom my friends also hold in high regard and believe at face value, like I believe them.

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

#598

Post by swiley » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #3

"It’s 2021, and it would be pretty hard to find someone who would come out and say that women deserve to be treated worse than men by default, and similarly difficult to find someone believes men shouldn’t have rights. In that sense at least we are all feminists and men’s rights activists, but nearly 100% of everyone reading this would have felt some emotional recoil from being called at least one of those two things…

There's something in humans and I'm not sure if it's an anglo culture thing or a biological thing but men who haven't reached a certain stage in life are more or less considered sub-human. Many don't reach it and still more don't develop far past it.

I feel like I'm just there and there's a night and day difference in how people treat you but it's most extreme with your female peers. It's also nice to have some friends from before, I feel like they're the people I would go to if my life fell apart.

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

#599

Post by void_mint » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #562

void_mint wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's generally worthwhile to argue with people whose arguments center around "I love my wife and you cannot tell me that's not okay." Lots of these responses read as though people are feeling attacked, which isn't a great baseline to start any reasonable conversation.

In fairness, the tone of the earlier comments has been edited-- the original tone of "you're all codependent" and the statement that we're all just jealous that we can't play video games whenever we want maybe reasonably made people feel attacked.

I'm not suggesting that the person feeling attacked isn't right to feel that way (I didn't see the comment you're referring to, but this topic seems to be kind of heated in nature regardless).

Mostly just, attempting to reason with someone that's feeling attacked (much less, someone that's feeling attacked about something as emotional as loving their wife) is an unwinnable task. I wish this conversation started better, because I actually think it's very important (and I generally think/agree that lots of relationships are unhealthy and it contributes to a lot of more negative societal issues), but I think discussing those topics with those that think you're trying to invalidate their relationship serves no one.

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

#600

Post by 2lwxxtj » Tue, May 04, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #561

2lwxxtj wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no one owes you companionship or a relationship (platonic or not). That's your opinion. >is a real problematic stance. Oh, no, not problematic! What if there are actually external factors that influence your ability to succeed, and you would like to advocate for modifying those external factors to increase your ability to succeed?

>>no one owes you companionship or a relationship (platonic or not). > That's your opinion Yes, and it's shared by nearly everyone. The alternative is that you believe someone does owe you a relationship, which is anathema to anyone who values individual liberty and freedom at any level. Everyone who is advocating for making changes to society to improve their chances is really fucking cagey about the specifics. So l…

>Yes, and it's shared by nearly everyone.

Not really. If you're talking specifically about whether an unmarried man that fits some particular criteria is owed a wife, most people in the western world at this point in time would agree with you. But that's far from universal.

>The alternative is that you believe someone does owe you a relationship, which is anathema to anyone who values individual liberty and freedom at any level.

Not really. "Individual liberty and freedom" is not one concrete set of ideas that you have to either accept or reject wholesale.

>Everyone who is advocating for making changes to society to improve their chances is really fucking cagey about the specifics.

Some are, probably. I don't know which you've been talking to.

>what changes do you propose

Bring back severe social shaming for women that engage in sexual activity outside of a committed monogamous relationship (e.g. marriage or on the way to marriage). Bring back social pressure for a man to marry a woman that he has had sex with outside of marriage.

>and who owes you a relationship

I am married, so I think from society's perspective, my wife should owe me a relationship. If either of us denies the other a relationship without very good reason (meaning something more than just not being happy any more), the one abandoning the marriage should be looked down upon as having done something very wrong.