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On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

residentcontrarian.substack.com

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

#651

Post by e40 »

graphtrader wrote: post #580
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 just don't think people value sexual compatibility enough. If you aren't compatible sexually then you are not compatible. I have been married twice. My first wife was practically my "soul mate", we had the same taste in everything. We were best buds, everything was perfect besides our sex life sucked. It always led to conflict and problems. My wife now we have almost nothing in common when it comes to taste, art, m…

I just don't think people value sexual compatibility enough.

Agreed, but I think it's deeper: when I was in my 20's I didn't even know what sexual compatibility was. Given that, how could I even have made it a criteria for partner selection?

That assumes people figure out their sexuality. I've seen way too many people that didn't figure it out until their 50's. Like, "heterosexual until later in life" figure it out. And, there's an entire spectrum until that.

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

#652

Post by scottrogowski »

I have a pet theory for this phenomenon. If you look at recently contacted peoples or those who have little contact with the outside world, endemic warfare is common. In these societies, well over 20% of men are killed in the ongoing conflicts. Evidence points to endemic warfare being common for most of human history and prehistory. Looking at our closest evolutionary cousins, the chimpanzees, it is the same if not more brutal.

I think, on average, that men are more polyamorous than women partially because this fit our environment. It allowed women in a clan to be in child-bearing partnerships even if gender ratios were grossly imbalanced. While we are now in a very different environment where almost all men survive, our relative sexual and coupling urges have remained the same.

Through most of the modern-era, post feudalism, this was solved through socially enforced monogamy. Now of course, with loosening restrictions, polyamory is gaining an acceptance it probably hasn't experienced since earlier eras of endemic warfare.

To be clear, the lack of violence in modern life is a strictly _good_ thing. But I'm not sure where it leaves us for the future.

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

#653

Post by bonoboTP »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #615
bonoboTP wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a basic physical need. It's a psychological need. We know, because many people can go years or decades without sex. That's fundamentally different from food, air, water and shelter from the elements. Not saying it isn't an important psychological need, but it's not a literal "basic physical need". Words mean things.

most pyramids I've seen lump Physical and Psychological in the same bottom category. So it would still go at the bottom of the pyramid despite not being something you would die without. It's in the same vein as non-intimate socialization (another aspect we can technically go years without, but has shown to have dire mental effects. Sometimes shockingly fast).

I'd say it's a basic urge or desire in most people, but not even necessarily a need. A goal, an aspiration, something to seek. Similar to wealth, status, respect etc.

Also, there are asexual people. It seems strange to define something as a "basic" human need if many people can live a healthy life without it.

And yes, a certain level of socialization is definitely necessary to become a functional human.

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

#654

Post by alfiedotwtf »

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)…

There’s a strong willingness to openly talk about mental health in society these days, yet I mostly see zero talk that sexual desire (whether super strong or nonexistent) is most likely due to hormonal circumstances than emotional connections etc. it’s sad to see articles about “cooking for each other”, “talk about X”, yet no articles on “get your blood checked” (in particular, extreme sides of serotonin levels)

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

#655

Post by alpaca128 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #240

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 prostitut…

As someone living in a country where prostitution is legal I have a hard time seeing how your argument goes from that to dystopia. It's heavily regulated and controlled, which is better than people doing it anyway without any oversight and the safeties from that.

And even aside from that I don't see a problem with it, of course as long as it's 100% consensual. Maybe I'm missing some obvious problem, but the thing currently driving my country towards a dystopian society is mainly growing corruption with shrinking consequences as well as ignorance, not people choosing what to do with their bodies.

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

#656

Post by imbnwa »

at_a_remove wrote: post #220
volkk wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP means that the top 20% of men are getting all of the attention in the dating market. it's a well known fact at this point. i think the numbers largely come from dating apps but they reflect real life pretty well (from my anecdotal experience)

OKCupid used to have a post of sort of barebones statistical analysis of what men considered "average" versus women's outlook. It was ... enlightening.

That's a classic post from their defunct blog. Another one is Black women and Asian men are the least messaged.

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

#657

Post by mettamage »

insickness wrote: post #260
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)…

> dead bedroom situations are always the result of one party being incapable of understanding the other's desire for sex. Couldn't disagree more. Sexual attraction is not about 'understanding' how your partner feels. A man who is no longer attracted to his wife won't suddenly become attracted when he understands how she feels. Attraction is not a choice. It's not something you can talk yourself or someone else into.

> Attraction is not a choice.

I sense a seduction community vibe in that quote.

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

#658

Post by betwixthewires »

sudosysgen wrote: post #514
jimbokun wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's different from wanting similar outcomes between groups of millions of people, because those almost invariably come from inequality of opportunity. Can you cite any evidence that this is the case? It seems you are simply defining inequality of outcome to mean the same thing as inequality of opportunity at the group level.

Unless you believe there are innate differences between the ability of these groups, then yes the two are logically equivalent. If you don't believe so, I'm not going to get in this debate today.

That's not true. It is a false dichotomy. There are a myriad of reasons you'd find different behaviors or results in different groups of people besides either ingrained innate unchangeable differences and lack of opportunity for that group. Even if you sampled two equally sized samples of equal distribution of the same kind of people (whatever that means to you) you'd find aggregate disparity to some degree. No innate differences at all, and no difference in opportunity based on group membership, you'd still find disparity. Your dichotomy is false.

Additionally, I find this whole assertion I see often nowadays that there's some invisible force creating opportunity disparities between different arbitrary groups of people to be a bit hand-wavy and suspiciously convenient. To me it is comparable to asserting that the disparities are because it was the will of God.

Finally, your statement is a roundabout way of saying "if you don't agree with me you're a racist and I don't talk to racists" and that is extremely dishonest. Frankly, if you don't want to talk to people you don't agree with, why are you on a discussion website at all?

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

#659

Post by 1_person »

sudosysgen wrote: post #236
textgel wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> 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.

To me it seems you have gone to great lengths to clarify that you mean exactly what the original poster is referring to.

I don't believe their reading your argument at face value is in any way assuming the worst possible interpretation.

It's not a personal attack for someone to disagree with your beliefs.

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

#660

Post by supernovae »

e40 wrote: post #651
graphtrader wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't think people value sexual compatibility enough. If you aren't compatible sexually then you are not compatible. I have been married twice. My first wife was practically my "soul mate", we had the same taste in everything. We were best buds, everything was perfect besides our sex life sucked. It always led to conflict and problems. My wife now we have almost nothing in common when it comes to taste, art, m…

I just don't think people value sexual compatibility enough. Agreed, but I think it's deeper: when I was in my 20's I didn't even know what sexual compatibility was. Given that, how could I even have made it a criteria for partner selection? That assumes people figure out their sexuality. I've seen way too many people that didn't figure it out until their 50's. Like, "heterosexual until later in life" figure it out.…

Not sure you ever figure it out, you just live it as you go along.
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