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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

#721

Post by inreverse »

schnevets wrote: post #675
swiley wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this (Americans don't have sex because they're shy about it) but the data says the opposite.

I'm curious about what data suggests this, since getting honest answers about sexual activity from the public is a famously difficult challenge. As an entertaining example, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's big data book Everybody Lies mentioned a study that asked people in the United States how frequently they had sex, and how frequently they practiced safe sex with a condom. If the resulting data was accurate and projecte…

That seems like it could be an interpretation problem where the definition of sex changes to only include penetrative sex in the context of the safe sex question.

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

#722

Post by the_jeremy »

tonyp2121 wrote: post #101
the_jeremy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having a romantic ... relationship is not a requirement for a happy life Do you think having friends is a requirement for a happy life? It's not strictly necessary, but they are a positive factor, and most people will not be happy entirely devoid of friendship. Having a partner is a friend you commit to and are closer with than other friends (generalization, sure). I have friends who I would not support through dep…

Why would you not support your friends through depression?

In a "comment a positive message on your facebook status" way? Sure, I'd do that. In a real, be-there-no-matter-what, show up consistently for them even when they're a drain and show no signs of improving for months on end? Some I would, some not.

Really, though, friendship isn't a commitment. I am friends with people I enjoy spending time with. I have plenty of people I am no longer friends with because we stopped having things in common or geography got in the way. That's not a failure on them or me as people. I've made new friends and so have they.

I don't feel bad about saying no to things I don't want to do. I don't want to spend time with someone who isn't fun to be around. With some close friends, I will, out of some sense of obligation or caring about that person. With most friends, I don't feel responsibility over their emotional state, and would rather support my own.

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

#723

Post by a_band »

cblconfederate wrote: post #552
a_band wrote: post #77

The correlation of the appearance of this phenomenon with the rise of porn really shouldn't be ignored.

Assuming porn causes incels, but the golden age of porn started at 1969, so that doesnt work. Assuming incels cause porn, has porn become more profitable in the past ~20 years? I 'd say probably true based on the innovation of the profitability models , expecially after onlyfans became a thing

Key to remember that in the Golden Age of Porn, probably less than 5% of teens had seen a pornographic film. Today it's probably over 99%?

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

#724

Post by krrrh »

nradov wrote: post #682
MattGaiser wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am frequently surprised by the number of "dead bedrooms" I know about among friends I originally thought they were mostly an old people thing, but I am hearing more stories about it from friends. And we are mid 20s.

Exposure to phthalates reduces testosterone in both men and women, and thus lowers sex drive. Phthalates are widely used chemicals, primarily for softening plastic. https://news.umich.edu/reduced-testosterone-tied-to-chemical... That's not the only cause. Increased obesity levels also play a role. Probably other factors.

Widely and freely available HD porn too. It’s easier than ever for people to use it as a substitute, and it reduces the drive to seduce. It contributes to a downward spiral of satisficing.

Edit: Getting downvotes from folks in denial. I’m not making this stuff up, college students rarely used to have ED, now porn-induced ED is quite common. Many such cases! [0]

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/

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

#725

Post by letonmorri »

coronasaurus wrote: post #698
daenz wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you see that? Every result from my quick searching is listing women as longer than men. Example: https://www.purplemotes.net/2015/08/23/medieval-life-expecta...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2847291?seq=1

The ratio of older women to men: historical perspectives and cross-national comparisons

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10902048/

This paper seems to disagree heavily with you.

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

#726

Post by letonmorri »

Balgair wrote: post #455
spoonjim wrote: post #140

Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the people. The need for sex is perhaps as high as the need for money but nobody talks about this crushing inequality, perhaps because there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex. The problem is worse for men since a man needs a certain set of skills and…

> Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the people. (Emphasis mine) Possibly. DNA analysis shows that for every 17 human females that reproduced, one male reproduced. Meaning that quite high rates of polygamy, rape, or other unbalancing factors were the norm in human history. http://awakeningtimes.com/80…

It makes sense for how tough life was 8000 years ago, I wonder what it was prior to ww1, and if that would be a useful comparison as well.

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

#727

Post by geekster777 »

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'd rephrase this as "people despise weak men". I don't think women are unique in this conditioned view, and putting this in terms of Us vs Them doesn't quite get to the root of the problem.

The image of a damsel in distress is a common one that invites sympathy. Being seen as someone temporarily down on their luck who, with a quick pep talk, a removal of glasses, and a loosening of hair, will become the perfect date in your teen movie. Men do not benefit from this sympathy but nor do they suffer from its accompanied baggage and condescension.

I can't say that the solution is "just do for men what we do for women" since that sympathy has some real nasty undertones and connotations. Still, you really hit the crux of the problem with "people despise weak men". And I think we could grow a productive solution from there.

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

#728

Post by the_jeremy »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #300
the_jeremy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having a romantic ... relationship is not a requirement for a happy life Do you think having friends is a requirement for a happy life? It's not strictly necessary, but they are a positive factor, and most people will not be happy entirely devoid of friendship. Having a partner is a friend you commit to and are closer with than other friends (generalization, sure). I have friends who I would not support through dep…

> I have friends who I would not support through depression they aren't your friends then. aquaintences perhaps but not real friends. I'd jump through fire for my friends and know they would do (and have done) for me. but then I also run a tight ship with what I consider a friend. if we haven't gone through some kind of shared struggle together we can never be friends. that's why most men will have trouble making rea…

Sure. At that point, this is just a semantic difference in acquaintance / friend / close friend / best friend. I would argue that there are many people who have zero friends by your definition.

I have friends (by my definition) who I'd, say, drive 30 min out of my way to pick them up if they got car trouble, but I wouldn't lend them $10,000. These are people I see regularly and actively make time to hang out with. I feel like most people would lean toward my definition over yours, but I could be wrong.

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

#729

Post by kyboren »

Loughla wrote: post #264
parineum wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is because low-income and minority students are more likely to be tracked low performing in lower grades Are they actually lower performing or is this an effect of bias? It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that children with less resources do worse. I thought the purpose of performance tracking was to give the ability to help those who were struggling. Instead, you're saying that it's more helpful to just…

Edited for clarity. >Are they actually lower performing or is this an effect of bias? This is why these programs in early grades are eliminated - they absolutely were based on bias and external factors. Yes, children with less resources do worse. That was the problem. Students with less access would be tracked low, thereby ensuring they had access to even fewer resources (which were diverted to high performers and TA…

> [...] they don't group solely by ability. When they did [that], the have's had even more and the have-nots had even less.

I have two thoughts on this:

1. Since our global economy is increasingly winner-take-all, we should consider focusing on the high performers. The lower performers will lose, anyway, so it's most important not to sandbag high performers.

2. It sounds like the idea is really to extort high performers into doing unpaid labor to educate their lower-performing peers, at the expense of their own opportunity to advance academically. Is this fair to high performers? Isn't it the school and faculty's job to teach students, not fellow students' job?

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

#730

Post by letonmorri »

kemayo wrote: post #522
spoonjim wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 necessarily -- it could just as well imply that 19-29 year old women are having entirely-monogamous sex with men outside (hopefully above ) the 18-29 range. Also, that 18-29 chart is about people looking for a relationship. The data about actually-having-sex [1] used different age ranges, breaking up 18-24 and 25-34. It shows a spike of no-sex in 18-24 men, which evens out with women once they're into the 25-35 r…

Your idea doesn't make sense since women report higher sexual partners than men in ALL age groups in the figure you linked,
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