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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

#731

Post by glangdale »

It's weird that the obvious interpretation of the 'single by demographic group' graph isn't discussed at all. Specifically, there's a bulge of single men at the bottom of the age distribution and a bulge of single women at the top.

While the average age difference of married couples isn't extreme, I would suspect that when you start getting towards the 'margins' of sexual desirability and social opportunity to meet people, the age differences skyrocket.

This seems rather more likely than the idea that there are hordes of Chads each dating multiple women.

It might also be a good thing for guys to remember; some of the advantages of still-on-the-market older men plundering down into their age group (e.g. 30-somethings dating 20-somethings) might be fairly easily simulated (dressing properly, housekeeping, having a job, not being a horny weirdo all the damn time - or at least not showing it quite so much). From experience a lot of guys in their teens and 20s are pretty rough around the edges.

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

#732

Post by johnnyanmac »

bonoboTP wrote: post #653
johnnyanmac wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Psychological doesn't mean "you can't become a functional human without it". it means "without it, the mental state of a significant amount of humans will be altered". Under that definition, there is certainly an argument to be made about sex in some forms being a "psychological need". which build off the 3 universal psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness:

https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/microsites/promoting-healthy-weight-i...).

There are many much more well studied people who have spent much longer debating this, so I'm not interested in debating this here. I just want to note that valid arguments exist, and that I feel you are still conflating "basic" with "psychological".

----

>Also, there are asexual people.

If you'd like another more controversial example: consider parental supervision. You can live a healthly life without ever leaving your parents' home nor ruleset. And in some other societies it is entirely expected to live in your parents' home even after marriage alongside one's parents (still following their personal values). However, some may argue that this hampers the psychological needs of autonomy and competence. That one will never have true control and choice and that you can never truly go out and challenge oneself while under a parent's wing.

Much like the basic "needs" of sex, this can be under contention and is ultimately up to society. A few anecdotes of those who made it or not doesn't rule it out as arguably being a psychological need not being met. Much like a few asexual people not necessarily ruling out sex as aruably being a psychological need at some leve.

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

#733

Post by serverholic »

gehatare wrote: post #714
serverholic wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you're a straight male, I dare you to cry in front of your girlfriend/wife.

I've done that with multiple girlfriends and it never was a problem? How do you expect them to react?

To quote a post on reddit:

> I've cried in front of maybe three SOs. In each case, they were very understanding and empathic about it and their sexual attraction toward me started a gradual but inexorable slide to zero.

> I've learned my lesson.

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

#734

Post by [deleted] »

iammisc wrote: post #128
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #17

There is a lot to unpack here, and it is difficult to know where to begin. I had a friend who was a pastor who lamented he didn't like that his yearly board game get-together with his other [often pastor] friends often ended up discussing their dead bedrooms. I have no idea how these dynamics have come to be so common, even taking into account the usual ebbs and flows in relationships. I don't know if this problem oc…

Religious couples tend to have the most fulfilling sex lives. Conservative religious couples have the best: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7060099/Highly-reli... Myself, as a highly conservative married man, my findings confirm the daily mail article, esp. when I look at the sex lives of my married friends who were more libertine in their youth. EDIT: A few theories: 1. My wife is not on birth control, whic…

[deleted]

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

#735

Post by amznthrowaway5 »

letonmorri wrote: post #726
Balgair wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No it doesn't https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/y-chromosome-crash...

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

#736

Post by johnnyanmac »

bonoboTP wrote: post #653
johnnyanmac wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As one more aside, note that "sex" in this category isn't necessarily the same as "sex with another person". As another controversial take (that I'd need to do a lot of research to verify), this may very well refer to masturbation and other autnonomous ways to sexually relieve oneself. This doesn't allow for sexual intimacy (the second category), but this may or may not satify the bottom rung needs.

While one can certainly go without sex indefinitely, I'm much less sure if most people can go without ejaculating indefinitely. Much more research needed there.

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

#737

Post by CapCade »

GavinMcG wrote: post #605
giantg2 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the gatekeeper comment as being more related to the natural processes of diamorphic species. Take for example your statement below. This very much implies a "gate" and that women are making choices to keep that gate closed for some men. Just because a person is not entitled to what is behind that gate, doesn't make that gate less real. If anything, it enforces the analogy in the fact that gates do exist in real…

The proof is that men aren't described as gatekeepers, even though just like women, they choose to have sex with certain people, and not with others. The "gate" you're talking about uncontroversially belongs to each individual in the form of their bodily autonomy. Yet women are uniquely cast as "keeping out" certain people. That's not a matter of dimorphism: that's a matter of mens' bodily autonomy being assumed, and…

Thank you for this comment and the ones preceding it. This comment section is scary and I appreciate your lucidity.

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

#738

Post by klaudius »

a_puppy wrote: post #510

I'm a guy who has, for my entire life, struggled to form romantic relationships. For a long time, I also struggled to form friendships. So I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about this, and here are my thoughts: The term "incel" is used to mean two wildly different things: - One meaning is "an incel is someone who's single and complains about it". Statistically, a few percent of 30-year-old men are virgins. Some…

You are overestimating the role of social skills in attraction and not talking about looks.

People who are good looking experience halo effect where others put a positive spin on everything they are doing. If a guy is good looking, but shy, women will find it cute. If a guy is ugly and shy, he will be seen as a creep.

Some people have done real dating experiments with profiles of good looking men who describe themselves as child rapists. Guess what? These men have no problem getting women, at least from online dating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxC0OlgY6yI

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

#739

Post by PeterisP »

slg wrote: post #718
PeterisP wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few people actually advocate for "equality of outcome" There are certainly many people advocating for explicit "equality of outcome" policies e.g. various quota systems that mandate granting unequal opportunities for otherwise equally suitable applicants in order to achieve an equitable outcome for various groups (e.g. gender, ethnicity, caste, etc) the applicants represent.

>various quota systems that mandate granting unequal opportunities for otherwise equally suitable applicants in order to achieve an equitable outcome for various groups This is the problem in your definitions. Are you talking about equity of outcome at the individual or group level? You are mixing the two there. No on is advocating equity of outcome at the individual level. People are using equity of outcome at a gro…

I'm quite explicitly talking about outcome at the group level and opportunities at the individual level (as you correctly note, it does not make much sense otherwise).

But there seems to be a "definition mismatch" about what "equality of opportunity" means - I'm talking about equality of opportunity and equal treatment for individuals as they are right now at any particular decision point; and this is substantially different from what's measured by, as you say, "equity of outcome at a group level as a measure of equity of opportunity at the individual level" because that essentially measures an "integral" of all lifetime opportunities for all these individuals.

The key difference is whether we consider that "equal opportunity" should include or exclude compensating of earlier unequal opportunities. In general we're talking about specific decisions or policies that unavoidably come after some unequal opportunities e.g. the socioeconomic status of the family you're born in, which correlates with almost every measure of success. I would define "equal opportunity" as a "background blind" system that looks at the relevant attributes of individuals despite of or because of whatever earlier life they had - but it's clear that equal opportunity right now won't result in equal outcomes at the group level, since those would be influenced (and probably dominated) by all the differences accumulated before that. And vice versa, if you're trying to compensate for that, then you might get an equality of outcomes for the groupo, but at this moment you would be granting unequal opportunities to these individuals, even if they actually accurately compensate for other, earlier unequal opportunities to the same specific individuals and not just the groups to which these people happen to belong.

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

#740

Post by e40 »

alpaca128 wrote: post #655
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 cur…

I think the dystopia part comes in if a particular male's only chance for a sexual relationship is via prostitution. That seems pretty dystopian to me.
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