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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

#741

Post by nathanielks »

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.

This isn't my experience. I lost attraction to someone I was in a relationship with and regained it after doing some work on myself. Attraction is definitely something you can foster within yourself for another person.

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

#742

Post by [deleted] »

thepasswordis wrote: post #67
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…

>This is basically a red flag for any relationship. No it isn't. My grandparents, who were married for 60 years had this mentality. My wife's grandparents, who were married for a similar amount of time, also shared this mentality. My wife's parents still share this mentality (and are obviously completely devoted to one another, which you will notice if you spend about 5 seconds with them). My parents divorced, which…

[deleted]

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

#743

Post by krrrh »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #595
robocat wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or maybe drugs that lead to insight instead of away from it.

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

#744

Post by Itsdijital »

justwalt wrote: post #701

Great post. As a man in my twenties, I think that, even though we’re hearing about this from the men at the bottom end of the sexual-success spectrum, the problem is still being felt by average men as well. Many of my friends have complained about how dating these days feels like women are always holding out for the next best thing, and I have to agree with them. A female friend of mine echoed a bit of the sentiment…

>She felt like her ego was being inflated in a way that was unhealthy, and so she turned away from online dating and eventually met her fiancé through mutual friends.

I am not surprised she is engaged.

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

#745

Post by klaudius »

alcover wrote: post #542
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…

“It's a fact...that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization . Some men mak…

Robin Hanson has also compares sex and income distribution:

https://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/06/comparing-income-sex-...

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

#746

Post by johnnyanmac »

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…

In the same way that it's not required to be rich to have a happy life. In theory, yes. In reality, many doors open or close (ESPECIALLY once you're 40+) based on your marital status. for a few of the many examples:

- Not having a spouse may be fine, but being excluded from social outings mostly from your friends who are married may start to affect your social circles.

- Not having a spouse may be fine, but paying higher taxes and more rent due to the rise of the housing market expecting two-incomes may in fact financially affect you.

- Not having a spouse may be fine, but receiving all your societal worldviews and mentalities from your same sex friends exclusively may lead you to have some problematic views in the long run.

It can affect a lot, and goes much deeper than sex. Even in some world where prostitution was not only legal but societally encouraged, these above issues from sexual intimacy wouldn't disappear overnight.

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

#747

Post by jimbob45 »

int_19h wrote: post #702
jimbob45 wrote: post #34

[flagged]

The original NSDAP was quite socialist, and even as Hitler developed it into his own party, it retained a strong socialist faction, which we now refer to as the Strasserites. It was purged eventually, but the history is there. FWIW, "red-brown" political alliances are still a prominent thing in some countries, usually based on shared social conservative ideals. Furthermore, there are political movements such as Natio…

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like I need to do some further research tonight.

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

#748

Post by zajio1am »

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…

Gatekeeping is relevant only when there is scarcity. If there is a pair of people (A, B) where A's desire for sex is three times bigger than B's, then although both A and B have full bodily autonomy (that nobody disputes), in practice only B would be a gatekeeper, as sex for A is scarce, while sex for B is plentiful (relative to their desires).

The same argument could be generalized to society. If one gender has on average much higher desire for sex, then the second gender would be considered gatekeepers in practice, as for members of the first the gate is much more selective that for the members of the second gender (due to scarcity difference). That is completely unrelated to equality or bodily autonomy, which is granted to both.

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

#749

Post by bonoboTP »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #732
bonoboTP wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/promo…

Let's not get too far away from my original point. When people say "sex is a basic physical need", they want to imply or paint the association that it's like water and air. It's not like that.

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

#750

Post by e40 »

supernovae wrote: post #660
e40 wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. I think there's a long tail past a certain point, though. After a certain age, my preferences didn't really evolve much. Before that? Very rapidly, and much of it was just personal discovery.
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