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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

#751

Post by ClumsyPilot »

krrrh wrote: post #724
nradov wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I thought porn was supposed to make people into sexual deviants, which is it?

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

#752

Post by kelnos »

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…

It's poorly received because it's not true. This "fact" of yours is just an unsupported opinion.

I think it would have been better received -- and possibly more true -- if you have said that many women seemingly aren't attracted to weak men.

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

#753

Post by atlasunshrugged »

e40 wrote: post #740
alpaca128 wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can I ask why? I mean it sucks if someone can't get laid without paying but isn't the alternative where they never get to have sex worse?

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

#754

Post by kelnos »

serverholic wrote: post #733
gehatare wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah yes, reddit, that great bastion of facts and well-sourced research.

If you're a man and you're with a woman who stops being attracted to you because you've cried in front of her, that's a great thing, because you've dodged a bullet, and found a strong signal that you should find a better girlfriend.

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

#755

Post by everdrive »

rrradical wrote: post #596
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 m…

>Is it bad that women don't find some men attractive,

Not at all, especially because it's most likely that they can't help it. It'd be like asking me to find ugly girls sexually attractive. Even if I felt it would be the best the to do morally, I couldn't will myself to it: it's out of my control for the most part. And so it is with women: we really shouldn't hate someone for their innate preferences. (and especially we shouldn't hate a whole class of people -- 51% of them in fact!)

I think the primary problem here is that idealists have tried to force beliefs that they think are the "best" beliefs, but many of these don't match up with reality. When I finally learned how women work, I didn't become some bitter incel; rather, I met the woman of my dreams, and we've been happily married for almost 8 years. The relationship with her has been the only really successful relationship I've had, in my opinion. What changed? Well, it's too long to get into all the details here, but I started discarding nearly all of the dating advice I'd gotten from peers, TV, movies, etc.

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

#756

Post by kelnos »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #516
colinmhayes wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

source?

Here[1] is one, Ctrl+F "our traits and abilities tend to be distributed normally, in a bell shaped curve." [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/2011...

That says nothing about where on the bell curve this particular trait ("despising weak men") falls. It may only be that outliers despise weak men.

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

#757

Post by nkrisc »

iammisc wrote: post #526
nkrisc wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great. It doesn't work for everyone nor is it guaranteed. When your financial stability is tenuous, it seems far more prudent to use more reliable methods, or even to layer multiple methods. I personally know people who used that method; it didn't work. Conversely my wife and I have used that method with the intention of getting pregnant, and it still took a while because accurately tracking it can be difficul…

I'm trying to have a productive conversation here. The original question was about how to avoid dead bedrooms, and I gave my opinion as well as empirical evidence to back it up. I can't comment on the efficacy of birth control. I can say that we have been in fairly financially unstable times, and I have not found that children cost very much, although I can certainly see how some could spend lots of money on them. If…

I’m not derailing, I’m making a point that there are many external factors involved. You provided some good tips for avoiding a dead bedroom. My point is that the feasibility of those can depend on other circumstances which tie directly into how society at large cares - or doesn’t - for its members. And this greater issue that the article is about is a societal problem. The implication I took away from your original post is that birth control and lack of conservative religious social mores is partly responsible, and I don’t think that’s the whole picture.

There are other societal issues that help lead us to the situation we’re in, some of which are directly caused by conservative approaches to society. I’m not trying to bash conservatism or religion, but the point I’m making is that it is not without it’s own issues and contributions to other problems.

Lastly it’s not a dichotomy between rich and childless and poor with loads of kids, there are certainly families of 3 or 4 that might want more kids but worry that another might make it harder to provide the same as they have been for their current kids.

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

#758

Post by fighterpilot »

TameAntelope wrote: post #447
iammisc wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe pornography leads to hell, yes. I also believe that, even if you didn't believe that, it would lead to unhappy marriages? You should feel free to argue to me the benefits of pornography, though.

I think entering into an argument knowing you won't change your mind is disingenuous, and I think your argument that pornography leads to unhappy marriages hinges on the idea that pornography leads to hell, otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it. It's actually the only reason you've given, and then you built your conclusion on top of it. My point is by bringing religion into the conversation, you ratcheted up the s…

I'm wondering what your intentions are. He's mostly just sharing his personal experiences and perspective and you're responding with a rather negative tone having decided a priori that discussion with him is impossible, when the only questions you've asked him are sarcastic and confrontational ones that don't seem to be posed with an interest in actually having a conversation.

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

#759

Post by serverholic »

kelnos wrote: post #754
serverholic wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah yes, reddit, that great bastion of facts and well-sourced research. If you're a man and you're with a woman who stops being attracted to you because you've cried in front of her, that's a great thing, because you've dodged a bullet, and found a strong signal that you should find a better girlfriend.

I wouldn’t be talking about this if I hadn’t experienced it and seen it myself.

If you want to roll the dice then fine. But some of us are sick of being hurt and seeing others getting hurt.

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

#760

Post by glangdale »

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…

The whole business about "top players getting more resources" is driving me a bit wild; as if there's an epidemic of "Chads each getting multiple Staceys" (in incel-speak). What seems to be more likely - based on the age charts in TFA - is that at the margins (excluding the large portion of people married or partnered relatively quickly and stably) there tends to be an age gap among those playing the fields.

Early 20 year old men might want women their age, but those women have a dating pool that includes men from age 20-35, and so on.

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