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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

#841

Post by throwaway1282 »

robocat wrote: post #606
toyg wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex. But there is a way to improve supply: give dignity to prostitution.

Physical sex is not intimacy. Sex work leads to some very strange dynamics, because often the Johns are desperate for intimacy, but they are paying for women that provide zero actual intimacy (because it is usually entirely faked.) I am sure there is some ideal world where prostitution could satisfy emotional needs, but in my admittedly very limited knowledge it doesn't. Prostitution has been legal in my country sinc…

There exists sex work which in places like Japan where the experience is flirting with girls or cuddling. I haven't tried the cuddling thing but I did go to a few girl bars where you pay an expensive cover fee to get in but the bartenders are all pretty girls who will flirt with you.

My assumption was that the experience would somehow be cheapened because I was paying for it, but that wasn't the case. I came to the conclusion that my limbic system doesn't really know the difference.

Maybe I got lucky. A similar experience could have felt pretty bad if the girl was clearly only trying to get tips, but in this case it worked out.

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

#842

Post by ceilingcorner »

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…

The issue here is that the idea of “100% consensual” is 100% unrealistic. If working as a prostitute is acceptable and pays 10x the average salary, living costs adjust in reaction, then what is consensual about this?

Allowing unhealthy or undesirable behaviors to be economically lucrative doesn’t make them ethically good. To me, the scenario is dystopian because it’s saying we are incapable of managing our own desires to the benefit of society, and instead must (economically) force young women into selling their bodies en masse. Instead of having healthy relationships as the baseline, we just choose the easy option.

Adding to that, prostitution is tied up with human trafficking and lots of other horrible things that have nothing to do with individuals choosing what to do with their bodies.

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

#843

Post by a_puppy »

throway98752343 wrote: post #834
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…

Excellent points, I completely agree. As long as social skills matter, they will be the more serious barrier over things like exercise, grooming/hygiene and other self improvement fixes because those can be improved on your own while practicing social skills takes willing partners. If it's bad enough, you're in a chicken and egg situation. There are ways out of it like rejection challenges but that's really painful.…

> But I get that many women are not in a place where they feel comfortable doing this yet. Saying no is a skill that many of us are very bad at, especially doing it gently and unambiguously.

This is a totally valid point, and I don't mean to make anyone feel bad if they have trouble finding the words to let someone down gently. All I ask is that people should be aware that social awkwardness can sometimes look similar to rudeness, and should make an effort to let socially awkward men down gently, to the extent that they can.

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

#844

Post by ceilingcorner »

sokoloff wrote: post #544
ceilingcorner wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say that it’s incentivized at all. Weddings are expensive, divorces are financially disastrous (yet easy to initiate), and a sizable segment of the population thinks the idea of marriage is “uncool”, for lack of a better word. Things like adultery are nearly outright encouraged in Netflix shows and novels. It doesn’t surprise me at all that many people look at marriage as it currently stands and just say,…

We spent around $700 on our wedding. Front yard ceremony, $150-200 for the justice of the peace, trays of food from the local BBQ place, more wine, beer, and drinks than our 25 or so closest friends could consume. Getting married isn't inherently expensive. People make it so because an entire industry is optimized around convincing you to spend more on a dress than we spent on an entire wedding.

Weddings are expensive because historically they were seen as extremely important. This is observable in almost every culture and predates modern consumer culture.

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

#845

Post by ceilingcorner »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #830
ceilingcorner wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because they aren’t referring to the same groups. Prostitution was historically only acceptable for men, while women were forced to either have a husband or be celibate. At least, in terms of social acceptability. Today, the restrictions have more or less been removed for both genders. Again, not saying it “was better back then”, just pointing out what’s changed.

> Prostitution was historically only acceptable for men, while women were forced to either have a husband or be celibate. I'm not certain about that. It also must depend on the culture. But I do remember ads that survived from ancient Rome for a certain well-reputed (male) cunnilingist.

As far as I know, male prostitution was rare globally and primarily used by other men. This was somewhat common in certain eras of Japan, but again, women were not widespread consumers.

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

#846

Post by throwaway1282 »

mettamage wrote: post #679
robocat wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical sex is not intimacy. Sex work leads to some very strange dynamics, because often the Johns are desperate for intimacy, but they are paying for women that provide zero actual intimacy (because it is usually entirely faked.) I am sure there is some ideal world where prostitution could satisfy emotional needs, but in my admittedly very limited knowledge it doesn't. Prostitution has been legal in my country sinc…

This. I sometimes walk by the red light district. One time I seriously considered having sex with a sex worker. I talked to multiple of them to find a click and I was appalled by all my interaction. I realized that I wanted intimacy leading into sex. What they offered: strictly penetrative sex and nothing else. As I got older, another issue arose: to what extent is intimacy actual intimacy when you are paying for it?…

I've made the plunge and become a "John" a few times now, always in other countries where sex work is either legal or tolerated/quasi-legal.

I must say the experience varied a lot. About half were mechanical and just felt like they were trying to get my money. That feels pretty hollow.

But I've also had some really great experiences where I felt like we had a genuine connection. I grant that this is not "real" intimacy in the sense of "they care for you", but it did feel something like chemistry or attraction.

And finally I have not tried this but have read enough anecdotes suggesting that you can get intimacy while paying in good sugar daddy-sugar babe relationships. That won't be cheap though.

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

#848

Post by astura »

serverholic wrote: post #644
Balgair wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the fact is that women despise weak men. I'd say this is true for all genders and people. Homosexual people also display this tendency just as well as heterosexual males. Heck, even in friendships, it can be hard to enjoy being with a buddy that is going through a deep funk despite all your efforts to rouse them out of it. People want to be with people like themselves. Misery loves company, and vice-versa

A weak woman will still be able to find a man to take care of her. A weak man not so much.

You'd be surprised, just today we had to have a conversation with a family member about how consistently taking in loser degenerate men is ruining her life.

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

#849

Post by InvertedRhodium »

serverholic wrote: post #759
kelnos wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this speaks more about the type of woman you're attracted to more so than women in general. Literally the only person I speak to about emotions, and make myself generally vulnerable around, is my partner.

In fact, I think this is common enough that it contributes in part to the high suicide rates for divorced men as opposed to divorced women [0] - women have friends that they can lean on emotionally during this time while men don't typically cultivate that kind of relationship.

[0] - https://jech.bmj.com/content/57/12/993

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

#850

Post by baby »

hannasanarion wrote: post #141
baby wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but I’ll have to downvote this, there’s something about humans that is either cultural or genetic, but we travel and live in groups and we settle with partner(s). Being alone might be OK in a tribe, but as we moved to more isolated and individualist ways of living being alone means something completely different. On top of that every song you hear is about love and every movie you watch has a love story. You go…

Your choices are not limited to "being adhered to a codependent sexual partner" and "being totally disconnected from society trying to live as a Randean ubermench ascetic". It is the belief that those are the only possibilities that makes people incels, not the lack of a chick.

Isn’t the point of incels that they want something that is majorly important in society, yet can’t get it. It’s a bit like telling poor people that they should not care about money.
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