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Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

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Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#251

Post by bradlys »

k__ wrote: post #189
cjbgkagh wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young men were already low social status, and now they’re even lower. Often judged on immutable characteristics like hight. In my opinion none of what you are proposing will happen. There will be a substantial uncontrolled reaction. In my opinion men and women need each other and if men withdraw and stop trying women will also suffer.

I had the impression it was the other way around. Women judged on appearence and men judged on financial success.

> I had the impression it was the other way around. Women judged on appearence and men judged on financial success.

Women judge harshly on appearance as much as men. It's just that women tend to not be as forward with it. But women's behavior on dating apps clearly shows that women are actually far more picky than men when it comes to physical appearance.

Financial success is important too - but you gotta start somewhere and looks are an easy way to start.

For most men - this is unsolvable as the height standards are deeply ingrained in our culture and only 15% of men will ever meet that criterion.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#252

Post by zozbot234 »

seneca wrote: post #75
commandlinefan wrote: post #46

My fear when I was young was that women for the most part really would rather not, but just put up with it because it was sort of required if you wanted to participate in the married and had kids portion of civilization. The older I get, the more I suspect I was probably right.

I can assure you, that is absolutely not the case for most women, though it may be for some. Women are perfectly capable of enjoying sex.

They're also perfectly capable of not enjoying it. It's not altogether uncommon for women to experience a complete lack of sex drive and even active aversion to it, of a sort that most men (asexuals aside, ofc.) would only personally associate to some flu-like sickness or malaise. It's hardly fair to only point to those who are talking about wanting more, when just as many are saying the very opposite!

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#253

Post by bradlys »

cataphract wrote: post #132
caeril wrote: post #14

It's burying the lede to suggest that young people are having less sex. The salient fact is that it's young men who are skewing this average down. Women, on average, are doing perfectly fine in the sexual marketplace, along with the top 10-15% of men. edit: The above was my reflexive response to the headline. Now that I've actually read the article, I have to say that the article is very good and quite comprehensive,…

Wait, how is that even mathematically possible? Most people are heterosexual and there is roughly the same number of men and women. Are you saying that there is a small cohort of men that have sex with most of the women? I find it hard to believe — most people, men and women, are monogamous.

> Wait, how is that even mathematically possible? Most people are heterosexual and there is roughly the same number of men and women.

Men:women are born at 107:100. There are about 7% more men than women in the world at birth. This only evens out by age 40. This is due to suicide rates among men being wildly higher.

Most men and women are monogamous - but many people date. A few men sleep with many women. Many men never see a date or any sex. 25% of men will be childless. 15% of women will be childless. It should get kinda obvious how this works even with a monogamous society. Women can get sex when they want and not commit to someone even in a monogamous society. The attractive men can choose to be non-committal and sleep with many women. Eventually - many women will commit to a man but it will be to a man who had very few partners whereas the woman might've slept with many of the men who get to sleep with many women.

Basically - the idea is that a small subset of men are sleeping with all the women. The women might settle down eventually but they will inevitably settle down with a man who did not have many sexual partners.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#254

Post by laszlojamf »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #106

I'm surprised the article doesn't talk more about the population dynamics of any animal with a fixed amount of space: it either consumes everything it needs to survive and goes extinct, or it approaches an equilibrium population. I have to imagine that pre-agrarian humans occasionally made the wrong choice there and the whole tribe starved, so genes for population regulation were likely selected for. Less sex as a re…

This isn't how any other animal behave though. Wolves don't breed less when there is a scarcity of food, they just starve more. Making this a genetic thing is a bit of a stretch.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#255

Post by bradlys »

throway97 wrote: post #108

If you are a young man in this environment, I hate to say it but you are going to need something more similar to a “strategy” than “tactics.” Approaching or chasing women, purely to try to further the species, is now profoundly uncool and stigmatized. The best way to get sex now is To actually build or organize something meaningful which has the side effect of putting you in touch or opening reasonable conversation p…

> Women will get you other women, trust me.

My best friends are women. Trust me, this doesn’t get you anywhere. I met my wife while I was out dancing and I seduced her. I found that method to be the best of anything I’ve ever seen and most of my male friends would agree.

Friends, in my experience, are completely worthless when it comes down to getting partners. Many friends don’t know single people or single people who are of interest to you. Advice from women is also incredibly bad - as it’s usually given with a lot of assumptions that the woman deeply loves you already. (I see this online a lot) Whereas men’s advice tends to be a lot more from the opposite side - and is a lot better for that.

I like the saying - you don’t ask a fish how to catch it - you ask a fisherman. It truly sums it up well.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#256

Post by zozbot234 »

tarboreus wrote: post #244
spywaregorilla wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lack of eye contact. That's what I see among both sexes under the age of 30. Not a significant thing > An inability to have basic conversation. Not a significant thing > And the boys are totally ineffectual and terrified of trying to kiss a girl; it's been made faux pas to show any inclination. It's hard enough as a teenager to get up the courage to kiss a girl. I mean you shouldn't kiss a girl without consent, but…

What's the use of just saying it's not a thing? Make a point. I agree with OP. People around my generation (middle of the road millennial) and especially those younger have laughable basic social skills. The median 25-year-old can't talk on the phone, walk up to someone at a party and start a conversation, or act like a human being with a cashier or server. They also flake out on plans some huge percentage of the tim…

> What's the use of just saying it's not a thing? Make a point.

The point is that social skills - properly understood - are learnable and developable skills, and adapt creatively to changes in social norms. It's not for bad reasons that "trying to kiss a girl" has become so cringe. Why are you trying to do something that intimate when you have no clue how the other person will react? It makes no sense. Work around all that crap instead, focus on being attractive on your own terms and on showing off the best side of yourself in ways that are not inherently threatening if the other person doesn't like it. Plenty of creative possibilities there. The rest will follow if you do it right. If it turns out that she expects you to take risks you're not comfortable with (which is the only reason anyone ever could have thought that the cringe thing made any sense at all), that's her loss not yours. Even then you can still be friendly, and maybe she'll change her mind after all.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#257

Post by spywaregorilla »

tarboreus wrote: post #244
spywaregorilla wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lack of eye contact. That's what I see among both sexes under the age of 30. Not a significant thing > An inability to have basic conversation. Not a significant thing > And the boys are totally ineffectual and terrified of trying to kiss a girl; it's been made faux pas to show any inclination. It's hard enough as a teenager to get up the courage to kiss a girl. I mean you shouldn't kiss a girl without consent, but…

What's the use of just saying it's not a thing? Make a point. I agree with OP. People around my generation (middle of the road millennial) and especially those younger have laughable basic social skills. The median 25-year-old can't talk on the phone, walk up to someone at a party and start a conversation, or act like a human being with a cashier or server. They also flake out on plans some huge percentage of the tim…

> What's the use of just saying it's not a thing? Make a point.

My point is that your anecdata is garbage. Older folks saying young people don't know how to communicate is a centuries old trope.

Most people can communicate just fine. Given that you are citing people flaking, one might assume that the traits you're applying to an entire generation of individuals may just be your shitty friends. Little bubbles at the top of reddit don't matter either.

Congrats on finally being old enough to start blaming the younger generations. Here's your tropey millennial participation trophy.

Many people aren't good at phone calls. You know why? Because they don't talk on the phone.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#258

Post by zozbot234 »

bradlys wrote: post #251
k__ wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the impression it was the other way around. Women judged on appearence and men judged on financial success.

> I had the impression it was the other way around. Women judged on appearence and men judged on financial success. Women judge harshly on appearance as much as men. It's just that women tend to not be as forward with it. But women's behavior on dating apps clearly shows that women are actually far more picky than men when it comes to physical appearance. Financial success is important too - but you gotta start somew…

Dating apps are an artificial environment that's inherently unfavorable to the majority of men with less readily-apparent advantages. Meet women as friends in more social environments and this is not going to be an issue.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#259

Post by bradlys »

danShumway wrote: post #162

What the heck is wrong with older generations? Leave young people alone, they literally can't win in this discussion. This article is filled with baseless pseudoscience and random cultural anxiety, and without any real substance the article just ties all of it to this phenomenon that isn't even really definitively bad. People look at anything different about teenagers and young adults, and this becomes an opportunity…

The article is trash but I think things like this get posted on here to stir up a conversation around the topic. You might dislike the article but the discussion around the topic is usually what I come to HN for.

A lot of the social articles that get posted on here are even worse than this one (and this one is incredibly bad - complete nonsense) but the discussion can be good.

Re: Why are young people having so little sex? (2018)

#260

Post by zozbot234 »

bradlys wrote: post #250
hef19898 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treat them with respect, eye contact, don't make about sex and generally don't be a dick. Usually works in all social circumstances.

> Treat them with respect, eye contact, don't make about sex and generally don't be a dick. Usually works in all social circumstances. This is generally a great way to make friends. This is not how you court a partner. People will tell you about exceptional circumstances but they're just that - exceptional circumstances.

> This is generally a great way to make friends. This is not how you court a partner.

Evidence? Many friendships have a way of turning into relationships, because it's so easy to show off things to your friend that make you attractive and desirable as a partner. It even happens without people intending it!

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