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

theatlantic.com

261–270 of 320 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Meet women as friends in more social environments and this is not going to be an issue.

Unfortunately - this behavior has cascaded over into the general environment. Most women I talk to now are very explicit about their beauty standards they have for the men they’re interested in dating - and they’re always quite a bit more harsh than the men I’ve talked to.

But I’ve also lived on the west coast where the gender ratios from 18-35 are the worst in the country. Any major metro in the US has more men than women from 18-35 but still - it’s really bad over here. Women can be picky because they’re fine with being alone (or having a dog). Most men aren’t (thus the incredibly high suicide rates).

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

#262

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. 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!

All of the people I know were never friends before they got together. Friendship marriages and relationships exist but they’re exceptionally uncommon. Thus why I said they’re exceptional.

The stats back this up. You might be living in a world of survivorship/confirmation bias. You’re only acknowledging the ones that worked and not all the ones where the guy/gal never had any advances accepted. I know many women in my own personal life who seem to think no one was attracted to them until I ask them, “how many men asked you out?” They then realized there were plenty of men who were attracted to them - just none that they wanted…

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Meet women as friends in more social environments and this is not going to be an issue. Unfortunately - this behavior has cascaded over into the general environment. Most women I talk to now are very explicit about their beauty standards they have for the men they’re interested in dating - and they’re always quite a bit more harsh than the men I’ve talked to. But I’ve also lived on the west coast where the gender r…

Beauty is also the kind of thing that's easy to talk about, though. I don't believe that any sensible woman would only care about how handsome their partner is. They can afford to be picky, being in the minority - but they'll be generally picky. And if you can show off compelling qualities, whatever they might be, that's enough to be in the running because so many guys simply don't bother and become practically invisible.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

All of the people I know were never friends before they got together. Friendship marriages and relationships exist but they’re exceptionally uncommon. Thus why I said they’re exceptional. The stats back this up. You might be living in a world of survivorship/confirmation bias. You’re only acknowledging the ones that worked and not all the ones where the guy/gal never had any advances accepted. I know many women in my…

> All of the people I know were never friends before they got together.

So they all got together/started to date as complete strangers? Even if they were loose acquaintances for some time, that's plenty enough for the whole "get to know each other" dynamic to get going. 'Dating culture' is an anomaly, people were never intended to court each other like that.

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meet women as friends in more social environments and this is not going to be an issue. Unfortunately - this behavior has cascaded over into the general environment. Most women I talk to now are very explicit about their beauty standards they have for the men they’re interested in dating - and they’re always quite a bit more harsh than the men I’ve talked to. But I’ve also lived on the west coast where the gender r…

Beauty is also the kind of thing that's easy to talk about, though. I don't believe that any sensible woman would only care about how handsome their partner is. They can afford to be picky, being in the minority - but they'll be generally picky. And if you can show off compelling qualities, whatever they might be, that's enough to be in the running because so many guys simply don't bother and become practically invis…

You really like to setup a strawman here.

> I don't believe that any sensible woman would only care about how handsome their partner is.

I've never said that. It's just that matters upfront the most. Most people are not interested in giving others a chance because we don't live in a world of scarcity anymore for dating. If a woman is interested in dating - she can open an app and get a date setup the next day. It almost doesn't matter who the woman is. The same cannot be said for most men. This leads to people in real life knowing there's an alternative and banking on that alternative. Yes, maybe they want to meet someone in real life but if real life isn't delivering what they want - they go online and can find something closer to what they want.

The data backs this up. The general narrative of dating currently backs this up.

Ultimately - the strategy doesn't work great for marriage or long term relationships (because the men they tend to match with are not willing to commit to them) but it does work great for casual dating and getting sex.

Again - you have to ask yourself - how many people really want to date someone they don't find physically attractive? The data says women are more picky about this. Most women find most men physically unattractive and they don't want to date physically unattractive men. This just isn't the case on the other side.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the people I know were never friends before they got together. Friendship marriages and relationships exist but they’re exceptionally uncommon. Thus why I said they’re exceptional. The stats back this up. You might be living in a world of survivorship/confirmation bias. You’re only acknowledging the ones that worked and not all the ones where the guy/gal never had any advances accepted. I know many women in my…

> All of the people I know were never friends before they got together. So they all got together/started to date as complete strangers? Even if they were loose acquaintances for some time, that's plenty enough for the whole "get to know each other" dynamic to get going. 'Dating culture' is an anomaly, people were never intended to court each other like that.

> So they all got together/started to date as complete strangers?

Yes or as loose acquaintances (they would never call each other friends or anything of the sort - just that they knew of their partner but that's about it). Not everyone was like random bumping into people off the street but almost all of them were not that far off from that.

I know dozens and dozens of relationships and none of them were friends before they got together. After all - they all needed to find each other physically attractive. If they didn't - it was never going to work. That is one thing that is remarkably common among all of them too - they all distinctly find their partner when they met them and now as physically attractive. There is no bridging that gap and no amount of "power of friendship" will fill that hole.

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of the people I know were never friends before they got together. So they all got together/started to date as complete strangers? Even if they were loose acquaintances for some time, that's plenty enough for the whole "get to know each other" dynamic to get going. 'Dating culture' is an anomaly, people were never intended to court each other like that.

> So they all got together/started to date as complete strangers? Yes or as loose acquaintances (they would never call each other friends or anything of the sort - just that they knew of their partner but that's about it). Not everyone was like random bumping into people off the street but almost all of them were not that far off from that. I know dozens and dozens of relationships and none of them were friends befor…

> There is no bridging that gap

There's plenty of ways in a real-world context. No, friendship alone will not do it of course, but having the right attitude will. She really needs to find you intuitively compelling in a general sense, and this will be practically interchangeable with physical attractiveness in her mind. One reason I know this is that it works just fine the other way around. Many guys have experienced finding a woman very 'plain' and uninteresting, but then radically changing their mind about her after she got the chance. That woman has just become "attractive" to them in a very real sense, even though nothing physical about her has changed.

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

#268
post #4

Lack of eye contact. That's what I see among both sexes under the age of 30. Almost to the level of autism. An inability to have basic conversation. 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. Imagine if you think there's a 50/50 chance she'll completely destroy your l…

> 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…

Well, to clarify, they weren't playing games with their wives... and we're talking about sexless periods of time stretching for years. Thrice a week would be perfectly alright and I'm sure some of these women would have settled for once a month.

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating people as trophies to be won is the problem. And yes, seeing it, as a man, as a pure hinting exercise misogynistic. Also contra productive.

It's the reality of biology. You cannot avoid this.

Trophy relationships are avoidable. Heck, I know Ace people who started families.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be kind, listen, and demonstrate that you're listening.

This is still very cheap :) Be kind in the sense of the bible? Well, then you'd have the have read, or at least be educated, in the bible. If it was just so simple as to be a good listener. Then I think a lot more of the classic "nerds" would have hit it of hard with the ladies ;)

Most people familiar with the phrase “good Samaritan” or “going the extra mile” won’t demonstrate such behaviour.

Instead, although “nice” almost certainly has some culturally specific Shibboleths, I would say the basic test is where someone is on the selfish-empathetic scale, and further to empathic is a good thing in a partner.

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