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Sex is going out of fashion?

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Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to put more nuance on what a "willing partner" means, as it's incredibly important. Many stories I hear regarding "willing partner left aside for porn" boil down to a passive person expecting their partner to just pick up on clues while having a history of being denied and making zero effort to overcome it. Or worse, a passive, submissive person expecting men to just push their way through any resistance and…

> Or worse, a passive, submissive person expecting men to just push their way through any resistance and keep trying, when men are actively taught to respect a woman's boundaries. Not to go into too much detail, but I've had to seriously recalibrate my "respect women" upbringing to make my wife happy. And I'm not even talking sub/dom stuff or outright rape-fantasy things like I've heard tell of from my (somewhat shel…

This is very common, which is why I called out the other commenter. Sex is complicated, fantasies even more so. Men are pushed to be less proactive and more reactive, but women are still primarily passive when it comes to working these things out. It certainly is 'safer' for society to not have every guy be proactive, but it creates a lot of mismatches in sexual expectations partners have of one another.

That's not to mention the onus of taking charge is still put onto men, while men are actively punished for making a mistake, and women tend to get off without social repercussions despite continuing to play passive. We're already seeing the cracks forming.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#552
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are only worth using as a man if you are ranked in the top 10% of superficial appearances. Those guys are going on dates with different women daily with these apps. If you don't believe me look up any YouTube video going undercover on Tinder masquerading as an attractive man. The thing is Tinder has 75 million active users. If we assume 75% of these active users are men, and only the top 10% of men will reliably…

While I don’t disagree that it’s probably hard for your average straight guy to get a date on Tinder, I encourage you to stop thinking about attractiveness as something objective that everyone agrees on. There’s no such thing as a 1-10 scale everyone falls on. We all have types, and sometimes those types run counter to the mainstream definition of “attractive”. The trick is to figure out what type you are, and try to…

You could make a startup or business from this

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always got the feeling that MGTOW was nonpartisan, or rather, apolitical at their core

Most right-wing movements of which I am aware would definitely like to be seen as apolitical (and thus reduce the critical eye aimed at them). But the line you can draw from there (and similarly from "apolitical" rage-movements like GamerGate) to the current state of things is a straight one.

This seems at odds with Stephen Colbert's famous quote "Reality has a well known liberal bias". Regardless, there isn't anything in MGTOW that indicates either left or right wing views as far as I can tell

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what I am trying to convey is that it is not an addiction like nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, heroine, where the brain wants the substance itself. With porn, it is the brain making a cost benefit calculation that putting in the effort for the real thing is not worth the cost relative to cost/benefit ratio of porn. As in do I make all the effort to get my wife in the mood, or do I open a website and be done with…

I understand what you're trying to convey and I'm sorry but it's just not true. Brain scans show the pathways for porn addiction are very similar to those found in cocain and amphetamine addicts. Perhaps this is true for you, but don't discredit porn addiction as not a "real addiction" when it's an established fact that it is one on par with substance abuse.

Established fact?

Not according to the American Psychological Association [1]

A brain scans showing a similar response to other pleasure stimula is far from "addiction".

GP has a valid point. Blaming porn for sex issues is an oversimplification of a very complex issue involving deep interpersonal dynamics.

[1] https://www.insider.com/guides/health/mental-health/porn-add...

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#555
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entertainment has entered a tyranny of choice. I see it personally. I can watch nearly every show and movie that was ever created but I still flip through Netflix and RT endlessly, often times choosing not to watch anything. When I was younger I would just watch Seinfeld re-runs, with commercials and all. Am I more "entertained" today than I was when I was growing up? I'm not convinced. The weirdest thing is I don't…

Podcasts changed the game for me on this. Now there are entire days where I never turn the TV on. A bonus is that I can get basic chores done while listening or workout. It really freed me from the couch potato routine. A bonus is that many of them are educational and released weekly, so "binge" isn't really an option. There are certainly "junk food" podcasts that I listen to but the ratio of informative to junk comp…

I love my list of podcasts, but I can't help but worry that I use it as a crutch for not having a ton of friends in my life. I remember being devastated when one of my favorites kind of abruptly ended (luckily they were just leaving the company they were at to start their own thing). I'm not saying all podcasts cause the listeners to form parasocial relationships, but I've found that ends up being the appeal for a lot of shows. Maybe it's just me, but the substitution for real relationships seems to be a huge part of why podcasts have become so popular.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#556
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does happen, but mostly for men. The most successful men are seeing a different girl 5 nights a week. Typically women will tend to try a few men out, then stick with a favorite or two. Men at the bottom get absolutely nothing, while women at the bottom mostly end up going on bad dates or getting used for sex.

Why do you think they are getting used for sex? If they have sex on the first date it is free will or bad judgement... players will not go on 5 dates withgirl just to have sex if they can have it easier. Woman either want sex and then they are both using each other, which is fine. Or they need to update their filter. And yes, sometimes bad shit happens, when guy dumps you after couple dates and sex. But the same happ…

Women at the bottom are generally desperate and horny, and so even if they want to try and filter out players their ability to say no to someone slightly out of their league who is being affectionate is pretty limited, so they will lie to themselves with thoughts like "this time will be different" and "we really like each other."

Dating sites also disincentivize most people from being honest about what they want in their profile, since women who state that marriage and children are a must and men who just want sex both get way way fewer views and contacts than people with more open interests. As a result, people tend to keep their interest "open" with the idea that they'll "convert" the person to their desires after they start dating.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that all the things you listed are definitely culprits, but I wouldn't be so quick to discount porn. Anecdotally, I myself and many otherwise healthy, sociable young men I know have pretty serious porn addictions. I really wish there would be more research done on the negative impacts of pornography, especially on young men and teens/pre-teens. I know typically any anti-porn sentiment is met with "Oh you're j…

Yeah, but porn addiction is a consequence I think. If all men could get laid whenever they'd feel like it with a willing partner, then porn use would plummet. I haven't met many women into porn, probably because a one night stand is just a zero effort tinder swipe away, from the comfort of your pijamas in your living room. As a man, you end up turning to porn or paying for sex, or drinking or doing drugs, to compensa…

Whenever I see these "women don't need porn cause they can just go on tinder and get laid" arguments I always find they are kind of unempathetic and do a bad job recognizing the reality of sex and pornography for both genders.

A one night stand is way way more risky for women in most ways whether with regard to the risk of being assaulted or catching STIs or unplanned pregnancy. On top of that, society heavily views sexually promiscuous women more negatively than the same behaviour in men. All of this means women can't treat no-strings sex as flippantly as men can and you shouldn't discount those risks and costs by saying sex is a swipe away for them. It is very much like if I were to say any man could get laid whenever they want by hiring a sex worker while ignoring the risks and costs involved.

These arguments also seem to ignore that the vast majority of women are not so universally attractive that getting on a dating site immediately results in a plethora of matches that they would want to have sex with (even ignoring my first point). If they lacked any standards and were willing to have sex with anyone yes it would be very easy to find a partner, but thats true for the vast majority of men as well.

The fact is most people, quite reasonably, only want to have sex with people they find attractive in situations where they feel safe, even when its only meant for physical pleasure, and this limiting factor greatly reduces the number of opportunities that are available regardless of the person's gender.

These arguments also don't fit with the real world statistics. In the US men on average have sex sooner than women[1] and have sex with more partners during their lifetime[2][3]. It differs by country and its possible to find studies and demographics where the more promiscuous gender switches, but the numbers never align with an assertion like "women don't like porn cause they can just go have real sex instead".

While its true a larger percentage of men consume porn, its very clear a large number of women do as well. You likely think you haven't met women that enjoy it because of stigma making them unwilling to discuss it openly. The biggest pornographic video site finds more than 1/3rd of their visitors are female[4].

Its also possibly because most discussions you see use a too narrow definition of "pornography". For instance, academic analyses often do not include types of pornography heavily preferred by women. When they do include things such as written erotica and not just images or video they find a majority (60%) of women enjoy porn[5].

And hopefully its clear I'm not trying to attack you personally. One study I came across while digging up the numbers found American men think women on average have 27 and men 21 sexual partners in their lifetime while the real numbers they found were 12 for women and 20 for men[3]. The perception that women have more sex is quite common and shared by a large number of men despite not being true. I simply hope my wasting an hour of my life writing all this up with citations will do a bit to change that.

1: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/s.htm#sexualact... 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/n.htm#numberlif... 3: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/sexual-fantasies-our-mispercepti... 4: https://www.pornhub.com/insights/yir-2021 5: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30358432/

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Podcasts changed the game for me on this. Now there are entire days where I never turn the TV on. A bonus is that I can get basic chores done while listening or workout. It really freed me from the couch potato routine. A bonus is that many of them are educational and released weekly, so "binge" isn't really an option. There are certainly "junk food" podcasts that I listen to but the ratio of informative to junk comp…

does your app let you export subscriptions? i’d love to plop an opml into overcast

Unfortunately no, I'm using Google podcasts. And after some searching I'm learning it's the most loathed of all podcast apps, haha.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#559
post #487
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Back in my dad's days, Obesity was much lower and bodies were much healthier and more vigorous. Erectile dysfunction was much less common, and average serum testosterone levels were higher. I guess it's uncouth to suggest that physical acts are more enjoyable with more physically attractive and capable populations, but I don't think it's something that should be discounted.

> Erectile dysfunction was much less common I have no doubt that self-reports of erectile dysfunction were probably less common at that time. I will say that information about it was certainly less common, and the stigma associated to it was stronger and more prevalent. > I guess it's uncouth to suggest that physical acts are more enjoyable with more physically attractive and capable populations On "capable": Erectil…

> That group of traits, and the fact that we live in a more informed society, might be making high-testosterone males less attractive to women, overall.

I believe Cicero, in one of his speeches, complained about women being into young clean-shaven men, and not the robust full-bearded patrician look.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#560

*In the west. I think gender equality may be a big culprit. Take the US for example: women will dominate the college educated class soon if they haven't already, and with that economic freedom comes more optionality in choosing a partner, there are more choices to be had and there will be a self selection of the most desirable men (typically college educated as it correlates to income). This is not to blame women in…

Do you think this is also a plausible account for, say, Japan?
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