Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem? • Hacker News Board

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#231

Post by k0k0r0 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #160

spaniard89277 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been running online communities for years and this, as far as I can see, factual. I've read somewhere, maybe multiple times, that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived. That sounds correct given the data I have. I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-look…

> The only advice I've told them is to get out of any online stuff and hit bars. They need your wife to bring her single friends to the bar. If they have a hard time reaching out to women hitting bars without friends won't help them much.

I second this.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#232

Post by astura » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

efa wrote: post #175

spaniard89277 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been running online communities for years and this, as far as I can see, factual. I've read somewhere, maybe multiple times, that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived. That sounds correct given the data I have. I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-look…

Aren't bars similar to dating sites? A forum for men to compete with other men for women. I would think they'd have better luck with group activities (rec sports, craft/hobby stuff) or online groups devoted to something (restaurant enthusiasts, etc).

Nightclubs, yeah, most bars aren't nightclubs though.

Bars are a fairly decent place for low stakes socialization, at the very least.

In person dynamics are just different - I met my husband in a bar. At the time neither of us were looking to date anyone for various reasons but we happened to get chatting and our chemistry was immediately apparent. If he were exactly the same person but I first "met" him as a dating profile on the screen I almost certainly would have passed.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#233

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

andrewclunn wrote: post #48

You are not owed sex or intimacy. To men: want to be desired by other people? make yourself more desirable. As for women in this situation, that is largely self imposed because their sex drives are lower and they are often in denial about how their attractiveness declines with age, and are unable to adjust their expectations to match. In the modern dating / hookup culture young men and older women are the clear loser…

This is an example of aspirational 1950s churchgoing America being seen as an "age old solution." That's not age old, not a solution, and not an accurate view of the reality of sex relations globally and over the long course of history.

Nostalgia is what people like Jordan Peterson are selling. Go back to the "good" (but very bad for most people) old days and things will be fine. It won't work.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#234

Post by pmarreck » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

Online dating absolutely benefits "the typical female mating strategy" more than it does "the typical male mating strategy". I recommend all folks who use the latter (I intentionally phrased this non-gender-specifically) get away from online dating as it is a sucker’s game for us. You have a significantly better chance of scoring an “out of your league” partner in meatspace.

If anyone doesn't believe this, make a fake dating profile using photos from someone of the opposite sex that you think is about as attractive as you are and observe what happens when you try to reach out to people. Actually, this might be a great exercise for the guys in particular to see all the low-effort crap that gets thrown their way (and the occasional unsolicited dick pic), but it would also be a great exercise for women to see how much effort it takes simply to get interest returned (in which case you might get so fatigued by the number of sincere requests you send out unanswered, that you resort to sending many more low-effort inquiries instead... See how that works?)

I predict this thread will get modlocked later today since every conversation that brings in sexual concerns related to gender/orientation ends up becoming dynamite.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#235

Post by goodpoint » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #52

itsmemattchung wrote: post #4

> One possible aid for sexual loneliness might come from online dating apps such as Tinder. In theory, online dating could provide an efficient way to find a partner. However, online dating divides people heavily into winners and losers – perhaps even more so than traditional dating. While women can get attention from thousands of men online in just a few hours, men are lucky if anyone is interested in them My wife d…

As with many sexually dimorphic behaviors in humans (and mammals in general), this flows from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis You can have a stable/growing population with only 1 male per n>1 females. So, the evolutionarily optimal strategy is to crank up trait variance in males and have females select only the top 1/n males (hand-wavily speaking). Most modern human cultures suppressed this dynam…

> evolutionarily optimal strategy

Gender roles (and sexism) are primarily cultural. If you look through history there has been matriarchal and patriarchal societies. Monogamous and polygamous and so on in many combinations.

Humans sexuality is very unique compared to other animals and, respectfully, we should try not to play armchair Darwin.

There are very good lectures from prof. Sapolsky on youtube on the topic. Humans are complex and very weird.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#236

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

claytonjy wrote: post #58

cuuupid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair this is not entirely due to social dynamics but rather due to MatchGroup companies following identical monetization patterns. They’re just capitalizing on male desperation and artificially widening or narrowing the gap depending on how much you pay. If you observe the actual dating climate it’s nowhere near this bad and in larger cities like NYC it can even be closer to 1:1. Rather than a social problem th…

> in larger cities like NYC it can even be closer to 1:1 I don't know the stats but on places like Blind there's a lot of anecdotes about the dating scene favoring men in NYC and favoring women in SF, due to the gender balances.

Well, SF has a big population of gay men, which makes it more complicated than just counting men vs women.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#237

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

GrigoriyMikh wrote: post #176

giantg2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-looking, that have not been touched by a woman in years." I have a friends like this. One solution a couple of them have found is dating internationally. Not via "mail-order" services though. It was sort of a situation where they had a domestic friend who had friends or relatives abroad who were looking for a US marriage. So there was some trust there, a…

The international dating absolutely ruins dating for local guys. Look into Eastern Europe or even better, Thailand. Also, is it really long term solution to loneliness? If only motivation for marriage was to get the attractive citezenship, what will hold the marriage after it's done? Anecdotally, internet is full of stories of "mail-brides", who divorce the men and take a sweet part of his assets with it.

There are prenups, which I believe would be wise for any couple to create (together), and especially important in this type of arrangement.

As I said, this isn't through a mail order service. This is via friends of friends. The marriage would not just be for citizenship. Just like the arranged marriages I mentioned, there would be an element of matchmaking via the intermediary (the mutual friend in this case, or the two families in a traditional arrangement) that has a true belief that the two people would get along well together and share similar values. Then you would have visits and such to see how you liked the other person.

But yes, I see how that can create problems in specific locales. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how the problem can be solved universally.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#238

Post by ocdtrekkie » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

spaniard89277 wrote: post #38

itsmemattchung wrote: post #4

> One possible aid for sexual loneliness might come from online dating apps such as Tinder. In theory, online dating could provide an efficient way to find a partner. However, online dating divides people heavily into winners and losers – perhaps even more so than traditional dating. While women can get attention from thousands of men online in just a few hours, men are lucky if anyone is interested in them My wife d…

I've been running online communities for years and this, as far as I can see, factual. I've read somewhere, maybe multiple times, that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived. That sounds correct given the data I have. I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-look…

Let me recommend how I met my wife: Reddit! I posted, not on the main /r4r which moves quickly, but a more niche one. The fact that I posted is key: Women on Reddit are inundated with tons of PMs when they post. However, there are a ton of both men and women who browse those subreddits but do not post themselves. And unlike a dating app, which is both algorithmically driven and focused on attractiveness, Reddit provies you a textbox with which you can differentiate yourself in whatever way makes you you.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#239

Post by meheleventyone » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

mellosouls wrote: post #198

ajross wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. So, I promise I'm not just picking on the phrasing (though yeah, the phrasing is pretty bad). I find it amazing that you went through that whole discussion about the perspective of your seemingly-hetero-male-only social environment without once recognizing that intimacy is a two-way transaction and that the other party needs to get something in return. Everyo…

You seem to be missing the point that has been made many times here that these studies and reports are demonstrating that a significant number of ordinary men are not even getting to the point they can negotiate a "transaction". The imbalance since the onset of online dating is huge and it and its dismissal with implied equivalence on each side is a real problem for society.

Even with that imbalance what the OP said is entirely correct. You can't dismiss the feelings of the other partner in a potential romantic relationship and view it as transactional. If someone does it's probably a large part of why they have issues finding one. Even beyond the initial ability to actually speak to someone of the opposite sex.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#240

Post by bratbag » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

itsmemattchung wrote: post #4

> One possible aid for sexual loneliness might come from online dating apps such as Tinder. In theory, online dating could provide an efficient way to find a partner. However, online dating divides people heavily into winners and losers – perhaps even more so than traditional dating. While women can get attention from thousands of men online in just a few hours, men are lucky if anyone is interested in them My wife d…

From talking to people on either side of this, women are not getting what they want out of it either.

For men it's like finding fresh water in a desert.

For women it's like finding fresh water in a swamp.