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

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#261

Post by narrator » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #148

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…

> 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…

Your right about the two-sided thing. The key to successful dating is understanding the woman's perspective. Most men think women should act like them and want to have meaningless sex right away. No, that's not how it works. For most women who are going to have more than a one night stand, sex is a big deal and an enormous emotional investment. I could go on, but this is HN not a dating advice subreddit.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#262

Post by throw_m239339 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

f-securus wrote: post #5

Legalize prostitution and regulate safety and perhaps incels would build confidence and learn to socialize a bit from paid sexual interactions? I'm kind of ignorant to the subject of what is the cause of 'sexual loneliness' but I believe the world's oldest profession shouldn't be pushed into the shadows as that causes more problems than it prevents.

> Legalize prostitution and regulate safety and perhaps incels would build confidence and learn to socialize a bit from paid sexual interactions?

Incels don't like prostitutes, they despise them. Incels believe that they are _owed_ sex, they don't want to pay for sex. You fundamentally misunderstand what Incel claim being.

Prostitution is legal in Germany, guess what country in the EU comes first when it comes to the number of self declared incels

https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-10/ran_i...

Prostitution advocate often claim that legalizing prostitution will lower violence against females, there is absolutely not a single proof that true. All we know is that legalizing prostitution increase the demand for legal and illegal (minors, trafficked women) prostitution.

https://journalistsresource.org/economics/legalized-prostitu...

Nobody is owed sex. Not a single person on the planet, with anybody.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#263

Post by tibbon » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:51 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…

I hear this all the time. Perhaps demand follows an 80/20% rule because my experience doesn't align with this.

I'm a man, 40 years, polyamorous, yet I have zero problems finding people to date. On average, I have more partners than the women I often date. I agree that Tinder and such are highly skewed, but it doesn't make it useful for any gender. In-person (events, social groups, etc), I find there are a large number of people who actively want to date me and spend time with me.

I don't see a clear gender divide in dating opportunities in my personal experience. I haven't been able to figure out what is unique about my experience vs the majority of men. I am not a "10" in any way; I just have a lot of hobbies.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#264

Post by tsimionescu » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #68

low_tech_punk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people consider marriage as a contract of exchange, then it is already a form of legalized prostitution. Monogamy might be a bigger underlying problem. Esther Perel's Mating in Captivity in a good read on this topic.

Monogamy was a fantastic tool to manage diseases for thousands of years. Imagine removing antibiotics, vaccines, screening tools, and any other medical treatment. Anyone who was around for the AIDs epidemic will understand how quickly a large segment of the population can start dying off. The early portion, it was literally a mystery disease that was killing off anyone that engaged in risky lifestyle.

As far as I know, there weren't any significantly life-threatening sexual diseases for most of human history in most of the world. Syphilis only affected the Americas before the 1500s, and HIV is much newer than that.

Most other sexually-transmitted diseases that existed in most of the world were unpleasant, but not life threatening, even before antibiotics. And it's also worth noting that most primates (and many mammals of all kinds) are not monogamous, and yet they are not plagued by STIs to any significant extent.

Instead, monogamy was much more important for managing babies, especially given how much hare human babies need, and for how long, compared to virtually any other animal.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#265

Post by Manuel_D » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #126

Jordan Peterson is completely wrong though. Monogamy is part of the problem. We should normalize as a society that there are indeed people you just want to have sex with but are not interested in marrying/reproduction with. It shouldn't be that big of a deal.

There's mixed perspectives on this question. The prevailing opinions are that monogamy flattens sexual opportunity, since sex people choose to have outside of marriage tend to concentrate in a small segment of the dating pool.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#266

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

thwayunion wrote: post #59

The article correctly identifies that lack of intimacy and relationships are serious problems, with sexual loneliness being a related comorbidity (if you will). The comments, so far, predictably drift toward "how do we get everyone laid?" Giving everyone access to sex will not solve sexual loneliness. And, solving (a lot of) sexual loneliness can be achieved without giving everyone access to sex. Anecdotally, I spent…

I think that something that is part of this and poorly understood is female health and the feelings of guilt, shame and resentment that pop up in relationships.

Hormonal cycles are very different in women, and are affected by age, factors like weight and inflammation and stress. Doctors tend to look at acute problems and miss the more holistic or secondary affects.

My wife and I have a pretty awesome relationship, but we went through hard patches that were ultimately caused by medical conditions that neither of us knew existed.

I think people pursue “other options” sometimes because they don’t know how to cope with things. As a male, these things are simpler.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#267

Post by yibg » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #149

yibg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that's true. From most data I've seen women's preferences skew towards a small percentage of men. i.e. most women want the same guys, which are the small minority. This leaves (making up numbers) 80% of women wanting 20% of men. Where as men tend to be less discriminating in their choices of women.

That may be the case in theory but it doesnt play out that way in the real world as you can tell from marriage statistics.

Yes good to clarify, this applies to the "dating" phase. I assume (hope) once in a stable long term relationship, it's more 1:1.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#268

Post by Jensson » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #210

FearlessNebula wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah everyone seems to be very focused on sex whereas to me the problem is not fostering intimate connections in the first place. We don’t have an epidemic of relationships that aren’t having sex, we’re having an epidemic of people who aren’t fostering those relationships and as a downstream byproduct they aren’t having sex. Pay a prostitute is a bandaid patch on the downstream problem, but it will never makeup for t…

I'm single and male, and personally I don't feel a "need" for sex. I do wish other less intrusive forms of intimacy e.g. hugs could be more legitimized between single people, though. Sometimes I see pictures of cats cuddling and just wonder why humans are so bad at engaging in simple, consensual comforts like that.

Most animals are in heat just a small part of the time, humans are in heat all the time. Animals in heat behave a lot more like humans do regarding these things. Humans still have the genes to populate the earth, we haven't adapted to having a stable population yet where we don't optimize for maximum kids.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#269

Post by japanman425 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

thwayunion wrote: post #59

The article correctly identifies that lack of intimacy and relationships are serious problems, with sexual loneliness being a related comorbidity (if you will). The comments, so far, predictably drift toward "how do we get everyone laid?" Giving everyone access to sex will not solve sexual loneliness. And, solving (a lot of) sexual loneliness can be achieved without giving everyone access to sex. Anecdotally, I spent…

[flagged]

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#270

Post by dangond » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

willmadden wrote: post #72

I'm curious how this comment will go over ;). The answer is not "tinder" and it's not about "sexual loneliness". Pair bonding weakens as people age and accumulate more sexual partners. We actively encourage people to delay pair bonding - mainly by discouraging "high school sweethearts" from marrying, and instead promoting college and pursuing careers over building families. This leads to atomized, lonely individuals…

I also feel that we'd be better off as a society if we emphasized and encouraged building strong inter-personal relationships over "pursuing a career", but appealing to tradition isn't a great argument. Building a strong social sense of unity and cohesion is good enough for me. On the other hand, "those values exist for a reason" is just as convincing as "we got rid of those values for a reason". Our societies also grew a lot with the help of slavery and child labor, but I doubt you'd see that as a good reason to bring those back.