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Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

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Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#341

Post by alexvoda »

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…

> It's that they don't have those moments of intimacy that you have with members of the oposite sex, when you're naked or just cuddling.

I have not read the paper yet so I don't know if this idea was captured but I agree the issue is not only about the sex, it's also (maybe even moreso) about intimacy and connection.

I wonder to what degree this is an issue brought on by a higher level of education and awareness. I mean there are plenty of loveless marriages and I expect the further in the past you go the more common this was. I can not imagine that at the time when marriages were usually arranged, mostly for economic reasons, there was much love unless they were lucky. There was also just so much inequality contributing to this. I can believe many people were not aware better was possible.

Have people become aware that relationships can be more and now find it impossible to settle for less?

Edit, just to make it clear, is not necessarily a bad thing. Changing the expectation about what a relationship should be towards one where more things are valued is a good thing. It does however mean we are suffering the consequences of being in the transition period between two value systems.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#342

Post by avmich »

ajross wrote: post #293
mellosouls wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The imbalance is huge This is overstating the case. This can all be measured. Statistics like median number of partners, age at marriage, etc... are indeed all trending downward and growing more asymmetric between men and women. The linked article cites a few studies like this. But it's not a "huge" effect. This is a meme, created largely by feedback communities like the incel folks. Note, FWIW, the Betteridge ques…

> Contra everyone's assumptions here, it does not seem to be presenting solid evidence for a "public health problem".

I fail to understand your arguments leading to such outcome, unfortunately.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#343

Post by [deleted] »

zb3 wrote: post #332
password11 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A drug that'd make me completely asexual (with no orientation) is the real solution for me, as currently there's none available Escitalopram or most other SSRIs will do the trick.

They of course help, but it's not the same as the complete lack of orientation.

[deleted]

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#344

Post by quotz »

cuuupid wrote: post #28
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…

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…

I've lived in big cities like that and I can tell you its still pretty much the same thing. Even though I hate this word but I had been what some consider a pick up artist before I got married, although a quite successful one. My n-count is in the higher double digits and I've dated a a "Miss" beauty pageant winner from an eastern european country that competed in the Miss Universe.

There's endless science that supports why this happens though. In order to understand why this exists we have to go back in history. For every single man that reproduced, theres 10 other women that reproduced [1]. That means that a significant percent of the male population died without having any offspring, unlike the female population which could always find a partner. On the other hand, polyginy has always been practiced throughout the world universally pretty much everywhere in most cultures, especially by men of influence and power, unlike polyandry which is quite rare [2]

The theory goes that evolutionary speaking, women try to find the best mating partner (most well-off, most influencing, most powerful etc) in order to secure the best future for their offspring to grow up healthy, without any regard whether that man already has other offspring or partners. This is also supported by the fact that women 100% know that the offspring is in fact theirs since they gave birth to them, unlike men which have zero assurance that the kid is in fact theirs. And this is why for most of recorded history premarital sex for women in civilized societies was a big no no up until like the 1950s that started to change in the western world.

So dating apps create this perfect environment where choice is abundant, so men take their shot on everybody, and girls only choose the most handsomest, most well-off guys on there. Its similar to a big high school environment, where most of the popular pretty girls from all years and generations would date a dozen guys in the sports teams and just swap around every few months. In high school and college I was in a similar situation, and girls were in fact excited that I was so experienced and that I was seeing other girls at the same time.

On dating apps most men get somewhere like 0-4 matches a week and most women get somewhere like 100-1000. That’s a 25x difference best-case scenario and often it’s over 100x. Which is kind of insane considering there are about 50/50 men to women ratio in real life.

People say “the 20% top men get 80% of matches” but it’s worse than that. The 20% top men may get something reasonable like 3-4 matches a day, but your average women is getting something crazy like 1 match every 15 minutes.

Because a lot of men like to swipe right on nearly everyone and buy passes which get them unlimited swipes. And most women get extremely choosy and swipe right on only the super handsome nearly-perfect men, but you can’t even blame them when they have literally 1,000 matches.

So dating apps are a waste of time, much better to go out and talk to girls in real life and get yourself out of the synthetic environment apps like Tinder create. You'll have much easier time.

[1] https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#346

Post by dheera »

mattyb678 wrote: post #283
dheera wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are professional cuddlers that you can hire for, non-sexual, cuddles.

It seems so weird to me that one would pay for something like that.

Why isn't it something that friends engage in, like animal counterparts? I mean, it seems like an artificial cultural norm we've set upon ourselves -- The idea of no extended touching unless with a sexual partner is one that exists only in my mind, but it's certainly not what my body wants.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#347

Post by Mezzie »

ryeights wrote: post #150
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While women can get attention from thousands of men online in just a few hours, men are lucky if anyone is interested in them When it comes to dating apps, everyone I know falls into one of two categories: The first group invests time into generating a good profile. They put the effort into getting get photos of themselves and presenting the photos properly. They write a good bio, avoiding the tired tropes ("love f…

Unfortunately this response is divorced from reality. I have observed many 20-something women swiping through Tinder and the #1 cause for a man’s profile to be rejected is his attractiveness simply being average or below average. Have you ever tried online dating on platforms such as Tinder?

I'm betting the #1 cause of men rejecting women is also looks based...

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#348

Post by quantified »

FearlessNebula wrote: post #86
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…

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…

There's more than one problem. Trust me, being in a loving marriage where your partner just wants sex with other people and not you, but is jealous of your sexual fidelity, is corrosive. Especially if you have a high sex and intimacy drive.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#349

Post by nkingsy »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #281
astura wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In regular bars it's downright rude to walk up to most groups if you're not in that group, and good luck finding a single woman drinking by herself. In night clubs? Better hope you've hit the gym for the last month...

Groups could be drinking at someone's house. They're paying money and arranging transportation to be doing their group drinking in public. It's rude not to engage with them.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#350

Post by dheera »

kragen wrote: post #339
mattyb678 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are professional cuddlers that you can hire for, non-sexual, cuddles.

Also, cuddle parties!

I don't think I would enjoy a cuddle party, though.

For me having an emotional connection with someone (e.g. long term friends who have gone through struggles together, or people I haven't known for long but we've done something out of compassion for each other) is a prerequisite for touch to be desirable. I'm averse to being touched by a bunch of strangers and people I don't know well, especially in a group setting where I know everyone to different levels. I have a more cat-like personality than a dog-like personality in that regard.

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