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Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

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Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#531

Post by yieldcrv »

avmich wrote: post #384
konart wrote: post #361

Fortunatelly I have a wife now, but for me for the longest time the so called "sexual lineliness" was linked with the three facts: 1) I was raised into believing that sex implies serious relationship and vice versa. As in "if we are having sex that means we are in serious relatioinship". As it turned out - this does not work like this for most (many?) people. Turns out yuo can just have a good time and some sex witho…

> 1) I was raised into believing that sex implies serious relationship and vice versa. As in "if we are having sex that means we are in serious relatioinship". As it turned out - this does not work like this for most (many?) people. Turns out yuo can just have a good time and some sex without worrying about 1001 things before you do so. This seems to contradict some view on women's POV here. As in, for women the sexu…

> This seems to contradict some view on women's POV here. As in, for women the sexual transaction is big serious deal.

And other women learn how to decrease the cost.

Women that are fine with hormonal birth control with partners that test for STDs frequently are fine. There is a lot of consequence free sex happening.

It doesn't matter that it contradicts a view, your mistake is elevating them as representatives of the entire sex. They aren't, even if they masquerade as so, they are just individuals.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#532

Post by nkingsy »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #482
nkingsy wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a past life I got pretty deep into trying to help guys like this. There's a whole industry around it peddling advice that ranges from effective (yet impossible to implement for a broken person) to counter-productive and evil. It's really very simple, but people just have massive amounts of negative programming that radiates out from them like a reverse pheromone. Those who are hungry do not eat. You can't fake it,…

Increasing numbers of people don't drink--which rules out bars. And you seem to be suggesting actions with a hookup as the desired objective--not of much use for those who desire a relationship rather than a hookup. By "club" do you mean hobby type things? It's perennial advice but it has the serious flaw that to a large degree you encounter the same people over and over, most of whom are too young/too old/not availa…

It is general advice. Even if you're taking it slowly, you need to somehow let the person you are interested in know that they will enjoy hooking up with you someday, or they won't stick around to wait for you.

Edit: I still need to emphasize the public element. Don’t let your co-workers and friends know you’re into them (at least don’t blame me if you do)

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#533

Post by bmn__ »

wonderwonder wrote: post #153
thw09j9m wrote: post #124

I'll chime in as somebody who's been considered top 10% of attractiveness in one country and bottom 50% in another - the difference in the amount of sexual opportunities on apps is absolutely staggering. Not that this should be a surprise to anyone. Where I am considered attractive, I've gotten 80+ matches in one day and random women messaging me at 11PM telling me they're lonely and to come hang out. I've had more f…

How does that work? Is it an ethnicity issue?

"just be white", bro

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#534

Post by avmich »

sangnoir wrote: post #491
weatherlite wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be simple but still unattainable to a huge swath of guys. It's like trying to tell someone not to freak out before a job interview - just go there, be yourself and don't care about the outcome. Let me know how well that worked out...

The trick is to not be desperate for the job, and to schedule as many job interviews as humanly possible until it's just a thing you do[1]. Most people don't feel great after each rejection and so are not willing to put in the work. 1. The same strategy applies to public speaking, or product demos, or chairing a meeting, or systems design for people who feel they are not good at it. The human mind is incredibly adapt…

> Most people don't feel great after each rejection and so are not willing to put in the work.

Don't talk lightly about such things. Rejections are a known cause for suicides.

> The only exception is if the person has some kind of trauma or psychological wall and exposure harms them - in that case, I recommend talking to a professional first.

It's likely everybody had a rejection at least once. It's also likely a large percent didn't particularly enjoy the outcome. I don't think that so many people should seek professional help though - or it should be something very different from what we assume now.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#535

Post by LorenPechtel »

PaulHoule wrote: post #423
ajross wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It doesn’t have to be a numerically huge effect to be a socially huge effect. In the simple model where people pair up 1-1 exactly once, a 2% imbalance means 2% of people can’t pair up no matter what they do. I wonder how this plays out in places like India and China that practice sex selective abortion.

It works out horribly. In China men at the lower end of the economic scale have effectively no chance of finding anyone and many do not even try because the cost is too high. That causes social unrest.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#536

Post by 1659447091 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #407
red_trumpet wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how this is a stable situation. If women have to compete so much, wouldn't it be better for them to lower expectations?

Yes. But it takes time. Most importantly, women lose their ability to have children earlier than men but in their early 20s many of them are busy with other things and think they have a lot of time. They get less desirable as time goes by so when they decide to ‘get serious’ at 35 it is already getting late

If this is the case then it would seem an easy problem to solve as men looking for relationships and not getting any responses should only have to message those 35 and older.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#537

Post by hutzlibu »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #482
nkingsy wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a past life I got pretty deep into trying to help guys like this. There's a whole industry around it peddling advice that ranges from effective (yet impossible to implement for a broken person) to counter-productive and evil. It's really very simple, but people just have massive amounts of negative programming that radiates out from them like a reverse pheromone. Those who are hungry do not eat. You can't fake it,…

Increasing numbers of people don't drink--which rules out bars. And you seem to be suggesting actions with a hookup as the desired objective--not of much use for those who desire a relationship rather than a hookup. By "club" do you mean hobby type things? It's perennial advice but it has the serious flaw that to a large degree you encounter the same people over and over, most of whom are too young/too old/not availa…

"Increasing numbers of people don't drink--which rules out bars."

It is possible to not drink alcohol at a bar and still have fun, but I also never liked bars to meet people.

And "clubs", no he did not meant a "hobby thing", but a place where you can dance and enjoy music.

Dancing is a very old way of hooking up.

Back in time it was the village dance, where the young people got close. And this still works, either in formal settings like a dance studio - or free style on a dance floor.

Dancing is body language and you can signal to other people, whether you are interested, or not. And then you get close, or apart.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#538

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

poszlem wrote: post #375
tru3_power wrote: post #31

Does anyone think this a lot of this is hormone driven? I know there are studies that show sperm counts are dropping due to chemicals, but I haven’t been able to find anything regarding testosterone levels. I’m not arguing that having higher testosterone will make women more attracted to men, but having higher testosterone undoubtedly gives you more energy/confidence to succeed in life (which probably makes you more…

Well, there are some interesting papers suggesting that women on the pill prefer less masculine men. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/study-wom... Personally that is one of my personal favourite, perhaps not conspiracy theories, but a "wacko" theories that can explain a lot of our modern world.

By interesting papers you mean "paper" singular and it was conducted at a science center with no control.

> Target participants were 170 male-female couples (aged between 18 and 73, mean = 35.8, SD = 11.3). All couples reported to be heterosexual. We collected data and images from 333 couples who were visitors to a science exhibition centre and who responded positively to a face-to-face invitation to participate.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#539

Post by benj111 »

lechacker wrote: post #524
konart wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not much. Maybe a house of worship Literature clubs, language classes. Literally any hobbie that does not require you to stay focused on device that may cut off your fingers if you look away.

Trying to "flirt" in those spheres is looked down upon just as ferociously as doing it at the office. Have you not seen the viral TikTok of the woman that was "angry" that some guy was "checking her out" at the gym, while the man was barely paying attention at her at all?

Is it? 1 Tik tok video doesn't really prove the point (seems to me it proves the opposite).

Also it depends what you mean by flirting. If you join a class and immediately start trying to pull every person of the opposite sex (or same sex if that's your thing), that just gives the vibe of being there for the wrong reason. If on the other hand you meet someone doing a thing you wanted to do anyway, and a friendship blossoms, that seems to be the point at which you start flirting.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#540

Post by zozbot234 »

avmich wrote: post #508
zozbot234 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not easy, but it should be your goal. Do you think most guys (or even most women, perhaps) have ever paid the least bit of attention to being interesting and exciting to their prospective partners, much less empowering them? Even with people you genuinely like and care for, it's not something you'd know to strive for intuitively. So the bar is not that high.

> Do you think most guys (or even most women, perhaps) have ever paid the least bit of attention to being interesting and exciting to their prospective partners, much less empowering them? I know for sure that a lot of men, significant percent of my single friends, actually tried that for years, with little to no effect. Seems like when a woman needs the man to be interesting and exciting, she wants some non-trivial…

> Or the society as a whole just doesn't know some rather simple to make and simple to understand actions?

Yes, society as a whole does not care in the least about giving people viable social "scripts" by which they might get to know each other and pursue intimacy in safe, healthy and effective ways.

(Of course, the consequences of this lack become all the more apparent when ludicrous excuses are put forth to minimize or justify serious coercive and predatory behavior. Teach people to relate to each other in better ways, and you'll also deprive dangerous predators of the excuses they like to fall back on.)

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