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Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

theguardian.com

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Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#31

Post by netcan »

There is something about Japan that really brings home the meaning of 'foreign' to me.

I think that being the first rich, advanced large country that isn't western is the reason. On paper, they have a similar relationship with money, technology, their religion and traditional culture. I can't explain the strangeness away with those differences.

When I read something like this about some trend or supposed cultural pathology cropping up, I have nothing to connect it to. I don't intuitively get where its coming from or why. Not even a hint. I don't know whether to dismiss it as conservatives concerned with something harmless, some fringe phenomenon or whatever.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#32

Post by smegel »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #7
smegel wrote: post #3

Ah, the sordid British fascination with sex in East Asia raises its head again...

Did you read the article? Japan seems like it will have some serious social ramifications of this in the upcoming years. That's worthy of discussion.

Yes, but you can talk about demographic trends without delving into fetishism and sexualization. As strange as it sounds, there isn't much relation between sex and the choice to have children, from my understanding Japanese women are rejecting motherhood because it cancels whatever limited career opportunities they may have had. In other words, like most demographic trends, it is driven by economics.

Of course to a sexually repressed Brit walking through Shibuya with a childish smirk and a hard-on surrounded by sexually voracious vixens (in his mind at least), sex is everywhere and needs to at least be a sub theme on any reporting on Japan. Cringeworthy.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#33

Post by emiliobumachar »

Is there hard evidence that this is bad?

Resource depletion is among the highest risks to civilization. Seems straightforward that severe population decline should be desired, and voluntary refraining from reproduction should be welcome.

(Please don't just extrapolate the trend till extinction. See http://xkcd.com/605/. )

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#34

Post by nl »

usernew1817 wrote: post #18
m_mueller wrote: post #14

The subject is interesting, especially because I'm married to a Japanese - but man do I hate articles that go round and round like this one. Here, have a little bit of a sociological hypothesis - but let's not go too deep for your little brains shall we? Here, have a little bit of anecdotal evidence instead. Enough of that? Alright, let's start over again. [...] Oh I'm outa time, let's end the article now, kthxbye. I…

why does saying "married to a Japanese" sound so much more awkward then saying "married to an American/Canadian"

I'm married to a Britisher (which is not used in Great Britan anyway) sounds similarly awkward. Married to an Englishman/Welshman/Irishman works, but is gender (and England/Wales/Ireland) specific.

I'm married to a Scott works though.

Not sure there is a general purpose word you can use to say "I'm married to someone from Britian".

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#35

Post by louwrentius »

m_mueller wrote: post #14

The subject is interesting, especially because I'm married to a Japanese - but man do I hate articles that go round and round like this one. Here, have a little bit of a sociological hypothesis - but let's not go too deep for your little brains shall we? Here, have a little bit of anecdotal evidence instead. Enough of that? Alright, let's start over again. [...] Oh I'm outa time, let's end the article now, kthxbye. I…

The whole story seems to be based around stuff that some ex-dominatrix is telling.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#36

Post by vdaniuk »

btown wrote: post #12
[deleted] wrote: post #2

[deleted]

HN isn't just for news about startups and tech, it's also about topics of interest to curious critical thinkers (which pretty much defines us, don't you think?). A little bit of /r/DepthHub here is a good thing.

While the level of discourse on HN is high enough, it still suffers from the memes( as in their original definition) permeating through the content and diverting the attention to emotional, not rational issues. I for one find the emotional level on HN too high.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#37

Post by DanBC »

nl wrote: post #34
usernew1817 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does saying "married to a Japanese" sound so much more awkward then saying "married to an American/Canadian"

I'm married to a Britisher (which is not used in Great Britan anyway) sounds similarly awkward. Married to an Englishman/Welshman/Irishman works, but is gender (and England/Wales/Ireland) specific. I'm married to a Scott works though. Not sure there is a general purpose word you can use to say "I'm married to someone from Britian".

"I'm married to a Briton". That sounds weird.

(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...)

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#38

Post by netcan »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #21
usernew1817 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does saying "married to a Japanese" sound so much more awkward then saying "married to an American/Canadian"

I think its the soft sound at the end, but I'm not exactly sure why.

I think you might be right.

An/a American/Mexican/Thai/German sounds ok.

A Japanese/Chinese/Dutch sounds wrong.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#39

Post by m_mueller »

tux1968 wrote: post #26
m_mueller wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well it doesn't to me - but maybe that's because I'm not American? Why does it sound weird to you?

It really does sound strange to me as well, almost derogatory in tone. It sounds so much better to my ear to say "i'm married to a Japanese person" or "... person from Japan". But I have no good reason as to why the same doesn't hold for Canadian/American.

Thanks, I think I'll have to keep that in mind when talking in English. The thing is, I thought about writing 'Japanese woman', but her gender seemed besides the point to me, so I didn't want to mention it. In my native tongue (German) there is no unisex term for nationalities, you're either a "Japanerin" (= Japanese woman) or a "Japaner" (= Japanese man). Because of that there might be less subtext when talking about nationalities, but I think this is all just due to the history of your cultural relations - for example in Switzerland there is some negative subtext to the word 'Yugoslave', because their immigrant group was rather unpopular at one point.
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