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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?

#111

Post by lsc »

einhverfr wrote: post #22
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…

+1, especially on wishing there were more really good social sciences blogs out there covering issues like this. One of the big problems of course is the fact that while outsiders can see dynamics of and sometimes critique cultures, such critiques are necessarily incomplete (well all critiques are necessarily incomplete but outsider ones are especially likely to be). But on your final question, I think one of the big…

>the social conservative movement is the largest movement in the US which questions the desirability of Capitalism on an economic level (and the critiques are really interesting)

Huh. Reference? Perhaps it's because I just don't know enough conservative folks, but I've never heard of a mainstream socially conservative anti-capitalist dialogue.

If what you say is true, either I have a pretty huge hole in my political knowledge (that or we're just using 'socially conservative' or 'capitalist' to mean different things.) Especially if it's the former, I'd like to close that hole.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#112

Post by drjesusphd »

threeseed wrote: post #75
LeonidasXIV wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Too many older people, no longer working, who need care or support and not enough younger people to provide it. But this will be a trend that autocorrects itself after some time, as less elder people will be there in the future. Also, the younger people if both working will create more prosperity than being married with one working and the other one staying at home. In the short term this sounds bad, but long term…

Sorry but you're completely wrong on this. The problem is that people in general are living longer but the retirement age is staying roughly the same. So as time goes on you have a higher percentage of the people who aren't working but yet consuming public resources. In the short term it is bad. In the long term it is devastating. Which is why every developed country is aggressively increasing the immigration rate to…

> Which is why every developed country is aggressively increasing the immigration rate to compensate.

It's obvious that this is an unsustainable solution.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#113

Post by VLM »

intelliot wrote: post #43
raverbashing wrote: post #28

In the midst of all, this seems to be one of the best parts of it: "Tomita says a woman's chances of promotion in Japan stop dead as soon as she marries. "The bosses assume you will get pregnant." Once a woman does have a child, she adds, the long, inflexible hours become unmanageable. "You have to resign. You end up being a housewife with no independent income. It's not an option for women like me." Great, so if a w…

Notably, it appears that prior generations had higher birthrates because women were not expected to participate in the workforce. They didn't want to and/or weren't allowed to. They were treated differently than men. A potential downside of making women equal to men is that they become more similar. They don't need each other. They don't complement each other anymore. Opposites attract, but if women are expected to s…

Even worse the equality argument goes both directions not just women trying the former man lifestyle, but the other way around as the article barely touches on the two decades of economic stagnation issue.

Its not just salaryman and stay at home wife turning into salaryman and salarywoman, its unemployed dude and salarywoman at the same time.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#114

Post by drjesusphd »

pjan wrote: post #89
emiliobumachar wrote: post #33

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/ . )

How about "Human Resource Depletion"? The system only works when there's growth... a huge decline in population (hence births, hence sexual activity ...) is the biggest fear of all governments, as it deflates the foundations current countries/systems/power balances/... are built on. It's also the reason why worldwide "family values" and "the traditional family (unit) as cornerstone of the society" are main political…

> The system only works when there's growth

That sounds like a bug.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#115

Post by Sagat »

randomafrican wrote: post #50
emiliobumachar wrote: post #33

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/ . )

We're not Pandas. Ressource depletion is only a problem if our ressource consumption doesnt evolve. And it will evolve.

What if it evolves in the wrong way? Plenty of emerging middle classes in developing countries are now looking to join the American-style unsustainable lifestyle movement.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#116

Post by Sagat »

camus2 wrote: post #85
networked wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I dont think one needs to be already interested in extreme fetish in order to get hooked to it,the more one looks at porn the more one seeks extreme stuffs. It's like any other addiction. I agree, but my point was that people who see enough porn to get to the really weird stuff are probably more likely the ones who didn't care for real-life relationships already (in a society where these two things a correlated). Ed…

You know , back in 2005 , it was the WAP years, i used to work for a VOD business specialised in video content for phones(any content,sport,erotic,tv shows...). My job was to source content and manage a mobile video website. that's when i got exposed to JAV. So a business we worked with sent us "classic" JAV. And frankly , it was the most extreme stuff i saw back then. There is definetly something cultural. I think j…

France isn't really that open minded about sex. Although most people are secular, you still have the whole judaeo-christian morals hanging around in the background, subtly changing everybody's behavior. Eh ouais.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#117

Post by po »

chongli wrote: post #67
smcl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I"m married to a Brit"

Too bad you can't do the same trick with Japanese; it's become politically incorrect (even racist) to use the word "Jap".

What's amusing is that in Japan many Japanese are totally unaware of the political incorrectness of it. In Japan I sometimes hear people use 'Jap' as slang, in store or product names, or just in normal language by extension of how other countries are abbreviated in english. In a country that is mostly japanese, it just loses its racist power.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#118

Post by VLM »

drjesusphd wrote: post #114
pjan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "Human Resource Depletion"? The system only works when there's growth... a huge decline in population (hence births, hence sexual activity ...) is the biggest fear of all governments, as it deflates the foundations current countries/systems/power balances/... are built on. It's also the reason why worldwide "family values" and "the traditional family (unit) as cornerstone of the society" are main political…

> The system only works when there's growth That sounds like a bug.

A Ponzi-style scheme is more of an exploit than a simple bug, and its the root of most economic systems.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#119

Post by fidotron »

seivan wrote: post #8

There was a really cool (aren't they usually?) Vice documentary about all the intimacy substitutes available for people in Japan. Easy to google up.

And specifically about the host club phenomenon, but surprising in other ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Happiness_Space%3A_T...

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#120

Post by ivix »

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"

Because it should be 'married to a jap' but for annoying and outdated historical reasons, people will think you are racist if you say that.
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