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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?

#131

Post by nhaehnle »

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…

The problem is generally overstated, because of (a) efficiency gains and (b) unemployment.

Some people were alarmist about the ageing population in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Their doomsday predictions turned out to be wrong because of technological advances that meant fewer working people could provide the real goods and services for more non-working people.

And what cannot be buffered by technology simply leads to lower unemployment, which is a good thing as well.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#132

Post by VLM »

camus2 wrote: post #57
networked wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what "v...t" or "o...p.....s" means but consider that you might be confusing the cause and effect here: assuming that there's correlation between consuming $WEIRD_PORN and being unable to have normal relationships [1] it may not be that people become unable to have those relationships due to exposure to $WEIRD_PORN so much as that people who turn to $WEIRD_PORN were already unable to have them. This crea…

My point is about porn in general. I'm from a generation that did not have access to porn easily. today some 12 yo kids are already addicted to porn,and not the softcore stuff. There will be huge consequences. I dont think i'm confused about causality here. If you cant get excited unless you see or do extreme stuff, you're going to have a pretty difficult libido,as in reality not that many women are willing to "perfo…

I'm having trouble following the logic because I keep thinking stuff like "so, that's why NASCAR fans all ride the bus, or ...?" I'm having trouble thinking about the proposed rules of the game as applied to sex when compared to any other game from car racing to watching TV.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#133

Post by ceautery »

jpatokal wrote: post #102
ceautery wrote: post #84

I loved the picture of the couple leaning away from each other; I think I was supposed to see that as an indicator of the purported epidemic. I think what the article was, however, was an advertisement for the former dominatrix. Apparently you can pay her to talk to you about women, pay her more to get naked while she talks about women, and maybe if you play your cards right...

Generously assuming your comment is merely clueless instead of intentionally offensive, that sort of subtlety would hardly be necessary, as finding commercial sex in Tokyo is trivial. Most larger train station have red-light districts in the immediate vicinity, with (Japanese-only) signage making it extremely clear what's available.

I have no interest in what's available in Tokyo, only in how Abigail got that mess of an article taken seriously.

You have bold claims regarding my understanding and intent to offend. Elaborate.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#134

Post by 7952 »

willvarfar wrote: post #98
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wars aren't generally fought over resources these days.

As an armchair student, I'd judge most wars to be about resources. We must differ in definition of resources. Which recent wars are not about resources, do you think?

I think this fact will become much more apparent as drones and droids become more common. The desire to control resources will become stronger when people can project that control "more cleanly". Battle robots and drones will be treated like a barbed wired fence used to keep people out.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#135

Post by kalleboo »

steven2012 wrote: post #130
veidr wrote: post #73

This is a stupid article, and young people in Japan have not stopped having sex. What westerners might call 'casual sex' -- sex without the framework of a relationships that implies various other promieses/committments -- is normal, and also not likely to be spoken about frankly, especially to a reporter, and much less a British one. Sometimes I'll witness a young woman asked about it at a social gathering (as people…

Why is it stupid? Obviously they don't mean every single Japanese young person hasn't stopped having sex. What the author means is that as a trend, they've stopped having sex, as evidenced by the declining population, the lack of young people in relationships, etc. From the data they cited from the surveys, it seems pretty incontrovertible that there is some sort of problem, despite your own personal anecdotes.

Neither "declining population" nor "lack of young people in relationships" indicates people not having sex. It only indicates people not wanting families or kids.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#136

Post by guard-of-terra »

asksol wrote: post #92
nl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

"My wife is from Britain", "My husband is British" ? Maybe these are now archaic

"From" no longer implies ethnicity and may even not imply culture.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#138

Post by kalleboo »

threeseed wrote: post #79
jmadsen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but "the short term" is long enough to cause considerable pain to the current younger, working generations

The worst thing is that in places like Japan especially housing availability is a real problem. Which means you will have young people being forced to live with their parents well into their 20s. And what happens when you have young people living with their parents ? Far less opportunities for sex.

I don't have the numbers, but anecdotally from looking for an apartment with my SO, there doesn't seem to be a big housing availability problem in Japan. Available apartments are plentiful, and outside of central Tokyo, Osaka etc, are priced reasonably. It's a far cry from the situation where I'm from in Sweden, where you have to be on a waiting list for 3 years to get your turn at a rental contract since there are just no apartments to be had.

Young people in Japan live with their parents due to lack of jobs. The Japanese employment market has recently had a massive shift towards part time labour instead of full time labor, leaving young people with jobs that can't support them.

Also, Japan has had a solution for the "opportunities for sex" issue for decades - the massive amount of hourly Love Hotels that are scattered all around the country (and people aren't shy to use - I've had to queue for one).

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#139

Post by tokenadult »

This article would be a lot more informative if it looked at some other countries for comparison and contrast. Other countries that have been in the news for a high age of first marriage and a very low birthrate are Italy and Taiwan. What is similar about those countries, and what is different about them, alongside Japan? I have read that Taiwan (where I have lived during two different three-year periods of foreign residence and work) has the highest age of first marriage, and one of the lowest birthrates, of any country in the world. But Taiwan's culture is distinct from that of Japan, and some of the relevant workplace conditions and government policies are a bit different too. So what is the causation here?

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#140

Post by dthunt »

ceautery wrote: post #133
jpatokal wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generously assuming your comment is merely clueless instead of intentionally offensive, that sort of subtlety would hardly be necessary, as finding commercial sex in Tokyo is trivial. Most larger train station have red-light districts in the immediate vicinity, with (Japanese-only) signage making it extremely clear what's available.

I have no interest in what's available in Tokyo, only in how Abigail got that mess of an article taken seriously. You have bold claims regarding my understanding and intent to offend. Elaborate.

I have literally been propositioned on the street between Shibuya and Ikejiri. Places I would not have expected it.

I can't speak to signage, as I generally steer clear of areas that seem shady, and I wouldn't put a lot of trust into such things anyway.

Regarding the source of much of the information in this article, I have little to offer. If you were to weigh the hypothesis that the source was advertising services against the hypothesis that this came up in conversation with the article author and she found this worth noting, which do you think is more likely, given that this is interesting information that is unlikely to be left out of a sex-charged article?

In this case, being charitable about the parties involved in this article is probably correct.

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