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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?

#191

Post by kalleboo »

rangibaby wrote: post #178
kalleboo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

I agree with this entirely. At my girlfriend's former job, a normal day went like this: the employees were expected to work from 9 in the morning to 8 in the evening (time on contract: 9-6) then attend staff meetings in another city, with one 30min break for the entire day (meant to be an hour, but who's counting?) Remember that this is for a full-time employee - the main reason companies only want part-time staff no…

I totally agree with what you write - It's long been my pet theory as well that the soul-crushing long hours are a big part of the problem. My SO has a similar job - a normal day is 8 AM-8 PM, but she works a lot "on site" so she'll lose half to all the weekend days in a month to work. Sometimes he has to travel across Kyushyu and so has to get up at 5 AM. It's no wonder people get depressed, and when you're depressed, the sex drive disappears.

The fact that you can now not rely on your company supporting your family for life is just the final nail in the coffin.

My gf is actually looking at marriage as an honorable out with her company - if she just quit flat out, she'd be "abandoning" the company and placing a higher burden on her coworkers (company isn't doing too well...), and if she wanted to get a new job, it would be a huge black mark on her resume. Getting married? Well then OBVIOUSLY she needs to quit, it's not her fault.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#192

Post by ferongr »

berntb wrote: post #184
greghinch wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the parent is saying (and is reiterated by several other posts here) is that premise of young Japanese people not having sex is based on a lack of understanding in the cultural subtexts implied by the way those young people are answering the questions. The reporter is taking their answers at face value, when in fact they shouldn't be at all.

You missed the claim that it is well documented that the Japanese young have less sex. A quick check of condom sales (and/or VD statistics) can verify if people have less sex. But, of course, the article really might be just pure fantasy with invented statistics. (I have no idea. Since it is easily testable, any fact checkers at the magazine would find out quickly. But maybe only NYTimes have them, these days.) Edit:…

>A quick check of condom sales (and/or VD statistics) can verify if people have less sex.

Or it could mean that Japanese people have more unprotected sex and that they value personal hygiene and health more, resulting in lower condom sales and V.D. rates per capita.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#193

Post by m_mueller »

threedaymonk wrote: post #152
DanBC wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm married to a Briton". That sounds weird. ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... )

Briton is widely used in Britain, e.g. in news articles: "Tokyo destroyed by giant reptile, 3 Britons feared dead"

Great parody about the media coverage of 3-11 there.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#194

Post by philwelch »

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.

Are you forgetting that Darwinism applies to cultures as well as genomes?

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#195

Post by kalleboo »

n1ghtm4n wrote: post #158

Why has no one brought up overcrowding in Japan? You don't think that's going to affect the birth rate? http://inventorspot.com/articles/six_startling_scenes_overcr...

Meanwhile the Japanese countryside is depopulating at an amazing rate, leaving ghost towns in their wake, with elementary schools built for 700 students housing 2.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#196

Post by gaius »

ferongr wrote: post #192
berntb wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the claim that it is well documented that the Japanese young have less sex. A quick check of condom sales (and/or VD statistics) can verify if people have less sex. But, of course, the article really might be just pure fantasy with invented statistics. (I have no idea. Since it is easily testable, any fact checkers at the magazine would find out quickly. But maybe only NYTimes have them, these days.) Edit:…

>A quick check of condom sales (and/or VD statistics) can verify if people have less sex. Or it could mean that Japanese people have more unprotected sex and that they value personal hygiene and health more, resulting in lower condom sales and V.D. rates per capita.

IF fewer children are being born AND sales of contraceptives are not up THEN less sex is being had. I don't see how it is possible to argue against that.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#197

Post by kstenerud »

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…

Your two fictional quotes are vague enough for subtext to creep in, but the quotes in the article are quite plain and clear. Speaking to reporters (especially foreign ones) is one of the few cases where Japanese people feel free to speak frankly, because there is a significantly reduced feeling of social judgment. They generally won't talk within their social circle about causal sex because it will lead to talk (or more likely implication) of marriage, which is an uncomfortable subject nowadays, for reasons outlined in the article.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#198

Post by graycat »

Okay, take a town 60 years ago. Lots of people, say,

o driving cars with tires that last only 15,000 miles,

o driving cars with engines that last only 80,000 miles (due to poor lubrication due to water and gasoline in the oil due to inaccurate fuel mixture and ignition),

o typing on typewriters with carbon paper,

o doing business communications with printing and/or typing on paper sent by USPS,

o an office telephone switchboard manned by employees.

Now enter new technology, and each of these activities uses some automation, is much cheaper, and puts the old employees out of work.

So, have lots of unemployed people with little or no money who want to make money and consume but cannot get jobs.

Why not jobs? For one, the total number of jobs shrank, and as in musical chairs some people don't get one.

For another, to create more jobs need some ideas for new products/services, some capital to get the businesses going, and some qualified employees. The unemployed people will need some new training, that is, investments in 'human capital'.

As we know from depressions, can have a shortage of capital, lots of people not consuming who want to work but no jobs for them to do. Then if have a war, suddenly can have three jobs for everyone who can work at all.

There is also an effect of the ratios of people to land and other natural resources. With high density population, the prices of such resources increase. Maybe when the population of Japan, Finland, France, Germany, Russia, the US, etc. shrink, the new ratio will make it easier for a couple to form a family. E.g., if the population is low enough that a young couple can easily buy 200 acres of good farm land, then there will be some new alternatives for that couple to form a family. Now at maybe $5000 an acre, let's, see, 200 acres would be $1 million. She's 18; he's 22; and where are they going to get $1 million or even a down payment plus farm equipment and materials for a house?

Presumably in time startups will find new products and services that people want and that can make use of the unemployed.

But, in that town when automation put the typists out of work, the jobs of some people were not affected and, first cut, by having the company spend much less on typing, could pay their remaining employees more. So, some people are doing well.

And in Japan, the article seems to suggest that real estate prices are so high that no one can afford them! No! Instead, real estate prices are so high just because enough people actually can afford them. So, some people are doing well, and maybe they, or their lucky heirs, are forming traditional families.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#199

Post by philwelch »

nkhodyunya wrote: post #106

Sex nowadays became a redundant, obsolete, risky, overcomplicated act which you can totally avoid with the help of good porn. So why bother with searching partner, if you can have all of sex benefits alone, but with porn or good imagination.

Are you a solipsist or just a virgin?

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#200

Post by graycat »

veidr wrote: post #143
steven2012 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's stupid because they have multiplied a couple anecdotes, conflated decreased reproductive output and formalized relationships with a decrease in actual sex, and gotten all breathless and hyperbolic about it. There's no evidence of any trend that young people in Japan have stopped having sex. That is what I was trying to point out: not being in an old-fashioned relationship, and not actually bearing children , doe…

Calm down: Not having sex is for that article mostly just an exaggeration for a catchy headline. Of course they are having sex but likely less sex and less in love with commitment, caring, affection, intimacy, passion, joining of lives, vows, romance, trust, respect, responsiveness, supportive families (e.g., he gets a job in her father's business), collection of activities, memories, and traditions like, don't want to lose, can't get anywhere else, and that cause 'lock in', homes ("where the heart is, where you are loved even when you are wrong"), and children ("the most rewarding thing we did").

And why not just more one night stands? Because they are short on commitment (feel alone and, thus, scared in the morning), caring, ..., children.

And just for passion, a good version requires the couple to have had a lot of time together and to care about each other -- e.g., for a man, the best result of passion is that, net, she smiles the rest of the evening, the next morning, and well into the next day, and that takes some mutual caring, practice, and effort.

Why so value the smiles? Because they promise 1000 more good evenings of passion instead of maybe 0, lots of good back rubs, a nice breakfast, lots of 'contact comfort' for, say, another 24 hours, etc.

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