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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?

#231

Post by msandford »

speeder wrote: post #223
msandford wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are looking at the utter destruction of freedom that raising a family is today, and choosing not to. It's not just the price of real estate, it's inflation too. Roll into that the lack of job security and negative real interest rates and it's no wonder people can't think about a future. One of the most basic needs when planning for a future is the prospect that the future will be better than the past.…

You people are forgetting feminism. It has lots to do with it. Brazil for example has PLENTY of space and cheap places to live (unless you want to live in São Paulo... like where I am now, the prices here ARE fucked up) Yet marriages are going down to the point of scare the government too. The reason for it is simple (there has been lots of research, not only here, but on other countries with declining births to dang…

I wonder if they ACTUALLY prefer careers or if they THINK they do and thus never try. Remember that it's at least an 18 year commitment (probably longer) so that if you've got any doubts it's really easy to talk yourself out of it.

Let me be clear: I'm not suggesting that women have any societal obligations.

But given that we're all here today we can infer historically that women (as a whole) have liked having children at least some amount. Did they never ACTUALLY like it but that was their only choice? Or do they (again as a whole) enjoy motherhood but socioeconomic life is now so treacherous that motherhood is a luxury few can afford? Perhaps something else entirely from the false dichotomy I've suggested?

EDIT: I've accepted your premise at face value, but I'm not sure I should. I don't know how to properly caveat this comment.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#232

Post by ivix »

philwelch wrote: post #183
ivix wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it should be 'married to a jap' but for annoying and outdated historical reasons, people will think you are racist if you say that.

It's hard to disassociate the word "Jap" from World War II racist propaganda. http://img.moonbuggy.org/superman-says-you-can-slap-a-jap/

That's not racism, that's politics. Would you say British anti German morale posters are racist?

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#233

Post by Apocryphon »

einhverfr wrote: post #24
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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) Care to point them out?

John Medaille has written extensively on the subject. His book "Towards a Truly Free Market" is worth reading. A lot of it boils down to the critiques of market capitalism by Hilaire Belloc and Gilbert Chesterton and how these have largely continued within the conservative Catholic movement, as well as parts of the Orthodox and conservative Protestant communities as well. I am a Heathen and I worship Odin, Thorr, and…

Distributism is an interesting movement, but it's incredibly minor and is very Catholic. It's social conservative but very different from the mainstream social conservatism in the U.S.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#234

Post by speeder »

msandford wrote: post #231
speeder wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You people are forgetting feminism. It has lots to do with it. Brazil for example has PLENTY of space and cheap places to live (unless you want to live in São Paulo... like where I am now, the prices here ARE fucked up) Yet marriages are going down to the point of scare the government too. The reason for it is simple (there has been lots of research, not only here, but on other countries with declining births to dang…

I wonder if they ACTUALLY prefer careers or if they THINK they do and thus never try. Remember that it's at least an 18 year commitment (probably longer) so that if you've got any doubts it's really easy to talk yourself out of it. Let me be clear: I'm not suggesting that women have any societal obligations. But given that we're all here today we can infer historically that women (as a whole) have liked having childr…

This is not fully clear yet, as we need more.20 years or so in this situation to be sure, but seemly women are being convinced that they want careers, and they regret it later... Right now the numbers of 50 year old childless women due to feminism is still low, but many of those few are drifting to be against feminism.instead and attempt to convince younger women to not repeat their mistakes. Mostly because when you are a 50 year old childless rich women, you realize that now you still have 30 years to live, nothing to do, and few people to love and care for you.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#236

Post by octaveguin »

Sukotto wrote: post #229
michaelochurch wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stupid article, and young people in Japan have not stopped having sex. It doesn't claim that. It says that 25% of young men and 45% of young women are repulsed by sexual contact. That means that 75% of men and 55% of women are still open to it (and, presumably, having it). I'd bet that if you looked at an American college campus, you'd find similar behavioral statistics, due to the declining ability of youn…

Casual sex doesn't fit most people. Many people (including most men) can't get it and many (including most women) don't want it. Only about 50-60% participate in the casual market even once, and half of those end up wishing they hadn't. I'd like to read about that in more depth. Can you cite that gender breakdown and participation/satisfaction stat to a specific set of published research?

I don't know where the parent's source is but the kinsey institute has super interesting stats on similar questions.

http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/resources/FAQ.html#frequency

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#237

Post by alkonaut »

The problem isn't so much the sex is it? The problem is of course demographic. Related, but not the same. Amazingly the government of Japan surely understands the problem at hand, and still refuses to act. Labour laws of course cannot allow an employer to fire someone (or choose not to hire) based on pregnancy (or being a woman of that age). There is only one sure way of making women as desirable to hire in this respect: ensure men stay at home with children just as much as women. State subsidized childcare and a year or two of paid maternal/paternal leave per child would be a net win for Japan (as it is for most such countries).

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#238

Post by scythe »

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…

>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.

This doesn't fit the article:

> A survey earlier this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact". More than a quarter of men felt the same way.

So A: the person asking the questions isn't a reporter, B: they aren't British, and C: they have every reason to figure out a way to get people to answer the questions honestly, i.e., not "cultural misunderstanding" where someone at a party lies about how much sex they have.

What your argument really boils down to is: "no measurement, real or otherwise, could ever possibly indicate that Japanese people are having less sex": i.e. your post is unfalsifiable, and your claim thusly ludicrous.

>There may well be ongoing generational changes to reproductive and marriage/relationship behavior in Japan [...] but this article doesn't go there.

Did you read it?

>Japan's Institute of Population and Social Security reports an astonishing 90% of young women believe that staying single is "preferable to what they imagine marriage to be like".

So we can correctly interpret your post: what precisely is "going there", if not this?

The article is also based on the opinions of two people who have been claiming to study Japanese sexual behavior: the therapist Ai Aoyama and the sociologist Nicholas Eberstadt. Certainly the opinion of two "experts" is not a conclusive analysis of a situation, but this is a pretty ordinary way of sourcing information for a news article. It isn't particularly "stupid" for this. Which is why statements like this:

>There's no evidence of any trend that young people in Japan have stopped having sex.

make you look dishonest in light of this:

http://www.ipss.go.jp/site-ad/index_english/nfs14/Nfs14_Sing...

http://www.durex.com/en-jp/sexualwellbeingsurvey/documents/g...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110906ad.html

You can dispute the strength of the evidence, but it isn't "no evidence".

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#239

Post by philwelch »

ivix wrote: post #232
philwelch wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to disassociate the word "Jap" from World War II racist propaganda. http://img.moonbuggy.org/superman-says-you-can-slap-a-jap/

That's not racism, that's politics. Would you say British anti German morale posters are racist?

Did British anti-German propaganda posters have racist caricatures of German people?

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#240

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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