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Why are so many young men single and sexless?

psychologytoday.com

131–140 of 230 posts

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare services are a right in many countries. Sex can be put in a similar category. Just like lacking access to healthcare can lower the quality of your life, so can being alone and sexless. Healthcare services are a very intimate activity as well. It's like saying that healthcare access with attractive nurses is not a right. It's not, but healthcare in many countries is a right.

If having sex is a right, who are you proposing they have it with . How do we ensure that someone is available for that? What about their right to not participate? This elision speaks VOLUMES.

If healthcare is a right, who are you proposing to provide those services? How do we ensure healthcare workers are available to provide the services? What about their right to not participate?

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#132
post #16

I mean one sure way not to have sex with someone else is to never expose yourself to situations that could lead to such a thing. As an educator I have to say that over my career there was a noticable shift in how students behave. The students I have today are more shy, more careful and more risk averse than students 4 years ago. I could imagine that many of them would just decide to not bother at all until luck falls…

Maybe students are more shy and more careful because everyone around them has a video camera in their pocket.

I live in an area of the world that has a very strong culture of privacy. Taking a picture of someone without their permission and/or publishing it is illegal and can land you in jail depending on how invasive that photo is.

Generally students respect each other's privacy so that is very likely not the cause here.

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#133
Probably because of the economy that isolates people and prevents them from actively engaging with each other. Especially if we’re talking USA where quite a big population is stuck in houses/condos separated from everywhere by a car ride.

I think isolation became even worse after pandemic and WFH.

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#134

The reality is that young men have always been “optional” in society. Biology looms large. Women seek to mate with the most high status males, evidenced by the fraction of men who get the majority of the “action” on dating apps and in life. Thus throughout history we’ve died in the wars and otherwise exist in the margins. An example of the desparity to me is the concept “mansplaining” woke culture disparages. Some wo…

> An example of the desparity to me is the concept “mansplaining” woke culture disparages. Some women (and others) see a man explaining something as condescension. Well, I don't know if you are being purposefully misleading or just ignorant of what mansplaining actually is, but here it goes. Mansplaining isn't "men explaining things". It's men explaining things because of an unfounded confidence in their (usually lim…

That may be what it means academically, but it is ABSOLUTELY NOT how it's used casually.

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#135

The article comes off as slightly condescending; even as I'm 32 and just above the "Young men" threshold ( Some of the thing mentioned, such as young women not looking for emotional attachment as much might be true, but what about >30 women? My early 20s, online dating era romantic life was miserable; it made me feel completely worthless and that's a sentiment A LOT of young men get from those dating apps. I simply g…

> So suddenly (assuming you've put some work in) the dating (and sex) life becomes a balanced game. My personal experience and the experience of men I know is that this is not how it turns out. If you were never attractive before to women, you don't suddenly become attractive to them when you're older. Just because you hit staff and make $500k/yr doesn't mean they want to be with you. Just because you have built up i…

I think the person you're replying to has a valid point. Attraction isn't a binary, it's a spectrum.

As a guy in your early 20s who has left the the college bubble, your eligible dating pool is at its very smallest size. Women generally prefer not to date a guy significantly younger than them, so you're basically left with the girls your age. Guys don't have similar issues with dating younger women, so that 23-year old you just asked out is also going to be asked out by guys in their late 20s who are richer, have more impressive career accomplishments, and are more mature.

As you get older, your pool of eligible partners keeps growing. Whereas for women, their pool of eligible partners keeps shrinking. For the exact same reasons discussed above. This isn't going to radically transform your life and land you a supermodel. But it does improve your odds in a noticeable way. Someone who used to think of you as a 6 would now think of you as a 7. Maybe even an 8, depending on how you used your 20s. Going from a 6 to a 7 may not seem like much, but it makes a big difference in your dating life.

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#136

Isn't that a good thing? I see this as a victory sign of feminism. Women no longer have to live their lives as a second class citizens. Marry > have kids > raise them etc. This is not the default path anymore and of course than means a lot of men would end up alone. Just a natural balancing and how things should have always been.

This should be higher. What's good for the individual is not always what's good for society.

I know a few "young spinsters" but I also know a ton of happy, successful single women.

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that logic work for Blacks for instance ?

If you want something that you have a right to, other people have to change. Not being discriminated is not a "nice to have", it's a human right. Sex with attractive women on the other hand is definitely not a human right. Is it just me who finds it ridiculous that this has to be spelled out?

Deciding who to have sex with is definitely a form of discrimination. For many, it can even be racial, religious, etc. We as a society have determined that it is okay to discriminate based on personal tastes when it comes to sex.

That's not obvious though. One could imagine a society where we deem it okay to discriminate on those things when providing employment, but not when having sex.

As much as we want to believe Human Rights are some fundamental property of nature, the reality is they are simply an agreed upon social construct.

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. In developed, rich countries with welfare state and feminism, women don't need individual men. Instead, they can rely on government and corporations to be their protector & provider. When ecological pressures are relaxed, sexual selection (i.e. looks) becomes the dominant factor in mate selection. I suggest you read this blog: https://sirtyrionlannister.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/how-the-...

What an absurdly sexist take, maybe women want to be with someone who is (actually, not 'nice guy') nice and doesn't think that money will get them laid?

While you’re right, and the guy is an incel, I want to mention that for longer periods of time women were forced into living with men just because it usually was the only way of survival. After emancipation, many men basically lost the single attractive trait they have - having a salary.

So many men who are now experiencing problems with finding a partner now, say due to being a nasty/abusive/uninteresting/unintelligent/ugly, 80-100 years ago would be able to land a wife just by being the only person in the family who could provide. So in 2023, when they have to date equals, who are financially independent, they are experiencing “celibacy”.

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes,part of the explanation is probably that women mature a bit earlier than men (in terms of romantic and sexual attractivity).

The fact that women mature earlier is one element, the fact that they seek qualities that men acquire later (stability, resources) is another. But I think that what makes the situation very sad is that our western society has decided to close its eyes to the intrinsic value of women's virtue in the eyes of men. When a young man can't find an interested partner during his younger years and then he is supposed to eithe…

What virtues you’re talking about?

Re: Why are so many young men single and sexless?

#140
post #21

> Faced with the choice between an energy-intensive, highly competitive dating environment and the low-effort rewards of porn, young men appear to be taking the path of least resistance. If young men are dropping out of the competition and resorting to porn instead, then who's staying in the dating environment to keep it competitive? With all those porn dropouts, I should have an easy time dating, right?

Thinking about it in terms of graph theory helps. Society is generally much more connected due to social media and dating apps. Even if there are proportionally the same percentage of highly desirable guys, those guys are now much more accessible to females.
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