Explaining Sex Rate Changes • Hacker News Board

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#141

Post by ycombinete » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:37 AM UTC

freyir wrote: post #26

As the article points out, fewer young men are having sex, but roughly the same number of young women are having sex. I wonder if dating apps (Tinder, Bumble, etc.) are leading women to have sex with a smaller cohort of desirable men. Years ago, OkCupid noted that a small percentage of men get an overwhelming percentage of messages from women. With the rise of "swipe right, swipe left" mobile dating apps, where peopl…

Well as I understand it there are two primary evolutionary modes of sexual pairing/selection, which humans follow.

The first model is where a supremely desirable male has many female partners, who get a little of his attention; and the second model, monogamy, where two partners pair up exclusively with the bulk of attention dedicated to each other [1]. Both are apt given different circumstances.

Without trying to put any morality on to it, dating apps/hookup culture seem more predisposed to tapping in to the first selection model.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evo...

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#142

Post by abledon » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:38 AM UTC

thatoneuser wrote: post #137

abledon wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"dude F that S *, I'm staying home, rolling a bunch of fat ones, and grinding on my level 80 Warlock, then logging on to grind up my PathOfExile smurf" (repeat loop for next 40 years) -- lots of people who are no way voluntarily going to break their comfortable cocoon created by addictive gaming & drugs.

Well then that's their choice and they will have to live and die with the consequences.

You could say that for offenders and people who are arrested for crimes/drugs fall into prison system — we have systems in place to reintegrate them back into society —- but the phenomenon of how humans can buy groceries for 2 months, stay inside and entertain themselves , you can’t ‘discipline’ that and schedule those people for parole or counseling —- we’re gonna have a big problem in 10-20 years when more and more people stay inside and have less meaningful relationships

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#143

Post by yason » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:40 AM UTC

abledon wrote: post #117

thatoneuser wrote: post #109

It's genuinely depressing to think that a large number of guys now has no access to explore intimacy and partnership (or very little). No one's owed sex of course but it's like we're breaking aspects of society. And I think you'd naturally find women are less able to find meaning themselves here so it's not just a men's pity party. I wonder, if this is a dating app phenomenon, if there's anything that can be done tha…

Enforced communal participation in events — similar to having to file your taxes , you just participate in X number of community events in a X km region from your residence — would help people get off the screens and get outside in a context other than work. Similar to how In high school you need 40 hrs of community service to graduate Edit: ok not ‘enforced’ but there should be some sort of government incentive

What a horrible idea unless you're an extraverted person who'd be likely to join the events anyway.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#144

Post by novia » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:41 AM UTC

taxicabjesus wrote: post #134

novia wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people like me flag them. If you want an actual explanation: I am a woman and this does not match with my lived experiences. In fact, the article seems to dehumanize women in a lot of places. I'm really tired of the incel narrative and the sorts of moral arguments that come along with articles of this type in the comment section. Seeing us represented this way really stresses me out. I'm just here to learn ab…

Men and women are wired to go about relationships differently. One problem is that people don't come with clear instruction manuals to help us understand how the relationship game works. > I'm really tired of the incel narrative Men generally play a numbers game, where their romantic overtures get rejected most of the time. It doesn't help that a lot of the time their romantic overtures are annoying [1]. Supposed "in…

> Women have to screen candidates until they find someone they think is interesting.

This is exactly the kind of harmful narrative I'm talking about.

> Sociologists have determined that men peak sexually around 18 years old [3]. Women peak at a much later age (30's and 40's). Hopefully better understanding will help the stress you experience dissipate.

The stress has absolutely NOTHING to do with that. BUT, since you brought it up, OkCupid had a pretty detailed analysis that showed much the opposite when it comes to the age that people are interested. Linking because you might be interested, not because it's relevant.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*q95i3Ma24k-hxBtK....

https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-case-for-an-older-woman-99d8...

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#145

Post by flukus » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:42 AM UTC

mantas wrote: post #118

jamescostian wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is true for divorce situations (probably because of the fighting), but I didn't know that polyamorous parents could mess up a child's psychological development. Any sources for this?

Not the OP, but one important bit for the kid is to have stable set of rules. If there're multiple individuals with different parenting styles, kid gets confused and don't know who to look up to and what rules to follow. That needs good coordination even in mom-dad situation. And gets more and more complicated if more people are involved. More specifically for polyamorous, it seems to keep much harder a stable, jealo…

> Not the OP, but one important bit for the kid is to have stable set of rules. If there're multiple individuals with different parenting styles, kid gets confused and don't know who to look up to and what rules to follow.

Don't they always adapt to different rule sets anyway? There is one set at home, one at school, one when they go visit the grand parents and one for whoever is babysitting. There is a lot of overlap but a lot of exceptions/infractions depending on the context. Plus kids are more or less constantly probing for edge cases and try to push the boundaries naturally.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#146

Post by freyir » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:43 AM UTC

anchpop wrote: post #140

coldtea wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can now all listen to the very best musicians in the world — where previously we just had to settle for whoever was the best in our town Yeah, so billions the world over progressed from their local musicians and folk tradition to Kanye West, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, and Nicky Minaj.

Like him or not, but it's hard to deny that Kanye West is a talented rapper. I'm not exactly sure what point you're making here.

I deny he's a talented rapper (that was easy) but I would concede that he's a world-class producer.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#147

Post by watwut » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:45 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #60

saagarjha wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between unmarried and celibate.

Not before widespread birth control there isn’t. We can see quite clearly the first hints of the demographic transition in France. It starts off with delaying marriage but fertility within marriage basically being an increasing function of time. People had sex and this made babies. But then people stop having so many children. The pull out method was invented or spread society wide for the first time. Our knowledge o…

Read up on prostitution in the past.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#148

Post by cousin_it » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

Clearly caused by the same (unknown) thing that's been causing the double-digit decline in testosterone levels of Western men for the last few decades, regardless of job market or dating apps or whatever. So I'm leaning toward physiological explanation, not social.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#149

Post by yason » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

novia wrote: post #97

anonytrary wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to belittle your decision to flag the article, but the flagging button is not a downvote button, and it is not there to hide things we personally disagree with. Flagging an article because it does not corroborate your personal experiences is somewhat irresponsible, especially for this community. There needs to be a better reason for flagging an article other than "my single data point says otherwise".

Hacker News Guidelines What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cut…

To me (and many others) this topic is political in nature and controversial.

How so? It's not about political decisions one way or another but observing a new phenomenon on the market for sex and relationships. There are tons of scientific angles available for approaching the issue. Why is this happening? What has changed? What factors can contribute?

Flagging comments such as "that's good, all sex should happen in a marriage anyway" would be contributing to the discussion, flagging the entire topic would not be.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#150

Post by novia » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 6:50 AM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #139

novia wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes climate change is political, but would the comment section to a climate change article on this site be full of the types of comments we see in here? Would it be an actually divisive topic for the users of this site? What I love about Hacker News (usually) is the lack of flame-wars. I know they exist, but they get hidden very quickly. After reading the article in full, and finding it sparse in actual data, I decid…

This[0] and this[1] are previous discussions on HN about climate change, with plenty of trolls. Just because something gets trolls, doesn't mean the whole thing should be destroyed or censored. Look at all of the other great discussion in those threads (and this one). If you get rid of every thread that is a potential double-edged sword, then you will eventually find yourself browsing an empty forum. There is no such…

> The best course of action here is to flag the offending comments, rather than the entire thread.

The best course of action for my mental well-being is to flag the whole thread and move on without reading the comments. Unfortunately I'm already in here, so I am flagging the particularly egregious comments, as well as vouching for the dead comments that I think were unjustly buried.

> Just because something gets trolls, doesn't mean the whole thing should be destroyed or censored.

One flag doesn't destroy an entire thread. It's a numbers game and I'm adding my vote to the pile. If the thread dies, people who think it is valuable can vouch for it.