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Explaining Sex Rate Changes

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221–230 of 588 posts

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the whole reason monogamy was standardized. It is a stabilizing force in society and creates equality instead of a winner take all situation. Without monogamy you end up with a small number of men having the attention of the majority of women. This causes huge problems, with the loosers being the average and below average men and women. Certain things about how society evolved to function are there for a reas…

In other places of the world polygamy was standardised. And wide spread religiously backed monogamy stabilisation didn't save us from two world wars.

Are the non-monogamous societies today that can rival the monogamous societies in their developmental state?

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#222
post #75

Why are articles like these yanked so quickly from the front page of HN?

Users flag them, and sometimes flags win the tug-of-war against upvotes; also HN has software that penalizes overheated discussions, which tend to be flamewars. But we also monitor the list and sometimes take penalties off a story when both it and the comments fit the site guidelines.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#223

Ask a heterosexual woman in that age range about how many awful conversations she's had with men in that age range via dating apps. She won't say "a few", she'll say "A LOT", and be able to show that the vast majority of messages she gets are either very dry or insanely forward (sexually). If you're a great-looking guy and you can't start or hold a good conversation, you can still get laid on the basis of looks. But…

As someone who has been on the sending the awful messages (as in what were you thinking, not too forwards) side, I would like to postulate that having (and starting) conversations on a dating app is very different than in person. I can usually start in person conversations and keep them going for much longer than on a dating app (some go better than others, but on the whole I do better in person).

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#224

This is not news to anyone who has been following the changes in gender dynamics in the past ~15 years. Without giving an opinion on any side: there is (and will continue to be) growing instability when inequalities (relationship, wealth, or otherwise) result in a large portion of the population disaffected. Historically the solution to this particular problem has been enforced monogamy + the risk of pregnancy. Clear…

I think Japan is leading in this trend, or, that's what I'm hearing about; a lot of people who prefer to be stuck indoors, or work for most of the day. Actually I don't think they prefer it, but what is the alternative?

Anyway the result of that is a decline in birth rates which will eventually lead to stabilizing or decreasing population. Which I think, in theory, is fine as long as it's stable for a long period of time and evenly distributed among age cohorts (which isn't the case in Japan). In practice though, the current economy is trained for a constant population increase; a lot of countries rely on immigration to maintain said population (and economic) increase.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know either, but I would not make this guess, because cultural evolution tends to happen at a much faster pace than physiological (biological?) evolution. Physiology will not change much in 20 years, but culture could change drastically in the same timeframe.

There has been a significant population level decrease in testosterone in men. It's at around 1.2% per year when adjusted by age.[0] Similar effects have been found in other countries too. I think this is what he means when he says physiological. [0] https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434

That study had roughly 3k participants, from the Boston area. In my opinion, the are more than probably many factors that influence testosterone production and that’s not sufficient evidence to declare a population-wide crisis.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#226
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…

I'm confident that it's down to the freedom of choice. That is, people are exposed to a lot more candidates nowadays and rely less on their own social circles for partners.

I believe everyone would like to get together with the most attractive people, however in practice it doesn't work like that and there's a distinct gender skew in that area.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#227
post #2

as someone who struggles with their lack of sexual activity and desirability, reading this article and included quotes greatly increased my desire to commit suicide. i noticed that employment status is listed as a factor in the desirability of men. i have a stable job and fairly high income. to me this confirms my insecurities in that i am unattractive both physically and personality-wise.

Just so you know, in addition to what saagarjha posted, we (moderators) care about comments like this. We leave them flagged because of worries about how they might affect others, not because we don't care about you.

If there's a chance it might help at all, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#228
Perhaps off-topic, but if someone here on HN is from Saudi-Arabia or a similar country:

How does this work in societies where rich/succesful males can have multiple women? Are there simply a bunch of leftover men? Or is the number of men who have multiple women today too small to make a dent?

Assuming there's 50/50 men/women there too...

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#229
I'm often surprised that there is not more discussion about hacking the sexual market place on Hacker News.

We talk a lot about growth hacking and hacking technical systems. Hacking in the meaning of "Using intelligent, unusual approaches to gain an advantage over the typical approach". Yet for sexual market place it's completely silence here on HN.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#230
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that change though. I agree its a problem, but I don't agree its not within the control of those who are not being matched to do something about it. Some arguments: * dating apps aren't the only way to meet people; you can still meet potential partners at parks/bars/work (Americans love office romances apparantly) * dating apps do favor the conventionally good looking folks but its also about presentation,…

As someone who is definitely on the "not ugly but also not attractive" demographic, I have ditched dating apps completely. The focus on the visual to the exclusion of body language and personality chemistry just makes it a bad all around deal. From my experience, naturally meeting girls in the world is a much more pleasant experience.

There is a lot of body language and personal traits that can be shown in photo's.

As they say: a picture is more than a 1000 words.

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