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The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

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Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#231

Post by b_e_n_t_o_n »

adi_kurian wrote: post #213
kawfey wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice this too. I've made a new year resolution in 2024 to be much more outgoing with my friends and coworkers, and to go to more concerts. My wife isn't a concert person, and I don't have many local friends. But still, I always buy two tickets and, to the friends and colleagues I will offer the other ticket, usually in conversation or at random, usually months in advance, and usually at no cost just because I jus…

I think one of the mentally healthier decisions I ever made was to realize that many of the friends I have, if I stopped reaching out to them, the relationships may cease to exist. And then quietly reframe them in my mind as good acquaintances. You may be quite the extrovert like myself. My partner is an introvert and deeply struggles to reach out to people that she really wants to reach out to and keep in touch with…

> People are complicated

Ain't that an understatement.

I don't know if I'd reframe them as acquaintances though. I could probably be better at reaching out to them as well, for all I know they feel the same way. And I'm absolutely close with a lot of my friends that I rarely see or talk to. There is the whole meme format about "the stuff you get up to with that one friend you see once a year" or something that seems to be a common sentiment.

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#232

Post by sublinear »

This trend is probably the best example possible of "correlation does not imply causation".

If there is any clear reason at all, it's simply that sex is a choice. It has been completely unrelated to survival for a long while now. Yes, it is technically required at scale that someone has babies, but if no particular individual feels that pressure you should expect it to fluctuate like any other choice.

Sex would have to mean something to the individual for the numbers to go back up.

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#233

Post by whatevaa »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #155
AstralStorm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timeline does not match. Both were widely available in oughts. So there was something smooth that hit a phase transition. Likely enployment or housing prices, forcing people to engage survival mode. People in this mode do not feel secure enough to have sex or especially start families.

The first smartphone — iphone — came out in 2007? Adoption definitely started ramping up in 2010. Video games were available pre-2010, but they weren’t nearly as ubiquitous, and honestly the people playing lots of video games pre-2010 weren’t having lots of sex either.

Video games have been present for a shit ton of time in the form on game consoles. Social media, on the other hand, is a recent phenomena

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#234

Post by imtringued »

revx wrote: post #5

The article mostly blames pornography and digital addiction, but I think those are symptoms of a larger problem, which is lack of belonging and community. If life sucks, you have few friends you can afford the time or money to see, and you work to make other people rich until you are exhausted, when do you have time and energy to maintain a relationship? If you feel like the world is on fire, it's hard to get in the…

>Men deserve sex!

I think you got this one backwards.

The messaging I've seen is the opposite "Men don't deserve sex!".

The dead bedroom is particularly popular when the boyfriend in question is, in the words of the girlfriend in question, "gentle and treating his girlfriend better than any of her previous boyfriends".

Okay, but don't get surprised if men listen to you and avoid having sex.

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#235

Post by imtringued »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #86
revx wrote: post #5

The article mostly blames pornography and digital addiction, but I think those are symptoms of a larger problem, which is lack of belonging and community. If life sucks, you have few friends you can afford the time or money to see, and you work to make other people rich until you are exhausted, when do you have time and energy to maintain a relationship? If you feel like the world is on fire, it's hard to get in the…

Quite interesting because in my trans and poly community I have found belonging, friendship, cuddles, alcohol free spaces, and lots of very exciting and interesting consensual safer sex. I’m having (by far) the best sex of my life after being active for 20+ years. It turns out that dancing in the forest on LSD is way more fun and exciting than chugging another beer on my couch (which is exactly how I spent my 20’s).…

When you have an inexplicable and paranoid disdain for a group and blame said group for the ills of everything wrong in the world, it's because the mere existence of said group disproves your worldview.

It's like a scientific discovery, a mathematical proof or evidence of a crime. The go to strategy is to get rid of that evidence, but how do you get rid of evidence if the evidence is a person?

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#236

Post by unfitted2545 »

kawfey wrote: post #210
andrewrn wrote: post #63

This is very much upstream of sex. I just started a masters program this week, and on Friday night at 8 pm, zero out of 52 of my cohort members wanted to join me for a beer. It's anecdotal, but seemed really remarkable to me. So it's not just sex, young people don't socialize in-person nearly as much as they used to. I have no idea how this will be addressed, if it does ever get addressed.

I notice this too. I've made a new year resolution in 2024 to be much more outgoing with my friends and coworkers, and to go to more concerts. My wife isn't a concert person, and I don't have many local friends. But still, I always buy two tickets and, to the friends and colleagues I will offer the other ticket, usually in conversation or at random, usually months in advance, and usually at no cost just because I jus…

I wonder if it's because of social media creating deeper and deeper niche personality traits. Where it's simultaneously easy to find lots of people that share common likes/dislikes, but practically unobtainable to find that one human that shares all are likes/dislikes and be the that perfect friend. There's also so many things to like and dislike that maybe people don't even truly know what they like and dislike. Too many social interactions (and the culture of labelling everything, increasingly dividing us) have us burned out on making the deep connections. It's similar to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#237

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

imtringued wrote: post #234
revx wrote: post #5

The article mostly blames pornography and digital addiction, but I think those are symptoms of a larger problem, which is lack of belonging and community. If life sucks, you have few friends you can afford the time or money to see, and you work to make other people rich until you are exhausted, when do you have time and energy to maintain a relationship? If you feel like the world is on fire, it's hard to get in the…

>Men deserve sex! I think you got this one backwards. The messaging I've seen is the opposite "Men don't deserve sex!". The dead bedroom is particularly popular when the boyfriend in question is, in the words of the girlfriend in question, "gentle and treating his girlfriend better than any of her previous boyfriends". Okay, but don't get surprised if men listen to you and avoid having sex.

How can this non sense still be this prevalent nowadays?

Dead bedroom happens because people don’t solve their marital problems, generally have poor sex but are too afraid to talk about it, or to summarise communicate extremely poorly. It’s entirely unrelated to men being "too nice" whatever that’s supposed to mean.

If you are unhappy in your relationship, have some courage, talk about it, fix it or end it if it will never satisfy you. Stop playing the victim.

And to be fair, I think communication issue might be the crux of the modern lack of socialisation.

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#238

Post by LeanderK »

people always cheer up stats like that americans are drinking less, but I think what's overlooked is that young adults also socialising less. Turns out, they also have less sex, less relationships, are less extroverted and play more computer-games. I guess they also date less. I am not sure whether that's a win.

Btw, from my personal experience in europe, I actually don't see a significant rise in sober adults when going out. Combined with the rise of loneliness (from 12h per week of socialising in 2010 to just 5h!) I think its not because they found a fun sober alternative, I think its because they don't see anyone anymore. Or the other way around: Do the share of young adults, who socialize as much as previous generations, also drink significantly less, date less, have less sex? How do these stats behave when controlled for the amount of socialising one does?

Re: The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

#239

Post by StefanBatory »

LeanderK wrote: post #238

people always cheer up stats like that americans are drinking less, but I think what's overlooked is that young adults also socialising less. Turns out, they also have less sex, less relationships, are less extroverted and play more computer-games. I guess they also date less. I am not sure whether that's a win. Btw, from my personal experience in europe, I actually don't see a significant rise in sober adults when g…

I think it's cultural too. (But I'm Polish, not American)

I was raised by very anxious mother, until I was like 20-21, I never got out of the house unless it was for school. And nowadays I just... don't know how I would even meet people.

10-20 years ago, someone would tell her she's insane. Later, she'd be seen as a protecting parent.

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