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Explaining Sex Rate Changes

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Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#301

Post by maxkwallace »

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…

"swipe right, swipe left" acts as a filter but it's not how people choose partners.

People choose partners based on chatting after the swipe and the overall impression/feeling they have when meeting in-person.

The belief that the majority of women on the dating market choose partners primarily based on looks and status is a fiction that's part of a broader narrative insecure men tell themselves to help rationalize the resentment they experience-- and a result of men projecting their own preferences and motivations onto women.

See my other comment in the thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19603329

Yes, for the tiny fraction of women on dating apps seeking hookups, attractiveness and status may be important factors. Many men may never have hookups. But the obsession with hookups is a male phenomenon, and the majority of women find them off-putting.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#302

Post by krapp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #266
bm1362 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m genuinely concerned that people seriously think this is a _solution_. Beyond sex, relationships with romantic partners are a complex, rewarding part of the human experience. How did that get lost to some?

You say rewarding, but for a lot of people it's an incomprehensible minefield. I mean where do you even start?

Humans have been working it out for a million years or so, it isn't that difficult.

If someone considers relationships with other people to be an "incomprehensible minefield," then the problem is with them, not the nature of human relationships.

Too many people overthink things, seeing each potential relationship as a puzzle to be solved, or searching for some general purpose sexual algorithm for which they can provide the inputs and recieve sexual or emotional fulfillment, or they expect hostility and deception and treat dating like an interrogation.

And of course some people just don't have empathy for the opposite sex and don't understand social boundaries or cues.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#303

Post by UweSchmidt »

jamescostian wrote: post #127

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…

This is another trouble with dating apps. How can you possibly make a meaningful connection with another person through an app? There's nothing but a profile pic and some generic text.

These "creepy" guys would likely be totally fine in an informal, real-world situation. They would be all right in the workplace, sports club, college study group or by coming along a group of friends, being introduced in person. They can hold conversations, but are subject to the imbalanced dating mechanics as discussed exhaustively in this thread. (This doesn't excuse some of the weaker shit that some guys seem to try though.)

Fortunately there are niches in society where regular guys are in high demand by attractive women, and observing that is fascinating. Has there just been a war and all the decent guys died? Ah no, were are just here.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#304

Post by akvadrako »

ycombinete wrote: post #120
titanix2 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s exactly the theory developed by circles like the red pill. More access to potential partners with less social control lead to a winner take all situation. In addition, and it is addressed in the OP, women try to get partners which are higher on the social scale while men mostly focus on beauty.

Which makes total sense, given the different evolutionary drivers that men and women are motivated by. The problem with most narratives is that they moralize what is essentially an amoral phenomenon.

Morals and evolution are tightly coupled. For starters, if you consider the practical morals society lives by, many of them are about controlling reproduction. That's one of the primary purposes of our moral institutions (religion).

At a deeper level, both morality and evolution are all about encouraging survival of genes.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#305

Post by metafex »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #72
gnicholas wrote: post #69

In a way, this mirrors how technological advances have created winner-take-all markets in other areas. Thanks to CDs (and then the internet), 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. Similarly, technology may be shifting the dating/intimacy market toward a winners-take-most equilibrium, which favors the most attractive…

The internet and dating apps surely play a part. It's also become more acceptable to be non-monogamous. I lived in the bay area for a while and hung out among queer circles in San Francisco. It seemed like nearly everyone was polyamorous and uninterested in being in a monogamous relationship. So much that I felt kind of obligated to try the poly thing myself for a while if I was going to date. I am a little worried a…

There's (in my experience) not a very large overlap between overly promiscuous poly people and other poly people.

Not having long-term stable partners is also not mutually exclusive with being polyamorous and many poly people (again, in my experience) benefit from having multiple deep relationships with whom they can share their problems and struggles with. Load-balancing actually benefits all in this case.

A better comparison would be that children growing up in a polyamorous environment are more like a tribe of people instead of the classic family.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#306

Post by dsr_ »

simonh wrote: post #215
scotty79 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The stabilising effect of monogamy isn't to prevent wars between nations and societies, it's to manage violence and conflict within a society. It works too and is not just a small effect. Of the 20 most unstable countries in the world, all 20 are very to somewhat polygamous[0]. [0] https://medium.economist.com/big-love-and-big-war-exploring-...

You might consider that formal polygamy is directly linked to (a) religious authoritarianism, (b) gender inequality, (c) reduced education for women, (d) lowered economic productivity, (e) low standard of living.

When all those things travel together, it's not clear that polygamy should be viewed as the primary cause.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#307

Post by arvinsim »

apexalpha wrote: post #230
arvinsim wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, that can be true. But photos can also be posed and photoshopped.

It's much more prone to manipulation than direct, spontaneous contact.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#308

Post by skocznymroczny »

throwawayjava wrote: post #259
maxkwallace wrote: post #247

Reading through the comments, there's a shared narrative that emerges: Tinder, etc. leads to a skewed distribution of access to sexual partners based on attractiveness, which leads to unattractive men not having as many partners, which leads to pick-your-favorite-bad-consequence. And there are a lot of men in this thread feeling worried and depressed about this. While it's certainly true that you get more matches on…

> an unattractive person even if you look fine physically. There is so much emphasis on physical appearance and status in this thread. If this is a common mindset among young men, it's no wonder they are lonely. Who wants to spend time with someone who reduces deeply human relationships to status and sex appeal? Attractiveness is a complicated and extremely individual thing. Appearance and status are much less import…

That's easy to say, but physical appearance is the gateway to personality based relationships. You can have the greatest personality in the world, but be unlucky in the dating world because you don't fit the physical expectations. The choice given by dating websites amplifies that too. Why would a woman settle for a friendly 165 cm guy with a good job, if a 185 cm "lumberjack" is only few swipes away (in theory, because there are many more women competing for him)?

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#309

Post by ronnier »

wetpaws wrote: post #296
emikulic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: OkCupid: do you mean this? https://web.archive.org/web/20170330131859/https://theblog.o...

I wonder why did okcupid remove this study

For the vast majority of men it makes zero sense for them to be on a dating site, it just won’t work for them. That goes against OK Cupid’s interests.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#310

Post by rhizome31 »

scotty79 wrote: post #206
solotronics wrote: post #179

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.

I was surprised to learn that historically Islam allowance of four wives per men is actually a restriction. It's not an authorization to polygamy created in a monogamous context, it's a limitation put in a context where some men would have many more women.
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