Explaining Sex Rate Changes • Hacker News Board

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#371

Post by papermill » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

sridca wrote: post #364

Sex is not the be all and end all of living an awesome life. Just because blind nature created you rife with the instinctual passion of desire does not mean you have to live as a slave to it. Channel that desire into hobbies that are actually interesting to you, and enjoy life. Sex, intimacy, relationships, marriage and the like do not automatically guarantee you happiness, as perfectly illustrated by this masterpiec…

Sex, food and shelter are necessary conditions for an "awesome life" for most people. You could argue they aren't sufficient and you need more ( like spirituality, community, etc ), but it's disingenuous to dismiss it as an unnecessary condition that you could distract yourself with hobbies.

Response to (sridca):

Yes, I'm well aware of the difference between need and desire.

But you can't have an "awesome life" if your major desires ( food, shelter and sex ) aren't met.

Also, I said sex is a necessary condition for most people to live an "awesome life", not all people. You misread that part. And by most people, I mean everyone barring the exceptional minority with physical or genetic ailments.

Can you live without sex? Sure. Can you live an "awesome life" without sex. I highly doubt it. But people are willing to rationalize anything I guess.

Food, sex and shelter are pretty much our biological imperatives. Not sure how you can live an "awesome life" without your basic natural desires being met.

But if you are happy living a sexless life, then all the best to you. This is a difference of opinion that we are just going to live with.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#372

Post by fxbl0i » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

Steuard wrote: post #363

freshm087 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a native speaker, and may miss some nuances, but promiscuous is defined as "having multiple sexual partners" by my dictionary which I think is as neutral as possible. Promiscuity is at first, and foremost was (and still is, in spite of contraception availability) practically more acceptable for men. And monogomy among other things is a constraint on men's behavior - forcing to accept social, and economic resp…

I am a native speaker, and "promiscuous" is definitely a negative, pejorative term. (Dictionary definitions are good at capturing the denotation of a word, but are sometimes less good at explaining its connotations. If your dictionary lists additional/alternate definitions of this one that apply in non-sexual contexts, look at those to see if they appear to carry positive or negative implications.)

Promiscuous is a pejorative term because the act itself is socially seen as negative. There is no way of describing promiscuous behaviour positively, so the choice of word is irrelevant.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#373

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:10 PM UTC

abledon wrote: post #86

tachyonbeam wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Kids like a stable environment to grow up in too — messes up their psychological development when there is a revolving door for new ‘daddys’ and ‘mommys’ . We are for promiscuity at certain stages of life but.... yes the costs haha

I think this necessitates a change in how we view marriage, not sex. If we looked at marriage as a construct for the purpose of raising children together, relatively divorced from love and lust, then it would still be able to provide a stable environment for children even as the parents are free to have other lovers. Basically, we'd need to change the narrative from 'marry your one true love' to 'marry a good friend'.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#374

Post by sridca » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:12 PM UTC

papermill wrote: post #371

sridca wrote: post #364

Sex is not the be all and end all of living an awesome life. Just because blind nature created you rife with the instinctual passion of desire does not mean you have to live as a slave to it. Channel that desire into hobbies that are actually interesting to you, and enjoy life. Sex, intimacy, relationships, marriage and the like do not automatically guarantee you happiness, as perfectly illustrated by this masterpiec…

Sex, food and shelter are necessary conditions for an "awesome life" for most people. You could argue they aren't sufficient and you need more ( like spirituality, community, etc ), but it's disingenuous to dismiss it as an unnecessary condition that you could distract yourself with hobbies. Response to (sridca): Yes, I'm well aware of the difference between need and desire. But you can't have an "awesome life" if yo…

Do you know the difference between need and desire? Can you comprehend how desiring sex is different to needing food and shelter?

It is true that most people, as you indicate, are apparently unable to live an awesome life without sex in horizon. But that does not automatically make sex a "necessary condition" for an awesome life.

> Not sure how you can live an "awesome life" without your basic natural desires being met.

A desire, unlike a need, is not set in stone. Aggression is a "basic natural" instinctual passion too; does that mean you are rendered incapable of living an awesome life without going about killing your fellow human beings?

It is clear that you are not "well aware" of the difference between a desire and a need.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#375

Post by tomohawk » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:18 PM UTC

1) Internet porn is training young men to have sex with fantasy images, making sex with a real partner an alien concept.

2) People are way more engaged with screens than in person

3) Masculinity is labeled 'toxic', etc. Young men are not getting the support/encouragement/mentoring they need.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#376

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #298

tachyonbeam wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>It also seems to me that if a sizeable chunk of young men end up feeling undesirable, unwanted, and frustrated, the consequences won't be pretty, we all lose. Those young men need to stop basing their self image on their own ego and sense of sexual entitlement. What we're seeing here, in my humble and uneducated opinion, is the end of a period in societal history where women served the role of sexual currency in a m…

I don't feel like it has anything to do with entitlement. Men are feeling cheated because society has beaten into their heads a poor model for attracting a mate, and application of that model doesn't produce the results it is advertised to. Coupled with the still rather extreme level to which male status is judged by sexual conquest it is no surprise that we have problems with violent outbursts and clamoring for a return to regressive societal constructs.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#377

Post by papermill » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:20 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #56

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…

> As the article points out, young men are having sex less often, but young women are still having sex at nearly the same rate. No, the article points out thar fewer (proportionately) young men are having sex, while the same proportion of young women are having sex. That's not the same as the less often / same rate description you give. > I wonder if dating apps (Tinder, Bumble, etc.) are leading women to have sex wi…

You have to look at it from a statistical point of view. The homosexual population is insignificantly small in a statistical sense. A small percentage increase in homosexuality in either sex isn't going to skew the data much. Also, even if there are more lesbians, it doesn't necessarily mean they are having more sex. "Lesbian bed death" exists for a reason. We know that lesbians don't have as much sex as other sexual groupings. And though more women are willing to try lesbianism than men are willing to be gay, it's also true that more lesbians leave lesbianism and marry men than gay men leave homosexuality and marry women. But in any case, the numbers of gay and lesbians are so small that it really doesn't affect the overall trend we are seeing.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#378

Post by derangedHorse » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:21 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #298

tachyonbeam wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>It also seems to me that if a sizeable chunk of young men end up feeling undesirable, unwanted, and frustrated, the consequences won't be pretty, we all lose. Those young men need to stop basing their self image on their own ego and sense of sexual entitlement. What we're seeing here, in my humble and uneducated opinion, is the end of a period in societal history where women served the role of sexual currency in a m…

I think it’s natural for both genders to get a feeling of undesirability if not courted by the opposite gender. In this case I don’t see it as a problem that just afflicts men who are feeling entitled to sex. It’s a problem where one gender is getting a feeling of undesirability substantially less than past generations and are feeling the consequent effect of that on their confidence (just as it manifest in any other human being).

It almost seems as if you’re saying this is how things should be and that men should be the ones to change their views to accept it. From a sociological perspective, men (or any specific population) who aren’t able to form meaningful relationships) can cause problems for society just as the original post stated. Women are the ones who headline this discussion only because they lead the power dynamics which happen to be extremely unfavorable to a large population of men.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#379

Post by sridca » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:22 PM UTC

novia wrote: post #184

anonytrary wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best course of action for my mental well-being is to flag the whole thread and move on without reading the comments. Guidelines: > Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did. Your comments here suggest that you have a personal proble…

> If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did. Oops! I'll keep this in mind for the future. But the cat's out of the bag already here so... > Articles should not be flagged for how their words and numbers make us feel, they should be flagged if they are off-topic, spam, or not intellectually stimulating. I maintain that I am flagging this because I consider it off-topic and not intellectually stimul…

I can state that this topic is quite interesting to me. I can also understand why women tend to feel dehumanized by it. But we as a society must not turn blind eye towards problems that afflict humanity. Withdrawing from painful reality won't do anything to address it.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#380

Post by akdor1154 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:22 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #320

arvinsim wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, many men are still wedded, as it were, to the old model whereby their social status is accounted for by the number of women they have had sex with, and whether or not they are in a sexual relationship at the moment. It certainly is not an "old" model since most of society still ascribe to it. Men with many partners are still seen as more desirable due to network effects.

"outdated" then, perhaps, because it depends on a power hierarchy between the sexes which is losing relevance in modern societies. Yes, the model is still prevalent, but I'm arguing that's exactly the problem. Basing status and self-worth on sexual conquest makes no more sense than basing it on the number of slaves in one's retinue or the size of the pile of gold in one's treasury. It's a ridiculous and archaic way o…

> Basing status and self-worth on sexual conquest makes no more sense than basing it on the number of slaves in one's retinue or the size of the pile of gold in one's treasury. It's a ridiculous and archaic way of thinking.

Absolutely. However basing your self worth on acceptance/rejection of people you are attracted to or admire is perfectly normal. Note I'm not saying it's perfectly rational, or even healthy - but I do think it's normal, for people of any gender.

I guess we probably disagree on what the majority of men are after - a hookup or a relationship? And if men who are looking for a hookup instead looked for a relationship, would they have more success?

I think that even if all men were looking for a faithful, committed, relationship, then we would still see to some extent the unequal sex rates cited in the article. I don't know the solution to this however, just like I don't know the solution to the many other inequalities that are unfair towards women instead - the gradual liberation and increase in power of women is a great thing, and for anyone to suggest moving back to increasing male dominance is abhorrent.