Explaining Sex Rate Changes • Hacker News Board

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#391

Post by sridca » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #389

sridca wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

You’re arguing pedantry and missing the point. Sex is not a need like food and water, you could say the same thing about any degree of human contact whatsoever. And yet we know that humans isolated from other humans generally do not turn out well and sexual isolation is a very significant milestone on that spectrum.

The difference between a need and a desire is not a minor detail (which is what the word pedantry would indicate). Let me explain it for you.

    need /nēd/ 
    circumstances in which something is necessary, or that require some course of action; necessity.

    de·sire /dəˈzī(ə)r/ 
    a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.

The very first thing to do is separate out needs from urges (desires): unless one is living as a hermit off nuts and berries deep in a remote forest one needs one’s fellow human beings for a whole raft of things (I need a shopkeeper to sell me goods as much as a shopkeeper needs me to sell goods to for example) and the most fundamental needs amount to five survival essentials ... air, water, food, shelter (if protection be necessary), and clothing (if the weather be inclement).

The fact that you fail to thoroughly appreciate this makes it unsurprising that you bizarrely place the condition of not engaging in sexual acts (an act of desire) with your fellow human beings to be nearly on the same level as living without being in contact (an act of need) with them.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#392

Post by rofo1 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:57 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…

> 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.

Strong disagreement here.

Sex is not necessary. It's way overblown, and anyone that has regular sex (or the potential to get it) will concede that point. It's definitely not worth the drama that usually follows it.

Food is necessary, cause without it you will die.

Shelter is necessary, cause without it you will die as well (eventually, not immediately)

Sex it not necessary. In fact, I was always confused and flabbergasted by the lengths people will go to to get it. It's remarkable - it's probably evolution at work, but still never ceases to amaze me. People will tolerate the most insane things I've ever witnessed just to put one reproductive organ into another. If an alien race was watching this, they'd die in laughter.

Also, the obsession with sex that modern cinema, newspapers (think scandals etc.), indirectly facebook/instagram, on every billboard hot naked women are selling you something (hot naked women cleaning service, hot naked women car wash/sales/etc.) cannot be healthy. Just cannot be! I don't understand this obsession at all. Don't people have literally anything better to do? Do people really have this much free time?

OT: I'm glad to see this topic on HN cause the human bonding in general is a very interesting topic. Wish we could discuss it more, cause it feels like we, as a society, just go with the momentum instead of sitting down and thinking long-term consequences of what we are doing. It's almost shameful and definitely looked down upon to suggest traditional values and roles, even though those traditional values were result of thousands of years of various attempts. Surely the previous generations weren't all imbeciles that couldn't conclude what works and what doesn't. I think it's safe to say that what we are doing now cannot work long-term.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#393

Post by namarie » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #163

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…

On the other hand, there are multiple experiments with people creating a male profile with a photo of an attractive guy and sending explicitly sexual and vulgar messages as an introduction and still getting a lot of replies and phone numbers. At some point of attractiveness a guy can start the conversation with "I'd love to slide it in you" and the girl will reply with "hihi ok :) 123-456-789" rather than "leave me a…

Got any source for that?

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#394

Post by wetpaws » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 1:02 PM 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

Why just not cut the fluff and go straight to government mandated divorces? :)

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#395

Post by namarie » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

magicalhippo wrote: post #343

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…

> or insanely forward (sexually) If you're not after a relationship but to get laid, then that might be a good strategy. Yes you'll get much fewer positive responses but but the false positive rate should be way lower.

But you have to admit it's a lot more risky. Also, plenty of people are looking forward to a good laid but are turned off if you just spam innuendo or are too forward.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#396

Post by oneshotthrowawa » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 1:04 PM UTC

namarie wrote: post #393

skocznymroczny wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there are multiple experiments with people creating a male profile with a photo of an attractive guy and sending explicitly sexual and vulgar messages as an introduction and still getting a lot of replies and phone numbers. At some point of attractiveness a guy can start the conversation with "I'd love to slide it in you" and the girl will reply with "hihi ok :) 123-456-789" rather than "leave me a…

Got any source for that?

Not an easy read:

https://i.imgur.com/HO430mM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4WPshhw.jpg

This has been done many, many times. The keyword is "chadfishing"

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#397

Post by wetpaws » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 1:05 PM UTC

namarie wrote: post #393

skocznymroczny wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there are multiple experiments with people creating a male profile with a photo of an attractive guy and sending explicitly sexual and vulgar messages as an introduction and still getting a lot of replies and phone numbers. At some point of attractiveness a guy can start the conversation with "I'd love to slide it in you" and the girl will reply with "hihi ok :) 123-456-789" rather than "leave me a…

Got any source for that?

https://www.boredpanda.com/social-experiment-guy-created-fak...

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#398

Post by enriquto » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #388

enriquto wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: western society is notoriously becoming non-monogamous, and it is indeed unrivaled.

"is becoming" != "is". If it does, it might very well fall behind as inner conflict consumes too much energy.

I would argue that western society is already non-monogamous, since in many countries about half of the couples divorce. This results in "serial-monogamy", that is certainly non-monogamous.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#399

Post by pimlottc » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 1:07 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #291

keiferski wrote: post #193

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'm still highly suspicious of the narrative all of this is premised on. TFA mentions the low sample size of the original study, and augments it with Twitter polls. But TFA author's Twitter follows aren't exactly a representative sample of the population... Furthermore, monogamy and sexual activity remains strong for people in their 30s, and I expect this will continue to be true in the future. Women are having child…

> TFA mentions the low sample size of the original study, and augments it with Twitter polls. But TFA author's Twitter follows aren't exactly a representative sample of the population...

I agree, and even if their followers were, all it takes is a single retweet by a popular user, or post in a high-traffic subreddit or Facebook share to wildly skew the results.

Offering the Twitter poll as any sort of evidence at all without major disclaimers makes me quite skeptic of the author's qualifications, to be honest...

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#400

Post by jessaustin » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #383

michaelmrose wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been together with my wife for 18 years, married for 14 and I met her playing the original Everquest.

Such cases are extreme outliers.

This is unnecessarily dismissive. Since online interactions are more common over time, we would expect marriages (or anything else, really) resulting from online interactions to also become more common over time.