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Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

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Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#431

Post by teolandon »

akudha wrote: post #129
fxtentacle wrote: post #15

I love how the article compares the unequal distribution of sex partners with the unequal distribution of wealth, because in my opinion that might be part of the cause. I would predict that being able to afford a nice apartment in a good area close to date locations will easily 10x your sex chances. There have been other studies about young men struggling to find jobs that pay well enough for them to become financial…

I happen to catch part of conversation between two young, very good looking female colleagues of mine back when I still used to go to office (same cubicle, sometimes I heard things even though I didn't mean to). They were disappointed that they couldn't get invites to some party where rich wall street type guys were going to, aka "catches" (their words, not mine). The funny thing is, the very same office was filled w…

I'm sorry but this comment is missing OP's point, and is instead just feeding into the stereotype of women being gold diggers.

OP's comment was talking about the difference between guys who can afford a nice apartment vs guys who still need to live in their parents' home. It was a practical thing, where anyone would want a private space for dating.

Your comment took it to a different level, where you're talking about people in your office vs wall street rich people. In this scenario, there are people like those two female colleagues of yours (that you described as young and very good looking, which was unnecessary), who will have a preference for rich guys, but there are other women who would prefer your coworkers in the office. It's a preference thing rather than a practical thing, like OP's observation in their comment.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#432

Post by PaulHoule »

cuuupid wrote: post #106
hammock wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singling out dating apps, or worse a single company thinking their monopoly created the problem, is missing the forest for the trees. The social dynamic exists independent of dating apps which monetize and exploit it. The dynamic is the same in real life, for example at a nightclub where women drink for free, promoters who bring them get paid per girl, and lonely men pay $40 cover for a chance to shoot their shot

If dynamic in real life is 1:2 then it’s 1:1000 on dating apps. Also I would actually blame MatchGroup here, they’ve been fighting dating apps with better models for years, every company they swallow has adopted the same bad ethics (case and point Hinge), and the only company that’s managed to stay afloat away from them (Bumble) is suing them. They are most definitely a major component of the problem

There should be an antitrust lawsuit against Match.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#433

Post by wonderwonder »

yamtaddle wrote: post #390
wonderwonder wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how? Honestly I am not doubting you, I have just been married for a very long time so out of the game. Is it a presentation of wealth or dress style?

Largely fitness level and attention to appearance (very-nice well-kept haircuts, probably a little male use of makeup, that kind of thing). Skin care routines (say, consistency of applying sunscreen and wearing hats when outdoors, from early ages on) can vary wildly with local cultural norms and, notably, with class-related socialization, with the result that some cohorts have much nicer skin in middle age than other…

That makes sense, I had never even considered regional based attractiveness. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#434

Post by giantg2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #418
GrigoriyMikh wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Arranged marriages worked for generations. And to me it looks like a perfect mechanism to tame hormone-induced young people, who, en masse, hurt not only themselves but whole society.

> Arranged marriages worked for generations. Existed, sure. Whether they “work” or not is... well, for most of history no one was gathering data, but arranged marriage still exists now, and there is evidence linking it to higher rates of suicide, for women particularly.

Do you have some links? The stuff I found was just correlated, but also had other major issues listed too, like domestic violence.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#435

Post by scns »

goodpoint wrote: post #235
wyager wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with many sexually dimorphic behaviors in humans (and mammals in general), this flows from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis You can have a stable/growing population with only 1 male per n>1 females. So, the evolutionarily optimal strategy is to crank up trait variance in males and have females select only the top 1/n males (hand-wavily speaking). Most modern human cultures suppressed this dynam…

> evolutionarily optimal strategy Gender roles (and sexism) are primarily cultural. If you look through history there has been matriarchal and patriarchal societies. Monogamous and polygamous and so on in many combinations. Humans sexuality is very unique compared to other animals and, respectfully, we should try not to play armchair Darwin. There are very good lectures from prof. Sapolsky on youtube on the topic. Hu…

> Gender roles (and sexism) are primarily cultural.

I think, slut shaming might have a biological component: you can't be shure the kid is yours.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#436

Post by mancerayder »

lelanthran wrote: post #396
cmh89 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates. I'm not there in those interactions but I wonder how much of it is a mismatch between what you desire in a relationship and who you are attracted to in a person.

That's because 80% of the women are chasing 20% of the men. Okcupids data showed this in nice clear charts. The numbers invert as you get closer to 40. Single women at 40 are desperate, single men at 40 have a jaded, and quite accurate, view of the majority of women.

It's really easy for them to do that with the massive quantity of men to choose from. It's a kid in a candy store. They (women friends and dates I spoke to in this big city) tend to whine about bad dates and 'I want to delete this app' but it's what happens when you get 10 matches per day and you have to quickly select who to give a chance.

Then they meet someone, it's hard to drop everything if there's still more matches you haven't met yet.

Online dating is the death of our species.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#437

Post by avmich »

giantg2 wrote: post #111
cmh89 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates. I'm not there in those interactions but I wonder how much of it is a mismatch between what you desire in a relationship and who you are attracted to in a person.

Or how much the "game" influences it. People tend to want what they can't have and reject things that come too easy.

I'd agree, but the important word here is "tend". It's definitely not a universal statement.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#438

Post by metalliqaz »

cmh89 wrote: post #93
spaniard89277 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been running online communities for years and this, as far as I can see, factual. I've read somewhere, maybe multiple times, that most men are emotionally and sexually deprived. That sounds correct given the data I have. I'm ok looking and I feel like I can make women like me. I still struggle sometimes. Many of my friends do much worse than me. I have friends that I find intellectually stimulating, average-look…

It's interesting to me. I have female friends in their 30s who go on tons of dates but reject pretty much all of them for any long-term relationship. The ones they seem to be in to tend to reject them after a couple of dates. I'm not there in those interactions but I wonder how much of it is a mismatch between what you desire in a relationship and who you are attracted to in a person.

"If you want love, lower your expectations a few, because Prince Charming would never settle for you."

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#439

Post by Manuel_D »

apeace wrote: post #395
Manuel_D wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the people experiencing sexual loneliness aren't bad boyfriends and husbands. They can't even get a significant other or spouse. Counterintuitively, being a disagreeable or even abusive partner is positively correlated with sexual success: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-roman...

That blog post is -- and this is putting it charitably -- so horribly misguided and confused I hardly know where to begin. I'll just say: > being a disagreeable or even abusive partner is positively correlated with sexual success Citation needed. That blog post does not provide anything resembling evidence of your claim. For your sake, I hope you're not basing your views on sites like that.

> That blog post is -- and this is putting it charitably -- so horribly misguided and confused I hardly know where to begin.

The post is horribly misguided and confused. Yet despite being so horrible you can't bother to explain what's bad about it? It always amuses me something is evidently so horrible as to warrant this language, but apparently not quite horrible enough to actually explain why.

Ultimately, i'm not really looking to make an empirical claim here. Just read this sentence a few times and maybe the contradiction will make sense:

> the sheer number of terrible boyfriends/husbands is jaw-dropping.

If someone is a boyfriend or a husband, they are by definition not single.

Re: Sexual loneliness: A neglected public health problem?

#440

Post by godelski »

seydor wrote: post #400
jacobsenscott wrote: post #116

The classic formula for hooking up is time and proximity - throw people together in the same space and wait - people will start hooking up. No app can provide this - they are designed with the exact opposite scenario in mind. This is why people meet in high school (4 years)/college(4 years)/at the office (40 years). With the move to remote work in many places we've cut off the office part - where people had the most…

> throw people together in the same space and wait - people will start hooking up. No app can provide this I would contest this. Don't (EDIT: i m talking about social network apps) apps do exactly this, on a global scale? They bring people closer at all times, have regularity, and even have silly competitions, self-promotion , and all ways for people to 'hook up' with each other. Of course, in any physical space ther…

What the parent is really talking about is that people in close proximity for extended periods are going through shared experiences. If you spend time with people and experience similar things then you will start to form emotional bonds with them. The parent could have also replaced partners with friends and the statement would hold true for the same reasons.

On the other hand, let's do the same analogy and replace partners with friends for the goals of apps. I think it would be obvious to many that these wouldn't be good platforms to build strong friendships on. If Tinder is the equivalent of asking someone out at a bar it is also similar to approaching someone at a bar and asking them to be your best friend. It might happen, but odds likely aren't in your favor, and especially not if you're not someone that likes to go bar hopping.

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