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Explaining Sex Rate Changes

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Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#51

Post by RandomInteger4 »

manfredo wrote: post #28
siwatanejo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Economy getting better" arguments fall into the trap of the law of averages.

Since 2010 GDP is growing, unemployment is going down, and real wages have at least remained steady and many analysts claim it has risen. If the economy really was tied to lack of sex we should be seeing a large spike around 2008/2009 and continuing until 2010 or 2011 and then returning to normal rates by 2018. Granted, there may be some sort of lag between economic changes and the effect on sex lives. E.g. a boyfrie…

Unemployment figures are not a true measure of unemployment. We all know this. The metrics they use makes the assumption that people are voluntarily dropping out of the workforce and hence don't count as unemployed, when the reality is that while many might not be seeking employment, it's not for lack of want, but rather for lack of confidence in the ability to become gainfully employed. This goes hand in hand with the mental health crisis facing this country. Even with health insurance from Medicaid, you have a damned difficult time finding a mental health practitioner that's accepting new patients.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#52

Post by ilaksh »

zone411 wrote: post #48
ilaksh wrote: post #15

My theory is that it could be related to the economy getting worse. My belief is that women are generally more likely to have sex with someone that they consider to be viable long-term reproductive partners or marriage material. Fewer men have the financial success and stability that many women are looking for in a serious relationship that would make them comfortable with routine sex.

I don't think this is the biggest factor. Men's income relative to women's [1] and the lower amount of steady jobs [2][3] could be somewhat more important for long-term relationship though [4]. In the 18-30 age range, women make as much as men. 1. https://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/business/economy/volatile... 3. https://blogs.chapman.edu/crean/2015/09/29/new-r…

The lower amount of steady jobs is what I am talking about.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#53

Post by nostrademons »

manfredo wrote: post #28
siwatanejo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Economy getting better" arguments fall into the trap of the law of averages.

Since 2010 GDP is growing, unemployment is going down, and real wages have at least remained steady and many analysts claim it has risen. If the economy really was tied to lack of sex we should be seeing a large spike around 2008/2009 and continuing until 2010 or 2011 and then returning to normal rates by 2018. Granted, there may be some sort of lag between economic changes and the effect on sex lives. E.g. a boyfrie…

GDP, unemployment, and real wages are all averages (well, technically GDP is a total, but per-capita GDP is an average).

GP's point is that while the economy as a whole is doing great, nearly all the gains are concentrated in the top quintile, and the remaining 4 quintiles have seen real wages stagnate, older men drop out of the labor force, and young men fail to enter the labor force, all while watching other people pull ahead with fortunes they could only dream of. All of this is consistent with women partnering with the portion of the population that's actually doing well economically and ignoring everyone who's struggling.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#54

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

fratlas wrote: post #37
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…

I've noticed this disparity within my friend circles. The objectively attractive men match/sleep with multiple woman a month where almost all of the men with near average looks get approximately zero matches. Interesting indeed. My female friends match with almost every male regardless.

Hey, this is fine, I love single mothers.

The guy who's fucking three or four girls will leave three or four single mothers ready for me :)

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#55

Post by zone411 »

kbar13 wrote: post #30
zone411 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right but there are new things coming, such as VR porn, that could make the effect smaller.

porn is not a replacement for a relationship with a person, casual or serious.

Of course it's not but VR porn is a big step from video porn. There will be a percentage of men who will be satisfied by it just enough to wait longer (at 30+ it could become easier for them). Don't you think that this could lower the destabilizing effect?

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

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 with a smaller cohort of desirable men.

Social acceptance of homosexuality has increased, and every study I've seen shows that it's higher among women than men (and I think also higher for homosexual behavior by women than by men). Why do you assume that women must be only having sex with men?

If we assume that people with homosexual orientation attempting to conform to a heteronormative society would tend to have more trouble maintaining stable relations and thus cycle through relationships more frequently (which I think is plausible though not necessarily true), then a greater reduction in the number of members of one sex trying to conform that way would result in the kind of unbalanced drop seen in these statistics.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#57

Post by ianai »

fratlas wrote: post #37
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…

I've noticed this disparity within my friend circles. The objectively attractive men match/sleep with multiple woman a month where almost all of the men with near average looks get approximately zero matches. Interesting indeed. My female friends match with almost every male regardless.

I think you’re both onto something. There’s even a likely network effect where those men who sleep around are even more attractive to potential mates. Not as a rule, of course, but as a contributing factor.

It’s a very destabilizing trend. Not only are these same men being economically disadvantaged, but they’re being socially isolated. Perfect way to increase violent tendencies, drug addition, and so on.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#58

Post by manfredo »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #46
lainga wrote: post #7

Can we look to other cultures where widespread celibacy (especially extramarital) is already practiced for cues as to how this will affect the US?

There is Japan which has a culture of "herbivore men": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men There is a similar movement growing in the US which is called "MGTOW", men going their own way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Going_Their_Own_Way Personally, I'm a bit scared that we're going towards a culture of increasing isolation and tension between the genders.

I think MGTOW are different from herbivore men. I'm not expert on either group buy my understanding is Herbivore men are men that don't or never have sought out relationships with women, while MGTOW is more comprised of men that have had bad relationships with women and decide not to pursue further relationships (especially divorced men).

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#59

Post by dragonwriter »

manfredo wrote: post #18

My napkin paper theory is that for nonmarital* sex the internet has made it easier for people to find partners, with the overall effect that the bottom ~1/3 of men cannot find partners. Generally women are more selective than men when it comes to casual sex, and desirable men are usually willing to have sex with multiple partners. I recall studies that found that the top 20% of men on dating platforms account for 80%…

“extramarital” sex usually means sex by a married person with someone other than their spouse; I think “nonmarital” is a better term for what you are discussing.

Re: Explaining Sex Rate Changes

#60

Post by barry-cotter »

saagarjha wrote: post #43
lainga wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in the decades after the Great Famine... as much as a third of Irishmen and a fourth of Irishwomen never married due to chronic economic problems that discouraged early marriage." That is by most peoples' expectations widespread, up to some allowance for out-of-wedlock births (which the Catholic Church in Ireland famously acted forcefully against).

There's a difference between unmarried and celibate.

Not before widespread birth control there isn’t. We can see quite clearly the first hints of the demographic transition in France. It starts off with delaying marriage but fertility within marriage basically being an increasing function of time. People had sex and this made babies. But then people stop having so many children. The pull out method was invented or spread society wide for the first time. Our knowledge of biology is not innate. The Romans got the fertile and infertile phases of the menstrual cycle exactly wrong. There are Amazonian peoples who believe in partible paternity so if a women has sex while pregnant a child can have more than one father. Whores in medieval England thought fast sex was non-procreative.

Historically if you weren’t celibate there was going to be a baby.

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