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Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

reuters.com

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Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#521

Post by roosterdawn »

Nav_Panel wrote: post #445
roosterdawn wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it displaces "human worth" onto _individual_ fertility and offspring I think the word "worth" could be an anthropomorphization. I read the concept through the lens of survivability. Hypothetically, a societal identity which does not ensure biological reproduction could be evolutionarily outcompeted by one that does. Even, or especially by a fertility cult. I remember this being one of the central, disturbingly dyst…

> Hypothetically, a societal identity which does not ensure biological reproduction could be evolutionarily outcompeted by one that does Ah, this is pretty close to the same claim that "JayMan" made once when explaining to me how "gay people shouldn't exist, evolutionarily speaking" (because, of course, the gays would be outcompeted genetically by non-gays, and the identity wouldn't persist, right?) Let me tie it int…

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think your subtle distinction between the market and ecosystem is key here because they don't fully map 1 to 1. And you're correct that the market is downstream from the ecosystem itself. But with that said, I'm not sure that I agree with the spirit of your argument.

> the gays would be outcompeted genetically by non-gays, and the identity wouldn't persist, right?

I'm not sure that's historically accurate. The connection between pederasty and upper caste aristocracy goes back to Greek civilization, if not earlier, and is its own kind of a cultural reproduction mechanism that seemed to have elements of both mentorship and romance. Without a doubt, it's something that I still see today in elite circles.

> The fact that the role of "finance guy" exists at all is a product of the broader cultural ecosystem

I think I'd beg to disagree -- not with the product of the ecosystem part, but with the idea that it's cultural rather than socioeconomic and caste based. And maybe this comes back to my point earlier, which is a friction point that maybe both the IQ shredder concept and this article fail to account for, which is a certain degree of lifestyle dynamism.

That is to say, is that finance guy stuck as a finance guy forever? Or does he eventually accumulate enough wealth before moving on to a separate phase of his life, one where he can have a family of whatever size he wants with the best partner he can find that will take him? Because if that's the case, then maybe both the IQ shredder and Idiocracy argument perhaps only serve a useful function when referring to the lower and middle class, and fail to account for the upper class. And this, too seems to make intuitive sense to me: even as we see the middle class hollowed out, the upper class in America (and maybe across the world) continue to see increased prosperity at levels never before seen in history.

> If your sociological frame makes the world look like a dys/utopia, consider that it might be a flawed frame, at least if your goal is to see clearly.

I think the warning against dualistic frames is fair to keep in mind. But if you have a non-dualistic frame, that "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed" then I think that it's equally fair to warn that a frame which conflates an observed scenario to as a dystopic frame rather than evidence of an apoptotic mechanism could itself be the flawed frame.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#522

Post by foogazi »

tharne wrote: post #12

They buried the lede here. > Sexual activity was largely unchanged among unmarried women, along with no notable decline among gay men, researchers reported. Basically sex is following the pattern of wealth. Men as a group aren't having less sex, instead there's a winner take all effect where a small number of men are having a lot of sex with a lot of women while a large number of men are having little to no sex. It'l…

> I wouldn't be surprised to see a serious push for legalized polygamy in a few years

Why? Who do you think would benefit from this?

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#523

Post by deathgrips »

joelbluminator wrote: post #163
Vysero wrote: post #47

It's become harder to approach women. Based on my experience, they are far more likely this day in age to reject you than ever before. That coupled with the constant barrage men receive on the sexual misconduct front coupled with the notion that women only want exceedingly wealthy, attractive, muscular men makes it very easy for men to slink away into their rooms after work, and play video games all night rather than…

Most women are people just like you, they want a real relationship and want love. I know it's shocking, but they're not all after sleeping with muscular wealthy men any more than you are with sleeping with an 18 year old blonde with huge breasts. Stop being so superficial and start looking at women as real people.

Nice job dehumanizing anyone who doesn't benefit from the current system. In other news, poor people just need to work harder!

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#524

Post by onetimeusename »

michaelmrose wrote: post #515
onetimeusename wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still is hypergamy. You are just stating that women have preferences. That is exactly what hypergamy means. That women have preferences that suit their own tastes. That is their prerogative. What is not true though is that this is entirely an economic problem. If it were entirely economic, then why did sexual activity decrease for men but not women? Is that because men gave up? Are men disproportionately likely…

It disproportionately effects men because it's much more acceptable for a lower status women who is at least somewhat physically attractive to set up shop in a higher status man's life than vice versa. Furthermore men value youth far more than women do so a only moderately physically gifted 20 year old might be valued over her counterpart a dozen years older and twice as well off herself. Young poor females are in a…

No, for the record I didn't use any judgement.

I also didn't say that men didn't have preferences either.

I don't think there is any disagreement so the word 'hypergamy' shouldn't be a dirty word.

However, I think the people expressing concern about female hypergamy are saying the same thing you are but that for men they might have broader taste and for women more narrow and that may lead to situations where vast swaths of men are un-dateable. I don't have any opinion on that scenario. I don't know much about it.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#525

Post by Nav_Panel »

throwaway_98554 wrote: post #520
Nav_Panel wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hypothetically, a societal identity which does not ensure biological reproduction could be evolutionarily outcompeted by one that does Ah, this is pretty close to the same claim that "JayMan" made once when explaining to me how "gay people shouldn't exist, evolutionarily speaking" (because, of course, the gays would be outcompeted genetically by non-gays, and the identity wouldn't persist, right?) Let me tie it int…

I think you missed the point the parent comment was making. Obviously "finance guy" would not only breed other "finance guys". However if the society consumes a majority of its productive members without insuring their reproduction, then they'll be selected against. > Ah, this is pretty close to the same claim that "JayMan" made once when explaining to me how "gay people shouldn't exist, evolutionarily speaking" (bec…

> if the society consumes a majority of its productive members without insuring their reproduction, then they'll be selected against.

This assumes both that productivity is heritable and that the nature of productivity is fixed. The former seems contingently true (assuming the latter), but the latter seems false, as the forms of work considered "productive" tend to shift over time.

The other Problem is the implicit assumption that "[economic] productivity is good", which is an entirely different class of argument than above.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#526

Post by mellosouls »

usaar333 wrote: post #348
codingslave wrote: post #50

This is a widespread societal change that I think most people are completely unaware of. The majority of women are sleeping with the top 10% of men, sometimes only the top 3-5%, with the rest barely getting any at all. the sexual revolution was never about free love or sexual freedom, it was about womens rights to sleep with the few men they are all attracted to. The lower 80% of men instead saw their sexual freedom…

> This is a widespread societal change that I think most people are completely unaware of. The majority of women are sleeping with the top 10% of men, sometimes only the top 3-5%, with the rest barely getting any at a People aren't aware of it because that's not true (at least not to that extent). Here's the raw data: https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jaman... See tables 1, 5, 9, and 10. I'm not…

People aren't aware of it because that's not true

It's absolutely true in the context of the report in the OP.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#527

Post by tangjurine »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #78
winrid wrote: post #8

Probably because you can now play counterstrike in the browser. :)

I’ll bet the causation is more like the inverse. (This is the best construction I could come up with. Native English speakers enlighten me please.)

I'd just say: more like the inverse.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#528

Post by roosterdawn »

Nav_Panel wrote: post #452
roosterdawn wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our culture has shifted further toward valuing the individual over the group Further from where? For better or worse, America has always been a deeply individualist country. Is it maybe the case that now the less savory consequences of that are more visible than ever before?

There's plenty of historical documentation from pretty much any point in American history that supports the following claim: many Americans once took their local communities much more seriously than they do now. Even the "IQ Shredder" concept you linked in the other branch is evidence for this, that people uproot themselves and head into the cities, where they become lonely and fail to meet a partner and have childre…

Certainly, wealth inequality is on the rise, and I think you accurately sum up some of the forces that draw folks towards the city. Cities are places of deterritorialization -- not for nothing, it seems like every city has disdain for gentrifiers, the bridge and tunnel crew, and of course the dreaded transplant. All of these of course contribute to atomization, and the IQ shredder concept seems to account for how the thing they needed that draws them in removes their ability to have the other thing they need later on.

I suppose where I want to see evidence (and it's not because I don't intuitively believe it -- it does seem to make sense to me) is considering the idea that "many Americans once took their local communities much more seriously than they do now." I don't doubt that such a thing is the case, but it's important to remember that historically, America was the country you went to in order to homestead, to be a pioneer, to discover the frontier. It's true that some degree of community was a part of this, but so too was the idea of exploring the unknown. The mechanisms of immigration, frontier settling, and of course genocide were part and parcel of American existence up until settling was complete, "coast to coast".

What I'm getting at is that maybe the individualism that the environment self selected for during much of America's early growth set in place some momentum that continues going beyond when it generally creates only positive exponentiation. Now, as America has continued to grow up over the past century, it begins to grapple with how to conduct a society inside a universe which is not expanding for everyone the same way it used to. Is the lack of community potentially a second order effect which is downstream from this? And does that combine with the almost sousveillance state level visibility everyone has into everyone else's life, vis a vis the only very recent ascent of the "reality show" as a dominant force of cultural production?

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#529

Post by Nav_Panel »

roosterdawn wrote: post #521
Nav_Panel wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hypothetically, a societal identity which does not ensure biological reproduction could be evolutionarily outcompeted by one that does Ah, this is pretty close to the same claim that "JayMan" made once when explaining to me how "gay people shouldn't exist, evolutionarily speaking" (because, of course, the gays would be outcompeted genetically by non-gays, and the identity wouldn't persist, right?) Let me tie it int…

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think your subtle distinction between the market and ecosystem is key here because they don't fully map 1 to 1. And you're correct that the market is downstream from the ecosystem itself. But with that said, I'm not sure that I agree with the spirit of your argument. > the gays would be outcompeted genetically by non-gays, and the identity wouldn't persist, right? I'm not sure that'…

> I'm not sure that's historically accurate

I mean, my point was that it's a relatively absurd argument based on a misunderstanding of evolution, as the sibling comment states.

> it's cultural rather than socioeconomic and caste based

Are castes and socioeconomics distinct from culture? (I'm working with Lévi-Strauss's definition of culture as the set of symbolic forms present across society)

> both the IQ shredder and Idiocracy argument perhaps only serve a useful function when referring to the lower and middle class, and fail to account for the upper class

If we consider it in this frame, it seems roughly equivalent to the "brain drain" idea that made the rounds a decade or so ago. Only difference being the ethical valence of the arguments.

> evidence of an apoptotic mechanism

Is this a valid metaphor? I'm unsure myself. I don't find myself agreeing with Spengler and co, but I also don't think I could muster a strong argument against it on demand.

Re: Young U.S. men having a lot less sex in the 21st century, study shows

#530

Post by mellosouls »

ikeyany wrote: post #133
codingslave wrote: post #50

This is a widespread societal change that I think most people are completely unaware of. The majority of women are sleeping with the top 10% of men, sometimes only the top 3-5%, with the rest barely getting any at all. the sexual revolution was never about free love or sexual freedom, it was about womens rights to sleep with the few men they are all attracted to. The lower 80% of men instead saw their sexual freedom…

The sexual revolution was about freedom and bodily autonomy: your existence is about more than being a sexual plaything. You can be a doctor, a professor, a factory worker, or a housewife. But the most important part is having the power to make that decision for yourself. > If I said the above out in the open I would lose my job Erm no, not quite. Maybe this part: > the sexual revolution was never about free love or…

>> If I said the above out in the open I would lose my job

>Erm no, not quite. Maybe this part:

>> the sexual revolution was never about free love or sexual freedom, it was about womens rights to sleep with the few men they are all attracted to

Although his phrasing is a little clumsy, it represents the truth of the report above. Within the singles market, a majority of young men are disenfranchised and alienated and lonely because a majority of women are chasing after a minority of men.

Why should he lose his job for stating an uncomfortable truth?

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