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Sex is going out of fashion?

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Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#571

Post by cortesoft »

weatherlite wrote: post #421
wonderwonder wrote: post #395

Wonder if this is related to the lack of personal relationships in general, especially friendships. There is an epidemic of loneliness in the world. So many ways to communicate and all we can do is post memes and upvote influencers. I am happily married but have zero friends. I met my wife through my friend group in college. If I heaven forbid got a divorce tomorrow, not sure where I would meet someone new. Guess I w…

> I am happily married but have zero friends Are you sure this is entirely the modern lifestyle's fault? When I look deeply into my past I realize I messed up high school and college a bit socially (for various reasons) and that's the time most people acquire their best friends. I have 1-2 good friends but I'm pretty sure it's on me its not more than that. Perhaps you went through something similar? The real annoying…

I don’t know… I had really, really good friends in high school and college… but then after I graduated, we all just drifted apart. We moved to different places, got married, had kids… the things that brought us together during college weren’t there anymore.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#572

Post by [deleted] »

prmoustache wrote: post #323
nnoitra wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunately a lot sadder than that. You'd be suprised at the amount of males that want to have sex but just can't get any. There is a serious case of looks inflation nowadays with Tinder etc.

Well you can't really get laid if you spend day and night playing video games and binge watching series. Every time I broke up I was mildly welcoming some time for myself but never managed to be single more than a handful of weeks. And I don't consider myself particularly more attractive/interesting than everybody out there.

[deleted]

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#573

Post by corrral »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #569
wonderwonder wrote: post #395

Wonder if this is related to the lack of personal relationships in general, especially friendships. There is an epidemic of loneliness in the world. So many ways to communicate and all we can do is post memes and upvote influencers. I am happily married but have zero friends. I met my wife through my friend group in college. If I heaven forbid got a divorce tomorrow, not sure where I would meet someone new. Guess I w…

I have schizotypal personality disorder, so I love solitude 90% of the time, but even I'm starting to miss having friends. I watch shows like Derry Girls or Detectorists and I'm thinking damn I know my childhood and teenage friends were just "friendships of convenience", but I miss being part of a group or posse with "no holds barred" friendships. The relationships with colleagues at work aren't the same... always se…

> I guess it's because the friendship going badly will have a detrimental impact at work and you have to interact with these people every day whether you want to or not.

The book Impro characterizes friendship as a relationship in which one can freely and safely play "status games" without any actual stakes or chance of status-shifts. If that's true, then it's definitely more challenging to have a "real" friendship with a co-worker.

[EDIT]

> EDIT: after thinking on it a little bit, I can't remember my parents nor friend's parents having friendships either. That makes me second-guess the technological influences on loneliness. I'm sure technology is making it worse, but I don't think we can point at it and say "this is the cause" because the loneliness epidemic seems to have started even before my generation.

Bowling Alone[1] was published in 2000 and is an expansion of a 1995 essay, which makes it about 27 years old now. It was not observing a new trend, but one that had been going on for decades, when it was published.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#574

Post by eropple »

csee wrote: post #480
eropple wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, from where I stand what you are defining as the problems of "lower ranked men" are symptoms of living in a late-capitalist society problems. It's not the app's fault that people respond to incentives; the way out, if "out" is to be defined as to find people who want to interact with you, to "not settle" or whatever, is to improve oneself. It can both suck and be the only option. Fortunately, it's a lot easie…

That is the only way out on a local, personal level, since that's all we have much control over. But how is it not the app's fault? When Twitter and Facebook create social dynamics that encourage outrage and division, I blame them (or at least I blame the incentives and systems that cause them to do this). Ditto for the impact that these dating apps are having.

> But how is it not the app's fault?

How is it? Like, okay, what's the alternative? I genuinely don't understand the criticism beyond "well, self-described low-status men are getting passed over because people have options." Should they not be getting passed over? Should people be taking one for the team for these self-described low-status men and dating them despite themselves? There have always been lonely people, and some so for good reasons and some for not. I am not sure that there's a way to substantiate that there are proportionally more of the latter group now or that dating apps etc. are accentuating it for this population.

These apps do suck, don't get me wrong--they're gacha games, and they're structured like it--but the mode of criticism matters. As near as I can tell, the It's A Wonderful Life of this is "nothing", not "something theoretically better for self-described low-status men". It's not like people would be going to church to meet and then obligatorily marry Goody Marshall's cousin's son were it not for Tinder.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#575

Post by rowanG077 »

heretogetout wrote: post #568
rowanG077 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From time to time is very different from being a hate movement. In any large group of people weird stuff pops up from time to time. I think you can only classify something as a hate movement if the hate is inherent to the large majority that make up the group, which didn't used to be the case for MGTOW.

Given you say you didn't see the misogynistic content I'm not sure you spent much time looking in to what was going on in the subreddit -- you may have missed how hateful its members were, especially in the latter years.

Like I said I didn't check the site for years so I didn't know it evolved into a hate group. The only thing I'm saying that at the very least they didn't used to be like that.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#576

Post by eropple »

brewdad wrote: post #501
eropple wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, from where I stand what you are defining as the problems of "lower ranked men" are symptoms of living in a late-capitalist society problems. It's not the app's fault that people respond to incentives; the way out, if "out" is to be defined as to find people who want to interact with you, to "not settle" or whatever, is to improve oneself. It can both suck and be the only option. Fortunately, it's a lot easie…

You can be the most interesting person in the world but that's cold comfort in a world of dating apps if you aren't physically "attractive".

I don't think that that's true. I'm not particularly attractive. I'm not tall. I'm not fit. And yet I do all right. I do have a great dog, but I don't think that makes up for it. But I do think that people can detect a shitty vibe pretty quickly even through a couple photos and a bio, and Not Being That is a significant step up.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#577

Post by [deleted] »

rowanG077 wrote: post #563
eropple wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most right-wing movements of which I am aware would definitely like to be seen as apolitical (and thus reduce the critical eye aimed at them). But the line you can draw from there (and similarly from "apolitical" rage-movements like GamerGate) to the current state of things is a straight one.

Conversely it's very easy for people to label any group they don't like as a hate group to try and sway public opinion to discount them.

[deleted]

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#578

Post by eropple »

rowanG077 wrote: post #575
heretogetout wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given you say you didn't see the misogynistic content I'm not sure you spent much time looking in to what was going on in the subreddit -- you may have missed how hateful its members were, especially in the latter years.

Like I said I didn't check the site for years so I didn't know it evolved into a hate group. The only thing I'm saying that at the very least they didn't used to be like that.

It was that from day one. These groups notoriously prey on those with low social and rhetorical literacy by pretending to be anodyne until they are not. That you did not see the okeydoke does not mean it was not there.

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#579

Post by orangepurple »

haunter wrote: post #524
huijzer wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get of these apps. I think many men who use apps, do so because they are too afraid to approach a woman they find attractive if the situation is appropriate. Yes. I couldn't agree more. Spent 2-3 frustrating years on Tinder without much success. At the start of the pandemic, I was done with being alone in my apartment and decided to try to approach women on the street. My takeaways: 1. Heart rate goes over 130 (acc…

>decided to try to approach women on the street Yeah no. Creepiest advice in the whole thread. idk where you live but this is the easiest way to get cop called on.

And if the cops show up then what? I couldn't get them to show up for a blatant hit and run in Texas or assault in Washington D.C. If you are lucky enough for a cop to show up do you think a man will stick around waiting for them to show up? Do you think cops will pursue in these instances? Have you ever called the police? Do you know what the response time is for the type of report you are filing? Even in the most wealthy countries in the world the police won't take you seriously if you tell them "this man is talking to me, creeping me out, and scaring me"

Re: Sex is going out of fashion?

#580

Post by blindmute »

whynotminot wrote: post #546
corrral wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or worse, a passive, submissive person expecting men to just push their way through any resistance and keep trying, when men are actively taught to respect a woman's boundaries. Not to go into too much detail, but I've had to seriously recalibrate my "respect women" upbringing to make my wife happy. And I'm not even talking sub/dom stuff or outright rape-fantasy things like I've heard tell of from my (somewhat shel…

I have to admit this part is hard for me to process. I know on an intellectual level that real life and fantasy are different things. But it's really hard to hear all day long from every source how terrible men are, and how we need to be gentler creatures. And then a shocking percentage of women actually do seem to want you to be that animal they decry as soon as you get into the bedroom.

You are unfortunately a victim of propaganda; many men today are. Women did not magically in the last 50 years override all biological instinct and traditional desires that they have had for millennia, even though media would like you to believe otherwise
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