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On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

residentcontrarian.substack.com

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Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#631

Post by kingsuper20 »

tayo42 wrote: post #69
temp667 wrote: post #27

Is this too simplistic? Take care of yourself - health (mental and physical etc). Sex work should be legal if there is a "market failure" as the article argues. If someone doesn't want sex in a relationship and other person does - any way to negotiate something - ie, get on tinder for one person or whatever if the issue isn't so critical to break up over? Is porn a problem? ie, perception everyone getting lots of cra…

Kind of interesting, I really have no idea what peoples sex life is like on average. Idk how you can find out, no one wants to talk about it. So either porn or the rare few that do want to talk about it. But those few are going to be such outliers they're likely not average or just lieing

> or just lieing

Well, that's the thing. People either lie or (more likely) what they say and what they do are different. My guess is that any study you look at is only slightly tied to reality if it depends on interviews or questionnaires.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#632

Post by llampx »

piva00 wrote: post #416
schnevets wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am frequently surprised by the number of "dead bedrooms" I know about among friends, and I sincerely believe the problem is the western world's secretly coy perception of sex. There is a superficial surface level that is extremely wrong (for example, Successful people have sex, the most successful people have the hottest sex with the hottest partners; Sex isn't about planning it's about letting the desire overcome…

> I think this is a very Americanized perspective, though, so I would be especially interested in hearing perspectives from other cultures. I agree this is very Americanised, I can chime from two different perspectives and cultures: Brazil and Sweden. Brazil is... Very Americanised, I believe that the same issues the USA has with sex are present in Brazil, it's expressed in some different ways but the underlying issu…

Men on the other hand are generally taught by society that good sex is entirely their responsibility, and that if the woman does not get off, it is their fault.

This is one of the reasons why men are hesitant to talk about sex. It is easy to talk about it if you can say "No I didn't enjoy it and it isn't my fault." and less so if you have to introspect. Thoughts like, is my penis big enough? Am I not lasting long enough? Am I good-looking enough? and other thoughts come unbidden to the subconscious.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#633

Post by JohnBooty »

ngngngng wrote: post #500
phkahler wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But there is a way to improve supply: give dignity to prostitution. Better yet, guys need to learn to be the kind of man women want to fvck. They're not obligated and attraction is non-negotiable. Reality can be harsh. Guys need to treat themselves with dignity and put themselves together.

I think this is a good thought. My own religion gave me some direction for how to become to type of man women want, but it did leave something to be desired. And then upon searching for this sort of direction later in life while trying to improve my own relationships I stumbled upon the "red pill" communities. There's a lot of nuance to these communities as well. They tell men that you can become the type of man that…

    I think there's room for some down to earth, 
    responsible men to try and fill this space. 
    Right now the "teach young men how to be" 
    space is mostly filled with misogyny and 
    terrible pick up artists.
Goodness yes. The PUA and red pill communities have absolutely poisoned this space and, at least in America, it's impossible to see how a healthy alternative could even take root. I know that if one sprang up, my first reaction would be to lump it in with the toxic crap and never give it a second look.

It's a shame because there is absolutely a need for this.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#634

Post by betwixthewires »

krastanov wrote: post #302
toyg wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both you and parent are right, but you have to acknowledge that extremists and totalitarians do exist.

"you have to acknowledge that extremists and totalitarians do exist" is a cheap rhetorical device to sneak in "both sides are the same" fallacies. Yes, of course there are crazies in any political movement, demographic, subculture, or other group. Elevating these crazies to the first thing mentioned when discussing the actual substance of the beliefs of a group is silly at best, but more frequently it is simply a dis…

I think that it is just as important to talk about the extremes and the bad ideas as it is to talk about the good ones. We bring up the extremes because they're there, and they can be tempting, and so we should warn each other about them. Saying what you're saying usually (but not always) is an attempt to not address the usually perfectly reasonable point one is responding to without outright defending the extremes. Extreme ideas do need to be pointed out precisely to do what you want: prevent the reasonable discussion from becoming one between two extremes.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#635

Post by thelean12 »

watwut wrote: post #572
thelean12 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally agree with you. I guess I was looking at it a little differently. If I'm talking to an individual, the only thing that matters is what they can do to better themselves now. It's not productive, on an individual level, to say stuff like "if only society was better!" > I try and fail to get them to open up about their feelings about this or anything else. To be fair, opening up about my feelings to my family…

> Don't try to kiss/etc her without asking permission. Norms around when it's ok to flirt (almost never appropriate). All of these kinds of negative rules made interactions with women feel like a minefield to me Is the "don't kiss her without permission" really they difficult? And frankly the same with flirting. If these make women minefield, I don't see how to make it better without sacrificing women who fly want to…

You responded to the wrong person. I didn't write that.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#636

Post by rscho »

schnevets wrote: post #245
colanderman wrote: post #154

I feel a common issue with such "dead bedroom" discussions is the seeming lack of capacity of some parties (including some prominent toplevel comments here) to understand how deep a need for sex many people have. To think sex can be replaced with "strong friendships" is laughable to anyone who actually feels a strong desire for sex. The dead bedroom situations I've seen with my friends (M->F equally as well as F->M)…

I am frequently surprised by the number of "dead bedrooms" I know about among friends, and I sincerely believe the problem is the western world's secretly coy perception of sex. There is a superficial surface level that is extremely wrong (for example, Successful people have sex, the most successful people have the hottest sex with the hottest partners; Sex isn't about planning it's about letting the desire overcome…

I'll go on a limb assuming you don't have children yet.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#637

Post by medicineman »

rrradical wrote: post #596
everdrive wrote: post #190

>Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. This will be downvoted and poorly received, but the fact is that women despise weak men. If a man is in a poor state, most women will be visibly disgusted by him. A man generally should not expect sym…

I don't mean to be glib, but, are you saying women who are in a poor state are desirable? I don't think so... Is it bad that women don't find some men attractive, when those same men probably wouldn't find some women attractive? I apologize if that misconstrues your opinion, but I've heard it elsewhere before: that somehow women 'should' be more forgiving of unattractiveness than men are, and that's really weird to m…

With how much advice there is in dealing with BPD women, yeah, I would say they are desirable despite being in an extreme poor state.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#638

Post by KozmoNau7 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #226
torben-friis wrote: post #2

>I can choose to pity or hate him, but having chosen I can’t pretend the choice didn’t exist; it’s something I had to do. I've had to face similar situations in my family life, and this part really resonated with me. It's an extremely eloquent way of capturing something I've never been able to put into words. Thank you for that.

I'm really worried for my teenage son. Dating was brutal when I was doing it 20 years ago, and as far as I can tell, it's gotten so, so much worse since. Modern dating can't literally be "winner take all", but it sure looks like it's getting close.

The solution is to stop dating for dating's sake, and just get out there and socialize with people. At some point, you'll end up in conversation with someone really interesting and things can/will escalate from there.

Get out of the "dating scene" and just do stuff with people.

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#639

Post by [deleted] »

at_a_remove wrote: post #220
volkk wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP means that the top 20% of men are getting all of the attention in the dating market. it's a well known fact at this point. i think the numbers largely come from dating apps but they reflect real life pretty well (from my anecdotal experience)

OKCupid used to have a post of sort of barebones statistical analysis of what men considered "average" versus women's outlook. It was ... enlightening.

[deleted]

Re: On incels, dead bedrooms and the hard problems of loneliness

#640

Post by 1_person »

Loughla wrote: post #109
edgyquant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen this thrown around by Jordan Peterson and his fans but I’ve never met anyone, regardless of how crazy their ideology was, advocate for equality of outcomes outside of basic necessities. I’m convinced it’s a strawman.

I don't know why you're being down-voted, you're right. I haven't met anyone, even in the insanely left and progressive university circles that I run in, who advocate for equality in outcome. It's equality in opportunity that's important. It's about letting 'your freedom as an individual to choose your own destiny' actually be 'free' from the start and not constrained by social mores, ingrained biases or discriminati…

I have met many people in left and progressive circles who literally advocate for equality in outcomes and dismiss meritocracy as various internalized not-giving-them-what-they-wantisms.
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