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Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

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Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#81
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask yourself honestly: Do I really need sex/intimacy or is it just a bonus at best? Take a coin, label one side as never have sex, the other as have sex, flip it and observe your feelings once you see the result - did you feel relief or stress? Then you know "the direction of your heart". If you want to start meeting lots of women, buy a camera, spend a few months mastering the art of strobe photography to get at lea…

Thanks for trying to help. I'm not ugly or unfit and as I mentioned women are interested. Rather I have some other issue which is finding one I want that's also interested in me. I find plenty (well, 3-4 a year so maybe that's not plenty) that would be happy to date and are attractive. They just clearly (or at least in my head) are not a match. That includes at least one actual "model". I dress well as well. The issu…

From my experience you are chasing an illusion or a "rare event". It's unlikely you are going to find what you desire with the current generation of women, maybe you'd have had higher chance in previous ages. Now it's like with jobs - most likely the only choice you have is how much money you get and to what extent your boss is going to be terrible, but all jobs look the same (barring luck). So with girls you shouldn't expect deep meaningful conversations and working on something great together (unless it's political/economical power, including internal war once you reach interesting level); get buddies for that. Similarly, the same frustration is shared by women as they don't see much interesting going on with contemporary men, when it comes to their preferences, and neither side cares about compromises anymore. So either accept you will have at best an actress pretending she likes what you like and you'll be an actor simulating her preferred type, or focus on something else that seems meaningful to you. Romantic love is dead and buried (again, barring some rare exceptions).

Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#82

I am 32 and have not had sex in 7 years, however when my doctor asks if I am sexually active I lie and say yes because I am embarrassed. While I have no idea what the root cause of societal sexlessness is I find it easy to believe that a self reported survey would not reflect actual numbers.

does it bother you, outside of feeling 'abnormal'? Honest question.

Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#83

As a animal why would I need to goto the effort of pleasing the opposite sex if I get all the gratification for free with porn and without the stresses and hassle, of an expensive marriage and nagging?

You don't get "all the gratification". Since you are focused on the purely physical aspect, I'll talk about that first - it's not an equivalent orgasm, scientifically speaking. Studies have shown that the quality of orgasm is around 3-4 times better with a partner, as measured through hormone levels post-orgasm. I forget exactly which hormones, though I believe they measured at least dopamine and prolactin. Possibly testosterone or something else as well, though I'm not going to search about orgasm hormones at work to find the study, haha. If memory serves, your dopamine (the thing that makes you horny) plummets and your prolactin skyrockets, giving you that post-coital sense of bliss. And the amount dopamine/prolactin fall/rise, are 3-4 times the amount than when it's just you and your favorite hand.

And that's not to mention the mental or emotional aspects at all. Nor anything about a relationship (if the sex was with a longer term partner).

Porn is about fantasy and serving a short term need/desire. And it's a form of entertainment, fantasy entertainment. No one expects real sex to be like porn, just as no one expects action spy movies like Bourne to be like how intelligence agencies operate. That doesn't mean that regular/real life isn't worth living or doesn't offer something of value that isn't covered by the other thing.

Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#84

I don't understand why parents would let their adult children live with them for years on end. My parents made it very clear that after the age of 18, my brother and I had to make it by ourselves. Like, they'd love it if we visited, but not living with them, and I can't understand why any one would want to live with their parents. Isn't 18 years of imprisonment bad enough?

In Italy it's fairly common to live with parents until you find a partner. Housing prices are really high, income is low and having an housemate without romantic engagement is not a common practice, unless you're studying in another city. IE, I'm almost 30 and I've been living alone for 2 years only because I found a decent medium-pay stable job 3.5 years ago, and the apartment I live in is rented by a friend who ask…

The original article is mainly about US and Canada, where it's much less typical, and -- in my opinion, at least -- a huge turn off.

I imagine different cultures are different, and things that are unattractive in America are attractive elsewhere, and vice versa.

Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#85

I don't understand why parents would let their adult children live with them for years on end. My parents made it very clear that after the age of 18, my brother and I had to make it by ourselves. Like, they'd love it if we visited, but not living with them, and I can't understand why any one would want to live with their parents. Isn't 18 years of imprisonment bad enough?

Some people really like their parents, and their parents are lonely without them around?

Live next door?

Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy it's fairly common to live with parents until you find a partner. Housing prices are really high, income is low and having an housemate without romantic engagement is not a common practice, unless you're studying in another city. IE, I'm almost 30 and I've been living alone for 2 years only because I found a decent medium-pay stable job 3.5 years ago, and the apartment I live in is rented by a friend who ask…

The original article is mainly about US and Canada, where it's much less typical, and -- in my opinion, at least -- a huge turn off. I imagine different cultures are different, and things that are unattractive in America are attractive elsewhere, and vice versa.

> The original article is mainly about US and Canada, where it's much less typical

That's extremely variable over time, and it's been very much in the rise in recent decades, IIRC.

Of course, it may be a matter where cultural attitudes toward behavior are much stickier than actual behavior.

Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people really like their parents, and their parents are lonely without them around?

Live next door?

Does that scale? In a neighborhood of 2, offspring of family A would be living with family B and offspring of family B would be living with family A. The only way that this could be avoided is if all families lived next door to an empty house.

Is living with someone else's parents more acceptable?

Re: Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't you making a hundred-thousand-dollar-plus child-rearing bet that they'll feel guilty enough to care for you? This is not how the things work. > Why not just spend that money on a paid caretaker? Lets imagine that single generation just stops having children. Where exactly does this caretaker come from? Now imagine that just half does so. What will happen to the economic output and therefore with the accumula…

> This is not how the things work. Of course that’s how things work! You really think that having a kid is a guarantee that kid’ll take care of you as you die? I watched my parents care for their dying parents and that’s just not something I’m interested in. I live 2000 miles away and told them to sort their own plans out when the time comes.

I am sorry.

I did not mean that children should personally take care of me. Rather they will provide to the economy and this will keep the system running. If everybody is busy dying then not much is left for other activities.

What I mean by sustainable society is that it can keep its populace in constant size on its own.

India is not sustainable, Arab countries are not sustainable. But so are also not most European countries because they need heavy immigration to maintain the population size.

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