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Comment by throwaway77767 | Hacker News Reader

> This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation before them. Maybe we’re too anxious about the Apocalypse; maybe we’re too broke to go out; maybe having to live with roommates or our parents makes it a little awkward to bring a partner home; maybe there are chemicals in the environment screwing up our hormones; maybe we don’t know how to navigate human sexuality outside of rape culture; maybe being raised on the message that our bodies are a nation-ending menace has dampened our enthusiasm for physical pleasure.

This stresses me out as a young and not sexually active millennial. What do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Do we want to? What do I do as an individual to change my individual situation?

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The youngest millennials are around 25 years old.

Changing your "not sexually active" situation will take putting yourself out there a lot, lowering your standards (you can raise them later), being open to meeting all sorts and getting rejected a lot. You'll certainly gain entertaining stories, and you'll probably meet some new friends, possibly one or more lovers and one of them may become a romantic partner if that's what you're after. Please be good to the people you meet while you're doing this. And along the way you'll develop a tolerance to rejection, which is a somewhere between life hack and superpower.

All that that may be overwhelming though. The block you quoted is riddled with social anxieties. See if that's hold you back, and if so then get a professional to help you out.

Side note, now is a good time to prepare for this change, because the pandemic has put everyone into extended isolation all at once. So there's a lot of pent up desire for connection that will be getting released over the next year.

I'm rooting for you, fellow throwaway!

I'm not OP but I'm not sexually active either and share the same worries and am probably a few years older than him.

Thanks for sharing those videos, even though I was able to make that physique/style/life control transformation several times (get fit -> fall into a hole -> get fit again, rinse and repeat) during my 20s, this pandemic made me fall into a rut and I'm heavily struggling to stay on the right track that makes me climb up again. These videos are were another spark of motivation to try again.

As for the "not sexually active" situation, I've noticed the feeling of frustration has become more intense and had made me more sad about it lately. As an introvert, the co-workers social circle is usually one of the main ones, but unfortunately I'm working alone because it has many more pros (own schedule -> go to gym when it's deserted, beat traffic, do errands at times where there are less waiting times, etc). Old college friends are starting to get married and be more busy, so I've been seeing them less, so less opportunity to be introduced to new people. I've tried salsa classes before the pandemic but didn't workout for that matter (couples that are very private, people that leave once the class ends, tight groups of friends). I've also tried the Tinder way, and the closest I've ended with a woman from it, she ended up losing interest when the pandemic started. Now I'm seeing someone from Tinder, and even though it will probably stay at friendship I'm taking it.

I've been seeing a therapist since a couple years ago after I had my first panic attack, since then I've been using therapy for all my issues. However, even though I've been open about my sexual frustrations, I feel like my therapist ignores it and simply tries to work on my social aspect in general. My therapist is female and I wonder if having a male therapist it would be different, I've been wanting to try but I already invested many sessions with my current therapist.

We all have to be extra kind to ourselves (and to each other) during the pandemic. It's an exceptionally unusual, transient time. Still, it is a long time to be socially distanced in various ways from coworkers, lovers, friends, etc.

Things will get better soon.

And yes, I'd imagine that a more similarly gendered and oriented therapist would find it easier to relate to your concerns. But maybe just being direct with your current therapist would help. There may be a good reason she's redirecting you to more general social aspects, or maybe she's not trained to deal with male sexuality.

Yes. Tell her directly, "I feel like you ignored my concerns about my sexual life," and see what she says. Beating around the bush in therapy (and in most of your important adult relationships) is almost always a waste of time.

> I've been seeing a therapist since a couple years ago after I had my first panic attack, since then I've been using therapy for all my issues. However, even though I've been open about my sexual frustrations, I feel like my therapist ignores it and simply tries to work on my social aspect in general. My therapist is female and I wonder if having a male therapist it would be different, I've been wanting to try but I already invested many sessions with my current therapist.

Get a new therapist. At the very least try a few sessions with someone else. Yes, try a male therapist. Your rationalization of "already invested many sessions" is that of the sunk cost fallacy. You should be so confident that you're not wasting your time in therapy that you'd never think to ask internet strangers if you should switch. The worst that could happen is you waste a few hours trying out a new therapist or two. The best that could happen is that you actually find someone who isn't dismissive of a concern that's clearly animating you, about a very important part of human existence.

Do change your therapist, women find it very hard to see how frustrating lack of a sex life can be unless they themselves have been in a similar situation and most haven't. When I've complained about lack of sex to female friends, they've often said what's stopping you from installing Tinder, they are really oblivious to how different the experience can be for men and women there. If she's dismissing it, its unlikely to improves. Moreover, personally, one can be really good at social stuff but completely not make headway in sexual stuff, and then you've lost a year and are nowhere near where you would like to be.

Personally I use escorts, it is not easy finding an independent, good looking, permissive, not-very-expensive girl but by my calculations that's a far more efficient way of satisfying my inner-chimp until I want to get married and have kids.

I do not want to participate in some mating ritual that involves two persons lying to each other in order to just relieve some sexual tension. In Romania I do not feel that generally girls are ok with no strings attached sex without this dishonest dance and even so, I couldn't probably get as attractive a girl as an escort. Maybe I could by investing a lot more time than I'm comfortable with just to satisfy a basic urge... but for 100$ I can have sex with girls of the same level of say Emma Stone that really know what they're doing.

So if I make even 25$/h that's 4h of work for 1 sex session, which will take place entirely when I feel the desire for it. To find a similar (looking) girl that will have sex "for free" will probably take more than 10x more time and even then the actual sex might not be as good. Even if it is as good it will happen when the stars align and we both want it at the same time.

I appreciate your honesty. For the last several years I have supported a charity that helps women to escape this cycle of oppression in Romania. I've heard some of their stories, how difficult life is after they've found a way out. All I can say is that victims abound despite appearances.

Thank you. I believe I have enough experience to tell if a girl is enjoying her time with me or not and go out of my way to make her feel good (I perform oral and am generally not defensive). When I say I look for 'permissive' girls I mean I look for girls that permit kissing and "sports fucking". I don't choke / slap / hair pull or whatever. If a girl gives signs that she doesn't enjoy sports-fucking I don't persist, finish quickly and simply never visit her again.

I have heard my share of sad stories from them and I don't revisit those. Regardless of my participation or not in this trade I know the trade will go on, there will always be men who seek this kind of service so I appease my conscience by treating the girls well and not revisiting those that don't seem to genuinely enjoy my company.

I simply can not believe one can act so well in front of me and on the side be forced to do this. I mean moaning is simple to fake but the 30 min of conversation of the 1h I pay for? Keeping a cheerful vibe while opressed is hard to do.

> Keeping a cheerful vibe while oppressed is hard to do.

Millions of retail workers would disagree. And acting isn't even the oldest profession.

There is no need for acting, a girl would have lots of visitors and make similar amounts of money even if she wasn't cheerful, probably make more if she's the fast-fuck type.

You underestimate how horny some men are. One girl was telling me how it was 15 years ago.. men would line up in front of the apt building, go in, get a blowjob and a quick fuck for like 20min door-to-door, pay 25$ and leave. I don't know if she in particular didn't perform "girlfriend experience" type work or that's how they mostly were but trust me, there are more men who don't care about how happy the girl is and don't give a crap about her being cheerful or not.

I'm not suggesting you are doing anything morally wrong, but keep in mind that they may be faced with a situation where not only are they being pressured into this by specific people but there simply aren't good alternatives for them to make decent money.

Men tend to make more money than women. If a woman has a child or children to care for, sex work or exotic dancing etc al may be her only really viable option.

I will add that like with any industry, insiders will know some tricks and may have been coached on how to handle certain things. In the book Mayflower Madame, the escorts were explicitly told to act excited if a guy splurged at dinner and bought an entire bottle of champagne and not act like this was an everyday occurrence for them even though it might be the second or third time that day.

There's a world of difference between the girls I'm talking about and the escorts who get booked for whole-night affairs and go to dinner with clients.

Honestly I don't even know if there are any escorts like that in Romania. The few people that could afford them are relatively well known and going to dinner in an expensive restaurant would be seen by basically everybody which I assume is not desired by men of high status. They might book them at the hotel though and honestly for 1000$ a night or more I assume it is easy to act.

However I pay 70$-100$, you think a girl would care enough to act for such little money? Even though it's Romania, most people that make money easily learn to not give a crap about money and are not generally motivated by money.

Edit: also, I never tip, I only pay the advertised price.

I appear to be the highest ranked woman on Hacker News. I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent any time on the leader board here (under a different handle).

A number of people on the leader board are millionaires. I have reason to believe their participation on HN is part of what makes them wealthy.

I was homeless for nearly six years and remain dirt poor and continue to get a lot of guff any time I try to talk about that, no matter the reason and no matter the framing.

I have six years of college. Etc.

While I was homeless, men sometimes offered me cash to sleep with them based solely on my looks and obvious poverty. But trying to network with business professionals on a platform that literally helps a lot of people become quite wealthy has done relatively little for my bottom line and I have been repeatedly told "Go get a real job" and this kind of crap.

You said you are paying four times your hourly wage and I imagine that $25/hour is fairly good money for Romania. It would be decent pay in the US where people are trying to advocate for a minimum wage of $15/hour.

I don't know what her cut is out of what you pay and I don't know how much of her time you are getting, but for a lot of women, that would be vastly better pay than they have any hope of making any other way and they will put up with it simply because the alternatives amount to starving to death and may be just as objectionable as sex work.

Lots of low paying jobs are unpleasant work, like cleaning toilets. Lots of low paying jobs subject you to abusive bosses and abusive customers. It's common knowledge that wait staff at restaurants are typically treated terribly.

Thank you for your honesty.

> While I was homeless, men sometimes offered me cash to sleep with them based solely on my looks and obvious poverty.

The way I find girls is through a community forum which practices reviews. I very rarely visit a "new" girl which doesn't have good reviews from reputable members so while I am sorry to hear your experience, I have never offered money to a girl for sex out of the blue or because I felt she was vulnerable. I've only ever been to girls that explicitly advertise such services.

> Lots of low paying jobs are unpleasant work, like cleaning toilets. Lots of low paying jobs subject you to abusive bosses and abusive customers. It's common knowledge that wait staff at restaurants are typically treated terribly.

You assume I am going to girls that are generally treated terribly, have a pimp that takes all their money and are happy to act cheerful for 100$ per hour having sex with 20+ different men per week.

There's no need for her to act, there's plenty of demand for warm bodies without any need for good social skills. And I believe generally those girls that don't offer good GFE are probably forced into it. That would probably even be the majority of the market. I don't know, I haven't done any field research on this but I assume I only visit like 1-2% of girls and am very rarely dissapointed with a new girl because it's hard to fake honest signals.

However it is not hard to make a decent living as an independent girl. The good ones generally work from 10am to 22pm at most. They take good care of themselves, screen clients and build up private lists where they won't even take new clients. If she just wants to live a basic good life she could take 5 regular clients 2-3 times per month and make 1000-2000$ easily working at most 20h per month. That money could well pay for eating only takeout and have a very nice appartment in Bucharest.

My very first words in my first comment were: I'm not suggesting you are doing anything morally wrong

I'm not making any of the assumptions you accuse me of. I'm just trying to say that the world of work and opportunities available to women are different than for men, so their logic for why they make certain choices may not be what a man would expect based on how he thinks about his choices in relation to how to earn a living.

I'm medically handicapped and for that reason I have been celibate for nearly 16 years. If I thought I could successfully become a sex worker or exotic dancer and make good money for a while to pay off my debts and pay cash for a house, I would likely do that. I have no moral objection to sex work and I've thought a great deal about it and a lot of marriages are thinly veiled sex-for-money deals, in essence.

I would rather get paid by the hour for sex than be some man's property pretending we "love" each other when we don't. I'm crystal clear on that detail.

I'm sorry if you feel uncomfortable with the idea that maybe some of these women don't really want to be doing this kind of work and feel like it's a big moral issue if they don't. But the simple reality is that, say, in Hollywood, women need to look good and be sexy to become successful. In contrast, men are deemed to be sexually attractive because they are successful.

When push comes to shove, women are expected to use their sexuality to some degree to open doors career-wise in a way men are generally not expected to do. This is rampant across multiple industries and it's something people mostly don't want to talk about and it's part of why you see so much sexual harassment of women on the job, etc.

I haven't caved to the pressure to go that route because I have a bigger personal demon looming over me that does such terrible things to a person it is classified as a dread disease.

But trying to get into that probably isn't clarifying anything. It's probably just opening up a giant can of worms pointlessly.

I think I will stop here, whether it served to clarify anything or not. Sometimes the least worst action is just "stop digging your grave deeper."

You have a good day.

I won't comment on the personal stuff because I've stopped trying to save everyone. For the record I rolled on random.org with a 20% chance saying I should offer to personally help you and you got 57.

> When push comes to shove, women are expected to use their sexuality to some degree to open doors career-wise in a way men are generally not expected to do

Men are generally not epected to use their sexuality because it doesn't work. If it worked I'm sure some % of men would use it. Proof : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26165800

I don't believe women are expected to use their sexuality. Women just have that tool available to them and some will choose to use it. Some men will only hire or promote those kinds of women and honestly I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, we could debate this for hours.

If it worked I'm sure some % of men would use it. Proof : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26165800

I absolutely agree that if they could, there are men who would.

I don't agree that women are not expected to use their sexuality. I'm not interested in debating it.

I've stated my opinion. Some folks here will recognize my handle and have some idea of who I am and yadda and others won't. It is inevitable that different people will perceive my opinions differently depending on how much and what they know about me (and no doubt other factors as well).

You have a good day.

> I rolled on random.org with a 20% chance saying I should offer to personally help you and you got 57.

Funniest thing I’ve read today. Is that a normal thing you do? Just online or for the panhandler at the corner via mobile? How do you determine the saving throw? So many Q’s..

Seems like an incredibly disturbing characteristic to me. Especially if they tell the person every time they “didn’t make the cut”

For a while, whenever I felt tempted to goof off a little, I'd look at my phone. It if was an even number, I followed my desire, if [the last digit of the clock] was an odd number I carried on with what I was doing. Figured it would cut procrastination in half. I think it did.

I think many people could benefit by reading “Revolting Prostitutes” by Juno Mac and Molly Smith. I covers how sex worker’s rights are related to worker’s rights in general.

> I believe I have enough experience to tell if a girl is enjoying her time with me

Do consider that it is in the service provider’s interest to make you think this. When you are paying money for experience, you can’t use how the experience makes you feel to evaluate how the employees feel about it.

> If a girl gives signs that she doesn't enjoy [it, I] never visit her again.

Can’t you see how in this situation it would be in the sex worker’s interest to give signs she enjoys your thing? If she does not, she looses a customer.

I’m not saying that prostitution is wrong or that some sex workers don’t enjoy they job. It just might be the only realistic option for someone.

Some things that a country could do so that people have the option to not be a prostitute:

* food and housing for people who need it

* equal pay and career opportunity for men and women

* drug treatment programs that don’t put people in jail for addiction

See “Revolting Prostitutes” for more details

I have no problem with a girl acting that she likes me in order to get my money. If she truly is that good of an actor then props to her. I only have a problem if she is forced into this profession by someone and my personal belief is that one can not be a perfect actor while being forced and abused by someone.

> Can’t you see how in this situation it would be in the sex worker’s interest to give signs she enjoys your thing? If she does not, she looses a customer.

You are speaking from theory and books. I speak from experience, I have been to a lot of girls that will tell you right quick that you are going too hard, won't like any position you want and are generally openly obnoxious to you so that you will leave as fast as possible. Usually you will find these after 23pm with low prices. I could write a small book on all types of sex workers I've encountered and very few of them are actually pleasant to be around. Now is that because they select their own customers just as the customers select them or because they're acting we will never know.

> It just might be the only realistic option for someone.

You are victimizing them because you haven't met them. I have yet to find a girl that is actually grateful as you would expect someone to be when they earn in 30 min what others work a whole day for. They could find a corporate job that easily pays 600-700 euros, live with a roommate and cook their own food like most other girls in Bucharest or have sex for 2h per day and make 4 times that. 99% of them, even the ones I carefully select are arrogant and spend money like there's no tomorrow living an expensive lifestyle. Can't really blame them because I am basically doing the same thing but to suggest these are hidden victims is really showing your lack of inexperience.

I'm not saying there aren't victims of abuse, what I'm saying is that it is hard to hide such abuse.

Not trying to insult but genuinely curious: how do you derive any kind of satisfaction (mental I guess) from this interaction? Don't you feel disgusted with yourself once it's over with? Why is just jacking off not a better option than this?

Why would I pay money to make myself feel disgusted? I am not a masochist. I derive great pleasure and satisfaction from this. My stress levels are kept well below my friends who are desperate to find girls and have sex but are disgusted by sex workers. I have much lower anxiety around women in general too and I am able to communicate with them normally without the overwhelming need for sex.

I just believe that mouthwash and soap works. Been doing this for 5-6 years now and it only gets better as I get better at treating them better, being more relaxed which makes them more relaxed etc.

> Why is just jacking off not a better option than this?

Why are you watching videos in 720p+ instead of using magazines? It's just a higher resolution experience.

Hey I'm glad to see another fellow HNer with a similar mindset - I've actually had those same calculations as you and made similar choices. In fact I travel quite a bit and have basically tried escorts in at least 30+ countries (including Romania).

I see a problem developing though where having so easily "hooked-up" with good looking women for money anywhere I am, even if I do get married at some point, I fear my urge to try someone new (and hence cheat on my partner) will be pretty strong after a while just because it's so easy and convenient to do so. I don't have a solution for this and this is also the reason I'm not able to get myself to commit to a serious relationship.

Not sure if you've thought of this or experienced this issue.

> I fear my urge to try someone new (and hence cheat on my partner) will be pretty strong

I am the kind of person that will stick with anything if I love it. Even with escorts if I find one that I really like and she really stands out I will go see her exclusively until things change. I won't feel the need for variety just for the sake of it but I know not everyone feels this way.

I haven't tried this but there are people out there that build "harems" while being honest about it. If you truly can't live without variety and are confident in yourself you will find a girl that wants an open relationship or maybe you can find someone bisexual that can enjoy variety with you.

How do you prevent catching nasty STD's while trying out so many escorts? Like a lot of the infections like herpes, gonorrhea, Chlamydia and even herpes are spread through kissing and oral sex, so even condoms don't always save you. And a lot of these infections can be asymptomatic so a quick look at the girl also doesn't help. Have always wondered how people who follow lifestyle like you deal with this.

People can get sick after eating wrong food, due to chemical or bacterial contamination. Where do you think this is more likely to happen: in a restaurant with professional staff that feeds 100 people every day, or on a picnic without professional catering?

I think escorts are safer than casual sex, their job is at stake.

The analogy doesn't make sense cause people aren't served the same food. Whereas a prostitute is reusing her body. I agree sex workers are more likely to take precautions but alas just because of having multiple sex partners they are more likely to suffer from various STIs. As I said earlier wearing a condom doesn't save you from a variety of infections. So just having sex with multiple partners increases your risk of infections. A study from England that looked into it:

> FSWs were almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with chlamydia, and three times more likely to be diagnosed with gonorrhoea than other female attendees, adjusting for demographic factors.

https://sti.bmj.com/content/90/4/344

> people aren't served the same food

The contamination is unlikely to come from raw food itself, chefs at restaurants are buying from the same retail channels as the rest of the people.

The source of contamination can be improper storage or handling, kitchen equipment, dishes and cutlery, people doing all the above. All these things are reused in restaurants.

> twice as likely to be diagnosed with chlamydia

See the table on page 347. For chlamydia, "period prevalence" figure is 10.1% for sex workers, 8.5% for other female attendees. That's 20% difference, not twice as likely.

Compensating for demographics factors is hard. You can surely compensate for the factor "young", can probably compensate for the factor "single", but how would you compensate for the factor "promiscuous", i.e. likely to go out and have casual sex? Because that's the demographic group people gonna sleep with, instead of sex workers.

Part of me wants to put the blame on the female side for the reduction of sex. Mostly because girls will be slut shamed for doing anything sexual. So girls hold it back. You can't blame them for being conservative in the society we live in. Stop telling the female half of the population that they need to be innocent virgins,sex is normal.

The other excuses don't really resonate with me. Roommates? We were having plenty of sex in college, text your roommate to go away for a bit. Parents? Idk I just used my car or wait for them to go to sleep. 17 - to early 20s just do what you can. I don't get the broke thing, college bars are cheap, or we just went to parks or whatever.

Nothing makes sense. Nobody knows what to do or how to work this shit. Moving targets.

Last time I had a girlfriend I'd come off a 2 year spree of virtual homelessness and poverty. I was living with my parents (mom and dad, both separated) transiently. I was dirt poor, drugs problem, losing jobs etc... She was in college studying to become a nurse. It wasn't one of those asymmetrical relationships either. She wasn't on the goon squad.

Now that I have money, my own place, some direction and intention in my life... In most context where I have exposure there's some sort of hazard. Like trying to do anything at work when there might be a signal there seems like a terrible idea. Way too much potential for bad shit. At college, well shit I don't know if I'd be okay with dating anybody younger than 21, or a 21 year old for that matter (which is the rough majority). Even if we assume the age floor was 28 I still wouldn't dare approach anybody without evident interest, and networking at school is impossible because I'm swamped with work and work. I can get conversations started on Tinder, but they burn out fast and hard, no effort on the other end. I get a lot of matches, but I've only managed to finagle 2 dates out of what has to be hundreds of matches. I can't say how many I've actually opened, the odds look like shit regardless. Doesn't help that I live in an ultra-conservative rural cesspool where there's like... .5 degrees of separation.

And then what are you to take from all the man-bashing shit? All the vitriolic speech against white males? And so on and so forth.

I'll go to pornhub, thanks.

> And then what are you to take from all the man-bashing shit? All the vitriolic speech against white males? And so on and so forth.

If you were an alpha male you'd never be paying attention to this in the first place. This is only a concern if you're reading memes spread by neurotic people on the internet.

This makes no sense because women today are more sexually free than they have ever been. In absolute terms women are still often slut shamed, but it's still less than in the past.

How far back does this millenials have less sex thing compare too? Today's women that grew up in the 90s yeah probably is more free then one from 50s and earlier. But compared to the 70s? I don't think it's farfetched to guess that society's feelings towards women sexuality have regressed since the sexual revolution of the 70s. Paris Hilton having a sex tape coming out was a huge deal, that's what millennial girls grew up with.

I don't mean to suggest that this is the only reason, I just think it contributes.

That's true but there's the woke / me-too movement now. I have a "friend" that I met from Tinder during early pandemic, we only met once because of it, and then it was purely sexting exchange of pictures and so on.

Last month she started following a local me-too movement FB group that had women sharing about their past harassment experiences and calling out their aggressors, that ranged from total abuse of power, to sexual innuendos over IM.

Last couple of times we texted each other mostly consisted of her showing me past screenshots of chats where someone (from Tinder) would be sexually suggestive, nothing explicit, and would start to tell me how she didn't realize that she was being harassed and that she's being disgusted by them.

Sounds like you’re on speaking terms still, maybe now’s the time to get that affidavit signed that everything was consensual. :D I’m kidding.. but maybe I’m not.

The important question is "do we want to?" We are gods by the standards of people five hundred years ago. Even the opportunities 50 years ago pale in comparison to what many of us have access to today; you no longer have to be in the exact right place and time to be exposed to the state of the art in technology and science. You can bring together material and people from anywhere in the world in a matter of days to pursue goals that can dominate your life for years at a time. The pursuit and achievement of these goals can make many people truly happy.

We're at a point in time where our society places a lot of value in sex and romance, but it's now easy to largely forego these things and dump your time into other things you're passionate about. It seems that when these discussions about the relative celibacy of young people come up, people talk a lot about how it must be because young people are facing effectively insurmountable struggles, and mostly ignore that it's possible that it's easier to focus on things other than sex now. That possibility runs contrary to how most of us were brought up, and it's why you're asking what we should do to "improve" these trends. Have we considered that there might be nothing to fix, and that the trend doesn't need to be stopped?

> what do we do as a society to improve some of these trends?

Well, HIV/AIDS seems relatively under control compared to when I was a young man, and there’s a vaccine for HPV, so get on out there, young blood!

Aversion to anonymous or even just casual sex for my generation (X) was from diseases. That seems like less of an issue now, but maybe the education system doesn’t want to let up on the risks yet, kind of like cities keeping us doing the recycling motions even when they’re throwing it in landfills - the behaviors are deemed valuable or the institutions just haven’t caught up to reality.

Probably your biggest issue as a generation is the freely available custom porn and social media alienating people from each other - there’s a lack of need to hook up and a self-inflicted lack of opportunity. Also, sensitivities to workplace hookups are a much bigger deal than they were even 15 years ago.

Become financially independent is probably the best you can do. That'll cover not affording to go out and having to live with parents or roommates.

I don't think thats the core issue , sex is down even among school going teenagers

I think teenagers are observing what's going on in their old young adult counterparts.

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

Research on satisfaction differences between relationship types is illuminating

Live your life and turn off the bullshit. Otherwise, wait for it to burn out. Social media is a bubble, and the milk that helps create the metoo froth.

We’ll sacrifice bad guys to the volcano gods for awhile, then the bubble will pop, the trend will fade and women (in the media) will be thirsting for men who aren’t wusses.

I assume this will relax slightly as we see lockdowns and masks ease up after most of a population has herd immunity from vaccines.

I don't really know how to change whole cultures though, other than to change the propaganda (messaging) or improve the support structures so people feel safe enough to experiment and have fun with life.

There are almost 7.7 billion people on the planet already, even with less than replacement birthrates, I think we're good on human count for the next 300 years or so at a minimum so unless the birth rate really catastrophically collapses. We could lose an order of magnitude of people without endangering genetic diversity, take significant load off of the environment, and frankly, quite probably improve the human condition with fewer billions of other people to compete with in the world. I recommend seeing how we can extend this trend to demographics and countries it hasn't reached yet.

If your fertility rate is too low, the pention system and the economy collapses

Perhaps a system that relies on ever-expanding populations is bad?

It doesn't rely on ever expanding populations. It relies on retirees to be the minority which is a reasonable assumption to make. After all, everything the elderly buy has to be extracted/made via labor of the young.

The math is more dismal than that. With a 1.5 birth rate (common in Europe) the population drops by more than half in three generations (about 100 years). This causes the economy to collapse—stock valuations have baked in assumptions of future generations of consumers existing. But it can get worse. South Korea has a fertility rate below 1 and Taiwan is headed that way. At that rate, the population drops by almost 90% within a century.

Poorly constructed economies predicated on ever increasing growth have no business existing. Economies will adapt (and should! it just means more economic drag to provide for seniors until the larger, older cohort has aged out and equilibrium at a lower population level has been reached).

It's disturbing to me that people think population must keep growing. If anything the world could stand to LOSE a significant portion of the population. Resources would be far less strained.

If we built our economies on the expectation of continued population growth, then that just means there was a MASSIVE lack of forethought. But that doesn't mean the solution is to start pumping out more kids. Instead we adapt how these structures work to accommodate the flat or lessened population numbers.

This policy is called degrowth (or ecofascism) and it's not true. Resources were used far more inefficiently and many of them were used more in absolute terms when the population was smaller. It's even possible that we need this many people to do the scientific research needed to use things more efficiently.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-23/econom...

Identifying degrowth with ecofascism isn't accurate.

Specially when it's clearly not true. Just look at population not in work in western countries, even outside the current pandemic situation. If we really needed more people wouldn't we have near full employment? Economy will adapt to less demand, though there will be likely pains, but money is just numbers anyway...

The stock market isn’t the only aspect of the economy. The events you propose aren’t universally held to be bad.

> This stresses me out as a young and not sexually active millennial. What do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Do we want to? What do I do as an individual to change my individual situation?

Why do we need to? The data shows that sex, drug use, etc., actually peaked with baby boomers. They were peak frivolity. It’s only because they created all the media for decades that we think those were good things. Millennials are a more sober and serious generation for a more sober and serious time. No need to regress.

> Millennials are a more sober and serious generation for a more sober and serious time. No need to regress.

I mean, the US did embark on a multi-decade war. But is our time fundamentally more serious than what the Boomers went through?

A boomer could graduate high school, get a job, buy a car, buy a house, and start saving for retirement.

Younger generations have to work 10X as hard for a chance at that kind of middle class lifestyle.

When it comes to where you live it's poor job prospects or unaffordable real estate: pick one. Everything goes up but wages. If you're not in the "professional class" by 30-40 years old you're in real trouble. There's an alternate path that involves living in low cost of living places and working your ass off while you live below your means, but that's not really easier just different.

Younger generations, especially those younger than GenX, know that you just can't fuck around... literally or metaphorically. The party's over.

Edit: Someone will comment that this was only true for white boomers. You're right. Now it's true for nobody.

It didn’t just “happen” with boomers. My parents didn’t have their first home until in their mid thirties, payed 13% interest on their mortgage, worked plenty of shit jobs on the way there, saving etc. Your description of the boomers is idealized and I think not remotely the norm. They enjoyed far fewer material possessions than we do today, and by many measures had fewer money-making opportunities than exist today, and capital wasn’t nearly as free as it is today. When you’re in your 40’s (provided you make smart choices in your 20’s and 30’s) you’ll have far more wealth than the kids of that time will. Part of it is just a function of longevity and saving. Stop expecting to be able to buy a house when you graduate. It wasn’t true for my boomer parents, wasn’t true for me (younger genX), and doesn’t seem to have changed now. If you seriously think you’re a more dour generation with tougher problems, it should be all the more motivation to stop spending money on frivolous services and throw-away possessions and save, save, save. Focus on bringing social and chemical stability to your life and creating a new, stable family. Leverage the myriad money making opportunities out there. I read comments like yours and then read an article in a business rag talking about the disrupted workforce of today, specifically how easy money is giving younger workers more freedom to set the terms of their employment. I would have killed for the low-barrier-to-entry opportunities available today on the Internet when I was in my teens. If you can’t make it in America in today’s environment, it’s a product more of your informal environmental education. Get new teachers - don’t complain, up your game.

I'm not trying to glorify a life of reckless abandon, but in the context of the actual article, it's a little concerning to me that normal parts of human life like humor and sexuality seem to be a negative to you, and we should instead strive for "sobriety." That seems a rather grim view of human existence. I'm also not sure I can take seriously the notion that somehow this is a more serious moment in history than all of the others that came before it. The Cold War and the threat of worldwide nuclear annihilation? World wars that killed millions and the worst genocide in human history? Colonialism and slavery? Religious civil wars? General poverty and starvation? At what point in history were things less serious than now? When were humor and love somehow more appropriate?

In my opinion that (as a mainstream social narrative) is a false dilemma. The real division is between casual relationships and long relationships. The message I got as a young person is that casual sex should be celebrated and endorsed. That is a lie. Casual sex erodes long, meaningful relationships. It makes it that much harder to commit. Long relationships are how functional families are built. Functional families provide a bedrock to the society at large.

I think you are having a very idealised vision of society and families. You would be surprised to see what lies beneath all those "functional" families of the past. To my experience, having an active sex life (not talking here about carelessness) and multiple partners, even one night stands, could be quite helpful for someone and help them open up and experience life.

I mean these are all sort of arbitrary categories. I'm not saying "go have casual sex, it'll enrich your life." I agree that long-term meaningful relationships are fulfilling. But sexual attraction, flirting, humor—these are all spontaneous parts of human societies and human lives. To suggest we're living in such a serious time that they're not appropriate is macabre and anti-human, in my opinion, and will only create more suffering.

How did boomers use more drugs? Since the boomer generation we had a crack epidemic, 2 heroine, 1 of those mixed with prescription opiates, and a non stop meth problem. Marijuana is legal in a bunch of states now. Psychedelics are having a revival. Mdma didn't even exist until recently and there have been two waves of rave culture

See: https://mobile.twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/121316563032673...

> At their peak in 1980 illegal drugs accounted for 5 % of total personal consumption expenditure in US. An astonishing figure corroborated by contemporary estimates that cocaine sales peaked at $35bn in 1980. Rachel Soloveichik @BEA_News

Those comments in the thread have interesting points. 350/g in 1980 compared to what it costs now. (I used to pay 60/g around 2010)

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cocaine-prices-change-201...

Thinking about it more, I guess you need to clarify if a boomers today use more drugs or was drug use higher in the 60s,70s,80s then in 00s and 10s. Other stuff I searched suggested boomers in the 10s are hit hard by opioids

> boomers today

Drugs are increasingly unkind to the bod the older you get, so I’d imagine it’s the latter.

For the record, I paid about 125/g in the mid nineties. I’m sure someone’s made a chart of this somewhere. I remember High Times magazine or Cannabis Culture used to have a spot price table in most issues based on numbers submitted by their readership. Would make an interesting graph. I don’t tend to trust LE valuations of drug prices because their incentivized to inflate them on capture and deflate them on selling risk.

MDMA was everywhere since 1970-s. What 'recently' are you talking about?

i dont think it was recreational until the 80s but yeah looks i misremembered, it was invented in the early 1900s

Being sexually active is a choice. Nothing's stopping you from going out there and meeting people. There's plenty going on if you're willing to step out of your house and meet people. (And no, swiping on apps doesn't count.)

(Pandemic lockdowns of course might get in the way, but I'm speaking generally when those restrictions aren't there)

For the vast majority of people it simply doesn't work like that. It's a long, expensive, seldom successful and generally frustrating experience which takes a toll on self-esteem.

Unless you're in the top 20% or so of attractiveness.

Consider the plight of the humble salmon: Spend your whole life just for one chance to mate, most likely to be killed by other fish, eaten by bear, yanked out of your home via net or metal hook, it all smells like fish, and then you die on a gravelly shore with birds ripping your eyeballs out.

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