Why are so many young men single and sexless?
psychologytoday.com
psychologytoday.com
Some of the thing mentioned, such as young women not looking for emotional attachment as much might be true, but what about >30 women?
My early 20s, online dating era romantic life was miserable; it made me feel completely worthless and that's a sentiment A LOT of young men get from those dating apps. I simply gave up, which was a good choice for a poor, stressed out and anxious engineering student.
However, around 28 and forward this drastically changed; and anyone above 30 can probably recall how the dynamic switches around this age group; men get more comfortable about themselves and women realizes that they're competing against people younger than them (which is a group growing every year). If family is a desire then that also add a sense of urgency
So suddenly (assuming you've put some work in) the dating (and sex) life becomes a balanced game.
This is ofc affected by other factors such as culture and demographics, which is closely tied to locations. But people have moved country and cities for all form of opportunities (including mating) so this is a way easier problem to solve, if one prioritizes it.
People already get married and have kids later, and have for a while. Only focusing on <30 males seems like a scope very useless to analyze the issue, if not from the negativa mental health consequences this have for young men
My personal experience and the experience of men I know is that this is not how it turns out.
If you were never attractive before to women, you don't suddenly become attractive to them when you're older. Just because you hit staff and make $500k/yr doesn't mean they want to be with you. Just because you have built up incredible emotional maturity, stability, and intellect doesn't mean someone wants to be with you. End of the day - whether or not they find you physically attractive is the most important thing above all - it's the bare minimum to start an interaction (especially with online but more and more true with in person these days too).
This idea that average looking guys just needed to hit 30 before they got to date all the hot 20-somethings is so farfetched and delusional. It's often spoken by men who were rich, physically attractive, and had great social networks but had severe social anxiety and learned later in life how to lessen their social anxiety. Once they did that - wow - suddenly they're having sex with lots of women... Surprise, women were always interested in you, you just never took it further because you had social anxiety.
Lots of men don't have social anxiety but are just fuggos. They're not gonna have stuff change when they get older short of doing significant cosmetic surgery. Which, again, is not related to age but more related to getting cosmetic surgery done. You can do that when you're 18 and not wait until you're 30.
Look at the tiktok shit that's going on. Women have increasingly deluded sense of what men and women should look like. Social media and casual access to the top physically attractive men has completely distorted how the sexual marketplace is working. It's leaving a lot of people lonely and a lot of people very bitter.
As a guy in your early 20s who has left the the college bubble, your eligible dating pool is at its very smallest size. Women generally prefer not to date a guy significantly younger than them, so you're basically left with the girls your age. Guys don't have similar issues with dating younger women, so that 23-year old you just asked out is also going to be asked out by guys in their late 20s who are richer, have more impressive career accomplishments, and are more mature.
As you get older, your pool of eligible partners keeps growing. Whereas for women, their pool of eligible partners keeps shrinking. For the exact same reasons discussed above. This isn't going to radically transform your life and land you a supermodel. But it does improve your odds in a noticeable way. Someone who used to think of you as a 6 would now think of you as a 7. Maybe even an 8, depending on how you used your 20s. Going from a 6 to a 7 may not seem like much, but it makes a big difference in your dating life.
I suggest you read this blog:
https://sirtyrionlannister.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/how-the-...
So many men who are now experiencing problems with finding a partner now, say due to being a nasty/abusive/uninteresting/unintelligent/ugly, 80-100 years ago would be able to land a wife just by being the only person in the family who could provide. So in 2023, when they have to date equals, who are financially independent, they are experiencing “celibacy”.
Right now it’s a symptom of a much larger social-economic situation, with growing social isolation and poverty
If you're not talking to boys about Andrew Tate because it hasn't come up (because it would be too cringe, as the kids say), don't worry, YouTube (reposts) have got you covered.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. If anything I was "casting shade" at you for your remark about how terrible young men are. You're the one defending someone calling them "nasty/abusive/uninteresting/unintelligent/ugly".
> If you're not talking to boys about Andrew Tate because it hasn't come up (because it would be too cringe, as the kids say), don't worry, YouTube (reposts) have got you covered.
I talk to men in their early 20s to 40s mostly, the guys who go to my BJJ gym. I can promise you not one of them gives a shit about Andrew Tate's "HoW To bE aN aLpHa MaLe" grift. Half of them have probably never even heard of him.
Sure, there may be females that are just looking for a male who is nice. But in general they are looking for a male who is nice and good looking and has high societal status.
Just as males are looking for females that are good looking and fertile.
That's what all animals do. They try to maximize their reproductive success. Humans are animals. And even though we have contraceptives that negate the effect of the behavior, the underlying drive and mechanisms are still the same.
When it comes to human societies; I don't buy that whole "patriarchal social constructs" thing.
Society is a matter of constant negotiation between the sexes, not something that is forced from one sex onto the other and set in stone. To believe that females are oppressed by males is to believe that females are helpless and fragile and need to be protected. Females can very much take care of themselves and are just as strong a force in shaping society - if not more so - than males.
Your simplistic view on reproductive behavior results in a completely misunderstood and sexist viewpoint which only serves to reinforce misunderstandings between the sexes.
Were women just voluntarily not voting in the US or what?
Voting rights were limited to rich men only. Poor men couldn't vote either. Only with the conscription into citizens' armies after the French revolution became it necessary for the "elites" to share their power. And soon after poor men gained suffrage, everyone gained suffrage. Go and check the development of voting rights in various democracies - you will find exactly this pattern.
So no; women have not been historically oppressed, not even in some highly religious societies.
Poor people have historically been oppressed. In any society.
Women had other roles than men. That doesn't mean they were oppressed. That narrative propagates capitalistic propaganda to turn the poor against themselves and to divert from the the fact that power always was limited to those with means. You know - the actual oppressors.
However the oppression of the poor has historically run in parallel with the oppression of women. In ancient societies, women were often excluded from political and public life, and their main role was to bear children and maintain the household. This was true in many early civilizations, such as ancient Greece, Rome, and China.
Religion also played a significant role in the oppression of women. Many religious traditions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, have traditionally placed women in subordinate roles, with men as the primary religious leaders and decision-makers.
Women were also subjected to practices such as foot-binding, female genital mutilation, and forced marriages. These practices aimed to control and limit women's movements and independence, and were often seen as necessary for maintaining social order.
Your assumption of "historically oppressed women" only works if you perceive of women as being told by men how to behave and what to do.
That's wrong. That is a fundamentally wrong understanding of how human societies work. Men are told how to behave by women and men. Women are told how to behave by women and men.
Society and societal expectations are not something shaped by men. Is the construct of constant negotiations between both males and females.
As with regard to "women being in subordinate roles"; there I suggest you to read more about the dual hierarchies of males and females. Men and women had for a very, very long time separate hierarchies - and to some degree still do. While the male hierarchy is typically oriented out-of-family, female hierarchies are typically oriented into-family.
With the spread of agriculture and the rise of larger societies, the out-of-family hierarchies started to merge, creating larger and larger hierarchies with the family of the topmost male dominating this hierarchy. With time these hierarchies became the framework for legal and male-religious organization. That's why women hat to "break-in" to these hierarchies.
The into-family hierarchies stayed mostly separate, in the household, the tribe and usually didn't expand out of the family. The Mosuo people in China are one notable exception to that "rule".
> Women were also subjected to practices such as foot-binding, female genital mutilation, and forced marriages.
If you do some research you'll find that these things are not forced onto the females by men; they are forced onto the females by females and males. And if you find it abhorable that females' feet were bound - how angry will you be when you hear that most hard labor was forced onto men? Forced onto them by both men and women.
This whole "patriarchy" is really the invention of wealthy, fin de siècle bourgeoisie that was disgusted by the development of universal male suffrage; the rich will never let the poor have a share.
Most of the people I've known that say this about themselves usually fall into one of two camps:
1) They have glaringly obvious and simple things they can change about themselves that even I notice as a fairly fashion-clueless almost middle aged male. Wear pants that fit. Put a belt on. Shave (or shape) the spotty beard. Stop wearing the same style of clothes that you did as a college freshman. Go to the gym (or don't, I know plenty of overweight men that have productive dating lives because they are charismatic and fun to be around).
2) They have insanely high and hypocritical standards physical standards of beauty and discard anyone who does not reach them before even meeting them.
There are very few people who truly need significant cosmetic surgery to enter the dating pool.
But I think that what makes the situation very sad is that our western society has decided to close its eyes to the intrinsic value of women's virtue in the eyes of men. When a young man can't find an interested partner during his younger years and then he is supposed to either fall back on the women over 30 who are left or play on his newly acquired skills as a thirty year old to seduce a woman 10 years younger. In the end, everyone is sad, there are fewer children, society is less virtuous, women change partners throughout their lives, while men wonder if there is any marryable woman left around them.
You didn't read the article. You didn't read the thing you wrote that supports the evidence I'm the article. You don't see how you basically just said you were forced to date 20 year olds in your 30s because women your own age are... what? Something bad or something?
I can see how it one squints, you could get that as what I'm saying but that's not it. My point is that the "men mature slowly" argument is dumb. There's plenty of evidence to support the idea that women's standards are increasing and men are not improving. Men are alone because we've decided that that the world is the problem, not us and that's unfair.
I could imagine that many of them would just decide to not bother at all until luck falls into their hands. But the thing about dating and getting to know people in a world where everybody pretends to be something they are not is that showing them your real you is a risk that you might not be willing to take. But if you don't ever take the risk to show them who you are really, how would you expect someone to like you for who you are?
Then there is a Me-Too thing, which has led to a lot of younger women being very sensitive about real or perceived aggressions from men. Perhaps justified, but now it means a small misstep or failure to walk the line can be costly in a social sense.
Young dude doesn't really know how to interact with girls so he comes off too strong and ends up being called a creeper on Insta and shunned for a few years. Why take the risk when onlyfans is cheap?
Not at all justified. Crying victim over vague aggressions is as pathologically toxic and sexist as it gets. They can't even be bothered to make an actual false accusation they can later be held accountable for, it's just "waaah, there's a man here who's not behaving the way -I- want them to. Minions, attack!"
It's regressed so badly, any sort of attempt to hold this subset of women accountable for their own behavior is met with them trying to rile up a mob against you as they publicly squawk about you being vaguely "aggressive." The point is to intimidate male targets (legitimate or not) into compliance and silence. It's not justified, it's female-perpetrated abuse (DARVO is passive aggression).
Not a fun time to be a parent or teacher with any sort of legal responsibility for this demographic; there is absolutely no support for custodians because everybody has been conditioned to uncritically associate all men with abuse and all women with victimhood. God help you if you're a male victim of anything, because nobody else will!
IME: In a recent workplace violence complaint, a female employee played this card against a male manager who was "aggressive" in giving her a negative performance review for job abandonment (ironically, this wasn't a younger employee). She later stole thousands of dollars of equipment and quit.
As someone who works and teaches at an art university in Europe which is certainly one of the more liberal places you could study in: Over the past 8 years I have witnessed one comparable case and that person was basically ignored by everybody a month later because there were obviously psychological no problems involved. That case was 6 years ago. I haven't even heard of a similar case in our univesity during those 8 years.
Do you have observed anything like this in increasing numbers yourself or do you have any reliable data on it? I don't tend to count reading someone's story online as reliable data in a political surrounding where some actors describe themselves unironically using the term "culture warriors".
I can certainly stand for the observation that the supposedly snow-flakey, supposedly woke-liberal art students I had the pleasure to work with are in reality for the most part quite pragmatic, realist and self-aware people who can take things with a grain of salt and also argue about topics nuanced even if the opinion of the other side differs.
Virtual problems are virtual.
But maybe this is wildly different on other universities (in the US)? At least from the US, Canadian, UK exchange students I have known this did not seem to be the case.
Fair enough; I'm not a "culture warrior" or affiliated with academics. My opinions and speculations are borne from US-based domestic and private-sector situations I've personally had to deal with.
I didn't mean to imply this is a problem at universities specifically (nor at all), or that there is a statistically-significant "trend" at play-- I've just seen more of this in the last two years than I have in the last decade myself (it used to be people would just make false accusations!). Think I'm at 5 cases now.
> I have witnessed one comparable case and that person was basically ignored by everybody a month later because there were obviously psychological no problems involved
This has been my experience as well-- until recently.
I think this is some sort of distinctly-American social media influenced-or-reinforced behavior that started manifesting in public spaces after the end of quarantine, since each of my cases seems to follow a very similar playbook-- both parties behind closed doors, no police report, no way to verify the claims, no evidence, and then a lot of dancing around what specific offense the "aggressor" is alleged to have done-- they will just refuse to provide details when pressed. Sometimes they get aggressively defensive about it ("you can't ask me about that! It's personal!").
This sort of behavior seems to have been popular on Tumblr years ago, with teenagers "role-playing" (ugh) sharing of rape and other abuse stories, and the act itself called "vagueing" [sic? Thanks, Kiwi Farms]. I'd guess that those kids are now in college or entering the workforce for the first time, and older adults like me are starting to catch on to the concept.
I don't know if it's all the same but every time it comes up for me, the whole thing stinks of someone trying to get out of some sort of trouble by dog-whistling to some sympathetic authority-- the "victim" always has some drama going on that started right before the abuse claim. In a recent sextortion case, the "victim" wanted divorce but was averse to initiating it herself, and hadn't been married long enough to be able to walk away with much in shared assets. Then we hear a vague rape story that somehow is articulated without ever using the word "rape" and can only be made right with an off-the-books payout higher than the statutory limit. Go figure.
As someone who teaches at university I definitly get to interact with young women often and I have never once felt the sensitivity you described either towards myself (male) or towards any other young male student. I have seen it towards single older members of the staff who thought telling some joke about women and technology in front of a female student who was a professional carpenter before was a fun idea. Let me assure you that they got the receipt for that directly and in a way they probably will not forget quickly.
So no, this is not the explaination, at least not by my observation.
Generally students respect each other's privacy so that is very likely not the cause here.
As another supporting example: I'm a gay man in his late 20s, and because of Grindr I often virtually encounter a lot of early 20s and late teens people (cis and trans alike) starting to explore their sexuality through the LGBT version of hookup and dating apps. Guys under 25 are significantly more cautious and shy in how they present themselves and talk, which is surprising to me since I live in a progressive area where there are fewer social anxieties about being LGBT. Even literally in a gay sex club, I've seen younger guys are super super shy about hitting on anyone.
Something about digital media, lack of real life social interaction, and increased pressure on young people is creating a generation of anxious, shy, depressive people, and it's not because of problems uniquely between straight men and women.
I politely hit on people in person and succeed 20% of the time. Friends and acquaintances watch me do this and then say things like, "I don't know how you do that." / "How do you do that?" / "I could never do that."
"Why not?" I always ask. I've never gotten an answer. Something is preventing them from answering. The answer isn't fear of getting MeToo'd; these interactions sometimes happen in places with terrible lighting and unrecordable audio. You said yourself that they can't even do it in a sex club where no one has cell phones. They can't start conversations even in an environment where it's socially acceptable to fuck immediately. These are extremely peculiar and awkward environments at first and their anxiety levels are low enough that they were able to show up. So it isn't anxiety. The only possible explanation I can imagine is that making small talk and reading body language is a skill that they don't even know exists. They aren't getting better at it.
How are these people going to succeed in life and in business? Sex parties, or at the very least, bars, are the perfect place to develop these skills and it just isn't happening.
I guess it's working for me though. My 20% success rate hasn't gone down as I've gotten older and uglier.
Social skills lower in kids who are the heaviest users of gaming and social networks: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/707985 (obviously correlative but still)
Time away from screens improves reading nonverbal emotional cues in kids: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321...
An example of the desparity to me is the concept “mansplaining” woke culture disparages. Some women (and others) see a man explaining something as condescension. Whereas I’ve always been grateful that anyone would take the time to educate or otherwise try to share information and gasp, try to help me?! I believe this reflects a fundamental difference in experience worth reflecting on.
I don't think you can really extrapolate to all of human history from a time when birth control is widely available.
Note that doesn't necessarily mean only 13% of men were having sex.
A woman could have sex with a 2000 different men over the course of 20 years and only at most less than 40 of those 2000 men could reproduce as a result of those couplings.
Men locking up the women to mate with - harems etc. - is not quite the same as "Women seek to mate"
Well, I don't know if you are being purposefully misleading or just ignorant of what mansplaining actually is, but here it goes. Mansplaining isn't "men explaining things". It's men explaining things because of an unfounded confidence in their (usually limited) knowledge in one area to a women who actually have an equal or higher level of knowledge in the area, because of internalized prejudices and ideas about the men being and "the wise ones" who come to "save the woman" from her own ignorance.
So yeah, I think the fundamental difference is people not caring to actually understand what "woke culture" is actually complaining about.
I expect that "attention" has a power law distribution for women too. It do not expect it is at all easier being a less than average looking woman.
> I’ve always been grateful that anyone would take the time to educate or otherwise try to share information
You should really read up the meaning of this word because that's not it. It specifically covers the case of downtalking masculine men towards women, I see it all the time and it's despicable.
But the author says the “problem” (for lack of a better term) is women are less interested in dating (focusing on careers and education) and are overwhelmed with their number of choices.
This seems like a supply side problem. I’m not seeing how therapy will fix top of the funnel issues.
A therapist can advise you on behavior that:
1. you observe and tell the therapist about, or
2. he notices during the session.
I've been happily married for +20 years. I went to therapy a couple of times: wasn't worth the time and energy. The best tool I found for debugging my life is a plain 3x5 pocket notebook. Every evening I take 30 minutes to summarize the events of the day and how I reacted to them. Then every few weeks I review the journal and it’s surprising how often I see patterns in my thoughts and actions and say “Oh I need to fix that.” Or “I handled that pretty well.”
Basically I treat my journal like a server log for my brain: every event and its response are written to the log, then reviewed from time to time for patterns and anomalies. My journal is the same.
This is a really awesome method for self improvement
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/understanding-narc...
I would pay attention to demographics more than anything and make sure you live somewhere where there the odds are in your favor. Since more women go to college these days, it makes sense to go to college (as a male).
But the most important thing is to figure out who you are. That is the key super power in dating. You know who you are, your values and what you want. It is OK if it is a work in progress but therapy really helps.
As of the therapy question: As someone who is in a happy relationship for more than a decade and never felt in need of therapy, I'd still agree here. If you want a healthy relationship with good sex, both sides being at good terms with themselves and their sexuality is a must. Therapy can be a very good way to come to terms with things that you would otherwise have a hard time adressing yourself.
If this is indeed a "supply side issue" that just means men must adjust to become the persons most women would like to share their lives with. Or even more simply put: They need to avoid being the person who women do not like to share their lives with: Men who are not on good terms with themselves, who have never reflected on who they are and why they have the desires they have, men who are desperate to get sex and don't even care anymore with whom, and when they get sex, the kind of sex they want comes out of works of fiction. There is a good supply of men like these and it turns out women are not in demand for that type.
You will have men that fit that exact description and still get women, by means of having a ton of money, good looks and so on – so they found different ways of attracting a specific subset of women that seeks for that. But my advice here is: If a man wants a happy and fulfilling relationship, starting with the baseline of "A man has to trick women into liking him" is a recipe for disaster. You might find women who accept this, but you will never find someone who likes you for who you are instead of for what you are.
Therapy is a good (but not the only) way to become a grounded, balanced, better individual and those tend to fare better in relationships.
> The study found that among men under 30 years old, over 60 percent are single, almost double that of women in the same age bracket.
Meaning women are happily in relationships with men over 30 probably?
- large number of women staying celibate until their late 20s then starting dating with men in their early 30s.
- men dating multiple women.
- women dating other women.
- couples where women consider themselves in relationships and men consider themselves single.
- people just lying.
- a bad poll.
etc.
Do they want something? Nowhere in the article is there any survey of men in this age group showing a desire for something different . Instead the author states their opinion that men in the age group should want something else and change to get it.
When a woman figures out she doesn't need a man or a relationship to be happy and successful it is considered an empowering realization and choice. When a man comes to the same realization regarding women it is a problem originating with the man which requires him to change.
Are they happy with the situation? The "incel" movement leads me to say no (at least for a number of men).
But it's not that simple. There are a number of women who aren't happy with waiting until nearly 30 either. But what there seems to be is a mismatch between supply and demand. And in every case where the demand exceeds the supply, the price goes us. If you're 25, male, and want a relationship with a female, you may have to be a real catch.
It's natural that the relationship window for men closes slower than for women. A man intending to start a family can comfortably have his first child in his 40s or even 50s. A woman has to move into position within 10-15 years of adulthood or risk massive possible complications for her and the children.
Not being discriminated is not a "nice to have", it's a human right.
Sex with attractive women on the other hand is definitely not a human right.
Is it just me who finds it ridiculous that this has to be spelled out?
I guess sex can be considered a human right in a certain way: no third party should be able to stop a consenting group of people to having sex.
While this is the wrong definition: another person should have sex with me. This latter definition often seems to be the taken meaning of "sex is a human right" and seems to be interpreted that way to advance the interest of that particular person saying it.
I was quite taken aback by the "Does that logic work for Blacks for instance ?" that started this above but then thought that instead of getting angry why not attempt to get my argumentation straightened out instead :).
As you say, that way of thinking makes women literally into less than even a service: for a service you at least need to pay for; a human right on the other hand (right to live, express yourself, freedom of speech etc) is normatively free. The fact that these women who somehow must sleep with you have rights too doesn't seem to occur to these people at all..
That's not obvious though. One could imagine a society where we deem it okay to discriminate on those things when providing employment, but not when having sex.
As much as we want to believe Human Rights are some fundamental property of nature, the reality is they are simply an agreed upon social construct.
> 1. the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.
> 2. recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another.
> Deciding who to have sex with is definitely a form of discrimination.
It's definitely discrimination in the sense of (2). But that doesn't seem to have any ethical implications.
Arguing that selecting sexual partners is unjust because it is "discrimination" in the (1) sense already assume it is "unjust". It assumes what is to be shown.
In other words. The reason discrimination (1) is considered unjust is not "because it is discrimination" but because people have made arguments for why treating people differently in certain situations is unjust.
What's the argument for why it's unjust that young men can't have sex with people against their preference?
The entire field of moral philosophy is dedicated to this question. There are many ideas of how to characterize justice. I can't tell you what idea of justice you should subscribe to. There are tons of texts doing that much better.
Im just pointing out that the argument that something is bad because it is discrimination is circular. Unless you also argue why that particular form of discrimination is unjust (in whatever sense you prefer).
It's like saying that healthcare access with attractive nurses is not a right. It's not, but healthcare in many countries is a right.
This elision speaks VOLUMES.
The easy answer is to direct them to Grindr or the nearest gloryhole. There is no shortage of prospective partners willing to relieve even the most undesirable men of their sexual tension.
It may not be exactly what they want, but at that point they're just being picky. Everyone's a girl when they're face-down.
Why doesnt that apply similarly to young women "discriminating" young men ? Shouldn't we need quotas here ?
At the end of the day, companies, while people, are not humans, and they are ultimately owned by humans (call them slaves, if you will). Women, on the other hand, are not under the same sort of regulation, and, not being essentially livestock, are not and should not be subject to the same sort of regulation that may well at times be sensible when applied to companies. Companies, who, in turn, are given quite a few privileges to operate (such as limited liability for their owners, subsidies, privileged tax treatment for a variety of income sources, etc).
It's ridiculous that you needed this spelled out, but happy to oblige.
What about “human right” to have friends?
My informed guess is once you scratch off the Instagram paint it’s an absolute disaster too.
Here's one article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2...
Single women, it turns out, are the happiest. And then single women with kids. Men have to change or we'll become obsolete. Our UX, in general, is bad.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/4/18650969/married...
So I guess the comparison of 60% single young males vs. 30% single young females would be even more one-sided if we discount those who are willingly single and wouldn't want to change that status.
Life is hard for young men these days.
The article was about men being single and male sexual happiness. It was not about female happiness or fulfillment other then when their choices affect male coupling. That is not bad or anything, but simply not the focus of the article.
Author wrote write article about men without putting mini outrage over women-on-Instagram which is perfectly fine.
My understanding is that for a man, getting a move almost right can be worse than not making the move at all, for example attempting to move in for a kiss at almost but not quite the right moment. And errors are currently harshly socially judged. Hence a lot of men, particularly sensitive men who worry about making women uncomfortable, are inexperienced and feel stuck and trapped in that inexperience.
I think this unkindness of environment is a societal issue and one that cannot be levied as a failure of young men. Ultimately it is costly for all, men and women, as both would be better of and happier if the men knew what they were doing, and knew how to appeal to women.
This is the common theme of my friends and me(age>30).
1. We get satiated with porn, as noted in this article, but also life size sex toys, friends with benefits and plenty of sex workers. None of them complained how average looking or boring I was, even though I was one
2. An inconsistance with popular stereotype, We get satisfied with emotional relationship and intimacy via blood relatives and friends. The dense networking effects eased me into their personal life before and during the pandemic. Everybody is happy with it. I just had a dinner with my thesis advisor( 6 years back when I was in University), vented my family feuds for hours at length with my close friends, burst out on how silly the office politics were while doing some woodworking with my gym buddies. At the same time, I have deep sense of camaraderie with my colleagues. No one is gay to my knowledge, nor is one socially motivated by being one in such situations. I haven't described my social circle of neighbors who lent me big stash of money in troubling times!
3. We never wanted a woman for a need. I am perfectly alright sleeping alone, waking up alone, eating alone in a big empty house, seeing PDA all day in parties or public, or travelling all alone. I just couldn't come up with a situation of my life where a void or need with a women is to be filled even in social life. Even close family events are not at all a taboo to be presented as single.
4. I knew the hints women were throwing at me, I just couldn't understand why because they could easily have what I have and more. When you want monogamy + marriage + children + family, why judge me and repudiate harshly whenever I clarify my tastes?
5. I get paid good for SV or NY and have advanced degrees myself, but the real game changer was lasting frienships formed at all points of life. The networking effects(as elaborated in 2) led plenty of women to me and me to plenty of women.
6. Is there a research supporting alone men with lonely men? Like deteriorating mental health?
I've learned that the best way to attract young women is to treat them like complete shit, ignore them, be mean and insulting to them. But I don't want to hurt anyone and most young men probably feel the same way. But all the ones I know who get laid regularly are shitty to women in some respect, and it feels like, as a man, if you try to be nice you'll just get walked all over.
Given that the proportion and dynamics of some-sex relations makes not a big difference here, would this not imply that roughly the same percentage of young women are currently single, too?
(https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3868557-most-yo...)
I am surprised over this. I thought the boys have advantage over girls in pandemic friends keeping. First, they play videogames as a form of socialization much more and therefore pandemic affected it much less. They still kept playing games with friends. And second, because non-feminist and slightly anti-feminists pundits created minor panic over girls socialization. (I put emphasis on non-and-slightly-anti-feminist, because feminists focusing on girls does not imply anything special).
Like, I get how video games as form of socialization prevent finding partner. But I am surprised they did not helped boys to keep friends.
https://www.iflscience.com/20-kids-were-left-alone-in-a-hous...
(No, this is not scientific but it's pretty interesting.)
The shows like this put a lot of effort into selecting performers so that the end result is funny and entertaining. The kids knew they are performing for TV and the families that allow their kids to be on show like that are also very biased sample.
Damn, it's so tough for the older women out there in the cutthroat dating world. Why don't young single men start dating older women?
Which is true, if you count widows as single women.
Why would they?
And for thousandth time: porn addiction is a symptom, not a cause.
It could hold you back your whole life.
I think it is more helpful to think of it as A and B are linked somehow.
Otherwise you're holding up an abstract, imaginary, "true cause¨ that someday/maybe we will find. And of course no such thing exists. If we know anything about the body is that it is a complex ORGANISM where there is no single cause to anything.
Besides, if drinking before driving is NOT the cause of an accident (could be a myriad of other things like the state of the car, the conditions of the road, the weather, etc). End of the day, we know drinking and driving don't go well together - and a wise man will act accordingly.
If someone limps because their leg is broken, you'll try to fix their leg, not teach them to walk differently so the limp isn't as visible.
Blaming porn is a weak band-aid on a deeper cut.
I have male friends I hug and cry with. I have deep feelings of loss for my pet pig, who challenged my world view on "love animals" and made me rethink how and what I eat. I have a successful marriage with a wonderful, intelligent, beautiful women because I'm not afraid of emotional and psychological intimacy.
What sex toys exist for men that aren't just gross receptacles for semen? (I'm not into butt stuff, personally.)
Only where it is illegal. Plenty of legal countries with rules & regs regarding behavior, STD testing, protection, etc.
> I have male friends I hug and cry with. I have deep feelings of loss for my pet pig, who challenged my world view on "love animals" and made me rethink how and what I eat. I have a successful marriage with a wonderful, intelligent, beautiful women because I'm not afraid of emotional and psychological intimacy.
Cool story bro
> What sex toys exist for men that aren't just gross receptacles for semen? (I'm not into butt stuff, personally.)
why did you feel a need to include this, esp the part in parentheses?
Ish. Lower risk but I accept your point. Still not free.
> Cool story bro
Thanks. I can only assume that you're both my target audience and because of that, incapable of getting the point.
> why did you feel a need to include this, esp the part in parentheses?
Because the comment I was replying to included sex toys as part of the argument. I was presenting the butt plug/anal stimulation response with the parentheses. It may not have been strictly necessary but the stupidity of defensive male responses makes it worthwhile to get ahead of things.
That was at least somewhat on topic. The whole “rethinking how and what I eat” seemed way more out of place to me.
To dating apps where only a certain percentage (50 to 70%) of men get dates cause hey woman (men too) want to post pics of their beautiful family on Instagram and Facebook, etc and get confirmation of your value in this life/earth. Like hey look everyone I was able to create something beautiful (beautiful family/children) and I know I did because look how many likes I get for all my photos of my beautiful family I was able to create.
If young men are dropping out of the competition and resorting to porn instead, then who's staying in the dating environment to keep it competitive? With all those porn dropouts, I should have an easy time dating, right?
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3868557-most-yo...
I think isolation became even worse after pandemic and WFH.
See Goethe’s ”The Sorrows of Young Werther”.
Sure, we still have wars, but they're much more asymmetric, and often enough the technology in use results in fewer military fatalities, at least in the West.
So I googled to see how long the next one will live and take to find a mate and here's what I found:
"Females find a new male within as few as three weeks. Males, however, tend to wait until the following fall or winter"
from https://www.audubon.org/news/till-death-do-them-part-8-birds...
[1]: https://kulli.sh/search?q=https://www.psychologytoday.com/in...
“It's a fact...that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization . Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what's known as 'the law of the market'...Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society.”
1. The market domain is much "wider" than sex. Money influences every aspect of your life.
2. The exact same argument could be made about many other "systems of differentiation". Such as skill or physical and mental health.
It's a cheap argument to make it seem like socialist arguments against economic inequality also applies to some kind of "sexual inequality". Sounds like an argument that eventually leads to Handmaidens tale, but I could just be imagining things.
Fact is that socialism isn't about removing all differences or all unfairness in the world at all cost.
It's about constructing a system that limits the negative side effects of the market economy. One aspect of that is to avoid the commercialization of non-economic aspects of life. What Houllebecq describes is the opposite. Love as a commodity.
https://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/06/comparing-income-sex-...
From what I can discern, he makes two counter arguments:
1. Sex is as important as income.
2. Poor income leads to "poor access" to sex. If the income distribution is unfair, so must the resulting sex distribution be.
To 1 I can only respond that many people feel differently. Anecdotally, I've never encountered anyone but well off men making the argument. Is that your experience also?
For 2: Poor income leads to many unfair situations. Let's cure the problem and not the symptom.
I know a few "young spinsters" but I also know a ton of happy, successful single women.
Should we not prioritize the society as a whole, compared to the individual? This is like saying its ok to ignore global warming, because my immediate benefit is much more important than the collective health of society.
Have to wonder then what percent of women are not sure that is okay to be male, and if this has anything to do with the current "state of our unions" as discussed in the article.
And then goes on to say that young men must re-prioritize and attune to the shift in priorities that women have already made.
Well ok. That's pretty toxic.
Young men can do whatever tf they want, generally speaking.
If they want their genes to be passed on they'll find a mate.
If they don't find a mate, their genes won't be passed on, thereby resolving the issue anyway.
"It's okay to be white" is a slogan historically used by alt-right trolls, the KKK, and miscellaneous Nazi groups. Obviously when polled about overtly racist slogans black people are going to tell Rasmussen to get bent.
Hence I don't agree with the firing, especially since it was the Dilbert Principle that helped me finally understand everything that I needed to know about how corporate America really works.
Look in the mirror.
They're divorced, after their high status husbands traded in for a younger model.
The solution seems to be for 20-something men and 40-something women to find some common ground. Hormone levels seem appropriate for that match anyway, as both groups are slightly past their peak lifetime levels.
You don't date if you can't afford to go on a date.
I prefer 'progress', thank you very much. You, and all your posts on this thread, sound bitter man.
The priorities of women in their 20s are dating men in their 30s. This new stat and the accompanying Boomer commentary is genuinely one of the funniest memes so far in 2023. They literally don't understand the world they created for future generations.
Young women do and say things because they can, certain men get away with certain things because they can.
Others complain, because they can’t.
Having younger partner is status symbol for a men to show off to other men. It does not make him look like good potential partner to adult women tho.
I’m pretty someone who can and actively dates someone younger doesn’t care in slightest about opinion of people who are not in his priority bucket.
Women think of men already having a partner as an indication of him being reliable, which is a positive.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/10w8fv2/th...
Reading between the lines, I think many women would want to date Leo, but he dates younger girls.
> a general red flag for "that dude is looking to take advantage of you"
Flags fly both directions: Young people take advantage of an older person in dating (see sugar babies, mail order brides, or a model taking advantage of Leo's $300m lifestyle).
You find it in the "he's a predator" comments. It's the same dynamic as rejected men calling women a lesbian: dealing with rejection by projecting their negative emotions onto the other person. "Good! I didn't want him/her anyway! Who would ever want someone like that?"