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As the article points out, fewer young men are having sex, but roughly the same number of young women are having sex. I wonder if dating apps (Tinder, Bumble,

• fratlas 8y ago
  I've noticed this disparity within my friend circles. The objectively attractive men match/sleep with multiple woman a month where almost all of the men with near average looks get approximately zero matches. Interesting indeed. My female friends match with almost every male regardless.
  • WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    Hey, this is fine, I love single mothers. The guy who's fucking three or four girls will leave three or four single mothers ready for me :)
    • dang 8y ago
      Please don't do this here.
  • ianai 8y ago
    I think you’re both onto something. There’s even a likely network effect where those men who sleep around are even more attractive to potential mates. Not as a rule, of course, but as a contributing factor. It’s a very destabilizing trend. Not only are these same men being economically disadvantaged, but they’re being socially isolated. Perfect way to increase violent tendencies, drug addition, and so on.
    • deleted 8y ago
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    • pm90 8y ago
      How would that change though. I agree its a problem, but I don't agree its not within the control of those who are not being matched to do something about it. Some arguments: * dating apps aren't the only way to meet people; you can still meet potential partners at parks/bars/work (Americans love office romances apparantly) * dating apps do favor the conventionally good looking folks but its also about presentation, which can be gamed and its not a secret how to. I agree that its a little unfair that the men who are good looking get all the benefits without having to put in any effort. But hasn't that been the case with inherited wealth too?
      • arvinsim 8y ago
        As someone who is definitely on the "not ugly but also not attractive" demographic, I have ditched dating apps completely. The focus on the visual to the exclusion of body language and personality chemistry just makes it a bad all around deal. From my experience, naturally meeting girls in the world is a much more pleasant experience.
        • apexalpha 8y ago
          There is a lot of body language and personal traits that can be shown in photo's. As they say: a picture is more than a 1000 words.
          • arvinsim 8y ago
            Sure, that can be true. But photos can also be posed and photoshopped. It's much more prone to manipulation than direct, spontaneous contact.
        • saiya-jin 8y ago
  • solotronics 8y ago
    This is the whole reason monogamy was standardized. It is a stabilizing force in society and creates equality instead of a winner take all situation. Without monogamy you end up with a small number of men having the attention of the majority of women. This causes huge problems, with the loosers being the average and below average men and women. Certain things about how society evolved to function are there for a reason.
    • scotty79 8y ago
      In other places of the world polygamy was standardised. And wide spread religiously backed monogamy stabilisation didn't save us from two world wars.
      • simonh 8y ago
        The stabilising effect of monogamy isn't to prevent wars between nations and societies, it's to manage violence and conflict within a society. It works too and is not just a small effect. Of the 20 most unstable countries in the world, all 20 are very to somewhat polygamous[0]. [0]https://medium.economist.com/big-love-and-big-war-exploring-the-link-between-polygamy-and-violence-67306fb3c41b https://medium.economist.com/big-love-and-big-war-exploring-...
        • saiya-jin 8y ago
          Actually it makes sense when I think about it - one of biggest frustrations of young male life is not able to have a (sexual) partner. Hollywood makes fun of this in teen movies, but reality is much darker. If society is geared into perpetual state like this, the poor/unattractive folks become properly desperate and act accordingly. Just look what long celibate does to priests. Soldiers in war have to be 'neutralized' via some mild suppressants in the rations (at least WW II was done like this from what I had read).
          • michaelt 8y ago
            Anaphrodisiacs in soldiers' food is an urban myth, according to https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-saltpeter-principle/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-saltpeter-principle/
  • 2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
    I reactivated my OkCupid profile recently. I’m as undesirable as I always was. There’s nothing to do but to laugh about it.
    • deleted 8y ago
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    • codebolt 8y ago
      Get some headshots taken with a professional photographer, make sure you dress sharp in your pics, etc. There's many things to do about increasing your attractivenes both online and IRL other than laughing about it and throwing up your arms, if you really wanted to.
      • danlugo92 8y ago
        A nice shirt cant hide a pot belly
  • 734129837261 8y ago
    I've noticed, and apparently the statistics as well, that this trend turns around the age of 32 to 34 for men. Men usually go for women 3 to 4 years younger than themselves. Which is around the age that women need to choose whether to procreate or not. If you're a 28 year old woman without a partner you only have a few more years of being physically optimal to give birth to a healthy child. So the average-looking men suddenly become more interesting. They have a career going, they are stable, aren't womanizers, and won't gather too much attention from the competition. I'm definitely average looking and I didn't get much attention in my late 20s. Only in my 30s I started getting attention from women who would formerly only go with the types of men they now avoided like the plague. One of those guys is a good friend of mine. Great looking guy, just a great person if you're... not a woman. But he's the "bad boy" women fell for when he was in his 20s. Now he's in his 30s and still playing his old game. Take a pick: Option #1: An 9/10 looking 6,2ft tall guy who had over 100 sexual partners, constantly plays the seduction game just to get laid, is constantly flirted with by younger women, can't hold a conversation unless it's about sex, booze, or soccer, still goes to clubs several times a week. Option #2: A 7/10 looking 6ft tall guy who had 4 sexual partners in his entire life (all longer-term relationships), can hold a conversation, has female friends, worked on his career instead of being in clubs 5 times a week. Sure, there are still women who fall for him. His most recent relationships were women in their early to mid 20s. He's actually trying to settle down and find a long-term partner, but he has no clue how. The last 5 of them he fell in love with, all left him hanging just a few weeks into the relationship. I am in my 30s and when I was on dating apps I'd suddenly get a ton of matches. Obviously also from women who are like my friend: promiscuous (no judgment here) women who, in their 20s, got pregnant and were left by the father.
    • treis 8y ago
      >I am in my 30s and when I was on dating apps I'd suddenly get a ton of matches. Which is another problem men in their 20s face. They're competing with men in their 30s for the same women. There's simply a larger number of men trying to date a smaller number of women. The numbers mean someone gets left out.
      • antisthenes 8y ago
• dragonwriter 8y ago
  > As the article points out, young men are having sex less often, but young women are still having sex at nearly the same rate. No, the article points out thar fewer (proportionately) young men are having sex, while the same proportion of young women are having sex. That's not the same as the less often / same rate description you give. > I wonder if dating apps (Tinder, Bumble, etc.) are leading women to have sex with a smaller cohort of desirable men. Social acceptance of homosexuality has increased, and every study I've seen shows that it's higher among women than men (and I think also higher for homosexual behavior by women than by men). Why do you assume that women must be only having sex with men? If we assume that people with homosexual orientation attempting to conform to a heteronormative society would tend to have more trouble maintaining stable relations and thus cycle through relationships more frequently (which I think is plausible though not necessarily true), then a greater reduction in the number of members of one sex trying to conform that way would result in the kind of unbalanced drop seen in these statistics.
  • freyir 8y ago
    > fewer (proportionately) young men are having sex, Thanks. That's what I meant, but I certainly should have worded it better. I've updated my comment. > If we assume that people with homosexual orientation attempting to conform to a heteronormative society would tend to have more trouble maintaining stable relations and thus cycle through relationships more frequently... So if I understand you correctly, your theory is that closeted lesbians were sleeping with so many men that it inflated the statistics? And now that homosexual women no longer feel constrained by societal norms, a significant number of men are left with nobody to have sex with?
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > So if I understand you correctly, your theory is that closeted lesbians were sleeping with so many men that it inflated the statistics? Well, it's an effect which would explain the results. It's not really my theory, which is that it's a complex of different things, including several that the author explicitly dismisses without any significant basis (or by citing a basis which seems incorrect.) The homosexuality one is one of them. Most of the series of things the author asserts affected both sexes similarly (“obesity, porn, video games, social media, dating apps, and wariness re harassment claims”) seem likely not to have done so similarly (that's seems particularly true of both porn and wariness re: harassment claims.)
• emikulic 8y ago
  Re: OkCupid: do you mean this? https://web.archive.org/web/20170330131859/https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e https://web.archive.org/web/20170330131859/https://theblog.o...
  • abledon 8y ago
    Lol that 3rd graph , it’s so sad !
  • wetpaws 8y ago
    I wonder why did okcupid remove this study
    • ronnier 8y ago
      For the vast majority of men it makes zero sense for them to be on a dating site, it just won’t work for them. That goes against OK Cupid’s interests.
    • davidgl 8y ago
      They were bought by Match.com, who weren't keen on undermining their own advertising ;-)
• hclalpha 8y ago
  This is the old "paradox of choice" reflecting itself from consumerism now on to dating... I don't see any women complaining, yet, as it's been only around 7 years of this dynamic and young women seem to be getting much higher quality partners through this low upfront cost, mainly appearance based process. However, I expect a lot of the consequences to society will reveal themselves when the female user base grows older, as it'll cause missed opportunity to raise children, childs without father and fathers uninterested in sticking around as they easily find younger partners as age generally favours men in attraction dynamics. Also, a certain mass of single young men will end up broken in the exercice. They'll either urged to compete in dishonest ways or give up entirely.
• kilroy123 8y ago
  This is absolutely the case. Sadly, we can see this kind of winner-takes-all dynamic play out in every part of our society now. This worries me greatly.
  • michaelmrose 8y ago
    This presumes that normal status/appearance actually can't find mates instead of merely not getting as much casual sex.
    • danlugo92 8y ago
      >actually can't find mates It seems that things are even getting to that point.
• codingslave 8y ago
  This is true, and honestly, has always been true. But its exaggerated by online dating and the relaxation of sex in modern society. I think whats really different, is that lots of young guys are taking note. Many are keenly aware that they are being left out. As I approach my early thirties, its weird to see those same women turn around and marry the men they previously rejected.
  • raducu 8y ago
    Some women do that, but a lot do so bitterly and a lot can't do that at all and end up single in the end. I have single male friends in their thirties and they are generally content with life, holding no grudge to the opposite sex. For every content single man in his late thirties I se 2-3 disgrunted and bitter single women ranting about how they are slighted by the patriarchy.
  • ck425 8y ago
    There's plenty of evidence showing woman have different (and in many ways lower) standards for long term mating that short term mating. Which makes sense evolutionally.
  • pokethetomato 8y ago
    The real concern, is why are they marrying those men they used to reject. Feelings and emotions don't go away, and "settling" is very toxic thing to most people. They usually get more resentful about it over time(both the people who settle, and the people who were settled for if they find out).
• genderPayGap 8y ago
  You know what we really need to focus on? The gender pay gap, and gender inequality in tech. Maybe if we pay women more, and let them have high ranking tech jobs, it'll lead to an equalized sex rate, and everything will go back to normal!
• JamesBarney 8y ago
  This is what I suspect as well and seems like the most obvious reason.
• titanix2 8y ago
  That’s exactly the theory developed by circles like the red pill. More access to potential partners with less social control lead to a winner take all situation. In addition, and it is addressed in the OP, women try to get partners which are higher on the social scale while men mostly focus on beauty.
  • ycombinete 8y ago
    Which makes total sense, given the different evolutionary drivers that men and women are motivated by. The problem with most narratives is that they moralize what is essentially an amoral phenomenon.
    • simonh 8y ago
      It quickly becomes very much a moral question if any of the women become pregnant. I do realise though that you're posting in the context of a society in which the necessary causal chain between sex and pregnancy has been broken, but the moral systems we have built around sex and relationships are predicated on that link for perfectly rational and valid reasons. Also ultimately we still need people to have children and bring those children up. The moral factor in sexual behaviour can't simply be discounted.
      • toasterlovin 8y ago
        And I'll just add that the link between sex and children is nowhere near completely severed. I am aware of tons of people who have had children A) before they planned to, and B) with someone they weren't in a serious relationship with.
    • akvadrako 8y ago
      Morals and evolution are tightly coupled. For starters, if you consider the practical morals society lives by, many of them are about controlling reproduction. That's one of the primary purposes of our moral institutions (religion). At a deeper level, both morality and evolution are all about encouraging survival of genes.
  • 8y ago
• ycombinete 8y ago
  Well as I understand it there are two primary evolutionary modes of sexual pairing/selection, which humans follow. The first model is where a supremely desirable male has many female partners, who get a little of his attention; and the second model, monogamy, where two partners pair up exclusively with the bulk of attention dedicated to each other [1]. Both are apt given different circumstances. Without trying to put any morality on to it, dating apps/hookup culture seem more predisposed to tapping in to the first selection model. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evolution_of_Human_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evo...
  • tomp 8y ago
    Indeed, and it would also explain why it happens for young men in particular - as people get older, they start prioritizing monogamy, it being likely the better structure for raising kids (according to current social standards, at least) (technically, marriage doesn't mean monogamy - cheating is common - but I imagine not many men would sign up to raise children in a couple without having sex with their partners).
    • raducu 8y ago
      If by "people" you mean women in their thirties waking up to the biological clock/last maternity "all aboard" call, sure. Young men have it worse list like older women have it: because men are attracted to youth and beauty and women are attracted to resources and status.
      • deleted 8y ago
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      • ycombinete 8y ago
        He probably means people when he says people. Men, too as they get older often have the same priority shift.
• deleted 8y ago
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• Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  I'm confident that it's down to the freedom of choice. That is, people are exposed to a lot more candidates nowadays and rely less on their own social circles for partners. I believe everyone would like to get together with the most attractive people, however in practice it doesn't work like that and there's a distinct gender skew in that area.
  • raducu 8y ago
    It's almost like we are genetically hard wired to like sugars and fat and fast food chains enable us to get fat. Oh no, that obviously isn't the case, it must be a conspiracy by the patriarchy to make it look so, we are actually hard-wired to like veggies but the fast food comercials we are bombarded every day brainwash us to eat fats and sugar. Also toxic masculinuty.
• polote 8y ago
  To me there are two important factors that explain that: * Dating apps, not good looking people have hard time getting any match on those kind of apps, so for those that use app and don't try to meet any other girls in real life I can easily understand that they don't have sex with any girls. Also these apps tends to increase expectations of people because they see beautiful people all day. * Porno, porno is more and more present, and more and more flexible to people tastes, so it is not uncommon to find people be more happy watching porn than having real life sex
  • PedroBatista 8y ago
    I think the only/mostly porn thing has a cost in the long term. But I suspect they only watch porn because they can't have real sex or don't know how to get there.
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Not necessarily. There are plenty of sexual fantasies out there that simply can't be fulfilled realistically. Even with relatively common and safe ones it can be quite difficult for two people into it to find each other.
  • raducu 8y ago
    Isn't porn be it movies or books also available to women? Riiight, but it is much safer for a woman to hookup on Tinder with a hot stranger than to watch porn like the nerds who absolutely preffer porn to actual sex do.
• maxkwallace 8y ago
  "swipe right, swipe left" acts as a filter but it's not how people choose partners. People choose partners based on chatting after the swipe and the overall impression/feeling they have when meeting in-person. The belief that the majority of women on the dating market choose partners primarily based on looks and status is a fiction that's part of a broader narrative insecure men tell themselves to help rationalize the resentment they experience-- and a result of men projecting their own preferences and motivations onto women. See my other comment in the thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19603329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19603329 Yes, for the tiny fraction of women on dating apps seeking hookups, attractiveness and status may be important factors. Many men may never have hookups. But the obsession with hookups is a male phenomenon, and the majority of women find them off-putting.
  • thefounder 8y ago
    Chances are that you might get skipped in the first place with no chance to chat or meet in person. It's basically marketing. If the user doesn't click on the link or call the number you get no sale regardless how good your product is.
  • PedroBatista 8y ago
    I understand what you're trying to say, but Tinder disagrees. Also, in your efforts to combat generalizations "against" women you did the same about men without skipping a beat.
  • MRD85 8y ago
    There is literally posts where someone made a profile with a really good looking man as the picture and he can say anything he wants. Take a look at this example: https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=165905221&page=1 https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=165905221&pa... You make a regular guy say those things and his dating life would be dead quiet. If you want success with women you should do your best to become attractive.
  • philonoist 8y ago
    This is how misandry spreads. When you put too much power at the very first step that is filtering out 99% of potential partners based on looks, then how would you even give the guy a chance to showcase what he truly is? Most women then miss out on the best experiences of "chatting after the swipe and the overall impression/feeling they have when meeting in-person." The final choice is then made out of settling down by lowering expectations when prematurely optimizing for low priority variables in the first rounds. I am amazed that men are adjudged to not have basic intelligence to see this through but are shoehorned as nursing their wounded ego. Nah man, Most men into adulthood are mature enough to not fall into simple biases unlike the feminist level misandry that concocts otherwise. Most men are optimistic than pessimist, more so, in the initial years of dating pool. That is why they test themselves repeatedly in dating market to draw such conclusions and eliminate the confirmation bias. Why does your comment that you linked not explain the reasons and spend much/all the time in dispelling "myths"? Abuse or PUA algorithms is all the more reason to not swipe left because you would expose yourself to more good people to bad people if statistics of society is anything to go by. Or why wouldn't you entertain the thought that women spread this rumour among themselves or play such hypothetical scenario in their minds more than the credibility associated with it? > Yes, for the tiny fraction of women If this sentence after this quote should continue to maintain what comes , then you must change the word tiny to majority. Match.com, Tinder and plethora of research contradicts you. Men don't self select themselves out of dating pool. No numbers say that either in absolute or relative to women or men along time axis. That must bust the myth that they are somehow insecure. The moment I read your "proto incel thoughts" as a warning signal in a HN community that isn't, is the same moment I got convinced the legitimacy of incels in this tiny subdomain of hatred they spew.
• stared 8y ago
  "[In Tinder,] the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men" - from https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-your-2ddf370a6e9a https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-g... (2015). I dive a bit it that topic in "Dating for nerds (part 2): gender differences" https://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-differences.html https://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-diffe....
  • claudiawerner 8y ago
    In the article, you write: >If you firmly believe we are blank slates, and the only innate difference between the sexes is body shape, take a look at this thread: But very few people believe this; it's better to characterise the argument as saying that many of the differences we see relating to the dynamics between the sexes are a product of society and culture, and the Reddit thread you linked underneath doesn't really refute that notion. I think it's more important that we try and understand the culture that produces these effects rather than inferring essential traits about humans without consulting the historical record.
    • ralusek 8y ago
      You're correct that most sensible people understand that environmental and inherent biological differences both contribute to behaviors. But the pathological mode of thinking that people are becoming increasingly sensitive to is the willingness to assert environmental causes in the absence of biological or nonsociological evidence. It's precisely this having a default position that makes it an ideological way of thinking. The gender wage gap is the clearest example at the moment, which was able to get people riled up on the 77 cents on the dollar figure, as purportedly being not only due primarily to environmental reasons, but specifically due to patriarchal socialization and sexism. The thing is, the initial figure was incredibly irresponsible, as it didn't control for field worked in, let alone specific profession, let alone seniority, output, hours worked, rate negotiated. The more of these figures are controlled for, the more the gap diminishes. But the problem is, people still look at the remainder as "okay well then there's a 7% gap, and that's still a problem." But my question is, "why?" They default back to the assumption that the remainder after what has since been controlled for is specifically the result of patriarchal sexism, simply because of a remaining disparity. That is ideological.