5 ms·

The share of Americans not having sex has reached a record high

20 points by hirundo 7y ago

theNJR 7y ago
This seems to indicate a winner-takes-all hierarchy emerging within the sexual market place. As the data in this article shows, fewer men are having sex than women. That would indicate a group of men have multiple female partners while a large chunk of men remain unemployed living with their parents. They’ve been selected out of the sexual market place. I don’t have time right now to dig up sources, but throughout history this has been the norm.
- malcolmgreaves 7y ago
  Are you talking about prostitution? That's a sexual marketplace. This article isn't talking about people buying and selling sexual encounters. People deciding to have sex with one another doesn't mean that there exists any sort of bartering or trade. The overwhelming majority of sex is because it feels good and all people involved want to feel good. Living in your parent's basement isn't sexy, but not because one isn't rich, but because it indicates that one cannot make it in the real world. Kids live with their parents and no one wants to have a relationship with someone stuck in a child's mentality. Or even remotely resembling it. And you completely ignore homosexuality and the fact that now, more than in the past, is it possible for one to come out and not be eviscerated. A likely explaination of the same data is that more women are having sex with one another.
  - istorical 7y ago
    Markets while maybe feeling crass is the term used in sciences like sociology to study dating and relationships from a statistical POV.
  - anongraddebt 7y ago
    One would think the roughly 10% gap between men and women (mentioned in the article) could not be explained by more frequent homosexual sexual encounters if it is assumed that homosexual men and women have close to the same amount of sex. It seems reasonable to assume that lesbians don't have sex at a disproportionately greater rate than gay men.
  - dinodub 7y ago
    sexual market place does not mean "prostitution". the user is most likely speaking about the sexual economy, or the mating economy, or the relationship economy if you will.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- parliament32 7y ago
  This has been speculated about for a while: how the rise of online dating and hookup services (Tinder et al), in addition to the growing connected-ness over large distances, will result in a convergence of male dating pool. In essence, women are less likely to "settle" for an average dude when "above average" guys are easily reachable and available.
deftnerd 7y ago
"One particularly disturbing study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2007, indicated that men’s testosterone levels plummeted 17 percent from 1987 to 2004—and that’s controlling for health and lifestyle factors, such as obesity and diabetes, that are known to affect T levels. The study found not only that individual men were losing testosterone as they aged (which is fairly normal), but that same-age men from later eras had substantially lower T than their predecessors: a man who turned 65 in 2002, for example, had much lower T than a man who turned 65 in 1987." [1] While I don't doubt that social and economic pressures have a lot to do with decreased occurrences of sexual relations in the US, it's quite possible that decreases in average testosterone levels are also a factor. Low testosterone is highly correlated with a decreased sex drive. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-mystery-of-declining-testosterone_b_59fcc5fbe4b0d467d4c224b3 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-mystery-of-declining-test...
- GGfpc 7y ago
  Could this be related to less manual labor and less exercise in consequence?
  - deftnerd 7y ago
    I suppose, but they did say that they accounted for health and lifestyle factors, so I'm pretty sure that means that it's another cause they hadn't pinned down at the time of the study. From what I understand, the current theory is chemicals used to make plastic more pliable ended up being endocrine inhibitors, which decrease testosterone production. BPA, and other similar chemicals. Also, reports that many flame retardant chemicals do the same thing. The law requires that furniture with fabric and curtains and things like that have those chemicals to lower risks of fire. But, those chemical treatments physically break down into dust and we get exposed to them. There are probably other contributing factors too.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    We also see a steep decline in testosterone in dogs. Sure, we could be seeing two unrelated phenomena operating at the same time, but for the moment, we should operate under the assumption that the testosterone declines in dogs and men have a common etiology. If we do so, we rule out a ton of prospective causes.
kd3 7y ago
The sexual suppression/repression in the West has increased so this is no surprise. Sexuality is suppresed from early childhood and there are all kinds of written and unwritten rules of how you are allowed to interact with the opposite sex. It has become difficult, tedious and even dangerous. Just look at all the drama and scandals these days. Not coincidentally, mental damage and sexual perversion has increased as people try to find other ways to release sexual energy. Now they are even taught to have 'pride' in that so expect things to get worse instead of better.
- djaque 7y ago
  I see... so we're resorting to calling gay people mentally damaged now.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Don't feed the trolls?
    - djaque 7y ago
      Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to silently downvote them
  - kd3 7y ago
    All I'm saying is that there would be a lot less mentally damaged people if America had paid more attention and listened to the hippies. And I mean 'listening to the hippies' in more ways than just the obvious one in this context. http://thankahippie.com/2014/06/01/we-owe-it-all-to-the-hippies-reprint/ http://thankahippie.com/2014/06/01/we-owe-it-all-to-the-hipp...
    - dang 7y ago
      Please stop posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments to HN. You've done it a lot, and we ban accounts that do this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

20 points by hirundo 7y ago

This seems to indicate a winner-takes-all hierarchy emerging within the sexual market place. As the data in this article shows, fewer men are having sex than women. That would indicate a group of men have multiple female partners while a large chunk of men remain unemployed living with their parents. They’ve been selected out of the sexual market place. I don’t have time right now to dig up sources, but throughout history this has been the norm.

malcolmgreaves 7y ago
Are you talking about prostitution? That's a sexual marketplace. This article isn't talking about people buying and selling sexual encounters. People deciding to have sex with one another doesn't mean that there exists any sort of bartering or trade. The overwhelming majority of sex is because it feels good and all people involved want to feel good. Living in your parent's basement isn't sexy, but not because one isn't rich, but because it indicates that one cannot make it in the real world. Kids live with their parents and no one wants to have a relationship with someone stuck in a child's mentality. Or even remotely resembling it. And you completely ignore homosexuality and the fact that now, more than in the past, is it possible for one to come out and not be eviscerated. A likely explaination of the same data is that more women are having sex with one another.
- istorical 7y ago
  Markets while maybe feeling crass is the term used in sciences like sociology to study dating and relationships from a statistical POV.
- anongraddebt 7y ago
  One would think the roughly 10% gap between men and women (mentioned in the article) could not be explained by more frequent homosexual sexual encounters if it is assumed that homosexual men and women have close to the same amount of sex. It seems reasonable to assume that lesbians don't have sex at a disproportionately greater rate than gay men.
- dinodub 7y ago
  sexual market place does not mean "prostitution". the user is most likely speaking about the sexual economy, or the mating economy, or the relationship economy if you will.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
parliament32 7y ago
This has been speculated about for a while: how the rise of online dating and hookup services (Tinder et al), in addition to the growing connected-ness over large distances, will result in a convergence of male dating pool. In essence, women are less likely to "settle" for an average dude when "above average" guys are easily reachable and available.

deftnerd 7y ago

"One particularly disturbing study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2007, indicated that men’s testosterone levels plummeted 17 percent from 1987 to 2004—and that’s controlling for health and lifestyle factors, such as obesity and diabetes, that are known to affect T levels. The study found not only that individual men were losing testosterone as they aged (which is fairly normal), but that same-age men from later eras had substantially lower T than their predecessors: a man who turned 65 in 2002, for example, had much lower T than a man who turned 65 in 1987." [1] While I don't doubt that social and economic pressures have a lot to do with decreased occurrences of sexual relations in the US, it's quite possible that decreases in average testosterone levels are also a factor. Low testosterone is highly correlated with a decreased sex drive. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-mystery-of-declining-testosterone_b_59fcc5fbe4b0d467d4c224b3 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-mystery-of-declining-test...

GGfpc 7y ago
Could this be related to less manual labor and less exercise in consequence?
- deftnerd 7y ago
  I suppose, but they did say that they accounted for health and lifestyle factors, so I'm pretty sure that means that it's another cause they hadn't pinned down at the time of the study. From what I understand, the current theory is chemicals used to make plastic more pliable ended up being endocrine inhibitors, which decrease testosterone production. BPA, and other similar chemicals. Also, reports that many flame retardant chemicals do the same thing. The law requires that furniture with fabric and curtains and things like that have those chemicals to lower risks of fire. But, those chemical treatments physically break down into dust and we get exposed to them. There are probably other contributing factors too.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  We also see a steep decline in testosterone in dogs. Sure, we could be seeing two unrelated phenomena operating at the same time, but for the moment, we should operate under the assumption that the testosterone declines in dogs and men have a common etiology. If we do so, we rule out a ton of prospective causes.

kd3 7y ago

The sexual suppression/repression in the West has increased so this is no surprise. Sexuality is suppresed from early childhood and there are all kinds of written and unwritten rules of how you are allowed to interact with the opposite sex. It has become difficult, tedious and even dangerous. Just look at all the drama and scandals these days. Not coincidentally, mental damage and sexual perversion has increased as people try to find other ways to release sexual energy. Now they are even taught to have 'pride' in that so expect things to get worse instead of better.

djaque 7y ago
I see... so we're resorting to calling gay people mentally damaged now.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Don't feed the trolls?
  - djaque 7y ago
    Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to silently downvote them
- kd3 7y ago
  All I'm saying is that there would be a lot less mentally damaged people if America had paid more attention and listened to the hippies. And I mean 'listening to the hippies' in more ways than just the obvious one in this context. http://thankahippie.com/2014/06/01/we-owe-it-all-to-the-hippies-reprint/ http://thankahippie.com/2014/06/01/we-owe-it-all-to-the-hipp...
  - dang 7y ago
    Please stop posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments to HN. You've done it a lot, and we ban accounts that do this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html