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Many comments are ignoring the most important aspect. The decline is almost all among men not women: >Using a slightly different age range and time frame, Ueda

Many comments are ignoring the most important aspect. The decline is almost all among men not women: >Using a slightly different age range and time frame, Ueda et al. (2020) found that the percentage of sexually inactive men ages 18 to 24 increased from 18.9 percent in 2000–2002 to 30.9 percent in 2016–2018, and the percentage of sexually inactive young women increased from 15.1 percent to 19.1 percent over the same period. The big increase is sexually inactive men and that is because women can more easily find highly attractive men on Tinder and other apps. The bottom of the male market has just fallen out completely. At least when you had to go to a bar as an unattractive guy, you could be the only one available or could woo women through other qualities. Now it’s 6 feet tall and fit with a good face or you get swiped left. And the high status men are more than happy to sleep with multiple women in a single week.

metalliqaz 6y ago
you sound bitter
- sawmurai 6y ago
  Who said OP is in the inactive bucket? ;)
  - metalliqaz 6y ago
    call it a hunch ;)
    - throwaway8581 6y ago
      I'm married. I'm just capable of sympathizing with single young men and, even more importantly, of seeing the negative effects the end of monogamy is going to have on our society.
      - quacked 6y ago
        It is quite bizarre that any criticism of modern sexual economics is immediately met with "ha, bet you're not getting any!" I have become convinced that these people do not have a great deal of insight into the true private lives of the people they know, and that shallow understanding of their cohort forms a platform of belief with which they're repeating their platitudes and banalities.
        throwaway8581 6y ago
        Imagine the corresponding response to people complaining about money economics: "ha, I bet you're a loser with no money who can't hold a job." For some reason, it's okay make this kind of attack on ugly or awkward people but not on stupid or lazy people.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
This was more or less the purpose of monogamy. If you observe many societies that don’t strongly enforce it, you see that wealthy men end up having tons of wives, while poor men have none. Same situation is happening in America, we just don’t call it polygamy because it has been reduced entirely to the physical act.
- DC1350 6y ago
  The unfortunate reality of sexual freedom is that most men would never be freely chosen for casual sex. The only reason they historically got laid was because of social and economic pressure against women. I don’t think it’s possible to have both gender equality and large scale monogamy.
  - liaukovv 6y ago
    Only if society takes it upon itself(upon undateable men really) to rear all offspring
    - durnygbur 6y ago
      I wouldn't mind not having sex, if society and labour code wouldn't force me into supporting not my children - who have both parents, by single mothers who made wrong choice, or single mothers who went through in-vitro. If there was a way to avoid it...
      - ilammy 6y ago
        > If there was a way to avoid it You can: move to a shack in the wood, be self-sufficient, don't use society's benefits, and hence don't pay taxes. Otherwise society is interested in baby taxpayers, regardless of who's raising them. Even if you don't use roads, your taxes are still used to build them. Ditto with children.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Sounds like we should eliminate the need for and concept of wealth, then, so people can congregate based on shared interest instead of having to factor in the possibility of monetary support from their partner(s).
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
I hear this explanation often, but it ignores the fact that only a small fraction of population uses Tinder. I don't know the real reason, but if I was to guess, the most obvious one is that there are so many interesting things to do, learn, engage in, that making considerable effort in order to have sex simply doesn't seem worth it, that's all.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  So basically men quit sex because it is difficult to obtain for them and there are now other options but women continue to have sex because it is easy to obtain?
  - orwin 6y ago
    Its an interesting take. I have no energy to spend in a loveless relationship tbh, and only respond when someone start flirting with me, but i never engage anything, and never did since my first relationship of 5 years. It sometime led to casual sex when i was still drinking on saturday night, but now that i stopped drinking, i stay at the flirting stage and never go further, because i realized that either casual sex is overrated, either i'm weird and don't get as much pleasure as other men, and the downsides are bigger than the upsides. I have another take: younger male are less attractive than older male for females between 20 and 26, or less rich?
  - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
    > women continue to have sex because it is easy to obtain? It's not so much that it's easy to obtain but at least in Western cultures it's expected that the initiating side should be male, and females can either accept or refuse it. This creates a somewhat unbalanced economy.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  There's tons of dating apps besides Tinder.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
mywittyname 6y ago
It's probably more than that. You don't have to be some 6ft tall hunk to land a woman. It definitely helps but it isn't required. What is required is that you try and don't get discouraged. It's a lot easier to stay home, play video games, and watch porn than it is to date. Plus, successful dating reduces time for video games.
- zepto 6y ago
  > You don't have to be some 6ft tall hunk to land a woman. It definitely helps but it isn't required. This is true, but what you do need is access to women so that you can learn what they want. If those women have a low incentive to spend time with less physically (or financially) attractive men, it’s going to be hard for the less attractive ones to develop the necessary capacities.
  - durnygbur 6y ago
    > it’s going to be hard for the less attractive ones to develop the necessary capacities. Exactly this. After hundreds of attempts and success rate 0 I simply lost any reference point. Should I invite her to museum or to the garbage dump? Come barefoot or in evening shoes? Say "hi beautiful" or "screw you"? I seriously have no clue.
- kar5pt 6y ago
  You've obviously never been an unattractive man on Tinder. It's not just "hard", it's mentally excruciating. You can easily swipe through thousands of women and not find one that's willing to even have a conversation with you. I'm honestly surprised that dating app related suicides aren't more common. I'm tired of this, "just keep trying and you'll land a woman" narrative. It's the same logic that capitalists use to tell poor people, "just keep working hard and you'll succeed". It expects people to keep facing failure after failure and never let's us admit that for some men dating is just not worth the pain involved. And then when they see the writing on the wall and give up, that's just used as more evidence that "men don't try hard enough" and aren't willing to face failure.
  - 6y ago
twobitshifter 6y ago
There is an easier explanation- that the young women are having sex with men older than 24. With people getting married later in life the pool of unmarried men from 24-30 is much larger than in the past. My understanding is that younger women tend to prefer a slightly older guy and men tend to prefer a slightly younger woman. In the 18-24 age group, the 18-24 year old men are competing against themselves and older men.
- durnygbur 6y ago
  To cheer you up it doesn't get any better as you age.
  - clydethefrog 6y ago
    I recently unlocked Tinder NG+ by turning 27. The encounters are harder to unlock but also more rewarding.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Honestly it seems to only get worse, but I feel that is a function of dating itself getting worse at a much faster rate than any advantage age might convey. How anyone can tolerate the experience of dating in the appified world I'll never know.
- oceanghost 6y ago
  I used to work near a college, this is a very real thing.
valbaca 6y ago
I expected the redpill to be popular on HN but this is just absurd and disgusting. "The bottom of the male market has just fallen out completely." It's not a market. People aren't commodities. "you could be the only one available or could woo women through other qualities." Isn't this just the "last man on the earth" respun as "last guy at the bar?" Since when has there been a shortage of guys at bars?
- devchix 6y ago
  Heh. For this reason I avoid HN threads having to do with gender and sex. There's a florid streak of redpill-ism that converges on these threads. Last week someone used "carousel" unironically. In this thread, "hypergamy". My bingo card is waiting for "Chad". Run away, quick!
  - viklove 6y ago
    Yes, when you encounter ideas that make you uncomfortable it's important to shut your eyes, plug your ears, and run away!
    - devchix 6y ago
      Yes. Because every idea that makes me uncomfortable is worth my time exploring. /s Presumptive of you to think I haven't, though. Red pill ideology is garbage.
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        I think the conflict here is from you associating the discussion of hypergamy and the effect of social media on dating with a red-pill ideology. Red-pillers and incels are on an extreme end of the spectrum, but they are occurring in reaction to something real. That real change shouldn't be flippantly dismissed.
        devchix 6y ago
        "hypergamy" is foundational to red pill and well-understood within the core beliefs. One can discuss the effect of social media on dating outside the light cone of red pill. It's a reaction to something, like white nationalism is a reaction to something, but that something is ill-defined and not necessarily real for anyone else except the person in which it evokes the response. Regardless, I value HN and don't want to discuss red pill. I regret even mentioning it. I withdraw and leave you the field.
thefz 6y ago
Still it is genes doing what genes do, only sped up 10x due to the technology being used.
838812052807016 6y ago
You can swap the sexes and apply the same argument, predicting the opposite result. So I don't think you have it quite right.

metalliqaz 6y ago

you sound bitter

sawmurai 6y ago
Who said OP is in the inactive bucket? ;)
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  call it a hunch ;)
  - throwaway8581 6y ago
    I'm married. I'm just capable of sympathizing with single young men and, even more importantly, of seeing the negative effects the end of monogamy is going to have on our society.
    - quacked 6y ago
      It is quite bizarre that any criticism of modern sexual economics is immediately met with "ha, bet you're not getting any!" I have become convinced that these people do not have a great deal of insight into the true private lives of the people they know, and that shallow understanding of their cohort forms a platform of belief with which they're repeating their platitudes and banalities.
      - throwaway8581 6y ago
        Imagine the corresponding response to people complaining about money economics: "ha, I bet you're a loser with no money who can't hold a job." For some reason, it's okay make this kind of attack on ugly or awkward people but not on stupid or lazy people.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

This was more or less the purpose of monogamy. If you observe many societies that don’t strongly enforce it, you see that wealthy men end up having tons of wives, while poor men have none. Same situation is happening in America, we just don’t call it polygamy because it has been reduced entirely to the physical act.

DC1350 6y ago
The unfortunate reality of sexual freedom is that most men would never be freely chosen for casual sex. The only reason they historically got laid was because of social and economic pressure against women. I don’t think it’s possible to have both gender equality and large scale monogamy.
- liaukovv 6y ago
  Only if society takes it upon itself(upon undateable men really) to rear all offspring
  - durnygbur 6y ago
    I wouldn't mind not having sex, if society and labour code wouldn't force me into supporting not my children - who have both parents, by single mothers who made wrong choice, or single mothers who went through in-vitro. If there was a way to avoid it...
    - ilammy 6y ago
      > If there was a way to avoid it You can: move to a shack in the wood, be self-sufficient, don't use society's benefits, and hence don't pay taxes. Otherwise society is interested in baby taxpayers, regardless of who's raising them. Even if you don't use roads, your taxes are still used to build them. Ditto with children.
Lammy 6y ago
Sounds like we should eliminate the need for and concept of wealth, then, so people can congregate based on shared interest instead of having to factor in the possibility of monetary support from their partner(s).

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

I hear this explanation often, but it ignores the fact that only a small fraction of population uses Tinder. I don't know the real reason, but if I was to guess, the most obvious one is that there are so many interesting things to do, learn, engage in, that making considerable effort in order to have sex simply doesn't seem worth it, that's all.

MattGaiser 6y ago
So basically men quit sex because it is difficult to obtain for them and there are now other options but women continue to have sex because it is easy to obtain?
- orwin 6y ago
  Its an interesting take. I have no energy to spend in a loveless relationship tbh, and only respond when someone start flirting with me, but i never engage anything, and never did since my first relationship of 5 years. It sometime led to casual sex when i was still drinking on saturday night, but now that i stopped drinking, i stay at the flirting stage and never go further, because i realized that either casual sex is overrated, either i'm weird and don't get as much pleasure as other men, and the downsides are bigger than the upsides. I have another take: younger male are less attractive than older male for females between 20 and 26, or less rich?
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  > women continue to have sex because it is easy to obtain? It's not so much that it's easy to obtain but at least in Western cultures it's expected that the initiating side should be male, and females can either accept or refuse it. This creates a somewhat unbalanced economy.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
There's tons of dating apps besides Tinder.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

mywittyname 6y ago

It's probably more than that. You don't have to be some 6ft tall hunk to land a woman. It definitely helps but it isn't required. What is required is that you try and don't get discouraged. It's a lot easier to stay home, play video games, and watch porn than it is to date. Plus, successful dating reduces time for video games.

zepto 6y ago
> You don't have to be some 6ft tall hunk to land a woman. It definitely helps but it isn't required. This is true, but what you do need is access to women so that you can learn what they want. If those women have a low incentive to spend time with less physically (or financially) attractive men, it’s going to be hard for the less attractive ones to develop the necessary capacities.
- durnygbur 6y ago
  > it’s going to be hard for the less attractive ones to develop the necessary capacities. Exactly this. After hundreds of attempts and success rate 0 I simply lost any reference point. Should I invite her to museum or to the garbage dump? Come barefoot or in evening shoes? Say "hi beautiful" or "screw you"? I seriously have no clue.
kar5pt 6y ago
You've obviously never been an unattractive man on Tinder. It's not just "hard", it's mentally excruciating. You can easily swipe through thousands of women and not find one that's willing to even have a conversation with you. I'm honestly surprised that dating app related suicides aren't more common. I'm tired of this, "just keep trying and you'll land a woman" narrative. It's the same logic that capitalists use to tell poor people, "just keep working hard and you'll succeed". It expects people to keep facing failure after failure and never let's us admit that for some men dating is just not worth the pain involved. And then when they see the writing on the wall and give up, that's just used as more evidence that "men don't try hard enough" and aren't willing to face failure.
- 6y ago

twobitshifter 6y ago

There is an easier explanation- that the young women are having sex with men older than 24. With people getting married later in life the pool of unmarried men from 24-30 is much larger than in the past. My understanding is that younger women tend to prefer a slightly older guy and men tend to prefer a slightly younger woman. In the 18-24 age group, the 18-24 year old men are competing against themselves and older men.

durnygbur 6y ago
To cheer you up it doesn't get any better as you age.
- clydethefrog 6y ago
  I recently unlocked Tinder NG+ by turning 27. The encounters are harder to unlock but also more rewarding.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Honestly it seems to only get worse, but I feel that is a function of dating itself getting worse at a much faster rate than any advantage age might convey. How anyone can tolerate the experience of dating in the appified world I'll never know.
oceanghost 6y ago
I used to work near a college, this is a very real thing.

valbaca 6y ago

I expected the redpill to be popular on HN but this is just absurd and disgusting. "The bottom of the male market has just fallen out completely." It's not a market. People aren't commodities. "you could be the only one available or could woo women through other qualities." Isn't this just the "last man on the earth" respun as "last guy at the bar?" Since when has there been a shortage of guys at bars?

devchix 6y ago
Heh. For this reason I avoid HN threads having to do with gender and sex. There's a florid streak of redpill-ism that converges on these threads. Last week someone used "carousel" unironically. In this thread, "hypergamy". My bingo card is waiting for "Chad". Run away, quick!
- viklove 6y ago
  Yes, when you encounter ideas that make you uncomfortable it's important to shut your eyes, plug your ears, and run away!
  - devchix 6y ago
    Yes. Because every idea that makes me uncomfortable is worth my time exploring. /s Presumptive of you to think I haven't, though. Red pill ideology is garbage.
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      I think the conflict here is from you associating the discussion of hypergamy and the effect of social media on dating with a red-pill ideology. Red-pillers and incels are on an extreme end of the spectrum, but they are occurring in reaction to something real. That real change shouldn't be flippantly dismissed.
      - devchix 6y ago
        "hypergamy" is foundational to red pill and well-understood within the core beliefs. One can discuss the effect of social media on dating outside the light cone of red pill. It's a reaction to something, like white nationalism is a reaction to something, but that something is ill-defined and not necessarily real for anyone else except the person in which it evokes the response. Regardless, I value HN and don't want to discuss red pill. I regret even mentioning it. I withdraw and leave you the field.

thefz 6y ago

Still it is genes doing what genes do, only sped up 10x due to the technology being used.

838812052807016 6y ago

You can swap the sexes and apply the same argument, predicting the opposite result. So I don't think you have it quite right.