10 ms·

> This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation befor

> This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation before them. Maybe we’re too anxious about the Apocalypse; maybe we’re too broke to go out; maybe having to live with roommates or our parents makes it a little awkward to bring a partner home; maybe there are chemicals in the environment screwing up our hormones; maybe we don’t know how to navigate human sexuality outside of rape culture; maybe being raised on the message that our bodies are a nation-ending menace has dampened our enthusiasm for physical pleasure. This stresses me out as a young and not sexually active millennial. What do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Do we want to? What do I do as an individual to change my individual situation?

polishdude20 6y ago
Become financially independent is probably the best you can do. That'll cover not affording to go out and having to live with parents or roommates.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  I don't think thats the core issue , sex is down even among school going teenagers
  - polishdude20 6y ago
    I think teenagers are observing what's going on in their old young adult counterparts.
Spooky23 6y ago
Live your life and turn off the bullshit. Otherwise, wait for it to burn out. Social media is a bubble, and the milk that helps create the metoo froth. We’ll sacrifice bad guys to the volcano gods for awhile, then the bubble will pop, the trend will fade and women (in the media) will be thirsting for men who aren’t wusses.
throway98752343 6y ago
The youngest millennials are around 25 years old. Changing your "not sexually active" situation will take putting yourself out there a lot, lowering your standards (you can raise them later), being open to meeting all sorts and getting rejected a lot. You'll certainly gain entertaining stories, and you'll probably meet some new friends, possibly one or more lovers and one of them may become a romantic partner if that's what you're after. Please be good to the people you meet while you're doing this. And along the way you'll develop a tolerance to rejection, which is a somewhere between life hack and superpower. All that that may be overwhelming though. The block you quoted is riddled with social anxieties. See if that's hold you back, and if so then get a professional to help you out. Side note, now is a good time to prepare for this change, because the pandemic has put everyone into extended isolation all at once. So there's a lot of pent up desire for connection that will be getting released over the next year. See also https://youtu.be/9mbp0DugfCA https://youtu.be/9mbp0DugfCA and https://youtu.be/ZOgvWIulxho https://youtu.be/ZOgvWIulxho for fun. I'm rooting for you, fellow throwaway!
- throwaway198919 6y ago
  I'm not OP but I'm not sexually active either and share the same worries and am probably a few years older than him. Thanks for sharing those videos, even though I was able to make that physique/style/life control transformation several times (get fit -> fall into a hole -> get fit again, rinse and repeat) during my 20s, this pandemic made me fall into a rut and I'm heavily struggling to stay on the right track that makes me climb up again. These videos are were another spark of motivation to try again. As for the "not sexually active" situation, I've noticed the feeling of frustration has become more intense and had made me more sad about it lately. As an introvert, the co-workers social circle is usually one of the main ones, but unfortunately I'm working alone because it has many more pros (own schedule -> go to gym when it's deserted, beat traffic, do errands at times where there are less waiting times, etc). Old college friends are starting to get married and be more busy, so I've been seeing them less, so less opportunity to be introduced to new people. I've tried salsa classes before the pandemic but didn't workout for that matter (couples that are very private, people that leave once the class ends, tight groups of friends). I've also tried the Tinder way, and the closest I've ended with a woman from it, she ended up losing interest when the pandemic started. Now I'm seeing someone from Tinder, and even though it will probably stay at friendship I'm taking it. I've been seeing a therapist since a couple years ago after I had my first panic attack, since then I've been using therapy for all my issues. However, even though I've been open about my sexual frustrations, I feel like my therapist ignores it and simply tries to work on my social aspect in general. My therapist is female and I wonder if having a male therapist it would be different, I've been wanting to try but I already invested many sessions with my current therapist.
theonemind 6y ago
There are almost 7.7 billion people on the planet already, even with less than replacement birthrates, I think we're good on human count for the next 300 years or so at a minimum so unless the birth rate really catastrophically collapses. We could lose an order of magnitude of people without endangering genetic diversity, take significant load off of the environment, and frankly, quite probably improve the human condition with fewer billions of other people to compete with in the world. I recommend seeing how we can extend this trend to demographics and countries it hasn't reached yet.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  If your fertility rate is too low, the pention system and the economy collapses
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Perhaps a system that relies on ever-expanding populations is bad?
    - imtringued 6y ago
      It doesn't rely on ever expanding populations. It relies on retirees to be the minority which is a reasonable assumption to make. After all, everything the elderly buy has to be extracted/made via labor of the young.
- rayiner 6y ago
  The math is more dismal than that. With a 1.5 birth rate (common in Europe) the population drops by more than half in three generations (about 100 years). This causes the economy to collapse—stock valuations have baked in assumptions of future generations of consumers existing. But it can get worse. South Korea has a fertility rate below 1 and Taiwan is headed that way. At that rate, the population drops by almost 90% within a century.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
anonll394e92 6y ago
Personally I use escorts, it is not easy finding an independent, good looking, permissive, not-very-expensive girl but by my calculations that's a far more efficient way of satisfying my inner-chimp until I want to get married and have kids. I do not want to participate in some mating ritual that involves two persons lying to each other in order to just relieve some sexual tension. In Romania I do not feel that generally girls are ok with no strings attached sex without this dishonest dance and even so, I couldn't probably get as attractive a girl as an escort. Maybe I could by investing a lot more time than I'm comfortable with just to satisfy a basic urge... but for 100$ I can have sex with girls of the same level of say Emma Stone that really know what they're doing. So if I make even 25$/h that's 4h of work for 1 sex session, which will take place entirely when I feel the desire for it. To find a similar (looking) girl that will have sex "for free" will probably take more than 10x more time and even then the actual sex might not be as good. Even if it is as good it will happen when the stars align and we both want it at the same time.
- f154hfds 6y ago
  I appreciate your honesty. For the last several years I have supported a charity that helps women to escape this cycle of oppression in Romania. I've heard some of their stories, how difficult life is after they've found a way out. All I can say is that victims abound despite appearances.
  - anonll394e92 6y ago
    Thank you. I believe I have enough experience to tell if a girl is enjoying her time with me or not and go out of my way to make her feel good (I perform oral and am generally not defensive). When I say I look for 'permissive' girls I mean I look for girls that permit kissing and "sports fucking". I don't choke / slap / hair pull or whatever. If a girl gives signs that she doesn't enjoy sports-fucking I don't persist, finish quickly and simply never visit her again. I have heard my share of sad stories from them and I don't revisit those. Regardless of my participation or not in this trade I know the trade will go on, there will always be men who seek this kind of service so I appease my conscience by treating the girls well and not revisiting those that don't seem to genuinely enjoy my company. I simply can not believe one can act so well in front of me and on the side be forced to do this. I mean moaning is simple to fake but the 30 min of conversation of the 1h I pay for? Keeping a cheerful vibe while opressed is hard to do.
rayiner 6y ago
> This stresses me out as a young and not sexually active millennial. What do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Do we want to? What do I do as an individual to change my individual situation? Why do we need to? The data shows that sex, drug use, etc., actually peaked with baby boomers. They were peak frivolity. It’s only because they created all the media for decades that we think those were good things. Millennials are a more sober and serious generation for a more sober and serious time. No need to regress.
- tayo42 6y ago
  How did boomers use more drugs? Since the boomer generation we had a crack epidemic, 2 heroine, 1 of those mixed with prescription opiates, and a non stop meth problem. Marijuana is legal in a bunch of states now. Psychedelics are having a revival. Mdma didn't even exist until recently and there have been two waves of rave culture
  - rayiner 6y ago
    See: https://mobile.twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1213165630326738945 https://mobile.twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/121316563032673... > At their peak in 1980 illegal drugs accounted for 5 % of total personal consumption expenditure in US. An astonishing figure corroborated by contemporary estimates that cocaine sales peaked at $35bn in 1980. Rachel Soloveichik @BEA_News
    - tayo42 6y ago
      Those comments in the thread have interesting points. 350/g in 1980 compared to what it costs now. (I used to pay 60/g around 2010) https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cocaine-prices-change-2016-10#while-cocaine-prices-in-the-us-have-varied-some-year-to-year-they-have-held-relatively-stable-since-declining-from-highs-in-the-1980s-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cocaine-prices-change-201... Thinking about it more, I guess you need to clarify if a boomers today use more drugs or was drug use higher in the 60s,70s,80s then in 00s and 10s. Other stuff I searched suggested boomers in the 10s are hit hard by opioids
NortySpock 6y ago
I assume this will relax slightly as we see lockdowns and masks ease up after most of a population has herd immunity from vaccines. I don't really know how to change whole cultures though, other than to change the propaganda (messaging) or improve the support structures so people feel safe enough to experiment and have fun with life.
tayo42 6y ago
Part of me wants to put the blame on the female side for the reduction of sex. Mostly because girls will be slut shamed for doing anything sexual. So girls hold it back. You can't blame them for being conservative in the society we live in. Stop telling the female half of the population that they need to be innocent virgins,sex is normal. The other excuses don't really resonate with me. Roommates? We were having plenty of sex in college, text your roommate to go away for a bit. Parents? Idk I just used my car or wait for them to go to sleep. 17 - to early 20s just do what you can. I don't get the broke thing, college bars are cheap, or we just went to parks or whatever.
- dysrend 6y ago
  Nothing makes sense. Nobody knows what to do or how to work this shit. Moving targets. Last time I had a girlfriend I'd come off a 2 year spree of virtual homelessness and poverty. I was living with my parents (mom and dad, both separated) transiently. I was dirt poor, drugs problem, losing jobs etc... She was in college studying to become a nurse. It wasn't one of those asymmetrical relationships either. She wasn't on the goon squad. Now that I have money, my own place, some direction and intention in my life... In most context where I have exposure there's some sort of hazard. Like trying to do anything at work when there might be a signal there seems like a terrible idea. Way too much potential for bad shit. At college, well shit I don't know if I'd be okay with dating anybody younger than 21, or a 21 year old for that matter (which is the rough majority). Even if we assume the age floor was 28 I still wouldn't dare approach anybody without evident interest, and networking at school is impossible because I'm swamped with work and work. I can get conversations started on Tinder, but they burn out fast and hard, no effort on the other end. I get a lot of matches, but I've only managed to finagle 2 dates out of what has to be hundreds of matches. I can't say how many I've actually opened, the odds look like shit regardless. Doesn't help that I live in an ultra-conservative rural cesspool where there's like... .5 degrees of separation. And then what are you to take from all the man-bashing shit? All the vitriolic speech against white males? And so on and so forth. I'll go to pornhub, thanks.
  - astrange 6y ago
    > And then what are you to take from all the man-bashing shit? All the vitriolic speech against white males? And so on and so forth. If you were an alpha male you'd never be paying attention to this in the first place. This is only a concern if you're reading memes spread by neurotic people on the internet.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1355&context=uclf&httpsredir=1&referer= https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti... Research on satisfaction differences between relationship types is illuminating
kenneth 6y ago
Being sexually active is a choice. Nothing's stopping you from going out there and meeting people. There's plenty going on if you're willing to step out of your house and meet people. (And no, swiping on apps doesn't count.) (Pandemic lockdowns of course might get in the way, but I'm speaking generally when those restrictions aren't there)
- dingaling 6y ago
  For the vast majority of people it simply doesn't work like that. It's a long, expensive, seldom successful and generally frustrating experience which takes a toll on self-esteem. Unless you're in the top 20% or so of attractiveness.
  - aksss 6y ago
    Consider the plight of the humble salmon: Spend your whole life just for one chance to mate, most likely to be killed by other fish, eaten by bear, yanked out of your home via net or metal hook, it all smells like fish, and then you die on a gravelly shore with birds ripping your eyeballs out.
aksss 6y ago
> what do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Well, HIV/AIDS seems relatively under control compared to when I was a young man, and there’s a vaccine for HPV, so get on out there, young blood! Aversion to anonymous or even just casual sex for my generation (X) was from diseases. That seems like less of an issue now, but maybe the education system doesn’t want to let up on the risks yet, kind of like cities keeping us doing the recycling motions even when they’re throwing it in landfills - the behaviors are deemed valuable or the institutions just haven’t caught up to reality. Probably your biggest issue as a generation is the freely available custom porn and social media alienating people from each other - there’s a lack of need to hook up and a self-inflicted lack of opportunity. Also, sensitivities to workplace hookups are a much bigger deal than they were even 15 years ago.
seabird 6y ago
The important question is "do we want to?" We are gods by the standards of people five hundred years ago. Even the opportunities 50 years ago pale in comparison to what many of us have access to today; you no longer have to be in the exact right place and time to be exposed to the state of the art in technology and science. You can bring together material and people from anywhere in the world in a matter of days to pursue goals that can dominate your life for years at a time. The pursuit and achievement of these goals can make many people truly happy. We're at a point in time where our society places a lot of value in sex and romance, but it's now easy to largely forego these things and dump your time into other things you're passionate about. It seems that when these discussions about the relative celibacy of young people come up, people talk a lot about how it must be because young people are facing effectively insurmountable struggles, and mostly ignore that it's possible that it's easier to focus on things other than sex now. That possibility runs contrary to how most of us were brought up, and it's why you're asking what we should do to "improve" these trends. Have we considered that there might be nothing to fix, and that the trend doesn't need to be stopped?

polishdude20 6y ago

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

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
I don't think thats the core issue , sex is down even among school going teenagers
- polishdude20 6y ago
  I think teenagers are observing what's going on in their old young adult counterparts.

Spooky23 6y ago

Live your life and turn off the bullshit. Otherwise, wait for it to burn out. Social media is a bubble, and the milk that helps create the metoo froth. We’ll sacrifice bad guys to the volcano gods for awhile, then the bubble will pop, the trend will fade and women (in the media) will be thirsting for men who aren’t wusses.

throway98752343 6y ago

The youngest millennials are around 25 years old. Changing your "not sexually active" situation will take putting yourself out there a lot, lowering your standards (you can raise them later), being open to meeting all sorts and getting rejected a lot. You'll certainly gain entertaining stories, and you'll probably meet some new friends, possibly one or more lovers and one of them may become a romantic partner if that's what you're after. Please be good to the people you meet while you're doing this. And along the way you'll develop a tolerance to rejection, which is a somewhere between life hack and superpower. All that that may be overwhelming though. The block you quoted is riddled with social anxieties. See if that's hold you back, and if so then get a professional to help you out. Side note, now is a good time to prepare for this change, because the pandemic has put everyone into extended isolation all at once. So there's a lot of pent up desire for connection that will be getting released over the next year. See also https://youtu.be/9mbp0DugfCA https://youtu.be/9mbp0DugfCA and https://youtu.be/ZOgvWIulxho https://youtu.be/ZOgvWIulxho for fun. I'm rooting for you, fellow throwaway!

throwaway198919 6y ago
I'm not OP but I'm not sexually active either and share the same worries and am probably a few years older than him. Thanks for sharing those videos, even though I was able to make that physique/style/life control transformation several times (get fit -> fall into a hole -> get fit again, rinse and repeat) during my 20s, this pandemic made me fall into a rut and I'm heavily struggling to stay on the right track that makes me climb up again. These videos are were another spark of motivation to try again. As for the "not sexually active" situation, I've noticed the feeling of frustration has become more intense and had made me more sad about it lately. As an introvert, the co-workers social circle is usually one of the main ones, but unfortunately I'm working alone because it has many more pros (own schedule -> go to gym when it's deserted, beat traffic, do errands at times where there are less waiting times, etc). Old college friends are starting to get married and be more busy, so I've been seeing them less, so less opportunity to be introduced to new people. I've tried salsa classes before the pandemic but didn't workout for that matter (couples that are very private, people that leave once the class ends, tight groups of friends). I've also tried the Tinder way, and the closest I've ended with a woman from it, she ended up losing interest when the pandemic started. Now I'm seeing someone from Tinder, and even though it will probably stay at friendship I'm taking it. I've been seeing a therapist since a couple years ago after I had my first panic attack, since then I've been using therapy for all my issues. However, even though I've been open about my sexual frustrations, I feel like my therapist ignores it and simply tries to work on my social aspect in general. My therapist is female and I wonder if having a male therapist it would be different, I've been wanting to try but I already invested many sessions with my current therapist.

theonemind 6y ago

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

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
If your fertility rate is too low, the pention system and the economy collapses
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Perhaps a system that relies on ever-expanding populations is bad?
  - imtringued 6y ago
    It doesn't rely on ever expanding populations. It relies on retirees to be the minority which is a reasonable assumption to make. After all, everything the elderly buy has to be extracted/made via labor of the young.
rayiner 6y ago
The math is more dismal than that. With a 1.5 birth rate (common in Europe) the population drops by more than half in three generations (about 100 years). This causes the economy to collapse—stock valuations have baked in assumptions of future generations of consumers existing. But it can get worse. South Korea has a fertility rate below 1 and Taiwan is headed that way. At that rate, the population drops by almost 90% within a century.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago

anonll394e92 6y ago

Personally I use escorts, it is not easy finding an independent, good looking, permissive, not-very-expensive girl but by my calculations that's a far more efficient way of satisfying my inner-chimp until I want to get married and have kids. I do not want to participate in some mating ritual that involves two persons lying to each other in order to just relieve some sexual tension. In Romania I do not feel that generally girls are ok with no strings attached sex without this dishonest dance and even so, I couldn't probably get as attractive a girl as an escort. Maybe I could by investing a lot more time than I'm comfortable with just to satisfy a basic urge... but for 100$ I can have sex with girls of the same level of say Emma Stone that really know what they're doing. So if I make even 25$/h that's 4h of work for 1 sex session, which will take place entirely when I feel the desire for it. To find a similar (looking) girl that will have sex "for free" will probably take more than 10x more time and even then the actual sex might not be as good. Even if it is as good it will happen when the stars align and we both want it at the same time.

f154hfds 6y ago
I appreciate your honesty. For the last several years I have supported a charity that helps women to escape this cycle of oppression in Romania. I've heard some of their stories, how difficult life is after they've found a way out. All I can say is that victims abound despite appearances.
- anonll394e92 6y ago
  Thank you. I believe I have enough experience to tell if a girl is enjoying her time with me or not and go out of my way to make her feel good (I perform oral and am generally not defensive). When I say I look for 'permissive' girls I mean I look for girls that permit kissing and "sports fucking". I don't choke / slap / hair pull or whatever. If a girl gives signs that she doesn't enjoy sports-fucking I don't persist, finish quickly and simply never visit her again. I have heard my share of sad stories from them and I don't revisit those. Regardless of my participation or not in this trade I know the trade will go on, there will always be men who seek this kind of service so I appease my conscience by treating the girls well and not revisiting those that don't seem to genuinely enjoy my company. I simply can not believe one can act so well in front of me and on the side be forced to do this. I mean moaning is simple to fake but the 30 min of conversation of the 1h I pay for? Keeping a cheerful vibe while opressed is hard to do.

rayiner 6y ago

> This stresses me out as a young and not sexually active millennial. What do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Do we want to? What do I do as an individual to change my individual situation? Why do we need to? The data shows that sex, drug use, etc., actually peaked with baby boomers. They were peak frivolity. It’s only because they created all the media for decades that we think those were good things. Millennials are a more sober and serious generation for a more sober and serious time. No need to regress.

tayo42 6y ago
How did boomers use more drugs? Since the boomer generation we had a crack epidemic, 2 heroine, 1 of those mixed with prescription opiates, and a non stop meth problem. Marijuana is legal in a bunch of states now. Psychedelics are having a revival. Mdma didn't even exist until recently and there have been two waves of rave culture
- rayiner 6y ago
  See: https://mobile.twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1213165630326738945 https://mobile.twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/121316563032673... > At their peak in 1980 illegal drugs accounted for 5 % of total personal consumption expenditure in US. An astonishing figure corroborated by contemporary estimates that cocaine sales peaked at $35bn in 1980. Rachel Soloveichik @BEA_News
  - tayo42 6y ago
    Those comments in the thread have interesting points. 350/g in 1980 compared to what it costs now. (I used to pay 60/g around 2010) https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cocaine-prices-change-2016-10#while-cocaine-prices-in-the-us-have-varied-some-year-to-year-they-have-held-relatively-stable-since-declining-from-highs-in-the-1980s-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cocaine-prices-change-201... Thinking about it more, I guess you need to clarify if a boomers today use more drugs or was drug use higher in the 60s,70s,80s then in 00s and 10s. Other stuff I searched suggested boomers in the 10s are hit hard by opioids

NortySpock 6y ago

I assume this will relax slightly as we see lockdowns and masks ease up after most of a population has herd immunity from vaccines. I don't really know how to change whole cultures though, other than to change the propaganda (messaging) or improve the support structures so people feel safe enough to experiment and have fun with life.

tayo42 6y ago

Part of me wants to put the blame on the female side for the reduction of sex. Mostly because girls will be slut shamed for doing anything sexual. So girls hold it back. You can't blame them for being conservative in the society we live in. Stop telling the female half of the population that they need to be innocent virgins,sex is normal. The other excuses don't really resonate with me. Roommates? We were having plenty of sex in college, text your roommate to go away for a bit. Parents? Idk I just used my car or wait for them to go to sleep. 17 - to early 20s just do what you can. I don't get the broke thing, college bars are cheap, or we just went to parks or whatever.

dysrend 6y ago
Nothing makes sense. Nobody knows what to do or how to work this shit. Moving targets. Last time I had a girlfriend I'd come off a 2 year spree of virtual homelessness and poverty. I was living with my parents (mom and dad, both separated) transiently. I was dirt poor, drugs problem, losing jobs etc... She was in college studying to become a nurse. It wasn't one of those asymmetrical relationships either. She wasn't on the goon squad. Now that I have money, my own place, some direction and intention in my life... In most context where I have exposure there's some sort of hazard. Like trying to do anything at work when there might be a signal there seems like a terrible idea. Way too much potential for bad shit. At college, well shit I don't know if I'd be okay with dating anybody younger than 21, or a 21 year old for that matter (which is the rough majority). Even if we assume the age floor was 28 I still wouldn't dare approach anybody without evident interest, and networking at school is impossible because I'm swamped with work and work. I can get conversations started on Tinder, but they burn out fast and hard, no effort on the other end. I get a lot of matches, but I've only managed to finagle 2 dates out of what has to be hundreds of matches. I can't say how many I've actually opened, the odds look like shit regardless. Doesn't help that I live in an ultra-conservative rural cesspool where there's like... .5 degrees of separation. And then what are you to take from all the man-bashing shit? All the vitriolic speech against white males? And so on and so forth. I'll go to pornhub, thanks.
- astrange 6y ago
  > And then what are you to take from all the man-bashing shit? All the vitriolic speech against white males? And so on and so forth. If you were an alpha male you'd never be paying attention to this in the first place. This is only a concern if you're reading memes spread by neurotic people on the internet.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1355&context=uclf&httpsredir=1&referer= https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti... Research on satisfaction differences between relationship types is illuminating

kenneth 6y ago

Being sexually active is a choice. Nothing's stopping you from going out there and meeting people. There's plenty going on if you're willing to step out of your house and meet people. (And no, swiping on apps doesn't count.) (Pandemic lockdowns of course might get in the way, but I'm speaking generally when those restrictions aren't there)

dingaling 6y ago
For the vast majority of people it simply doesn't work like that. It's a long, expensive, seldom successful and generally frustrating experience which takes a toll on self-esteem. Unless you're in the top 20% or so of attractiveness.
- aksss 6y ago
  Consider the plight of the humble salmon: Spend your whole life just for one chance to mate, most likely to be killed by other fish, eaten by bear, yanked out of your home via net or metal hook, it all smells like fish, and then you die on a gravelly shore with birds ripping your eyeballs out.

aksss 6y ago

> what do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Well, HIV/AIDS seems relatively under control compared to when I was a young man, and there’s a vaccine for HPV, so get on out there, young blood! Aversion to anonymous or even just casual sex for my generation (X) was from diseases. That seems like less of an issue now, but maybe the education system doesn’t want to let up on the risks yet, kind of like cities keeping us doing the recycling motions even when they’re throwing it in landfills - the behaviors are deemed valuable or the institutions just haven’t caught up to reality. Probably your biggest issue as a generation is the freely available custom porn and social media alienating people from each other - there’s a lack of need to hook up and a self-inflicted lack of opportunity. Also, sensitivities to workplace hookups are a much bigger deal than they were even 15 years ago.

seabird 6y ago

The important question is "do we want to?" We are gods by the standards of people five hundred years ago. Even the opportunities 50 years ago pale in comparison to what many of us have access to today; you no longer have to be in the exact right place and time to be exposed to the state of the art in technology and science. You can bring together material and people from anywhere in the world in a matter of days to pursue goals that can dominate your life for years at a time. The pursuit and achievement of these goals can make many people truly happy. We're at a point in time where our society places a lot of value in sex and romance, but it's now easy to largely forego these things and dump your time into other things you're passionate about. It seems that when these discussions about the relative celibacy of young people come up, people talk a lot about how it must be because young people are facing effectively insurmountable struggles, and mostly ignore that it's possible that it's easier to focus on things other than sex now. That possibility runs contrary to how most of us were brought up, and it's why you're asking what we should do to "improve" these trends. Have we considered that there might be nothing to fix, and that the trend doesn't need to be stopped?