5 ms·

If you look back a history , since the beginning of time, society has sought to limit sexual expression. Shame was the tool, but now that shame has been remove

If you look back a history , since the beginning of time, society has sought to limit sexual expression. Shame was the tool, but now that shame has been removed from sexual expression, more ways have been used to curb that expression. Just look at Instagram, in the beginning women could openly advertise only fans. Now that is restricted and also on twitch and YouTube is making moves in that direction. That’s what’s happening in Malaysia right now. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, it’s just what’s happening around the world and it will forever been a constant struggle as the pendulum swings from one end to the other. In the end unrestricted sexual freedom leads to lower birth rates as people have more choice. Just look at worldwide birth rate stats over the past 20 years. Covid only sped them up. There is no “they” that considers this or enforces this - it’s just the human organism fighting for ways to keep itself alive. Check out Greg Bears theories on how germs and viruses actually control the overall operations of humans in a bid for self survival. Fascinating. That’s what makes the world interesting sometimes —- to gaze at this struggle going on with open and neutral eyes.

ketralnis 5y ago
> There is no “they” that considers this or enforces this - it’s just the human organism fighting for ways to keep itself alive. There clearly is, aside from differing fertility rates these are all actions of authorities of one sort of another. They're different authorities but most are religious whether directly (Malaysia is a conservative Muslim country) or indirectly (Twitch isn't religious per se but it's following the puritanical values of the US)
- eric4smith 5y ago
  That’s why it’s fun to watch. Step back from religion for a minute and see the giant forces at work that almost has nothing to do with governments or religions or social movements. It’s so powerful that those things are just instruments rather than reasons.
  - doggodaddo78 5y ago
    I can't prove it, but I suspect, that the human species superorganism contains evolutionary psych aspects that, rather than grossly-overpopulate leading to mass deaths like most animals, more softly curtails reproduction as population explodes and resources become scarcer. (People are happier, have more sex, and couple and "nest" more when "times are good.") Such behavioral, preference, lifestyle, openness, and attitude changes include: Alternative gender/sexual identity expressions diverging from family focus, stress/anxiety, voluntary celibacy, perfectionist family planning (contraception, abortion, workaholism, and stricter goals), shallower human interactions, disillusionment of love, casualness of increased divorces, elongated adolescence, extended non-monogamy, "failure to launch," distractions like screens and video games, and, inadvertently, fertility reduction causes like obesity and plastics. I'm certain there are more factors I missed and some that are minor.
    - eric4smith 5y ago
      I love this line of thinking too. It’s certainly bigger than any one human directed agent. But yeah we can’t prove it.
      - doggodaddo78 5y ago
        Thanks. Yeah, It's too amorphous, ubiquitous, close-up, and squishy soft-"science" (philosophical-ish) sociological and psychological phenomena to really investigate, and conducting any sort of large-scale experiments would be extremely cruel and unethical. I think we can only look at history, macro trends, and some imprecise civilizational differences to throw approximate qualitative hypotheses against the wall to make some guesstimates, and still be wrong most of the time due to unaccounted factors or even happenstance of maladaptive random behaviors like not dating people with green eyes, political revolutions that organize society differently, or inexperience/shyness denying the immense rewards of social/sexual/pairbonding opportunities.
    - bryanlarsen 5y ago
      Counter-evidence: people in poor societies have more kids.
justinclift 5y ago
> In the end unrestricted sexual freedom leads to lower birth rates as people have more choice. That doesn't seem very logical. (?)
- eric4smith 5y ago
  Correlation or causation - you pick. The point is look at the numbers and how society expresses sexual expression between men and women these days. If they are so unrelated as you posit, what is the cause of the decline in birth rates then?
  - karpierz 5y ago
    Women can get jobs.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    I hypothesize that it is careers. 1. You probably want to establish your career before having kids. That takes time, especially with all the training required and needed mobility. 2. Kids need to have a good career to have a nice life, so you need to invest more in your children, which means fewer of them.
    - eric4smith 5y ago
      And that’s a sensible reason for sure.
  - aspaviento 5y ago
    Poor countries value more family, rich countries value more individualism.
    - fl0wenol 5y ago
      My gut tells me this argument is too simplistic, but... this is it, basically. I don't know whether it's a cause or an effect. Maybe it's a self-feeding dynamic?
- 5y ago
doggodaddo78 5y ago
Silphium went extinct, which was a proverbial shame (no pun intended). Abortion, women's access to employment, and divorce, available in many but not all countries, helps to encourage causal sexual relations. Sex negativity vs. sex positivity has been a battle forever, and Malaysia has dual systems for Muslims and non-Muslims that exacerbates this dichotomy. The typically most taboo exchanges involves the scarcest and most desirable resources: sex, love, money, slaves, or power. It seems like the sugarbaby/daddy phenomenon is merely an inducement for what others can get for free if they had more time, better seduction skills, self-confidence, and seized on more opportunities. I see that like the legalization of prostitution: what consenting adults can do shouldn't be regulated by the government. It is unfortunate that Malaysia banned Sugarbook and now drives such arrangements underground like prohibition, risking the enrichment of criminal enterprises.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > what consenting adults can do shouldn't be regulated by the government Good things laws are decided democratically, and the vast majority of humanity rejects this conception of how government ought to function.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    The vast majority of humanity rejected concepts like voting for and by women just 100 to 150 years ago.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      I'm not saying I always agree with the results of democracy, merely that I am happy, in this case, that most people reject your line of thought.
op03 5y ago
:) The Chimp brain doesn't just sit around quietly gazing at the world with "open and neutral eyes". That's not in its nature. Its nature is to meddle. And thats what changes the world.
- eric4smith 5y ago
  And that there is why we are just a slightly higher order than chimps. Some of us do sit back and observe and learn.
throway98752343 5y ago
> In the end unrestricted sexual freedom leads to lower birth rates as people have more choice. I thought birth rates tended to decline due to increased prosperity, not freer sex.
aslmol 5y ago
That’s a whole lot of tangential pop-history and evo-psych-on-LSD to distract from your declaration that commodification of sex is a fundamental part of “sexual expression”. Not just commodification in general, but specifically legitimizing old men soliciting young women for sex. It’s no cosmic mystery that the effect of sexual freedom on birth rates stem from birth control and the alleviation of economic incentives for having many children. It is baffling to me that this is the “top comment”.
heresie-dabord 5y ago
> Greg Bears theories on how germs and viruses actually control the overall operations of humans in a bid for self survival Perhaps you have read the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. [0] It is important to understand science, history, and human behaviour. The tendencies are clear. But biological reductionism has limited application for explaining complex systems. All you can really say is that people seek to maintain power and support favourable power structures. Whether this is because their microbiome "wants" this or it's simply better to be in control than to be a slave, I leave for other microbiomes to debate. Woman remains a slave even in much of the modern world for reasons that have not changed. [1] There is a political power structure allied with an economic power structure, and, in this case, an Abrahamic religion to blind the population and enforce conformity. If anything is capable of weakening the ideological power structure, it is the wealth generated by economic activity. [0] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene [1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Is_the_Nigger_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Is_the_Nigger_of_the_Wor...

ketralnis 5y ago

> There is no “they” that considers this or enforces this - it’s just the human organism fighting for ways to keep itself alive. There clearly is, aside from differing fertility rates these are all actions of authorities of one sort of another. They're different authorities but most are religious whether directly (Malaysia is a conservative Muslim country) or indirectly (Twitch isn't religious per se but it's following the puritanical values of the US)

eric4smith 5y ago
That’s why it’s fun to watch. Step back from religion for a minute and see the giant forces at work that almost has nothing to do with governments or religions or social movements. It’s so powerful that those things are just instruments rather than reasons.
- doggodaddo78 5y ago
  I can't prove it, but I suspect, that the human species superorganism contains evolutionary psych aspects that, rather than grossly-overpopulate leading to mass deaths like most animals, more softly curtails reproduction as population explodes and resources become scarcer. (People are happier, have more sex, and couple and "nest" more when "times are good.") Such behavioral, preference, lifestyle, openness, and attitude changes include: Alternative gender/sexual identity expressions diverging from family focus, stress/anxiety, voluntary celibacy, perfectionist family planning (contraception, abortion, workaholism, and stricter goals), shallower human interactions, disillusionment of love, casualness of increased divorces, elongated adolescence, extended non-monogamy, "failure to launch," distractions like screens and video games, and, inadvertently, fertility reduction causes like obesity and plastics. I'm certain there are more factors I missed and some that are minor.
  - eric4smith 5y ago
    I love this line of thinking too. It’s certainly bigger than any one human directed agent. But yeah we can’t prove it.
    - doggodaddo78 5y ago
      Thanks. Yeah, It's too amorphous, ubiquitous, close-up, and squishy soft-"science" (philosophical-ish) sociological and psychological phenomena to really investigate, and conducting any sort of large-scale experiments would be extremely cruel and unethical. I think we can only look at history, macro trends, and some imprecise civilizational differences to throw approximate qualitative hypotheses against the wall to make some guesstimates, and still be wrong most of the time due to unaccounted factors or even happenstance of maladaptive random behaviors like not dating people with green eyes, political revolutions that organize society differently, or inexperience/shyness denying the immense rewards of social/sexual/pairbonding opportunities.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    Counter-evidence: people in poor societies have more kids.

justinclift 5y ago

> In the end unrestricted sexual freedom leads to lower birth rates as people have more choice. That doesn't seem very logical. (?)

eric4smith 5y ago
Correlation or causation - you pick. The point is look at the numbers and how society expresses sexual expression between men and women these days. If they are so unrelated as you posit, what is the cause of the decline in birth rates then?
- karpierz 5y ago
  Women can get jobs.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  I hypothesize that it is careers. 1. You probably want to establish your career before having kids. That takes time, especially with all the training required and needed mobility. 2. Kids need to have a good career to have a nice life, so you need to invest more in your children, which means fewer of them.
  - eric4smith 5y ago
    And that’s a sensible reason for sure.
- aspaviento 5y ago
  Poor countries value more family, rich countries value more individualism.
  - fl0wenol 5y ago
    My gut tells me this argument is too simplistic, but... this is it, basically. I don't know whether it's a cause or an effect. Maybe it's a self-feeding dynamic?
5y ago

doggodaddo78 5y ago

Silphium went extinct, which was a proverbial shame (no pun intended). Abortion, women's access to employment, and divorce, available in many but not all countries, helps to encourage causal sexual relations. Sex negativity vs. sex positivity has been a battle forever, and Malaysia has dual systems for Muslims and non-Muslims that exacerbates this dichotomy. The typically most taboo exchanges involves the scarcest and most desirable resources: sex, love, money, slaves, or power. It seems like the sugarbaby/daddy phenomenon is merely an inducement for what others can get for free if they had more time, better seduction skills, self-confidence, and seized on more opportunities. I see that like the legalization of prostitution: what consenting adults can do shouldn't be regulated by the government. It is unfortunate that Malaysia banned Sugarbook and now drives such arrangements underground like prohibition, risking the enrichment of criminal enterprises.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> what consenting adults can do shouldn't be regulated by the government Good things laws are decided democratically, and the vast majority of humanity rejects this conception of how government ought to function.
- belltaco 5y ago
  The vast majority of humanity rejected concepts like voting for and by women just 100 to 150 years ago.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I'm not saying I always agree with the results of democracy, merely that I am happy, in this case, that most people reject your line of thought.

op03 5y ago

:) The Chimp brain doesn't just sit around quietly gazing at the world with "open and neutral eyes". That's not in its nature. Its nature is to meddle. And thats what changes the world.

eric4smith 5y ago
And that there is why we are just a slightly higher order than chimps. Some of us do sit back and observe and learn.

throway98752343 5y ago

> In the end unrestricted sexual freedom leads to lower birth rates as people have more choice. I thought birth rates tended to decline due to increased prosperity, not freer sex.

aslmol 5y ago

That’s a whole lot of tangential pop-history and evo-psych-on-LSD to distract from your declaration that commodification of sex is a fundamental part of “sexual expression”. Not just commodification in general, but specifically legitimizing old men soliciting young women for sex. It’s no cosmic mystery that the effect of sexual freedom on birth rates stem from birth control and the alleviation of economic incentives for having many children. It is baffling to me that this is the “top comment”.

heresie-dabord 5y ago

> Greg Bears theories on how germs and viruses actually control the overall operations of humans in a bid for self survival Perhaps you have read the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. [0] It is important to understand science, history, and human behaviour. The tendencies are clear. But biological reductionism has limited application for explaining complex systems. All you can really say is that people seek to maintain power and support favourable power structures. Whether this is because their microbiome "wants" this or it's simply better to be in control than to be a slave, I leave for other microbiomes to debate. Woman remains a slave even in much of the modern world for reasons that have not changed. [1] There is a political power structure allied with an economic power structure, and, in this case, an Abrahamic religion to blind the population and enforce conformity. If anything is capable of weakening the ideological power structure, it is the wealth generated by economic activity. [0] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene [1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Is_the_Nigger_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Is_the_Nigger_of_the_Wor...