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Ugh. Yes. Not meaning to be crude here and I’m incredibly sympathetic to the men I date, but as a woman in her late 30s it’s hard to find a man my age who doesn

Ugh. Yes. Not meaning to be crude here and I’m incredibly sympathetic to the men I date, but as a woman in her late 30s it’s hard to find a man my age who doesn’t have problems getting / keeping it up. Most of them link back to antidepressant use. What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Is that something we should be willing to give up? It hasn’t always been this way, has it?

Tade0 5y ago
> It hasn’t always been this way, has it? As a man in his 30s growing up I witnessed a shift in attitudes from "just man up" to "seek help", so there's that. If anything I would suggest humanity to give up dating apps. They're essentially making people feel inadequate and pay for the dubious privilege.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Dating apps are awful, but were a lot better once I challenged my standards (and lowered them a bit; I’m not the young hottie I used to be and that was a hard realization).
- prionassembly 5y ago
  Feeling inadequate is integral to the cherchez-la-femme experience. But it's probably better to be humiliated in night clubs (where eg. women sometimes will pretend not to even see you) than in apps; ego defense mechanisms have less of a chance there. Also: actually kissing tells you a lot that detailed self-reported profiles will never do -- the "chemistry" thing is real, sometimes two people find someone cute and stylish but the kissing doesn't work.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ralusek 5y ago
Trouble in that department is also heavily impacted by men just generally being more sedentary, having poorer diets, and due to those reasons and more, having lower testosterone. Also, consuming pornography in much greater amounts than previously available to people is known to cause serious problems here.
- 65a 5y ago
  > is known to cause serious problems here [citation needed]
- 1_player 5y ago
  Yes, changing diets, better sleep and giving up porn works wonder in my case. I'm in my mid 30s and never had any sexual dysfunction, but relatively small changes cause major changes in my perceived feelings of "potency", if you will. Fatty meats, cholesterol heavy foods (butter, eggs), vitamin D have the biggest effect on me, still less than just simply giving up porn.
lewispollard 5y ago
> What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Is that something we should be willing to give up? It hasn’t always been this way, has it? GPs have very limited amounts of time for individual patients. Therapists, counsellors and psychiatrists are expensive and have mixed results, and require a significant time investment from the patient and the professional. It may be a long time before any kind of talk therapy has results. For many people who go into a doctor's office complaining of depression symptoms, it will go away within a reasonable timeframe. In many countries, there are waiting lists for any kind of further treatment. The whole situation adds up to handing out SSRIs as a first line treatment when anyone comes to a GP reporting depressive symptoms; it's cheap, it buys time, it gives the patient a feeling that they're doing something to work on their issue, and gives them time to sign up for further support and get through their waiting list. As far as the GP knows, in most cases, side effects are rare. For many people coming in with mild depressive symptoms, there is some temporary life factor that will go away within the first course of treatment, and with it the symptoms, and that is a "success" for the SSRI stats. Of course, anyone who's been on SSRIs of various types for any longer length of time knows that's bullshit, and they're quite serious substances with prolonged side effects and withdrawals. I really hope the situation changes.
n4r9 5y ago
> What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? There's little space for compassion and sociability. Most people in the West spend 8 hours a day working through an endlessly growing backlog of demands, all the while justifying each hour to clients and managers, then go home to drink and watch TV or scroll through news feeds. Our brains are not suited to constantly worrying over the demands of others while being so disengaged from social face to face contact.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  "There's little space for compassion and sociability" I would argue there is more space now than there used to be. I mean, women were basically property at one point, with changing degrees of freedom. You might not get out of the house much, depending. Folks working as servants around 1900 basically had to do what their employers said, even if that meant you simply weren't allowed to have a romantic partner. We kept slaves, and unfortunately, some folks still do. We are probably lucky to spend only 8 hours a day on things, and I'm really happy that housework doesn't take up a lot of time now. Doing housework or working long hours doesn't grant you much space for compassion nor sociability. The television and feeds are hobbies and entertainment. The folks in the past did similar stuff, and they had their own outcries - books, bicycles, women's ankles, and so on. Drinking has been with us for literally Millenia. The amount of drunkards has varied alongside whatever it is we feel is "too much" - in other words, drinking daily wouldn't be strange if that is in the culture, but it is possible that same culture would frown on daily drunkenness.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    > I mean, women were basically property at one point, with changing degrees of freedom. You might not get out of the house much, depending. Can we please stop just repeating cliches that are not even obviously true? While certain countries certainly had these notions, this is not a universal. And even in cultures with strong 'female ownership', the picture you're painting is incredibly wrong. While women may be considered 'basically' property, they would constantly be socializing with one another. They would be out of their house often with other women and their children. The appearance of 'ownership' would only be from the vantage point of men. For example, looking at Middle Eastern society, it's completely false to say women don't get out of the house. Women have entire portions of the house to themselves, where they and their female friends can get together, talk, interact, and gossip without any interference from men, including their own husband. Today we are way more atomized. Many people work, watch TV, and sleep. That's sad. We used to spend most of our day with friends and family. Even the slaves would.
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Honestly, the "about" is that we've developed medicines that aren't nearly as horrible as the medicines of yesteryear. Prozac wasn't marketed until the 80's, and a lot of other things have been marketed since then. Marketing is key too - it is really hard to take this stuff if you don't know something is available. And misery has been with us for quite some time. Is that something we should be willing to give up? Well, no. Giving up antidepressants means that people suffer more. We could work on reducing the general population's suffering and anxiety. We aren't 100% sure on how to do this, it seems, but we know things like easily affordable health care and a safety net helps out lots. It hasn’t always been this way, has it? Actually, yes. And no. I'm not convinced that housewives that used to take vallium in the 70's were taking it because they were happy, for example. We didn't always think to write about this stuff - doubly so when going on about it could get you in a non-modern mental hospital. The 'no' is simply because we can do something about it now. I like to think we are more compassionate overall now, but I have no real reason to think this.
- nradov 5y ago
  Exercise is as effective as antidepressants for some patients. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-all-natural-treatment-to-fight-depression https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-...
  - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
    I don't see how that is relevant here. I'm guessing relieving financial stress is really effective in some too. So what? It doesn't help all patients, which means that we just can't cure everyone with exercise. Hence, we'd be worse off without them as some folks would suffer more.
    - nradov 5y ago
      It's relevant because there are a variety of therapies available. No single treatment will work for all patients. Medication is sometimes appropriate but it isn't always the best option.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Is that something we should be willing to give up? It hasn’t always been this way, has it? It's completely possible that there's something messed up in modern society that causes depression, or in medicine that diagnoses depression and/or prescribes antidepressants, but the null hypothesis would be that before modern times, people were... just depressed. And then more recently that they'd try treating it with cocaine/meth/etc. Or that they'd fail to treat it, and some percentage of those people would commit suicide, and the remainder would never admit that there was anything wrong, both of which mean the outcome you observe wouldn't happen. Again, this isn't to say there isn't a more interesting answer, just that you have to at least consider the possibility that it's not something about modern society.
- nradov 5y ago
  We know that exercise is an effective antidepressant for some people. In pre-modern times people were generally more physically active so I suspect that prevented a lot of depression symptoms. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-all-natural-treatment-to-fight-depression https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-...
- iammisc 5y ago
  Depression is relative. Today on social media, people come away with the false conclusion that they are meant to feel euphoric most of the time. I don't believe in 'feeling happy', yet every magazine promises me i'll be happy if I just do X. Instagram says if I just follow <blah>, my life will become infinitely better. It's all a joke. I never feel happy, but I am not depressed. And more importantly, I have no interest in constant happiness... how boring. Most days I just feel meh. Sometimes I feel hungry.
prionassembly 5y ago
I tied the knot in my early 30s, but friends who chose to remain free agents (even having had opportunities to marry someone great) report that the market thins out more and more as time goes by. And these are men, with easier access to a younger pool.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  I wouldn’t say women have it much different — I end up dating a lot of significantly younger men. It is harder to have much in common outside of physical attraction with someone too far from your age group though.
  - prionassembly 5y ago
    My wife is actually five years older than me. But we met on a night club and made out before talking too much and it stuck. I think we developed a crush on each other in the ensuing daytime dates, came to admire each other and recognize common values. But we had kissed first and tested the chemistry. People overthink dating and mating. We'd all probably be reasonably happy on arranged marriages. With apologies for the non-inclusive language of an old song, "woman needs man and man must have his mate, on that you can rely as time goes by".
    - wayoutthere 5y ago
      5 years isn’t that much difference and you still share some cultural overlap. I’ve dated people who are closer to 15 years younger and it was hard to have more than a physical relationship because our personalities were formed in such different contexts.
m00x 5y ago
It's not about society, it's about having the option now. I have severe anxiety and I always just accepted it. After taking 75mg/day of Effexor, I don't have that anxiety anymore and I can function like a normal human. I'm in my mid-30s and I can have sex 3-4x/day easily and it still functions like when I was 15. I wouldn't blame it all on anti-depressants, since sexual issues for 35+ year old men are common even without them. Blaming anti-depressants is convenient though since no one wants to blame it on genetics/health.
iammisc 5y ago
I am a straight man, so have no experience with other men obviously, but this is fascinating. How can it be that so many of us are on antidepressants? Something is surely wrong as you've said right? There may also be selection effects as men in their late 30s may not have 'paired up' so to speak due to depression. But still, I'm curious if anyone has stats on how many people are on these drugs.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  About 15-20%. But that’s just the antidepressants; sexual dysfunction can also be caused by blood pressure medication, epilepsy meds, etc. Anecdotally I would say regular sexual dysfunction among men over 35 is probably closer to 50%. I don’t know how this compares to past eras though.
  - anon-guy 5y ago
    Just 200 years ago, that 35 year old man would probably be dead already. Medicine has given us a longer life span and evolution hasn’t caught up.
rytcio 5y ago
Porn also causes issues in that department.

Tade0 5y ago

> It hasn’t always been this way, has it? As a man in his 30s growing up I witnessed a shift in attitudes from "just man up" to "seek help", so there's that. If anything I would suggest humanity to give up dating apps. They're essentially making people feel inadequate and pay for the dubious privilege.

wayoutthere 5y ago
Dating apps are awful, but were a lot better once I challenged my standards (and lowered them a bit; I’m not the young hottie I used to be and that was a hard realization).
prionassembly 5y ago
Feeling inadequate is integral to the cherchez-la-femme experience. But it's probably better to be humiliated in night clubs (where eg. women sometimes will pretend not to even see you) than in apps; ego defense mechanisms have less of a chance there. Also: actually kissing tells you a lot that detailed self-reported profiles will never do -- the "chemistry" thing is real, sometimes two people find someone cute and stylish but the kissing doesn't work.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ralusek 5y ago

Trouble in that department is also heavily impacted by men just generally being more sedentary, having poorer diets, and due to those reasons and more, having lower testosterone. Also, consuming pornography in much greater amounts than previously available to people is known to cause serious problems here.

65a 5y ago
> is known to cause serious problems here [citation needed]
1_player 5y ago
Yes, changing diets, better sleep and giving up porn works wonder in my case. I'm in my mid 30s and never had any sexual dysfunction, but relatively small changes cause major changes in my perceived feelings of "potency", if you will. Fatty meats, cholesterol heavy foods (butter, eggs), vitamin D have the biggest effect on me, still less than just simply giving up porn.

lewispollard 5y ago

> What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Is that something we should be willing to give up? It hasn’t always been this way, has it? GPs have very limited amounts of time for individual patients. Therapists, counsellors and psychiatrists are expensive and have mixed results, and require a significant time investment from the patient and the professional. It may be a long time before any kind of talk therapy has results. For many people who go into a doctor's office complaining of depression symptoms, it will go away within a reasonable timeframe. In many countries, there are waiting lists for any kind of further treatment. The whole situation adds up to handing out SSRIs as a first line treatment when anyone comes to a GP reporting depressive symptoms; it's cheap, it buys time, it gives the patient a feeling that they're doing something to work on their issue, and gives them time to sign up for further support and get through their waiting list. As far as the GP knows, in most cases, side effects are rare. For many people coming in with mild depressive symptoms, there is some temporary life factor that will go away within the first course of treatment, and with it the symptoms, and that is a "success" for the SSRI stats. Of course, anyone who's been on SSRIs of various types for any longer length of time knows that's bullshit, and they're quite serious substances with prolonged side effects and withdrawals. I really hope the situation changes.

n4r9 5y ago

> What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? There's little space for compassion and sociability. Most people in the West spend 8 hours a day working through an endlessly growing backlog of demands, all the while justifying each hour to clients and managers, then go home to drink and watch TV or scroll through news feeds. Our brains are not suited to constantly worrying over the demands of others while being so disengaged from social face to face contact.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
"There's little space for compassion and sociability" I would argue there is more space now than there used to be. I mean, women were basically property at one point, with changing degrees of freedom. You might not get out of the house much, depending. Folks working as servants around 1900 basically had to do what their employers said, even if that meant you simply weren't allowed to have a romantic partner. We kept slaves, and unfortunately, some folks still do. We are probably lucky to spend only 8 hours a day on things, and I'm really happy that housework doesn't take up a lot of time now. Doing housework or working long hours doesn't grant you much space for compassion nor sociability. The television and feeds are hobbies and entertainment. The folks in the past did similar stuff, and they had their own outcries - books, bicycles, women's ankles, and so on. Drinking has been with us for literally Millenia. The amount of drunkards has varied alongside whatever it is we feel is "too much" - in other words, drinking daily wouldn't be strange if that is in the culture, but it is possible that same culture would frown on daily drunkenness.
- iammisc 5y ago
  > I mean, women were basically property at one point, with changing degrees of freedom. You might not get out of the house much, depending. Can we please stop just repeating cliches that are not even obviously true? While certain countries certainly had these notions, this is not a universal. And even in cultures with strong 'female ownership', the picture you're painting is incredibly wrong. While women may be considered 'basically' property, they would constantly be socializing with one another. They would be out of their house often with other women and their children. The appearance of 'ownership' would only be from the vantage point of men. For example, looking at Middle Eastern society, it's completely false to say women don't get out of the house. Women have entire portions of the house to themselves, where they and their female friends can get together, talk, interact, and gossip without any interference from men, including their own husband. Today we are way more atomized. Many people work, watch TV, and sleep. That's sad. We used to spend most of our day with friends and family. Even the slaves would.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Honestly, the "about" is that we've developed medicines that aren't nearly as horrible as the medicines of yesteryear. Prozac wasn't marketed until the 80's, and a lot of other things have been marketed since then. Marketing is key too - it is really hard to take this stuff if you don't know something is available. And misery has been with us for quite some time. Is that something we should be willing to give up? Well, no. Giving up antidepressants means that people suffer more. We could work on reducing the general population's suffering and anxiety. We aren't 100% sure on how to do this, it seems, but we know things like easily affordable health care and a safety net helps out lots. It hasn’t always been this way, has it? Actually, yes. And no. I'm not convinced that housewives that used to take vallium in the 70's were taking it because they were happy, for example. We didn't always think to write about this stuff - doubly so when going on about it could get you in a non-modern mental hospital. The 'no' is simply because we can do something about it now. I like to think we are more compassionate overall now, but I have no real reason to think this.

nradov 5y ago
Exercise is as effective as antidepressants for some patients. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-all-natural-treatment-to-fight-depression https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-...
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  I don't see how that is relevant here. I'm guessing relieving financial stress is really effective in some too. So what? It doesn't help all patients, which means that we just can't cure everyone with exercise. Hence, we'd be worse off without them as some folks would suffer more.
  - nradov 5y ago
    It's relevant because there are a variety of therapies available. No single treatment will work for all patients. Medication is sometimes appropriate but it isn't always the best option.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

> What about modern society drives the need for such widespread use of antidepressants? Is that something we should be willing to give up? It hasn’t always been this way, has it? It's completely possible that there's something messed up in modern society that causes depression, or in medicine that diagnoses depression and/or prescribes antidepressants, but the null hypothesis would be that before modern times, people were... just depressed. And then more recently that they'd try treating it with cocaine/meth/etc. Or that they'd fail to treat it, and some percentage of those people would commit suicide, and the remainder would never admit that there was anything wrong, both of which mean the outcome you observe wouldn't happen. Again, this isn't to say there isn't a more interesting answer, just that you have to at least consider the possibility that it's not something about modern society.

nradov 5y ago
We know that exercise is an effective antidepressant for some people. In pre-modern times people were generally more physically active so I suspect that prevented a lot of depression symptoms. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-all-natural-treatment-to-fight-depression https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-...
iammisc 5y ago
Depression is relative. Today on social media, people come away with the false conclusion that they are meant to feel euphoric most of the time. I don't believe in 'feeling happy', yet every magazine promises me i'll be happy if I just do X. Instagram says if I just follow <blah>, my life will become infinitely better. It's all a joke. I never feel happy, but I am not depressed. And more importantly, I have no interest in constant happiness... how boring. Most days I just feel meh. Sometimes I feel hungry.

prionassembly 5y ago

I tied the knot in my early 30s, but friends who chose to remain free agents (even having had opportunities to marry someone great) report that the market thins out more and more as time goes by. And these are men, with easier access to a younger pool.

wayoutthere 5y ago
I wouldn’t say women have it much different — I end up dating a lot of significantly younger men. It is harder to have much in common outside of physical attraction with someone too far from your age group though.
- prionassembly 5y ago
  My wife is actually five years older than me. But we met on a night club and made out before talking too much and it stuck. I think we developed a crush on each other in the ensuing daytime dates, came to admire each other and recognize common values. But we had kissed first and tested the chemistry. People overthink dating and mating. We'd all probably be reasonably happy on arranged marriages. With apologies for the non-inclusive language of an old song, "woman needs man and man must have his mate, on that you can rely as time goes by".
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    5 years isn’t that much difference and you still share some cultural overlap. I’ve dated people who are closer to 15 years younger and it was hard to have more than a physical relationship because our personalities were formed in such different contexts.

m00x 5y ago

It's not about society, it's about having the option now. I have severe anxiety and I always just accepted it. After taking 75mg/day of Effexor, I don't have that anxiety anymore and I can function like a normal human. I'm in my mid-30s and I can have sex 3-4x/day easily and it still functions like when I was 15. I wouldn't blame it all on anti-depressants, since sexual issues for 35+ year old men are common even without them. Blaming anti-depressants is convenient though since no one wants to blame it on genetics/health.

iammisc 5y ago

I am a straight man, so have no experience with other men obviously, but this is fascinating. How can it be that so many of us are on antidepressants? Something is surely wrong as you've said right? There may also be selection effects as men in their late 30s may not have 'paired up' so to speak due to depression. But still, I'm curious if anyone has stats on how many people are on these drugs.

wayoutthere 5y ago
About 15-20%. But that’s just the antidepressants; sexual dysfunction can also be caused by blood pressure medication, epilepsy meds, etc. Anecdotally I would say regular sexual dysfunction among men over 35 is probably closer to 50%. I don’t know how this compares to past eras though.
- anon-guy 5y ago
  Just 200 years ago, that 35 year old man would probably be dead already. Medicine has given us a longer life span and evolution hasn’t caught up.

rytcio 5y ago

Porn also causes issues in that department.