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I don't think tech or porn is the main culprit. It's that people now have way more entertainment options other than sex. Of course, a lot for those entertainmen

I don't think tech or porn is the main culprit. It's that people now have way more entertainment options other than sex. Of course, a lot for those entertainment options are being driven by tech. Back in my dad's days, they were poor so the only entertainment options in their free time was drinking cheap home made alcohol, dancing and sex, while now we have gaming, Netflix, tic-tok, porn, traveling to the infinite Instagramable places around the world, plus the grind of keeping up with spiraling living and real estate costs, which IMHO, is the real bummer here. Also, adult dating and meeting people for the post-college working professionals, has largely moved from clubs/bars/the office to online dating apps, or lonely depression in your apartment, eating or drinking your feelings away, for those without success in the WFH, remote-everything, online dating world. Especially with the lockdowns.

usrn 4y ago
It's because people in their 20s are living with their parents and don't want to have sex in the park. When I was younger I wanted it badly enough that I did stupid things like that but I can understand why people like me are in a tiny minority.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  That, and most are still holding people in their 20s to the same standards as generations able to start a family with the credentials of Homer Simpson.
  - usrn 4y ago
    "People" meaning banks really. The games with credit are effectively driving the housing shortage by making buying the small number of already built homes effectively more affordable than building new ones in the massive amount of permissibly zoned empty space we have. We're only exacerbating it by bringing in tons of legal and illegal immigrants and having the government pay for their housing. It's not surprising there's a conspiracy theory about intentional replacement of the native population with that going on. Combine that with the value extraction from rent/debt (everyone has to own a car and since they probably can't afford to just buy one most are in debt over it) and no one can afford sex. The awful part of all this is that young people blame women. Women are just the messengers.
    - danuker 4y ago
      > already built homes effectively more affordable than building new ones The reason people buy instead of build is that the house is already there, whereas building anew takes a lot of time. As interest rates grow, it becomes more expensive to do so, and waiting starts paying off. But inflation is still high in spite of the high interest rates. And then, maybe the central banks will overshoot the interest rate, which will lead to another crash... Other than that, living in a walkable area has its advantages, and codes are much stricter in high densities, so you can't build.
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      I actually meant the people, not banks. Banks exacerbate the problem, but you don't need to hold everyone to the same standards as 30 years ago. People in family homes in Southern Europe date, too. Many Japanese people get married before they leave the parental home. This was pretty standard in most of Europe and America a little less than a century ago. >The awful part of all this is that young people blame women. I don't want to blame women in particular, but from personal anecdotes, women in particular place huge importance on a guy having his own car and place, despite both being massive wastes of money here and actively hurting one's ability to get housing later. The opposite, not so much. This in a country where even rent is now mostly a dual-income market.
      - usrn 4y ago
        The Japanese buy and large aren't having sex, so I'd disagree with you that they're a good example of women having lower standards. Their desire for men to have things and a stable life is probably biological and immutable. You can see their role as messengers of the truth pretty often. I saw this one video that I thought was pretty great where a group of three women were out. The videographer/interviewer had the two friends call up the first's boyfriend and ask to "hang out" behind her back as a sort of joke. The first woman then freaked out, not at her boyfriend for wanting to cheat but at her friends for showing it. If you watch carefully this sort of thing happens pretty often.
        BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  - ptero 4y ago
    People in their 20s having their own digs is, I think, a decidedly American phenomenon. In most of the poorer parts of the world (including, for example, Central and Eastern Europe), 30+ years ago younger crowd managed to have sex just fine, using dorm rooms, snatching time while parents were away, etc. My 2c.
    - mcv 4y ago
      Aren't we talking about people in their 20s? You seem to be describing teenagers. For people in their 20s, it's always been quite normal to have a job, a home, and, at some point during their 20s, to get married.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        I think that was a phenomenon relatively unique to US/Canada in post WW2 decades up until maybe the 90s.
        mcv 4y ago
        I strongly doubt that. It was quite common in western Europe too. My parents got married in 1970 and did briefly live with my grandparents (who had a gigantic house that was still dirt cheap when they got married directly after WW2), but moved out soon after that. As far as I know, people moved out either when they married, or when they went to a university in a different city. Around 1990 I knew one guy who had a job and still lived with his parents, and I thought that was odd (he spent all his money on fancy audiophile equipment).
      - ptero 4y ago
        A job -- sure. But a common situation in cities would be for a 20-something to live with their parents until (and sometimes after) they got married due to the very limited housing. When I came to the US in my mid-20s I was absolutely stunned that it was possible for someone working an unskilled job (which is what I did for my first year) to rent a small apartment of one's own (in a sketchy part of the town, sure) and invite whoever I please whenever I want.
      - 4y ago
  - TwoHeadedBeast 4y ago
    Is that the same Homer Simpson who has a highly skilled job in the nuclear industry, earning well above the median.
- vidanay 4y ago
  Because now you get a lifetime label as a registered sex offender if you get caught. Additionally, those of us who grew up in the 80's had the absolute fear of AIDS drilled into us. IMO, the AIDS epidemic blunted the libido of at least one generation.
  - Beltiras 4y ago
    Almost nobody got laid in the 80's. Fact.
    - oldsecondhand 4y ago
      In the 80s AIDS was the gay disease. Also people live longer than a decade.
    - samatman 4y ago
      People who grew up in the 80s were by definition not getting laid until the 90s for the most part. As one of those people, well, it didn't stop me. But the terror was real.
  - usrn 4y ago
    - vidanay 4y ago
      It's not a big deal, we know that now. In the 80's when I was a teenager, the fear-tactics and abstinence only education were strong - I'd even say at their peak. Those patterns get embedded in your brain.
      - krrrh 4y ago
        I’ll never forget seeing Oprah on tv in 1987, "Hello, everybody. AIDS has both sexes running scared. Research studies now project that one in five--listen to me, hard to believe--one if five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me." By the time I was a teenager that fear had subsided, but that’s was a pretty dramatic thing to hear at a young age.
lumost 4y ago
I do wonder if the act of dating has gotten substantially less fun than it was in the past. At least if you go to a bar/concert/activity you may have fun and make plutonic friends, messaging random people on a dating site seems much more depressing.
- CoastalCoder 4y ago
  > plutonic friends Did you mean "Platonic friends"? Although it sounds kinda nice to have Plutonic friends as well, since they'd have yachts and what not.
  - benj111 4y ago
    Surely plutonic friends would have superpowers and not be the rich tech heavy kind of superhero???
  - oldsecondhand 4y ago
    If you marry a plutonic friend, you can start a nuclear family unit.
    - layer8 4y ago
      I was thinking that you’d reach new horizons.
  - irrational 4y ago
    Oh, I thought it meant friends from the planet Pluto.
  - spyder 4y ago
    It's a very long distance friend who lives as far as Pluto :-)
- dpz 4y ago
  It is very un fun, one of the big things I've noticed is online dating is very different experience for men and women. Both have their negatives and positives, but it create a weird dynamic of how people date.
bko 4y ago
Entertainment has entered a tyranny of choice. I see it personally. I can watch nearly every show and movie that was ever created but I still flip through Netflix and RT endlessly, often times choosing not to watch anything. When I was younger I would just watch Seinfeld re-runs, with commercials and all. Am I more "entertained" today than I was when I was growing up? I'm not convinced. The weirdest thing is I don't remember what I used to talk to my friends about when I was in high school. We didn't have much shared media to talk about (e.g. periodic TV shows people obsess about today). None of us so much picked up a newspaper at the time so current events were out. None of us had that many specific interests and the interests we had weren't shared. But somehow we spent hours talking about something. I wish I could be a fly on the wall of my prom table to just take in what was discussed.
- justinpowers 4y ago
  If you became that fly, you’d soon wish to be squashed rather than listen to adolescent chitchat.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bko 4y ago
    Fair point...
- vinnymac 4y ago
  I am genuinely unsure, and had to google it. Is RT supposed to be the abbreviation for Rotten Tomatoes?
  - pavlov 4y ago
    I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s not Russia Today where I associate the abbreviation…
  - Game_Ender 4y ago
    Yes. A popular way to see what shows reviewers and audiences like most. If you Google “rt <name of movie>” you will get the rating too.
nnoitra 4y ago
It's unfortunately a lot sadder than that. You'd be suprised at the amount of males that want to have sex but just can't get any. There is a serious case of looks inflation nowadays with Tinder etc.
- Noos 4y ago
  there is inflation with everything since we are connected to everyone in the world. All programmers work at FAANG, all artists are superhumanly taleneted, all business owners make million dollar unicorns and look like actors, etc. Average is slowly being filtered out
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    Yes average is there still actually running things...
- prmoustache 4y ago
  Well you can't really get laid if you spend day and night playing video games and binge watching series. Every time I broke up I was mildly welcoming some time for myself but never managed to be single more than a handful of weeks. And I don't consider myself particularly more attractive/interesting than everybody out there.
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    I don't play video games, and I don't binge watch series, but why would this exlude women/gender-non-binary? They can and do enjoy both. And they could enjoy both with someone else. After all, what is the meaning of "Netflix and Chill"? I know many women who wish to do the same with another person, and that person need not look like Brad Pitt, et al. Perhaps I am reading too deep, but you make it sound like someone needs to make some great effort to meet someone else. No, just a slight hiccup in their daily routine can introduce them to another person whom has very similar, low energy interests. Think: Buzzfeed dating videos from 5 years ago. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzDFKJHczQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzDFKJHczQ8
CodeSgt 4y ago
I think that all the things you listed are definitely culprits, but I wouldn't be so quick to discount porn. Anecdotally, I myself and many otherwise healthy, sociable young men I know have pretty serious porn addictions. I really wish there would be more research done on the negative impacts of pornography, especially on young men and teens/pre-teens. I know typically any anti-porn sentiment is met with "Oh you're just being a puritan", but the reality couldn't be further from the truth. On social issues, I'm very liberal. Yet so much porn during my developmental years has done so much damage that as an adult I'm just now really understanding the full extent of it, and breaking that addiction is incredibly difficult
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Yeah, but porn addiction is a consequence I think. If all men could get laid whenever they'd feel like it with a willing partner, then porn use would plummet. I haven't met many women into porn, probably because a one night stand is just a zero effort tinder swipe away, from the comfort of your pijamas in your living room. As a man, you end up turning to porn or paying for sex, or drinking or doing drugs, to compensate the lack of intimacy in your personal life, as that just leads to depression and lack of any self worth.
  - CodeSgt 4y ago
    I'm not so sure. The average age someone is the first time they watch porn is 11, well before some of the issues you mentioned would manifest. When a porn addiction is developed before you hit your teens it's hard to blame a dysfunctional sex life on externalities.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      I do not think an “addiction” is the problem. Obviously, everyone prefers the real thing to porn. What has changed is the availability of porn introducing an extremely low cost alternative to sex, reducing the impetus for making the effort to find a partner (relative to previous times). Maybe even reducing the impetus to putting in the effort to seduce an existing partner! Of course, it is not uniform across all men of course. I suspect those who are able to attract/interact with partners more easily will opt to do that, and those that are not will opt for the easier, lower cost option (even though there may be other long term costs).
ravenstine 4y ago
> Also, adult dating and meeting people for the post-college working professionals, has largely moved from clubs/bars/the office to online dating apps, or lonely depression in your apartment, eating or drinking your feelings away, for those without success in the WFH, remote-everything, online dating world. Especially with the lockdowns. And those "dating" apps can hardly be called dating apps in most cases. They're designed to mess with the underlying sexual dynamic of men and women. If they were meant for romance, they'd have more mechanisms in place to help strangers actually date and get to know each other. Instead, they're a meat market, and the sad thing is more and more people are growing up in a world where they know no different. If you think about it, dating apps have no incentive to try and get people to actually meet in real life. Not only does that raise the potential for liability, but that means fewer eyeballs on their product at any given time. Tinder knows very well that their product is selling attention to women and the promise of sex to countless men they know have next to zero chance based on their looks alone. As OK Cupid was losing its position as a dating app, I remember them putting out an advertising campaign featuring the initialism "DTF", which tells you all you need to know. They might even still be doing it, for all I know. I remember it from billboards and posters in Santa Monica. > I don't think tech or porn is the main culprit. It's that people now have way more entertainment options other than sex. Of course, a lot for those entertainment options are being driven by tech. I don't buy this one bit. The number of entertainment options is correlative, but who has demonstrated that it's causative? Yes, there is a chance that the proliferation of entertainment options is the primary cause, but unless a double-blind study has or will be done to test whether the sex drive is actually in competition with entertainment, I have very sincere doubts. Furthermore, the porn industry is in no way declining. If people were losing an instinctive interest in sex, why would they be watching porn? What if people actually want sex, but they are too ill equipped to obtain it IRL? And we haven't even brought up declining androgen levels in males. Sex isn't going out of fashion. If anything, we are hypersexualized. The goal of sex isn't merely to propagate genes, but to propagate selected genes. Our current environment allows us to select our mates to such an extent that even more people are seleced out of the gene pool for a variety of reasons. Either we're perpetually thinking we can do better, or that we're never good enough or are too ugly, or are totally clueless because Boomer and Gen X parenting have been a disaster.
- 4y ago
guerrilla 4y ago
> has largely moved from clubs/bars/the office to online dating apps Online dating apps which have a huge incentive to keep people on their site as long as possible too...
- skohan 4y ago
  That's a good point: it's actually a perverse incentive. If they successfully create a relationship they have lost a customer.
  - scarmig 4y ago
    This is a bit too conspiratorial: I've spoken to people who work at these companies, and there's not a team of analysts trying to figure out how to minimize the number of successful relationships that come from using the app. An app that has a reputation for "I met my last partner on X, and we're getting married next week!" will get far more users and recurring revenue through word of mouth. The bigger issue is that figuring out good matchings is a crapshoot and users' self-described desires and priorities aren't actually in-line with what will make them happy. Everyone wants someone hot (almost by definition), and so the hot people get a lot of interest: the ones actually interested in relationships quickly end up off the market, and those remaining are more than capable of soaking up all the available interest.
    - moomoo11 4y ago
      Really? I worked on the biggest dating app in the world and there are so many dark patterns at play to keep people paying while in reality the way those features work is correct only from a vague reading of the perks. They not only have analysts but legal involved. End of the day they want money like any other business, their goal is to maximize users and revenue, and keep more and more people engaged. The goal of finding love is something crafted by marketing. It may have been the founders vision, but then they got millions in funding lol. Be real.
    - rurp 4y ago
      > This is a bit too conspiratorial: I've spoken to people who work at these companies, and there's not a team of analysts trying to figure out how to minimize the number of successful relationships that come from using the app. I think the effect can be true without anyone having ill intent. The dating app companies are generally trying to make as much money as they can, which will indrectly lead to decisions that optimize for serial dating. As a parallel I don't think Facebook is full of evil people who want to increase the amount of hate and anger in the world, but it does have a lot of people who just want to make money and encouraging negative reactions happens to be an effective way of doing that, so that's what we get.
caeril 4y ago
> Back in my dad's days, Obesity was much lower and bodies were much healthier and more vigorous. Erectile dysfunction was much less common, and average serum testosterone levels were higher. I guess it's uncouth to suggest that physical acts are more enjoyable with more physically attractive and capable populations, but I don't think it's something that should be discounted.
- otikik 4y ago
  > Erectile dysfunction was much less common I have no doubt that self-reports of erectile dysfunction were probably less common at that time. I will say that information about it was certainly less common, and the stigma associated to it was stronger and more prevalent. > I guess it's uncouth to suggest that physical acts are more enjoyable with more physically attractive and capable populations On "capable": Erectile dysfunction can be caused by low levels of testosterone, as well as sexual desire. However, sexual prowess doesn't orbit around the male penis as much as our fathers thought. That is but one dimension. On the subject of attractiveness: I question that men with high levels of testosterone are actually more attractive to women. High testosterone has some obvious advantages (higher strength, bigger muscles, stronger sexual desire) but it also bring some things that are not so universally appraised (more body hair, less head hair, stronger body smell, mode violent behavior, less empathy). That group of traits, and the fact that we live in a more informed society, might be making high-testosterone males less attractive to women, overall. Perhaps that is what is making the testosterone levels go down - the same thing that is making us taller: artificial selection. My (totally unverified) impression is that this is what happens in Japan. Most famous male Japanese actors tend to look "effeminate" to me, as an European. There seems to be very little "strong jaw, big muscles" amongst that group, compared to Europeans or Americans.
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    > That group of traits, and the fact that we live in a more informed society, might be making high-testosterone males less attractive to women, overall. I believe Cicero, in one of his speeches, complained about women being into young clean-shaven men, and not the robust full-bearded patrician look.
unethical_ban 4y ago
Tech, porn, and social media/lack of community are what I think the issues are. And your comment which I mostly agree with seems to contradict your first sentence. Everything you said (Gaming, endless video-on-demand, porn, social media, online dating, remote work) is enabled by technology. Ergo, tech /is/ the main culprit. Now, onto the post I originally typed: I wonder if younger people know what it's like to go a week or two without orgasm. I don't know many teens/young adults, much less well enough to ask about sex culture. I came of age in the 2000s, when online porn was a thing, but not ubiquitous, not HD, and still taboo. I do know that deprivation of orgasm makes it that much better when it does happen, and it changes your mind in both increase of sexual drive, and for me, increase in the desire for true intimacy, rather than just an anxious need to get off. When I kick the habit, my interest in talking to women goes higher than normal, and not "simply" because I'd like sex - it's because my entire mind is changed to wanting intimacy and to meet people. So ubiquity of porn and its normalization is a big factor in people not seeking true human contact. I think that people are also becoming more and more shy/anxious in general, at least by my flawed observations. Between rapidly changing social cues/acceptable behavior, being constantly connected, etc., it is difficult for people to connect and disconnect appropriately. I think about the pre-Internet era when people could maybe date or hook up, and if it didn't work, it was out of sight, out of mind. Now with social media, I see people staying connected despite falling out. Maybe out of curiosity, maybe thinking they can still be friends, but I think that the inability to have a clear head/fresh start makes things difficult. At least in my area/life, there isn't a huge sense of community. It takes a lot of effort to find non-bar oriented things to do that has a decently high number of people attending, who are all interested in the same things, and where it's likely to find a person to date. Say what you want about religion, but church really does serve a valuable purpose when not used to direct people toward bigotry. Gotta run to a meeting, this was a bit of a braindump, but the topic of human interaction and macro loneliness is an interesting topic, and a serious one that truly scares the shit out of me for my society and myself.
- circlefavshape 4y ago
  > I wonder if younger people know what it's like to go a week or two without orgasm I certainly didn't when I was a teenager in the 80s, and I had zero access to porn or sexual partners.
mattgreenrocks 4y ago
We've also forgotten what sex is for in a relationship, doubtless because it is inconvenient when stacked against all of our favorite soma. Watching most people continue to be addicted to systems that take more than they give (social media) is difficult. And it affects the people around them deeply, too. It doesn't happen in a vacuum; the emotional un-presence is palpable. It is so common it feels very difficult to bring up.
atoav 4y ago
Another thing to consider: It might just be, that sex being more of an taboo (without the internet being there to inform yourself!) made it more interesting. Sex is beautiful, but I would always prefer a meaningful human relationship with common interests and good communications without sex over an sex-filled relationship without the rest. Or to put it simply: Love without sex is greater than sex without love. Prefarably both, but it is a thing two people need to want : )
slothtrop 4y ago
This understates the proliferation and impact of porn, but as with most things, there's usually more than one factor. What you mentioned as novel activities today share one thing in common: they're sedentary. A sedentary lifestyle leads to lower sex drive.
heresie-dabord 4y ago
> people now have way more entertainment options other than sex Another way to consider this is that people find it easier to divert themselves than to exert themselves only to be disappointed. (Think of the universal pain of the characters in "Marty". [1]) Even though the cost to "view" people has been cheapened by technology, what we find is that disappointment remains the likeliest outcome. The article is written for humour, but it is worth noting that although "sex" cannot go out of fashion, the illusions of Bernaysian manipulation [2] certainly can. And, as a society with a changing set of prevailing group behaviours, the delights of companionship can certainly be lost. An enjoyable sexual relationship isn't just a matter of presenting (or hunting for) some pastiche of beauty: people must want to charm and please one another. This cultural trait definitely has gone "out of fashion" in Western society. Add to these discouraging considerations the fact that the financial calculation of a relationship (even if children are not planned) has much more risk today than even just 10 years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_(film) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- thecoppinger 4y ago
  > Another way to consider this is that people find it easier to divert themselves than to exert themselves only to be dissappointed. This is an exceptionally succinct description of the problem, thank you. A societal shift from exertion to diversion. Creation to consumption. Scary stuff. > the illusions of Bernaysian manipulation [2] certainly can What do you mean here, in reference to Bernays? For context, I’m familiar with his work and legacy — the documentary ‘The Century of the Self’[1] is still perhaps the most important piece of media I’ve ever consumed. [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
  - heresie-dabord 4y ago
    Hello friend ^_^ By "Bernaysian" I mean much of what is discussed in that documentary by Adam Curtis. The out-sized notion of self in pursuit of the baubles, bangles, and beads of a glorified pageant of passion and love. When two such highly-conditioned specimens meet, they probably will reject each other. Or if not, they will test each other's endurance in the illusion.

usrn 4y ago

It's because people in their 20s are living with their parents and don't want to have sex in the park. When I was younger I wanted it badly enough that I did stupid things like that but I can understand why people like me are in a tiny minority.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
That, and most are still holding people in their 20s to the same standards as generations able to start a family with the credentials of Homer Simpson.
- usrn 4y ago
  "People" meaning banks really. The games with credit are effectively driving the housing shortage by making buying the small number of already built homes effectively more affordable than building new ones in the massive amount of permissibly zoned empty space we have. We're only exacerbating it by bringing in tons of legal and illegal immigrants and having the government pay for their housing. It's not surprising there's a conspiracy theory about intentional replacement of the native population with that going on. Combine that with the value extraction from rent/debt (everyone has to own a car and since they probably can't afford to just buy one most are in debt over it) and no one can afford sex. The awful part of all this is that young people blame women. Women are just the messengers.
  - danuker 4y ago
    > already built homes effectively more affordable than building new ones The reason people buy instead of build is that the house is already there, whereas building anew takes a lot of time. As interest rates grow, it becomes more expensive to do so, and waiting starts paying off. But inflation is still high in spite of the high interest rates. And then, maybe the central banks will overshoot the interest rate, which will lead to another crash... Other than that, living in a walkable area has its advantages, and codes are much stricter in high densities, so you can't build.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    I actually meant the people, not banks. Banks exacerbate the problem, but you don't need to hold everyone to the same standards as 30 years ago. People in family homes in Southern Europe date, too. Many Japanese people get married before they leave the parental home. This was pretty standard in most of Europe and America a little less than a century ago. >The awful part of all this is that young people blame women. I don't want to blame women in particular, but from personal anecdotes, women in particular place huge importance on a guy having his own car and place, despite both being massive wastes of money here and actively hurting one's ability to get housing later. The opposite, not so much. This in a country where even rent is now mostly a dual-income market.
    - usrn 4y ago
      The Japanese buy and large aren't having sex, so I'd disagree with you that they're a good example of women having lower standards. Their desire for men to have things and a stable life is probably biological and immutable. You can see their role as messengers of the truth pretty often. I saw this one video that I thought was pretty great where a group of three women were out. The videographer/interviewer had the two friends call up the first's boyfriend and ask to "hang out" behind her back as a sort of joke. The first woman then freaked out, not at her boyfriend for wanting to cheat but at her friends for showing it. If you watch carefully this sort of thing happens pretty often.
      - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
- ptero 4y ago
  People in their 20s having their own digs is, I think, a decidedly American phenomenon. In most of the poorer parts of the world (including, for example, Central and Eastern Europe), 30+ years ago younger crowd managed to have sex just fine, using dorm rooms, snatching time while parents were away, etc. My 2c.
  - mcv 4y ago
    Aren't we talking about people in their 20s? You seem to be describing teenagers. For people in their 20s, it's always been quite normal to have a job, a home, and, at some point during their 20s, to get married.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      I think that was a phenomenon relatively unique to US/Canada in post WW2 decades up until maybe the 90s.
      - mcv 4y ago
        I strongly doubt that. It was quite common in western Europe too. My parents got married in 1970 and did briefly live with my grandparents (who had a gigantic house that was still dirt cheap when they got married directly after WW2), but moved out soon after that. As far as I know, people moved out either when they married, or when they went to a university in a different city. Around 1990 I knew one guy who had a job and still lived with his parents, and I thought that was odd (he spent all his money on fancy audiophile equipment).
    - ptero 4y ago
      A job -- sure. But a common situation in cities would be for a 20-something to live with their parents until (and sometimes after) they got married due to the very limited housing. When I came to the US in my mid-20s I was absolutely stunned that it was possible for someone working an unskilled job (which is what I did for my first year) to rent a small apartment of one's own (in a sketchy part of the town, sure) and invite whoever I please whenever I want.
    - 4y ago
- TwoHeadedBeast 4y ago
  Is that the same Homer Simpson who has a highly skilled job in the nuclear industry, earning well above the median.
vidanay 4y ago
Because now you get a lifetime label as a registered sex offender if you get caught. Additionally, those of us who grew up in the 80's had the absolute fear of AIDS drilled into us. IMO, the AIDS epidemic blunted the libido of at least one generation.
- Beltiras 4y ago
  Almost nobody got laid in the 80's. Fact.
  - oldsecondhand 4y ago
    In the 80s AIDS was the gay disease. Also people live longer than a decade.
  - samatman 4y ago
    People who grew up in the 80s were by definition not getting laid until the 90s for the most part. As one of those people, well, it didn't stop me. But the terror was real.
- usrn 4y ago
  - vidanay 4y ago
    It's not a big deal, we know that now. In the 80's when I was a teenager, the fear-tactics and abstinence only education were strong - I'd even say at their peak. Those patterns get embedded in your brain.
    - krrrh 4y ago
      I’ll never forget seeing Oprah on tv in 1987, "Hello, everybody. AIDS has both sexes running scared. Research studies now project that one in five--listen to me, hard to believe--one if five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me." By the time I was a teenager that fear had subsided, but that’s was a pretty dramatic thing to hear at a young age.

lumost 4y ago

I do wonder if the act of dating has gotten substantially less fun than it was in the past. At least if you go to a bar/concert/activity you may have fun and make plutonic friends, messaging random people on a dating site seems much more depressing.

CoastalCoder 4y ago
> plutonic friends Did you mean "Platonic friends"? Although it sounds kinda nice to have Plutonic friends as well, since they'd have yachts and what not.
- benj111 4y ago
  Surely plutonic friends would have superpowers and not be the rich tech heavy kind of superhero???
- oldsecondhand 4y ago
  If you marry a plutonic friend, you can start a nuclear family unit.
  - layer8 4y ago
    I was thinking that you’d reach new horizons.
- irrational 4y ago
  Oh, I thought it meant friends from the planet Pluto.
- spyder 4y ago
  It's a very long distance friend who lives as far as Pluto :-)
dpz 4y ago
It is very un fun, one of the big things I've noticed is online dating is very different experience for men and women. Both have their negatives and positives, but it create a weird dynamic of how people date.

bko 4y ago

Entertainment has entered a tyranny of choice. I see it personally. I can watch nearly every show and movie that was ever created but I still flip through Netflix and RT endlessly, often times choosing not to watch anything. When I was younger I would just watch Seinfeld re-runs, with commercials and all. Am I more "entertained" today than I was when I was growing up? I'm not convinced. The weirdest thing is I don't remember what I used to talk to my friends about when I was in high school. We didn't have much shared media to talk about (e.g. periodic TV shows people obsess about today). None of us so much picked up a newspaper at the time so current events were out. None of us had that many specific interests and the interests we had weren't shared. But somehow we spent hours talking about something. I wish I could be a fly on the wall of my prom table to just take in what was discussed.

justinpowers 4y ago
If you became that fly, you’d soon wish to be squashed rather than listen to adolescent chitchat.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bko 4y ago
  Fair point...
vinnymac 4y ago
I am genuinely unsure, and had to google it. Is RT supposed to be the abbreviation for Rotten Tomatoes?
- pavlov 4y ago
  I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s not Russia Today where I associate the abbreviation…
- Game_Ender 4y ago
  Yes. A popular way to see what shows reviewers and audiences like most. If you Google “rt <name of movie>” you will get the rating too.

nnoitra 4y ago

It's unfortunately a lot sadder than that. You'd be suprised at the amount of males that want to have sex but just can't get any. There is a serious case of looks inflation nowadays with Tinder etc.

Noos 4y ago
there is inflation with everything since we are connected to everyone in the world. All programmers work at FAANG, all artists are superhumanly taleneted, all business owners make million dollar unicorns and look like actors, etc. Average is slowly being filtered out
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Yes average is there still actually running things...
prmoustache 4y ago
Well you can't really get laid if you spend day and night playing video games and binge watching series. Every time I broke up I was mildly welcoming some time for myself but never managed to be single more than a handful of weeks. And I don't consider myself particularly more attractive/interesting than everybody out there.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  I don't play video games, and I don't binge watch series, but why would this exlude women/gender-non-binary? They can and do enjoy both. And they could enjoy both with someone else. After all, what is the meaning of "Netflix and Chill"? I know many women who wish to do the same with another person, and that person need not look like Brad Pitt, et al. Perhaps I am reading too deep, but you make it sound like someone needs to make some great effort to meet someone else. No, just a slight hiccup in their daily routine can introduce them to another person whom has very similar, low energy interests. Think: Buzzfeed dating videos from 5 years ago. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzDFKJHczQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzDFKJHczQ8

CodeSgt 4y ago

I think that all the things you listed are definitely culprits, but I wouldn't be so quick to discount porn. Anecdotally, I myself and many otherwise healthy, sociable young men I know have pretty serious porn addictions. I really wish there would be more research done on the negative impacts of pornography, especially on young men and teens/pre-teens. I know typically any anti-porn sentiment is met with "Oh you're just being a puritan", but the reality couldn't be further from the truth. On social issues, I'm very liberal. Yet so much porn during my developmental years has done so much damage that as an adult I'm just now really understanding the full extent of it, and breaking that addiction is incredibly difficult

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Yeah, but porn addiction is a consequence I think. If all men could get laid whenever they'd feel like it with a willing partner, then porn use would plummet. I haven't met many women into porn, probably because a one night stand is just a zero effort tinder swipe away, from the comfort of your pijamas in your living room. As a man, you end up turning to porn or paying for sex, or drinking or doing drugs, to compensate the lack of intimacy in your personal life, as that just leads to depression and lack of any self worth.
- CodeSgt 4y ago
  I'm not so sure. The average age someone is the first time they watch porn is 11, well before some of the issues you mentioned would manifest. When a porn addiction is developed before you hit your teens it's hard to blame a dysfunctional sex life on externalities.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I do not think an “addiction” is the problem. Obviously, everyone prefers the real thing to porn. What has changed is the availability of porn introducing an extremely low cost alternative to sex, reducing the impetus for making the effort to find a partner (relative to previous times). Maybe even reducing the impetus to putting in the effort to seduce an existing partner! Of course, it is not uniform across all men of course. I suspect those who are able to attract/interact with partners more easily will opt to do that, and those that are not will opt for the easier, lower cost option (even though there may be other long term costs).

ravenstine 4y ago

> Also, adult dating and meeting people for the post-college working professionals, has largely moved from clubs/bars/the office to online dating apps, or lonely depression in your apartment, eating or drinking your feelings away, for those without success in the WFH, remote-everything, online dating world. Especially with the lockdowns. And those "dating" apps can hardly be called dating apps in most cases. They're designed to mess with the underlying sexual dynamic of men and women. If they were meant for romance, they'd have more mechanisms in place to help strangers actually date and get to know each other. Instead, they're a meat market, and the sad thing is more and more people are growing up in a world where they know no different. If you think about it, dating apps have no incentive to try and get people to actually meet in real life. Not only does that raise the potential for liability, but that means fewer eyeballs on their product at any given time. Tinder knows very well that their product is selling attention to women and the promise of sex to countless men they know have next to zero chance based on their looks alone. As OK Cupid was losing its position as a dating app, I remember them putting out an advertising campaign featuring the initialism "DTF", which tells you all you need to know. They might even still be doing it, for all I know. I remember it from billboards and posters in Santa Monica. > I don't think tech or porn is the main culprit. It's that people now have way more entertainment options other than sex. Of course, a lot for those entertainment options are being driven by tech. I don't buy this one bit. The number of entertainment options is correlative, but who has demonstrated that it's causative? Yes, there is a chance that the proliferation of entertainment options is the primary cause, but unless a double-blind study has or will be done to test whether the sex drive is actually in competition with entertainment, I have very sincere doubts. Furthermore, the porn industry is in no way declining. If people were losing an instinctive interest in sex, why would they be watching porn? What if people actually want sex, but they are too ill equipped to obtain it IRL? And we haven't even brought up declining androgen levels in males. Sex isn't going out of fashion. If anything, we are hypersexualized. The goal of sex isn't merely to propagate genes, but to propagate selected genes. Our current environment allows us to select our mates to such an extent that even more people are seleced out of the gene pool for a variety of reasons. Either we're perpetually thinking we can do better, or that we're never good enough or are too ugly, or are totally clueless because Boomer and Gen X parenting have been a disaster.

4y ago

guerrilla 4y ago

> has largely moved from clubs/bars/the office to online dating apps Online dating apps which have a huge incentive to keep people on their site as long as possible too...

skohan 4y ago
That's a good point: it's actually a perverse incentive. If they successfully create a relationship they have lost a customer.
- scarmig 4y ago
  This is a bit too conspiratorial: I've spoken to people who work at these companies, and there's not a team of analysts trying to figure out how to minimize the number of successful relationships that come from using the app. An app that has a reputation for "I met my last partner on X, and we're getting married next week!" will get far more users and recurring revenue through word of mouth. The bigger issue is that figuring out good matchings is a crapshoot and users' self-described desires and priorities aren't actually in-line with what will make them happy. Everyone wants someone hot (almost by definition), and so the hot people get a lot of interest: the ones actually interested in relationships quickly end up off the market, and those remaining are more than capable of soaking up all the available interest.
  - moomoo11 4y ago
    Really? I worked on the biggest dating app in the world and there are so many dark patterns at play to keep people paying while in reality the way those features work is correct only from a vague reading of the perks. They not only have analysts but legal involved. End of the day they want money like any other business, their goal is to maximize users and revenue, and keep more and more people engaged. The goal of finding love is something crafted by marketing. It may have been the founders vision, but then they got millions in funding lol. Be real.
  - rurp 4y ago
    > This is a bit too conspiratorial: I've spoken to people who work at these companies, and there's not a team of analysts trying to figure out how to minimize the number of successful relationships that come from using the app. I think the effect can be true without anyone having ill intent. The dating app companies are generally trying to make as much money as they can, which will indrectly lead to decisions that optimize for serial dating. As a parallel I don't think Facebook is full of evil people who want to increase the amount of hate and anger in the world, but it does have a lot of people who just want to make money and encouraging negative reactions happens to be an effective way of doing that, so that's what we get.

caeril 4y ago

> Back in my dad's days, Obesity was much lower and bodies were much healthier and more vigorous. Erectile dysfunction was much less common, and average serum testosterone levels were higher. I guess it's uncouth to suggest that physical acts are more enjoyable with more physically attractive and capable populations, but I don't think it's something that should be discounted.

otikik 4y ago
> Erectile dysfunction was much less common I have no doubt that self-reports of erectile dysfunction were probably less common at that time. I will say that information about it was certainly less common, and the stigma associated to it was stronger and more prevalent. > I guess it's uncouth to suggest that physical acts are more enjoyable with more physically attractive and capable populations On "capable": Erectile dysfunction can be caused by low levels of testosterone, as well as sexual desire. However, sexual prowess doesn't orbit around the male penis as much as our fathers thought. That is but one dimension. On the subject of attractiveness: I question that men with high levels of testosterone are actually more attractive to women. High testosterone has some obvious advantages (higher strength, bigger muscles, stronger sexual desire) but it also bring some things that are not so universally appraised (more body hair, less head hair, stronger body smell, mode violent behavior, less empathy). That group of traits, and the fact that we live in a more informed society, might be making high-testosterone males less attractive to women, overall. Perhaps that is what is making the testosterone levels go down - the same thing that is making us taller: artificial selection. My (totally unverified) impression is that this is what happens in Japan. Most famous male Japanese actors tend to look "effeminate" to me, as an European. There seems to be very little "strong jaw, big muscles" amongst that group, compared to Europeans or Americans.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  > That group of traits, and the fact that we live in a more informed society, might be making high-testosterone males less attractive to women, overall. I believe Cicero, in one of his speeches, complained about women being into young clean-shaven men, and not the robust full-bearded patrician look.

unethical_ban 4y ago

Tech, porn, and social media/lack of community are what I think the issues are. And your comment which I mostly agree with seems to contradict your first sentence. Everything you said (Gaming, endless video-on-demand, porn, social media, online dating, remote work) is enabled by technology. Ergo, tech /is/ the main culprit. Now, onto the post I originally typed: I wonder if younger people know what it's like to go a week or two without orgasm. I don't know many teens/young adults, much less well enough to ask about sex culture. I came of age in the 2000s, when online porn was a thing, but not ubiquitous, not HD, and still taboo. I do know that deprivation of orgasm makes it that much better when it does happen, and it changes your mind in both increase of sexual drive, and for me, increase in the desire for true intimacy, rather than just an anxious need to get off. When I kick the habit, my interest in talking to women goes higher than normal, and not "simply" because I'd like sex - it's because my entire mind is changed to wanting intimacy and to meet people. So ubiquity of porn and its normalization is a big factor in people not seeking true human contact. I think that people are also becoming more and more shy/anxious in general, at least by my flawed observations. Between rapidly changing social cues/acceptable behavior, being constantly connected, etc., it is difficult for people to connect and disconnect appropriately. I think about the pre-Internet era when people could maybe date or hook up, and if it didn't work, it was out of sight, out of mind. Now with social media, I see people staying connected despite falling out. Maybe out of curiosity, maybe thinking they can still be friends, but I think that the inability to have a clear head/fresh start makes things difficult. At least in my area/life, there isn't a huge sense of community. It takes a lot of effort to find non-bar oriented things to do that has a decently high number of people attending, who are all interested in the same things, and where it's likely to find a person to date. Say what you want about religion, but church really does serve a valuable purpose when not used to direct people toward bigotry. Gotta run to a meeting, this was a bit of a braindump, but the topic of human interaction and macro loneliness is an interesting topic, and a serious one that truly scares the shit out of me for my society and myself.

circlefavshape 4y ago
> I wonder if younger people know what it's like to go a week or two without orgasm I certainly didn't when I was a teenager in the 80s, and I had zero access to porn or sexual partners.

mattgreenrocks 4y ago

We've also forgotten what sex is for in a relationship, doubtless because it is inconvenient when stacked against all of our favorite soma. Watching most people continue to be addicted to systems that take more than they give (social media) is difficult. And it affects the people around them deeply, too. It doesn't happen in a vacuum; the emotional un-presence is palpable. It is so common it feels very difficult to bring up.

atoav 4y ago

Another thing to consider: It might just be, that sex being more of an taboo (without the internet being there to inform yourself!) made it more interesting. Sex is beautiful, but I would always prefer a meaningful human relationship with common interests and good communications without sex over an sex-filled relationship without the rest. Or to put it simply: Love without sex is greater than sex without love. Prefarably both, but it is a thing two people need to want : )

slothtrop 4y ago

This understates the proliferation and impact of porn, but as with most things, there's usually more than one factor. What you mentioned as novel activities today share one thing in common: they're sedentary. A sedentary lifestyle leads to lower sex drive.

heresie-dabord 4y ago

> people now have way more entertainment options other than sex Another way to consider this is that people find it easier to divert themselves than to exert themselves only to be disappointed. (Think of the universal pain of the characters in "Marty". [1]) Even though the cost to "view" people has been cheapened by technology, what we find is that disappointment remains the likeliest outcome. The article is written for humour, but it is worth noting that although "sex" cannot go out of fashion, the illusions of Bernaysian manipulation [2] certainly can. And, as a society with a changing set of prevailing group behaviours, the delights of companionship can certainly be lost. An enjoyable sexual relationship isn't just a matter of presenting (or hunting for) some pastiche of beauty: people must want to charm and please one another. This cultural trait definitely has gone "out of fashion" in Western society. Add to these discouraging considerations the fact that the financial calculation of a relationship (even if children are not planned) has much more risk today than even just 10 years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_(film) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

thecoppinger 4y ago
> Another way to consider this is that people find it easier to divert themselves than to exert themselves only to be dissappointed. This is an exceptionally succinct description of the problem, thank you. A societal shift from exertion to diversion. Creation to consumption. Scary stuff. > the illusions of Bernaysian manipulation [2] certainly can What do you mean here, in reference to Bernays? For context, I’m familiar with his work and legacy — the documentary ‘The Century of the Self’[1] is still perhaps the most important piece of media I’ve ever consumed. [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
- heresie-dabord 4y ago
  Hello friend ^_^ By "Bernaysian" I mean much of what is discussed in that documentary by Adam Curtis. The out-sized notion of self in pursuit of the baubles, bangles, and beads of a glorified pageant of passion and love. When two such highly-conditioned specimens meet, they probably will reject each other. Or if not, they will test each other's endurance in the illusion.