6 ms·

To me the giveaway is the decline in sexual experience among young people. This is like a top line KPI for youth culture and socialization since when people hav

by api 2y ago

To me the giveaway is the decline in sexual experience among young people. This is like a top line KPI for youth culture and socialization since when people have a lot of positive social interaction and mutual bonding experiences they tend to have sex. Loads of people have commented on these trends. I’m not pointing out anything new, but I do think a lot of people don’t see it because it’s hidden behind a facade of very visible socially liberal movements that garner attention out of proportion to their numbers. These folks do not represent the mean or the median of the culture. If you are in the Bay Area or LA or really any metro California city that isn’t a deep suburb your experience might be different. These areas have always been more liberal than the average and enduringly so. The SF Bay was where gay people could go back when there was not just a strong taboo but in many cases real persecution. Edit: with the last election I think the conservative zeitgeist is going to finally crest, and probably inspire a backlash that will start the pendulum going the other way. Things like politics are the lagging end. There’s also a backlash brewing against social media including dating apps, which are one of the drivers for both youth alienation and promulgation of reactionary attitudes. Right wing cultural fear mongering has excellent memetic fitness on social media.

yieldcrv 2y ago
Okay this is an interesting topic but I think you are conflating several things. The decline in sexual experience is occurring in California metros too. Its really interesting how the behaviors have shifted and surprising to me. But people are bonding, social, far less exclusionary, inclusive to things they’ve never heard of - unless you’re the wrong star sign, ironically, or political party. I date 20-somethings, it’s just different than what I see with people I grew up with. I would say chronic anxiety and demisexuality are common, the most notable to me, and drive a lot of these shifts. But the libidos are there, their age-peers don’t know what they’re doing with really offputting habits or aren’t as interested either. I just cant extrapolate a real exclusionary streak from conservative leanings. Your algorithm is just cooked right now.
- immibis 2y ago
  > unless you’re the wrong star sign, ironically, or political party. These things are very different and do not belong in the same list, and I've noticed that when people do put them together, they're often trying to make the point that political party is just another arbitrary inherent attribute like race, rather than a serious reflection of someone's character. Can you explain why you think they belong together?
  - riehwvfbk 2y ago
    Because they are just arbitrary attributes rather than a serious reflection of someone's character? Just because certain media outlets brainwashed you into thinking that Republican == Nazi (they all backpedaled after the election ended by the way) doesn't mean it's true. Go talk to actual people with blue collar jobs. You'll find that their character is quite all right actually.
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      [dead]
    - immibis 2y ago
      Underneath this comment is a dead one that should probably not be dead. I don't have the power to vouch for it, so I recommend that person should make a new account to avoid auto-dead.
    - yoyohello13 2y ago
      I don't think this is entirely true. Most people are normal, but if I'm a woman dating a young conservative man. That conservative has a non-zero chance to actually believe shit like "your body, my choice." Probably don't want to be dating that guy. It's not a guarantee, but a danger signal.
      - riehwvfbk 2y ago
        Upvoted you, because opinions should be safe to voice even if one disagrees with them. This does appear to be a common concern. I also happen to know many families that vote Republican where the woman also happens to "wear the pants".
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  You say people are bonding in a less exclusionary manner, but that doesnt mean they aren't bonding less as well. The chronic anxiety you mention, as well as the pervasive loneliness and depression I observe, seems to indicate a lack of healthy and supportive social bonds.
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    Good point. The subset of 20-something year old women I date are social and have lots of anxieties, but it doesn’t really inhibit their ability to have a support system. I can see that there are plenty of other people who would have more difficult doing this by nature of not attracting positive attention and interest by default.
pfdietz 2y ago
I suspect the conservative backlash is being driven by economics, and this driver will only get stronger, perhaps much stronger.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the giveaway is the decline in sexual experience among young people Do we have statistics on sex from the age of opium? (Gen Z is the first smartphone-with-unregulated-social generation.)
yardie 2y ago
> the decline in sexual experience among young people Can I push back just a bit. I'm the parent of a teenager and we've had the talk. The kids are alright. When I was a teen I felt everyone felt pressure to be sexually active. While the boys carried the brunt of peer pressure it was the girls who had to deal with the actual fallout. Todays teens are dealing with a lot right now. And my impression is they have a healthier relationship with sex then our generation ever did. Girls have agency, and outside of the social media chucklefucks it's taboo to be serial sexual harasser and be treated with any sort of respect.
- api 2y ago
  I don’t disagree. I’m a dad of girls too and things are better for them today as long as we can hold off the idiots who want to LARP The Handmaid’s Tale. But that kind of intersects with my next point. There is this vast number of basically hikikomori out there, not to mention lots of mostly boys with very screwed up images of sex from early and uncritical consumption of porn and “masculinity” grifter bullshit. It’s from among these groups that every sort of toxic authoritarian movement is drawing its support. There’s a lot more unhealthy antisocial stuff out there, and overall I think it’s worse. It’s become more extreme. There isn’t a middle. Young people are either healthy today or they are fucked.
watwut 2y ago
Bring back teenage pregnancies, drug addiction and overdoses.
- api 2y ago
  Drug addiction and overdoses are doing fine. Teen pregnancy decline is good but I fear the reason — alienation — is not.
Earw0rm 2y ago
Sex happens in private (mostly, and I'm not judging those who prefer otherwise) and people lie about it. A lot. But a more publicly observable and, obviously, very adjacent indicator is kissing. Time was, you'd see a lot of people kissing in public. Not just quick ones either. Pretty normal to walk past bars and there'd be a couple (or more than one) making out by the smoking area. Same in bars beyond a certain time of night, same in a lot of city parks. Sometimes even on the subway. Teenagers walking home from nights out or drinking in the park. (Legal here in the UK and not frowned upon like in the US). In the middle of club or festival crowds. And whether you think that's cool or gross, there's notably less of it around, and that's been a trend for quite some time. Maybe the 70s through 90s was an anomaly, it would have been heavily frowned upon before that, but something certainly changed in the mid/late 00s.

by api 2y ago

yieldcrv 2y ago

Okay this is an interesting topic but I think you are conflating several things. The decline in sexual experience is occurring in California metros too. Its really interesting how the behaviors have shifted and surprising to me. But people are bonding, social, far less exclusionary, inclusive to things they’ve never heard of - unless you’re the wrong star sign, ironically, or political party. I date 20-somethings, it’s just different than what I see with people I grew up with. I would say chronic anxiety and demisexuality are common, the most notable to me, and drive a lot of these shifts. But the libidos are there, their age-peers don’t know what they’re doing with really offputting habits or aren’t as interested either. I just cant extrapolate a real exclusionary streak from conservative leanings. Your algorithm is just cooked right now.

immibis 2y ago
> unless you’re the wrong star sign, ironically, or political party. These things are very different and do not belong in the same list, and I've noticed that when people do put them together, they're often trying to make the point that political party is just another arbitrary inherent attribute like race, rather than a serious reflection of someone's character. Can you explain why you think they belong together?
- riehwvfbk 2y ago
  Because they are just arbitrary attributes rather than a serious reflection of someone's character? Just because certain media outlets brainwashed you into thinking that Republican == Nazi (they all backpedaled after the election ended by the way) doesn't mean it's true. Go talk to actual people with blue collar jobs. You'll find that their character is quite all right actually.
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    [dead]
  - immibis 2y ago
    Underneath this comment is a dead one that should probably not be dead. I don't have the power to vouch for it, so I recommend that person should make a new account to avoid auto-dead.
  - yoyohello13 2y ago
    I don't think this is entirely true. Most people are normal, but if I'm a woman dating a young conservative man. That conservative has a non-zero chance to actually believe shit like "your body, my choice." Probably don't want to be dating that guy. It's not a guarantee, but a danger signal.
    - riehwvfbk 2y ago
      Upvoted you, because opinions should be safe to voice even if one disagrees with them. This does appear to be a common concern. I also happen to know many families that vote Republican where the woman also happens to "wear the pants".
s1artibartfast 2y ago
You say people are bonding in a less exclusionary manner, but that doesnt mean they aren't bonding less as well. The chronic anxiety you mention, as well as the pervasive loneliness and depression I observe, seems to indicate a lack of healthy and supportive social bonds.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  Good point. The subset of 20-something year old women I date are social and have lots of anxieties, but it doesn’t really inhibit their ability to have a support system. I can see that there are plenty of other people who would have more difficult doing this by nature of not attracting positive attention and interest by default.

pfdietz 2y ago

I suspect the conservative backlash is being driven by economics, and this driver will only get stronger, perhaps much stronger.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> the giveaway is the decline in sexual experience among young people Do we have statistics on sex from the age of opium? (Gen Z is the first smartphone-with-unregulated-social generation.)

yardie 2y ago

> the decline in sexual experience among young people Can I push back just a bit. I'm the parent of a teenager and we've had the talk. The kids are alright. When I was a teen I felt everyone felt pressure to be sexually active. While the boys carried the brunt of peer pressure it was the girls who had to deal with the actual fallout. Todays teens are dealing with a lot right now. And my impression is they have a healthier relationship with sex then our generation ever did. Girls have agency, and outside of the social media chucklefucks it's taboo to be serial sexual harasser and be treated with any sort of respect.

api 2y ago
I don’t disagree. I’m a dad of girls too and things are better for them today as long as we can hold off the idiots who want to LARP The Handmaid’s Tale. But that kind of intersects with my next point. There is this vast number of basically hikikomori out there, not to mention lots of mostly boys with very screwed up images of sex from early and uncritical consumption of porn and “masculinity” grifter bullshit. It’s from among these groups that every sort of toxic authoritarian movement is drawing its support. There’s a lot more unhealthy antisocial stuff out there, and overall I think it’s worse. It’s become more extreme. There isn’t a middle. Young people are either healthy today or they are fucked.

watwut 2y ago

Bring back teenage pregnancies, drug addiction and overdoses.

api 2y ago
Drug addiction and overdoses are doing fine. Teen pregnancy decline is good but I fear the reason — alienation — is not.

Earw0rm 2y ago

Sex happens in private (mostly, and I'm not judging those who prefer otherwise) and people lie about it. A lot. But a more publicly observable and, obviously, very adjacent indicator is kissing. Time was, you'd see a lot of people kissing in public. Not just quick ones either. Pretty normal to walk past bars and there'd be a couple (or more than one) making out by the smoking area. Same in bars beyond a certain time of night, same in a lot of city parks. Sometimes even on the subway. Teenagers walking home from nights out or drinking in the park. (Legal here in the UK and not frowned upon like in the US). In the middle of club or festival crowds. And whether you think that's cool or gross, there's notably less of it around, and that's been a trend for quite some time. Maybe the 70s through 90s was an anomaly, it would have been heavily frowned upon before that, but something certainly changed in the mid/late 00s.