Millennials Are Less Likely To Be Having Sex Than Young Adults 30 Years Ago, Says Survey (theguardian.com) 643
An anonymous reader writes: A survey of nearly 27,000 people suggests that millennials are less likely to be having sex than younger adults were 30 years ago. The Guardian reports: "The research, conducted in the U.S., found that the percentage of young adults aged between 20 and 24 who reported having no sexual partner after the age of 18 increased from 6% among those born in the 1960s, to 15% of young adults born in the 1990s. Published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior by researchers from three U.S. universities, the study involved the analysis of data collected through the nationwide General Social Survey that has asked U.S. adults about their sexual behavior almost every year since 1989. The results reveal that young adults aged between 20 and 24 and born in the 1990s were more than twice as likely to report that they had had no sexual partners since the age of 18 than young adults of the same age born in the 1960s. Just over 15% of the 90s-born group reported that they had not had sex since they turned 18, compared to almost 12% of those born in the 1970s or 1980s. For those born in the 60s the figure was just over 6%. The shift [towards increasing abstinence seen among all adults since the 1960s] was greater for white individuals, those who had not gone to university, and those who attended religious services. The trend was also greater for women than for men: the authors found that 2.3% of women born in the 1960s are sexually inactive, compared to 5.4% of those born in the 1990s. That, the authors suggest, could in part be down to a rise in so-called virginity pledges as well as concerns about social stigma. As for why this is the case, the authors of the study suggest it could have something to do with the fact that young people are living at home for longer, thus "stifling their sex life," and playing video games and consuming media in their free time. In addition, easy access to pornography may also be playing a role. A co-author of the research, Ryne Sherman, also suggests another factor could be that the way in which people interpret questions asked in the survey has changed. "Young people in the 1950s, when they were asked if you had a sexual partner, [might] say 'oh oral sex, that counts,' whereas young people today might say 'oh no that doesn't count because I didn't actually have sexual intercourse,'" he said.
NO MONEY (Score:5, Insightful)
Read. My. Lips.
They.
Have.
No.
Money.
Forget your bullshit socio-economic-policital-technobabble explanations. This isn't about cell-phones, or aids, or sex-ed, or work-life balances, or aids, or gender studies, or social media, or tv shows, or Donald fucking Trump!
It's the economy stupid.
Younger Millenials are fucked. They have less jobs, less stable jobs, less income, more debt, higher rents, etc, etc,... and most importantly less opportunity to buy a home. They cannot afford one, they will not be given a loan, they cannot hope to get the cash together to get on with their lives and pay for the dating scene. It's the economy stupid.
This happened in Japan. It's happenning here. The sexy-time rate, house-buying rate, and baby popping rate are directly proportional to the opportunity and stability on offer to young people in society. Millenials have been fucked over to pay for Boomer's plummeting pensions and guess what, the goose has stopped laying the egg.
It's the economy stupid.
Re:NO MONEY (Score:5, Funny)
Younger Millennials are fucked.
I thought the article's saying the opposite.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe he should have used "Younger Millennials are raped by debt, without the lube."
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that makes their reluctance to engage in sexual activity quite understandable.
Maybe we should put them on a slippery slope?
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that makes their reluctance to engage in sexual activity quite understandable.
Maybe we should put them on a slippery slope?
I find the idea that lack of money makes people celibate rather odd. If that were hte case, the great depression of the 1930's should have made foro birth rates near zero.
Another possibility is that many young men have checked out altogether. https://www.lifesitenews.com/n... [lifesitenews.com]
http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/men... [wnd.com]
https://www.quora.com/Are-men-... [quora.com] Men giving up on women pisses women off http://rense.com/general49/fal... [rense.com]
You can google men giving up on women and get a hellava lot of links.
A big prob
Inheriting from grandparents? (Score:2)
One of the less discussed aspects of the 'whole millenials are poor' debate is 'Where did the grandparents' money go?' Specifically we need to recognise that the property does descend through families, and that grandparents should be giving it to the younger generation if their kids are well established. It's not the whole answer, but will reduce the pain for some - as long as the grandparents think this through.
Re:Inheriting from grandparents? (Score:5, Interesting)
The grandparents are either still alive, active and living independently spending that money, or they're paying for expensive health care to keep their ailing bodies going, or they're living in an assisted care facility that costs $100k/year and requires you sign over all your assets.
We're also kind of past the era where the "grandparent" generation easily acquired a lot of wealth in the form of meaningful hard assets like real estate. I think that was more common 1-2 generations ago, but in many ways the current grandparent generation probably came of age in the 1960s, got hammered in the stagflation of the 1970s during the peak of their earning power and then suffered the long-term stagnation of wages like everyone else.
We're literally onto the 3rd or even 4th generation of "middle class" people who have lived in an era of stagnant wages which generally means stagnant or zero wealth accumulation, and much of the accumulated wealth they have ends up burned up by college tuition and health care.
Humbug (Score:5, Insightful)
As a late member of the boomer generation I was able to get a job as a computer programmer that 2 years in enabled me to buy an apartment at 3 times that salary.
25 years on I still live in the apartment. It's worth four times what I paid for it. If I was in the same job, I'd be on about twice what I was then. Therefore I wouldn't have a hope of getting on the property ladder, and wouldn't benefit from inflation to ensure that the real cost of my mortgage payments faded away. And that's before issues of exploding university debt etc.
It's therefore true that boomers like me have benefited from an opportunity that has now gone to gain prosperity, and so it's the next generation that should get the leg up from the grandparents, not the boomers who've already benefited.
Re: (Score:3)
It would really help if the boomers stopped actively trying to sabotage the younger generations. Not all of them of course, but there are a lot of NIMBYs preventing new housing getting build, and objecting to paying taxes to fund lower cost education, and jacking the rents up on their buy-to-let properties. In fact buy-to-let needs to be heavily curtailed anyway, so people can buy those homes to live in.
And that's not even starting to make up for the economic damage of converting to a debt laden economy and
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Dude you have no idea, poor people do nothing but fuck, it is all they can afford to do. Young people are put off by disease as they are much more aware of them, specifically of course AIDS (why gamble with your life), free pron has taken the mystique out of sex and turned it into the shallow rutting of animals with the exchange of bodily fluids, (lots of bodily fluids, every imaginable kind of bodily fluid, ugh), the only productive output of sex is children and in today's capitalist society they are hugel
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When was sex anything but the "shallow rutting of animals with the exchange of bodily fluids"?
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps poor people do nothing but fuck in the absence of other forms of affordable entertainment - but thanks to modern technology and the media industry, even the lowest-income Americans are now drowning in entertainment. More movies, TV and game than they can hope to consume, plus the possibility of an entire social life lived online for almost no cost at all.
Re:NO MONEY (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the Millenials just aren't picking up their end of the economy like the Boomers did before them. In some sense, it might not be the Millenials' fault. They were raised in an economy that produced without their contribution. They simply never learned how to build enterprises.
I do think they also got somewhat behind the 8-ball on school costs. The Boomers thought education was great, let's spend more money on it. Unis promptly stood up to the task of spending that extra money and inflated their costs. The Boomer economy also screwed the unis by siphoning off the most economically viable with high salaries.
The sainted American people got into the act during the aughts by buying extra houses, flipping houses, getting second mortgages, etc. When the music stopped, the economy had been distorted to such an extent that it was difficult for new businesses to start.
Old established businesses learned the best way to compete was to buy up nascent competitors before they became a threat thereby whacking any future employment gain from those nascent businesses.
Re: (Score:3)
I never realized until now that poor people have always had less sex than the middle class. Strangely, I've never gotten that impression before. It's almost like poor boys can't find poor girls to date or something?
True money helps with courtship but this article is about sex not marriage. The idea that poor people have less sex is new to me, it seems contrary to.. Well... The traditional breeding habits of the poorer countries of the world.
Re: (Score:3)
Millenials have been fucked over to pay for Boomer's plummeting pensions and guess what, the goose has stopped laying the egg.
More specifically, Reagan and Thatcher cooked the goose. Their apologists often report that it was delicious.
Re:NO MONEY (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're all poor who is stealing all their dates? I doubt the young women are sleeping with 40yos just because they have money.
That's how it was when I was in my 20s, 30 years ago. And it's not like younger women with older men is some kind of new social concept nobody has ever heard of.
Girls in their mid-20s often dated "established" guys with full time jobs, cars, and lots of disposable income. My peers and I just getting started financially all lamented it. You just couldn't get a young woman's interest if you didn't have money.
At that time, too, I think a lot of women were very future-life oriented, too, looking at people they dated in terms of "could he be my husband?" which meant that the selection criteria was very resource focused.
A friend's dad, who was in his late 40s and divorced, told us it was much easier once you hit your 40s if you were single. The pool of women were either divorced (and thus had criteria not based around the little house with a picket fence fantasy), never married and not interested in marriage, or were younger women with a preference for older more financially established man.
I ended up married in my 40s, so I never got much of a chance to test this prediction.
Re: (Score:3)
Now i'm 47 and the hormone cloud has dispersed, and I have a hard time (ha) getting interested in a conversation with most women. The occasional bright one still brings out some mild interest but the vast majority are boring as hell, because I know where it ends, and it isn't pretty at all.
This contains far more truth than the average person (male or female) can handle.
It's a fact: once the hormones stop raging, women cease to have any power over you at all. We older guys can take 'em or leave 'em, and that makes most women really, really mad. "Wait- I let you look at my butt and you didn't immediately drop everything and ask if you could buy me a car? You *^$%#@ bastard!!"
Sorry sweetie, shaking your boobs won't do it for me anymore, you've got to bring more to the table than cleavage.
The wa
Re: (Score:3)
I turned 40 last year, I'm married, but I also get hit on by girls more than I used to.
The wedding ring doesn't seem to send them away either...
Frankly, even if I could have a 20 year old girl tomorrow, she would bore me quickly. She lacks life experience and I'd just be getting a child to raise.
She would be fun to have sex with, maybe, if she knows herself, but beyond that, what's the interest?
I like conversations with my wife, she is 43 and has world experience, she actually knows stuff and is fun to tal
Re:It is also... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Anyone on welfare, section 8 who is popping out kids has little to no respect for themselves, their kids or society in general.
Re: (Score:3)
Oral sex post-Clinton (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure the "that doesn't count as sexual relations" thing is the best explanation if this is a recent trend. I'd have expected it to show up in responses long before now, not just those who actively grew up after the infamous Clinton episode.
Compared to the 1960's? Sure. But that effect should have begun becoming noticeable pretty early in the 2000's, when teens old enough to be paying attention (somewhat) to culture and politics would have started becoming sexually active.
Kids these days... (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact I am very genuinely concerned that kids these days don't party as hard as we did. In fact it's been years since I've had to tell any to get off my lawn!
Re:Kids these days... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, there's the problem right there. No wonder millennials aren't having any sex.
Back in the '80s, there was so much cocaine, quaaludes and reefer that we'd have sex fifteen or twenty times a day. Often with inanimate objects. Back in college, my friends had to pry me off an abstract statue on the quad whom I believed to be my soulmate.
It is simple (Score:5, Insightful)
it isn't because they don't have money, sex is cheap, it is convincing the girl to have sex that can get expensive.
It is because they have more things to do, the freedom to do them, and options.
50 years ago the average age a couple married and started popping out kids was 20.
30 Years ago the average age a couple married and started popping out kids was 22.
The last time I looked it was 28 and rising quickly.
18 may start your adult life, but you need 4 years of college to earn more than $50k a year for the rest of your life.(yes some exceptions are available but not that many)
Then you get to 22 and you need to start working.
50 years ago women were not even allowed to buy a car or home without a male cosigner. (Equal credit act wasn't passed until 1974)
We gave women freedom, they no longer need to be bound fiscally, physically,or socially to a man to survive. This is the natural result. Why people can't understand it or find it shocking proves just how stupid they are.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It is simple (Score:4, Interesting)
I think, though, that it takes a generation or two for the social attitudes about gender relationships to become really ingrained. The women who first came of age in an era of real financial independence were raised by women who didn't know any better in an era where the expectations were different, so they mostly internalized the older value system.
Their daughters were raised with slightly different expectations and those women's daughters (more or less the millennials) were one of the first generations raised in an era of expanded options and different attitudes.
Now, you couple that in with some evolutionary reproductive biology instincts that are oriented towards not selecting a mate who isn't seen to be a resource-rich provider for offspring and you have a situation where they don't need a male partner in any social or economic sense, either, so they've kind of selected themselves out of situations where sex is likely to happen.
Re: (Score:3)
Generally I think a lot of confusing sexual behavior starts to make sense if you try to fit it into an evolutionary reproductive biology framework.
The point isn't to reduce people to pre-programmed automatons, but to indicate a kind of general inclination and the evolutionary value it would provide.
Interesting theory. If it's correct then women were having a lot of sex just to try to get resources that society made it difficult for women to acquire, rather than because they wanted it themselves. That does fit a lot of feminist theory, in fact.
I think it helps if you think about sex also as an economic good and marriage as a transactional relationship which exchanged that good for resources that provided for successful childbearing. Men traded their s
Re:It is simple (Score:5, Informative)
it isn't because they don't have money, sex is cheap, it is convincing the girl to have sex that can get expensive.
Not only that but it's the current state of laws, courts and child protection services. You'll find that it's men compared to the women who are mainly not giving a shit about it all. If you get married and have kids, the man is likely to be the person paying child support even if the women makes more. They're also more likely to be paying forever to the women as part of the settlement even if she makes more. She on the other hand will likely never pay a dime back in the other direction. Top that off that in child custody, if the women was a stay-at-home mother, and was a substance abuser, abused the kids or anything else. Even if she worked and wasn't the one taking care of the kids but the man was, they're more likely to hand her custody anyway while denying financial support. You're starting to get a list where it's not worth it at all. And then you can start getting into the stuff that even if you're not the father of the kid and it was a one night stand...you're still likely going to be the one paying. For a lot of men, all of that isn't worth the risk, hassle or anything else. And you can see all of that happening at your local family courts.
One of my friends was threatened by CAS(for Americans that's like child services), that if he didn't quit his job he would have no parental rights and would advise the judge of such as their position. This was after they'd been split, she was heavily abusing drugs and had attempted to whore her 12 year old daughter out for more drugs, the police had intervened on the case(she was criminally charged with sexual exploitation, possession of child porn, manufacturing of child porn and a couple of others) and both kids wanted to be with their father instead and CAS still threatened him. Now we're getting into the "why the fuck would I even want to deal with this shit" realm.
Re:It is simple (Score:5, Interesting)
Sex isn't cheap. You need privacy, and privacy is expensive. You might be lucky and get it at your parent's house, but chances are you will have to pay for it. Dorm rooms, rented apartments, mortgaged houses. None of them are cheap.
Re:It is simple (Score:5, Funny)
Just build a wall and make your parents pay for it.
Re:It is simple (Score:5, Interesting)
In countries with a lot of people living at home, they have more by-the-hour hotels and using them may not even be seen as automatically sleazy. Panama has drive-in hotels where each room has its own garage; you make an appointment ahead and then you drive straight into your garage, and you never even see any other guests unless they happen to be coming or going (no pun intended) when you arrive.
Re: (Score:3)
Some woman's neighbours got a noise abatement order for that in the UK. I'm not even kidding, apparently her orgasms were too loud and disturbing them at night. Even having your own place isn't always a guarantee.
Re:It is simple (Score:4, Insightful)
it is convincing the girl to have sex that can get expensive.
It can... but if you're trying to go down the route of buying your way to sex, then you're only going to find women who are somewhat willing to be bought receptive. And you're going to put off all the ones who think you're trying to buy your way to sex and think that's skeezy. And that, rather circularly, is going to get expensive.
Re:It is simple (Score:5, Funny)
So in the meantime a bunch of medieval desert-dwellers breed like cockroaches because they have no such complex mating rituals...
Ahh .. so you have been you Utah as well?
Re: (Score:2)
To Utah .. to Utah .. It need my morning coffee.
Re: (Score:3)
The president said it, it must be true... (Score:2)
"Young people in the 1950s, when they were asked if you had a sexual partner, [might] say 'oh oral sex, that counts,' whereas young people today might say 'oh no that doesn't count because I didn't actually have sexual intercourse,'" he said.
After all, the honourable residents of the White House never lie, do they?
Re: (Score:3)
The numbers are actually kinda interesting. The median ages fell from 1890 to 1950, remained steady through the 60's, and then began to rise again. (http://www.infoplease.c
Cycles (Score:2)
Simple Explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
The results reveal that young adults aged between 20 and 24 and born in the 1990s were more than twice as likely to report that they had had no sexual partners since the age of 18 than young adults of the same age born in the 1960s.
Well, they obviously lying about their age, so chances are they are less than truthful about their sex lives as well.
Re:Simple Explanation (Score:4, Informative)
Maths fail?
20 in 2016 would be born in 1996. 24 in 2016 would be born in 1992. But more likely they just asked people "between the age of 20 and 24, how much sex were you having?", those being the years when people are at university and starting work, and sorted them by decade of birth.
What exactly are you implying is untruthful here?
Re: (Score:3)
I think they're snarking on the possible interpretation of the text as "20 and 24 year olds born in the 1960s", i.e. people currently in their 20s, but born 50-ish years ago (who would then obviously be lying about one of those things).
The Beautiful Ones (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not money but oversocialization and overpopulation.
In the 1960s John B. Calhoun conducted extensive experiments with mice, examining changes in their social behavior in an Utopian world.
Calhoun gave the mice clean housing and unlimited access to food.
After day 600, the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed "the beautiful ones." Breeding never resumed and behavior patterns were permanently changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A documentary on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
---
There's also a controversial opinion piece that partly aligns with Calhoun's scientific findings.
Theodore Kaczynski's manifest "Industrial society and its future".
http://editions-hache.com/essa... [editions-hache.com]
Re:The Beautiful Ones (Score:5, Funny)
I remember when sex was introduced (Score:5, Funny)
It was at the beginning of 1967, first as a limited test market rollout in the Bay Area. So many people thought it was a big improvement over the cell division we had practiced up t that time that by April the press was already proclaiming a "summer of love." By fall, it had spread nationwide, and my generation became legend.
So apparently today's young people are going back to cell division. Who could have known?
Pendulum swinging in the other direction (Score:4, Insightful)
The previous generation defied their elders by having sex. Millennials are doing the opposite thing now — but for the same reasons...
Maybe, humanity was smarter about it in the earlier centuries — when the unmentionables weren't mentioned (as often) in the news and entertainment channels.
There is so much of it now, it must be turning some people off...
The study wasn't about abstinance (Score:3, Informative)
Why is a study about homosexual and bisexual behaviour actually being on the increase [springer.com] (eventual source of the 'story',) that doesn't mention abstinence in it's heading or abstract being hijacked into a news story about something the study wasn't exploring?
(emph mine)
It's the ladies. Sort of. (Score:5, Insightful)
I get all the arguments about declining buying power, wealth disparity and our media/online culture turning everybody into aloof nerds with no time for sex and the successful social interaction that is required for that, and it could very well be that that all factors into this development.
However, I don't think that that is the sole problem. In Germany I observe the women of my generation and a decade or so younger caught up in demands and expectations that can only be called patently absurd. And I think it is very much the same in the USA, as in certain dynamics and structures in society these two countries are very similar.
There are a lot of factors playing into this, such as women not yet completely atuned to having equal rights vis-a-vis their male peers and not yet having fully adjusted their expectations and their true responsibilities and 'duties' that come with it. Such as carefully balancing resource acquisition, mating and active survivaly strategies - by evolutionary and thus old-testatment definition a classic "mans job".
There are studies that women are actually more unhappy today than they were back in the sixties, when they basically were second-class citizens. This could be due to the fact that despite all the media hype about women wanting to lead corporations and earn the big bucks, the vast majority of women would maybe rather have a guy doing all that annoying external survival stuff and rather sit at home with the tribe nurturing little humans.
I very much think this is also due to some choice-effect coming up with equal rights and an abundance of goods needed for pure survival. For the first time in this planets history more people are obese than hungry or starving and a woman doesn't need a set of leader-warshipping willing-to-die-for-the-honor men close by to survive the other tribe warriors or the sabretooth lions roaming the area. She is free to choose when and if she takes a man and doesn't even need one to reproduce.
That a modern society that succsessfully has decoupled sex from reproduction and moves everyting concerning mating and reproduction squarely into the domain of conscious decision shouldn't be too surprised about the development described in TFA.
I expect this development to get worse and only change once society has moved into some sort of utopian mating-and-reproduction ritual or mechanism that tries to mitigate the effects of humanity moving further away from their mammal originins.
Then again, statistical analysis of humanities gene-pool show that throughout the history of mankind, 4 out of 5 men never got to reproduce whereas 4 out of 5 women did - which very much fits the fact that women take 9 months to build a human but men roughly 20 minutes to squirt one into a woman. In evolutionary terms a male individual is measurably less worth than a woman, which these numbers, odly enough, reflect again.
It's complicated, but I defenitely observe first-worlds women, equal rights and a choice effect with women playing into this. Especially after just having visited a classic macho-culture the last two weeks and observing mens and womens behaviour there. I was in moscow and my fairly recent new sweetheart is a russian lady. A difference of night and day in some aspects of socialisation vis-a-vis German or US women. No doubt. I wouldn't say it's all good that way, but until society fully grows up about these things I'd rather go 'classic couple' than have no stable relationship at all.
Bottom line concerning this aspect of the problem:
Women in the west need to emanzipate further and need to notice what work comes with being more independant. I'm sure us men can help by keeping a wide berth around women [youtube.com] who aren't quite there yet and who's demands and expectations reflect that.
My 2 cents.
I believe it (Score:3)
This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about millennials.
Most millennials can barely look each other in the eye, have a conversation, or put down their phone long enough to take a piss, how could they possibly manage to meet someone and interact long enough to have sex?
Seriously, this doesn't surprise me one bit. I think a lot of millennials are social misfits, incapable of real-world interaction except under the most dire of circumstances. Ordering a pizza over the phone seems to push many of them to their social-interactivity limits.
Japan (Score:3)
The simple answer is college (Score:4, Interesting)
In the 1960's it was possible for most Middle Class people to have a child in their early 20's and go on to live a successful life. Today it's almost mandatory for Middle Class people to attend college to have any hope for good paying jobs with the ability to be promoted, and good luck being able to raise a kid at the same time when you're paying today's ridiculously high tuition rates. The easiest way to avoid this little complication is to wait until you're done with school to even have sex at all. Sad but unfortunately true for people with average means.
Ironically, for people who have no way to attend a good college today, they might as well have children because there is little or no hope for any kind of economic advancement anyway.
Australian Experience (Score:3)
Re:Of course not (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they just feel less pressure to be sexually active. People are waiting longer to get married and have kids, and when you are taking on massive debts there is more inventive to work hard rather than screwing around at college. More over, less pressure on women to satisfy men, and less pressure on men to define themselves by the number of sexual partners they have had.
In other words it might be a good thing. Then again, it might also be due to bad things that the authors considered, like not being able to move out of their parents homes. Seems like more research is needed.
We must be careful to avoid ending up like Japan, with a rapidly falling population.
Re: Of course not (Score:3, Insightful)
There are many benefits to a smaller population. Rather than fearing a declining population it should be encouraged.
Re: (Score:3)
But then you need to stop importing immigrants to make up for the shortfall or you're just replacing your civilization with a different one.
Re: Of course not (Score:4, Insightful)
How well did that work out for the native americans?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also a chance that the reason is that touching a woman (with words is sometimes enough) is considered by some gender warriors an act of violence and you cannot get out of perverts register once in. Then the other thing is: indeed as a male I see no point of running around. The bitches are ugly, most of them are fat, they have no reason and thanks to modern propaganda very conflicting goals. Their expectations are high too. Maybe it is my apserger or old age or maybe both but after all these decades
Re: (Score:3)
It IS propaganda, they have people are not even 5-10lbs "overweight" that are labelled "obese"
Nice try though
Re:Of course not (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there are two different trends now affecting men. The first is that marriage is now all downside, no upside, but that's true only because it doesn't cause less sex. The other is that the traditional male theme of "put up with her, however crazy, because that's just how relationships work" is fading.
Men my age and older are used to resolving all domestic arguments and conflict of any kind by just letting her win. The new, far healthier IMO approach is "it's not worth the drama". Men less willing to put up with daily drama for sex are, of course, getting less sex.
Re:Of course not (Score:4, Interesting)
You could not be a respectable part of middle class society beyond a certain age unless you were married. Heck, you don't have to go that far back until it applied to basically everyone. There was also a much stronger expectation of a stable relationship being a path to marriage, and the general sense that while sex before marriage could be overlooked, marriage and family was the point of it all (which, before the pill, was a reasonable idea). Sex was just a lot less available, for both sexes, unless you were at least pretending to be working up to marriage, and very often pretense would lead through inertia to reality.
Mechanically (so to speak) the pill changed everything, but society lags reality. From what I saw, it was only really in the 90s that it started to be OK to be in a long term relationship with no plans for marriage.
Re: (Score:3)
We already have a rapidly aging population. in fact if it isn't for illegal immigration things would be a lot worse. Imigrants are what is keeping the average age of having kids under 30. By 2020 20% of our population will be retired 35% by 2030. Pensions, Social security medicaid, etc were all designed with less than 10% of the population retired.
50 years ago your retirement was 5-10 years long before you died, now it is closer to 20 and rapidly stretching to 25.
Now on the flip side people are waiting
Re: (Score:3)
50 years ago your retirement was 5-10 years long before you died, now it is closer to 20 and rapidly stretching to 25.
The average US life span has only increased about 9 years since 1960.
In the meantime, the official age at which you are authorized to start drawing from government-sponsored retirement plans without penalty has increased, thus pretty much destroying this notion that retirement is lasting 20 to 25 years. I expect to pay into Social Security for many decades. I don't expect to live long enough to see hardly any of it penalty-free. The concept of a pension being your retirement plan after a 30 or 40-year ca
Re: (Score:3)
Agree on most counts, but there are a large number of people retiring early for various reasons (unable to find employment being one). While Gen-X will likely have shorter lifespans, I'm not sure if that trend will continue with Millenials: from my bubble there seems to be a much better take on health and wellness, less alcohol consumption, and potentially lower suicide rates. The effects of all of the prescription drugs is yet to be seen though...
Re: (Score:3)
It was a trust fund, properly funded pension scheme until Congress figured out how to steal the fund.
This isn't true, in multiple ways.
First, Congress hasn't "stolen" the money. The Social Security trust funds (there are two of them) have always been required by law to be invested only in securities backed by the federal government. Basically, that means Treasury bonds. What happens when you buy a T bill? The money flows into the general fund, available for Congress to spend. Where else would it go? Scrooge McDuck's mattress? The trust funds still hold all of those securities, whose value has been growin
Re: (Score:3)
Of course, what will happen in 2033 (assuming no changes, and assuming the federal government finds a way to pay the bills until then) is that we'll finally have to just admit that it never was a true trust fund, that we've always just funded current retirees with current tax revenues, and that there's no reason to stop doing it just because some fictitious account balance hit zero.
Well, of COURSE there's no reason to stop spending money when the bank account hits zero. I mean after all, it's not like the national debt actually means anything anymore, or that we're actually going to DO something about that debt someday. What's another $10 trillion? The last $10 trillion was piled on in the blink of an eye, faster than ever before.
The irony with this kills me every time. We teach our American kids to stay out of debt, and to buy when they can afford to. In the meantime, our govern
Re:Of course not (Score:4, Interesting)
"We must be careful to avoid ending up like Japan, with a rapidly falling population."
Why?
I'm not being difficult, but I am challenging this assertion that everything has to grow all the time.
If you start citing the requirements of the economy, please reflect on the concept that the economy is supposed to be serving the needs of civilization, not the other way around.
Over involved parents (Score:3)
Maybe they just feel less pressure to be sexually active.
I very much doubt it. I don't think teen hormones have magically diminished. Mostly it is that the kids are monitored FAR more heavily than we were 30 years ago. I happen to be of the age that I was a teen 30 years ago. Parents gave us far more freedom that most kids get today. My parents were very involved but by today's standards they would be considered free range parents [wikipedia.org]. (a term I absolutely can't stand)
Then again, it might also be due to bad things that the authors considered, like not being able to move out of their parents homes
Not being able or not being forced to move out? I'm sure there is some of each but let's be f
Re: (Score:3)
Not being able or not being forced to move out?
Not being able to. Properly insanely expensive, as is renting. Unemployment is high among the young.
Consider that you need two above average incomes to buy a small house in many parts of the UK. My parents were able to afford one on a single graduate salary.
The US still has a lot of immigrants. Japan, not so much.
The amount of immigration in Japan would have to increase dramatically, very quickly. 35M people by 2050 to maintain current levels, about 30% of the total population. And their language is difficult to learn, and uncommon as a second language.
But yes, t
Population decline (Score:3)
Is falling population really a problem short term?
Yes. Sometimes very much so. Falling populations tend to cause a downward economic cycle that is hard to recover from.
Fewer people means fewer resources needed for infrastructure, should lead to lower unemployment (less people chasing the same jobs), more room for people instead of having everyone crammed together like sardines.
If the infrastructure is already built it means fewer people have to cover the fixed costs of that infrastructure. That's one of the problems a place like Detroit has - the city was built for a population more than double what it currently has and yet the infrastructure to support that larger population didn't go away and still needs to be paid for. It takes a long time to shrink infrastr
Re: (Score:3)
Or they don't feel like having their partner's "consent to sex" form signed in triplicate, witnessed and signed off on by a Notary Public and three legal officers, then have videotaped testimony that the woman is actually consenting to sex and the associated "counselling" by "professionals" to make sure it's actual consent and not just secret force behind the scenes or peer pressure....
Most obvious finding (Score:5, Interesting)
The summary ignores the most obvious finding: Far fewer men are having sex than women. If the virginity rate is 15% in the 90's-born population as a whole and 5% among 90's-born women, the then rate among 90's-born men must be about 25%.
It also means that a significant fraction of the men are having multiple partners. The women may also be having multiple partners but the data doesn't necessarily demonstrate that.
Re:Most obvious finding (Score:5, Informative)
The summary ignores the most obvious finding: Far fewer men are having sex than women. If the virginity rate is 15% in the 90's-born population as a whole and 5% among 90's-born women, the then rate among 90's-born men must be about 25%.
It also means that a significant fraction of the men are having multiple partners. The women may also be having multiple partners but the data doesn't necessarily demonstrate that.
Or it means that millennial women prefer older men - which is my experience.
Re:Most obvious finding (Score:5, Insightful)
One of those dating sites published some stats a while back. The data was interesting.
The take-away from the stats was that men tend to find average women attractive, whereas women only find above-average men attractive.
So, where a dude who's a five is fine with a woman who's a 5, the woman who's a 5 is only responding to the 8's in the pool.
80% of women are chasing the top 10% of men. And because even homely-looking ladies get carpet bombed by responses from dudes just hoping to get a nibble for a cast, they have inflated ideas of what their league actually is.
Re:Most obvious finding (Score:5, Insightful)
Beware using dating site stats to draw conclusions about real life. All dating sites have a terrible male:female ration, meaning that women can be extremely picky and men are lucky to get any kind of response.
Re: (Score:3)
I know you are being facetious, but you are still halfway right - it is not true, or at least, it is not the reason for the imbalance.
The people surveyed are between 20 and 24 years of age. At that point, men have relatively low earnings, especially those in the relevant categories (whites without college education) At the same time, women are at their most desirable... and both sexes has been just rudely awakened to the financial reality, which is quite a bit harsher than what was facing those born in t
Re: (Score:3)
No surprise. Men have never engaged in lesbianism as much as women have. Can we have some meaningful data here, please?
Oh, wait, /. Sry.
Re: (Score:3)
No surprise. Men have never engaged in lesbianism as much as women have. Can we have some meaningful data here, please?
Oh, wait, /. Sry.
Not that we haven't tried!
Re:Porn (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Haven't studied much Greek, Roman, Indian, Central American or Japanese ancient art, have you?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is like saying that sitcoms are poisonous to friendships because it creates in people a expectation that all their friends should have great one-liners every 30 seconds or so, and people are getting depressed because there is no laugh track in real life to your own jokes.
My generation (and the ones before it) slams each other hard. One-liner after one-liner. When we act the same way to these pussies of the special snowflake generation we would be called racists, misogynists, homophobes, and so on.
Even just pointing this out gets us labeled racists, misogynists, homophobes, etc, because apparently we dont know how to act in a civilized society. We are apparently filled with hate.
No, what has happened is that the media has become so extremely politically correct that 'mi
Re:Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
When we act the same way to these pussies of the special snowflake generation we would be called racists, misogynists, homophobes, and so on.
Okay...
No, what has happened is that the media has become so extremely politically correct that 'micro-aggression' is now a thing and that we have let the radical feminists decide what social norms are for the rest of us. The system is rigged against men being men.
So you are annoyed at people calling other people bigots, and then call other people bigots. You are annoyed that people feel upset about what other people say, and then get upset about what other people say.
There is a flaw in your argument.
Re: (Score:3)
The 3 women I slept with post the one I loved I found physically repulsive despite all of them wanting me.
Why bother? I did that once, back when I was younger, but never did it again. I'd rather sit at home with porn than try to get it up for someone I find repulsive.
I am also not your typical slashdot reader. I am not a programmer, engineer or scientist. I just like to read about that stuff because it's intetesting.
Well that's plainly obvious to me. You're not going off about how global warming is a lib
Re:It's slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Dye your hair pink, get a dozen piercings, cut your dick off, change your name to Sally and have an orgy at the public library kids' section to protest transmisogyny and you'll be asked to speak at the DNC. Go shoot up a bunch of cops to protest racism and the worst the President do will is shrug and say things got "messy."
Today being an unapologetic straight white Christian male is about the only subversive thing left you can do.
Re: (Score:3)
So no one actually reads TFA and check out the links??? I am surprise how TFA made a conclusion out of a totally different topic research which is the link cited in TFA.
TFA portion
Published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour [springer.com] by researchers from three US universities, the study involved the analysis of data collected through the nationwide General Social Survey that has asked US adults about their sexual behaviour almost every year since 1989.
Cited link in TFA
Changes in American Adults’ Reported Same-Sex Sexual Experiences and Attitudes, 1973–2014 ...
We examined change over time in the reported prevalence of men having sex with men and women having sex with women and acceptance of those behaviors in the nationally representative General Social Survey of U.S. adults (n’s = 28,161–33,728, ages 18–96 years), 1972–2014
Re: (Score:3)
Be confident in yourself and be confident in your future.
Just try not to be arrogant or entitled.
All of the above are hard to do all the time (unless you're so insecure you're incapable of being arrogant or so arrogant that you're incapable of harbouring doubts about yourself) so forgive others who get it wrong some of the time - and hope that they forgive you.
And if you want to get laid, find something cheap to do that you enjoy doing and that has people of the right sex there that you can talk to and don'
Re: (Score:3)
", and the meantime I have lived with 6 wifes (serial monogamy, not muslin)..."
If you weren't paying so much alimony, you could have afforded silk.
Re: (Score:3)
7. The globalist propaganda says global warming and overpopulation is rampant, discouraging people from having children.
Global warming is real, you dolt. There's tons of evidence proving it, and no serious scientists doubts it any more.
Overpopulation may be a problem in some 3rd-world nations, but in 1st-world nations it's not, in fact the reverse is a problem. Of course, the globalists' solution is to encourage large-scale mass migrations.
6. The economy is still crap
B..b..but the Democrats tell us the ec
Re: (Score:3)
Rape culture is where a rapist like Brock Turner gets a scant 6 months because the the judge says a prison sentence might have a bad impact on him.
Rape hysteria is where a vocal minority perpetuates misinformation about real problem but misrepresents scale, severity, and the likelihood of it happening. By comparison, there were always be murders, but it is hysterical to claim that you are going to get murdered walking down the street at night. Even if you live in high-crime area. Even if on the national scale you could find examples of this happening. Even if murder is awful, and shouldn't ever happen. Still, there is no 'walk at night murder epidemic
Re:Obvious causes in no particular order: (Score:5, Insightful)
What rape hysteria? Rape culture is where a rapist like Brock Turner gets a scant 6 months because the the judge says a prison sentence might have a bad impact on him.
*One* case does not rape culture make. Despite what you are led to believe, women are actually *safer* on college campuses than anywhere else. You often hear the 1 in 3 stat mentioned, but that stat is based on a piss poor study that's only quoted because it supports an agenda.
What's far more prevalent are the rape accusations, which is really no surprise when you think about it. Rape is a heinous crime, and folks that commit it are rightfully shunned and hated. However, what's happening is that the merest accusation can be enough to ruin someone's life ( men, not women incidentally ). As false accusers are rarely punished for their behavior, it creates a very effective tool for women to deploy against men. Think: Duke, Rolling Stones, Mattress Girl, and those are just off the top of my head.
In our culture of fear and snap judgments and "Dear Colleague" letters, you'd have to be crazy as a man to have sex on a college campus. Hell, you'd have to be crazy to even GO to college, seeing how an unsupported accusation would be enough to get you expelled. No, it's worse than that; not just unsupported, but an evidence refuted accusation can get you kicked out with no recourse.
Finally, you mention a rapist who got a light sentence. I agree that's wrong, but if you really want to be outraged about that I'd like to know your stance on the legion of women teachers who continually get suspended sentences or community service for sex with minors. It seems there's another in the paper every week, with kids as young as grade school.
Ironically, that may be where the real rape culture is; in our elementary and high schools.
As far as the younger generation not having as much sex; maybe the men are smarter than we were. They see that all the effort and time spent just increases their risk factor of having their lives ruined and are noping out. Smart.
Re: (Score:3)
You often hear the 1 in 3 stat mentioned,
It was actually 1 in 5 [ncjrs.gov]. At least get it right before criticising it.
False claims are a problem, but so is actual sexual assault. We have multiple sources of evidence to show that assault levels are rather high (for men too, greater than 1 in 20) but not much evidence that false accusations are rampant. Getting hysterical about it (crazy to go to college, really?) isn't going to help anyone.
Re: (Score:3)
Getting hysterical about it (crazy to go to college, really?) isn't going to help anyone.
It's not "getting hysterical" to recognize a hostile and dangerous environment for what it is and steering clear of it. All that's needed is an accusation and a man can be kicked out of college. In many cases he's not even allowed to present evidence in his defense. That's the "college experience" for men now a days. Can't fault men for checking out of that; I won't go near a college either.
You are quite correct; I
Re: (Score:3)
Nice try, bucko, but it won't work.
There's two problems. One is that "you're offended therefore I'm right" is a logical fallacy of great proportions. Secondly, it only workes as a weak rhetorical tactic if you managed to cause offence. Given the lack of offence, it just makes you seem desperate.
Re:Criminalization of expressions of masculinity (Score:4, Insightful)
I've not found any of my expressions of masculinity have been criminalized. Perhaps you're thinking about expressions of extreme douchbaggery instead. If to you "being a man" means "being criminally assholey" then your idea of what a man is is fucked up.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
then your idea of what a man is is fucked up.
Yes, because anyone disagreeing with SJW idea of how a man must behave must be fucked up. After all, you all like your men barefoot and paying alimony.
Here are some specific examples of natural masculinity expressions that are being attacked in today's society:
1. Rough play and fighting (even is sports)
2. Risk-taking of any kind
3. Hunting (especially with guns)
4. Loyalty to your male friends
5. Tinkering and do-it-yourself culture
6. Self-reliance and individualism
Re:Criminalization of expressions of masculinity (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Rough play and fighting (even is sports)
Are you talking about rough play, sports or actually fighting. They're not the same. I can't think I've ever seen anyone[*] claim that playing rugger makes you evil. Starting fights after closing time however, you can keep that.
2. Risk-taking of any kind
that's just stupid and you're making it up.
3. Hunting (especially with guns)
We don't have much of a hunting culture here unless you're a toff and even then it's with dogs, not guns.
4. Loyalty to your male friends
Again, that's just stupid and you're making it up.
5. Tinkering and do-it-yourself culture
Third time, you're just making shit up. No one's revoked my SJW license for owning tools and actually using them.
6. Self-reliance and individualism
Are you talking about actual self reliance, or going your own way on ot the internet where you grouse about women and SJW?
[*]The internet is big. If you can find one lone nutcase, that doesn't make it a trend.
Re: (Score:3)
Pansy millennials getting drunk AFTER they finish in the machine shop...it's like they want to die with all their limbs attached.
Re: (Score:3)
Give it a couple of raspberries, hit it on the head a few times with a ball and I can convince a Pikachu to come home with me.
Women thus far aren't keen on being coaxed with raspberries or being hit repeatedly with balls (at least until much later in the relationship!)