The Sex Recession

Dillon Levenque

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That's what I'm saying. Maybe there's a correlation between the popularization of nerdy things and the reduction of sex.

I just observe patterns. To somewhat over-simplify what I saw during high school:
-The most beautiful people could be the most social and active. They wouldn't have to settle for lesser things.
-As people with lesser attractiveness, fewer people would want to be around them, so it would be necessary to find activities which didn't require so many people. If they were smart enough, they could play D&D or something of the sort and at least sustain a small degree of social contact.
-But, once looks and intelligence goes down the drain, we would have to settle for very solo activities like tinkering with electronics or programming and such. When there's nobody around, it serves for something to do.

Now that these base activities are becoming popularized, it looks like people are wasting their opportunity to thrive in addition to pushing the bottom feeders out to deeper fringes. As people are getting pushed out, some push back, and that's how we also see a growth in MRAs and GamerGate-like situations. At the same time, people who could have been more social and sexually active have fetishized geek culture and adopted lesser social leanings.
Not arguing with your theory, but the high school part isn't because it was a few years back: it's because it was high school. One of my most vivid recollections is of going to my 20th high school reunion (the only one I've attended) and being struck by how attractive so many of the women were in comparison to my recollection of them as girls. It's just the way boys/young men of that age tend to be. Cheerleaders are cute, everybody else is an also-ran.

Fortunately, most of us get over that.
 
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Jolene Benoir

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That's what I'm saying. Maybe there's a correlation between the popularization of nerdy things and the reduction of sex.

I just observe patterns. To somewhat over-simplify what I saw during high school:
-The most beautiful people could be the most social and active. They wouldn't have to settle for lesser things.
-As people with lesser attractiveness, fewer people would want to be around them, so it would be necessary to find activities which didn't require so many people. If they were smart enough, they could play D&D or something of the sort and at least sustain a small degree of social contact.
-But, once looks and intelligence goes down the drain, we would have to settle for very solo activities like tinkering with electronics or programming and such. When there's nobody around, it serves for something to do.

Now that these base activities are becoming popularized, it looks like people are wasting their opportunity to thrive in addition to pushing the bottom feeders out to deeper fringes. As people are getting pushed out, some push back, and that's how we also see a growth in MRAs and GamerGate-like situations. At the same time, people who could have been more social and sexually active have fetishized geek culture and adopted lesser social leanings.
Yeah, I'm not buying this theory. Gamergate was about one thing. Hating women, or more hating women intruding on games, as if men always had a complete stranglehold on them, but more importantly bringing a woman's perspective to games (how dare they!) That's simply not true that gaming was a man only world. I know it is/was the popular theory for many years, and I know that games were primarily made for boys in the early days but there have always been girls and women in gaming. That men took it upon themselves as if only they had a right to them is a bit, well, self-centered. Gaming also has NEVER been an ugly-only people activity. Never.

I'm not buying the whole ugly people do certain things and everyone else does all of these magical, wonderful activities. Come on. Really? Human beings cover a very wide spectrum in terms of conventional attractiveness. Oddly enough people in every group enjoy many activities of all sorts, regardless of their beauty.

I think it maybe points more in the direction of three things;:

1. How attractive someone considers themselves and whether they think that limits their opportunity in life.
2. How attractive someone is on the inside. Are they nice to people? Do they make an effort to learn about other people? Do they think that because they have good looks they are better than others or vice versa if not so attractive, do they think they are worse than others?
3. Do they make an effort to improve themselves, in any manner whether it be using their brains, making the best of what nature gave them, etc.. I'm not saying to do that in some effort to move up in some social hierarchy but simply for the reason of bettering themselves.

I think there are a whole lot of people out there that expect to be rude, mean, never improve themselves and blame their lack of success on their looks. Then, because they are rude and mean, they lash out at everyone else for daring to enjoy an activity that is available to all.

Guess what? Sex is available to everyone that doesn't have a disability preventing them from participating. The problem is one of expectation. Some people expect to receive sex from anyone they choose whether or not that person would be interested. They then get angry. Whatever happened to getting to know someone, making a connection, then deciding whether or not it would go further if there was a level of sexual interest and mutual desire vs holding out for Barbie?
 
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Tranquility

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As for sex, I would say that it is more accessible than before, yet also less accessible in some circumstances. The prevalence of dating and hookup sites has given women (more so than men) exponentially more options. In essence, women don't have to settle for less desirable men as they did in the past; but now they are generally overwhelmed with options. Before the rise of dating sites, women were limited to the relatively small pool of men that they physically interacted with. The small dating pool may have caused them to act faster in order to lock down a mate. Now they have access to upwards of thousands of men within driving distance, without having to leave their home. I do think this wide availability of other options hurts the incels' dating chances, and to some degree makes them more extremist as a result of them being rejected more often now than they would have been in the past. I am not sure if it actively creates more incels (since women don't have to settle or put up with their shit) or if we are just more exposed to the incels due to the internet.

The way I see it, the dating dynamic between men and women is still the same at the core (men still are expected to pursue and impress the women), but dating and hookup sites have greatly amplified this dynamic and made the dating pool much much bigger.

Long story short, I am wondering if the decline in sex is due to dating sites shifting the power more in favor of women, and as a result they are less pressured to have sex they don't want with men they aren't all that into.
 

GoblinCampFollower

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Gaming also has NEVER been an ugly-only people activity. Never.
I take it you've never seen a Magic the Gathering Tournament? I'm pretty sure that's always been required by their rules.

But seriously, I agree with your core point, and Gamer Gate was 100% misogynistic.

Buuuuut, c'mon! You know gamers when we were kids were not usually the beautiful people. When I was a kid, popular kids were seriously afraid to be scene as nerds. Games were mostly played by people with nothing to lose. I think DnD in particular really started as a social club among outcasts.

I'm still agreeing with your more important points. Women were always in gaming and I highly doubt nerd culture going mainstream is directly related to "the sex recession."
 
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GoblinCampFollower

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Paul Joseph Watson made the perfect YouTube video to explain this no testosterone phenomenon.. true and funny as hell. If you are a liberal or a man who loves soy, you may not want to watch this.. it may "trigger" you. PJW soy video
The actual scientific community agrees soy isn't bad for testosterone. You know what actually is proven to damage testosterone? Booze. But booze is still seen as manly because "reasons."

...and booze isn't a threat to the meat and dairy industry...
 
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Brenda Archer

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It seems to me there are two core problems:

1. Most sex happens in couples, and the unemployment and underemployment of young people in this economy is keeping them out of couples. It’s getting harder and harder to cross milestones like getting a degree or a first home or apartment.

2. The combination of bad/no sex education and porn is indeed a disaster. We are not teaching young people how to relate to each other. Part of this problem is the way the education system is falling into the hands of conservatives.

Americans have always been mostly prudish, even the ones who participated in party culture before settling into marriage. I have never seen much sex positivity except in subcultures and in a plurality of the happily married and that’s NOT the old culture of booze and bars. Looking to the latter is a mistake. It’s the past.

Young people who are sober are not in the party culture and online dating is not a substitute. Sobriety is great for getting a leg up in an increasingly competitive job market, but it’s exactly right that the article points out people who aren’t going to be comfortable hooking up in bars.

I don’t think the reduction in sex has to be a problem IF decent sex education, including conversations about relationships, can be extended to young people - plenty of adults need it, too.

A last thought about middle aged singles my age. They sometimes seem entitled to hook right up without so much as a friendship first. So of course they get rebuffed. Women today want partnerships, not servitude, but some men haven’t figured it out. They then blame their problems on everything but their superior and entitled approach.
 

Brenda Archer

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The article didn't mention the decline in church attendance, but that's where a lot of the older generation met their spouses. Groups like Humanists and liberal religions could try to fill this void with sociality minus the preaching. Now I'm wondering if the non coupled rate of sex is higher among pagans and fandom than average. It's certainly our reputation, but I don't know if it has been studied. Honestly this is part of why I have trouble feeling sorry for the entitled people in my generation who still expect sex without either social groups or settled relationships. There just isn't much of that left.
 

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