The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping

It seems to me that we've built this horrible, alienating environment not by deliberate choice but through a larger collective and political process none of us could individually control. We've created rules (building codes and zoning laws) that entrench this dystopia in countless small ways which will take a concerted effort to undo.

None of that is new in America. If anything, I'd expect that these forces were stronger 20-30 years ago, when sexual activity rates were higher.

Sex ed is also something I was more universally supported. Regardless of your views on when someone should have sex, I doubt it serves anyone’s goals to have young adults getting hurt, sick, or traumatized by a natural part of growing up.

> The kids in my community are being taught age-appropriate, consent-based sex ed, and the availability of free, high-quality sex ed is improving.

This has been the case in blue states for decades. I had proper sex-ed in the 90s.

Back on topic: You mention "people who aren't putting in any emotional labor to learning and growing as a person". But, from your first paragraph, who's got time and energy for that?

My own guess at an additional factor: Women's equality has made women who didn't need to depend on a man. As a result, they got a lot choosier about what downsides, flaws, and baggage they were willing to put up with.

Abstinence only education creates teenage pregnancies, basically.

I think one reason the trans community is so threatening to a certain ideology is that we found happiness by intentionally and deliberately discarding core components of that ideology and having done so we found something better.

I truly never imagined I could have what I have today. In finding my way through poly, transition, and finding community, I changed my life. I don’t think for everyone gender transition is the answer, but going through a serious process of contemplative evaluation and change, however difficult it may be, did so much for me.

I don't know what time machine you arrive on, but no one has been seriously promoting abstinence for decades, except in certain religious circles, and that's where people are having the most sex and the best sex. That's not a coincidence. They more like to be engaging in it the only healthy way it can be: an expression of mutual self-giving and love, and an act of bonding that reinforces the relationship that's already there. Intrinsically entailed is its openness to new life, as that is its ultimate consummation and raison d'etre. Block that and you corrupt the act. Reap the consequences.

> Of course we end up with declining sex, in a country so obsessed with individualism and sex-adverse.

Sex averse? You must be joking. We're sex-obsessed! Creepiness has been normalized. You can't watch a movie for 5 minutes without having your face rubbed in a sex scene, or a newspaper with the latest sexual fetish looking to receive society's blessing instead of its condemnation and scorn. Advertising is heavily sexualized, contributing to the commercializing of sex. Dating culture, rather that being about courtship and getting to know someone to find a spouse, is and has been for some time some kind of dystopian and aimless sex ritual. What a mind job!

And porn use? Yeah, it is a problem and a major contributor to various disorders and insecurities. The vast majority of males (especially Gen Z) are regular consumers of pornography, which has never been so ubiquitous and easily available - you're just a typo away from accidentally tripping over a porn site. Record numbers of women are dabbling in OF-style sex work. In the case of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they practically grew up on the stuff. Pornography is also shaping sexual norms that are disturbing. For instance, there has been a rise in the frequency at which women are choked during sex. That comes from pornography, which has been only deepening mistrust, misunderstanding, disrespect, and animosity between the sexes. The crippling effect pornography has on the ability to form and have a healthy relationship cannot be understated.

The very fact that we're even talking about people not having sex as the problem is already a sign that we have a deranged relationship with sex. It's not about sex as if it were some decontextualized recreational activity that is failing to hit quotas. It has a place, and outside of its legitimate narrow confines, it becomes an act of violence, an instrument of power, and an act of exploitation and abuse. The social fallout is incalculable. Consent doesn't wave that away.

> The kids in my community are being taught age-appropriate, consent-based sex ed, and the availability of free, high-quality sex ed is improving.

Sex ed has been around for a long time, and one of its common faults is that it decontextualizes sex, and second, doesn't and can't give you "just the facts", but actively promotes and shapes unhealthy attitudes toward what is acceptable sexual behavior. Sexual ethics is reduced to mere consent, at best. To say the problem is that we don't have enough sex ed is like saying communism failed because it didn't communism hard enough.

Sex is not a toy. It's a powerful and sacred act. FAFO. That we are not horrified by the state of sexual relations and sexual disorder is a testament to the numbing effect our disorder has. For centuries, it was known to great moral teachers that one of the "daughters of lust" (where lust is not healthy sexual desire, but one not proportioned by reason) is a darkening of the mind.

So, yes, community is important, but it needs a basis, and a deep one, but the point of a community is not to supply you with sexual experiences. If your community begins operating like some kind of sex market, it will dissolve and right so, because it will have become a seedy hive of sexual perversion, coercion, and unhealthy relations.

The sexual relationship is the glue of family and through that of society. Mess with it, and prepare for hell.

Thought reform, which is sophisticated science based techniques that impose stress and increase suggestability, almost to the point of mindlessness,are torture that have been imposed in varying ways to kids and teens. The entire process of centralized education embraces this through Paulo Freire's pedagogy which is most National Teachers Union members; like "Lying to Children", or by-rote teaching (two faces same coin).

When you succumb to torture, you adopt characteristics of the torturer that are reflected. The torturer can distort that reflection for purpose, and in general its a state of involuntary hypnosis. This same state can be induced through distorting reflected appraisal through media. Its not the type of torture you see caracicaturized in media. It leverages perceptual blindspots to induce psychological instability.

When the girls are taught that attractive qualities in men are unattractive or crazy, and the guys are taught the same thing; there is an age range where those core identity beliefs are adopted and crystallized to carry forward the rest of their lives. It takes great personal suffering to overcome any of these, let alone recognize them.

The behavior promoted is almost and mimics similar behaviors or mannerisms that occur in schizophrenics, and is one sign that a person may have been tortured. In addition to what you mention, this has been occuring for decades, and the economic consequences have only gotten worse, and the environment has only ever marched toward disadvantaged.

The world created by the aggregate of older adults today is a hellscape for their children, but most of these slothful (complacent) people have willfully blinded themselves to the reality of their actions.

For example dating websites where you are never matched up to someone that is long-term compatible, effectively being pigeonholed into a eugenics experiment since the strategy the company uses to guarantee profit is the same strategy the USDA uses to eradicate parasites through sterility.

Whenever these type of dynamics occur, chaos sustainably grows until the systems involved can no longer correct, as a positive feedback system. All the way to catastrophe.

Aside from food security, when you make social life unlivable and intolerable. When you deprive children who become adults, of lifes joy through conditioned indoctrination and torture. You have as a group stolen their future. The ones that did nothing are equally responsible as the ones that moved it towards that state.

There is a critical point where they will realize what has been done to them, because you can't fool everyone always. When that occurs, the law won't save the old. Absent a functioning rule of law (which we don't have), violence will be the only option to these people, and they will have nothing to lose.

Chickens come home to roost eventually. Evil doesn't need to know its evil to be evil. All it needs to do is be willfully blind. Thomas Paine said it best when he referred to "Dead Men Ruling."

Books:

Robert Cialdini (1990s) - Influence - Covers perceptual blindspots

Robert Lifton (1950s) - Thought Reform & Totalism - Detailed Case Studies of Torture

Joost Meerloo (1950s) - Rape of the Mind - Covers the broad topic of torture and thought reform; has some dating.

Chase Hughes - Ellipsis - The material in this domain is highly fragmented across many subfields, he aggregates most of the important parts of modern thought reform (1970s+) into NCI, including Cults, Cointelpro, Kubark, and others. Author was a professional military interrogator/behavioral modification expert (iirc).

Torture/Modern Thought Reform is recognized by its Elements, Structuring, and Clustering, and the last group is often addiction linked following lines of Narco-synthesis/analysis through dopamine triggering/conditioning.

Unfortunately, you probably won't see this post long. HN has a lot of bots, automatons, or despicable people that don't want harsh truths to see the light of day. Almost without fail within 30 minutes of linking to the reference material included, the posts get downvoted to invisibility despite being science backed and true.

Mind you nothing said here changes the reality of the dynamics. It will all happen the same regardless. The hiding is only an action that prevents a general forewarning to others as preparable time ahead of the associated collapse occurring.

There are a lot of people alive today that want to destroy everyone and everything they can.

Ivan Illyin seems to have been right with regards to his refutation of Tolstoy, and outcomes of evil.

I think you got this one backwards.

The messaging I've seen is the opposite "Men don't deserve sex!".

The dead bedroom is particularly popular when the boyfriend in question is, in the words of the girlfriend in question, "gentle and treating his girlfriend better than any of her previous boyfriends".

Okay, but don't get surprised if men listen to you and avoid having sex.

cut - 10 minutes about alcohol being the most deadly drug on earth - "People who drink moderately have more friendships, closer friendships and higher levels of trust in others".

Now _moderately_ is the key word here.

Just in the past couple of weeks we've met some neighbors with toddlers that enjoy our toddler. It's been SUPER nice being able to hanf out with the adults while the kids entertain each other.

I've made a new year resolution in 2024 to be much more outgoing with my friends and coworkers, and to go to more concerts. My wife isn't a concert person, and I don't have many local friends. But still, I always buy two tickets and, to the friends and colleagues I will offer the other ticket, usually in conversation or at random, usually months in advance, and usually at no cost just because I just really like having friends -- who doesn't?

Of the 6 shows since then, 4 people accepted to go with me, but all of them ended up cancelling. One friend tapped in at the last second just because he was a local student with nothing better to do on friday night. So I've been to a lot of concerts alone, which kinda sucks. Everyone else is there with some companion, but I'm kinda extraverted so made a few acquaintances.

I also planned a fishing trip with another -- free airfare (companion pass) and lodging (family condo) for them -- and cancelled about 2 weeks prior to it.

I also realized i'm the manufacturer of my friendships -- I am the one who asks friends out for lunch, brunch, hikes, beers, coffee, picnics, game night, etc. I'm the conversation starter. I send the plurality of reels. I'm reminded of my friends on a daily basis from random happenings, that spur me to get a gift, or send a news article, or just a pic or text, or to form a plan for a birthday party or fishing trip or cross-country flight or anything.

They'd often accept the small stuff, and things were good. But I backed away during my recent paternity leave, and they basically disappeared. I still send and receive some how are you's, but it made me realize how lopsided my relationships became.

I kinda burnt out manufacturing my relationships (also after learning about that term), so I stopped, and for the last 3 months I've been essentially devoid of friendship (except for one person who ).

Started to make me think I smell or something, but reading of the male loneliness epidemic and an overall dissolution of community is making me realize the only thing I'm doing wrong is not continuing to manufacture my friendships like I was before.

Now the rent tripled, 20€ gets you a beer and a bus ride, and people stay home with the same few friends, if they're bothered to do anything at all.

A metaphor worth stealing.

Maybe ask to share a joint? Lol

Plenty of people also find community through technology, so I personally don’t believe technology is the only contributing factor here.

I do agree with in you general about many Americans not having enough social or communal interaction, though. I suspect this is more a symptom of a lot of other social issues than a purely technological problem though.

This is when social media was actually used for more than keeping up with influencers.

       - Decline in trust undermines institutions, and the loss of institutions further reduces trust.
       - Rising inequality, political polarization, and lack of fairness & opportunity further reduce trust.
       - This results in withdrawal from in-person activities and the substitution of online "life".

Probably better phrased as the 'immature men epidemic'. Put responsibility where it belongs.

I wondered about this before reading the article, but there's a chart in the article comparing narrow ~10 year age ranges to their past levels, and the decline is persistent in each group, so I don't think it can be explained by the overall population being older.

I was raised by very anxious mother, until I was like 20-21, I never got out of the house unless it was for school. And nowadays I just... don't know how I would even meet people.

10-20 years ago, someone would tell her she's insane. Later, she'd be seen as a protecting parent.

Please get help. It doesn’t have to be this way, I promise.

This says more about you than it does society.

Meeting people IRL yielded much better results.

But I have to admit, I met my latest partner in 2019, so I don't know how the pandemic would my current dating success.

In what sense?

Why not say that to young men regarding the military? "Come on, you need to get your degree first and find out what you want to do with your life, then go to boot camp and train to be a soldier".