Summary: An economist shows the rising rate of celibacy among young millennial men. His analysis reveals much more, inadvertently, as he gushes about the need for women to domesticate men. This is like the smell of smoke in an airliner, a signal we should not ignore.
Slowly the media and public become aware of the radical changes happening in America. Social scientists provide the facts so that we can see the changes, rather than relying on anecdote or myth. That is the good news, as in this graph by Lyman Stone (agricultural economist at the Dept of Ag; see LinkedIn). How many unmarried Millennials have not had sex in the past year? How has this changed in the past 30 years?
The small increase for women (4 percentage points) is easily explained by more obesity, increased focus on careers, and disinterest (see how many dress: they’re dropped out from the dating game). The larger increase for men is more difficult to explain – and potentially the start of a game-changing trend in America.
A modern social scientist, Stone gives us his PC explanation.
I should add here that @Noahpinion suggests porn drives these trends.
I am inclined to agree somewhat! Porn may enable men to be more comfortable not having a sexual partner. Lacking a partner means they don’t benefit from the civilizing effect of woman.
— Lyman Stone (@lymanstoneky) May 3, 2018
There is little evidence that porn is responsible for this, but he states it so confidently! It does not occur to him that feminism might be a factor. Perhaps it unleashed hypergamy, so that the bottom tier of men (in terms of sexual market value) are locked out.
Some people called him on his confident myths. He replied by doubling down.
I’m getting flak about the “civilizing effect of woman” line. The flak perplexes me.
Is it a surprise to anyone that a committed relationship with a woman tends to make men better? This is a pretty solid empirical fact: marriage reduces numerous high risk behaviors.
— Lyman Stone (@lymanstoneky) May 4, 2018
What a daft explanation. Getting a job and increasing age both reduce “numerous high risk behaviors” but require no women. That suggests that it is the responsibilities of marriage (as an institution or role) that changes men, not the magic of women. Also, does he believe that gay marriages lack this civilizing effect on men? Oddly, he does not say.
Then he digs deeper into his hole.
Single men have a tendency to do risky, unusual, and often very bad stuff. Single men have very high crime rates. Single men are also extremely economically productive in many cases! They’re a crazy bunch! And yeah they benefit from stable female partnership!
— Lyman Stone (@lymanstoneky) May 4, 2018
Stone ignores the falling crime rate that accompanies the increasing rate of celibacy and falling marriage rate of millennials.
Also, you have to love the casual sexism of this of our era! Experts like Stone wax lyrical about the benefits women provide to men, which they believe so many men are apparently too stupid to see. But they seldom go euphoric over the benefits to women of male partnership, despite women’s great enthusiasm for marriage. All those women reading about “how to get your man to commit” and complaining “those ‘Peter Pans’ who won’t marry women” — don’t they know that women need men like fish need bicycles?
Domesticating men. It works for dogs!
I wonder about the domestication of men that so excites Stone. How would the men who built civilization agree that it was women’s influence that made it possible? Alexander? Caesar? Plato? Nietzsche?
What about men from other cultures? How would they react to Stone’s assertion about the transformative effect of women on men? A 19th century man from the Cheyenne or Apache peoples. A Zulu? A mandarin from one of the Chinese empires? Each of these achieved greatness, in different ways. Imagining how they would see us gives a new perspective on our society.
How many of these men would say the domestication of men in modern America makes us weaker, not stronger? It is a common story in history that a people take a wrong turn and excitedly zoom off a cliff. Perhaps focusing on the power of women over toxic masculinity is our wrong turn. That is what Martin van Creveld says in Pussycats: Why The Rest Keeps Beating The Rest, And What Can Be Done About It
The problem with scientists
They are one of our best sources of data and insights. But they wrap it thoroughly in ideology. Anti-intellectuals say we should ignore them in favor of anecdote and myths. Instead we should to unwrap it and get the prize at the center.
Conclusions
This sharp increase in the number of celibate young men is a warning sign, like the red idiot light on your car’s dashboard. We ignore it or laugh at it since as a society we do not care about our young men (that’s why we blithely send them to die in pointless foreign wars). It is a signal that our society is changing rapidly in unexpected and perhaps destabilizing ways.
For more information
See the numbers about marriage and fertility: “No Ring, No Baby: How Marriage Trends Impact Fertility” by Lyman Stone at the Institute for Family Studies.
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about marriage, and especially these …
- The Economist proclaims that men are “The Weaker Sex”.
- Women are moving on top of men in America.
- We might become a low testosterone America. More research needed, stat!
- The war on masculinity is a war on men.
Great books about sex
Sex in History
Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy
Rising male celibacy since 2008, what happened then porn started or GFC?
If porn related would have started pre – 2008.
Unemployed or semi employed guys with few skills, little money or looks and probably obese can’t get a lay… couldn’t be this piece of rocket science could it. Stop eating shit and drinking sugar, get a job and exercise more, or become a monk.
Unemployed or semi employed girls with few skills, money or looks, even if obese can get laid, if guys with jobs, cash and flatter stomachs put their “beer goggles on”, when nothing else is available.
It isn’t rocket science.
Just a Guy,
“Unemployed or semi employed guys with few skills, little money or looks and probably obese can’t get a lay”
That’s a pretty steep increase since 2008. Did something change them? I doubt the number of obese or homely young men has zoomed since then.
The 2008 recession was severe. But we have been in an economic expansion since 2009, with unemployment now near 50-year lows. So it is probably not the economy.
I may be wrong ,but isn’t 2007/-2008 when social media became popular?
Andrei,
The big growth was 2006 – 2010 (see this graph in this article).
Geocities (1994) was the first social media website, or precursor to them. Six Degrees (1997) is usually considered to be the first social media website, putting all the pieces together. But it and its competitors were small time. The big growth began with LinkedIn and Myspace (2003), Facebook (2004), and Twitter (2006).
“But we have been in an economic expansion since 2009, with unemployment now near 50-year lows. So it is probably not the economy.”
This recovery hasn’t penetrated much below the 85th-90th income percentile. Below that its been a truly crappy recovery, creating mostly crappy jobs. So don’t discount the economy in this.
rkka,
“Below that its been a truly crappy recovery, creating mostly crappy jobs.”
That’s commonly said, but false. Average Hourly (Nominal) Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees have risen 21% since the end of the recession. That excludes managers and professionals. A long slow expansion produces impressive results over time.
It certainly has not made the conditions of workers worse, which you are implying.
The economic explanation would not be so much recession as the effects of a government sponsored credit bubble. The hypothesis would be that these change the distribution of rewards. Money flows to those who have a hand directly or indirectly in running the bubble. So finance sector, but also media, marketing. The sectors that lose out are manufacturing and blue collar generally. Inequality increases. Assets inflate which favors those with them.
You saw exactly this in the 1920s, and Galbraith points it out while misunderstanding what was going on – he notes that the working classes could not afford the goods and services they were making, and thinks this was a causal factor in the crash. Whereas, hypothesis, this was a symptom, a consequence of the bubble, and the bubble led inevitably to the crash because the essence of the bubble is that it results in loans thrown at anyone who can breathe, which eventually lead to a cascade of defaults.
So the economic argument would be that over time, over around 20 years, we have seen a recession and a recovery, but the gains have been uneven, and what has actually happened under the surface is a large redistribution of wealth and income. One effect is away from blue collar men to white collar women. Also from inland to the coasts. The result of which is a large number of men who cannot afford the lifestyle which the culture of dating and matrimony used to require.
Well, that is the economic causation hypothesis.
George,
Just making stuff up isn’t useful. The US economy has been in an expansion since 2009. It has lifted all major segments (to different degrees, as always). Both wages and jobs for young men are up, and the economy provides no obvious basis to explain the rise millennial celibacy.
Also, there is no “govt-sponsored” credit bubble. If there was, credit bubbles stimulate the economy (until they burst) — usually in a broad fashion.
“That’s a pretty steep increase since 2008. Did something change them? I doubt the number of obese or homely young men has zoomed since then.
The 2008 recession was severe. But we have been in an economic expansion since 2009, with unemployment now near 50-year lows. So it is probably not the economy.”
I would argue a bit about that: the recession has hit working class men the hardest, especially in “traditionally male” (would say a feminist?) jobs like construction or manufacturing. The hit was disproportionate gender-wise, and a lot of these men have gone under between 2008 and the real beginning of the recovery, becoming un-eligible prospects for marriage, accumulating debt, becoming less or not employable. By the same token, a significant number of men, especially among the low qualified, simply missed their entry on the job market in that interval of low employment, or started at lower levels, status wise and/or salary wise, and it has been shown that the first paycheck has a significant impact on future paychecks in a career. So those, men and women, who started in these years will, overall, do less well or really worse than those who started before of after them, through really no fault of their own, and simple happenstance.
The point is that there seems to be a strong economic impact on the eligibility of a significant proportion of men whose “inner beauty” won’t get a shot at being seen for want of even a modicum of status and/or income, something that is a lot less of a problem for women, marriage/reproduction wise (but, for working class and lower middle class women, that blessing is also a curse, since it often means a more or less rapid case of single motherhood without enough means). Since the recovery can hardly qualify as an era of unbridled prosperity (Mc Jobs, number of jobs booming but flat incomes and few changes in number of hours worked weekly, debt traps….), I’d say that the recession and its aftermath have simply disqualified many men by impacting their economic power and status, especially in the lower strata of the job market. And many of them are discarded for life: does that mean that the same proportions apply for the following age brackets (coming of age during the recovery? Hard to know as it stands. What is sure is that a very consequent population of discarded men has been created over the decades (for many of the reasons frequently talked about here), and I’d say that the recession has given it a big nudge, gravely increasing its permanent size. This is closely interlinked with what is talked about here, since men, on average, have to earn more to be considered a prospect, so even men who are in the workforce and do earn a living may simply have gone into these stats by simply not being and earning enough. Their standards of admission to the sexual market is just higher.
I guess we would have a far better picture if the graph you quote could gave more details, notably income brackets, workforce participation, level of employment, housing matters (living at the parents home?)…. And an analysis by smaller age brackets would also be extremely useful. As would be a query as to what proportion of these men are voluntarily not having sex, and what proportion is, as it is now called, “incels”.
Are there other powerful factors at work? That is a certainty, especially if one observes the generational factor (interest in sex, motivation for the rat race, gender relations, war on boys….) or, obviously, the health.fitness factor (obesity, sports, physical weakening of younger generations, opioids, or even lower sperm count and lower testosterone levels); All of these are enough to explain many a percent of change in that graph. But discarding the economic/socio-economic factor seems a little cavalier to me.
Tancrède,
Go thru the Fred graphs. You’ll see that your guesses about the economy are quite wrong.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/
The racists started coming out in force after Obama was elected. Lots of young men have made themselves undateable because they’re rageful racists whom most young women want nothing to do with. We are now competing for a smaller pool of liberal same-age men. Simple as that. Right-wing racists and misogynists are becoming incels and that’s as it should be.
Jen,
“Lots of young men have made themselves undateable because they’re rageful racists”
Do you have evidence for this “making themselves undateable”? Or are you just making it up?
“Average Hourly (Nominal) Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees have risen 21% since the end of the recession”
How much did those earnings drop before or during the recession? Just wondering. I mean, if they dropped 25%, then a subsequent rise of 21% would be treading water.
PAT,
Avg Hourly Earnings of Prod & Nonsuper workers (85% of all employees) are up 27% since the start of the recession. Nominal wages seldom drop. They are “sticky”, which is why the economic adjust takes place in terms of jobs (demand for labor) not wages (the price of labor).
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AHETPI
Don’t agree about credit bubbles. The Fed policies are what has led to the credit bubble – that and government borrowing. Also don’t believe they are generally stimulating. Its what Galbraith called profitless prosperity.
Perhaps the question is causation. It could be that feminism has tilted the table so that young men increasingly are giving up on women, and have consequently dropped out of the hard work of making a good living to enable this, despite the fact that this is as possible as it ever was.
This would put the underlying cause as feminism driving out male career ambition. Or it could be there are not the jobs or the opportunities, fewer of them can make adequate livings any more, enough to play the game. In the UK, for instance, if you are a young guy on zero hours you will not be a very attractive prospect.
Or maybe its both: that feminism has tilted the table, and the economy has taken away their stakes from quite a few young men.
I suspect its a lot the economy. That is, I suspect young men are not dropping out voluntarily. But agreed, I don’t have proper evidence for this. Its speculation.
The incel guys I know have good jobs. One of them in particular is quite affluent. I think they would have made good husbands and fathers (certainly better than the guys who single moms selected for) but they got nothing but rejection from women and have pretty much given up. I believe in an earler era things would have fallen into place for them.
Are the incels you know Trump supporters? I bet they are. Look for the common thread.
Jen,
I suggest you look for actual evidence, rather than making stuff up that you find politically pleasing.
Larry,
“Go thru the Fred graphs. You’ll see that your guesses about the economy are quite wrong.”
I do: I go over and over the labor force participation rates, especially their very peculiar evolution since 2010, and find enough in them to explain a good bit of the “sexlessness” epidemics this article seems to point at. A big enough mass of men out of the workforce (worse than in France as a matter of fact, even if comparisons are difficult), a big enough mass of women in the same situation (worse than in Japan, which is saying something). Plus, and that is more difficult to evaluate, a significant proportion of underemployed people (with or without a college degree: I was stunned by the evolution of the number of prime age people with degrees that were out of the workforce BTW); guessing what proportion of the population has to work many jobs to barely make a living is a bit of a pickle, but overall, the employment/income situation seems enough to explain a good bit of the sexlessness, especially if we keep in mind that the percentage in the graph are not really that big (I am actually puzzled by that big a percentage that HAS sex: I would have thought there was far more frustration going around), even if their evolution (precisely since 2008, where it becomes steep) really is shocking.
I have no doubt that other factors are at play, including a generational change in younger people’s mentalities, but when talking about the proportions observe, I can’t phase out the employment situation, which correlates with many other things observed: living with the parents in the 20s, retreat in “artificial paradises” (drugs, virtual worlds)….
Tancrède,
“the labor force participation rates”
I’ve discussed this extensively. The drop in men’s labor force participation from 76% in 2008 to 72% in 2015 is significant – esp with the U-3 unemployment rate near multi-generational lows. Clearly a lot of men are dropped out. It is one of the most important bits of evidence suggesting that perhaps changing gender roles are beginning to have an effect. Important to watch this data!
But your belief that we have a weak economy etc is still wrong.
I think it is the economy more than anything else and the marginalization of younger men. Entire areas of the country (Trump country) have been economically eviscerated by China MFN and NAFTA, making males unmarriageable.
The man is, clearly, a fool. But then as a economist, he’s probably used to being wrong about most things most of the time. There’s a joke about economists having forecast 10 out of the last 5 recessions…
Well, if you’re with someone else, your behaviour is going to modify as you compromise to fit with the HAD of your partner. Clearly some risky behaviour is unlikely to continue (someone, please define risky). After a while, man+woman=child. It’s *children* that are the real stabilising factor.
There are quite a lot of stable relationship gay couples around. Perhaps he should analyse risk taking in their relationships and then refactor his ad-hoc theory.
Finally, you’d think that a rapidly increasing number of men apparently preferring masturbation to the long term company of women might, in a more sane world, make people think beyond it just being the irresistible pull of porn.
Finally, finally, a quote that Lyman Stone should read and inwardly digest:
The man who weds himself to the spirit of the age will find himself a widower in the next.
I thought about ‘neutering’ it, but in view of the tweets it seemed to be more appropriate in its original form :-)
I don’t buy the porn substitute explanation. I was incel for many years and never took up porn as an alternative pastime, because I didn’t want anything to remind me of what I was missing and thus exacerbate my frustration. I wouldn’t be surprised that many others felt the same way.
370,
Porn must be a big part of the explanation. It can’t be that women’s behavior explains some of this! /s
Man hating isn’t just for feminists any more…
As I said before, when the science conflicts with the ideology, the science will change to conform to ideology. It’s about a redefinition of “truth”. This will destroy us if it isn’t stopped.
Husband comes from the Germanic “House Bound” . Woman from “wife of the man”.
These etymologies, often bandied about by feminists, are fake. Check a dictionary, and you’ll be surprised to learn that man meant person, woman meant female person, and husband meant house-dweller.
An interesting talk on YT with Dr. Martin Daly, a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, about how economic inequality and male on male homicide rates are strongly linked, and makes a causal argument for why this is the case, attributing it to status competition under stressful conditions. Also how sexual competition creates motives for violence as women mate with “bad boys”, i.e. how mass killers get dozens of love letters from certain women.
One of many, many things in the mix that traditional societies balanced and leftist social engineering is clueless about.
Allan,
That’s an important point, one that cannot be too often said: leftists are like monkeys in the control room of nuclear power plant. They are gleefully spinning dials and pushing buttons. No need for experimentation or testing. They have their ideology! We are fools for allowing America to be their lab rats.
This is true irrespective of anyone’s agreement with their goals and ideology.
“That’s an important point, one that cannot be too often said: leftists are like monkeys in the control room of nuclear power plant. They are gleefully spinning dials and pushing buttons. No need for experimentation or testing. They have their ideology! We are fools for allowing America to be their lab rats.
This is true irrespective of anyone’s agreement with their goals and ideology.”
Great analogy with the monkeys! lol We really do agree here very much. It’s terrifying what’s happening.
It would be interesting, important and useful if a social scientist would outline and quantify the research and data required to confirm the stability of traditional solutions to sexual competition in human societies. I imagine years to confirm just the relevant factors, and a huge problem to get the data to quantify them all in a model with predictive power. Also, evaluate if something like that could be done given the difficulty of getting certain types of data accurately, i.e. about human sexuality. I doubt such a predictive model could ever by done, thus showing the huge risk in making rapid changes like we are. Some changes are no doubt required to adapt but it’s now reckless.
By analogy, it would be a confirmed model of the reactor before spinning the dials! lol A reactor is probably hugely less complex, and we’ve still had meltdowns. What does that tell you?
Allan,
You touch upon something I’d like to write about, but am told it would be too boring. In an episode of “Star Trek”, Scotty said “Instruments measure only what they are designed to measure.” That’s an important point when looking at data about society.
Doomsters assume they are geniuses, looking at widely studied data with the belief that the foolish experts don’t see what they see. That’s why they are almost always wrong. Rather, problems tend to occur from things almost nobody is looking at. Or from things that are not even being measured. That was the story of the 2007-08 crash, and what almost all accounts of it get wrong (everybody, including bank managers, thought their balance sheets were strong – when in fact they were houses of cards).
Society’s data collection systems are focused on avoiding repeat of past problems. We drive with out eyes firmly glued to the rear view mirror. Social scientists call this the “recency bias.” People worry about a repeat of the most recent problem, when that is usually the least likely problem to happen (because everyone is watching for it, working to prevent reoccurance).
This become a key limit when we turn to frontier issues, like changes in gender roles and their associated institutions. There is little data, and much of that is unreliable.
There is a second and equally serious problem with research of frontier issues. We don’t understand them, conceptually. Our reasoning is unclear, key factors are poorly specified or conflated with other factors.
Great research — high quality data, reliable analysis, clear reasoning — comes from well-understood issues. Which is why people love to read it – but gain nothing from it. It’s pouring water on a wet rock. Value comes from study of the poor research on frontier issues.
This is clear to readers of the FM website. We focus on frontier issues, usually abandoning them once they become well-understood. Our first posts look like garbage compared to those written years later. Examples are my posts in 2003 about our occupations in Iraq and Af – where I point out that the headlines are wrong, and we’re losing (but I don’t understand why). That’s true about climate change, where I noted in 2008 that the data does not support the confident predictions – and climate scientists were not responding properly to critics (both those inside and outside climate science).
The same thing is seen in the 165 posts about gender and marriage. Today’s post is the first where I believe I’m getting clear about what’s happening on a macro level.
The trades are absolutely starving for workers. THe trades also pay well. I’ve advocated trade education to numerous millennials having a hard time finding a direction in life and none of them took my advice.
Miliennial men just can’t get their act together. I think the reasons are all of the things Larry mentioned above and the collapse of parenting bearing fruit. I don’t see how our civilization can survive this.
Also, SCIENCE!
PRCD,
(1) “The trades are absolutely starving for workers. THe trades also pay well.”
I doubt if either of those statements are true. Construction is one of the few industries where job growth has not returned to pre-crash levels. It peaked at 7,726,000 workers in April 2006. It employs 7,174,000 now. I doubt those missing 600 thousand men are gone.
Also, the pay is great. Except the benefits are usually zero, the injury rate is high, the career length is short (compared to most jobs) — and there are long periods of unemployment. Those two factors make a big difference when comparing it to being a secretary with IBM.
(2) “The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups”
That is a strange title. The concept of childhood emerged in the West, during the late 17thC (see Wikipedia). During most of human history – and in much of the world today — children were treated like little adults, and put to work at 6 or so years of age. That’s as Thomas Jefferson wrote in his farm book:
Today the problem in the United States that we treat them as children long after they become adults. This stunts their mental development, as their physical development would be stunted if kept them in prams until they were 15.
(3) “How Bad Is the Government’s Science?”
Since the authors are experts, I suspect the title came from the far-right wackoes in the WSJ’s editorial dept. The replication crisis in science is real and large — although afflicting only some fields. And it has nothing to do with “government’s science.” For more about it see this post.
”The concept of childhood emerged in the West, during the late 17thC ”
I think the concept of adolescence(which lengthened childhood artificially beyond what biology would dictate) is more damaging in stunting mental maturity.
And I doubt that this trend will reverse due to the universal education system as we have it now unless something changes.
Info,
I agree. In the Wild West men of 16 to 18 led cattle drives. Nelson was a midshipman at 13 and a lieutenant at 18. Keeping them as children until their early 20s stunts their development.
A freshly married man or fresh father is the greatest economic engine. Guess what engines are not firing.
Sven,
For more about this, see the posts describing How marriage takes new forms in 21st century America.
So this coincides with a bad economy, but the economy has improved and the trend line hasn’t. What else does it coincide with? Because if it isn’t just the economy (And I don’t think it is), then maybe there’s something else we can point to in 2008. Did increasing hypergamy cross some sort of threshold? Maybe the delay in marriage reached a point that more young guys just started to give up. Here’s a statistic I found, which may or may not be accurate.
https://www.infoplease.com/us/marital-status/median-age-first-marriage-1890-2010
About ’06-’07 the average age of first marriage for females starts to cross the 26 year mark. It doesn’t correlate exactly with the change in the trend line in your graph, but it’s kinda sorta in the same time frame.
Many behavioral psychologists in my field (helping to make addictive software), attribute a lot of trends starting in 2008 to the rise of the Iphone and social media.
Folks check email when they are depressed, Facebook when they are lonely, Instagram when they are insecure, Google when they are unsure, and YouTube when they are bored. This is by design. Behavioral Psychologist and Design Thinkers have been working with Silicon Valley for over a decade to create habit forming products.
Some trends include,
-Distinct rise of depression among teenagers since 2008
-Rise in suicides
For a broad overview, see Hooked: How to build Habit Forming Products.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LMGLXTS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Mike,
Thanks for that perspective! Are social media and iphone use gender-specific, as is the celibacy trend?
I was in a conference with Nir Eyal a couple of months ago. I don’t remember the stats off-hand. But, during the conference on “Product Love,” I kept thinking about the correlation with your writings on 4chan.
What I do know (based off extensive market research) is that the rise of digital is heavily under-researched in academia. This is not uncommon for new tech where money was just thrown at it for 20 years. In the marketing space, they’re just starting to do analysis on email clicks and purchase habits. The results are counter-intuitive. High click viewers were less likely to buy.
Mike
Mike,
I saw that phenomenon frequently in investment research. Old tech — autos, mainframe computers — was long over-emphasized (scores of analysts on conference calls) and new tech was lightly covered. After all, my office had a PC (a loaded IBN XT – 5 meg disk, 500k pf ram). I’ll replace it in ten years. Why would I need a second one?
More broadly, cutting edge research is of low quality. Poorly researched, since available data is sparse. Poorly conceptualized, since it is not well understood outside its core group. High quality research tends to appear when it is of low utility, no longer able to much exceed what everybody knows.
I see the same thing on the FM website. The cutting edge articles published here are lightly researched and poorly conceived. That’s a distinguishing characteristic of cutting edge research (and also of garbage research – cream and scum both rise to the top). Also, the most prophetic articles tend to get the most opposition — often attacked by both sides. Like my early climate change articles, and the gender war ones today.
Which is why there is so little cutting edge research. The demand is small. It’s not a good business.
“Are social media and iphone use gender-specific, as is the celibacy trend?”
From what I’ve gathered, social media sites tend to be gender specific (and age specific in many cases), either regarding to who uses which, and/or how they are used by who. But the impact on adolescent seems to have been very real, especially around high school ages, with a strong difference between boys and girls: boys tend to lean towards specific, absorbing uses (like online video games, with their marginal social interaction, limited to certain behaviors), and girls towards social interaction primarily.
In this sense, social medias have pushed natural tendencies several steps further, sometimes to the point of caricatures: boys obsess on their specialized applications of choice, girls make the high school competition/drama (intra gender, mostly) permanent, fast-paced and kind of “big brother-esque”. With an almost guaranteed result: stress, depression, social lynching at record levels. And for boys, more detachment, more absorption in the virtual venues of choice.
Overall, for both genders, there seems to be a correlation between the time passed before a screen (any screen) and depression, as well as with less real social interaction (I’d say there are more facebook friends, and less friends…. This metaphor being the sign of an old fart, since the young don’t use facebook).
“porn drives these trends”
Hmm, I feel pretty confident in saying that there was pornography before 2008. If I’m wrong about that, please feel free to say so!
PAT,
I think he meant “the increased use of porn.” Twitter requires boiling thoughts down to their nub!
Women are the gatekeepers of sex. So if more men aren’t having sex it is because women are getting more picky.
For example , a recent trend I’ve seen is that women actively turn away and shame men who are under 6′ tall. Tall men are genetic winners.
I have seen posts, notes, tweets, etc. That women want a tall man as the prize. OK for female doctors , lawyers, etc. However most women, average, short, fat, uneducated, single mothers also demand a tall man.
The problem is that only 14% of men are over 6′. Since women won’t marry down successfully , men stay celibate .
Sven,
“So if more men aren’t having sex it is because women are getting more picky.”
That’s widely, if anecdotally, reported. Unleashed hypergamy. Economically independent young women are no longer looking for a husband, so they want alphas. Alphas get much more set. The bottom quarter of men (in Sexual Market Value) get none.
But that’s not a full description. Many women are dropping out of the dating game. That’s easily seen walking around a college campus.
Obesity is increasing among both men and women, dropping them out of the dating game.
I am one of those “under 6′”. It may be an anecdote, but I am speaking from experience. I make $200k/yr. No debts, drive nice car, in excellent physical shape, lift weights, scuba dive, about to buy property. I am also an incel. I’ve been actively looking for a girlfriend these past 2 years. Mostly on dating sites (I work 60 hour weeks and my free time is limited) but also approached women in real world.
I’ve been rejected more times than I remember, even by most mediocre and overweight girls. My biggest sin: I am short and quiet guy. So when people say men can’t get laid because they “just can’t get a job” or “need to lift more” or “lower their standards” I just shake my head. The competition presented by dating apps like Tinder is just impossible. Even an ugly fatty can go there swipe few times and find someone to pork her within minutes, and welfare/female-preferable laws and affirmative action makes the male provider/protector role nearly obsolete. Women can just ride the cock carousel of tall attractive Chads well into their 30s, what incentive they have to settle for less?
Me,
A year or two ago I would have considered your story to be impossible. Perhaps you have two noses, or project “Jack the Ripper” vibes.
But I know quite a few young men from my 15 years as a Boy Scout leader. They are now in their 20s, and many report similar stories. Some have settled for girls with far lower SMV’s than they have. Some have developed “bad boy” vibes (joining the military is the “easy” way to do this) and can easily pick up girls. Even bar maids (a level of mastery I never reached).
Strange times. I feel as if in my 60s I’ve moved into the Twilight Zone. I’ve no advice for you, since times have changed beyond my understanding. Best of luck, and please report back on what you see on the front lines of the gender wars.
One note: those girls rejecting you will eventually hit “the wall” and want to marry you. That’s the next exit on the road to the future for American society. If many young men say “no thanks”, then we will have taken an exit leading to an even newer and stranger future.
“I doubt if either of those statements are true. Construction is one of the few industries where job growth has not returned to pre-crash levels. It peaked at 7,726,000 workers in April 2006. It employs 7,174,000 now. I doubt those missing 600 thousand men are gone. Also, the pay is great. Except the benefits are usually zero, the injury rate is high, the career length is short (compared to most jobs) — and there are long periods of unemployment. Those two factors make a big difference when comparing it to being a secretary with IBM.”
In construction, you’re competing with a ton of Latin Americans for low pay in a low-skill arena. By “trades,” I meant, “welding, machining, electrical work, HVAC” – stuff much higher up the value chain. I am friends with tradesmen who make as much as well-paid engineers along with benefits. There simply aren’t many young men willing to do this. Mike Rowe makes an entire show out of the lack of tradesmen.
“That is a strange title. The concept of childhood emerged in the West, during the late 17thC (see Wikipedia). During most of human history – and in much of the world today — children were treated like little adults, and put to work at 6 or so years of age.”
Right. Actually, the concept of “children” was invented by CHristians circa 30 BC. You’re defining the concept of “treating children like adults” differently than the author who advocated training children’s affections in the direction of work and responsibility rather than pretending that they’re already adults with those affections. Thus, we never cultivate work ethic and responsibility in our children. As you said, they can and should do a lot from a young age.
“Since the authors are experts, I suspect the title came from the far-right wackoes in the WSJ’s editorial dept. The replication crisis in science is real and large — although afflicting only some fields. And it has nothing to do with “government’s science.” For more about it see this post.”
This is something with which I have first-hand experience and you couldn’t be more wrong. The government sponsors a ton of SCIENCE! most of which is bad and then uses the same SCIENCE! to justify its policies. There is no market demand for much of this SCIENCE! which is why it relies on government welfare to sustain itself. Even in the area where hard goods are made, such as the defense industry, the stories of waste, fraud and abuse in the procurement cycle are legion and extend even into early design phase of some of these systems. THe government has sponsored some amazing technologies in the past but we’re in a technical drought that is decades long now, leaving aside some basic device research. You are a finance guy, correct?
PRCD,
Thank you for the explanations.
“There is no market demand for much of this SCIENCE! which is why it relies on government welfare to sustain itself.”
Yes, that’s the reason the government sponsors much basic science. The market does not value many things which have value to society yet no immediate economic value to specific actors.
The government sponsored science for the same reason that it sponsors education, welfare, and (in many countries) medical care: to increase its own power relative to that of private actors (both business and charity).
I think this Christian concept of childhood it reflected the hebrew faith it was an offshoot of.
They also had this concept of childhood and banned infanticide and other crimes against children. This period lasting until the time we now regard as adolescence.
info,
While interesting, this discussion of childhood misses the relevant point. The concept of childhood has varied throughout history, with different forms in different times and places. The concept as we use it in America today evolved in the 17th century, and has been refined on that core model thru today. Wikipedia has a good summary.
Doesn’t surprise me that male celibacy skyrocketed beginning in the 2008—that was when smartphones and smartphone-based dating really began to take off. If I’m not mistaken, the first iPhones came out in 2007 or 2008 and soon after that the traditional online dating websites like OkCupid, POF, Match, etc began releasing smartphone apps. I was something of a early adopter of these apps—I had just graduated from college a few years prior and the new sex bonanza facilitated by it was great.
It was an exciting time.
The writer, in the UK Telegraph, thinks its perfectionism. But she does not ask why Millenials are more perfectionist than other generations….
Notice that its not just a US thing either.
George,
When reading articles about social trends it is vital to distinguish the data in the article from the confident guessing about the data — most of which is just bias and myth.
“Notice that its not just a US thing either.”
That’s why I refer to these as trends in the West. But when describing the data it’s important not to assume the West is a unitary entity, with all nations having the same experiences. We can learn much about these forces by studying variations in individual nations.
Curiously, STD’s are on the rise.
But among which gender? I seem to recall that the CDC had deduced that 80% of new STD infections were among wimminz.
I’m voluntarily celibate. It’s the best way to live for men these days, especially with toxic femininity, no fault divorce, alimony, asset division and child support. That and men’s rights to presumption of innocence and due process being removed by the gyno-courts and feminazis. I luv being single and don’t miss sex one iota. Sex is way overrated to begin with and has a plethora of potential life destroying consequences. I’m far happier and positive about life and my future without women and her state pimp trying to socially condition and brainwash me into subservience to women and her state pimp.
Why don’t we just ask celibate men, instead of guessing? I’m going through a period of voluntary celibacy for several reasons- to reflect, do self-work, not allowing sexual attraction to guide my choice of mate, to focus on other things in my life, and to recover from the emotional and physical exhaustion of past relationships.
finally some common sense! NOTICE how in this article there are COMMENTS that’s because this is a legit article and not some bullshit second wave feminist trash. Go look at the “if studied article” and realize how full of shit they are AND how they don’t have comments!! Keep up the good work, journals without comments sections should be ILLEGAL. They don’t want to acknowledge hypergamy and don’t want anyone to call them out on it
Women have become so arrogant and obstinate that I think it’s hard for any self-respecting men to want to submit to their nagging authority. Also, women do not have a civilizing effect on men, only if you mean in the sense that it is castrating and demeaning to their manhood.
Shane,
“women do not have a civilizing effect on men”
Not now, for sure. But men and women change across history. That’s what makes much of history. Other societies put a lot of work into raising men and women so that they would contribute to and maintain that society. We’ve chosen not to do so, and will reap the resulting whirlwind.
I agree with that, it’s taken a lot of careful social programming to destroy the family unit.
Shane,
Yes, that’s the essential insight. The family didn’t die. It was killed.
It’s very unfortunate. The Family unit is the basis of free society, Without it the government has to play parent (see the doctrine of Parens Patrae)
Shane,
Sad but true. You might find some of these posts of interest, about marriage and family in modern America. Present and future.
Cool thanks
Shane,
Glad to have men of even a little help. Please post your thoughts about these posts, positive or negative as they might be.
There will be mass female purge during the economic collapse thanks to Feminisim and Female nature .
Rebly,
What economic collapse? Why would this lead to purges of women?
The 2008 crash disproportionately affected men’s jobs.
I can’t for sure (or really even attempt) give a decent reason for men to suddenly decide to become less sexually active. Some, probably the obvious explanation of being “un-fuckable”, but I doubt this is the defacto major reason.
From personal experience, I decided to become celibate for more personal or introspective reasons. Instead of “In-Cel”… I tried “Vol-Cel” ‘voluntarily’. I am not ugly or un-fuckable, quite the contrary… I had no issue dating or getting laid and I still don’t if I so chose. I feel as though society has a veil of deception and fraud over it’s eyes that most men (women too) are now starting to notice, even moreso since the rise of social media. At any time I could decide to stop, so it doesn’t stress me out or bother me. I’m still attracted to beautiful women and open to dating, but looking back at my high school and military years of chasing tail and treating sex like a handshake, I realized it was not fulfilling in the longrun, on top of most women my age not looking for steady relationships.
I would like marriage and children one day, but have seen the results of poor marital decisions and divorce, which do not seem appetizing in the slightest. I also feel our understanding of “family” has deteriorated from previous generations and we need to start repairing the damage and neglect we’ve created before trying to start one. People don’t understand a child is not truly a child, but actually a forming adult… it shouldn’t be taken lightly. You mess up, it’s almost always permanent. Forethought and patience are required in abundance.
I made a decision based on what my grandparents had probably tried themselves to see if it works. So far, it seems to be working well… I have hope things will begin to come back to their roots and even out. I think now is a transition is all, people are waking up to the inebriation sometimes sex has. It doesn’t mean mild promiscuity is the worst lifestyle ever fathomed, but it seems sex has been focused on to the extreme and other parts of our character neglected.
I think men are begining to delve inward and exert self-control more than people think; this may be a result. I don’t think this is evil and most likely it will reverse over time. To me it seems most young men crave responsibility and purpose which society has starved itself of for some time. Men may be attempting to become “virtuous” once again in a world of materialism and extreme political and societal goose-stepping, but who knows?
Celibacy takes willpower and is a good test of a man’s self-control, though, it’s not for everyone and no one can force you to do it. Heal the mind and the body follows.
Hey Jen, it goes both ways. Besides, smart men know that there are other options, such as transwomen. Keep getting knocked up by wannabe gangsters sweety.
“Are the incels you know Trump supporters? I bet they are. Look for the common thread.“ Hey Jen, life really sucks so badly as an overweight feminist I take it ? That you must pull things that you make up out of your enormous hinder, and claim they are facts to try and annoy people.
Re: Jen’s comment
Much can be learned by reading people’s imaginary conversations from the mouths’ of their foes. Not just the total lack of empathy, but the inability to imagine that their foes have any legitimate insights.
It’s this robotic thinking that makes us so easy to divide into tribes and rule.
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