Hacker News Reader

While that might sound logical at the first glance, the abstract stated that "The decline was not linked to longer working hours or increased pornography use."

https://sci-hub.tw/10.1007/s10508-017-0953-1

Who needs porn when you have the various “gone wild” subreddits?

I have not ever watched a porn movie.

File this under “How to bias your survey results to hide information and make it look like your project needs to be funded for a few more years”?

This pretty speculative and kind of sexist.

I mean you could kind of flip it around, only instead of men and porn it's women and dating apps.

That the likes of tinder makes the most attractive men far more accessible to women, so they are no longer interested in the average man.

And similarly tinder apps and the like have drastically reduced the costs of dating compared to the past. It's private, you only get hit on by men you like. You can safely reject them etc...

I think this is just as inflammatory.

Are men really choosing turning away from women because they are "lame" compared to porn? At least for me porn is for when I'm not in a relationship or my s.o is occupied.

If I had to reach for a cause I would say it's a mix of economics and modern entertainment/past times being far less a social experience.

I was in rural village recently and it was pretty clear to me that people are going to hook up less if they are spending their weekends on Facebook and Netflix then dancing around a fire.

> That the likes of tinder makes the most attractive men far more accessible to women, so they are no longer interested in the average man.

I think that has already started to happen: https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-g...

"This is sexist."

I'm loathe to even respond to this type of non-argument but I'll bite. You're calling my argument sexist because it points to behavioral differences between genders? Or is it because it points to differences that may not be 100% social construct?

Neither.

I said "kind of", not "is". In principle this kind of argument can be done in an intellectually consistent way, with sources and statistics.

Instead you've followed a pattern I've seen time and time again.

An uncontentious fact (men are more visually aroused) followed by a unsupported train of thought that leads to a significantly speculative conclusion about the preferences/desires of a demographic that to some degree we find distasteful as a society.

If you evidence for your final claim I wouldn't have a problem, its just that this kind of discourse more often seems to pass bigotry off under the guise of just "speculation".

That's kind of a cop out.

From the abstract of the paper this article is about:

> Declines in sexual frequency were similar across gender, race, region, educational level, and work status and were largest among those in their 50s, those with school-age children, and those who did not watch pornography.

Porn isn't a viable explanation if the effect was larger among people who don't watch porn.

> Porn isn't a viable explanation if the effect was larger among people who don't watch porn.

It is if porn is ubiquitous enough in society and is setting (or communicating) changing cultural expectations and signaling mechanisms related to sex, and those who abstain are therefore missing out on that context.

That's a very different explanation than the one I was responding to, in which men are having less sex because they'd rather just watch porn.

That's true, I was responding to what you actually said in your response, not defending the position you were responding to.

> I would attribute it more the glut of free online porn than netflix.

I can see why porn has an impact in people having less sex but, porn is nothing new. When I was a teenager in the 80s, porn was readily available in VHS. Slightly less convenient that online porn, but equivalent for most purpose.

> Men are far less willing to deal with all the pitfalls, annoyance and cost of dating

There's much more than sex in a relationship, and even in dating. Many people see dating as an enjoyable activity, not an annoyance that stands between them and their appetite for sex.

> Many people see dating as an enjoyable activity

Possible but I doubt most people enjoy dating that much. From my estimation, most people are annoyed while they are on the market and feel better when they are settled into a relationship. In fact, I suspect that the crappiness of dating is an evolutionary mechanism that pushes people into monogamy. In other words, the fact that dating is unpleasurable makes people more monogamous, improving offspring chances. Just my speculation.

> I can see why porn has an impact in people having less sex but, porn is nothing new. When I was a teenager in the 80s, porn was readily available in VHS. Slightly less convenient that online porn, but equivalent for most purpose.

I don't really think the huge variety, instantly available without interaction with another human or any payment, viewable on a variety of devices, including handhelds ones you can take anywhere is “equivalent for most purposes” to VHS porn.

> Many people see dating as an enjoyable activity, not an annoyance that stands between them and their appetite for sex.

I dunno, I've known lots of people who saw dating as a annoyance that stands between them and their appetite for sex, and lots of people who see it as annoyance that stands between them and their appetite for a meaningful committed relationship, and relatively few who see dating in and of itself as an enjoyable thing, especially very few who do so after their early 20s.

But back then you had to go out to a specific shop and talk with the person in the shop, about your desires (or at least face him when paying).

Now you can have your _exact_ fantasy, at no social embarrassment, in the privacy of your home.

>> "videos of the the most physically attractive women imaginable"

Is it just me, or are most of the porn stars really just little above average, when it comes to looks? Like 7/10? The women that I would call "most attractive women imaginable" are all regular movie/pop stars, not porn stars.

Most porn stars probably don't fall into the "most physically attractive women imaginable" category, you're right. But you certainly can find pornographic videos with extremely attractive women, if you look for them. Of course the camerawork and editing makes a difference too. Nowadays there is quite a lot of well-produced porn on the internet and some porn stars do look like your "movie/pop stars".

You've forgotten that attractiveness is a relation property not an absolute - those women will have been selected for their attractiveness to a particular market.

How about the women that you see IRL? Is the average woman, worse or better than the average porn star?

If you have seen them with proper clothing and make-up in proper movies, most of them would not have much, if anything, to make them less attractive than regular movie/pop stars. The packaging context and presentation matters, and having them sing/play roles in Hollywood movies, creates all kinds of secondary attractiveness factors related to the content and presentation (as opposed to the merits of the person).

The opposite is also true. There are teens who believe e.g. that Jennifer Lawrence is a crazily attractive girl, whereas one could argue there are several just as, or even prettier, ones, in their high school. It's the added myth, styling, and exposure that's shoved in their minds that elevates her. (And similarly for male actors). Of course there's the occasional Errol Flynn or Brad Pitt, or Ingrid Bergman or Margot Robbie - but most of them are elevated ordinary people + Hollywood allure.

Wasn't there research that showed that pretty means "more average"? Wait, I found a link:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/18/why-we-...

Looks only matter somewhat in porn. A moderately good looking actress that acts very well can also be considered attractive.

> the average woman seems like a lame approximation for what can be accessed readily online

I dunno about you, but I really go for that third dimension.

I can see this getting way worse quickly with the rise of the multiple VR porn sites then. A quick read of related Reddits indicates most VR users aren’t really going back to 2D after making the leap.

I think porn encourages more real life encounters. Simulationing those parts of the brain can lead to more desire for more simulation at a deeper level which leads to more encounters.

Hundreds of years ago, the average man would be delighted to get sex from the average woman in his local community

Laws of supply and demand apply here too.