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Occasionally we are told that there is an epidemic of "male loneliness" or "male sexlessness" - an increasing number of young men are going long stretches of time with few or no sexual partners. But why is this a problem? Why should anyone care except for the sexless males themselves?
Evolutionarily, men have always been the disposable gender - the average male was historically much less likely to produce any offspring than the average female. In fact, depending on which estimate you go with, the average male is still significantly more likely to reproduce in a first world Western country today than he would have been historically. So why is there such concern over this particular dip in fertility?
You might say that a high number of sexless males is more likely to lead to violence and social instability - but plainly, that hasn't happened so far, certainly not on any appreciable scale. It's never been harder to imagine actual widespread social unrest occurring in the modern West, given how thoroughly people have been anesthetized with material abundance and cheap entertainment. (This question has been raised a few times recently, about the possibility of the culture war "going hot" over the Trump verdict or the border crisis or whatever - I am of the opinion that no, it won't "go hot", and such a development is essentially unthinkable at this point). Plus, certain MENA societies provide a case study in how you can have a resilient social order where the majority of women disappear into the harems of rich men and the majority of men are left sexless - these may not be pleasant places to live, but the society is capable of reproducing itself all the same.
It matters because married men work harder and follow society’s rules. And that matters a lot; the vast majority of the productive labor to sustain our prosperity is gendered male. When they do less of it, it’s bad for everyone.
Or to put it more starkly but still perfectly accurately: You are free not to care about these men. And they are free not to care that you would prefer that they didn't engage in mass shootings, serial killings, and rapings against the people you care about.
@Primaprimaprima, do you feel comfortable expressing this argument when there's a lone wolf mass shooting (that is, not gang-related), which are almost exclusively committed by maladjusted and love-challenged men? Not asking as a gotcha, just genuinely curious. Are they just the acceptable and not particularly appreciable collateral damage of male disposability to you and not worth the general outpouring of rage and emotion that generally accompanies them? Have you expressed this opinion to any "normies", and how did they respond?
This is the kind of LARPing I was talking about.
"These men" by and large are not going to do shit. The vast majority of lovelorn men will do nothing but masturbate and seethe; they are not some sort of existential threat whose wrath anyone needs to fear. As for the tiny number who do go on a killing spree, I find it very unlikely that society could have done anything to help them - they'd probably have been the sort of person who goes feral even in a healthier society.
That said, we should care about people who need help, though I'd classify them as similar to drug addicts; they need to want help and recognize the degree to which their own choices have put them in this situation.
Cigarette smoking, by and large, does not do shit. The vast majority of smokers will not develop lung cancer; cigarettes are not some sort of existential threat whose danger anyone needs to fear.
When you are consistently creating the sort of circumstances that lead vulnerable/damaged men to snap, go berserk and then go on killing sprees, "Most of them just go masturbate instead" does not even reach the level of being wrong. Yes, the majority of these men will just waste away living lives of quiet desperation you are free to not care about, but as that population grows the minority who do in fact snap and go crazy will grow as well.
I have yet to see any causal link between whatever it is that society is supposedly doing to prevent sad men from getting laid, and spree shootings. If an incel goes on a rampage and says society made him do it, should we believe him?
And I don't know what that causal link is. My theory is that society is no longer properly socialising young men in healthy ways, and while some men can handle this just fine, some cannot. For a slim minority, this leads to them acting out in incredibly nasty ways.
To use a metaphor, if I fill a house with flammable rags soaked in gasoline, there's no direct causal link between that and the fire (it was the lit match thrown in the window)... but there's very clearly a relationship between the creation of those conditions and a massive conflagration, even if it wasn't the direct cause.
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what are the stats on this? Im' curious...
EDIT: looked it up, and wow yeah it's a 7.7% chance if you smoke 1-5 cigarettes a day. That's WAY lower than I'd imagined, and maybe the stats there are even cooked since anti cigarette is now the culturally accepted stance.
This ignores increased risk of heart attack and stroke. There's a reason it's the first question insurance companies ask.
Though it is undoubtedly exaggerated, and there is a puritan hatred for any nicotine product as a result.
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