Why are Gen Z choosing celibacy? With Mary Harrington and Mary Wakefield | SpectatorTV 

Clearly the old jokes are the best ones

@@onlinealiasuk Sadly it's not always a joke

I honestly think a decent % of the men choosing celibacy are doing it out of fear and not knowing how to talk to the opposite sex. I see more guys in their late 20s or even early 30s that don’t have social skills and have never kissed a girl and I just don’t know how that happens.. I’m talking about neurotypical people

@@brianmeen2158 wouldn't that just mean they are 'incels' tho?

💯

And there’s p0rn

Both things are true

Hmmm, have you ever had sex?

Seconded. Only risks and harm comes from reckless indulgement if you're not some sort of psy cho and can't feel much in the first place. Long-time relationships enjoyer here. I had relationships spanning years, most of which ran their course or just drifted apart, but made a mistake twice or thrice (not sure if one counts, things never amounted to anything but upset expectations) and can attest that each bad bed partner or even date can inflict immesurable amount of damage to one's self-worth and trust in people, and the ability of heart to feel and trust and bathe in bliss without wary second thoughts is something that should be guarded and only shared with few and with discretion. Never engage without proper consideration.

Causal sex is fun, not always but you don't know if will good or bad unless you try, besides different horses for different courses.

Gen X too here, been celibate for 4 years and loving it. There is too much emphasis in society about sex, to my opinion anyway. It’s held as something all important, to the detriment of respect, kindness and spiritual pursuits. It comes with a lot of pressure and a lot of anxiety and I m glad I m not partaking anymore. The mental weigh that comes off your shoulders when you turn your back on it is brilliant to me. I can turn to artistic and introspective activities without having to worry about being ‘good enough’ for some jerk who just wants to wet his noodle. There is so much more to life than that.

Gen Xer here too. In my day the idea that young men would be expecting you to have @na1 or be choked and hit during sex was really alien. Just look now at what young ppl, (I'm talking as young as teens,) are reporting about their sex lives. Choking, hitting and "rough" sex has shot up among young ppl as has the prevalence of @na1 sex of a form that is frankly dangerous. We see this in the research and also from the plethora of tiktoks by girls bragging about how "rough" they like it, even showing off bruises. Is it any wonder certain kids, especially girls who have grown up in this porn saturated age have seen what is expected of them and opt out by pretending to be lesbians or asexual? And young men who engage in this often do it because they think its what girls want.

Asexual was known in the 90s but it wasn’t talked about much. I mean, growing up I don’t think I met anyone that identified as asexual

@@Prince-of-Whales666 maybe choosing jerks who just want to wet their noodle was the problem? Celibacy is great tho, I agree.

I wish everyone would stop needing to ANNOUNCE their own labels. Label yourself as you wish. Just stop telling me about it.

And it will backfire immensely! Civil wars and world war on the horizon m8. And it wasn't the cause of men who just wanted to settle down. This one is on the women who wanted to have their cake and eat it. Women cause wars.

Yep, they’re happy being in a harem

True, but what choice do we have if we’re working remotely? It’s better for everyone to meet through colleagues and classmates than via online dating, this gives opportunity to both sexes to meet people they wouldn’t otherwise date if we only saw their profile online. We need to go back to in person lives and use online dating as a back up not the main dating strategy. Quarantine was only during the pandemic, it wasn’t meant to be our permanent lifestyle.

@@Angiedelren For some who were taunted mercilessly in their teenage years, online gives a chance to show who you are without peer bullying coming into the equation. Also, many women from foreign lands have different priorities to Essex Girls/Northern Lasses, Brummie Girls etc etc. You have far more chance meeting foreign women online than you do going on holiday overseas. Emigration as a dating strategy? I've recommended it to a few.....

@@Angiedelren Exactly. It’s not like the apps let you know which men are already occupied by five other women. 😂 And it’s nobody’s fault that so many men don’t want to go outside and move around a damn room. If you know you’re at a disadvantage due to a skewed gender ratio, then basic logic dictates that you should move to a more advantageous environment- like a majority female space.

This.

Yes but you guys exagerrate the hell out of how often guys get called creepy for simply approaching women. I have 37 years of life experience and I know only 1 guy that was called creepy after he approached a girl In public .. you guys act like it happens constantly and that’s absurd. You guys are psyching yourself out completely

@brianmeen2158 I think you are right. It's just an excuse not to approach women and carry on watching pron instead.

​@@brianmeen2158 I've seen it quite a bit IRL; sometimes it's true, sometimes it's a mistake/mis-interpretation, sometimes it's deliberate social violence rooted in ignorance and contempt. I see it more now than I used to, not sure how much because times have changed, and how much because in my maturity I'm more aware of social cues around me.

@@brianmeen2158 You're missing the point. It's the same with marriage - not every woman will get you in trouble (not even remotely), but any woman CAN, if they so wish. It's always a lottery and odds are getting worse by the day. And through all those risks - what is your actual prize should you succeed? Vast majority of women in the West are genuinely not long-term relationship material. They lack not only the skills but, predominantly, the basic recognition of what men actually want from them and they tend to entirely disregard any kind of expectation from men towards them. "I am the table" is the name of their game. So what are you advocating for? Deficient-by-design modern marriage where men always face the possibility of getting wiped out? And you reckon it's men's responsibility to boldly charge in despite a) obvious risks clearly backed by statistics and b) meagre rewards even if everything goes ok? I don't get what you're calling for here.

Many of them have no idea how to interact with real human beings in real space. At a recent prom a friend's daughter went to, they seemed to do no dancing or real interaction let alone the chase and drama that used to be an adult rite of passage. They seemed to have stood around for an hour and a half, probably all staring into their phones and then called it a night. It almost seemed like they went along with the event only to please their parents and then after putting in the bare minimum appearance, rushed home to the comfort of their phone and tablet screens. Seriously, 80 year olds have better parties than that!

@@kenofken9458 I heard a statistic recently about the number of 30+ males who still live with their parents and the percentage in the same age group that do not have a drivers license and have never learned to drive. It was pretty surprising,

@@kenofken9458yeah I agree. I see more guys in their late 20s and even early 30s that have never dated and claim to have no social skills or friends. I’m scratching my head as to how that happens..? It must be a perfect t storm of tech/porn, super protective parents and a few other things ..

@@pdxtom This all plays into it. "Childhood" seems to last until like 39 these days. If you don't do the normal social development you're supposed to do when you're young, you're not going to succeed in romantic relationships.

@@brianmeen2158 Yes it's very much those things. There is a lot of severe helicopter parenting these days. Kids every waking moment is curated and programmed. Their whereabouts tracked at all times and every effort is made to make sure they never take any risks physically and emotionally.

What if they found out that alcohol decreases their sexual desire rather than enhancing it? Brewers droop and all that.....

W attitude

Whenever I see the Internet or apps argument, I have to fight a knee-jerk reaction to suggest people getting real life hobbies and going out for intensive grass/snow touching sessions and hanging out with real people. Internet profiles are not real, the nerdy bum in the local gameshop or lonely person at the pub are. They might have volcanic acne or love handles or hairy bum and be considered undatable by terminally online mobs of all pill colours, but once the human interaction magic has worked, your terribly mid date becomes the most charismatic and beautiful to you. Countless marriages happened in this part of the world because of LARPs and huge 'name one MMORPG or geeky community' get-togethers. Maybe things across the pond are different, I dunno, but it can't be that bad.

Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better. So in reality it is a technological problem.

Right “God forbid some creepy guy a woman in public face to face” But I’ll gladly meet up with someone I’ve Never met in person but “matched” with online?!

Dude...a lot of men, who don't get attention on dating apps, simply don't put in any effort. They can't be bothered to take 3 or 4 good pictures of themselves. To write a nice sounding and somewhat informative profile text. To do even the bare minimum, in other words. They don't put any effort into that first contact message, either. It's usually one liners or dumb come-ons. Am I supposed to be interested in someone, who can't take a nice selfie and write 3 or 4 coherent, grammatically correct sentences? I usually put plenty of information into my profile, so there is no shortage of topics they could comment on, to start a conversation. So no... it's not because they're average looking or under 6 feet or not making 3 times my income or whatever. It's because they don't have (or show) a minimum of good manners, effort and intelligence.

@@VerminaeSupremacy Obviously, you had siblings and parents who thought you going out and doing your own thing was a good idea. When parents treat you like an employee with no rights and siblings trash anyone you get along well with, you have the choice between emigration (when you can't afford a ticket out of the country), violently assaulting an abusive female sibling or trying to tell local people that your father, apparently a respected icon in the wider geographical region, is in fact a bullying tyrant. Good luck with any of those options....your logical mind might continue trying solutions out, but the heart refuses to be convinced by logic, when it needs a dose of spiritual empathy sadly lacking during 20 years of growing up.

No.

If that is what your in to

what, are you afraid of being called a boring vanilla cishet normie whatever? Prenuptials cover for anything else

I believe they mean they’re not yet of age

Or interact outside your Friendship Group.

Dang weird to think that some gen z is that young. I’m oldest gen z, born in 97 and im married now. I think youngest gen z is like 16 right?

Really? Mine ain't

Not in the therd werld?

Y'all so cooked.

And annoying. You forgot annoying. Who would marry any of these post-modern headaches that are hangovers from the 60s? I wouldn't trust one to make me a sammich, let alone sleep with one. Either way you'll catch something and then have to foot the bill of a kid that might not even be yours. We live in the age of the b#stards. Quite literally.

@@kiranmcgoldrick4247 Me too. If you think about on a return bases the juice is not worth the squeeze.

Yes now I've heard everything!

Sedition!

Woke asexuals wont say a word about it

Because they are yet too young to actually know much about anything, let alone how they feel or think. Some are getting close to having their brains actually developed but only those nearing thirty. Once they hit fifty or so then they might understand the important thing ... no one cares about them at all :D It's a harsh lesson but a necessary one as you hurtle towards death :chuckles:

@@dallassukerkin6878 I presume that is sarcasm.

@@AchtungEnglander You presume incorrectly but it *was* meant with humour rather than malice. You'll develop proper social interaction skills when you grow up :p Just to be clear - not being seriously vile, just venting a little workday steam with Comments section nonsense. EDIT: Very much approve of your David Niven icon tho' :salute: A gentleman whose wit and manners I could never match.

you mean the war on women

Maybe? 😂 You don't get a century of female emancipation without scrambling some eggs. Girl power! 😒

Which is exaggerated by red pill 'alpha male' podcasters and 'influencers' or those looking for attention peddling culture war nonsense

Have you asked whether their parents were incompetent emotionally? Usuallly, lack of social ease stems from lack of acceptance in the early years in the home.....

This.

@@rhysjaggar4677and this.

That's not asexuality (most likely). That's profound immaturity and lack of socialization.

Them being kissless virgins is what's happening. Been there 10 years ago, even wanted to be a man at some point in my life feeling like a total failure and being a wallflower. And then life just ran its course

Asexual, means you conduct your life and reproduction without engaging in the sexual physical act with people. Orgasmic interested means you are openly predisposed to romantic thought and self exploration. So your sex is reproduction and your gender is your innate sense of self and what you do and think about. You can have an orgasmic gender, but be,non engaging with the acts of reproduction sex.

@@VerminaeSupremacy The reality is that 90% of people mature physiologically more slowly than the other 10%. So when the 'cool 10%' are already having sexual feelings having entered puberty, the majority don't feel the same but there's no dominant narrative out there saying 'it's OK to enter puberty later than your peers'. There's nothing worse in life than having to spend three years with teenage yobboes trashing you because you entered puberty later than them. No girls correct them, make you feel ok. The reality of that situation is that you are smaller than the rest, so you can't beat them up. No-one gives you martial arts classes in the national curriculum, so you can't kick them in the head to make them back off. You just have to take the never ending taunts, sneers, public humiliations and oh, five years later, they think that a simple 'sorry' will erase those three years of human hatred.

♥So sorry to hear your story. There still are some decent men out there. I know how you feel as I raised my daughter by myself after her mother was abusive to us both when she was only 18 months old. It took me 9 years to trust women again but I have now been married really happily for 20 years to a wonderful woman. God Bless you and your son, there are bad people but also many good ones♥

Just curious, you don’t ever see anyone out and about and get butterflies or stare a little too long? I always thought asexual was kinda made up but if you’re 68 that’s a long life of experience

That's funny, considering that involuntary celibate men are clearly not in their right minds, either.

Means usa healt is worse than russian. Fact btw.

Lots of women chasing and having sex with the same high status guys who have multiple women chasing them and get their pick of the crop. Young, low status men in this modern world are literally invisible to women. This is why we are suddenly starting to see a huge rise in the number of single, childless and very unhappy 35+ year old women who have reached and passed their peak attractiveness to men

Getting an STD requires at least one of the two participants to have had sex with multiple partners. So maybe there's a bigger community of rampant orgy-participating sex maniacs who despise using a condom?

Porn and fear of feeling discomfort

Cart before the horse

nah, porn exists since the early 2000's online

@@masterkraft4746 Not everyone had an easy access to it though. Smartphones were not a thing, internet was very expensive and the most of people didn´t have it at home.

No, pron exists because of celibacy. If someone is getting plenty of dating opportunity, they are not, or hardly going to need prawn.

Exactly. Asexual doesn’t mean going without sex, it means not having sexual desires for anyone.

Is that a bad thing? Good , they see and understand how “casual sex” and “hookup” culture has effectively damaged many relationships and individuals in the past 30-40 years. The natural swing of the pendulum after everything g has been oversexualized for 50 years or more. It’s good that they are getting to know each other on a plutonic / romantic level and really connect with someone mentally and spiritually before “hopping in the sack” with someone. Seems to Me they have more self control and dignity than we did 20-30 years ago?!

It must be a wet dream for Christian Conservatives hoping that once again, all girls and boys will be virgins on their wedding day? The most successful marriages I knew consisted of men and women who had played the field sexually before having a few longer-term relationships and then settling down with the love of their lives.

The reality is that 18 year old boys/men are totally happy with sex divorced from relationship. If societies told them to find sex-mad 37 year old women to hump, they would grow more quickly and naturally toward wanting to date younger, less sexually switched on girls/women? But no, the 18 year old boys get told they ought to repress themselves because 18 year old girls don't want sex yet. It's not the optimal way to go about things, for many.....

It's absolutely a great thing when weak-minded simpletons who chose lifestyles depending on Tiktok trends choose not to procreate. I say good on them, as they're helping the human race.

Severely stunted social development is not social evolution. It's very much the reverse. What we see as asexuality is just the most obvious sign of a much deeper inability to engage in normal human interaction. This is/will cause them serious problems in life far beyond the mating and dating aspects.

Yes, but it's also quite a few others also. The controlling types who have to label themselves to feel at ease don't understand that lots of us don't need labels, can't stand labels and understand that the world is far more complex than false binary labelling.

Maybe in feminized societies every natural male impulse in young boys is shamed, so their true natural masculinity is slowly but surely thrown in the trash?

The media and the Deep States have to create dominant narratives, though. I grew up threw the emotional violence of punk rock and went into early adulthood with The Sun Newspaper eulogising male business executives who could have sex six times a night. On the front pages. Rather different to the post-war 1950s, I think.....

That's the sensible ones.

Maybe with the career prospect reversals the women now want to chase the men and that makes the men switch off, rather than get aroused? 'Come and be my servile little house husband!' 'Err...no thanks...'

Lol that's as far from gen z as you can get. Where are you 2003?🤣😂😂 With a comment like that you are definitely out of touch. Gen Z hate celeb culture. Detest materialism. And they see the entire trainwreck it's all become. And they want out of this Matrix of corporate and media Hell. They have a burning desire to fix the collective broken home of society, but face a population inversion that is a monumental glass ceiling of people with grey hair living far beyond their natural years. And they have to foot the health bill to pay for this geriatric mental ward society. That's their reality: Lived in one parent households with no money, and have to work three jobs just to cover living costs and pay taxes that cover the health costs of old people that won't f#ck off and die. 8 billion people in the world and counting. This pressure cooker is only going to get worse and gen Z see this situation and the future prospects it leaves them with. Welcome to the fall of the human species. We peaked, and it's all downhill from here. Celebs... Seriously pal you're well out of touch with the world. Go take your NHS pills gramps, these Gen Zers are working three jobs so you eek out another year or ten.

Cars and looks have always curried favour in your early to mid 20s. More discerning women want slightly more than something to look at and hot sex on the back seat, though...

I think the vernacular is "incel". Or more accurately just an average man in the post-modern dystopia we now live in.

WTF Why do you say “I identify as” And not “I AM” ? Did you have to find out?, figure it out ?, solve the puzzle or didn’t you just know? Sure I know I sound old , that’s my perspective and it’s valid same as yours is. This whole identify shite is out of hand. It’s like everyone is looking for validation and has to present all their “pronouns” and markers first since we’re online. If we were in person we would know, or at least infer, height , weight, gender, “neurodiversity” or not and so on. Regardless they’re unnecessary and rather just talk about the subject at hand it’s like saying “Hi I’m so and so and I’m sponsored by XYZ and my faves color is, my favorite band is…

I think it's nothing to do with that, it's to do with a generation feeling totally alienated from society as a whole. You tend to breed if you feel you somehow or other fit in. But if you don't, why on earth would you want the prison sentence of 25 years of looking after the next lot? You sacrifice for others after others sacrificed for you, after all. If you had to sacrifice for your elders first, maybe the natural order of things just shrivelled up and died?

precisely not haha

asexual and celibate are two different things, asexuals are not interested in sex and celibates have sexual desires but deny them for a greater purpose.

Asexual and celibacy are two different things. An asexual person (apparently if there is is such a thing) has no sexual feelings or desire for anyone, male or female. People would say that this isn't a choice. People choose to be celibate and not have sex for many reasons, but many of them still have sexual feelings and desire. Some choose celibacy until after marriage or for religious reasons etc. Many young men today aren't celibate by choice, they just aren't able to find a partner for sex.

Saying asexual is gay is madness. Everyone wants to attach themselves to certain groups these days.

​@@mikestray76it's telling that you said many young men, and not women. Despite there are also many women that have difficulty finding a sexual partner. However there's not as much societal shame for a woman to say that they are simply asexual as opposed to involuntarily celibate in the vast majority of cases it is unlikely that these women are truly asexual (some of course) some will be doing the above, and some will have trauma issues, and some will be autistic and unsure how to get into romantic relationships or initiate sex, so they simply don't. Men are also far more likely to be mocked for describing themselves as asexual, and be labeled as an incel for example.

@@Xanaduum I don't know if there's any data on women being involuntarily celibate but I think the number would be very small. Yes plenty of women are voluntarily celibate but let's face it, if a women really wants to have sex she doesn't need to be a supermodel. In fact all she needs is a pulse and there will be plenty of willing guys.

In my experience the only prominent people who respond to mail are writers for the simple reason that they are virtually the only people who actually like to write.

No but a lot of psychopaths are... (or at least many Psychopathic traits are)