Personally I feel like the reason behind the change is obvious. Pornography is everywhere. People don't get their kicks from 1970s movie love scenes anymore because hardcore fetish videos are a few clicks away. The same way boys no longer lust after the lingerie section of the Sears catalog. But the culture carries this at-will objectification as bleedover into everything else. And I think it's also why the youngest generation right now is fixated on knowing their exact, granular label for sexual identity and orientation, even though young people are having less sex than they've ever had.
> When revisiting a beloved Eighties or Nineties film, Millennial and Gen X viewers are often startled to encounter long-forgotten sexual content content: John Connor’s conception in Terminator, Jamie Lee Curtis’s toplessness in Trading Places, the spectral blowjob in Ghostbusters. These scenes didn’t shock us when we first saw them. Of course there’s sex in a movie. Isn’t there always?
> The answer, of course, is not anymore—at least not when it comes to modern blockbusters
> We’re told that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are an item, but no actual romantic or sexual chemistry between them is shown in the films. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor utterly lack the sexual chemistry to convince us that either of them would be thirsty enough to commandeer a coma victim’s body (as they do in Wonder Woman 1984) so they can enjoy a posthumous hookup. In defiance of Norse mythology, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor smiles at Natalie Portman like a dumb golden retriever puppy without ever venturing to rend her asunder with his mighty hammer, so to speak
Maybe because you are comparing r-rated action movies with super hero film made by disney.
There are certainly lots of overlap in audience. Kids watch terminator and adults love super heroes. But the principle target audiences are different.
I wonder if the body positivity movement has anything to do with the de-sexualization of reasons to be fit.
In many circles, if I were to say that I wanted to be more fit in order to attract the kinds of people I'm attracted to, the main answer I would get is that I shouldn't feel the need to change anything about myself - that someone who would be more attracted to me if I were to work on myself isn't worth the effort. I heard this from my sibling-in-law constantly. Honestly started to think they were just trying to justify their own disregard of their health.
I started a 430 lb 6'4 man. I'm 320 lb now and while I still have a ways to go, the difference in the attention I get is mind boggling. Women actually flirt with me now. Initiate even. As someone who's felt invisible for a decade, I can't describe how much my mental state has improved.
I noticed this when I watched "Raw" recently [0]. It was remarkable because it portrayed horny young students hazing each other and desiring each other and plenty of unselfconscious peer pressuring, which was itself depicted as covertly appreciated and desired by the girls, by way of a license to let go and have fun for a night (like how people often blame alcohol). I kept waiting for the turn or the emotional beat that called out these heinous, sexist, abusive behaviors, but it never came. I noticed something similar when watching Berlin Calling [1] where sex is used in several realistic ways, as both exciting transgression to expressing warmth, friendship and love. Raw is French; Berlin Calling German.
Americans still deal with a great deal of Puritanical shame around sex, I think, and as a very fat country (the fattest ever to exist) where huge numbers are on SSRIs (with sexual side-effects) plus a divisive political climate, you get Disney Marvel sexuality.
BTW if you think Disney doesn't do horny, think again. I mean, look at the "love story" in any classic animated picture. She looks at him, thinks he's hot, he looks at her, he thinks she's hot, and it's on. In at least two cases (Sleeping Beauty and Snow White) that's "love's first kiss" that's given non-consentually -- and his transgression literally saves her life. The older I get the more I realize that this naive notion of what love is actually is the core of truth; the rest of what we add is risk mitigation. In big budget American cinema, the surest way to eliminate risk is to do exactly what they've done. They aren't stupid.
I was not expecting this piece to mention McMansion Hell, but I was expecting it to mention how the Chinese market has caused movies to cut back on edgy films. Or how the international market in general has made movies cut back on dialogue. Or it could have mentioned sex has moved into HBO and streaming and away from film.
The article isn’t bad, it just describes a trend without ever doing the basic role of a reporter: follow the money.
One thing that is not considered here is that media is far more globalized than before. If you want a big budget movie to do well across markets like China, India, and the middle East, you tone down the raunchy content or run the risk of movie getting banned out of large markets. TV is more fragmented so maybe it gets away with local tastes.
I agree that movies are less horny in general, and that it’s not unreasonable to draw inferences since demographics also seem to show American society is less horny.
BUT let me propose a counter-hypothesis. If we widen our scope to not just movies but all media, and consider the same time period (80s vs now), the vibes are a bit different
- movies: less horny
- television: slightly more horny?
- books: roughly unchanged
- music: roughly unchanged
- video games: much, much hornier
So it’s possible we have a rough conservation of thirst across media.
Maybe there is a backlash against the "obligatory sex scene".
I have always find them boring and it is not because of the lead couple bodies. First, they tend to feel out of place. When an epic battle is coming up, I want to see an epic battle, not a couple fucking. And then the fucking is often done in the least exciting way possible, as if the producers main goal was to minimize the number of erections in the audience. You don't want your movie to be mistaken as porn do you?
So yeah, ultimately, they removed the sex scene, and I think the movies are better for it. The alternative of making really good sex scenes would push the movies into 18+ territory, and I understand the reluctance. And looking and actors with great bodies and sexy outfits is enjoyable as it is, no need for a half assed sex scene that reveals nothing more.
As a counterpoint - as a non-American millennial watching American movies as a child I couldn't understand why there should be sex/romance everywhere. I was not watching romance not to say erotic movies, just action, comedy, horror - yet every director felt obliged to add a pinch of sex everywhere. That felt pretty awkward and weird.
While this is unpopular to say, I think the advanced age of marriage and promiscuity earlier in life plays a role here.
My parents were together from 19, and knowing their style, they may both have been each other's first. As a teenager, I noticed my mother being extremely difficult. Even more so now. My father is no walk in the park either. But I believe they have a deep rooted love from decades and went through every event and basically adult stage in life together.
I'm 38. I date in my age group. Which means both of us are dating people that have been sleeping with others for two decades. Each of us has been overseas with countless friends and exs. Many women have been engaged, some married, and we've all had our hearts broken. We've all gained a few lbs. My hair is starting to grey.
Can I find someone that enjoys being with me? Sure.
Can I find someone that doesn't just say "wtf am I doing here" if times get tough for health or financial or just plain old age? I'm not sure.
I've heard many long time married old men say that when they look at their partner, they still see the beauty glimmering through that they saw at 19.
If I meet a partner at 40, when we start really getting old and annoyed, what am I going to hold on to? How lucky I am to be her 23rd partner?
I know this is a judgemental view, but I think it's human nature.
Edit: for those that think this is just some personal issue, you should look up divorce stats by number of previous sexual partners. There is a clear rise in divorce rate per increase in partners, and at about 7 it's 50%+.
Don't automatically assume the couples who divorce in this age would have been in a happy marriage in the past.
I've been in both ages. As a kid, in a small village, nobody got divorced. Really, it was just not done, the concept was alien to them. We came from the city, my parents were divorced, and I had to explain it as other kids would literally not grok the idea.
There was a lot of pain, abuse and unhappiness in those marriages. Years later something happened in that village and a lot of women claimed their rights: it rained divorces, often very long marriages that fell apart. A lot of these former wives banded together in self-help groups to encourage each other and process their sometimes traumatic marriages.
A divorce itself is never fun I guess, but it isn't automatically a negative and the outcome can be vastly superior to staying together. You may say: but what about all those divorces? I tend to assume those would have been unhappy marriages in the past, at least they have a new chance at life. So yes, what about them? Good they have ended their misery.
If you're not done with your share of sex when you get married, you are at risk of giving in to temptation when you're married. Mostly from a guy's point of view because a guy tends to have more opportunities when he gets older, but the same logic works for women to a degree.
One of my friends would get laid constantly in our 20s. Not just bragging about it, he provably had the gift for it when we were out. He was banging chicks constantly, to the point where he had to phone me from work to stop his various chicks from finding out about each other. I thought for sure this guy would not be able to hold out in a marriage.
15 years on and he hasn't cheated on his wife, that last of this parade of women.
My boss married his high school sweetheart. He started going to a lot of meetings with a broker. I was joking that he was having an affair. Turned out to be exactly what happened.
My other boss also got married early. Religious guy, 5 kids. I go to see him a decade after we last worked together, what does he do? He wants me to wingman him. Also shows me all his messages from various women. (He's also in politics, so maybe it's par for the course.)
Sex is pretty powerful by nature, but like many things evolution has left us, there's a point where our curiosity is satisfied. We can move on with forming relationships when the urge is not quite so strong.
My wife and I were high school sweethearts and got married out of college. When people ask us how we made it work, I always say that during college we grew and changed together. We had hard times and we worked through it, as we learned and grew we worked together and compromised. We grew up together through college. When you have a long term partner, they soften your edges. I don't think people want to have their edges softened anymore, which makes compromise and sacrifice less and less common. Note that this is not to say you should just settle for anyone, but I don't believe we as humans are puzzle pieces.
I think this is a silly Disney view. I don’t think it’s about the history and the sunk cost specifically, but taking the difficult path to learning compromise, communication, patience and forgiveness. That takes a lot of time, decades at least, and it requires having enough incentive to stay together that you work through the rough patches to the other side where you grow instead of breaking up at the first sign of trouble.
If there’s a correlation between number of partners and divorce rates, it’s because someone is consistently failing to learn how to be a better partner.
Would you be luckier to be her 1st, knowing that it would be short-lived and 22 others would follow after you?
All experienced people start off inexperienced. At least with experienced people, they are more likely to know what they want.
I am a woman the same age as you. I am only interested in long-term monogamy. As such, I have a lot of sexual and relationship experience due to my age, but all if it is with just 3 people. Not only that, but all of my experience is with who, themselves, had never previously had casual sex experience.
The first 2 were young and inexperienced like me, and they initially thought they wanted the same thing that I want. But as time went on, they realized that they felt confined by long-term monogamy and actually wanted more experiences with more people. After we broke up, they proceeded to have a series of flings and casual sex. They did have some attempts at long-term polyamorous relationships, but nothing that lasted more than a year or two.
By the time I met my 3rd partner (who I have been with a long time now), I was pretty gun shy about dating men. My experience was that men talk a big game about wanting a stable partner for the long haul, but get bored and break your heart.
What helped me give my new partner a chance was that we were both older by this point and more settled into our lives. He had plenty of relationship experience by that point, and his history demonstrated that he stayed dedicated in long-term monogamous relationships and that he was not interested in casual sex, despite plenty of opportunities for it.
If I were advising someone whose goal was to only ever have one partner in their life, my advice would be to only date people with a lot of life experience. Inexperienced people are a wild card. You can't manipulate them into only ever wanting you. Maybe back in the day, you could lock them into marriage, but modern DNA evidence suggests that a huge percentage of children back then (some estimates as high as 25%) were not genetically related to their fathers, so I'm not so sure that marriage was actually what you imagine it was.
If you want to date women who are fully dedicated to long-term monogamy, then date people with a demonstrated history of exactly that. (However, be aware that this only works if you yourself have such a history. You can't expect to date women with high standards if you don't actually live up to those standards.)
No offense, but think this honestly says a lot more about your own views and what your project on others than some kind of generalized statement.
I personally would view going through the wringer of life relationships as a good thing, and if I was 40+ and met someone who hadn't experienced that in this day and page it's probably more likely they had also had some social hang up that you just haven't learned about. This also isn't to endorse the opposite of dating a person on their 5th divorce who's out hooking up every week or something.
Anecdotally among those I know, whether someone had one vs. multiple partners had little bearing on the quality of their relationships. Those that had more, while they had their own issues related to that also had a more "realistic" view of sex and relationships IMO.
Some of them felt glad to "get it out of their system" so to speak. If anything, those with just one partner maybe you could argue experienced something different (you don't know what you don't know), but they are still not immune to relationship issues.
> I've heard many long time married old men say that when they look at their partner, they still see the beauty glimmering through that they saw at 19.
Presumably people who think their partner is now ugly either have enough sense to stfu or dont have a partner anymore. This just seems an instance of survivorship bias.
Like who would stay with a partner that tells random strangers they are ugly.
Do no let society tell you that you are being judgemental because you apply basic wisdom to the situation. Of course your bond won't be as strong if she already experienced the same exact bond and maybe a stronger bond with 20 other men in the past, and then chose to break it and move on.
Your only problem is that you are just as promiscuous so you stand on thin ice when you try to demand better from her.
Please explain: why are you "not that lucky" to be her 23rd partner?
> I've heard many long time married old men say that when they look at their partner, they still see the beauty glimmering through that they saw at 19. If I meet a partner at 40, when we start really getting old and annoyed, what am I going to hold on to?
Please explain: why does "19-year old beauty" need to "glimmer through" to sustain a relationship when one is "old and annoyed?"
I hope you'll stand by your words and explain them.
These are assumptions you're holding. In my opinion, they are _not_ conducive to a healthy relationship.
> Edit: for those that think this is just some personal issue, you should look up divorce stats by number of previous sexual partners. There is a clear rise in divorce rate per increase in partners, and at about 7 it's 50%+.
You say this like it's obviously a bad thing. People who stay married might just do so because they're afraid of being alone, and so suffer in silence for the rest of their lives. People who have been through many relationships maybe know they'll be ok if they split, it's not the end of the world, and there's no point prolonging the suffering.
You can spin it many different, perfectly valid ways. Most people will probably post-rationalize their choice as "good" anyway, because that's what people do. Those who say married for a long time will say it was the best decision they could have made despite the challenges, and those who split will do the same.
> Edit: for those that think this is just some personal issue, you should look up divorce stats by number of previous sexual partners. There is a clear rise in divorce rate per increase in partners, and at about 7 it's 50%+.
You should look up divorce stats by age of marriage. This article calls marriages between 20 year olds "starter marriages" because they rarely last[1]. Your parents are an outlier.
I’m older and long married. I married at about your age, by which time I had many, many sexual relationships/interactions.
Of course I miss being in my 20s and 30s and the women I spent time with naked. Sometimes that nostalgia is very strong, believe me.
But I also remember that none of those experiences were fulfilling. It blows my mind to recall periods of my life when I had numerous numbers I could dial that would land me in bed - but at the time I was nonplussed and unsatisfied by it all.
By the time I was 38 I was looking for a partner, and when I met my wife all of my dating criteria went out the window. The whole game had changed.
I have thoughts on whether monogamistic fundamentalism is good for marriage, but that’s a whole other discussion. In a society where you have to choose between promiscuity and commitment, the latter holds much more promise even though there are no guarantees.
> If I meet a partner at 40, when we start really getting old and annoyed, what am I going to hold on to?
> How lucky I am to be her 23rd partner?
You're raising a few different things here and it's hard to see what you're really concerned about, because I don't think it's the matter of divorce rates vs number of sexual partners.
If you're worried you can't find a long-term partner in your late-30s, then don't be - it's possible and tbh from personal experience dating in my 30s has been much more relaxed and chilled out than in my 20s. When you find someone will you have memories of being together stretching way back 'til your teens? Nope, but that's not necessary for happiness at all, it's one aspect of some people's relationships and not all relationships need to look alike. You'll have a different story that's unique and interesting in its own way.
If you're upset about the idea of being with someone who has been with 20+ men or women before you, then you need to work on your insecurities. How promiscuous either of you were at any time before you met will have no bearing on that whatsoever, if you are committed to each other.
It sounds a bit like you regret or resent not already being married or in a long-term relationship already if I'm honest, and are reflecting and looking around for some answers or some justifications. If that's the case then I'd suggest trying not to do that, you'll not help your own situation and you could end up going down a dark path, making yourself feel worse or being less likely to find someone.
> for those that think this is just some personal issue, you should look up divorce stats by number of previous sexual partners. There is a clear rise in divorce rate per increase in partners, and at about 7 it's 50%+.
Having read a lot of the attempts to gather stats on this, this is untrue. The results are mixed, with some showing an up-down relationship with a first peak high divorce rate at 1-2 prior sexual partners, then a drop, then another rise that passes the first peak at somewhere between 8-10 partners.
Also, most of the stats on that are weak because they are uncontrolled for other known correlates of divorce rates, including number of prior marriages.
A while back I noticed the "redpill" community on Reddit. Of course... ugh... some of those people have issues.
Nonetheless, the fact is that there are people out there with issues. There are people desperate to find love, desperate to get out of their miserable lonely lives. Many in their thirties or even forties.
If you strip away the superficial surface misogyny, at least some of the community has a valid point to make, and often scientifically backed: the way we live, how we're set up as a society, and how we find partners is not how the human species evolved. Modern lifestyles are ridiculously distorted compared to how our hunter-gatherer ancestors... no wait... that gives the wrong impression. Our lifestyles are ridiculously distorted compared to how the species did things for millions of years right up until a mere hundred years ago. A handful of generations! Just go read a Jane Austen book, for crying out loud! People used to get married in their teens, and being single in your early twenties was considered shameful.
What's especially bizarre to me is that the science that the redpill community managed to scrape together is not a lot and of low quality. There just isn't much research on "how to find a good partner" or "how to make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex".
I can go to arXiv right now and find a stack of papers on how to optimise a neural net, but I doubt I would find even one paper on how to optimise one's chances of finding a spouse and starting a family.
More importantly, it's not only not researched, it's also not taught, not talked about, and even outright taboo. I studied algebra, but not marriage. That's just not a "subject" that exists in the education system.
If you can ignore the minority of crazies, the redpill people have some good, actionable advice. It's the singular source of information on the topic that the mainstream scientific and educational systems have refused to even acknowledge as worthy of discourse, let alone study.
It's still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that we teach people to multiply matrices with pencil and paper[1], but not how to find a life partner and start a family. We just assume that they magically know how to do that well. You know, based on their experience... from their past lives... or something? Meanwhile we've turned on "hard mode", but you'll be fine son!
[1] What percentage of the human race has ever needed to multiply together two matrices? What percentage needed to find a partner? Yeah...
I really agree with what you said here, and I think this is an important message – so thank you for putting it so well.
This is something I had no appreciation for when I was younger. I thought romantic love was just that – you find someone you like looking at and like being around, and if that changes then you move on.
But now I've been with my partner for more than a decade I've realised how shallow this view was. Realistically the connection I have with her I'll likely never be able to replace. When things get tough she understands me almost as well as I understand myself and I know she isn't just going to walk out of a 10+ relationship because I'm going through a few rough months. And obviously I feel the same about her... I want to be there for her for more than just thinking she looks nice and is fun to hang out with. The love we have is so much deeper at this point I don't know where I'd be without her, and I think she feels the same about me.
The only thing I'd disagree with you about is how relevant the number of partners is. Both me and my partner had quite a few relationships before we found each other, and I actually think that helped us since we knew we worked well. The difference is that the relationships we had before each other we really just 6-12 months things and when we met we were still quite young.
I think where you are correct is if you've been dating around for years and have some baggage (failed marriage, kids, etc) then when you try to settle down with someone else I'd imagine it would be difficult to develop the same depth of commitment to that person. One, because it just takes time, but two because it's now more complicated sine you have kids with another partner and therefore have other commitments outside your relationship that need to be managed and perhaps even prioritised.
I do believe the way we sell love and relationships today is wrong. I think the sexual aspect is obviously important, but it shouldn't be as much the focus. The thing that provides the most value long-term really is the depth of the emotional connection two people can develop over very long periods of time together. I'm not saying people should stick with their partners no matter what, but I think valuing commitment even when things are not perfect is something we don't do enough of anymore. If anything young people (including myself some years ago) seem to actually have a negative view of long-term commitment. I think that's sad and I feel very grateful I somehow stumbled on the path I'm on today.
It's also probable that women who have no previous history don't know what their options are and will put up with abuse instead of opting for divorce. If you've already been able to escape abuse once, then it makes sense that you know you can separate successfully and won't tolerate partners who hurt you.
My wife and myself have slept around and had previous longer relations as well; I see it as a positive. How do I know what I like from a relation or sex if I didn't shop around? I had extremely bad and incompatible partners/sex and now I know that would never work. When I see people on reddit/twitter talk about their relations, I sometimes wonder if people married or living together actually ever talk; it's so incredibly dysfunctional and broken. And then they wonder why people take off, cheat etc etc as they have 0 bond after being 'highschool sweathearts' for way too long and growing apart for all that time. Few kids 'to save the relationship' of course.
People have less sex than ever before. I think this is largely because of a decline in marriage and committed relationships because it's hard to have high frequency sex outside of those relationships.
Of course there’s a correlation between number of divorces and number of partners. If you stay married you are less likely to have more partners lol. It’s the reverse of the cause you’re implying.
Eh, I wouldn't overemphasize the role of multiple partners in this sort of behavior. I think rather the determining factor is that the West and the USA in particular has gradually adopted a more and more radically atomistic individualism over the past few decades, which, no surprise, has the ultimate effect of making the average citizen a selfish person that isn't very into the idea of commitment in the face of challenges.
> In the early 2000s, there was a brief period where actresses pretended that their thinness was natural, almost accidental. Skinny celebrities confessed their love of burgers and fries in magazines; models undergoing profile interviews engaged in public consumption of pasta; leading ladies joked about how little they exercised and how much they hated it. It was all bullshit: no one looks like that without calorie restriction
No, no. That's false. I can tell you from first hand experience there are women (and presumably men too, but I've never lived with a man) who actually are thin without trying. In fact, of all the women I've dated, the only ones who even remotely cared about diets, calories, exercise etc. were the fat ones.
The difference is now fashion has changed towards that super-lean, "ripped", goes to gym look. Now actors (of both sexes) work out just before the camera goes on, get pumped and make sure they are dehydrated. It's just the Instagram fake reality on the big screen.
If you look at beautiful actors from the beginning of cinema through to the 90s they were just naturally beautiful people with a healthy amount of body fat.
My personal opinion is that there is a far higher rate of neurosis in almost all people now. There is clear evidence from when I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s that there were simply more times where people "bummed about", even very successful people. People drank more and they worried less.
IMO, Pandora's box has been opened. Now humans are hyper-aware about the possibilities to optimise their life. They know they could be working out, they could be calorie counting, they could be learning a new language, they could be sorting out their investments. But, it's impossible to forget this. Once you are infected and connected, you can't return to not taking care of things. Once you have been made aware of the problem, your excuse of ignorance is gone, and you are forever going to be making the explicit decision to not solve your problems.
Naturally, this increased neurosis, and lack of ability to let go, is a huge stop on the kind of letting go required for sex. Basically all people now prefer to be alone or in a comfortable space, sorting out their own problems in life.
Why should nudity be connected to sexuality ? Have you seen grecoroman statues? Surely they have noticed the tinypenis
The movies are probably responding to the shifts of the audience. The keyword of our culture is safety. Sex is slowly becoming equated with physical abuse, and the solution to horniness is placed behind the screen.
> Over and over again, she reiterates the point that McMansions are not built to be homes; they’re built to be short-term investments.
This is more interesting, and in this movies reflect reality. Expensive new houses nowadays are wholly architecturally uninteresting. Literally none of them is memorable, and all of them can be mistaken for one another. It's really sad that this period of sky high real estate prices does not coincide with a rennaissance of architecture but with the opposite
I too have noticed how support actors and extras have all become incredibly beautiful and generic.
I’ve brushed it off more as a question of availability and less of a directional decision.
On the other hand I have lamented the loss of the ugly funny character. Even the lead in scrubs, who is supposed to be scrawny and uncool has a physique to die for. And when shown off in the show it is still the bud of a joke.
I’ve always seen that more of a “the actor wants to look good, not for the show, but for everything regarding their career outside the show”.
Probably with social media the funnel is wider than ever. Being good looking and fit and putting in lots of effort to that pays decently for thousands of people. So probably all side actors are social mediaing and doing sponsored content on the side. Or more likely the acting / being on reality tv is the side gig
This is what perfect physical+psychological health&developedness is. It's Ok to be physically imperfect but being fit is healthier if you can, also having no deficit of sex with equally fit (which means as attractive as you might dream of) partners and no serious psychological trauma unhealed - you only feel easiy containable healthy sexual desire which is more like wanting to listen to good music or tasting a great wine than like urge or need. I have been lucky to achieve this and wish everyone the same luck but luck mostly works when you do you part of the job (i.e. eat healthy, go to a gym, to a therapist and meditate right). That's the lack of the above which makes people so sexually frustrated that they experience disharmonious uncontainable sexuality which can disturbe theirs and others' comfort and cloud their reason.
> did anyone else think it odd how Inception enters the deepest level of a rich man’s subconscious and finds not a psychosexual Oedipal nightmare of staggering depravity, but… a ski patrol?
I don't think the author actually watched Inception lol
> ...there was a brief period where actresses pretended that their thinness was natural...no one looks like that without calorie restriction.
I've known three women who were naturally thin because of their metabolism. They actually had to work at maintaining bulk. I think all three spent some time as models. You can improve a homely face with makeup, but you can't fake a figure (in person).
1. The modern American media landscape reflects a changed zeitgeist, one where new (ever more impractical) heights of physical fitness are presented.
2. BUT it comes with a DECREASE of old emphasis on using it to woo sexual partners, or for hedonistic enjoyment of physical activities.
3. It is instead rooted in a kind of cultural anxiety that one must be able to fight an unspecified enemy, or else as a kind of platonic health-investment.
[+] [-] joker_minmax|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bawolff|2 years ago|reply
> The answer, of course, is not anymore—at least not when it comes to modern blockbusters
> We’re told that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are an item, but no actual romantic or sexual chemistry between them is shown in the films. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor utterly lack the sexual chemistry to convince us that either of them would be thirsty enough to commandeer a coma victim’s body (as they do in Wonder Woman 1984) so they can enjoy a posthumous hookup. In defiance of Norse mythology, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor smiles at Natalie Portman like a dumb golden retriever puppy without ever venturing to rend her asunder with his mighty hammer, so to speak
Maybe because you are comparing r-rated action movies with super hero film made by disney.
There are certainly lots of overlap in audience. Kids watch terminator and adults love super heroes. But the principle target audiences are different.
[+] [-] Teknoman117|2 years ago|reply
In many circles, if I were to say that I wanted to be more fit in order to attract the kinds of people I'm attracted to, the main answer I would get is that I shouldn't feel the need to change anything about myself - that someone who would be more attracted to me if I were to work on myself isn't worth the effort. I heard this from my sibling-in-law constantly. Honestly started to think they were just trying to justify their own disregard of their health.
I started a 430 lb 6'4 man. I'm 320 lb now and while I still have a ways to go, the difference in the attention I get is mind boggling. Women actually flirt with me now. Initiate even. As someone who's felt invisible for a decade, I can't describe how much my mental state has improved.
[+] [-] javajosh|2 years ago|reply
Americans still deal with a great deal of Puritanical shame around sex, I think, and as a very fat country (the fattest ever to exist) where huge numbers are on SSRIs (with sexual side-effects) plus a divisive political climate, you get Disney Marvel sexuality.
BTW if you think Disney doesn't do horny, think again. I mean, look at the "love story" in any classic animated picture. She looks at him, thinks he's hot, he looks at her, he thinks she's hot, and it's on. In at least two cases (Sleeping Beauty and Snow White) that's "love's first kiss" that's given non-consentually -- and his transgression literally saves her life. The older I get the more I realize that this naive notion of what love is actually is the core of truth; the rest of what we add is risk mitigation. In big budget American cinema, the surest way to eliminate risk is to do exactly what they've done. They aren't stupid.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_(film)
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Calling
[+] [-] labster|2 years ago|reply
The article isn’t bad, it just describes a trend without ever doing the basic role of a reporter: follow the money.
[+] [-] distant_hat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seo-speedwagon|2 years ago|reply
BUT let me propose a counter-hypothesis. If we widen our scope to not just movies but all media, and consider the same time period (80s vs now), the vibes are a bit different
- movies: less horny
- television: slightly more horny?
- books: roughly unchanged
- music: roughly unchanged
- video games: much, much hornier
So it’s possible we have a rough conservation of thirst across media.
[+] [-] GuB-42|2 years ago|reply
I have always find them boring and it is not because of the lead couple bodies. First, they tend to feel out of place. When an epic battle is coming up, I want to see an epic battle, not a couple fucking. And then the fucking is often done in the least exciting way possible, as if the producers main goal was to minimize the number of erections in the audience. You don't want your movie to be mistaken as porn do you?
So yeah, ultimately, they removed the sex scene, and I think the movies are better for it. The alternative of making really good sex scenes would push the movies into 18+ territory, and I understand the reluctance. And looking and actors with great bodies and sexy outfits is enjoyable as it is, no need for a half assed sex scene that reveals nothing more.
[+] [-] SamPatt|2 years ago|reply
I don't buy that part at all.
[+] [-] oytis|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heattemp99|2 years ago|reply
My parents were together from 19, and knowing their style, they may both have been each other's first. As a teenager, I noticed my mother being extremely difficult. Even more so now. My father is no walk in the park either. But I believe they have a deep rooted love from decades and went through every event and basically adult stage in life together.
I'm 38. I date in my age group. Which means both of us are dating people that have been sleeping with others for two decades. Each of us has been overseas with countless friends and exs. Many women have been engaged, some married, and we've all had our hearts broken. We've all gained a few lbs. My hair is starting to grey.
Can I find someone that enjoys being with me? Sure.
Can I find someone that doesn't just say "wtf am I doing here" if times get tough for health or financial or just plain old age? I'm not sure.
I've heard many long time married old men say that when they look at their partner, they still see the beauty glimmering through that they saw at 19.
If I meet a partner at 40, when we start really getting old and annoyed, what am I going to hold on to? How lucky I am to be her 23rd partner?
I know this is a judgemental view, but I think it's human nature.
Edit: for those that think this is just some personal issue, you should look up divorce stats by number of previous sexual partners. There is a clear rise in divorce rate per increase in partners, and at about 7 it's 50%+.
[+] [-] Lutger|2 years ago|reply
I've been in both ages. As a kid, in a small village, nobody got divorced. Really, it was just not done, the concept was alien to them. We came from the city, my parents were divorced, and I had to explain it as other kids would literally not grok the idea.
There was a lot of pain, abuse and unhappiness in those marriages. Years later something happened in that village and a lot of women claimed their rights: it rained divorces, often very long marriages that fell apart. A lot of these former wives banded together in self-help groups to encourage each other and process their sometimes traumatic marriages.
A divorce itself is never fun I guess, but it isn't automatically a negative and the outcome can be vastly superior to staying together. You may say: but what about all those divorces? I tend to assume those would have been unhappy marriages in the past, at least they have a new chance at life. So yes, what about them? Good they have ended their misery.
[+] [-] lordnacho|2 years ago|reply
That's the phrase I use to describe it.
If you're not done with your share of sex when you get married, you are at risk of giving in to temptation when you're married. Mostly from a guy's point of view because a guy tends to have more opportunities when he gets older, but the same logic works for women to a degree.
One of my friends would get laid constantly in our 20s. Not just bragging about it, he provably had the gift for it when we were out. He was banging chicks constantly, to the point where he had to phone me from work to stop his various chicks from finding out about each other. I thought for sure this guy would not be able to hold out in a marriage.
15 years on and he hasn't cheated on his wife, that last of this parade of women.
My boss married his high school sweetheart. He started going to a lot of meetings with a broker. I was joking that he was having an affair. Turned out to be exactly what happened.
My other boss also got married early. Religious guy, 5 kids. I go to see him a decade after we last worked together, what does he do? He wants me to wingman him. Also shows me all his messages from various women. (He's also in politics, so maybe it's par for the course.)
Sex is pretty powerful by nature, but like many things evolution has left us, there's a point where our curiosity is satisfied. We can move on with forming relationships when the urge is not quite so strong.
[+] [-] sheepybloke|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dougmwne|2 years ago|reply
If there’s a correlation between number of partners and divorce rates, it’s because someone is consistently failing to learn how to be a better partner.
[+] [-] RoyalHenOil|2 years ago|reply
Would you be luckier to be her 1st, knowing that it would be short-lived and 22 others would follow after you?
All experienced people start off inexperienced. At least with experienced people, they are more likely to know what they want.
I am a woman the same age as you. I am only interested in long-term monogamy. As such, I have a lot of sexual and relationship experience due to my age, but all if it is with just 3 people. Not only that, but all of my experience is with who, themselves, had never previously had casual sex experience.
The first 2 were young and inexperienced like me, and they initially thought they wanted the same thing that I want. But as time went on, they realized that they felt confined by long-term monogamy and actually wanted more experiences with more people. After we broke up, they proceeded to have a series of flings and casual sex. They did have some attempts at long-term polyamorous relationships, but nothing that lasted more than a year or two.
By the time I met my 3rd partner (who I have been with a long time now), I was pretty gun shy about dating men. My experience was that men talk a big game about wanting a stable partner for the long haul, but get bored and break your heart.
What helped me give my new partner a chance was that we were both older by this point and more settled into our lives. He had plenty of relationship experience by that point, and his history demonstrated that he stayed dedicated in long-term monogamous relationships and that he was not interested in casual sex, despite plenty of opportunities for it.
If I were advising someone whose goal was to only ever have one partner in their life, my advice would be to only date people with a lot of life experience. Inexperienced people are a wild card. You can't manipulate them into only ever wanting you. Maybe back in the day, you could lock them into marriage, but modern DNA evidence suggests that a huge percentage of children back then (some estimates as high as 25%) were not genetically related to their fathers, so I'm not so sure that marriage was actually what you imagine it was.
If you want to date women who are fully dedicated to long-term monogamy, then date people with a demonstrated history of exactly that. (However, be aware that this only works if you yourself have such a history. You can't expect to date women with high standards if you don't actually live up to those standards.)
[+] [-] marricks|2 years ago|reply
Maybe we just aren’t all meant to find that one person and stay with them until we die.
Maybe, just maybe, we were meant to have a community to find meaning in beyond to the communities of family and work.
Blasphemous thoughts for the formerly puritanical US, but worth considering nonetheless.
[+] [-] ookblah|2 years ago|reply
No offense, but think this honestly says a lot more about your own views and what your project on others than some kind of generalized statement.
I personally would view going through the wringer of life relationships as a good thing, and if I was 40+ and met someone who hadn't experienced that in this day and page it's probably more likely they had also had some social hang up that you just haven't learned about. This also isn't to endorse the opposite of dating a person on their 5th divorce who's out hooking up every week or something.
Anecdotally among those I know, whether someone had one vs. multiple partners had little bearing on the quality of their relationships. Those that had more, while they had their own issues related to that also had a more "realistic" view of sex and relationships IMO.
Some of them felt glad to "get it out of their system" so to speak. If anything, those with just one partner maybe you could argue experienced something different (you don't know what you don't know), but they are still not immune to relationship issues.
[+] [-] bawolff|2 years ago|reply
Presumably people who think their partner is now ugly either have enough sense to stfu or dont have a partner anymore. This just seems an instance of survivorship bias.
Like who would stay with a partner that tells random strangers they are ugly.
[+] [-] air7|2 years ago|reply
Perhaps the number of previous sexual partners before marriage is a proxy to how difficult a person is to be with...
[+] [-] mustafa_pasi|2 years ago|reply
Your only problem is that you are just as promiscuous so you stand on thin ice when you try to demand better from her.
[+] [-] aschearer|2 years ago|reply
Please explain: why are you "not that lucky" to be her 23rd partner?
> I've heard many long time married old men say that when they look at their partner, they still see the beauty glimmering through that they saw at 19. If I meet a partner at 40, when we start really getting old and annoyed, what am I going to hold on to?
Please explain: why does "19-year old beauty" need to "glimmer through" to sustain a relationship when one is "old and annoyed?"
I hope you'll stand by your words and explain them.
These are assumptions you're holding. In my opinion, they are _not_ conducive to a healthy relationship.
[+] [-] naasking|2 years ago|reply
You say this like it's obviously a bad thing. People who stay married might just do so because they're afraid of being alone, and so suffer in silence for the rest of their lives. People who have been through many relationships maybe know they'll be ok if they split, it's not the end of the world, and there's no point prolonging the suffering.
You can spin it many different, perfectly valid ways. Most people will probably post-rationalize their choice as "good" anyway, because that's what people do. Those who say married for a long time will say it was the best decision they could have made despite the challenges, and those who split will do the same.
[+] [-] AlexandrB|2 years ago|reply
You should look up divorce stats by age of marriage. This article calls marriages between 20 year olds "starter marriages" because they rarely last[1]. Your parents are an outlier.
[1] https://time.com/4358792/woman-age-married-how-long/
[+] [-] subpixel|2 years ago|reply
Of course I miss being in my 20s and 30s and the women I spent time with naked. Sometimes that nostalgia is very strong, believe me.
But I also remember that none of those experiences were fulfilling. It blows my mind to recall periods of my life when I had numerous numbers I could dial that would land me in bed - but at the time I was nonplussed and unsatisfied by it all.
By the time I was 38 I was looking for a partner, and when I met my wife all of my dating criteria went out the window. The whole game had changed.
I have thoughts on whether monogamistic fundamentalism is good for marriage, but that’s a whole other discussion. In a society where you have to choose between promiscuity and commitment, the latter holds much more promise even though there are no guarantees.
[+] [-] ragestorm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DANmode|2 years ago|reply
Meaning: the sex and relationship you have with your first partner is necessarily the best and relationship you've ever had.
[+] [-] lamontcg|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tscopp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smcl|2 years ago|reply
> How lucky I am to be her 23rd partner?
You're raising a few different things here and it's hard to see what you're really concerned about, because I don't think it's the matter of divorce rates vs number of sexual partners.
If you're worried you can't find a long-term partner in your late-30s, then don't be - it's possible and tbh from personal experience dating in my 30s has been much more relaxed and chilled out than in my 20s. When you find someone will you have memories of being together stretching way back 'til your teens? Nope, but that's not necessary for happiness at all, it's one aspect of some people's relationships and not all relationships need to look alike. You'll have a different story that's unique and interesting in its own way.
If you're upset about the idea of being with someone who has been with 20+ men or women before you, then you need to work on your insecurities. How promiscuous either of you were at any time before you met will have no bearing on that whatsoever, if you are committed to each other.
It sounds a bit like you regret or resent not already being married or in a long-term relationship already if I'm honest, and are reflecting and looking around for some answers or some justifications. If that's the case then I'd suggest trying not to do that, you'll not help your own situation and you could end up going down a dark path, making yourself feel worse or being less likely to find someone.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|2 years ago|reply
Having read a lot of the attempts to gather stats on this, this is untrue. The results are mixed, with some showing an up-down relationship with a first peak high divorce rate at 1-2 prior sexual partners, then a drop, then another rise that passes the first peak at somewhere between 8-10 partners.
Also, most of the stats on that are weak because they are uncontrolled for other known correlates of divorce rates, including number of prior marriages.
[+] [-] jiggawatts|2 years ago|reply
Nonetheless, the fact is that there are people out there with issues. There are people desperate to find love, desperate to get out of their miserable lonely lives. Many in their thirties or even forties.
If you strip away the superficial surface misogyny, at least some of the community has a valid point to make, and often scientifically backed: the way we live, how we're set up as a society, and how we find partners is not how the human species evolved. Modern lifestyles are ridiculously distorted compared to how our hunter-gatherer ancestors... no wait... that gives the wrong impression. Our lifestyles are ridiculously distorted compared to how the species did things for millions of years right up until a mere hundred years ago. A handful of generations! Just go read a Jane Austen book, for crying out loud! People used to get married in their teens, and being single in your early twenties was considered shameful.
What's especially bizarre to me is that the science that the redpill community managed to scrape together is not a lot and of low quality. There just isn't much research on "how to find a good partner" or "how to make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex".
I can go to arXiv right now and find a stack of papers on how to optimise a neural net, but I doubt I would find even one paper on how to optimise one's chances of finding a spouse and starting a family.
More importantly, it's not only not researched, it's also not taught, not talked about, and even outright taboo. I studied algebra, but not marriage. That's just not a "subject" that exists in the education system.
If you can ignore the minority of crazies, the redpill people have some good, actionable advice. It's the singular source of information on the topic that the mainstream scientific and educational systems have refused to even acknowledge as worthy of discourse, let alone study.
It's still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that we teach people to multiply matrices with pencil and paper[1], but not how to find a life partner and start a family. We just assume that they magically know how to do that well. You know, based on their experience... from their past lives... or something? Meanwhile we've turned on "hard mode", but you'll be fine son!
[1] What percentage of the human race has ever needed to multiply together two matrices? What percentage needed to find a partner? Yeah...
[+] [-] wiseowise|2 years ago|reply
It’s not. Life is not rose colored. Some people get lucky and find their life partners, while others die alone.
[+] [-] kypro|2 years ago|reply
This is something I had no appreciation for when I was younger. I thought romantic love was just that – you find someone you like looking at and like being around, and if that changes then you move on.
But now I've been with my partner for more than a decade I've realised how shallow this view was. Realistically the connection I have with her I'll likely never be able to replace. When things get tough she understands me almost as well as I understand myself and I know she isn't just going to walk out of a 10+ relationship because I'm going through a few rough months. And obviously I feel the same about her... I want to be there for her for more than just thinking she looks nice and is fun to hang out with. The love we have is so much deeper at this point I don't know where I'd be without her, and I think she feels the same about me.
The only thing I'd disagree with you about is how relevant the number of partners is. Both me and my partner had quite a few relationships before we found each other, and I actually think that helped us since we knew we worked well. The difference is that the relationships we had before each other we really just 6-12 months things and when we met we were still quite young.
I think where you are correct is if you've been dating around for years and have some baggage (failed marriage, kids, etc) then when you try to settle down with someone else I'd imagine it would be difficult to develop the same depth of commitment to that person. One, because it just takes time, but two because it's now more complicated sine you have kids with another partner and therefore have other commitments outside your relationship that need to be managed and perhaps even prioritised.
I do believe the way we sell love and relationships today is wrong. I think the sexual aspect is obviously important, but it shouldn't be as much the focus. The thing that provides the most value long-term really is the depth of the emotional connection two people can develop over very long periods of time together. I'm not saying people should stick with their partners no matter what, but I think valuing commitment even when things are not perfect is something we don't do enough of anymore. If anything young people (including myself some years ago) seem to actually have a negative view of long-term commitment. I think that's sad and I feel very grateful I somehow stumbled on the path I'm on today.
[+] [-] scl67|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonzzzies|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spacebanana7|2 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-... [2] https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/americans-are-having-...
[+] [-] wilde|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voidhorse|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globular-toast|2 years ago|reply
No, no. That's false. I can tell you from first hand experience there are women (and presumably men too, but I've never lived with a man) who actually are thin without trying. In fact, of all the women I've dated, the only ones who even remotely cared about diets, calories, exercise etc. were the fat ones.
The difference is now fashion has changed towards that super-lean, "ripped", goes to gym look. Now actors (of both sexes) work out just before the camera goes on, get pumped and make sure they are dehydrated. It's just the Instagram fake reality on the big screen.
If you look at beautiful actors from the beginning of cinema through to the 90s they were just naturally beautiful people with a healthy amount of body fat.
[+] [-] bowsamic|2 years ago|reply
IMO, Pandora's box has been opened. Now humans are hyper-aware about the possibilities to optimise their life. They know they could be working out, they could be calorie counting, they could be learning a new language, they could be sorting out their investments. But, it's impossible to forget this. Once you are infected and connected, you can't return to not taking care of things. Once you have been made aware of the problem, your excuse of ignorance is gone, and you are forever going to be making the explicit decision to not solve your problems.
Naturally, this increased neurosis, and lack of ability to let go, is a huge stop on the kind of letting go required for sex. Basically all people now prefer to be alone or in a comfortable space, sorting out their own problems in life.
[+] [-] seydor|2 years ago|reply
The movies are probably responding to the shifts of the audience. The keyword of our culture is safety. Sex is slowly becoming equated with physical abuse, and the solution to horniness is placed behind the screen.
> Over and over again, she reiterates the point that McMansions are not built to be homes; they’re built to be short-term investments.
This is more interesting, and in this movies reflect reality. Expensive new houses nowadays are wholly architecturally uninteresting. Literally none of them is memorable, and all of them can be mistaken for one another. It's really sad that this period of sky high real estate prices does not coincide with a rennaissance of architecture but with the opposite
[+] [-] wodenokoto|2 years ago|reply
I’ve brushed it off more as a question of availability and less of a directional decision.
On the other hand I have lamented the loss of the ugly funny character. Even the lead in scrubs, who is supposed to be scrawny and uncool has a physique to die for. And when shown off in the show it is still the bud of a joke.
I’ve always seen that more of a “the actor wants to look good, not for the show, but for everything regarding their career outside the show”.
I thoroughly enjoyed this other perspective
[+] [-] coffeebeqn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] qwerty456127|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zolland|2 years ago|reply
I don't think the author actually watched Inception lol
[+] [-] wrp|2 years ago|reply
I've known three women who were naturally thin because of their metabolism. They actually had to work at maintaining bulk. I think all three spent some time as models. You can improve a homely face with makeup, but you can't fake a figure (in person).
[+] [-] pelorat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Terr_|2 years ago|reply
1. The modern American media landscape reflects a changed zeitgeist, one where new (ever more impractical) heights of physical fitness are presented.
2. BUT it comes with a DECREASE of old emphasis on using it to woo sexual partners, or for hedonistic enjoyment of physical activities.
3. It is instead rooted in a kind of cultural anxiety that one must be able to fight an unspecified enemy, or else as a kind of platonic health-investment.