Women are the wrong kind of sad: A modest proposal
To increase happiness be less healthy when you're young.
Why Are Young Adults Having Less Casual Sex? The article doesn’t assign blame. But describes the causes.
Casual sex is on the decline for both young men and women, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick study that found less alcohol consumption among both genders is a major reason while playing video games and living at home with parents are another—but only for men. No other factor explained a significant portion of the decline. (emphasis added)
If we want young men to put down the video game controllers and try harder, and young women to be less sad we need to increase the supply of drunk women happy to make the kinds of mistakes they’ll regret now but look back on fondly in old age.
But, while offering genuinely good advice, Matt Yglesias (of
fame) does assign blame, on men.
However, it’s more complicated than that. And I blame women’s new healthier lifestyles.
The most important factor driving the decline among young men is the decrease in drinking, which alone explains more than 33 percent of the drop. The increase in computer video gaming explains about 25 percent of the change in sexual behavior among young men, while the increase in living with parents explains a little more than 10 percent. No other factor explained a significant portion of the decline.
For young women, about 25 percent is attributable to a decline in drinking, which was the only factor that explained a significant portion of the decline. Increased internet usage among young women suppressed what would have been a larger 11 percent decline in casual sex.
Living with their parents only accounts for 10% of the lack of hooking up. But combined with video games’ 25% it accounts to a 35% drop.
And that’s why I think Yglesias’ deeply thought out analysis in those tweets falls short because it ignores basic economics. Women drinking less raises the difficulty level of getting laid. Significantly lowering the expected probability of success in scoring. Decreasing the expected utility of expending resources of living on your own. And driving the demand for more reliable utility substitutes like video games.
At the same time we’ve disincentivized men while not increasing utility for women. Women still feel bad. But not the right the kind of bad because they made decisions where they had fun that night but sometimes regret later.
And we exchanged partying for living healthier. But in doing so we’ve Underpants Gnomed lower utility for women
1) Focus on wellness and self care
2) ????
3) Rising depression
We spent decades trying to curb teen sex and drinking. And now we have a society with higher rates of young people suicide than when they were listening to depressing ass grunge music.
And this graph doesn’t even reflect the fact that women are bad at committing suicide.
the number of teens diagnosed with clinical depression grew 37 percent between 2005 and 2014. And suicide attempts — which are not always fatal — are on the rise as well. Here’s an unsettling example of that. A recent paper in the Journal of Pediatrics estimated that in 2018, close to 60,000 girls ages 10 to 18 tried to poison themselves. In 2008, that figure was closer to 30,000. Very few of these poisonings were fatal
But reversing this couldn’t be clearer
young men who live with their parents engage in casual sex are only 63 percent of those who live independently. The odds that young men who play computer games daily have casual sex are less than half the odds for those who never game. And the odds that young men who report drinking daily have casual sex are about 5.5 times the odds for those who don’t drink.
Because the guys who are drinking daily are hanging out with women who drink. If we want young men to put down the video game controllers and try harder, and young women to be less sad we need to increase the supply of drunk women happy to make the kinds of mistakes they’ll regret now but look back on fondly in old age.
Perhaps the government should start a public service campaign advertising telling young women that they have, on average, 55 years to be old and boring. But only 10 prime partying age years. Or maybe Biden could put out an ad
Parents, do you know where your children are? Well, if they’re 17 and you do maybe it’s a bit much. You don’t have to go full ‘cool parent’. But maybe letting your kids throw a party in the basement on a Friday night would be good for them. No hard liquor, but a few 6 packs wont ruin their lives.
And doesn’t this look like more fun than the anti-depression pills your parents put you on since you were a teen because they wanted a quick fix for your teenage angst?
