Sex among young men is declining – and the things holding them back from physical intimacy are more complicated than you might think.
www.huckmag.com
Peter, 31
“I’ve probably been in the position where it feels like sex is inevitably on the cards, and self sabotaged between 10 and 15 times,” he says. “When trying to impress a girl I will either directly lie or insinuate that I am quite experienced in bed and then I feel scared that they will notice that I’m not when it actually comes to it, so I self-sabotage.”
“I need to feel absolutely beautiful to even think myself good enough to speak to a woman I’m very mildly attracted to,” he says. Yet, his low self-esteem often stands in the way of this.
Mike, 23,
He tried to overcome this by pursuing the usual route of meeting people through dating apps, without any success. So, a year ago, he just gave up. “I realized I wanted external validation when I didn’t even have internal validation – so that became more important to focus on,” he says. “Constantly trying to date was a reminder that I wasn’t in a relationship.”
Jacob, 24
He was never good at talking to girls, noting a similar lack of confidence as Peter and Mike, coupled with what he perceives as a lack of bravery in approaching women. “I got used to pleasing myself while watching porn, instead,” he says. “It felt easier, more safe.”
But the porn Jacob was viewing only further dampened his self-esteem. “After watching porn, I got even less confident because all the guys there were much bigger than me,” he says. “I felt undeserving of girls, thinking that even if I could somehow [end up in] a sexual situation, I would disappoint my partner, anyway.” At first, this belief made him angry – not at women, he says, but at the situation he’d been given. But now, he says, he’s at peace with “Just admiring the girls [in porn] and watching other men with them, instead,” he says. “It feels right.”
Chris, 26
Also standing in the way of Chris’s sex life is a lack of time and money. It’s unsurprising, then, that the instant gratification that porn provides is an appealing alternative. With porn fulfilling his biological urge for sex, there’s little incentive for Chris to pursue real, person-to-person intimacy. He says that now, “it can be hard to get hard” with things that aren’t porn. For better or worse, the Internet offers a nearly endless catalog of new content to pique his interest in ways the real world seemingly can’t.
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Thoughts?
The real reasons young straight men aren’t having sex
Sex among young men is declining – and the things holding them back from physical intimacy are more complicated than you might think.
www.huckmag.com
Peter, 31
“I’ve probably been in the position where it feels like sex is inevitably on the cards, and self sabotaged between 10 and 15 times,” he says. “When trying to impress a girl I will either directly lie or insinuate that I am quite experienced in bed and then I feel scared that they will notice that I’m not when it actually comes to it, so I self-sabotage.”
“I need to feel absolutely beautiful to even think myself good enough to speak to a woman I’m very mildly attracted to,” he says. Yet, his low self-esteem often stands in the way of this.
Mike, 23,
He tried to overcome this by pursuing the usual route of meeting people through dating apps, without any success. So, a year ago, he just gave up. “I realized I wanted external validation when I didn’t even have internal validation – so that became more important to focus on,” he says. “Constantly trying to date was a reminder that I wasn’t in a relationship.”
Jacob, 24
He was never good at talking to girls, noting a similar lack of confidence as Peter and Mike, coupled with what he perceives as a lack of bravery in approaching women. “I got used to pleasing myself while watching porn, instead,” he says. “It felt easier, more safe.”
But the porn Jacob was viewing only further dampened his self-esteem. “After watching porn, I got even less confident because all the guys there were much bigger than me,” he says. “I felt undeserving of girls, thinking that even if I could somehow [end up in] a sexual situation, I would disappoint my partner, anyway.” At first, this belief made him angry – not at women, he says, but at the situation he’d been given. But now, he says, he’s at peace with “Just admiring the girls [in porn] and watching other men with them, instead,” he says. “It feels right.”
Chris, 26
Also standing in the way of Chris’s sex life is a lack of time and money. It’s unsurprising, then, that the instant gratification that porn provides is an appealing alternative. With porn fulfilling his biological urge for sex, there’s little incentive for Chris to pursue real, person-to-person intimacy. He says that now, “it can be hard to get hard” with things that aren’t porn. For better or worse, the Internet offers a nearly endless catalog of new content to pique his interest in ways the real world seemingly can’t.
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Thoughts?
