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Psychologist: Porn and Video Game Addiction Are Leading To 'Masculinity Crisis'
HughPickens.com writes: Philip Zimbardo is a prominent psychologist from Stanford, most notable for leading the notorious Stanford prison experiment. He has published new research findings based on the lives of 20,000 young men, and his conclusion is stark: there is a developing "masculinity crisis" caused by addiction to video games and pornography. "Our focus is on young men who play video games to excess, and do it in social isolation — they are alone in their room," says Zimbardo. "It begins to change brain function. It begins to change the reward center of the brain, and produces a kind of excitement and addiction. What I'm saying is — boys' brains are becoming digitally rewired."
As an example, Zimbardo uses this quote from one young man: "When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected." Zimbardo doesn't think there's a specific time threshold at which playing video games goes from being acceptable to excessive. He says it varies by individual, and is more based on a "psychological change in mindset." To fight the problem, he suggest families need to track how much time is being spent on video games compared to other activities. "He also called for better sex education in schools — which should focus not only on biology and safety, but also on emotions, physical contact and romantic relationships."
As an example, Zimbardo uses this quote from one young man: "When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected." Zimbardo doesn't think there's a specific time threshold at which playing video games goes from being acceptable to excessive. He says it varies by individual, and is more based on a "psychological change in mindset." To fight the problem, he suggest families need to track how much time is being spent on video games compared to other activities. "He also called for better sex education in schools — which should focus not only on biology and safety, but also on emotions, physical contact and romantic relationships."
being that many of them won't pass on their genes, nature will take care of it
Claiming normal male behaviour is a disease.
I demand we digitally rewire womens brains.
To say that video games and porn affect my masculinity, reading that i was like, omg just get out of here!
I've read a lot of stories lately about VG and porn doing this and that to our youth. Which game will be blamed for the next school shooting?
I've been saying forever that the keyword is moderation. Anything in excess will screw you up, be it porn, exercise, or board games.
This research is a load of unmitigated bollocks.
The real problem is that society, "social justice warriors", schools and so on are making being male a kind-of pathology, expecting boys to behave like girls. No wonder so many of them prefer to sit in their bedrooms playing video games and watching porn.
The last thing we need to be doing is teaching kids how they're supposed to have emotions and romance with each other, as if kids don't have enough self-image problems in that area already. Why else would they be spending all their time with escapes like WoW and porn?
As much as people laugh at the Men Going Their Own Way movement, there is a growing number of men who feel that it is not worth the effort to put up with today's rapidly-changing standards of manhood.
He also called for better sex education in schools
When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected.
Sex education does nothing to solve the real issues these Peter Pans are suffering. I'm pretty sure that the guy in the quote knows all about how "sex" works, probably in more detail than is actually needed.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It begins to change the reward center of the brain, and produces a kind of excitement and addiction. What I'm saying is — boys' brains are becoming digitally rewired...."When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."
Ok, I'll bite. It seems to me that the brain is just doing what it is supposed to do - adapt to the environment it is confronted with.
The changes in rewards go far beyond the brain. As a society in the US at least we've greatly limited the options kids have when they graduate from college, so there is little true reward for spending time studying. Likewise, there is little benefit from having kids - they're a huge expense, and a major legal entanglement when that girl decides to reject you after you have the kid.
If you want kids to study and get married, then you need to reward them from doing so - and not just in their brains.
Or, we need to question why we want kids to do those things in the first place. Why is it so important that boys and girls get happily married? If the boys are just as happy alone, why not let them be happy alone? The obvious answer is so that we can have lots of babies running around, but I'm not really sure why it is so important that we have lots of babies running around either. We used to have them out of self-interest so that they could care for us in old age. With increases in productivity it is more likely that we'll end up caring for them in old age.
>When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft.
Well, no shit. Most people would rather be doing something they like than something they don't like. And is it really a revelation that socially awkward nerds feel socially awkward around women?
Porn and Video Game Addiction Are Leading To 'Masculinity Crisis'
Speak for yourself mate.
Shades of Dr Wertham! More horse manure intended to scare the populace!
When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected.
And when I'm at work I wish that I was home watching TV with a beer in my hand.
Also, rock'n'roll causes people to act immoral!
The comments from the article sound eerily similar to those coming from Japanese men. More and more they are playing video games and watching porn rather than interacting with other people, most especially women.
It might have something to do with control. When you're playing a game, you are in control of your character. You are still at the whim of your surroundings and other players, but you are in control of "yourself".
Not so when approaching others and most especially women. With the decline of civility, asking a woman out and being rejected is no longer, "I'm sorry. I appreciate you asking but I'm just not interested" to, "Fucking loser! Why would you talk to me? Get the fuck out of here."
It's easier to not bother than deal with asshats.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
pr0n costs much less than a girlfriend or a divorce.
Just like comic books and television screwed up a generation of kids, right? You could also use the same argument to say that kids in the 1800s just spent their time reading novels instead of having real life adventures.
And stop promoting promiscuity, which causes all sorts of emotional damage in the long term. Instead, let's promote loving relationships, sexual or otherwise.
I'm not saying people shouldn't have premarital sex. I'm just saying that people shouldn't hook up with someone they met in a club or give it up on the first date.
Same with porn. A little from time to time is fine. Watching really kinky stuff or watching it multiple times a day is not healthy.
If there was more love in the world, there would be fewer problems, like single mothers, high divorce rates, and teenage pregnancies. But our school systems promote "sexual freedom", codewords for promiscuous behaviour. Let's change that by finding a middle ground between the conservative abstinence only bullshit and this liberal sex everywhere bullshit.
Amen.
It is really hard to take research seriously when it is being described as a 'masculinity crisis'. Esp when his own research contradicts the scary stuff he uses in 'talks'.
I don't think there are many guys out there, video game addicts or otherwise, who would prefer masturbation to porn over sex with someone they like, trust, and feel comfortable with. The problem is, as Mr. Zimbardo alludes, we don't demystify sex for kids so that it becomes a regular life experience. If you never get anything more than an awkward biological overview of sex from school it will, at least for many boys, remain this mysterious, anxiety-provoking, forbidden fruit. Some magic experience that women zealously keep locked up in the castle. Porn is nothing more than a safe, artificial side-channel outlet for temporary relief of sexual frustration. It's lame but it is also understandable.
tl;dr - Our society sucks when it comes to preparing kids for sexual maturity.
Ive dated a lot of women who it turns out are looking for the "cowboy" type or the "biker" type or the "go chiefs" type. And are unhappy with me because i havent subscribed to any of these store-bought personality templates.
I prefer to just be who i am. A multifaceted individual with a wide variety of interests and hobbies.
Women HATE that.
the excessive use of video games and online pornography is pushing young men into a crisis of masculinity that leaves them bored at school, disinterested in human contact, and opting out of society.
Bullshit. Kids are bored at school because schools have been redesigned into standardized testing mills that cater to the lowest common denominator through inadequate funding and overzealous administrators. Theyre 'disinterested in human contact' because every single friend and acquaintence is manifest immediately in this neat new tool called the internet, and its generally only a pocket away. Theyre not opting out of society, theyre opting out of your idea of society. two failed wars have left them with limbless parents and friends that sit in the basement and eat cold canned raviolis. An entire generation has been shunned from the labour market because the adults they trust squandered through greed and hubris the future of society. And things they dont care about like abortion, gay marriage bans, and contraception have suddenly and inexplicably become the only thing in the last decade theyre forced to care about. theyre opting out because your pepperidge farm andy roony wank fest does not exist while a world of perpetual debt under minimum wage absolutely does.
Good people go to bed earlier.
This is anti-social behavior and it happens to both males and females that play games too much. It also comes out in weird ways, like how many millennial girls fetishize and even prefer anal over traditional sex.
Need to see own name in the news again leads formerly respectable Stanford psychologist to a Bozo The Clown Psychologist Crisis
On OkCupid, every woman of even average looks under 40 is a rock star receiving dozens of solicitations a day, and subtle and not so subtle offers of cock come through her text messaging apps at all hours of the day and night. It's a new game out there, and for some men who have physical or social difficulties, relationships will now be an endless uphill struggle for limited reward. It may be better for them just to not compete.
ABSTRACT Aims. In the last 5 years a deluge of articles on the topic of Internet addiction (IA) has proposed many candidate symptoms as evidence of this proposed disease. We critically reviewed the current approach to the measurement and identification of this new excessive behavior syndrome.
A critical review of "Internet addiction" criteria with suggestions for the future - ResearchGate. Available from:
A_critical_review_of_Internet_addiction
even more:
I do agree with the need to teach emotion in sex ed. That's a fantastic idea, although it may not fly in an age where gender equality seems to mean there is no such thing as sexual dimorphism. Neuroscience_of_sex_differences
It's pussification of society. The feminist movements and PC movements have gone too far and young guys don't know any better.
We need more, real, male role models who openly don't give a fuck about social acceptance. Not faggy pussy role models.
Society needs to go back to how things were in the 1950s.
Bullying is a part of life.
We can drop all these "shaming" terms. You look like a fat fuck and it is your problem, not mine.
Haters can suck it because you know I'm right.
Only if you're a pussy and buy your girlfriend shit. If she says you need to buy her shit to prove you love her, run the other way, fast.
So much for wanting equality. All women want to do is use men for their wallets, and then when they start losing their ability to do so because they are losing their beauty, they settle down with the stable guys they've rejected their whole lives.
It's also far less rewarding.
For those that want to claim that there are too many problems with the people they've dated, perhaps they need to take the time to evaluate the type of people they've been with, to figure out if there are any common traits that define them. They might discover that they're attracted to crazy people because of some interesting characteristic that unfortunately comes bundled with a whole slew of negative traits.
At least that was my experience. Once I figured out the kind of woman that I shouldn't date and avoided dating them it was a lot easier.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Porn doesn't invent tests to see if you really love them. Porn doesn't create drama. Porn doesn't leave dirty dishes in the sink. Porn is whatever you want it to be. You want a blonde with big tits today and a redhead with little tits tomorrow? No problem.
The birth control pill created the sexual revolution by liberating women from the need to hitch themselves to a man to care for them and their child. Now instant access to vast libraries or pornography is liberating men from the need to hitch themselves to a woman for sexual satisfaction. The main difference is that when women were "liberated" from men it was called progress, but when men are liberated from women it is labeled a mental defect.
I think the masculinity crisis might be in this guys pants. I mean shit, insert replace WoW with golf, and porn with expensive prostitute, and you have the macho alpha bro shark that is supposed to be the goal of the man.
Before Video Games, I am sure that most boys were thinking about sports or comic books when they were in class, because those were their hobbies.
Now, video games are also a hobby, and so people think about video games in addition to the other, non-school related activities.
I also want to point out that games like Call of Duty or World of Warcraft are social games, so although you are in isolation in your room, you are still speaking to and interacting with other people.
But I will say this: If you are with a girl and you are thinking about porn, then I think you have an addiction. At least for me it is definitely the other way around.
In any case, I think none of this really matters if you are only looking at high school/college boys. You need to see if this behavior continues into adulthood.
I could also go on a rant about how flawed the prison experiment was, but I think it is better to just say I don't agree with this man's logic.
He's looking at the symptoms and declaring them to be the problem without any real understanding of the underlying causes.
Guys focusing on video games and porn are a natural result in a society which is heavily biased in favor of women. Hell, I'd rather avoid dealing with women romantically too, given all the risks involved. All it takes is the mere accusation of rape, and a man's life can be torn to shreds. But even beyond that, we see a legal system completely set against men; custody, domestic violence, divorce? All stacked against men.
So more men are choosing porn and forgoing women. Seems like a perfectly rational response to me.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Says the Slashdot AC who is taking a break from two consecutive weeks of Second Life, or WoW, or whatever.
And really, why would young men take the risks? Not only is there an easy way out (that you lament), but there's also very little in the risk-benefit department. The demands on boys are insane: Treat women as equals, but provide for the family, but share responsibility for the kids and don't forget quality time with the wife, but forget about seeing the kids when the wife gets a divorce, but keep paying for the kids. Check your privilege, you're the reason why women clutch their purses and switch to the other side of the road, but be masculine and decisive, but ask for explicit consent, but make sure she really means it and won't change her mind, but don't be whipped. Fact is, a very large percentage of women are best avoided, not made sacrifices for, and I mean because they're bad for anyone, not just you. Yes, dating is a numbers game, but it looks like it has a big Russian roulette component lately.
They then both called the guy "an idiot".
They missed the fact that SHE could have asked him out. It's the 21st century, not the 18th century.
The reason guys spend all their time playing video games instead of out is that the video games are better than real life. Women expect men to be the 50's guy - bring flowers, etc. But they don't want to be the 50's girl.
The crisis in Masculinity is concurrent with a crisis of femininity. They feed off each other like a viscous cycle. As long our culture continues to complain about men not acting like it thinks men should act - all the while encouraging women to do what they want, we will have no progress on this issue.
Please note, I am not saying that women should act like a 50's girl. They are free to act like a modern woman. But don't complain about what men do and ignore what women do. (In fact, I think women should act like a modern women - and includes asking men out and buying them dinner for a first date. You want equality, you have to actually act equal, not insist on special treatment).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Read this story a day ago, and also this solid criticism on its bullshittiness.
https://medium.com/@cainejw/th...
When I'm watching pr0n, I wish I was with a woman. When I'm playing video games, I wish I was outside doing something.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Which category this study belongs to ?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/05/01/023243/results-are-in-from-psychologys-largest-reproducibility-test-39100-reproduced
Video games also stimulate the flight or fight response flight or fight response. This has been showed to improve the emotional state of the brain.
It would be conceivable that the right kind of educational pornography may help young men to be better lovers. Communication has been shown to be the number one issue with sex and emotional responses to sex. Some couples even find pornography as a stimulus or template for their own sex lives.
Enough research has been shown that video games help young men and women as they have hurting. My personal opinion is that the dangers vary from person to person and can not be generalized across a wide audience. As far as addiction? I am addicted to water, I love the stuff and it helps me to live! However even to much water can be deadly.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
So you've got that to look forward to...
From the angry backlash I can tell this article hits a little too close to home with some Slashdot readers.
Christian psychologist have been saying this for years...but no one listens because they are "Christians". Go listen to some archived podcasts of Focus On The Family, or Family Life Today on the subject.
It sounds like you're investing a considerable amount of time in dating and discovering what sort of partner would be suitable to you. People these days don't want to invest a lot of time in an activity in exchange for very little gratification. People want instant amusement that they can turn on and off at their convenience:
Working on personal programming project.
Need a porn break.
Porn break finished, back to programming.
Need a gaming break.
Gaming finished, back to programming.
It's a fun lifestyle. I don't have time for some woman who needs constant attention, wants to do things I have no interest in, needs things buying for her so she can feel loved. The reward simply isn't worth the time and money you have to invest.
There's a reason many first word countries are developing an ageing population - it's because these days people have much better things to do. Fewer people want to lock themselves into decades of marital hell. They're rather spend their time playing games, watching porn or pursuing their other interests.
"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft."
So would it be better if he said "When I'm in class, I wish I was playing baseball" or "fishing" or "out working on my car"?
Being a 47-year old man myself, I'm not so old that I can't remember that wishing I wasn't doing whatever crappy thing I had to be doing isn't pretty much the ground-state of any adolescent.
"When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."
Meh, I think porn is a symptom, not the cause. I'd say what he's observing is a thing, but is a transient result of a (historically) momentary discontinuity between sexualism and sexual availability.
We live in a society where womens' sexualization is complete: it's a (pardon the term) naked commodity, and in which its use as a lever for commercial exploitation is constant. The primal urge for sex in young men is, I suspect, unchanged from history, yet now they're like starving men walking down a street of bakeries, candy shops, and restaurants all taunting them with what they want. At the same time, REAL women (as opposed to the ones flaunting themselves for commercial gain - you don't think those girls in the Axe commercial are doing that because they really feel that way, do you?) are more empowered than ever to demand a level of respect and consideration in the relationship making the sexual negotiation ever more complex for a stupid, single-minded, priapistically-driven young man. Porn and masturbation are the only sexuality he can control, is it any wonder that sometimes he wishes it was as simple as the movies make it seem?
It's the old conundrum between offense and defense. At this time, one side has all the advantages, is it any wonder that sometimes the other side doesn't want to play as much?
-Styopa
Translation: Girls don't like me, so it must be their fault.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm not anti-science, but I do believe that too many times scientists draw conclusions based on biases. This is one of those. The bias seems to be that isolation is bad and that people should be around other people. He mentions that it changes brain function but names no specific trending to bad behavior because of those brain changes. Many people like to be alone, I am one of those. There is no better image of hell to me than living in a big city or doing the club thing. I would be perfectly content snowed into a swiss mountain cabin alone for 8 months as long as I had internet.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
...When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography...
I think you should have learned something by now.
And it has since the beginning of "civilization".
The top 10% of men in genetics or wealth get all of the benefits. The bottom 90% get to die in wars and in mines and in workplace accidents, supporting the harems and lifestyles of their "betters". If they don't die they go home to a woman who wishes she were still young and pretty enough to bag one of the alphas and she takes it out on him daily. His kids, coworkers and relatives don't respect him because for the last 50 years the western advertising machine has been propagating the message that the average man is boring, tedious, and disposable.
Unlike reality videogames generally give you guaranteed reward for the amount of time you put into them. And competition is fundamentally fair since everyone starts at the same place. As opposed to reality where your ending status is very much determined by your starting status.
Some men just aren't born to compete, and don't have the innate resilience to keep trying despite repeated failures. That doesn't mean those men are less deserving of happiness and satisfaction and peace, they just have to find their own and ignore the bullshit that "society" keeps heaping on them.
When I read that people with aspergers tend to become excessive video game addicts, and that aspergers is more common in men ranging from 2 to 1 to 4 to 1 I need something a little more meaty when someone makes a claim that Video Games are creating a masculinity crisis. How about aspergers patents are creating a bias in your sample, and that a more acceptable explanation of your results because your "symptoms" of the video game masculinity crisis are oddly identical to aspergers.
Then those societies will go into decline.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Could it also be that is such a social problem to hunt, fish, and spend time in nature doing what Men were engineered to do? Nope, if you hunt, you are automatically labeled today as a gun loving, bible toting, climate denier, and racist, to name a few.
"Phillip Zimbardo says his study into the lives of 20,000 young men and their relationships with video games and pornography demonstrates that this relatively new phenomenon is affecting the minds of young men. " I see no links to a scientific publication nor any in the independent link. Where is this apparent study actually published? Instead we just seem to have a book for a popular audience.
"When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected" - loser.
If there wasn't pr0n for losers like this, he'd be doing the same thing with dept. store catalogs. This is nothing new, what's new is the internet feeding into it.
Or with his sister's "Seventeen" mags (or from the watching the Disney Channel)...
UPS Sucks
Only if you're a pussy and buy your girlfriend shit. If she says you need to buy her shit to prove you love her, run the other way, fast.
So much for wanting equality. All women want to do is use men for their wallets, and then when they start losing their ability to do so because they are losing their beauty, they settle down with the stable guys they've rejected their whole lives.
Then you're dating the wrong women. My wife isn't that way. She doesn't have a real diamond engagement ring (and she know it - she'd have killed me for spending $ 2+K on a ring.)
Date a shallow woman, Get a shallow woman. Date an interesting woman, Get an interesting woman.
UPS Sucks
When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected.
When exactly did "masculinity" required being interested in school?
Moreover, second part suggest that guy in question is more interested in sex then in relationship. First, when exactly was "masculinity" defined as opposite preference? The boy "just wanting a sex from her" is not exactly new invention, more like an old masculine stereotype. Second, the guy in question replaced "just sex from her" by "just sex from porn" and I do not even think it is worst, cause no girl is going to hope for relationship just to find out there is no romance in store afterwards.
Yeah yeah, thinking about how to make boys more engaged in school is worthy goal given that girls are doing better in school overall. Yeah yeah, that romance and relationship thing is important in the very long run and it is good to teach kids that. Blaming every uninterested boy on games might be misleading through and blaming boy lack of emotional maturity at the time when his hormones already work on port might be misleading too.
Today women are batshit crazy and ANY mistake (and notice the important detail that can be a mistake only in their view and be a completely banal thing for the rest of humanity.) with then can completely wreck yoyr life, maybe forever. So, why bother with them? Better to carry on your own life alone.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Odds are stacked against men. From the fake "rape culture" propaganda and an environment that ensures if she regrets a hook up you will too, stacked courts, diminishing reasons to get married. Why hook up with a woman when she can change her mind, take at minimum half your stuff, and if you have kids the courts are stacking in such a way that a man will lose?
Men are playing video games and retreating from women and normal society in general because masculine men have an uphill battle to fight. When even former places of refuge for men to be masculine are attempting to force masculinity out of society men are retreating even further into their own self contained worlds.
3rd wave feminist recognized that men were retreating into games so they created the Gamer Gate fiasco which was nothing more than a false flag bitch-a-thon trying to take over that refuge as well. It's still a bit early to say, but I think they failed, but since Gamer Gate was nothing more than a political move rest assured, there will be another double-downed attempt to destroy that refuge again.
Here's a really good book on the subject written by a woman no less, so don't dismiss it as just men sitting around bitching.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
It sounds like you're investing a considerable amount of time in dating and discovering what sort of partner would be suitable to you. People these days don't want to invest a lot of time in an activity in exchange for very little gratification. People want instant amusement that they can turn on and off at their convenience:
Working on personal programming project.
Need a porn break.
Porn break finished, back to programming.
Need a gaming break.
Gaming finished, back to programming.
It's a fun lifestyle. I don't have time for some woman who needs constant attention, wants to do things I have no interest in, needs things buying for her so she can feel loved. The reward simply isn't worth the time and money you have to invest.
There's a reason many first word countries are developing an ageing population - it's because these days people have much better things to do. Fewer people want to lock themselves into decades of marital hell. They're rather spend their time playing games, watching porn or pursuing their other interests.
You're a 100% Solaria type. Disgusting.
There is more to life than just masturbating to internet porn and living in your own sick bubble.
Sex Ed should have a "technique" component that does something to at least inform kids what kind of behaviors are expected and liked by potential sex partners and what preferences they have that their partners are unlikely to share.
I'd wager more than a few date rape scenarios result from frustration borne of people who don't know what the other person wants or how to please them.
(Standard disclaimer applies, date rape is bad, no means no, etc etc etc).
You've described my life in 5 lines!
and the "games needs internet access to work" generation are pulling their puds? Wouldn't the bonus of that be less teen pregnancy?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Since we are talking hypothetical impacts. To me, it sounds like this will have a direct impact on the perceived "Rape Culture" that I keep hearing that is happening on our campuses? If young guys are choosing pr0n and video games over RL girls, what is the impact? It sounds to me like POWNING each other online is more important than doing it in RL. Add that to the debunking of previous studies that showed a relationship between online violence and RL violence--and yet still repeated by elected officials--I see no issue.
The common link in all your failed relationships is you. (This isn't a dig at the parent post, it's agreement.)
If you keep dating people that are bad for you, it's because you're picking the wrong people, or putting yourself in situations where you're only meeting the wrong people. And maybe if everyone you end up with--regardless of where you look--is toxic to you, you should sit down and figure out if it's you and not them.
The minimum requirement for being in a relationship with someone is being in good working order, emotionally. If you can't sit down and know that that's true, you should probably work that bit out first.
My wife and I will occasionally go out to a club on Saturday nights.
While we are a little older than the "average" attendee, we are friends with many of the other regulars, and have a wonderful time when we go. We'll both spend a lot of time out on the dance floor, both separately and together. Because I am one of the few men who will get our and dance, I have often found myself literally surrounded by women, more than once having them grind on me. Meanwhile several single men, many of them younger and at least as physically attractive as me, do little more than wander around and mutter lame pick-up lines at women they find attractive (including my wife...yes, I'm a lucky man!) Most of these men only show up once or twice, and if they don't get an immediate offer of sex, they leave.
This particular club also maintains a small online group, primarily to allow members to let each other know when we're going, and to allow prospective members to post questions and receive answers. Our moderation team has lost track of the number of men who post some variant of "Who's looking to fuck?" I find it sad that so many people aren't willing to put in even a small bit of effort. I imagine that most of these men are the same ones who fill their lives with porn and video games, as it provides a modicum of reward for very little effort.
As a result, I have tried to instill in my kids the philosophy that "Life is a Mirror," in that the thoughts and emotions you put out into the world will be reflected back to you.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
pr0n costs much less than a girlfriend
You're doing it wrong.
And, frankly, all the people modding you insightful are doing it wrong too.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Philip Zimbardo is just a grumpy husk of the man that he used to be. Pun intended.
Or, there is a simple solution: embrace it.
The "crisis" comes from these pornosexual men feeling guilt for not conforming to outdated masculinity ideals. Now that they're altered, they don't _need_ sex, or _need_ women; porn is more satisfying and can fill all their sexual needs if they educate themselves on masturbation. This is liberating in the sense that sex becomes a choice, that you're in a relationship not because you need sex, but because it benefits both of you to be together.
The same goes for trading the mythical, idealized "having a life" with videogames + Internet. If they "had a life" they would find that it's not what it's cracked up to be; that it's not partying and friendships, but is instead dull and dreary at its best for most people. When compared to what a guy can get from videogames + Internet this "life" is a crappy deal. That they want "a life" is a sign that they don't know what that means, or how it realistically compares to the experience of videogames + Internet.
Life, without quotes, encompasses videogames + Internet; the difference that I'm evangelizing is that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in giving a much stronger focus to the digital life. It's better.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
There is more to life than just masturbating to internet porn and living in your own sick bubble.
Why? If that makes you happy who cares?
No need to worry about some pro-athletes beating or murdering people, or frat boys in their perpetual rape and disorderly conduct sprees. Just find someone on the skirts of society to blame.
I'm old enough to have seen the change in porn over the decades -- and to be honest, I think it's taken a turn that might not be helpful.
While I'm talking in general terms of course, porn has become a lot more demeaning and aggressive towards women in recent years. Compare porn from the 70s or 80s and you will often see women more involved or in control of the action as it were, and having more fun and pleasure (even though yes it's acting obviously) . Today's porn has a lot of aggression, both in terms of the act itself and the language (I actually get turned off by the way many men talk during porn, 'take that cock b-tch' -- wtf is that?), and you often see women looking actually uncomfortable, sometimes it's almost a kind of implied rape -- I've noticed this in a lot of Asian porn.
IF young men today are getting their cues on sexuality and intimacy from that type of porn, I think it's not unreasonable to say there will be a disconnect when it comes to the real thing -- when you have a woman who has her own wants and needs, and isn't just an emotionless toy to be played with, even abused.
If there's one thing the world needs, it's more masculinity.
Play Command HQ online
Then you're dating the wrong women. My wife isn't that way. She doesn't have a real diamond engagement ring (and she know it - she'd have killed me for spending $ 2+K on a ring.)
Ditto here. Married 13 years now with a $100 cubic zirconia ring.
Date a shallow woman, Get a shallow woman. Date an interesting woman, Get an interesting woman.
You forgot the most important bit: be an interesting man, be able to date an interesting woman.
If your life revolves around video games, by definition you're a shallow person. I might be interested in a brief conversation with a person about the latest games, but if that's the extent of your interests then it's going to be a short conversation. Mix porn into the conversation, and I'm looking for a fast out.
Even if there was some approved curriculum for dating based on scientific evidence, which there isn't, it wouldn't be politically correct to teach. Teaching that there is "a way" to reduce rejection implies manipulation. Teaching that people can or should change who they are in order to be more attractive goes against "be yourself" and getting awards for doing nothing.
Most teachers I know -- and I know quite a few -- have hopeless romantic lives anyway. Listening to them lecture about dating is like listening to Rob Gronkowski wax philosophic. Learn from people who don't know what they're doing at your own peril.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
sex education in schools — which should focus not only on biology and safety, but also on emotions, physical contact and romantic relationships."
I was sexually harassed as a young boy, so now I avoid human touch, closeness and relationships. I also indirectly killed a senior officer during my service by driving him to suicide, unknowingly. I blame myself although I'm not responsible for it. Games and pornography have been a welcome anxiety and pain lowering self-help device, although I still got these unconscious "murder lust ticks" wanting to kill everybody around me. Shame is a devastating emotion.
And I here thinking that Porn and Video games turn men into violent misogynists...
The "conclusions" of "abnormal behavior" were made from observations that kids would rather be at home playing instead of sitting in a class AND from the fact that young humans will seek sexual satisfaction but avoid rejection.
That sounds like something a ROBOT might find strange.
Not a human being. Particularly not one who actually went through puberty at some point in their life.
In short... like most psychology studies out there, this too is most probably bullshit.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Is that a bad thing?
I've been wondering why all the whining that EU population is declining (for example). Let it decline. Sure, this might bring some problems in the long term but there's always population pressure from other parts of the world.
Yes, maybe within 50-100 years the most common names in Europe would have African or Arabic origins. Maybe the majority in the USA will be of Asian or Central/South American origin. So what?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
... most of the comments here scare the sh-t out of me.
A lot of people whining that the world isn't fair to men, are you fucking kidding me? Who gets raped, men? RARELY. And the whole 'so many women falsely accuse men of rape'. That's total fucking bullshit.
Who has to actually carry a child to term, and possibly raise them alone when the man bails, men? Who still are generally underpaid compared the other sex, men. Who runs the vast majority of the governments and writes the laws, men.
I know lots of young egotistical narcissistic young men who think they're fucking so special that if a women rejects their 'charms', suddenly they're a b-tch or a c-nt. Comments above demonstrate the point perfectly.
C'mon people, I'm not promoting self-flagellation, but seriously do you REALLY think that way?
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Having slain hundreds of thousands with people all across the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, southeast Asia in general, England, Germany, Russia, India... The list goes on.
Also, fuck your ideas of masculinity, Marlboro Man. Get over here so we can pretend it's the 50s that never were, and I can punch you in the face then drink some scotch.
I haven't played much of World of Warcraft lately. I haven't even renewed my subscription lately. I do have a few low level characters that I keep in the capital cities to monitor the trade chat and auction house. I know, I can't buy anything from the auction house with a starter account. Why did I stop my subscription? I'm a poor college student that can't afford to pay $15 a month for a fee. Don't laugh. I need to budget my money between tuition, school supplies, bus fare, food, dorm room fees, flip phone, ect. No, I don't even have a smart phone. I'm trying to save money. I already spent a bunch on a new laptop.
about porn:
Yes, porn does not show the realities of sex and love. I rarely see people talking about love or having a child. I haven't seen people cuddle much in porn except for the lesbian stuff. Even then, the cuddling only lasts 15 seconds before the clothes start flying off. Maybe I'm more into the romance side of a date. Yeah, I'm starting to dislike some of the porn that I found.
Nobody in porn is rejected. I only saw one clip where a woman rejected a man's advance in a reality porn clip. The woman even kicked the guy in his testicles. lol.
*steps off soap box* Maybe I should write a longer article on Reddit about my views on porn. Yes, I am serious.
and certainly not PC to say it but after she has 'slutted ' it around until her 30's and her clock is ticking what does the bring to the relationship you cant get elsewhere ?
sexist pig , Misogynistic dinosaur ? maybe but most oppions are like most people worthless.
I've read through many of the posts and I see that most people don't seem to understand that porn addiction is a real thing. I recently found that I am addicted to porn. It takes far less porn than I previously thought to become addicted. I didn't spend all my waking hours watching it, usually just an hour or two per day, but it was enough.
I have "always" had problems with social anxiety, lack of motivation, lethargy, erectile dysfunction and timidity when dealing with women. Porn addiction caused all of that. Since I quit using porn three weeks ago, I am making good process in recovering and these issues are slowly getting better. My recovery is fairly rapid because I am older (41), so I didn't grow up with internet porn being available. Other guys who have grown up with it are taking much longer. I recently read a post by a guy who has been recovering for 6 years and is finally getting to the point where his porn induced erectile dysfunction is going away.
This is a real problem that needs more attention. Internet porn is killing masculinity.
If you want to know more, check out these links. They may not be work safe.
http://yourbrainonporn.com
http://nofap.com
Search YouTube for 'The great porn experiment'
Claiming harmful male behavior is normal.
Fuck those societies.
Anyone who has experienced family court will tell you the following (from a different AC) is true:
I will point out that a common belief among men in America, be it true or false, is that women:
1) are very demanding in romantic relationships.
2) are not very giving in romantic relationships.
3) are fickle and will leave you as soon as they get bored (with no concern over how much of an emotional attachment you have to them).
4) are not interested in much of anything that men find engaging, and won't join men in men's lives so much as pull men out into the woman's lives.
Such societies don't deserve to survive.
Addiction is bad, news at 11.
indeed
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Blizzard employs several full time psychologists to time the drops in their games. There are many aspects of game design which are about spacing out reward stimulus and the results are pretty much identical to drug use. When somebody talks about WoW addiction that is absolutely accurate. It's a pretty simple mechanism: the player performs actions and recieves a reward triggering endorphins. In real life rewards are often spaced very far apart and the actions performed are often tedious. In a properly designed game the actions are at a bare minimum not annoying to perform and you need to perform far less of them to get a reward. People are becoming addicted to short term rewards. CoD is based on a very similar principle. I am normally skeptical of this sort of "these younguns" reasoning, but in this case it is simply evidence that the games are working as they were intended to by the creators. By the way, I love video games and in fact am actively working to become a professional game designer. It is this particular type of game design that I am criticizing. There are many others which aren't so insidious and ethically problematic.
I also didn't buy my wife a diamond ring. She picked out her own ring, and got one with a green tourmaline instead. Much cheaper; beautiful stone.
Can we form a club?
Early 20's millennial checking in as AC...
By using porn several times per week, I am able to explore my male sexuality and achieve extremely full orgasms whenever I want. I am able to come when I want to and have naughtier thoughts than my current FWB/GF is interested in entertaining as often as I have them. The last time I had a dry spell of women, I remember that I used to contemplate that porn was bad for me and was doing me no good. I happen to be a hardcore RTS player at a high level, which means that I might game for 3-4 hours and then watch porn before bed. The example used in the article sounds like an individual that not only has a hard time getting women, but also might not even be sexually liberated or empowered unlike myself.
Since I both
1. get laid frequently
2. play hardcore RTS games
3. watch porn almost daily
All I can do is laugh at the article a bit and point out this is my experience with porn and hardcore gaming has been completely difference. One comment I want to say is that:
1. world of warcraft gamers are not normal people and people who are "with a girl and would rather be watching porn" and not normal/sane.
2. The doctor in the BBC interview is a complete quack. Its absolutely insane to listen to him. PID?! Porn induced erectile dysfunction?!3
Boys are spending too much time with video games and pornography.
Got to share this on facebook!
In your own mind, lol.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Modern US male brains could use a re-wire. It might actually kill off the MRAs.
If your life revolves around video games, by definition you're a shallow person. I might be interested in a brief conversation with a person about the latest games, but if that's the extent of your interests then it's going to be a short conversation.
I know where you are coming from, but I find that a tad offensive as a general statement. Certainly if somebody essentially lives for the next big budget release they probably don't have much to contribute, but video games as a field are broad complex and fascinating. Understanding them requires knowledge of technology, psychology, drama, economics...name any major category of human endeavour and I'm sure I can come up with a way that it is relevant to video games.
Thanks to my marriage, I'm on the hook for 20 years of giving up 20% of my paycheck. Although I love my daughter, every single other aspect of my marriage destroyed me -- loss of income means living in a basement apartment with little sunlight but centipedes and poor heating because that's all I could afford. I was an emotional wreck for a year. My wife didn't love me, and attempting to find a girlfriend since then has been fruitless -- the women I meet who are willing to date me are hardly the cream of the crop. I'm better off watching porn than seeking the admiration of women who themselves seek the money I don't have.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
So are you saying he's not spending enough on pr0n?
Exactly. After a string of toxic relationships I realized I was chasing women that needed to be saved. Trouble is, they always needed to be saved, they never stayed saved. They always had problems that had to be fixed by someone else, ie, me.
Once I realized this, I made a point of avoiding women that were 'vulnerable' in the sense that they were on the tipping point of needing to be saved. The woman I married was self-sufficient and took care of her own problems when I met her, and if anything I provide that soundingboard for her to sanity-check ideas against and to vent to. On an entirely practical level I can take care of things that were previously contracted-out (ie, auto repair, house maintenance, technical support) but she knows how to get these things dealt with if necessary; if her car breaks down she can have it towed without requiring me to drop everything and rush to her side. We make each others' lives better, but we can each stand as individuals and take care of things without excessive drama. It allows us to be together because we want to be together, not because we're not functional in a co-dependent state.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
women are hard wired to raise babies. its true men are heavily involved in childrearing, im not disputing that. but women had to be evolutionarily hard wired to care for infants, and are essentially the sole parent for the first year or 3. other adults matter, but the mother is there 24/7 in a traditional family, going back to the dawn of homo sapiens. so that means women will default to viewing creatures they fall in love with as babies to be raised. so if you are a man (or woman), a cat, a horse, who is loved by a woman, she will want to change you, and mold you into the type of person she feels you must be. women can fight this programming, but they should remember that it IS programming, at the biological level. mens programming is more diffuse, and has to do more with role modeling and providing information and guidance in later years, when a child is more hard wired and less capable of being directly changed. so us men will always bristle when women try to change us, as they are trying to alter things that were put in us by our own mothers. good luck with that. mens job is to reject violence and aggression as the default response to stress, and women need to reject trying to change people with their love. just a hypothesis.
Date an interesting woman, Get an interesting woman.
Too much work. Can't I just clone an interesting woman?
If the guys are becoming less outgoing towards women, how does that then affect young women? Seen from their point of view, they must have a harder time finding love in this cold world of pr0n and WoW. It could be interesting to hear their side of the story, and it could also confirm Zimbardo's theory.
Sure, why not.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
watching porn (or simply, people having sex, romance) is not allowed by many religions long time ago! so the point is its better to follow, at least one, religion and learn from it, you will always be in safer side
Sounds like these relationships as-described are codependent, with more of the codependency resting on the man's side than the woman's. I've seen plenty of codependency the other direction too, where the woman essentially loses her life as she knows it to be with the man. Perhaps the best approach would be for both parties to be honest with their hobbies and interests, to date people that have some common hobbies and interests, and to continue to maintain their own separate hobbies while guaranteeing the sanctity of the other person's hobbies, within reasonable bounds.
I've been married for approaching a decade. I have not had to give up any of my hobbies from before I got married. I have had to make some choices as to what materiel related to said I hobbies I have kept or continue to acquire, but my wife does not force me to give up anything that interests me. I still have my model rockets, my drum set, my cars, my computers, my tools, my ham radio gear, my Legos, my science fiction collectables, my movies, etc. I did sell one of my two drum sets, I am capped at five vehicles, I don't buy tools unless I need them but given that I just bought a two-post vehicle lift I'm certainly not restricted, I continue to build model rockets. The only real purge has been to go through and get rid of obsolete computer parts, but there's no need to keep ISA cards and 50-pin SCSI cables, or too many 40-pin IDE cables. She also has her hobbies and interests, and she has not had to give up any of their constituent materials beyond normal housekeeping either.
I wonder if the biggest problem here is the blanket generalization of women. Being demanding in a relationship is not a trait of all women. Unwillingness to give is not a trait of all women. Being fickle is not a trait of all women. Being disinterested is not a trait of all women. Sure, there are women to whom some of these traits apply, and there are probably women to which all of these traits apply, but there are also men to which some or all of these traits apply too. If someone is experiencing these conditions, then one needs to re-evaluate where one is meeting women; a change of scene is in order.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
My girlfriend's son, who is 26, is very much in this category so I see it first hand. He has next to zero human interaction, has no real education, no employment, nothing. In fact I rarely see him even though he lives in the same house. He sleeps all day and only generally comes out at night as to limit his interaction with other people. His life is WoW, he does nothing, has nothing and doesn't much care about anything or anyone else other than WoW. If I limit or block Internet access he can become violent and has threatened to kill himself. I am *very* serious about this. He is in counseling and on all kinds of meds, but unfortunately he is receiving state sponsored (aka welfare) counseling and they have absolutely no clue what they're talking about. We just don't have the money to send him to a real counselor or psychiatrist. They are under the notion that he suffers from "antisocial personality disorder" and although I agree this may be part or symptom of the problem, it is not the root of the matter. I work in IT and have been in the field for 26 years. I lived through the 80's with the whole Dungeons and Dragons scare, heavy metal music concerns and all that but this addiction is in fact true and concernedly more often than not misdiagnosed because the counselors just don't understand it. They probably never really will because it deals with a completely new and alternate form of reality. One that isn't made up and confined to a single individual. It is an alternate reality which can be controlled and manipulated to their own ends and not true reality which they have no control. I often think that if it weren't for the Internet and WoW, he would be diagnosed as schizophrenic with a mild bipolar disorder.
Ding, ding, ding.
Relationship portrayal in media is ridiculously far off from healthy relationships. Oafish, meek men in shows, moves, etc. are constantly shown as walking wallets who's sole goal in life is to please some insufferable, raging twat. It's infuriating. It's the equivalent of children watching Disney Channel shows, and using it as a model for how to interact with their parents.
So, ya, don't chase shallow, selfish women.
It's really that simple. Interacting with real people takes effort. People just don't want to do it anymore. For boys more effort is required finding a relationship with a girl. Many are just too lazy to go through it now.
Played WOW for 10 years, asheron's call before that and had no issues stopping to go on dates and get laid.
Sounds like they just interviewed people who are afraid of rejection. It's part of game guys.
In particular with regards to gender roles.
So, time was women were for making babies and raising said babies. Men were for protecting and providing for the women. That was the roles society prescribed and there wasn't a lot of deviation from it. You did see outliers that didn't conform, but by and large that's how things were basically due to necessity. You notice many animals follow a similar structure. It is what is needed for the survival of the species.
Well that all changed, of course. We now have the problem of too many humans, not too few. Also many of the household tasks that used to take a ton of time are now automated (try washing clothes by hand, it is a full time job almost). So society changed. Women didn't need to place their worth in their offspring anymore. They could choose to be what the wanted, do what they wanted, and still be valuable. It wasn't about popping out babies.
Well, this is the other side of that: Men's value now no longer needs to be in providing for a family. They can have a family, or not, they work, they can stay at home, etc, etc. For some men, that means staying single.
However, some people, like this dude, have a problem with that. They think that men should be required to be providers to be considered "real men", should be required to fill a particular role in society.
All this shit boils down to what they see coming: the White race becoming a minority within God's Own Country (USA).
From the very beginning, the anti-abortion movement has not been "Save the babies!", but rather "Save the WHITE babies!!"
Your wife sounds awesome, can you hook me up ?
As if we didn't already have enough evidence for a "masculinity crisis", we now have this study.
And I want to give kudos to the Slashdot editors for being able to resist putting up MRA clickbait until today. For a second, on Friday, I thought you'd decided to forego this valuable (though de-masculized) demographic.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What if I like both having sex and watching porn? What if I like both video games and hanging out with friends?
People say this often but if 1/10 women aren't shallow, what do the other 9/10 males do?
Most of the developed Asian countries have extremely low birth rates and their populations will start to shrink in a couple decades.
If it requires dating 10 girls to find a good one, that 1/10 ratio bodes poorly for the male populace.
Who here thinks watching porn causes men to not be able to get erections with women? Dumb.
A more relevant question they should be asking is why are men seeking escapes form society? The assumption he's making is that this is just an addiction and that men would otherwise WANT to be part of society. But most of the people that get sucked off into games and pornography are checking out.
That is an effect and not a cause. The cause is that there are various things in modern society that are hostile to young men. We can all feel it. And if that becomes stressful and alienating then why not check out? What is society offering you to make you want to participate?
A big part of how societies work is that they encourage, reward, and facilitate constructive participation in a group culture and society. But if given members of that society do not feel encouraged, rewarded, or able to organize then that leads to disconnection. Men drop off the system.
And since they're not doing anything productive they might as well entertain themselves.
And thus the games.
Look at the college rates. They're not only not graduating but they're not even going in the first place. That is people that are checking out. They don't see the point of investing the time and energy and so they don't.
If you want to change that then you effect it THERE. Treating the symptoms won't do anything for you.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This is clearly a natural conclusion of women's and society's ongoing erosion of the value of masculinity and the traditional male role, and even the value of men's lives compared to women's lives.
It seems to me that all the attention in society is still on women''s rights, and if you even mention mens rghts many people think you're soft in the head or something, or worse yet, just done something "socially unacceptable".
For example, even though approximately equal numbers of men are kiled by prostate cancer as women killed by breast cancer, but were is the vast majority of the attention and money going?
(http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/05/breast-cancer-receives-much-more-research-funding-publicity-than-prostate-cancer-despite-similar-number-of-victims/)
Its very subliminal too, for example next time you watch TV note how the media NEARLY ALWAYS portray men as more stupid and lazy than women, (in pretty much every commercial the butt of the "joke" is a dumb man who is shown up because he's too stupid to use the same product as the woman).
Basically societiy is continually reasserting a strong message to men that we are very much 2nd-class citizens and should just count ourselves lucky if some women even gives us the chance to date her, and it goes without saying that most women think most men should pay for everything during the date and do all the other things that demonstrate themeselves as being subsurvient.
For example did you know the Birkenhead Drill ("women and children first") was only invented in the early 1850s? Note I have no problem with children first as there is actually some logic to it, but the implicit belief that one person's life is more valuable than another's just because "vagina" is insulting and damaging.
I won't even get into the ongioing massively high suicide rate of young men that indicates a serious societal problem is still going unaddressed.
Is it really any wonder then, that most young men are desperately finding alternatives to the current value system of this society?
Isn't that what this really boils down, not some bullshit about masculinity? Women watch soap operas because it's more exciting than their boring life, men play video games so we can be greater than the insignificant little peons that we are. And in porn the most beautiful women will perform for you even if you're fatter than the marshmallow man and uglier than a troll. We have immersive enough solutions that the body is fooled to play out almost all its chemical registry with endorphin, adrenaline, dopamine and so on letting you fake all the excitement and rewards as you slay imaginary dragons.
The problem is that it's addictive and desensitizing, if you're on a constant rush of awards and achievements and level-ups and whatnot then real life is a real downer. Not entirely unlike how I hear people on drugs describe coming off their high or how fat people act when they come off a sugar rush. So through a combination of actual reality check, batting outside your league because of failed self-perception and being poor at handling disinterest or rejection the result is often a painful face-plant. Once bitten, twice shy so you rather watch porn and play video games than try again.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
More junk science. Where are the double blind clinically controlled trials or the cohort studies? Oh wait, it's just someone pushing their pet theory again, using a database search to do a bit of post hoc justification. Are you SURE it wasn't because someone touched them as a child or that they want to have sex with their mothers? Let's have the prospective studies then figure out if the claim is true.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Believe it or not, many of us who are orthodox (not Eastern Orthodox, just tradition-focused conservatives) Christians would more or less agree with you here. Focus on the Family actually puts out some rancid garbage on relationships, basically encouraging young men to be simpering "nice guys" who act like they're unworthy of the woman in their life. They can't stand the idea of men standing up, having a mission (which may genuinely never include marriage and a family) and living how they want to live within the limits of morality.
MGTOW and other reactions are actually not controversial among orthodox Christians because unlike modern Evangelicals, we understand that there's nothing contrary to God's plan about men not getting married. In fact, we would tell many young men that it's better to not get married at all than to get married to a woman who is not willing to be a real wife (whether she has a job or stays at home). The reality is that many, many women do not want to be wives today so it's better to simply not get married than to be shackled to that.
It's not just porn and MMORGs. The Verge posted a story on slot machines where the industry puts a LOT of effort into figuring out what kind of bells and whistles best hit the reward-center of your brain to keep you playing. Now, designers of other kinds of games are getting in on it:
"I can’t tell you how often I’ve been approached since the publication of my book by Silicon Valley types who say things like, ‘Wow, the gambling industry really seems to have a handle on this attention retention problem that we’re all facing,'" Schüll told me. "'Will you come tell our designers how to do a better job?’"
Check out the thing they call the "zone", where players get so absorbed by the machine they pay no attention to their surroundings.
To understand the zone, you first have to understand "flow," the concept developed by Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to describe a hyperfocused state of absorption. During "flow," time speeds up (hours feel like minutes) or slows down (reactions can be made instantly) and the mind reaches a state of almost euphoric equilibrium. Schüll, in her book, describes Csikszentmihaly’s four criteria of flow: "[F]irst, each moment of the activity must have a little goal; second, the rules for attaining that goal must be clear; third, the activity must give immediate feedback; fourth, the tasks of the activity must be matched with challenge." For most of their history, slots easily fulfilled the first two criteria; after lowering volatility, they fulfilled the third criterion, and with the introduction of multiple lines, endless bonus rounds, and the occasional mini-game, they finally fulfilled the four criteria.
If you've ever taking a stroll through a casino, you've seen this. No reason it can't go on in some kid's bedroom.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
I was pretty literally told that at my college orientation - 10 minutes after it was pointed out that campus security was entirely handled by local police with arrest powers, and orders to enforce campus policies, we were taken to the dorms and it was casually mentioned that the university policy on sexual consent allowed the female partner to revoke consent retroactively, and one had to get verbal permission every time some new kind or level of intimacy was reached during a sexual encounter.
Standards were relaxed twice in my last two years, but I sure wasn’t interested in dating on-campus - any time I had any passing interest, I flashed back to the dorms, and the interest quickly passed.
If someone is experiencing these conditions, then one needs to re-evaluate where one is meeting women; a change of scene is in order.
While I do agree with that, it's also a problem in itself. My nephew often talks to me since play lots of games together. He has some gaming and anime stuff he bought himself (posters, figures, clothing, ect). Nothing disturbing or extreme. He's in highschool so his dating scene is his school. He's a good player in the local basketball team and is outgoing so he has no trouble finding new dates, but they never last. As soon as he brings one home and she sees his room, they always lose interest and break up. I try to cheer him up and remind him that not all girls are like that but after 6 break ups with various types of girls, he's getting quite frustrated. I wouldn't be surprised if he either became a "video game and porn addict", or got rid of his stuff to appear "normal".
Can the women who never asked for a ring join as well?
I mean, I asked him, too, so I was never entitled to one, but still, I'd very much like to befriend your wives so we can high-five each other for being awesome.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
porn and video games.
This person is a hack. What he is seeing is a well-documented effect that is not that new. For example
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/w...
describes it well. The problem is basically that the dating-game is not worthwhile playing for the more dependable "beta males" anymore, (who are perfect for founding a family), because younger women all go for the alphas and because whenever something goes wrong with a marriage or relationship with children, these days the man is the one that will get screwed over by the legal system. The betas have arranged themselves with this and found alternatives. ("Women - can't live with them, _can_ live without them.") Porn is a substitute, not a cause. And it saves all that tedious and stupid "romance" thing. (Not all women want that stupidity, some just want a decent guy. These are rare though.) Same for gaming. It is entertainment. It tickles your fantasy life and it is often quite the opposite of solitary. The whole traditional role model thing is just not attractive for men anymore and there are plenty of alternate ways to live your life. For example, working less than full-time and doing interesting things with the time you gain and still living well.
That Zimbardo apparently completely misses this is just pathetic. Do not listen to this person. He is a conservative traditionalist that regards any deviation from the established "normal" patterns as pathological.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Zimbardo has two premises/theories and I would say one is completely normal behavior not warranting much further study (maybe a study just to disprove it) and another that probably warrants further study. Video and computer games making it distracting for young males in classes or work is just normal behavior. My experience with male friends and colleagues who both played games and those who didn't show it's really just a desire to do something more interesting than sit in class or spend time working. I've been in classes myself where I would prefer playing games, reading a book, or just walking around outside. It's not computer games that are making males distracted in class, but computer games have probably become most young males preferred recreational activity. The other premise regarding porn versus other romantic interactions has actually become a more popular topic of late. The premise is basically the entire point of the movie Don Jon starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as having difficulties with romantic relationships because how porn has influenced his ideas of romance. There is also a greater cry for study from people are trying to figure out if porn habits influence college rapes. I think it will be difficult to prove as a kind of chicken-egg scenario, but there will likely be a significant correlation.
Get real. The real world imposes limits on who you can be, and it should. For example, if "expression of yourself as who you are" means murdering innocent people, then no, you don't have a right to be that.
If expressing yourself means women don't want you, that's great. Be single. If you wan't women, you will have to change your behaviors in ways that make you attractive to them. That is totally reasonable and also how things should work.
Expressing yourself without making any compromise for the benefit of those that have to put up with you, and pounding your fist and demanding that women should love you and spend their time with you anyway, is ridiculously entitled.
Thanks. I'm a woman and I'm not that way either. I don't even have an engagement ring - the idea of being proposed to made me sick, instead we decided to get married together like an adult couple making an adult decision together. I wasn't going to sit around idly while he was deciding when/if WE were getting married - that's something we should decide on together. We don't care to buy each other presents or anything like that - neither of us are into material objects and rarely want anything plus we don't need to buy each other crap to prove we love each other.
I swear /. is full of idiots whose idea of a all women is a caricature that doesn't even exist. They also somehow don't recognize that their entire caricature falls on its head when you consider lesbians and bisexuals exist.
Guy doesn't like girls but watches porn. He must be sick.
This is Physiology, the field of study where you never validate your results. Once I see this exact study verified by several researchers and across isolated double blind teams then I'll believe it.
This isn't a surprise. He's probably just as interested in girls not suited to his interests and not interested in the girls that he has so many hobbies in common-with as they are with him.
There's only so much time in the day. It sounds like he's chasing the girls that put a lot of effort into their appearance, which aren't typically the girls that are in to these hobbies. It's not impossible that there are girls that are way in to their appearance that like these same things, but they're not very common.
Once he matures and gets out of high school he'll end up with different circles. It makes it a lot easier when one chooses who to associate with, rather than being so artificially bundled together.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This is the problem. The "good ones" get snapped up on both sides. I've seen the friends who didn't pair off in their mid 20's suffer greatly as they try to date the leftovers in their early 30's. These are the people you hear the most complaining from, most of the rest of us are fine.
...do you ever shut up? If you want people to read your posts, put fewer words in them!
Some guys experience a lot more rejection than others. That creates frustrative non-reward. You and your friends are obviously not in this category, so you can't empathize with those who are. But your dismissive attitude towards guys that chicks don't want is very egocentric.
I takes meeting lots of women to find the one that's compatible with you. The others that are not compatible with you may be compatible with other men. Just as the one that is compatible with you might not be compatible with lots of other men.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
While the guys with Neanderthal brains are out at bars trying to get laid, I'm living a comfortable, safe, and happy life. While they're getting exposed to STDs, drugs, accidental pregnancies, rough divorce settlements, paying child support, spouse abuse (either as the perpetrator or the victim), defaulting on their home because their spouse talked them into living above their means, etc. etc. etc..... I am living in a small single-bed apartment alone, making good money, playing video games (mostly MMOs) for social interaction, and listening to music to tame my biological cravings.
Not to mention, my choice not to reproduce helps the population problem -- at least in the span of a few decades, if not the long term. There is not a single problem that humankind has that can be solved by making more people. In fact, making more people does exactly the opposite for nearly all of our problems; it makes them more severe and reduces the length of time we have until those problems erupt into global catastrophes.
I don't *want or need* a woman. I don't *want or need* a romantic relationship with anyone. I don't want kids. I don't want any of the associated problems that come with either. It's been completely wired out of me.
I am basically an exact description of the type of person the study was about. And yet, I am not unhappy; I am not unsuccessful; I am not a loser. I am an environmentally-conscious, socially-reponsible citizen, supporter of my community, dedicated employee, educated voter and participant in the political process, and I have my fair share of social interaction, too, on the order of 6 to 8 hours per day on MMOs. Just because I don't touch the people I socialize with doesn't somehow make me diseased. I am a very social person. I am "socially intelligent". I can pick up on body language cues, implied meaning in conversation, the intent behind vocal intonation, the significance of a touch. I deal with people in meatspace for eight hours a day, and people in virtual space for another 6 to 8.
Medicine and academia has a tendency to call anything abnormal a disease, or a problem to be solved. Sometimes change is for the better. Sometimes the status quo is the worse of the two worlds.
In short: I would prefer to continue to be who I am, in the situaton I am in, rather than be the epitome of "masculinity" as this researcher thinks I need to be, even if I had the means to become that. And quite honestly, I'm pretty sure I do have the means to become that, if I put my mind to it. I don't put my mind to it because *it's not how I want to live my life.* Who the fuck is Philip Zimbardo to tell me that my life choices are wrong, especially when, by all the objective measurements that his ilk thrive on, I am of a far greater net benefit to society than many of the so-called "masculine" men he thinks I should be?
...women hate you anyway. I am not convinced that women hate multifaceted men with wide varieties of interests and hobbies.
It is a very common story among the rejected, "they hate me for my virtues." Probably not. More likely they hate you for your vices that you feel too entitled to fix, or too arrogant to admit having.
We prefer gold plated tungsten carbide rings. Tungsten is pretty dense stuff, so it hefts like gold. Cheap too. $15-20 each, and they get lost often enough while kayaking, biking, etc. Plus tungsten is vital to how I earn my living, and that's got some cuteness factor for her.
Date a woman that spends $ doing things or going places, not collecting things. Spend your married years doing fun things and going interesting places, not working hard just so you can collect useless shiny junk to divide up later.
Meh... priorities are like opinions, I guess. To each their own.
I think what may be the shocking revelation is that in the 21st Century, the opposite sex is actually not at the top of the priority ladder. We are smothered in communication, so the importance of finding a significant other for companionship is quickly diminished and sexual urges are quickly stamped out by easy-access porn. Why do you need a girlfriend or boyfriend when both your sexual and communicative urges can be fulfilled instantly in exactly the way you like, whenever you like? Why jump through months of social hoops to end up with a girlfriend that you can have awkward sex with when there are videos that can satisfy your bizarre amputee toilet-seat porn fetish?
It might seem easy to look at male behavior as problematic for choosing instant gratification because it's easy to dismiss pornography and videogames as neanderthal, but I think it may actually be female culture that is steeped in traditionalism. Many of them are still stuck in the old way of thinking, that men should dress in a certain way once they reach a certain age or that certain hobbies are uncool and need to be dropped once you reach 20, in other words - they're superficial and narrow minded. We live in a culture where entertainment is king and growing up is optional, many women don't understand this - even the most quirky, young at heart females are often attracted to traditional guys and desire an outdated 2.4 children scenario. Perhaps it's biology at work, but in any case, men will run a mile from this just as any sane person would.
To put it bluntly, females are just not as interesting as the internet - just as males shouldn't be to females. There is no problem here - we're at a point in human evolution where breeding is not the most important thing on the agenda, but it's the men who are quicker to embrace this than the women.
It's also far less rewarding.
A lack of women I have any attraction to isn't rewarding either. But this is pretty basic logic.
"Money cant buy you love, but it can buy a whole lot of like"
you should sit down and figure out if it's you and not them.
No, it can still be them, but only because you're not smart enough to keep yourself away from them.
So basically young men don't want to sit around listening to lies and also don't want to sit around listening to lies. Seems pretty masculine to me.
I had (and still have I guess) a strong video game addiction when I start to think about a game always and even say voice lines from the game when I'm outside feeling I'm doing it and I used to dream about this game sometimes 3 times on a night. It's an addiction and a bad habit and desire to do something that you will get no stress doing than working on your dream that may or may not came true (in my case...). I used to be that guy who rarely left his room or go outside and just stay home and write code and I had no social problems even that I'm stuttering when I'm talking, when I start playing video games it's the same too nothing changed. So I don't think video games have this impact on a person other than screwing his life (if you do too much of it of course), also I watch pro players who leave by playing the game I play and they are pretty normal socially and they can make a crowd laugh easily (just like a celebrity do for attention...) and they have a normal life just like any other one.
About porn I used to watch it more than I should (used to jerk 5 times a night... sorry if that not a respectful term, English isn't my mother tongue) just as a alternative to a real relationship since I didn't wanted any distraction to goal I wanna reach, and it's the same for everyone I guess, I don't see porn as an addiction except for married people...
Zimbardo belongs to a cadre of self-described “positive psychologists” (though I more properly would label them as “techno-psychologist”) that happily take money from the military, whose brass is willing to pay top dollars to those who develop “rational techniques” for the treatment of soldiers that are about to be sent or return from the meat-grinders in the Middle East; some of these same psychologists, although not Zimbardo himself, have been accused of collaborating with the Pentagon in the development of such techniques to get better outcomes from the torturing of iraqi prisoners, including the head of the American Psychological Assn. at the time of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Martin Seligman. Even if Zimbardo himself did not work for these programs put in place by the Pentagon at the time of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, having his name in the same honor list as Seligman is something that doesn’t speak well of his “scientific” credentials or those of the American psychological community.
It's also far less rewarding.
Porn is far less rewarding than a divorce? Are you serious?
At least that was my experience. Once I figured out the kind of woman that I shouldn't date and avoided dating them it was a lot easier.
You are making parents point for him. It takes time and effort and talent and money for a man to get multiple different women to agree to sex. All a woman has to do is say "yes". Hence for a man it is a lot of time and effort and talent and money to find the kind of women to date, while for a women its no effort, nor time, nor money. Why wouldn't the man check out of the whole process if he can get satisfied elsewhere?
Be glad it's only porn - prostitutes having been steadily dropping in price due to the the falling number of men who are willing to commit to a relationship. These women who would traditionally traded sex for a male protector now have to fend for themselves. They still trade the sex, but much much cheaper than before.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Then those societies will go into decline.
And good riddance. Those societies who are hellbent on making relationships one-sided get everything that they deserve.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
You have proven my point. To others you sound like SJW WHHHHARRRBLLLLLL
Meh... too much work. I'm going back to my games.
Looks to me like his job might be reaching a trolling-controversy-for notoriety crisis.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Count me in too. My fiance dislikes diamond centerstones so I went with a pale aquamarine on white gold. It kinda looks like a diamond at first glance, but on closer inspection it's actually a soft sky blue. She likes it, and I paid for it in one installment and not six.
Oh look. It's the wanna be tyrant again, making another broad generalization. If anything is a troll, he is. His choice of calling this problem a "masculinity crisis" only serves to polarize the debate. Zimbardo only reveals the obvious, and then ruins any hope of having an objective conversation about it. Of course people who isolate themselves are going to be isolated and emotionally compromised. Any evidence that there were any comorbidities as well? Nah, Zimbardo isn't in the business of figuring out or solving problems, he might as well be Ms. Cleo.
and want different things, always have, probably always will.
But what I find my fellow men do which isn't constructive, is pissing and moaning that woman are different and want different things. This isn't fucking new people.
And you know what, if a women doesn't want to date you -- it's fine, jesuz, why does it make her a bitch or stuck up? Too many men are too fucking fragile when it comes to their egos, or think they're such a special snowflake that they are shocked and horrified that women don't flock to them.
My wife and I are quite different -- I'm a gamer, she's not (she reads while I game), she likes chick flicks I don't (maybe except for When Harry Met Sally), I like action/violenct/sci-fi flicks she doesn't. But we both like dramas and 'cop' / mystery shows. You get my point, commonality.
I just think the us against them, men v women thing is stupid. There's a lot of it in these comments. Looking over these posts, there's a lot of pissed off guys who honestly seem to have some major issues with women.
They're different, why is that such a huge problem? And if your only thought is how fast you're going to get them into bed, guess what -- you probably won't. My wife was a veeeeeery slow mover when it came to dating, but she's awesome and I loved hanging out with her and getting to know her. We've been together over 15 years now and have a great family.
My wife's attractive, I'm pretty average (and she makes more money than me), but she recently told me the reason she wanted to be with me was simple -- I was interested in her as person, not as someone to bed, not as a pretty thing on my arm, but as a person in her own right, not an object..
heroin in moderation.
also playing WoW. (who am I kidding? GTA V!)
How about a study with girls and Facebook game or cellphone addition? Not just 1 gender "addicted".
Translation: I'm too needy to acknowledge the reality of today's relationships so I shame men who opt out.
BOOM! Headshot!!
None of that changes the social and legal realities we live in now. Just remember that all of your interactions with her are based on the knowledge that if she decides to leave, your financial and social life is over, especially if her lawyer convinces her to accuse you of abuse. It may seem unimaginable to you, now, and it's great you've got a situation that's working out, but that doesn't change the fact you are still playing the lottery every day as a social and legal second class citizen.
Yes, but you should ask yourself why the media portrays men and women this way. It's due to pressure from feminist political correctness.
630 vs 26 for the previously posted topic.
Must be a news for nerds site
It seems as though Zimbardo deliberately doesn't ask the next obvious question: "Why are 20,000 men preferring to associate with other men, play video games, and watch porn?"
Obviously these men do have a sex drive - else they wouldn't be watching porn. Obviously there is something which causes them to live the lifestyle that they've chosen. Obviously he's chosen not to ask the simple and logical next question of "why?" Stating uncategorically that "the internet/games/porn are rewiring mens brains" seems to reek of intellectual dishonesty. Which makes me ask "why is he doing this?" Might it be out of fear of not getting his future researches funded if he steps on the wrong toes?
Until he is intellectually honest enough to dig down to the root cause of this behaviour, expose it, let the chips fall where they may - then the problem which underlies the behaviour shown by these 20,000 men *and others like them* is not going to be fixed. "Fixes" will just be treating the symptom rather than the disease.
That's correct. So why are more and more men choosing this lifestyle instead of having families? Perhaps it's because feminists have convinced marriage age women to fill their pots with vinegar instead of honey. If marriage is supposed to be symbiotic, then we can't limit ourselves to what men are doing. Women's behavior and what they're offering the table these days needs to be discussed as well.
Fuck all psychologists. They are mostly psychopaths and lie.
That's really what it boils down to for me. Women go through a sexual "rock star" period in their 20s which leads them to expect every waking moment of a man's time. Sex is great, but it's not that great, and I don't see that modern women bring much else to the table.
It is all about dignity and freedom for me. I just cannot accept "the new deal". I will not sacrifice my dignity and freedom for feigned affection.
Also, natural selection is no longer a factor in modern human evolution, it is all sexual selection now. Women are selecting for aggressive, stupid, obedient males with large penises. I am none of those things, so it is easy for me retain my dignity and freedom. Downside: the genetic future of humanity looks pretty bad, I'd say we're past the peak of our evolution now, and the sexual selection that is happening now will send us back to the stone age in time and eventually result in our extinction as a species.
The interesting part of it, is that women are being manipulated into making the sexual selections they are making these days, it is about (shortsighted) control of the people. Ultimately, they are victims here too.
Further, I would venture that two sex sexual reproduction in advanced intelligent life will prove to be a failing evolutionary mechanism. My bet is that that the majority of surviving intelligent life in the universe (or at least those that achieve practical space travel and other advanced technology) does not have two sexes or even reproduce sexually at all.
I say we just build one fucking huge antimatter bomb and put ourselves out of our misery now. Poof!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Based on what I hear of my friend's dating experiences I really don't think you can attribute it to lack of compatibility. More like systemic personality issues among females.
For the 5000th time, Slashdot porn and video game addicts conclude that porn and video games "are too good for you, meanies!"
World reels in shock!
All the poor woe is me, women are horrible crap I see is just sad and pathetic. Have you actually tried talking to women like they were people? Not a goal to be achieved or a trophy, but actual people with interests and feelings and goals of their own? I know this is a radical thought, but it works. Or at least, it worked for me: my wife of twelve years was the busty cheerleader in school.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Inhale that funky Zuckersnatch
Videogames are just fantasy, enough said as another poster laid out.
As for other reason, Internet p0rn wouldn't be a problem if all those willing females aren't willing to post it. Both sides are to blame for that...
As the father of a teenaged son I do not need any expert to tell me that my son and many of his friends are very deeply addicted to video games. They are willing to forego anything in the real world that I would consider worthwhile, for instance food or girls . IMO their brains have been rewired for the reward systems used in video games. They would lie to your face to get more time on the games and they don't give a rat's ass what happens to them in the future. i.e. no interest in school, jobs, girls, or anything. They literally have no concept of responsibility towards others, their families, society in general, or anyone.
I didn't exacly love going to school/university, but I understood that there was value to me to put my immediate wants aside so that I could strategically put myself in a good place to make a living.
For all the touchy defensive people posting the most insight comes from poster neilo_1701D, above.
The says to get an interesting mate, be an interesting person
You get what you give.
After watching a few of my friends go absolutely nuclear and destroy themselves at the hands of the court systems and treacherous women who just want a fetus and a monthly payment per month, I alone have emrged unscathed.
Funny, when was in High School, nobody even knew I existed. Now that I super computers for a living (basically industrial computing plants), and make a decent salary, I am all of a sudden "noticed" by lots of women and I am 48 years old.
Women who are just dying to latch onto someone and get that monthly payment going. I am not much too look at externally, so when a 34 year old chic wants me to date her someone is wrong.
Even after I say "I am very flattered but I do not have the time at the moment for a movie, bar, eat out....etc.".
What is surprising is some of these women won't let up.
Apparently the new sexy is anyone with a steady decent job, and monthly pay check!
But I watched my friends in their 30's get racked over the coals by women who drained them dry of cash, material possessions and even took the damn dog. Nothing will slap that little head between the legs into reality is a phone call from your pal at 2:30am in the morning sobbing on the phone she cheated on him, and said she is going to divorce him and take everything.
She didn't take everything, he did get the old dumper he drove to work everyday because the judge through the Expedition would be safer for her and the kids!!!!
BRING ON THE PORN I SAY!!!
LET IT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAKING role!
Besides, turn on a little porn at night, helps me sleep better. BONUS: No bitch telling me I can't go to sleep afterwards.
This chic has an ON and OFF button, thank goodness.
Who in their right mind, would be stupid enough to get married in American society today?
If I do get married it is no going to be in the States THAT IS FOR SURE.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I can't believe this thread. I'm married and have a kid on the way... the discussion here is quite immature. I'm not sure what's more revolting, the advice in the thread about how to maximize your chance "getting laid" or Zimbardo's insistence that we need reeducation camps for playing a video game because of "a change in mindset". Its time to have a man to man with everyone, and yeah, even you Zimbardo. First, sex really isn't everything. As much as people will tell you sex is everything, they are wrong. There is nothing fancy about it, there is nothing mysterious about it, it is what it is, just a part of life like brushing your teeth and eating breakfast. It's normal for people to be anxious about it because it is hyped to no end, particularly in psychology no less, for example the whole intimacy vs isolation argument that is always poorly construed. I remember a psychology teacher who really believed that happiness was meeting all the criteria set by Erik Ericsson, interpreting that only married people could achieve the right type of happiness. What a truly pitiful soul. The benefit here is that since sex Is universal, no asinine group can claim mastery whether it's annoying psychologists, crazy fundamentalists, or bizarre seduction theorists. That's exactly the point, sex isn't about us vs them. It's been there since the beginning, and there's something important in that people are still arguing about it now. Sexual activity happens all the time, and really people don't talk enough about safety, that's the whole point. Believe it or not, just like many things in life, less is more. It can be as simple as holding hands, or slowly resting on someone's shoulder, being close and feeling comfortable with this. It will be expressed *gasp* differently with each person, just like how people don't take a shower exactly the same way or don't walk exactly the same way. This unyielding obsession to "educate" people to follow some poorly defined norm misses the point entirely, the whole point is to feel safe with each other. So congrats Zimbardo, you've just succeeded in antagonizing a segment of a population that expresses itself in extreme ways on the Internet, so we can increase the amount of stress in everyone's day for no purpose other than to be "controversial". And no, Zimbardo, you do not get credit for making this "a conversation". You've only proven your inability to communicate and be incredibly boring and uncreative. "Oh gee, it's good enough for celebrities so it's good enough for me", you're a teacher - try to act like one.
There are certain feminizing elements in our society who are trying to pathologize maleness.
Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with psychological issues and medicated for doing the kinds of things that little boys just do.
We have things like California's "yes means yes" law that criminalizes what's considered normal sexuality in the rest of the country.
Some guys are just checking out "Fuck this! I'll be over here with my video games and these porn chicks who won't make me just through a bunch of stupid hoops". They never planned to have children anyway so what's the point?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Men have always done things in isolation. For example working on cars, weight lifting, practicing for sports, research, etc... I'm pretty sure newton did most of his work locked away in a room for days on end.
The fact is that video games are no more time occupying than other activities we have sought out. And it's not like these games lac social interaction, they are have a very simplified social structure. Online games like WOW have a particular user base that attracts other like ones self, there are almost no players that play the game as an "addiction" that play solo, most of them use vent, teamspeak, or skype to communicate. In fact the only thing they are lacking is the face to face communication, in an environment where rejection is rare. I wonder if this studies data could be reversed to read "men who have masculinity insecurities favor online games for social interaction".
I can say for certain I was disallowed any computer use for years preceding my "addiction" stage. this was due to parents who felt that any thing electronic I touched I would break. I came into gaming late in high school after I lost some family members. Needless to say I had my social insecurities long before I ever touched my first electronic game. This study has it's results backwards.
Though it would make for a interesting headline, "Hands on sex education class results in many teens loosing their virginity." I mean what else can they teach in these classes that they don't already? Foreplay? show porn training videos? I thought this line had already been addressed.
Fair enough, as long as we don't discriminate for that list of commonplace "addictions": smartphones, Facebook, celebrity gossip, cars, TV shows, fan fiction, antidepressants, sports, bodybuilding, shopping, religion, (over)eating, etc.
While "addiction" is a nebulous and overused concept, I agree that obsession with anything could potentially be harmful. But surely you can see that pathologizing certain popular activities and not others is disingenuous.
Mayhap you need to generalise that a bit more. Video games per se aren't all that bad. I've struck up a few conversations with younger women about video games.
Say instead that "if your life revolves around only one particular activity, by definition, you're a shallow person".
To which I certainly agree. Be it video games, shopping, facebook, football, clothing, gym, programming, or clubbing, anything can be taken to excess. Also, it's fun to try something different every so often. My recent craze is slacklining. Great fun, and I genuinely believe most people are capable of it with practice. Age is not an excuse.
If your life revolves around video games, by definition you're a shallow person.
Video games are a rich and interesting topic. It's ok to be uninterested in them, but don't assume that everything revolving around video games is therefore uninteresting. People make careers out of playing, making, and reviewing video games. What you are describing is a cardboard cutout.
Each other.
I'd posit that "the rest of us" as you use it represents not the "rest of us" but "the lucky few".
Should all start wearing Anal Cunt shirts.
More government-run sex-ed in the schools is what "evangelical american christian" people want....
Pay attention much? Yeah, there are fringe idiots on both sides of the political spectrum that will be against stuff like rock music or video games, it's not just Jack Thompson but also Tipper Gore..... but this guy's recommendations out him as more of an establishment tool than a true right- or left-winger. What you have here is a moron with too many degrees studying the obvious and generating the results his establishment sponsors will applaud. There are hundreds of other similar things like alcohol, sports, gambling, movies, TV, careers, and so-on that can consume people's lives and either enhance or destroy them.
Are video games a problem? Yup, for SOME people, but not for most, who are unaffected by it
Is porn a problem? Yup, for SOME people, but not for most, who are unaffected by it
Want a GREAT candidate for any breakdown in male-female dynamics? How about the transition from a society in which men and women wanted and needed each-other for many reaons, to a society in which government is a replacement for husbands who cannot compete with it, and the resulting obvious impact of this upon the preferences and choices of females and the further impact his has on males who realize they are less-important and less-valued:
Government can provide a woman with an income, a husband could get fired, die, etc
Government can provide housing, a husband might not be able to afford it or might lose the ability to afford it
Government can provide healthcare, a husband would probably provide it via a job which he could lose at any time
A husband might be a slob, or have annoying buddies, or sometimes get drunk, government will not be a physical presence
A husband would probably not approve of other "relationships", but government will not only say nothing no matter how promiscuous a woman is but it will even fund abortions or provide additional benefits for more kids, etc depending on her choice
A husband will argue with a woman, government will not
A husband will likely have relatives (i.e. annoying in-laws), government does not
These impacts are not unlike what happens to males in polygamous societies - in societies where one male can have many wives, wealthy and/or powerful males get many women and poorer men without political connections know they have slim chances for a family and become easy recruits for suicide missions, cloistered religious lives, etc.
But it's a man. Men are in charge, therefore they cannot be victims. So uncheck?
So quit your bitching.
Talk to women? There are as fucked up as men. And men are just as virtuous as women. It's called "having a personality".
Just because I have an outie doesn't mean I'm never a victim. Just because someone has an innie doesn't mean they are angelic.
There are fewer differences between men and women than men think, but there are fewer differences between women and men than women hope.
I fucked around a bit in my teens. Then I was in LTRs up to my mid-30s.
I've decided that porn and flings are better after all. I'm a geek and I get most pleasure out of reading mathematics (my academic background) or writing software or building radios or watching the stars or just going for a walk and enjoying nature, with ANYONE decent who wants to share my company - no ties, no exclusivity, no rulebook.
This isn't a "crisis" - it's throwing off the shackles of religious morality. Most women/men/men/women don't want the hassle of most men/women/men/women, respectively.
When women want to be independent and not define themselves by a partner, it's rightly celebrated.
When men want to be independent and not define themselves by a partner, let's celebrate that too.
If some men enjoy porn and videogames, hooray. If some women enjoy porn and videogames, hooray. Or cars. Or ponies. I don't give a fuck. There is more to life than mindless fucking and baby factories, which is why richer nations reproduce less.
....and this is a direct quote..
"I'm looking for a guy that is more the cowboy type."
How else can you fucking interpret that!?!
Maybe you've just never encountered it because you dont live in the midwest.
It seemed to me growing up (as a boy) there was far too much investment in boys. Society over indulged in choosing boys over girls in almost every way possible. Now it's the other way -- it's all about girls and to hell with boys. Boys don't graduate college at the same rate, boys don't marry or have kids or anything else someone in media thinks they should. We jail boys over just about any excuse -- and girls get the benefit of the doubt. One of these days we'll learn there are two sexes - equally important - neither superior. I'll be waiting for that day.
...have the terms 'masculine' and 'socially competent' meant the same thing? Oh, just for this article, then?
Walk into the office of MS magazine or NOW headquarters and say "Which one of you little cupcakes want to come home, make me a sandwich and give me a blowjob?" - George Carlin
You can still "be gay". Go for it. Use your mind. Sexuality is fluid. We are all bisexual to some degree, and most of us far more than we realize (suppressed by society and social pressure.) Much of love is beyond gender and sex.
Many men will treat you much better than women (obviously in your case since you have had poor experiences with women, but men find you attractive.) Sexuality is fluid.
Keep working out. Eat well. Dress nicely. Join a mens chorus or other social group. Check out get-togethers in gay papers or online postings.Go to a few gay bars. Have a beer (don't get drunk.) Converse, interact, get comfortable. Find someone or a group you enjoy hanging out with. Let nature take its course.
Also - being gay is socially responsible. The world needs more gay people, and thus fewer babies.
Good luck. I hope you find your gay self, relationships, and happiness. Even marriage is now available to your gay self! I envy the path before you.
Consider the various 'laws' now in effect at the University level. A male and a female student have too much to drink. They start having sex, may or may not include intercourse. The girl is 'shamed' either by being seen by a friend/rival (same in girlspeak) or has Christian-type guilt the next day.
She said she was 'assaulted'. The university holds an inquiry. The testimony of the girl is taken. Not verified. Testimony of boy is taken but not considered. Girl can call 'witnesses', who will testify, but not under any kind of legally binding oath. Background or history of such incidences in the past are NOT allowed to be considered. The boy, on the other hand, can have past issues, relevant or not, used against him.
The judgement is based on 'the likelyhood that the incident happened'. Not proof. Not reliability of the girl, the witnesses, or the circumstances. Judgement made by person that is highly likely to be a female bureaucrat.
Even the Harvard law school has questioned these policies. Multiple, high visibility law suits are in process at USC, Duke and other schools. Fake 'rape' cases have high profiles, including University of Virginia and Duke.
Yet the Nazi Fems continue to fight politically the rights of men. Even counter to the US Constitution and Western rule of law.
And, we wonder why boys/men are confused...
Society is fucked, people are fucked, everyone tries to cope the best they can. As a 33 year old, tale, strong and handsome man, who does very well financially, who is intelligent and self employed, you would think my life is a walk in the park..... But it is not, I have come to understand that middle age men are a commodity in the world we live in. We always have to do what we are told, and we have to perform at a drop of a hat. Our feelings are disregarded, our ambitions are stifled and basically we have been emasculated by the powers in charge. I have seen this process happening during my lifetime. It is as if we are drones who must serve our masters... It took me a while to understand this, but once i did, i stopped taking bullshit from anyone. The trick is to be dominant, exude confidence and most important dont give a shit about people who try to bring you down. Be the man you want to be, dont wait for permission, because it will never come. Seize the day and conquer your battles, whatever the cost., and be proud of yourself, unapologetic and respect your feelings and thoughts. Dont let others define you. If you are a well rounded individual, who takes charge and respects himself, you shouldnt have any problem attracting females. Now about having a decent relationship, dont settle for a women who is not the best for you. Dont pity date, dont lower your standards, dont settle for less. Date, have sex, try to make it work if the you think that women is right for you, BUT DONT SETTLE for anyone who isnt the best you can do. It will take alot of women before you find the right one, dont worry if you dont find her, you will have alot of fun on the way there :) Be yourself and dont take anybodies shit, the world is difficult enough as it is without you having to carry someone elses baggage.
Drugging the crap out of our young boys has nothing to do with it? Walk into an elementary school around lunch time and see the queue of boys to the nurse's office to get their drugs. So the boys are like little girls and don't cause a challenge for the educator (note, I didn't say teacher).
Then there are all the emasculating things they do to our boys. No bullying, no calling anyone a fag or anything else. In the playground - no dodge ball or other games like that. Turning them all into wusses. Need to allow them to punch one other more. Need to stop the PC crap.
Like guys - you're a fag. Like girls - you're a sissy. Don't like to play dodge ball - you're a wuss. Like to play sports - you're a dumb jock. Oh, if you missed something that you are and you feel you've been left out, just let me know. I wouldn't want you to feel left out. I'll try to make fun of you too.
Seriously, while a lot of people think this is cruel, it's necessary. It builds character and allows us to interact with one another. Stops us from taking that parking spot that someone has waited for 5 minutes for, butting in front of a whole bunch of people, screwing people just because we can. Other people have feelings too. Not just the ______fill in the blank_________.
Did Phil do another original and easily replicable and eye-opening experiment, or did he just fart in his Porsche and vent the door for another tired grad student?
Something that seems to be missed here - When you're playing WoW or other MMORPG, or chatting with people on the internet, etc... you might be alone in your room but you're not alone. You're interacting with a community where you fit in, and given that the shrinks seem to be ignoring that and focusing on kids not reacting as they think the kids "should" any conclusions they reach based on these false assumptions are garbage.
You're hilarious. 10/10 would get trolled again.
If you think only 10% of men are shallow, I encourage you to ask a female friend about her online dating inbox.
If you think 90% of women are shallow, I encourage you to try meeting different women in different places with different strategies.
Or choose porn and video games. Those choices are available, and easy. I choose them often myself. Might choose one or the other a couple minutes from now. Yet even at my most transcendent, I find fapping toward a screen ultimately... disappointing.
I am an adventurer and a skilled professional craftsman. I experience and create amazing things by myself. My experiences and creations die with me if I don't share them with anyone. When I get together with other people to experience and create things, those things are even more frequently excellent than what I can access and accomplish alone.
You'll get a much better sense of how things work when you experience them directly, rather than filtered through the already limited perceptions of your friend. Hang in there buddy!
Difficult and painful experiences can be incredibly valuable. An experience brings value to you as you bring value to the experience. You will always and only experience the consequence of your choices.
I guess no one's read Jon Ronson's latest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. There's a chapter on the Zimbardo prison experiment in which Ronson interviews a couple of the key figures and casts a lot of doubt that the experiment unfolded the way it's been told for these many years. IF you believe the people he interviewed, which includes the main "prison guard" bully, there was a lot of play-acting going on. Ronson cites academic psychologist and textbook author Philip Gray's argument that the experiment was flawed because Zimbardo awarded himself the role of superintendent, especially since he gave the guards a pep talk about their total power in the situation (as recounted in Zimbardo's own book, The Lucifer Effect).
That does make me wonder about the quality of Zimbardo's research on this occasion.
wg
This article is very helpful and interesting thanks for sharing :)
Pil Biru
Is your name Christina Hoff Summers?
No?
Then no such thing...
Just contradicted yourself there, sport.
Loser.
Translation : get your tubes tied you want to be a fascist cunt. You breeding is a problem.
I am one of the men that The Fucking Article describes. If you wish to understand why I live this way, it's really quite simple.
In your world, I am garbage. I know this because every time I turn around, you are trying to throw me away.
In my world, I am a person. A sick, sad excuse for a person, yes. Lonely and often miserable, sure.
But at least I'm not garbage.