this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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Seems like a huge part of the problem is equating "self-worth" to "getting laid".
Putting your dick in a woman doesn't make you any more of a man / successful / worth more than anyone else.
Societal expectations need to be rejected. Oh, success is measured by your ability to get married, have a house, and raise your 2.5 children? For a vast majority, NONE OF THAT IS CURRENTLY SUSTAINABLE AND/OR OBTAINABLE. So why bother? Right?
I get it. It ain't right, but I get it.
It's literally the most natural thing in the world to equate reproductive effectiveness to worth. All life is "worth" their reproductive effectiveness. So not having sex is very relevant to our entire existence as a species.
As such, our mental faculties put a heavy punishment in the form of mental pain, i.e. "self-worth attached to getting laid", on this whole thing.
This has very little to do with societal expectations. It's simple biology. Not getting laid is supposed to be one of the worst things for an organism.
You're rationally right with what you say, but it's simply not very relevant. Rationality does not help with our most deeply rooted biological desires. The only thing that helps is getting them fulfilled, i.e. having sex.
It's not the absolute truth. But it's most likely the largest part of the explanation.
People like putting blame on "society", and while societal pressures surely play a part, the reason it's so nice to mainly blame society is because it creates a problem that has an acceptable solution.
Because what do you say when you say society is mainly to blame here? You're saying it's completely fine for many men not to have sex. Just have to fix society making it hard for them to live without sex. If my assumption is correct though, that doesn't help those men very much. But who does it help? Anyone those men would want to have sex with, because they're not under "threat" anymore.