Involuntary Celibacy

[magicsofa]

Enjay said:

On that basis, I'd say it was over rated. Not because it isn't good, but because it is so talked about that nothing could be that good surely.

If you're talking strictly about the physical sensation of orgasm, it might be sort of debatable. But considering the fact that it practically shuts your body (and ability to feel pain) down and sends you into a frenzy of forgetting everything you ever knew and experiencing timeless pleasure...probably not.

If you're talking about the emotional connection of bringing a partner to climax and having them do the same for you, doubtful. It's hard to say that erasing all other worries and becoming fully occupied and devoted to the pleasure of another human, and then feeling the satisfaction of succeeding in that effort and their gratitude toward you, could possibly be overrated.

If you're talking about the biological function of sex, just NO. Sex is the most important thing ever, EVER, EVER, forever, at all, that could ever happen. Because you are alive. Sorry, dude, no way, there is nothing more important than sex. EVER

40oz said:

I assume a lot of you guys are regularly reading forums and researching shit on the internet or playing video games or editing doom or programming or masturbating or something.

Yup, and all the while I've had a fulfilling sex life. I also didn't get it via ass-grabbing. Girls really want guys who can be sensitive AND aggressive. It's just that the aggressive part is more outwardly attractive and exciting. I think a lot of girls don't realize they want a sensitive guy until they're upset about something and their asshole boyfriend is like "Whatever just DEAL with it." But they don't want to be treated like they are helpless. Girls will appreciate it if you trust them and encourage them to be assertive in their lives.

As far as flirting goes...I've never really hooked up with a girl I didn't already know. All of my sexual relationships grew out of friendships that lasted at the very least a couple of weeks...more often months. I'm terrified of going for the first kiss, and I usually beat around the bush agonizingly long. Kissing on the cheek is a nice way to show affection without being too intense.

Aliotroph? said:

You're doing it wrong. College is full of girls in similar circumstances, including the sort who play games all day and live on Kraft Dinner and coke. :p

Just stay away from the nicely-dressed ones in the local business school. They are bitches by definition.

Agreed. In our age of women's liberation, it's no longer appropriate to consider your wealth as a measure of your dating potential. You shouldn't be going for "take care of me" bitches anyway, because they're generally dumber and less fun than girls who can take care of themselves. I pay for my girlfriend when she's broke, and she pays for me when I'm broke.

Jimi said:

Now I'm gonna have coffee, who doesn't say no to me,
and I'm gonna have yoghurt, who doesn't make me hurt.

:(

Emo bullshit aside, I'm not sure what to say to you. Relationships generally do require communication. Quality of sex usually goes down with girls who just wanna get slammed. Of course, girls who want to be over-emotional and talk about everything all the time probably aren't the best lay either, especially if they're too concerned about romance to be a little energetic in bed once in a while. You gotta find a happy medium - be willing to talk with a girl, but don't let her trample you with nonsense. Also, sex is inherently funny and silly at times. It's not exactly the easiest activity even if you're just doing straight missionary. It's impossible to know what your partner likes right away, so you're surely going to be doing things that don't really work. Going down on a girl takes experimentation, communcation (it's awesome when a girl can tell you exactly what she wants, encourage her to do so, it's empowering), etc. Really any sexual act takes this kind of give-and-go procedure, you have to listen to your partner and pay attention. You also have to be able to laugh at yourself because you WILL do something stupid :) (like fall off the bed)

[gggmork]

The Lag said:

meeting someone at work is pretty easy, unless you work at a place that forbids that sort of thing.

I hate stuff like this about modern times. It might be like that for the majority, it was for me. They own you like a pimp, only instead of forcing you to have sex, they prevent you. And they brainwash you with required 'sexual harassment' videos to prevent lawsuits, which do fuck up your mind when you were already awkward, unknowledgeable and inexperienced about meeting girls. At a grocery store they enforce males shaving their facial hair, as some tactic to visually turn them into non threatening females (or adolescent males) to improve customer service. They own your facial hair. And penis. The schools own your bladder too *raises hand to go to the bathroom*. Its the death of the individual. You might as well grab your ankles and shape yourself into a nice 'O' so you can be efficiently used in some giant gear system.

[Sporku]

I've learned that getting involved with women in the workplace is a terrible, terrible idea... especially when their boyfriend also works at the same place. Haha, oops.

[magicsofa]

gggmork said:

I hate stuff like this about modern times. It might be like that for the majority, it was for me. They own you like a pimp, only instead of forcing you to have sex, they prevent you. And they brainwash you with required 'sexual harassment' videos to prevent lawsuits, which do fuck up your mind when you were already awkward, unknowledgeable and inexperienced about meeting girls. At a grocery store they enforce males shaving their facial hair, as some tactic to visually turn them into non threatening females (or adolescent males) to improve customer service. They own your facial hair. And penis. The schools own your bladder too *raises hand to go to the bathroom*. Its the death of the individual. You might as well grab your ankles and shape yourself into a nice 'O' so you can be efficiently used in some giant gear system.

OK well, only in high school do you have to ask permission to leave the room. And I don't know what kind of fucked up place would consider it sexual harrassment if you politely ask a girl to hang out.

[DeathevokatioN]

AgentSpork said:

I've learned that getting involved with women in the workplace is a terrible, terrible idea... especially when their boyfriend also works at the same place. Haha, oops.

Wow. What an asshole. :)

Although I'm not any better because I went to my graduation dance without a girl, and then I stole someone elses. Haha, oops.

[Enjay]

magicsofa said:

If you're talking strictly about the physical sensation of orgasm, it might be sort of debatable. But considering the fact that it practically shuts your body (and ability to feel pain) down and sends you into a frenzy of forgetting everything you ever knew and experiencing timeless pleasure...probably not.

I still think it's out of proportion with how much it is talked about and features in the rules of our societies etc.

magicsofa said:

If you're talking about the emotional connection of bringing a partner to climax and having them do the same for you, doubtful. It's hard to say that erasing all other worries and becoming fully occupied and devoted to the pleasure of another human, and then feeling the satisfaction of succeeding in that effort and their gratitude toward you, could possibly be overrated.

Hmmm... so an almost completely selfish (or exclusive) high? I still think it's out of proportion with how much it is talked about and features in the rules of our societies etc.

magicsofa said:

If you're talking about the biological function of sex, just NO. Sex is the most important thing ever, EVER, EVER, forever, at all, that could ever happen. Because you are alive. Sorry, dude, no way, there is nothing more important than sex. EVER

Nah, definitely not. Plenty of organisms can reproduce without fucking, er, making lurve. Although sexual reproduction (which can just be spilling your seed into the sea in the hope that it might meet an egg, or a pollen grain floating on the breeze landing on the stigma of a flower - which I'm pretty sure is not the subject of this thread) is a significant way of introducing variation into a population and thereby driving evolution (which, of course, doesn't happen in some parts of the US). Me being alive? It's pretty important to me, but irrelevant to almost every other human on the planet. I still think it's out of proportion with how much it is talked about and features in the rules of our societies etc.

As I said, I still think it is over rated. Not because it is bad but because we rate it so highly that nothing can be that good IMO.

[Technician]

Enjay said:

Nah, definitely not. Plenty of organisms can reproduce without fucking, er, making lurve. Although sexual reproduction (which can just be spilling your seed into the sea in the hope that it might meet an egg, or a pollen grain floating on the breeze landing on the stigma of a flower - which I'm pretty sure is not the subject of this thread) is a significant way of introducing variation into a population and thereby driving evolution (which, of course, doesn't happen in some parts of the US). Me being alive? It's pretty important to me, but irrelevant to almost every other human on the planet. I still think it's out of proportion with how much it is talked about and features in the rules of our societies etc.

As I said, I still think it is over rated. Not because it is bad but because we rate it so highly that nothing can be that good IMO.

Hows about trying to focus your rambling-rebuttal with mammals or at the very least, something with an endoskeleton, you know, so I can at least try and make some relation. Sex is a huge deal to almost every creature above coral. Even forgetting the driving to spread your genes, that have been traveling for thousands of years, humans still have roots in sexual expression. All great apes use sex as communication, bonding and even expression emotions for one another. Humans are a sexualized ape.

[40oz]

oh yeah another thing I forgot to mention is that your dick is not too small. Your dick is most likely average length and you cant really do anything about it. It doesn't matter. Pornstars lead you to believe that all women want 16 inch horsecocks in their snatch but thats only because penthouse pets get fucked A LOT and are their vag is so loose that you could gently drop a wet wipe on your dick and it would feel exactly the same. The general public is not made up of porn stars. a 14 inch cucumber cock would hurt them and fuck their insides up and theyd be scared to have sex with you ever again. Typically they want something that is 'just right' and you are more than likely to fit their needs even if you play dungeons and dragons and collect pokemon cards.

[Grazza]

Some people (those disagreeing with Enjay mostly) seem to be saying that sex is important because it is necessary for the survival of the species. OK, that is indeed important, if a little obvious.

But how much of the sex that humans actually have is intended for that purpose? Not a whole lot really. And even less actually succeeds (about three instances per lifetime on average globally). And how much of the discussion of sexual issues (and related marketing) is about achieving conception? Less than is about avoiding it, for sure.

So this line of argumentation seems a little weak.

[fraggle]

gggmork said:

At a grocery store they enforce males shaving their facial hair, as some tactic to visually turn them into non threatening females (or adolescent males) to improve customer service. They own your facial hair.

So to you, the most humiliating thing about working in a grocery store is that you have to shave?

[Technician]

Grazza said:

Some people (those disagreeing with Enjay mostly) seem to be saying that sex is important because it is necessary for the survival of the species. OK, that is indeed important, if a little obvious.

That certainly isn't the point I was trying to make, but of course he'll get such a response when dismissing the sex drive of humans by comparing one to the drive of a flower.

Sure, yeah, sex is overrated, but then again, so is eating.

fraggle said:

So to you, the most humiliating thing about working in a grocery store is that you have to shave?

I've had proud muttonchops for seven years. No one touches my burns to be "less threatening" or "to de-masculate". Now, if I was working at a food processing plat, I can understand.

[Aliotroph?]

gggmork said:

I hate stuff like this about modern times. It might be like that for the majority, it was for me. They own you like a pimp, only instead of forcing you to have sex, they prevent you. And they brainwash you with required 'sexual harassment' videos to prevent lawsuits, which do fuck up your mind when you were already awkward, unknowledgeable and inexperienced about meeting girls. At a grocery store they enforce males shaving their facial hair, as some tactic to visually turn them into non threatening females (or adolescent males) to improve customer service. They own your facial hair. And penis. The schools own your bladder too *raises hand to go to the bathroom*. Its the death of the individual. You might as well grab your ankles and shape yourself into a nice 'O' so you can be efficiently used in some giant gear system.

Workplaces do nothing to prevent you from having sex, unless you're trying to do it at work.

If you can't meet girls at work without running afoul of those vague sexual harassment policies, you're doing it wrong. Just force yourself to talk to them once in a while. Grocery stores have a high enough attrition rate that you can fuck up and sound like an idiot 85 timse and it won't matter in the end. That would be unlike my circle of people in high school, which had basically zero attrition and saying really stupid shit stuck. Honestly, people worth caring about end up not caring much as long as you're not an asshole. They're awkward too. They just forgot to tell you.

Asking permission to take a piss in high school is also doing it wrong, even when they tell you otherwise. School has lots of dull times where sneaking off to the bathroom is easy. Doing it during some kind of lecture is still about as bad as doing it during anybody's meeting/lecture anywhere, but if you need to do that more than once a month you probably need to see a doctor or lay off the coke.

[Sporku]

DeathevokatioN said:

Wow. What an asshole. :)

Well, technically speaking I wouldn't have been the asshole in that situation, seeing as I didn't know she was dating the guy at the time, and didn't bother to tell me until after the fact. It did, however, make for some pretty awkward situations later on, though.

[printz]

I think that the main topic of the Wikipedia article concerning this is that "heterosexual men are at a disadvantage because they HAVE to be proactive". I don't think this is really a problem. I have no difficulty talking to new girls, hell no. The challenge is making them interested in me, but this issue should go both ways. I've been talking to some girls before, only to discover they're not as attractive as I'd hoped.

[The Lag]

Aliotroph? said:

Workplaces do nothing to prevent you from having sex, unless you're trying to do it at work.

i have worked at two places now where it is strictly forbidden for employees to date. basically, we aren't allowed to have sex with eachother. being friends is fine...
i broke that rule at the last place, and i have been considering doing it again.

but i have a real bad problem with authority.

[Quasar]

printz said:

I think that the main topic of the Wikipedia article concerning this is that "heterosexual men are at a disadvantage because they HAVE to be proactive". I don't think this is really a problem. I have no difficulty talking to new girls, hell no. The challenge is making them interested in me, but this issue should go both ways. I've been talking to some girls before, only to discover they're not as attractive as I'd hoped.

Oddly if a girl wants to talk to me and initiates a conversation then I sometimes become unusually outgoing. But if the girl doesn't seem like she actively wants to talk to me then my social anxiety kicks in. For me it's usually an initial contact barrier more than anything else.

[gggmork]

fraggle said:

the most humiliating thing about working in a grocery store is that you have to shave?

If you just accept the rules of society as they are, it does seem like a minor problem to belittle, and of course nowhere near as bad as lots of other possible life scenarios. Society taking away my right to kill is one thing and in society's best interest, but taking away my right to naturally grow hair on my own face is really overstepping their bounds imo.
Other humiliating things are the same handful of politically correct elevator songs and advertisements that rain down from inescapable speakers all day from 'artists' who all make infinitely more money than me (those really drill into your head after a half decade of 8 hour shifts), and the essential plucking of me from some primitive perhaps chimpanzee like life style where I'd be sane and relatively free with the only culture being sticking sticks into termite mounds into modern times with division of labor where I and the majority of others do the same demeaning task over and over as a gear in someone else's profit scheme.

[Enjay]

Technician said:

Hows about trying to focus your rambling-rebuttal with mammals or at the very least, something with an endoskeleton, you know, so I can at least try and make some relation. Sex is a huge deal to almost every creature above coral. Even forgetting the driving to spread your genes, that have been traveling for thousands of years, humans still have roots in sexual expression. All great apes use sex as communication, bonding and even expression emotions for one another. Humans are a sexualized ape.

On the humans being a sexualised ape - Bonobos are pretty sexualised too. They use sex for relaxation, bonding and whatever almost as much as humans do.

I went down the route of mentioning flowers etc simply because you went down the route of how essential sex was for a species. Given that sex - as in sexual reproduction - important to many, many, many species, it was a fair point to cover because you raised the "sex is important to the species" point.

I was going to answer more but then I read...

Grazza said:

But how much of the sex that humans actually have is intended for that purpose? Not a whole lot really. And even less actually succeeds (about three instances per lifetime on average globally). And how much of the discussion of sexual issues (and related marketing) is about achieving conception? Less than is about avoiding it, for sure.

Which is actually pretty close to what I was going to post and what I realise that I should have posted almost as soon as I hit submit with my last post. The bottom line is that most of the sex that gets talked about, fantasised about, alluded to, restricted by law and religion has nothing to do with making more people.

Technician said:

Sure, yeah, sex is overrated

Which is all I was saying.

Technician said:

but then again, so is eating

Possibly, but I'd suggest that, as a society, we obsess about eating less than we do about sex yet we do it more often and eating is necessary for our daily survival whereas sex isn't essential for an individual's survival at all.

[DuckReconMajor]

Bank said:

Yeah honestly dudes, if you think you're all settled in to be lonely and sexless for the rest of your lives I feel like they'll end up being pretty short.

as a 20 year old I don't care much about the length of my life.

Mr. T said:

TBH Girls don't care what you look like. You are the one who thinks you are ugly. They don't care.

Women care what you look like. Their tastes just vary much more widely than men's.

DoomUK said:

On the other end of the scale, some people claim to "suffer" from "sexual addiction".

Yeah, I was under the assumption that the majority of people are pretty much born with a sex obsession.

Danarchy said:

Also, I don't have to worry at all about being ugly. All my female friends (who all have boyfriends or husbands, before you ask) have told me I'm hot, so I have that going for me.

I always wondered this since in pictures you've posted you looked rather handsome.

Enjay said:

I dunno, sex has to be one of the most talked about, if not the most talked about, subjects on the planet.

I can understand the obsession with sex, but I don't understand how a society that fights for equality for alternative sexual lifestyles can be so critical of those who choose to be abstinent.

Anyway, I do have some advice. If you're interested in someone, try to talk to her even if she seems not to like you. She might be just as nervous to talk to you. This coming from someone who recently fucked this up and hasn't completely gotten over it yet.

[Xeros612]

DuckReconMajor said:

I can understand the obsession with sex, but I don't understand how a society that fights for equality for alternative sexual lifestyles can be so critical of those who choose to be abstinent.

Same reason blacks can say "nigger" without anybody but Bill Cosby giving a damn while whites are treated as if they just reinstated Jim Crowe laws or slavery if they even mention the word. Double standards; society thrives on it.

[gggmork]

"most of the sex that gets talked about, fantasised about, alluded to, restricted by law and religion has nothing to do with making more people."

True, but obviously due to contraception and human knowledge of how babies are made. It could have been different if reproduction evolved in such a way that it occurred automatically somehow without human choice (like some more sophisticated form of cell division or something).

[Sharessa]

DuckReconMajor said:

I always wondered this since in pictures you've posted you looked rather handsome.

Like I said, for me it's all mental, or more to the point, it's like 40oz said, I'm too comfortable with my life and don't have room for a woman in it. He seems to think this is a problem, though. I don't.

Quasar said:

Oddly if a girl wants to talk to me and initiates a conversation then I sometimes become unusually outgoing. But if the girl doesn't seem like she actively wants to talk to me then my social anxiety kicks in. For me it's usually an initial contact barrier more than anything else.

You know, I have this issue with people in general. If a person is outgoing, I'm usually able to talk to them well. However, if the person is awkward in conversation, I revert to my personality 10 years ago, and can't properly communicate with them. Damn weirdos fucking me up.

[magicsofa]

Enjay said:

Which is actually pretty close to what I was going to post and what I realise that I should have posted almost as soon as I hit submit with my last post. The bottom line is that most of the sex that gets talked about, fantasised about, alluded to, restricted by law and religion has nothing to do with making more people.

Well...sort of

I am probably biased in this because I'm a helpless romantic and I want to have a family some day. But personally, I've very rarely had sex "just for the fun of it." Most of the time it is in the context of a relationship. Now, I don't expect my relationships to result in marriage/family/etc because that's just unreasonable. But I'm not in a relationship just for kicks either. I'm in it to see if this person might end up to be "the one."

I would think that a lot of people at least subconsciously are doing the same thing. If you're seriously dating someone, are you doing it just so you can have sex regularly? Or are you doing it so you can explore your companionship with that person, and if it continues for a long period of time (many years), possibly have children?

Also, if you think that enjoying the gratification of pleasuring your partner is selfish, then you must concede that all acts to give joy or pleasure to someone else are selfish, in which case it doesn't matter so your point is meaningless :P (does anyone help others because it makes them feel like shit? I don't think so)

I feel like this is derailing a bit :/

[printz]

However, if the person is awkward in conversation, I revert to my personality 10 years ago, and can't properly communicate with them. Damn weirdos fucking me up.

That's normal. Silent people probably aren't eager to talk with anyone, so they're awkward on purpose, so you can't find anything to say to them.

[Enjay]

[edit] This was in reply to magicsofa[/edit]

Yes, but my point was that, in at least even semi-adult circles, sex, sexual inuendo, "dirty" jokes, flirting come up in almost every conversation. Rules and laws exist about who you can stick it in and where. Religions all have a view of what is acceptable and what is not. It's used non-stop in advertising, music videos and the media generally. Very little, if any, of that has much to do with sex in the context of a relationship - but it is people talking about sex.

magicsofa said:

Also, if you think that enjoying the gratification of pleasuring your partner is selfish...

That wasn't quite what I meant. I said "so an almost completely selfish (or exclusive) high". Note the "almost completely" and "exclusive". What I mean was that it was an act of self indulgence where the "self" was the individuals involved in the act. Now, I'm not saying that it is a bad thing or un-enjoyable. Indeed, two people getting lost in each other that way is a pretty amazing thing. However, I'm still not convinced that the ubiquity of sexual themed conversations, obsessions, rules, conventions, hang-ups etc is proportionate to such a condition.

ie as I've said before, IMO sex is overrated - but not because of any failings of sex but rather because our obsession with it is disproportionate. It's good, probably even great, but the way we all talk about it (etc) is something that nothing could live up to. ie, its rating is impossibly high compared to what it actually is.

[DoomUK]

Danarchy said:

You know, I have this issue with people in general. If a person is outgoing, I'm usually able to talk to them well. However, if the person is awkward in conversation, I revert to my personality 10 years ago, and can't properly communicate with them. Damn weirdos fucking me up.

Double standards much? ;)

But yeah, I *am* aware of how difficult it must be to create easy and/or stimulating conversion with someone with social anxiety or whatever it is I have. I'm also aware of the weird gravitational pull it can have on others' personalities.

[DuckReconMajor]

magicsofa said:

Also, if you think that enjoying the gratification of pleasuring your partner is selfish, then you must concede that all acts to give joy or pleasure to someone else are selfish, in which case it doesn't matter so your point is meaningless :P (does anyone help others because it makes them feel like shit? I don't think so)

All acts are selfish.

[bimlanders]

Reproduction isn't for everyone. But alcohol sure is!

[bimlanders]

Danarchy said:

Like I said, for me it's all mental, or more to the point, it's like 40oz said, I'm too comfortable with my life and don't have room for a woman in it. He seems to think this is a problem, though. I don't.


You know, I have this issue with people in general. If a person is outgoing, I'm usually able to talk to them well. However, if the person is awkward in conversation, I revert to my personality 10 years ago, and can't properly communicate with them. Damn weirdos fucking me up.

The last part is interesting. I have come to the belief that the average (and sub-average) person is incapable of intelligent or interesting conversation. In a good give and take conversation, I feel like it's a perfect time to open up with my thoughts. It's just that this is a rare experience. I'm sure plenty of married people don't have meaningful conversations with each other; they exchange soundbites in between watching television, and doing menial tasks. This is a dead zone.

[Liam]

bimlanders said:

I have come to the belief that the average (and sub-average) person is incapable of intelligent or interesting conversation.

hahahahahahahaahaha

*breathes*

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha