“Why Does Everything Feel So Sexual If We’re All So Sexless?”

Advice for Our Sexual Culture Part V: the decline of first date etiquette, the physical progression of an adult virgin relationship and more.

Hello and welcome to Many Such Cases.

I’ve had a lot on my mind this week. It’s been another tense one for how we talk about sexuality, masculinity, femininity — you know, the themes I’ve made my name upon. Much of that tension, of course, is just the result of me choosing to be online. Had I not looked at TikTok or X much, the discourse around Harry Sisson and his sexting “scandal” or Sabrina Carpenter’s performance of sexuality probably would have passed me by. Then again, the top show on Netflix this week is about a thirteen-year-old boy indoctrinated by the most violent elements of the Manosphere, so maybe some of it has been unavoidable. I already wrote about Sisson, but you can probably expect some more work of mine touching on Carpenter and this show, Adolescence, in the next week or so. Not like we really need another essay on either, though. Either way, I look forward to logging off for the weekend.

It is a relief, however, to get the chance once again to talk about what’s on your minds and what’s happening in your personal lives, instead. In case you missed it, I recently shared a new form through which you can submit your topics/questions/etc — the link for that is here. What I’ve gotten thus far is soooooooo good, I can’t wait to get to it all. This week, I address some old and new ones on the topics of maintaining friendships in adulthood, the declining standards of first date etiquette, an adult virgin’s first relationship and why exactly our culture feels so sexual when nobody is actually having much sex.

Thank you and I love you all.

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This past year I went on 11 first dates. It was a success because I have a boyfriend now, but on 2 separate 1st dates the guy showed up in sweatpants to a somewhat formal wine bar (this wine bar is my go-to for first dates). ?????Why????? Neither of them were good 1st dates (which was expected), but to make matters worse, 1 guy had no clue why I wasn’t interested in seeing him again. I didn’t take the appearance as being disrespectful to me, but rather to the idea of dating. It made me wonder, with most romantic actions happening online now and no 3rd party involvement (no mutual friend, meeting in a church or community event), are the standards of dating and courtship dropping because there’s no potential hit to someone’s reputation if they don’t do the bare minimum?

This is a particularly interesting question in the context of my last essay on the digital dating panopticon. In the absence of IRL community around dating, it is entirely possible — even more possible — for your dating habits to lead to a hit on your reputation thanks to the Internet. That said, I think you are also totally right that the lack of IRL community is also leading people to behave in shittier ways that will never get back to them, too.

My guess on the sweatpants specifically is either a. they really did not give a fuck about the date or b. they’re big horndogs and were expecting to hookup. Both options are bad and thoughtless. If you’re expecting to hookup with someone, sweatpants would indeed help facilitate that process in a material sense, but would naturally be off-putting as you described. In all likelihood, it is some combination of the two: they do entirely disrespect the concept of dating and were expecting sex.

I imagine too, though, that the lack of IRL community element has made these men terrible at dating not simply because they feel like they can behave with anonymity, but also because they have no other frame of reference. They don’t understand that you’re supposed to dress to impress, to treat people with respect, to treat the endeavor with some modicum of formality. It’s like so many other elements of our social contract, from the common courtesy of holding the door open for someone or not littering — we are losing the sense of civic belonging and responsibility that have dictated the basic rules of daily communal life.

Sadly, and with regret that I’ll sound like an old pessimist, I believe more people are resigning themselves to a life of the bare minimum. They have no real interest in putting in effort for themselves or others, in appreciating beauty and basic decorum and etiquette and social norms. And it is indeed a lack of community, one founded in the real world and human presence as opposed to the digital, that is driving this apathy. Yet I remain an optimist in the fact that this is all still a choice — we don’t have to be the guys who show up to dates in sweat pants, and we certainly don’t have to go out with the guys who do a second time.

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Hi hi!! First of all, I’ve been obsessed with your Substack ever since I found it (Spring 2024?). I studied sociology so I too am interested in the state of our culture in regard to sex, sexuality, loneliness and intimacy.

I was talking to my parents and Grandma about how people are having less sex these days and my grandma was very surprised by that. She’s 82 and grew up in a religious environment. I’m wondering why many people perceive our culture being more sexual than we actually are. Do you think we’re trying to overcompensate for our lack of sex-having through more revealing clothing and provocative song lyrics?? Not saying those are the only reasons my Grandma might perceive we’re a more sexual culture than we really are but just some guesses.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I might dm this to you also! I know I’m not asking for advice but I value your perspective and I’m curious what you may come up with! — 26, Female, LA

Clothing and song lyrics are absolutely some of the biggest culprits in my mind as to why people, especially those of prior generations, might think our culture is overly sexual. They represent a material reality, one that perhaps in the past was reflective of the lived truth but may no longer be. At the same time, this might not be the most accurate interpretation: Lucille Bogan’s “Till the Cows Come Home” is one of the nastiest songs I’ve ever heard, and it came out in 1934. I recommend looking it up, to anyone who might be curious.

Nevertheless, there is a sexual visibility that is far more contemporary. People were just as freaky and horny throughout probably every other century of human history, but it was not a constant, public element of every culture. It’s not like Bogan’s song was being played on a Top 40 radio station in the way “WAP” was a few years back. Sex was once relegated to specific spaces and arenas of our lives. Now, conceptually, it’s everywhere. Not even strictly through clothing or music, but literally, we now have constant, unlimited access to an inconceivable amount of pornography through our phones. It is this turn psychologically that I think is producing much of today’s sexlessness, paired with the general isolation and anomie of contemporary technology. Sex and eroticism are no longer a specific “thing” we must venture to certain places or pursue certain actions to obtain. They’re a concept, always already available and yet somehow still just out of reach.

Meanwhile, the ideology of sex positivity has made talking about sex, loudly and proudly, the norm. We even saw much of the same sexualized clothing and music in previous decades in a mainstream context (like Rose McGowan’s sheer dress at the 1998 VMAs, or Lil Kim’s 1996 album Hard Core) while sex positivity and raunch culture were just beginning to make waves, and here remained something interesting and provocative about them. But once that laissez-faire ideology of sexuality combined with the unfettered access of the Internet, we lost the actual sex drive behind it all.

The visual and digital hypersexuality of this era are compensations for our physical sexlessness, but they are also the cause of it. It has become a warped cycle in which we our culture pursues sex in any form but the real. It is, in many ways, a form of deception.

Obviously, none of this is simple. It is not an X+Y=Z formula of what’s happened here. But much of your instinct here is accurate — the sex we see in fashion and media is a simulacra. It’s become hard to tell the difference between that and the real thing.

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Hi Magdalene! I'm a big fan of Many Such Cases and your work. Your articles on gender relations are some of my favorite pieces in the past few years. I wanted some advice on creating and maintaining friendships in your twenties.

The past year has been quite tumultuous for me socially. I started 2024 in an intensive outpatient program due to overwhelming social anxiety that helped me reestablish a daily routine and defeat my mentality that there is nothing to live for after college, but most importantly, it gave me a potent antidepressant to help cope with my spirals. I don’t think it was the intended effect, but my antidepressant stopped me from feeling any sort of emotion for the next six months and made me realize how emotion-driven I was and that many friendships I have from high school and college weren’t out of shared values or interests, but rather plain obsession. It quickly became clear to me that my friendships weren’t being mutually sustained because the people I viewed as friends had nothing in common with me. Because of this new realization and my putting more interest in myself and my hobbies, there was a gradual backsliding with many friends I considered close. I stopped taking my antidepressant this summer and have noticed a world of difference in how I feel more of a partnership with my emotions rather than absolute control over all my actions. My social anxiety has dramatically reduced as well, and I no longer feel nervous in most social situations. However, I’ve lost about 70% of my friendships in the past year. I feel good about most of those departures, which makes me especially appreciate those still in my life.

After college, I moved to a new city and have been going through post-grad adjustments many people in my situation are going through. I am the youngest person in my department by about 20 years so I haven’t met any friends there and am slowly but surely meeting new people through sports leagues and friend apps. However, I still feel like I’m in a weird place socially. Whenever I connect with old friends, I feel like the last person to be ‘in’ with the group. I notice how I can become avoidant or stop participating when I feel I’m interrupting a better conversation between the other two people. This, in turn, affects the closeness of my friendships. I’m afraid that my avoidance will harm friendships that I genuinely want to cultivate and impact how I find meaningful connections and build communities in the future. The Pond Hockey National Championships happened in my city this past weekend. While I had no fear of going alone, I wished I had another person to indulge the cheap beers and intense rivalries together.

Do you have any advice on overcoming this avoidant behavior with friends and ensuring I am putting in the time and effort to ensure these friendships last? Do you also have any essay or book recommendations focusing on adult friendships and making connections last? I’ve enjoyed living by myself and figuring out who I am, but my god, sometimes I just want to go and do some stupid shit with friends while my joints still work reasonably well. — White, gay male in his mid 20s in the Midwest