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Vanity Fair on Tinder

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Aug 13, 2015.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I don't think so.

    Here's a CDC study from 2005. It cites numbers from 2002.

    http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad362.pdf

    There's a table on Page 6, and according to that the median number of partners for ages 30-39 are 6-7 for men and 4 for women. Later in the study it breaks down the "how many," and 20 percent of women in that age group have had only one partner and another 10 percent have had two. Those would be the 40s of today. (Other numbers are grouped, and the total for "3-6 partners" is about 33 percent, or the combined total of "one" and "two.") So, even if they have added in their 40s, their number in their 20s is locked in at one or two.

    Also according to the chart, women's average number of sexual partners has increased from 3.8 in 2002 to 4.3 in 2011-13. That's a pretty big leap. (Men's average number has stayed flat.)

    And that's only going as far forward as 2002. If anyone can find a more recent version of these stats, I think we'd see a spike in the younger years toward the "3-6" category.
     
  2. DeskMonkey1

    DeskMonkey1 Active Member

    I can't lie - I wish this had been around in my single days. I met my wife on a Yahoo Personals but at that point I was looking for a long-term thing and that is what most of the dating sites are for.

    But when I was 22-23 and my only concern was graduating? This would have prevented a few of those lonely nights.
     
  3. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Wow, those numbers seem staggeringly low.
     
  4. Donny in his element

    Donny in his element Well-Known Member

    Probably a US - Canada conversion rate problem.
     
    old_tony, sgreenwell, HC and 4 others like this.
  5. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Of course, there's the usual warning that the numbers are not to be trusted; when one of these studies came out a few years ago, the NYT talked to a bunch of mathematicians who said it's impossible to have such a wide gap between men and women because then who are the men sleeping with? So it's probably a basic "men exaggerate, women omit" problem. Big shock.

    The researchers seem to believe men are sleeping with more women but not that many more.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/weekinreview/12kolata.html?_r=0

    So the difference in the numbers might not be such a huge deal, only how the numbers for each gender over time. And you are probably right that the reported numbers are lower than reality, at least for women. The reported number jumping from 3.8 to 4.3 in that 10-year span is probably the most instructive is that they feel less need to hide it.

    In any case, I still say it's way easier to get with someone now, to the point that for those of us who haven't been in the dating scene for a while, it would be like going to a foreign country. I've heard of the "third date" rule, where that's the make-or-break date for whether you're ever going to do it.

    Three dates? Come on. When did it get that easy?
     
    YankeeFan likes this.
  6. X-Hack

    X-Hack Well-Known Member

    If the disparity between the number of male and female partners is really what that study says it is, there are an awful lot of eskimo bros out there but not a lot of eskimo sisters.

    It looks like those apps do make it a little easier to get laid than someone of my vintage (born in 1970) might have experienced back in the day. I did reasonably well in my 20s but probably would have got more action than I did if social networking, dating sites and Tinder were around back then (I met my wife in late 1999 -- Internet dating was just in its infancy, I did OK with the dating sites in the months leading up to when we met, but I met her through conventional means). Still, I think those of us who came of age before the Internet-enabled hookup culture are much better off for the experience we had. When we were teenagers in the days before cell phones, texting and the Internet, we had to call a girl's land line and -- most likely -- deal with her mom or, worse, her dad before getting her on the phone. Getting up the courage to do that -- and to have those kinds of interactions -- builds valuable character and social skills. My son -- when he's of dating age -- will never need to do that. Neither will my daughter's suitors. I'm not putting the the gender dynamic in those terms in order to be sexist -- but that's how the dynamic was back then.

    Also, back before Tinder, match.com, Jdate, etc., you didn't have to satisfy a rigid criteria list before having the opportunity to even meet someone. There are plenty of females who I met at parties, bars, or any number of other places in college and in my 20s and ended up, at the very least, hooking up with who I'm sure -- had I approached them on match.com -- would have looked at my profile, seen that I'm below their height requirement, called it a "deal-breaker" and rejected any contact and I would have never met them in the first place. But since their first contact with me was in person, there was that chance they'd feel an attraction and forget that they had a "5-10 or taller" requirement. I'm sure in-person encounters still happen, but Internet dating sure seems like a great vehicle if you're not the most extroverted or confident individual in person. And if you're short -- or have some other "deal-breaker" quality -- it's probably harder to take advantage of that because what's a "deal-breaker" on a dating site would not necessarily be a dealbreaker if you got to meet her in person.
     
  7. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    Nobody's satisfied with getting to second base anymore, LTL. They're all home run hitters now.

    I blame steroids.
     
  8. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I was born in 1970 and I don't have a clear recollection of how many women I've slept with.

    I haven't decided if that's weird or not but if a researcher was to ask me a number, I'd just guess.

    Much like some of their last names, and a couple of them, their first names. It isn't like a kept a sex book.
     
  9. SpeedTchr

    SpeedTchr Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]
     
    LongTimeListener likes this.
  10. Vombatus

    Vombatus Well-Known Member

    Does organically mean cornfield?
     
  11. Vombatus

    Vombatus Well-Known Member

    ‘The men in this town have a serious case of pussy affluenza"

    Goddamn. That's a great quote.
     
  12. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    The contempt the women have for the men is bothersome. At least the men enjoy the sex part.
     
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