The Sexual Recession and Digital Distractions
The United States is experiencing a sexual recession, with only 37% of American adults having sex weekly, a decline from 55% in 1990. This reduction is occurring across the board, agnostic to relationship status, affecting both married and unpartnered people. This trend exists despite apparent permissiveness towards casual sex. One potential explanation is that fewer people are in long-term partnerships, which typically involve more frequent sexual activity, meaning Gen Z might be having casual sex, but very little of it (e.g., one hookup per year). Possible contributors to this decline, even among married couples, include obesity, xenoestrogens, or, more practically, excessive phone usage. Smartphone use is highly absorbing and is considered at least as plausible as "exotic biological explanations" for reduced sexual activity. The decline in fertility across the world also tracks with smartphone usage, fueling the theory that people are so preoccupied by the "joys of limbic capitalism" delivered via their phones that they "forget to behave like normal human beings and reproduce".
Limbic Capitalism and Societal Sterility
Limbic capitalism is defined as the system where the most profitable innovation hacks people's basic primitive drives, redirecting them from healthy activities (like forming relationships or having sex) towards making money for companies, such as selling pornography, junk food, or hacking dopamine systems via social media. The resulting birth rate decline could be argued to be evolution taking its course, whereby the current culture, destined for sterility due to its commercial infrastructure, will literally not be reproduced and will be replaced by another culture that manages to unplug from this system.
The Influence of Status and Role Models on Reproduction
Behavior regarding having children is mimemetic; people are more likely to have a baby if their sister or best friend does. High-status individuals can influence reproductive trends. The low birth rate in South Korea is partly theorized to be related to the K-pop revolution, where the most popular and aspirational role models are deliberately uncoupled and celibate, setting a generational example of childlessness. Conversely, high-status figures, such as a pastor in Georgia, have successfully created incentives (personally baptizing the third child) that encourage families to have more children. The underlying issue is that the architecture of limbic capitalism often militates against making parenthood high status, as being a public parent often requires strip mining the intimate family life for media consumption.
Archetypes of Modern Masculinity
The "performative male" or "Labubu man" is an archetype characterized by a soft, feminized aesthetic (floppy hair, tote bag, reading literary fiction, drinking matcha). This figure is seen by some as a poorly hidden "sneaky fucker" mating tactic. It may also represent the post-Me Too, HR-friendly man who avoids being aggressive or threatening. The Labubu man is contrasted with the "Hunk With A Heart of Gold" (HMBBO), who is beefy, placid, and politically ambiguous—the human equivalent of a smiley face. The HMBBO is seen as physically capable (protective) but sweet-hearted (safe). Women may prefer the HMBBO, particularly over the overeducated but possibly economically underdeveloped Labubu man, due to the HMBBO's practical competence and financial stability.
Relationship Power Dynamics and Traditional Roles
Trends like "princess treatment" and certain forms of "tradwife" or "surrendered wife" discourse are compared to lifestyle BDSM. Although these roles appear submissive or highly entitled, the woman often retains control, either by dominating the relationship's social media content or by placing the burden on the man to correctly anticipate and fulfill her unstated demands. Both lifestyle BDSM and complimentary gender roles can make sense, but they become "weird" when they are exaggerated, motivated purely by sexual kink, or performed for an online audience, rather than to make the household run smoothly.
Eroding Social Scaffolding for Mating
Historical methods of coupling, such as dinner parties organized by "smug married" friends to set up singles, have disappeared due to factors like dual-income fatigue, poverty, small living spaces, and displacement from local communities. The era of successful cold-approach dating was brief and relied on a high-trust society with robust, old-fashioned behavioral norms. The absence of this social architecture means that online platforms have attempted to compensate; for example, the "Tea app" for unsubstantiated gossip acted as a technological surrogate for the historical community function of reputation monitoring. Crucial advice for young men (especially regarding long-term mating strategies) is often not available online because intergenerational networks of older, decent men (the "uncles") have been eroded, particularly for men growing up in fatherless households.
Male Competition and Misdirected Attraction Signals
Male sexual success is highly correlated with how likely other men thought a man could beat them in a fight, while females' ratings of the males' attractiveness is not predictive of male sexual success. This suggests that male competition theory is highly predictive of female attraction. Men attempting to "Labubu reverse engineer" their presentation to be non-threatening often fail because they go about it the wrong way, misunderstanding what women truly desire. Furthermore, social media is inherently feminizing as it encourages talking and forecloses physical violence, a contrast to traditionally masculine interaction which focuses on cooperation to get physical tasks done. Men who are hyper-masculine but post physique photos are engaging in a “girly” or homophilic activity that is often a turn-off for women, signaling either ignorance of female preferences or signaling to the male gaze.
UK Class Dynamics and Political Conflict
A new brand of political confrontation, often over the display of British or English flags ("woke flagging"), has emerged, exposing a clear class rift in the UK. The flaggers are working-class, while the de-flaggers are middle-class. This conflict is rooted in England's history, which includes a 1,000-year-old class system, originally a racialized caste system imposed by the Norman Conquest. The middle classes are criticized for inviting demographic changes that do not hurt them but negatively impact the working classes. In politics, while young women currently skew left (woke), there is historical precedent for women enthusiastically supporting right-coded movements. A potential future right-wing political movement could be propelled by women by utilizing feminine flavors of politics, such as fear (neuroticism) and the desire to mother minority groups, as seen in certain anti-migrant protests.