[swagasaurus-rex]

This is an unusual take.

People in the past made 4-10 babies per family and they did it by being celibate until marriage. Sex positivity and casual relationships were not normal, and grandparents encouraged marriage before sex, probably because the grandparents knew they’d be partially responsible for raising the kid and wanted to ensure two parents to help care for their grandchildren

[vjulian]

That time period is so markedly different from ours, the comparison is useless.

[al_borland]

It worked for hundreds, or maybe, thousands of years. What we’ve been doing for just some decades is already leading to talks of population collapse.

Maybe that way wasn’t wrong.

[codedokode]

Maybe because women didn't work then?

[vjulian]

Sex was great back then? For women? Gays? Who? The point you make is backward-looking. I suggest we as a culture look forward instead.

[ta8645]

> Sex was great back then?

Yes, obviously; there was a much higher reproductive rate. It seems like you're talking about enjoyment or something else, but that really wasn't the focus of this thread.

[vjulian]

I find it interesting you suggest that pleasure be separated from reproduction in a thread about encouraging reproduction.

[ta8645]

There is great pleasure in having a family. Even for people who get no pleasure out of the act itself.

[al_borland]

What do you mean by “great”? It was successful in reproduction. That’s what we’re talking about here. People were having families and raising children that went out to have families and raise children.

Gay couples can’t have children (outside of adoption or surrogacy), so I’m not sure how that is relevant to the topic at hand. Gay couples will not be helping with the next baby boom.

We made a change in the culture, from the standpoint of the species continuing to survive into the future. The change put us on what looks like a worse path. Would it not be wise to question those changes to see where it went wrong and course correct, just like we’d do if this was any other problem in any other domain?

[vjulian]

That you’re focusing on “reproduction” and factoring out the pleasure of sex is a vestige of religion and speaks to the very heart of the problem.

[al_borland]

This has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with not having the population collapse, because we've become so focused on pleasure that we forgot why there is a biological advantage to it being pleasureful... to do it more and reproduce more. But modern technology has eliminated that pesky side effect of children.

The pleasure can and does still exist. It's not like it gets removed when sex is ends in a pregnancy. It doesn't have to be some mechanical act, the way you seem to be framing it.

[swagasaurus-rex]

It was just 60 years ago, and most cultures in the world today still practice this form of sexual modesty.

[vjulian]

How’s that working out? Overbearing control over sex is not only unnecessary, it’s the problem. It’s also so exceptionally culturally ingrained, people immediately and emotionally come to its defence.

[swagasaurus-rex]

whats the problem?

[mensetmanusman]

The people today who proscribe to these beliefs are the only people above 2.1, it will be the future due to natural selection of culture.

[pyuser583]

While this may be true, it would be helpful if you would explain what the differences are and how they make the comparison useless.

[sapphicsnail]

People have always been and will always have casual sex. People didn't used to be perfect Christian monogamous couples until the 60s. We just punish people less for it than we used to which is a good thing.

[swagasaurus-rex]

Before contraceptives, there was no such thing as casual sex (except for the homosexual kind).

Sex produced babies, 2% of women died in childbirth. Children need a father to help provide and protect, without that, babies were often just abandoned in the woods.

There’s nothing casual about that.

[hackable_sand]

Little bro is stuck in the 60's

[acdha]

This is completely a-historical. Humans have been having sex outside of marriage since that concept was invented and you’re projecting an idealized Western European view on an entire world with a complex history of different cultures. What you’re describing isn’t even true of European history (e.g. read up on hand fasting or the high rates of marriage after pregnancy) and it’s even less so globally. Marriage is in part a financial relationship, and that drive a lot of premarital sex: if men were expected to make a significant monetary contribution (dowry, house/land, etc.) even in the most religious societies many would not be celibate for a decade, they just weren’t having sex in formal legally-binding relationships.

One other key thing you’re leaving out: historically, many women did not have the freedom to choose whether they had children, or often who or when they married. Unless you’re proposing a new take on Ceaușescu-era Romania, that is not relevant to the discussion of fertility rates.

[swagasaurus-rex]

This isn’t a western view, it’s literally how the majority of the world still operates. Marriage is not an abrahamic invention, it happens in eastern cultures, middle eastern cultures, african cultures, it’s basically universal.

Before contraceptives sex outside of marriage results in children born out of wedlock. This is catastrophic for the mothers, their families, and for the child.

In the past they used to build temples dedicated to Moloch for sacrificing unwanted babies. The Israelites looked down on this practice, and instead insisted on marriage with rules: thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. These rules were crucial for social stability.

Why is marriage and punishment for adultery universal? Because a two parent household is the only healthy way to raise kids and ensure wealth is preserved between generations. This has always been true.

[ChromaticPanic]

They were also marrying at 19

[maxerickson]

Also, pro wrestling is real.

[regularization]

Yes..people in the past were celibate until marriage - what? Maybe some were, like som are now.

From World War II into the 1960s, the median age of a married woman in the US was 20. So maybe many were virgins, if they didn't get together with their fiancee. The median age of first marriage for women in the US is now 28.