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It's the male loneliness epidemic.

Look, I will preface this by saying that I'm not an incel who thinks everyone is entitled to sex or that women should just get married and stay at home. I have to do this because there's some things coming up that could be misconstrued as a very controversial opinion on my part, whereas I'm trying to explain what some people might be feeling. I don't want to justify anything or anyone, I just want to explain my opinion of what's happening.

Long story short, people are having less sex and more crucially, dating less. Here's a source. The article surveyed men, but likely the same is true of women. But we're focusing on men for this bit anyway, since we're talking about the sudden right-wing turn of young males.

There are many reasons why people are spending more time online and less with potential romantic partners. I'm not getting into most of those. Many are valid. God knows I wouldn't want to date a potential Andrew Tate fan or a Trump voter if I was a woman. And on both sides of the gender aisle, there's new time consuming online hobbies, like gaming and doomscrolling.

This causes bitterness. I've been a teenager, and I'm still in my 20s. And I'm a dude. I can tell you that as a teenager there was a constant urge of "I wish I could get some" that masturbation could not quell for long, and once I did finally lose my virginity (well, after like the 2nd or 3rd time, everyone knows the first time is shit), I knew I wanted more of that and less of my hand. Luckily for me, I spent my late teen years in a stable relationship with a girl whose drive was also pretty high so we definitely had days of 4-5 sessions. As I've aged, I've calmed down on that front, there's been an entire calendar year or 2 where I didn't get any in my mid-late 20s, as I don't have a lot of game, or free time.

Enough about me though, that was just to point out that young dudes can get ridiculously horny*. But horny is just one issue. You can usually get by with a good ol' session of pocket billiards. But of course in your teens at least, you've been conditioned by shitty Hollywood teen coming-of-age movies to link sex with success as a male. And then there's shows like HIMYM, Friends, Seinfeld, whatever - the main characters are ALWAYS dating someone.

Now on to dating. That's the big elephant in the room. A lot of women nowadays have realized they don't need some asshole hanging around their home. Much more interesting to get an education, build a career to be proud of. Gives you a lot more freedom compared to the traditional wife. So a lot fewer women are dating in their 20s. Those that are dating - well, they just get to be pickier. It's a matter of supply vs demand, to put it extremely bluntly.

Apps make it even worse. Women on apps get to be extremely picky and receive hundreds or even thousands of matches with average looks in a big city, while men are happy to get into the tens. Why? Well, because there are a ton of horny dudes looking for just sex, and they devalue all the other men. Again, supply vs demand. A good saying I heard was "Men on Tinder are looking for fresh water in the desert, women on Tinder are looking for fresh water in the ocean". It sucks for everyone, unless you're looking for meaningless casual sex as a woman. Tons of that available for women. Hard to find anyone to actually date though and it seems that part applies for both genders. Especially because the apps' algorithms don't want you to find true love. The goal is to keep you on the app.

Another good reason for all this is the lack of the Third Place. I think the US is particularly bad in this regard, with suburban hell where you just have nowhere to go hang out and meet new people. No meeting new people in real life = you're stuck with the horrible reality of dating apps if you want to meet potential partners, or even just new friends. Here in my corner of Europe, we have mixed zoning mostly and walkable cities, so it's easier to just go walk to a bar, sit down, talk to other people who show up. No need to drive or order a rideshare.

So now we've established that young people aren't having much sex or dating. Why does that make people young men in particular go conservative? Well it's simple, really. It's the fucking tradwife thing. Society makes you feel like you're worthless if you don't date or have sex, so you feel lonely, maybe you don't even have any female friends. I know I didn't until I was like 15 or so, I was scared of talking to the girls. So you know jack shit about women as actual human beings, only know what you've consumed in the media, which objectifies women anyway, and you've got these shitty role models that tell you you as a man deserve an obedient woman, someone who doesn't talk back and does the chores and was a virgin before you. You absolutely fucking don't, nobody deserves a bangmaid. But we've got all these incels and that ideology just clicks with them. Of course they feel like they deserve what their forefathers had. That we should go back to a society before women had any agency. Etc. It's stupid as fuck, and it comes from indoctrination of lonely people. They're just looking for someone to blame, and an easy solution for their issues. That's always an easy thing for propaganda to make use of.

So what IS an actual solution? Some will say therapy, but it's pretty difficult to make millions of people realize they could use some. Nor are there enough therapists in the world for everyone to get therapy. Plus I don't think therapy is the end-all be-all solution for all the mental health issues the world is suffering from. I think the best solution, and I have no idea how this could be implemented, would be to just promote more inter-gender socialization in schools, kindergarten, etc. Just give young boys growing up every possible chance of making female friends. Not because those female friends are potential future romantic partners, but because I think a lot of guys just really need to understand women more and how can you understand them if you've never had any in your life as equals, as friends, hopefully close ones? I know I changed a lot as a person when I finally actually had some girls as friends. Learned to be more empathetic for sure.

Last, but not least: Us guys need to be there for each other more too. Ask your friends what's wrong. Hell, if your friend's been looking down for a while and doesn't want to open up, get him moderately drunk, but don't pry too hard. Let him open up on his own. Be supportive, don't offer solutions unless asked for. You may save someone's life.

TL;DR: Problem is incels. But that's an oversimplification and the incels themselves are not the root cause. Problem is loneliness and a bunch of men who don't necessarily understand women. It should really be fixed BEFORE these men grow up to be bitter incels. I bet most of them could do with more and closer friends in general too, not just female friends.

* I have of course been lead to believe by a feminist friend of mine that the same applies for women, but due to societal pressure, they're more likely to hide that part, possibly even from themselves. She may very well be right, given how slut shaming shapes women to be less open about sexuality, resulting in less fun for everyone involved.

That's the shittiest part. Honestly some people don't deserve to vote, they just lack critical thinking

Honestly no, I was a twat at sixteen. But I acknowledge that I'm speaking for myself.

I think we see a reform manifesto pledge to 'bring back good, honest turkey twizzlers' to school canteens 🙃

Maybe but electoral outcomes can take decades to work out the consequences they have to live with, so it makes some sense.to allow them to have a voice.

When i voted my first time at 18 i wasn't engaged in either the process or the candidates, it took another couple years, so maybe by the time they're 18-20 they will take it seriously and be more engaged rather then by the time i was 22-24.

As a 60 yr old, lefty, I don't think an 80 yr old should have the vote. They had their chance for many, many decades.

If you pay (edit: income) tax, you should have the right to vote. I'm not convinced by all of the catastrophizing about it. Turning 16 unlocks a lot of rights and privileges in the UK and I have faith that teenagers won't be the reason that quality of life worsens.