The Rise of Epithymian Idolatry
Is Modern Dating Really That Bad?
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If you scroll through Tiktok for a few minutes you’ll likely come across at least one person complaining about the modern dating landscape. Personally I take it for granted that this is true. I just assume that dating has become more difficult and less people are actually enjoying themselves as single people. In this essay then, I’m going to chart the collapse of romance and the psychological consequences this has had on men.
I’ll get to the statistics in a moment, but this is a far cry from my personal experience when I had first entered the dating market as an adult in 2012, but especially around 2017 – 2019. During this time I had the belief and experience that dating was a lot of fun, and I met some really amazing people. Even if we went on a single date or several, hooked up or not, the whole experience was, simply put, a lot of fun. I was also a broke student throughout this time, so it wasn’t as if I was becoming more financially successful and reaping those benefits. I should also say that I have always dealt with social anxiety, so to be very clear I am not some sort of master pickup artist. Anecdotally, I just had a good time.
As I said though, since that time there has been an increase in narratives about how difficult dating has become. Again, personally, I hear this from everyone I talk to. The Pew Research Center has also found that 75% of people dating agree that it is very or somewhat difficult.1 Additionally, Alex of Date Psychology has reported that 18 – 25 year old men are just as likely to be single as 10 years ago. However, women of the same age bracket are twice as likely to be in a relationship, though obviously, with older men.2 In a survey conducted by Alex, he found that poor mental health predicted difficulties in dating.3 This is a very important point because we see that mental health issues for men have increased in the last few years.4,5,6
On top of that, 55% of men and 45% of women are also struggling with their singlehood to the level of clinical dysphoria, meaning they have an enduring state of unhappiness. Additionally, over 50% of men simply haven’t approached a woman in person in the past year.7 Elsewhere, we find that the average age of first marriage has increased by 10 years since 1950. Now, given the increase in women’s sexual and professional autonomy this is expected and in my opinion, has the potential to be a good thing.8 However, what I think all of this speaks to is that we have a radically novel dating landscape, and it seems like people don’t have a sufficient map for navigating it. So, given all of that, what are we to make of this?
The Epithymian Collapse of Romantic Idolatry
I’ll explain the key points in this essay, but in my last essay Romantic Idolatry, I talked about the invention of Romantic Love and talked about how it has begun to collapse. You have to understand that when we think about relationships, the idea that we have to go out into the world, find our Soul Mate, and build a life together, is actually quite recent in the history of our species. Even though some of these ideas are older, the specific combination of Romantic Love is novel. So, even though our culture has now been defined by the categories of Romantic Love for several centuries at this point, it’s not really a law of human nature that we are condemned to follow.
What that means in practice is that when we talk about romantic relationships, we’re using maps that have largely been created by romantic media. When you go to movies, read books, play video games, and talk to your friends, family, and loved ones, they are using, without even realizing it, the language of the romance novel.
However, as I argued in my essay on Epithymia, our culture is increasingly defined by a nihilistic hedonism because of how technology has given us so many new options. In this kind of technological environment, Epithymia is a sort of psychosocial dynamic where the primary thing that matters to us is how stimulating that thing is for us, because that is the thing that captures our attention. Remember, we now have an extra decade before marriage to live our lives, experiment with new lifestyles, and focus on our careers, among many other things. When we have so much freedom to choose between so many different lifestyles and interests, how else are we going to be able to identify the things that matter?
If you look out into an infinite ocean of grey, it’s going to be the red thing that stands out the most. You then choose that red thing, and then convince yourself that this was free choice. That isn’t real choice. That’s just you being overwhelmed by infinite variety and then choosing the first thing that caught your attention. Your “freedom” has far more to do with how stimulating something is, than with whether it is good for you or truly meaningful for you.
What happens then, when the only way to choose is dictated for you by an algorithm that selects based on what is most likely to hold your attention and keep you on an app? Whether it’s Tiktok, Youtube, Spotify, Tinder, even Amazon, or any other app, they don’t care about anything other than keeping you on the app because that is how they make money. Think about the consequences of that. What else do you have to build yourself out of, other than the things these algorithms put in front of you? How is that freedom to define who you are as an individual?
Then, think about how this Epithymian force of nihilistic hedonism shaped by algorithms influences the modern dating landscape. To be very clear, Epithymia is not limited to porn, or sex, or anything like that. I’m merely using porn as a single lens to understand how Epithymia operates in our culture, but it is far more complex than only porn. It’s just easier to understand if we look at a single thing like porn, and really, any discussion of men and dating has to take into consideration the effects of porn. This is especially true since upwards of 74% of men watch porn, the average first time viewing porn is 9 – 13, and 37% teens and 57% of young adults watch porn at least once per month.9,10,11
My point is, porn is shaping a lot of our views on sex, and this doesn’t include the effect of pervasive sexuality in music videos, advertisements, and social media generally with its ease of access to sexually provocative models. I’m not against free sexuality or even porn, but this is certainly a powerful new reality.
So, if Romantic Idolatry was a system for making sense of and meaning in romantic relationships and life generally, then think about how Epithymia acting through porn and dating apps has influenced romance. We’re still using in many ways the maps of romance, but now within an environment in which stimulation-directed algorithms are shaping those maps.
With men being shaped by porn and half-naked social media models since 9 – 13, you can see how their sexuality and vision of the ideal woman might be shaped. Dr. Alexandra Katehakis, a sex addictions therapist, has written about how addictions escalate in intensity, even to the point of defying the addict’s values and cultural norms in dangerous or illegal ways.12 Another study found that the younger you were as a first time viewer the more likely you were to watch illegal genres later in life.13 The more we watch, the more bored we get, the more extreme the materials we must go to.
However, does this actually affect our engagement with romance? The evidence is inconclusive. There is evidence that porn use is related to lower sexual satisfaction and commitment in relationships.14,15 Men who are single are also more likely to use porn, and porn is associated with psychological and social dysfunction.16,9 I do think that more research is needed, but if we understand the effects of porn as both a symptom of larger issues and as one of many potential causes of those issues, then I also think that we can begin pulling some of these pieces together.
Like I said before, romance has collapsed and I personally believe that one factor in this is the early use of porn and its effects on our minds. The collapse of romance itself also contributes to greater porn use, which further exacerbates the issue. The point is that a lot of young men are experiencing difficulties in dating and are using porn. The even more key point however, is that young men believe that they will have difficulties in dating. Again, my personal belief is that porn isn’t helping the situation and I’ll provide more evidence in a moment, but think about how these beliefs are co-opted by bad actors.
Red Pill podcasts have become infamous for profiting off of men’s difficulties in dating, especially young men.17,18 They’ve also been associated with right-wing politics, and so the fear I’ve seen quite a lot is that Red Pill is drawing more and more men into an especially misogynistic Right.19 Pew Research has found that 25% of Americans believe that people have negative views of men and masculinity, but 45% of Republican men do.20 There has also been an association between self-reported porn use and right-wing politics.21
To be clear, even though I’m on the Left, I don’t hate the right-wing. I do think there are healthy manifestations of right-wing politics even if I disagree with them. My point is though, that you now have a bunch of young men, who are watching porn, who may already be right-wing or moderate, are experiencing difficulties in dating, and believe that people hate them because they are men. Then, they come across Red Pill podcasts that claim they have a solution.
And yet, these podcasts often set up debates with OnlyFans models in order to make women look bad. Not only does this contribute to a more misogynistic worldview, but it also does a great job funnelling these men into OnlyFans, exacerbating the issues they’re already facing, creating an opportunity to grow resentful at how they’re being exploited by OnlyFans, and thus, justifying a misogynistic right-wing perspective even more.
However, I don’t mean to say that the problem is only with Red Pill. PornHub itself reported in 2014 that Democrat states were more likely to watch porn than Republican states.22 So, it may not be precisely accurate to say that Red Pill right-wing men are being affected more by porn. We also have to consider what the reaction to all of these dynamics is doing to men who represent a more progressive masculinity. How are such men influenced by Red Pill itself even as they hate it? Remember also from the second essay in this mini-series, Psychology of the Zombie, when I said that most young men are likely just tapping out altogether.
Some final pieces that I think are very relevant come from Pew Research where they found that 75% of people think it isn’t acceptable for men to join in when other men are talking about women in a sexual way. Sixty-nine percent say it isn’t acceptable for men to have many different sexual partners rather than commit to one relationship.23 Alex of Date Psych has also reported that around 50% men don’t approach because they fear social consequences.7 Finally, Apostolou and colleagues find that 86% of men report being single because they have poor flirting skills.24
I will admit that some of these findings are not nuanced enough, but I do think they corroborate my own experience, the experience of people I’ve talked to, and everything else I’ve already said and am about to say.
I think the implication of these finds is that there is a culture in which men who talk about women in a sexual way are considered unacceptable, and men who want to learn how to create sexual experiences with women are considered unacceptable. There is of course, the sexual double standard where we celebrate male promiscuity.25 However, I think there is a distinction between men who are successful and men who are bad at talking to women. For many men this may not be an issue, but think about what effect that has on those men who do need to get better at dating. Again, given everything I’ve said, that likely isn’t a small percentage of men. Remember, 50% of men haven’t approach a woman in the past year.
If men don’t know how to flirt and believe their honest failures lead to social consequences, and sometimes they actually do so, then we can’t expect men to try enough to actually get better. If we want these men to get better at dating, they need to be able to openly talk about women in a sexual way without fear of being shamed for making mistakes or just being bad at talking to women. Even if their goal isn’t to have endless wanton sex, if they want to get into a relationship, they may need to have many experiences with women to get good enough for one woman to want a relationship with them.
Furthermore, Alex of Date Psych has also reported that specifically for men, an external locus of control predicts dating issues.3 Having an external locus basically means that you feel as if forces outside of yourself dictate your actions. You aren’t acting, the outside world is acting upon you. Romantic Idolatry has already given us the belief that our Soul Mate exists somewhere out there and Cosmic Love will bring us together without any effort on our own. Then, given everything I’ve said about how Epithymia has made the dating landscape so difficult and seem so difficult, you can imagine how much this decreases how confident men feel that they can create the dating experiences they actually want.
What’s clear is that there is a whirlwind of influences shaping and molding masculinity and its role in the romantic landscape. All of these forces together are Epithymian in the sense that they’re defined by a culture of nihilistic hedonism where the most stimulating, shocking, or outrageous views are the ones we’re being exposed to. Romance seems impossible, and when we do pursue romance, we are really pursuing a hyper-sexualized version of Romantic Idolatry because of how porn influences the average boy from 9 – 13 years old.
Before I continue, I think it’s worth mentioning that I don’t mean for this to be some sort of grand narrative that explains all men’s experiences or that I think that what I’m describing here is the only reason some of this stuff is happening. However, I do think that this can be a useful lens for understanding an important part of a much bigger problem. Always remember that the things I talk about here are a provisional perspective that has explanatory value, rather than some sort of absolute claim about the nature of reality. So with that caveat out of the way, the next question I want to answer, is what effect on men’s psychology, has all of this had?
The Psychology of the Epithymian Male
In Dr. Carnes book, Sexual Anorexia, he outlines 4 core beliefs that often define a person struggling with sexual addiction.26 I want to make it clear that I’m not saying that all men have sex addiction, but that there are congruencies between these core beliefs and the negative experiences that many men have. I also think these core beliefs are associated with Epithymian dynamics in general, specifically with how Epithymia is a consequence of the Meaning Crisis, as defined by Dr. John Vervaeke.27,28 So let’s start unpacking all of that because I know that seems very complex. I’ll make this make sense.
Firstly, I’d like to begin with a very fascinating quote from Dr. Giddens:29
“Addiction has to be understood in terms of a society in which tradition has more thoroughly been swept away than ever before […] Where large areas of a person's life are no longer set by pre-existing patterns and habits, the individual is continually obliged to negotiate life-style options. Moreover - and this is crucial – such choices are not just 'external' or marginal aspects of the individual's attitudes, but define who the individual 'is'”
After everything I’ve said in this essay, let alone in the past two essays on the Zombie and Romantic Idolatry, it seems very clear how fitting this is for our culture. Dr. Giddens compares us to a small village a few centuries ago where most people lived very similar lifestyles and never really had to change. Today, you are obliged to change. As we’ve pushed for a post-patriarchal masculinity and as feminism has liberated women, we’ve inevitably liquefied the standards we used to define our lives. The fact that we can change what we spend our time doing and practice new lifestyles, is partly why we are so susceptible to addiction. Changing ourselves is already difficult, but when we’re so uneducated about how to change ourselves in health ways, the harder we try the more difficult it becomes.
Then, the fact that all of this is happening in the context of Epithymia simply lends more evidence for this. If who you are as a person has now opened up to so many different possibilities, the easiest way to decide is through choosing the most stimulating lifestyles. The algorithm, through social media, dictates for us what kind of person we can be or even desire to be. However, because it chooses what we see based on trying to grip our attention for as long as possible, we are at risk of losing ourselves to social media.
Furthermore, Dr. Marc Lewis describes addiction as basically learning on overdrive, where we learn that the only way to solve our problems is through our addiction.30 If I have a bad day at work, or argue with my partner, or anything else bad happens to me, I can only deal with that issue by giving in to the addiction. When the average person is in front of a screen for 7 hours per day, what could you possibly call that other than learning on overdrive?31 If you did anything for 7 hours per day, you’d become worldclass at that skill. Given that, could you really describe our relationship to the stimulation-guided algorithm as anything other than addiction?
All of this precisely why we must be aware of the 4 core beliefs that make addiction possible. So, here are the beliefs that Dr. Carnes identifies with sex addiction:26
1. I am basically a bad, unworthy person
2. No one could love me as I am
3. My needs are never going to be met if I have to depend on others
4. Sex is my most important need
I’m going to go through each of these deeper to connect them with what Dr. Vervaeke calls the Meaning Crisis, which is basically the idea that we’ve lost all the ways we’ve had to make meaning in our lives. When I said before that it’s up to each individual person to define themselves and their lives, that is a consequence of the meaning crisis. We take it for granted that people should be able to do that for themselves, but in reality, we have to learn how to do that for ourselves. It actually takes development to be able to do that and most of don’t have that.32,33 So, here is how the loss of meaning has contributed to each of these 4 core beliefs.
Firstly, is the core belief that you are basically a bad, unworthy person. Dr. Giddens writes that:29
“In Western culture at least, today is the first period in which men are finding themselves to be […] possessing a problematic 'masculinity'.”
I want to be clear that I think there is value in identifying toxic forms of masculinity that need to change. I’ve read bell hooks book The Will to Change, I think it’s beautiful and every man needs to read it.34 However, think about what happens to men when they hear that who they are fundamentally is toxic. You can obviously say that you’re not trying to say that men are inherently toxic or even that all masculinity is toxic. Despite that, people who are moderate can sometimes hear that masculinity and men themselves are toxic, let alone a Red Pill man.
The point is that if you are raising entire generations of men to believe that what they are is toxic, do you think that is going to have a beneficial effect on their mental health?
Dr. Barry has found that the answer may be no because when men believe that masculinity is to blame for their emotional issues, they have lower mental health, whereas those who have positive views of masculinity tend to have better mental health.35 This research was correlational, so we can’t know if believing masculinity is toxic causes mental health issues. However, I do think this is related to the Meaning Crisis because one of the ways we feel meaning is when we feel like our lives are intrinsically valuable and are worthwhile living.36
Men browsing social media often come across videos from people directly saying that men are bad for being masculine. There’s a popular Tiktok I’ve seen with the caption “what it’s like to be a man on social media” and the video is a guy scrolling through video after video with people saying men are trash, men are toxic, or that the world would be better without men.
Even though this isn’t what many feminists mean to say when they talk about toxic masculinity, the algorithm doesn’t care. These men will watch, they will become outraged, and through their clicks they will train the algorithm to feed them more of the most outrageous content and they will learn on overdrive that they are intrinsically bad for being masculine.
We have to be careful about how our explanations about toxic masculinity may make people hear that they are fundamentally bad, or toxic, or in some way intrinsically at fault for the suffering they are experiencing. I think we can balance taking responsibility for becoming a better person, and not being at fault for the bad lessons society may have taught us, whether that means toxic masculinity or toxic criticisms of toxic masculinity.
This is obviously already related to the second core belief, that no one can you love as you are. As toxic men, how could they? Both these first two core beliefs are also related to mattering, which is where we and what we do matter to those who in turn matter to us.37 If you don’t feel like your contribution matters or is directly harming others, imagine how unlovable you would feel? Then, put that in the context of all the problems in modern dating. Let’s say you’ve been given a narrative that you have no hope for a relationship so you may as well just give up, or perhaps that you can only be loved by a woman if you become a rich alpha male. In either case, you likely won’t feel loveable for who you currently are.
This is also related to another facet of meaning in life, coherence.36 This is where we feel like who we are and the world are coherent to us, we have a map we can follow. Again, men feel as if they don’t have a map to guide them in their lives and in dating. The idea that men feel unlovable because they can’t find a relationship is a consequence of incoherence, of not having that map. As such, it becomes very easy to confuse failures because of a lack of a romantic map with being unlovable, especially when they’ve been taught that they are an intrinsically bad person.
I’ve also heard people on Tiktok making fun of men for being affected by what they see on Tiktok. Their point is that these men simply need to go outside and touch grass, maybe talk to a woman. Yeah fair enough, 100%, but when your belief systems and maps of the world are shaped by an algorithm that selects for stimulation and outrage, why would you even bother? If you’re a man seeing all of these negative messages, making your world seem incoherent, it’s going to seem hopeless. While the causes are many, I think all of this does have some part to play in why more and more men are feeling so hopeless that they choose to end their own lives.38 This is having a real world effect on these men.
That then ties very…nicely with the third core belief, that your needs are never going to be met if you have to depend on others. Number one, you cannot depend on others because dating is so difficult. Secondly, tie this with my argument in my Zombie essay that we have become hyper-individualistic. We consider it a virtue to not need to depend on others, and a weakness to depend on anyone. We have literally turned this core belief that keeps people trapped in addiction into an ideal. Dr. Vervaeke has said that mattering to those who matter to us may be the most important way we find meaning in life, and we have demonized this and valorized its opposite.39
Finally, we come to the fourth core belief, that sex is your most important need. I’ve often heard Red Pill men say that men need an endless variety of women because we are biological machines.40,41 We’re hardwired to need sex, and so the women we date simply must accept that we will always be looking for sex with other women. Dr. Giddens has also said that one aspect of romance has been the idea that a woman must tame a man’s wild soul.29 Now, defined so much as we are by Epithymia’s nihilistic algorithmic-hedonism, we have a male even more defined by his pursuit of sex and stimulation.
That said, I do think that we can and should rephrase “sex is my most important need” as pleasure, hedonism, enjoyment, fun, or simply stimulation. In an Epithymian culture, the point doesn’t have to be that we are merely sex-obsessed, but that when meaning in life collapses, algorithms that select for stimulation, become that much more powerful.
I’ve argued this in greater detail in my essay Psychology of Epithymia, but you likely already see why this all makes sense. Shaped and molded by social media as much as we are, our brains are literally being changed to value only pleasure, enjoyment, fun, even outrage, on whatever stimulates our attention the most. There likely are many men who experience sex as their most important need, especially when men often tie their self-esteem to the social status they gain by men approving of their sexual conquests.42,43
Even so, many men are merely defined by stimulation rather than meaning in life. Sex and love are both very important needs, they are, they can be beautiful and incredibly meaningful themselves. While that is true, they cannot be the thing we orient our lives around because they cannot bear the full weight of meaning in life. I don’t think any ONE thing can.
In either case, I think it’s a fundamental lack of all 4 facets of meaning in life that leads to this misguided belief that our most important need is stimulation. Without intrinsic value, the only thing left to value about life is stimulation. Without a coherent vision of ourselves and what we actually need to live a meaningful life, we can’t make sense of all of these options. We default to choosing stimulation. We also lack a purpose that we can orient ourselves toward beyond the most stimulating experiences.36 And finally, without truly mattering to others, what would matter other than wanton sex as our only avenue for the connection we crave? All we’re left with is little more than the pursuit of stimulation without care – nihilistic algorithmic hedonism.
I don’t have access to any data that makes these correlations between the 4 facets of meaning and the 4 core beliefs of addiction. However, I think I’ve made a good case for how a loss of meaning in life can contribute to each of these core beliefs, which can in turn reduce meaning in life. Like I said before, in our Epithymian culture we have to be aware of these dynamics because we are surrounded by addiction. And when we as men hear so many messages that challenge what it means to be a man, we are made even more susceptible. Dr. Lewis has written that one of the key elements of addiction is a loss of a narrative to guide us.30
The toxic elements of traditional masculinity needed to be challenged, but we have left many men without a narrative and so have made them vulnerable to the rise of Epithymian Idolatry – a pseudo-religion oriented around the worship of Epithymia, an archetype representing the consequences of endless options and algorithmic feedback loops that select for stimulation, in a cultural climate in which dating has become more difficult and a healthy meaning for romantic relationships has been lost.
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The Birth of Epithymian Idolatry
One of my goals with this essay was to show you how the collapse of Romantic Idolatry led to conditions in which toxic masculine tribes such as Red Pill could grow. Do you see how everything I’ve discussed about the four core beliefs is also related to Romantic Idolatry itself? To remind you this is a belief system where we organize ourselves around the pursuit of romantic love. We believe that Cosmic Love makes us valuable, Cosmic Love will find someone who can love us whether we’re loveable or not, Cosmic Love will give us someone we can depend on in sickness and in health, and Cosmic Love will provide us with the most intense, fun, and emotionally satisfying sex we could possibly imagine, happily ever after.
With Romantic Idolatry’s collapse, we have lost meaning in life and this has contributed to the development of these core beliefs in men. Even if not every man has all of these beliefs or even a solid manifestation of the beliefs, I do think that our cultural moment trends people toward them. Given all the data I’ve provided about dating issues, mental health, and negative views of men, I don’t think that’s far off the mark.
Additionally, when we face the difficult dating landscape we find ourselves in, we judge our failures based on the old narrative of Romantic Idolatry. And yet, because Romantic Idolatry gave us categories that didn’t really exist and goals that were impossible to achieve, we compare ourselves to a fantasy that was already pulling us away from reality. Rollo Tomassi, the Godfather of Red Pill, has claimed that men are the true romantics and women are manipulative and solipsistic, always looking to trade up for a better alpha male.41 In my next essay, I’m going to do a deep dive into his work, but I think we can already see how his perspective emerges out of Epithymian Idolatry.
Alex of DatePsych reported that men who are less romantically and sexually successful tend to desire greater restrictions on women’s sexual autonomy.44 There was also a study that found that the younger a boy was when he first watched porn, the more likely he would desire power over women.45
Remember again, that the average age of first viewing porn, is 9 – 13. I have no idea what Tomassi’s history has been like, but his ideology against women’s autonomy has certainly become popular among men at a time when they are having such difficulties in sex and dating. Even the prevalence of erectile dysfunction among 18 – 24 years olds is higher than 25 – 44 year olds, and this has increased since 2014.46,47
Dr. Silvia Federici has written that the fear of witches, in other words hostility toward women’s autonomy, is linked to sexual control and resources.48 An additional facet of Epithymia that I haven’t mentioned, but that is very relevant, is the definition of power as unilateral power over others. This specific point comes from the work of the psychotherapist Dr. Mary Ayers where she ties together masculine shame, misogyny, and sexual conquest.49 Dr. Federici also writes the following:48
“The media construction and dissemination of hypersexualized models of femininity has exacerbated this problem, […] contributing to a misogynous culture in which women’s aspirations to autonomy are degraded and reduced to the status of sexual provocation.”
More and more images of women’s sexual autonomy are seen by romantically and sexually frustrated men, and this contributes to these men’s resentful need to restrict that autonomy. Take responsibility for not being attractive to even these hypersexual women or blame them? Again, hyper-individuality leaves men without a map and denigrates them for being there. These men are then given ready targets for their discontent through media and porn. In a time when men are experiencing difficulties and when income inequality is higher than it’s ever been, it is simply inevitable that so many men would be inspired by a misogynistic, Epithymian ideology like Red Pill.50
In my next essay, I go deep into Rollo Tomassi’s book “The Rational Male” to discuss the foundational assumptions that have led so many of these men astray.
Until then, thank you so much for your time and attention. Please hit the like button and subscribe for more conversations on masculinity, psychological development, and the cultivation of a personal mythology. Thanks again, and all the best to you on whatever journey you find yourself on.
If you like this essay, please find the recommended order here. Scroll to the bottom.
References:
1 – Most daters say it’s been hard to find people to date, but some groups find it more difficult than others. (2020, August 19). Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/personal-experiences-and-attitudes-of-daters/psdt_08-19-20_dating-relationships-02-7-png/
2 – Alexander. (2022, June 5). How have relationships changed in the last ten years? - Date Psychology. Date Psychology. https://datepsychology.com/how-have-relationships-changed-in-the-last-ten-years/
3 – Alexander, & Caitlin. (2023, October 30). Why Is Dating Hard? The Top Reasons - Date Psychology. Date Psychology. https://datepsychology.com/why-is-dating-hard-the-top-reasons/
4 – Fisher, K., Seidler, Z. E., King, K., Oliffe, J. L., Robertson, S., & Rice, S. M. (2022). Men’s anxiety, why it matters, and what is needed to limit its risk for male suicide. Discover Psychology, 2(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202-022-00035-5
5 – Duffy, M. E., Twenge, J. M., & Joiner, T. E. (2019). Trends in Mood and Anxiety Symptoms and Suicide-Related Outcomes Among U.S. Undergraduates, 2007–2018: Evidence From Two National Surveys. Journal of Adolescent Health, 65(5), 590–598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.04.033
6 – Goodwin, R. D., Dierker, L. C., Wu, M., Galea, S., Hoven, C. W., & Weinberger, A. H. (2022). Trends in U.S. Depression Prevalence From 2015 to 2020: The Widening Treatment Gap. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 63(5), 726–733. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2022.05.014
7 – Alexander. (2023, July 14). Risk Aversion and Dating—Date Psychology. Date Psychology. https://datepsychology.com/risk-aversion-and-dating/
8 – Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2000). The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions (Working Paper 7527). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w7527
9 – Mehmood Qadri, H., Waheed, A., Munawar, A., Saeed, H., Abdullah, S., Munawar, T., Luqman, S., Saffi, J., Ahmad, A., & Babar, M. S. (n.d.). Physiological, Psychosocial and Substance Abuse Effects of Pornography Addiction: A Narrative Review. Cureus, 15(1), e33703. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.33703
10 – Pornography Use Among Young Adults in the United States. (n.d.). Ballard Brief. Retrieved October 7, 2024, from https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/pornography-use-among-young-adults-in-the-united-states
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