Does your empathy decrease if you're engaging in casual sex?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Pretty much an out of the blue kinda topic, but important nevertheless. I remember Jordan Peterson talking about this topic but he insinuated something much more extreme, and that is that people who engage in casual sex exhibit signs of psychopathy, using other people for their personal pleasure. And he said that even if you're normal, if keep doing that for long enough you'll eventually become at least sociopathic.

Now, this does seem kinda exhaggarated a little bit, surely psychopaths are born and althought sociopaths are technically made, it takes a lot more than that to turn someone into a sociopath I'm pretty sure. Something much more severe. But as I keep thinking about it and reminiscing about the people I've known and observed in the past who exhibited this type of behaviour, I just can't shake off the feeling that there definitely was something to this. I don't think you can just keep sleeping with many people without it decreasing your empathy and emotionality somewhat. And I don't think that's necessarilly good for your life

[gettoefl]

It's dehumanizing, depressing and pathetic. And worse it brings the other down to this level too. You pay a price for wielding your powers recklessly. Erosion of your innocence and beauty and alignment with your true nature. Not to mention for many it's addicting, disgustingly unhealthy and character corroding. A chapter of a life that nobody can be proud of. A chapter one would need healing of if not to pass it on to future generations.

Edited Saturday at 05:25 PM by gettoefl

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

1 hour ago, gettoefl said:

It's dehumanizing, depressing and pathetic. And worse it brings the other down to this level too. You pay a price for wielding your powers recklessly. Erosion of your innocence and beauty and alignment with your true nature. Not to mention for many it's addicting, disgustingly unhealthy and character corroding. A chapter of a life that nobody can be proud of. A chapter one would need healing of if not to pass it on to future generations.

Yes, for sure I can relate to some of your sentiments on this topic. There's definitely something negative about this, despite nobody really discussing this nor caring about it, and despite this sort of light hearted, fun facade of casual hook ups.

Which doesn't mean sex or sexual energy is bad, but clearly it should be consciously directed towards a certain purpose. For example, clearly on an instinctual level I am attracted to women physically, and my mind plays very minor role in this process, and that's fine. Its also fine to seek sex from a woman first, but it should lead somewhere. Towards a relationship creation, relationship strengthening, making children. One of these 3

[Terell Kirby]

Best way to find out is to have some sex, then see where you stand with those people you had sex with. Direct experience is King.

[Sugarcoat]

I feel the type of person to engage in a lot of casual sex has to have a certain mindset from the get go. Which could be for example like a man with an objectifying view on women, dehumanizing them and viewing them as objects for sexual pleasure. It could be a woman with low self esteem looking for validation wanting to feel desirable through being viewed as fuckable. So these are examples of two types of dysfunction from the get go. Then the large amount of casual sex acts like other forms of hedonism and pleasure seeking, frying the dopamine circuits and making them view sex as less special and becoming potentially desensitized towards it, getting an overly sexualized view of the other sex, or of themselves, or both. I can’t say if a large amount of causal sex is only bad, but there are some potential cons to it. One has to be very self aware and honest with oneself to recognize the damage it could do, or the destructive  mindsets one might have from the get go or develop along the way, to prevent it

I notice I didn’t answer your question. But to answer it I’d say yes maybe it could decrease your empathy if you develop a more objectifying and sexualized view of the other sex. It could even affect yourself and be like a form of self harm or self humiliation. But I think that could have more to do with cultural influence from our hyper sexualized culture, like for example how guys can become into violent sex from watching porn. So it’s a mindset someone has from the get go.

Edited Saturday at 07:48 PM by Sugarcoat

[Schizophonia]

I can't sleep with someone I have little respect for otherwise I'll get post nut clarity lol.

But that doesn't change anything about empathy, I know people who have had a lot of partners and who are always very sweet or even hypersensitive, and vice versa.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

@Sugarcoat In my opinion this "objectifying" explanation is just complete BS, its just a way for women to make sense of, and/or to shame male sexuality. Because from your point of view it seems like objectifying, from our point of view it is a natural instinct. So, this is just another feminist BS imo. Yall just dont get it for real

The problems clearly are not the instincts themselves, like I said, but their bad "usage", or "application", these instincts make it seem as if men have no need for genuine connections but thats not true, its just hidden under the surface and we need it just as much, it's just a deeper higher need and therefore tends to be hidden and we realize it later that that's what we need

It seems like from these classical feminist explanations women are always victims and men are always the bad ones, and I just don't buy it. Dodging accountability as ussual. Some women have perfectly intact self esteem and genuinely just like sex, or are trying to take revenge on their ex, or whatever. Doesn't matter anyway. In this post I wasn't really trying to make this topic gendered anyway, I was talking in general of people who are having casual sex, and that they tend to view things not very seriously in general, including many times feelings of other people

[Sugarcoat]

2 minutes ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

In my opinion this "objectifying" explanation is just complete BS, its just a way for women to make sense of, and/or to shame male sexuality. Because from your point of view it seems like objectifying, from our point of view it is a natural instinct. So, this is just another feminist BS imo. Yall just dont get it for real

Problematic objectification of women is a thing that happens, doesn’t mean that all male sexuality or viewing a woman sexually falls under that category. That’s not what I mean at all. You can view a woman in a sexual manner and have sexual desires towards her without dehumanizing her and objectifying her or lacking respect towards her. 
 

 

5 minutes ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

@Sugarcoat

The problems clearly are not the instincts themselves, like I said, but their bad "usage", or "application", these instincts make it seem as if men have no need for genuine connections but thats not true, its just hidden under the surface and we need it just as much, it's just a deeper higher need and therefore tends to be hidden and we realize it later that that's what we need

But these instincts can be shaped or conditioned by the culture we live in, the hypersexual culture, porn etc. So a healthy sexuality can turn unhealthy and toxic due to outside influence. So the instincts can become problematic. But then yea I’d agree with you, you don’t have to act on every impulse . Many men probably have way more sexual urges than they act upon and that can be a healthy restriction. As with other forms of pleasure, we’re not supposed to act on every impulse. 
 

The sexual urges might be more “loud” than the need for connection making it seem like they’re more prominent maybe idk im not a man…

10 minutes ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

@Sugarcoat

It seems like from these classical feminist explanations women are always victims and men are always the bad ones, and I just don't buy it. Dodging accountability as ussual. Some women have perfectly intact self esteem and genuinely just like sex, or are trying to take revenge on their ex, or whatever. Doesn't matter anyway. In this post I wasn't really trying to make this topic gendered anyway, I was talking in general of people who are having casual sex, and that they tend to view things not very seriously in general, including many times feelings of other people

I just illustrated some examples I don’t mean that’s the only way to look at it. It’s very easy for this topic to become gendered because there is a certain dynamic between men and women, our sexualities can express itself differently

I’m not sure if there’s a trend of a certain attitude people who have a lot of casual sex have, it’s probably that they don’t view sex that seriously, but I don’t know if that would spill out into other areas such as the feelings of others. 

[Hojo]

No it dosent. If your wife or partner stops having sex with you and you have to beg for it that will turn you into a psychopath. If you dont have sex for 4 years and have sex with someone once are you psychopathic? What if it happens twice? It turns into psychopathy when you keep trying to same thing and it dosent work and you keep trying. If it dosent work and dosent work and dosent work then it does you will be more aggressive when it works. Casual sex can be freeing just don't go looking when it comes it comes.

Women in relationship who don't give their men sex and use it as a tool to manipulate them  causes men to be less empathetic. If 2 people just want to have sex i don't see how it makes you less empathetic. You might not care about their life story or them in totality but you certainly can care about their emotions when they are with you and thats all empathy means. 

Edited Saturday at 09:34 PM by Hojo

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

9 minutes ago, Hojo said:

If your wife or partner stops having sex with you and you have to beg for it that will turn you into a psychopath.

Everyone always keeps bringing up the fuck ups of traditional monogamous relationships, divorce rates, lack of sex etc. and yeah that's a valid thing to acknowledge. But what about all the other relationships that actually do work as intended? That's not talked about. Not saying I'd ever get married, I'd be stupid to do so and I don't believe in the concept, but having one high quality women with whom you have connection and have sex with and have children with, is surely better than any casual sex you'd ever have with some random hoes/prostitutes etc. I know this topic isn't about that but since you brought up the typical potential downfall of a marriage, I wanted to mention this

Obviously that's a shitty situation to be in, but I don't think it fits very well with this topic

19 minutes ago, Hojo said:

If you dont have sex for 4 years and have sex with someone once are you psychopathic? What if it happens twice?

I'm talking the type of people who view having sex with random people as something normal, as if it was another Tuesday or something. Not people who seldom have it

[Hojo]

@NewKidOnTheBlock In order for it to work you need two completely solid identities. Sadhguru said the reason they used to marry kids so young is because they would put in their minds very early that this person is the person they are going to be with forever and the child starts that solid foundation at a very early age so its literally them as an individual. Now we don't do that so the identities we have with eachother are on top of our castle we already built.

I think if someone is fking random people every Tuesday they already have a empathy problem before even starting it. I think it can make you less empathetic but it also dosent have too. You can treat every women you have sex with as a queen and when they are gone you can forget them. 

It all depends on how much of an ego you develop around it. 

Edited Saturday at 10:10 PM by Hojo

[EternalForest]

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Now for me personally, I'd never want casual sex, because sex without love is meaningless to me. However, if both parties are okay with it being casual, and it's completely consensual? I don't see the issue. For some, they don't have to deeply love everyone they have sex with; it can be an experience of pure sensory pleasure.

[Hojo]

You can be empathetic and also not care. All your empathy is a projection of what you think other people want when you dont really know. Its in woman's psychology to want a man and be loved and its in a woman's psychology to be want to he a dirty girl. The more you interact the more your judgments are wrong. If you do something and the person deemed thats not what they want dont do it and its also ok to tell them you just want sex and not to cuddle or do any of the other stuff.

Edited Saturday at 10:41 PM by Hojo