The sexual recession: an ace perspective

“Why are young people having so little sex?” asks the title of a new article in The Atlantic. The article is also summarized in video form. The article reports that the number of high-schoolers who have had intercourse declined from 54% to 40% in the period from 1991 to 2017. The author writes,

But now some observers are beginning to wonder whether an unambiguously good thing might have roots in less salubrious developments.

The author says the decline in sex is not just among teenagers, but among young adults too. Among people in their early 20s, 15% say they haven’t had sex since becoming adults, as compared to 6% among Gen-Xers. The author calls this a “sexual recession”. What follows is a long list of speculations about what could be causing it–be it porn, dating apps, helicopter parents, bad sex, or inhibition.

I will offer an unsympathetic, perhaps callous perspective–this being largely a straight people problem, and me being a gay ace guy. Yeah, I really don’t think this is as much of a problem as the article makes it out to be.

Flipping scripts

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I tried microtonal music and liked it

The pitch of a note is determined by its frequency, and frequency can vary within a continuous spectrum. And yet, in the western music tradition, we only use frequencies with discrete values. That’s not a bad thing, but it implies a whole world of possibilities not explored. Microtonal music, also known as xenharmonic music, sets out to make use of the unused frequencies.

I recently tried listening to a lot of microtonal music, because I discovered that you can find lots of it through the microtonal tag on Bandcamp. Sure, a lot of it isn’t very good because anyone can put music on Bandcamp, but there were enough gems that I continued to peruse the tag. I’ll share just two examples. First, I selected Brendan Byrnes, because I think his music has the most pop appeal, while also being unapologetically microtonal.

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Video game censorship and feminist criticism

Last week, the white house held a meeting to talk about violence in video games, and their potential connection to gun violence. This has many gamers worried that the government will do something to censor video games, or pressure the games industry to self-regulate.  My opinions on the matter: 1) this is an obvious ploy to “address” gun violence without addressing gun violence, 2) I defer to the research that says video games do not cause gun violence, and 3) the second amendment shouldn’t exist. If you disagree with any of these propositions, you are welcome to yell at me in the comments, as one does.

But I’m not really here to talk about gun violence, I’m here to talk about feminism. See, I did a forbidden thing, I read some internet comments. And I found that some people think that Trump’s talk of censoring video games is similar or analogous to feminists/SJWs talking about problematic or sexist aspects of video games. As a feminist/SJW myself, my reaction is, “uh no.”

But it also raises the interesting question, what do I want?

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Difficulty in Dark Souls 3

Last year when I talked a bit about difficulty in video games, I mentioned the Dark Souls as an exemplar of difficult video game design. More recently, I had opportunity to play Dark Souls 3. I finished it too. So here are my thoughts.

Like other adventure games, Dark Souls 3 is essentially a power fantasy. It gives the player a sense of increasing power over time. It begins by disempowering the player, beating them down over and over. But the player is empowered to eventually succeed. And what makes this experience so effective, is that the success depends almost entirely on the player’s skill and cleverness, instead of their character’s level. After completing the game for the first time, you can start over from the beginning and find it significantly easier.

Something that this game makes me think about, what even is difficulty? Does it mean it’s mentally taxing? Does it mean it’s frustrating? Does it mean very few people can succeed?

In the context of Dark Souls, people seem to think difficulty means “You die a lot,” but I’m not sure this is the right way to think about it. New players die a lot, but instead of thinking of it as failure, you could think of it as a necessary part of the learning process. One of the Dark Souls taglines is “Prepare to die”, which is literally telling players that dying is a necessary part of the game. Dying is even a essential component of the narrative–you’re a cursed undead who comes back to life each time you die. It’s not like other games where if you die, the universe rewinds and the game says “let’s pretend that never happened”.  In other words, dying in Dark Souls is diagetic.

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The joys of not being a music critic

What are the qualities that are desirable in a music critic (or a movie critic, or video games reviewer, or book reviewer)?

Generally, the very first thing we want is that they review music that we have a chance of listening to. Maybe we’re considering whether to buy some music, and need some help to make a decision. Or we’re looking around to discover new music that we might like. Or we’re already listening to the music and want to reflect on the qualities of that music.

That means that we want music critics who like some of the same music we like. And since music critics usually wish to reach a sizeable audience, that means music critics have to like a lot of different things. Their tastes should be eclectic. Or, if a critic’s tastes are more particular, there needs to be an easy way to match them up with an audience with similar tastes. Music genres usually fulfill this purpose. For instance, if a reviewer only really likes post-rock, they can advertise themselves as a critic of post-rock.

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Music that is not for you

Renowned YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano recently talked about whether White people can enjoy Jay-Z. This was in response to a viewer question who asked what he thought about people who said that Jay-Z’s recent single, “The Story of O.J.” wasn’t for White people.

I mostly agree with Fantano’s answer: yes, White people can certainly enjoy Jay-Z’s music, yes they can enjoy rap, and yes rap is already ingrained in our musical culture. However, I observe that Fantano changed the question from “Is Jay-Z’s music for White people?” to “Can White people enjoy Jay-Z’s music?”

When someone says, “This music is not for you,” they are not trying to say “Stop enjoying this music.” Or, at least I don’t think they are. The question referred to arguments in the YouTube comments on Jay-Z’s video, but I couldn’t actually find these arguments. Instead what I found was a bunch of White people rather defensively asserting that they did enjoy the music.

What are they even reacting to? Did they read some YouTube comments that I can’t find? Or is it a matter of misinterpretation, in the same way that Anthony Fantano himself subtly changed the original question?

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Breath of the Wild: A nihilistic view

cn: There are no spoilers in this article, and the discussion is purely about game mechanics.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild has received near universal praise from critics, with Metacritic listing it as one of the best video games of all time. This is an exciting time, as we anticipate the numerous clones that will try (and fail) to capture what makes this game so great.

Like most adventure games, BotW is essentially a power fantasy. What makes the game exciting is the acquisition of power, and the illusion that your power matters. For example, you find better weapons and equipment, which grants you the power to access further game content. If BotW is better than similar games, then it is probably because it maintains a greater illusion of power for a longer period of time.

And indeed, the illusion of power is precisely what most critics praise. BotW is a game that lets you do anything! You can climb anywhere, and paraglide down. You can experience the story in any order, or just skip straight to the final boss immediately, if you so choose.

But as critics praise the extent of power that the game grants you, they are ignoring the other essential characteristic of a power fantasy: the illusion that the power matters.
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