I am not sure about your claim that sex doesn’t require money. At least the male side courtship seems to be rather expensive both in terms of time and money. Granted that depends on what side of the pareto distribution you fall under. I agree with your point that having the breadth of human knowledge at your fingertips helps you make better decisions especially with how inforgiving the internet’s memory is. It does come with a different set of pathologies though. I find that socializing with real people requires a lot more work than it would if I didn’t have an amalgamation of internet people to talk to.

Dude 15-18 year olds having sex aren't meeting on Tinder and then going to an SF bar to get $14 cocktails. Sex in high school is about as cheap as it gets.

I think you are failing to take into account compounded interest and opportunity cost. Efforts you make when you’re young get compounded during the rest of your life time and the time you spend learning the intricacies of human mating is time that you could spend doing so many other things. Especially today when you can’t just start working at a factory at 18 and expect lifetime employment. Not just that, human mating has also gotten a lot more complicated with the advent of the Pill. You probably won’t be marrying your highschool sweetheart either. With the right incentives and a wealth of information I am not surprised to see the population follow a less greedy strategy when it comes to dating and drugs.

Do you think these thoughts are going through the minds of most 17 year olds?

Humans do post-hoc rationalisation for whatever acts they perform and emotional states they experience; I expect Kids These Days have biases in those directions that they may ultimately justify in ways like that, even if the real reason is, say, a general expectation in the last year of highschol that you have three to four more years to go before being an adult instead of just zero to one.

From the female side, safer sex and pregnancy prevention can also get pretty expensive in terms of time and money. Getting on the pill requires multiple doctor's appointments, and the pill itself can cost upwards of $50 a month.

Just that could be a reason young women who have received comprehensive sex ed can't be bothered to try PIV sex.

From an insurance perspective, contraception is muuuch cheaper than pregnancy. Every time I hear $religious_group complaining about paying for contraceptive coverage, I lol because it's actually a cost saving measure, like vaccination.

Of course, contraceptives can still be expensive to individuals in the US because insurance incentives aren't aligned with covering the whole society, but that's a long topic for another day.

> the pill itself can cost upwards of $50 a month

Wow! In Europe, at least in my part of it, it's like $3 to $5 per month.

Welcome to America, my friend.

I suspect the expensive side goes to the type of women your after and expectations you place on yourself. In my long past single days (and friends) you'd spend time with girls at parties, beaches, picnics, go to a museum, gallery, hike or home cooked meal.

While opinion only here I feel these are the best places to spend time vs the expensive restaurant/bar type deal. For the latter you sit still hoping the converstation is smooth vs doing something that keeps things relaxed and flowing. And the invariable dinner is finishing do we take it further moments vs having more easy access to take a moment when it feels right. So i dont get that dating has to be expensive unless you want it to be.

...I know this is very anecdotale.