If you aren't compatible sexually then you are not compatible.

I have been married twice. My first wife was practically my "soul mate", we had the same taste in everything. We were best buds, everything was perfect besides our sex life sucked. It always led to conflict and problems.

My wife now we have almost nothing in common when it comes to taste, art, music, hobbies, nothing. We have an amazing sex life though. I couldn't be happier.

That is not how it works in the movies. I am supposed to meet my first wife and live happily ever after. It is the difference between real life and fiction.

Agreed, but I think it's deeper: when I was in my 20's I didn't even know what sexual compatibility was. Given that, how could I even have made it a criteria for partner selection?

That assumes people figure out their sexuality. I've seen way too many people that didn't figure it out until their 50's. Like, "heterosexual until later in life" figure it out. And, there's an entire spectrum until that.

I suspect sexual compatibility lowers in importance as people age.

Certainly there are some old couples that stay together without good sex for different reasons, religios beliefs and such...

But if you are an intimate couple - that includes sex. If you are not having sex you are just roomates / friends - and there is nothing wrong with that.

I know a few different people in thier 70's right now having really great sex because they have found new partners, and because it's great they are having a lot of it.

So it could be less important if both people's only goals are stability or other goals - however we are seeing from reports in retirement communities and nursing homes that whether it is the loss of partner through death or divorce or just ageing single into a new community of options - that people are indeed searching for sexual compatibility as they age - often times with many more partners later in life than mid-life.

Saying that this matters less when that, or you'll loose interest in sex as you grow older simply won't fit for a lot of people. But for a lot maybe it will.

But since all of this is such a inherently personal thing, its opinion around the world will be as divided as our own butts.

I agree this is very Americanised, I can chime from two different perspectives and cultures: Brazil and Sweden.

Brazil is... Very Americanised, I believe that the same issues the USA has with sex are present in Brazil, it's expressed in some different ways but the underlying issues are more-or-less the same. Even though Brazil is seen through a very sexualised image from the outside, it's still a very conservative society where women are shamed for having sex.

Now for Sweden: I don't think anything you said really applies here, people are very open about sex, parents just consider it a natural thing and will allow their teenagers to have sex in their house, I heard stories from friends who had breakfast with the parents of a hook up after a night out, etc. There is very little taboo about sex here, even though not everyone is open to talk about it, the vast majority is completely fine with people having sex.

Which brings me to a point I don't really grasp how it happens, my sexual experiences here showed me that women suffer some similar issues as the women in Brazil: lots of them don't have good sex, not even with their partners, most of the times not due to a lack of communication but a lack of understanding from men. I've heard from girlfriends similar behaviour from men here as in Brazil, not the aggressive type but the lack of care about their needs, a lack of interest and curiosity in sex itself, to improve it, etc.

And then I don't know if this is something global and most men in the world are really that bad sex partners, it was really surprising to hear from Scandinavian women some of the same issues that girlfriends in Brazil went through. Not even counting the abuse, in Brazil it's much more extreme but I was surprised by how many of my girlfriends here had at least one instance of rape or sexual abuse, usually from partners.

This is one of the reasons why men are hesitant to talk about sex. It is easy to talk about it if you can say "No I didn't enjoy it and it isn't my fault." and less so if you have to introspect. Thoughts like, is my penis big enough? Am I not lasting long enough? Am I good-looking enough? and other thoughts come unbidden to the subconscious.

Because of our educational focus, we had a high number of new people come through, learn and mature, and then go off to do other things. So I'd like to think I learned something watching the common arcs.

In American culture, there are two big hangups about sex: (1) nobody is comfortable admitting ignorance & (2) the former leads to nobody being able to communicate about anything sexual.

Essentially every critical sexual conversation is some variant of this: "I'm not sure about X. How do you feel about X?" "I've never tried X. Do you want to try it?" "I'm nervous, but I do. How about if we Y'd and Z'd to start?" "I don't think I'd like Y. What if we Y_1'd and Z'd?" "I'm up for that!"

Notice the numerous admissions of ignorance. Because real conversations start in truth, without judgement. And it's worth it, because that's how you get to the fun times. Either in or out of a relationship.

(And ironically, you know who is typically comfortable admitting ignorance? Those with the most experience)

I genuinely believe most men _want_ to satisfy their partners securely, in the same way that many working mothers _want_ to cook wholesome, healthy meals from scratch for their children, but after yet another stressful day we just don't have focus and energy required to show the love in that way.

Same here, absolutely appalling. Whenever I speak about it with guy friends they don't quite believe me and try to rationalise it (which is a common response for me on many topics as well), often by arguing semantics of what is considered rape or abuse etc, or the integrity of the person in question.

I'm not sure what prompts this skepticism exactly. The friends I've discussed this with who are skeptical, tend to otherwise be quite understanding and well thinking individuals. It's a bit akin to my own first reactions to allegations of Chinese genocide against Uyghurs, the concentration camps, etc. That can't be... There's probably some nuance I'm missing. I was only convinced after reading more and being exposed to more information and evidence.

It's very hard to have these conversations with some guy friends as none of my female friends have wanted me to share any part of their experiences with anyone else. That makes it really tricky to convince anyone else of the veracity of their claims. If I could, I could say 'well it's actually my partner, who I fully trust, or my mother who is completely honest, or our mutual best friend for the past 15 years', people whom my friends also hold in high regard and believe at face value, like I believe them.

I don't want to dispute your anecdote but I feel I have a bit more hands-on experience with Brazilian society.

Don't compare Carnaval, a one-off whole-nation party week to how society really works on the day-to-day.

I originally thought they were mostly an old people thing, but I am hearing more stories about it from friends. And we are mid 20s.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201902...

As for the male side of things, I'm not sure if there is a environmental culprit like birth-control.

Edit: Also an unhappy relationship often can lead to poor sex, depression, and anxiety.

And countries without those things perhaps don't?

Which are the correlations that actually matter?

There’s nothing magic about soil. You need to give time for waves of immigrants to integrate, or it leads to backlash and horrible people like Trump getting elected.

No thanks. Feel free to go conduct extreme social experiments with your own life, not mine.

https://news.umich.edu/reduced-testosterone-tied-to-chemical...

That's not the only cause. Increased obesity levels also play a role. Probably other factors.

Edit: Getting downvotes from folks in denial. I’m not making this stuff up, college students rarely used to have ED, now porn-induced ED is quite common. Many such cases! [0]

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/

Viewing Sexual Stimuli Associated with Greater Sexual Responsiveness, Not Erectile Dysfunction https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26185674

Is Pornography Use Associated with Sexual Difficulties and Dysfunctions among Younger Heterosexual Men https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25816904/

The argument at face value is a slippery slope, like "sugar triggers dopamine response in the brain in similar areas as cocaine, so any exposure to sugar eventually leads to someone consuming sugar at all times"

I think it's much more likely that people, in general, imprint sexual preferences around the time that they are becoming sexual in their teens, and that doesn't change much as they age.

Religion in the US tends to focus on "any exposure to porn makes you an addict," which is why I am assuming this is what you're trying to imply. If you want to play a semantics game "porn addiction is defined as" then I'd argue that the same people are -true- porn addicts at the same rate that people are -true- sugar addicts. So, not saying they don't exist, but are a significantly lower number of the population than US religions would have you believe.

In fact, I have experienced the opposite: I do not enjoy any kind of "ugly", much less "extreme" porn. It turns me off.

The simplest kind for me, missionary position, or a girl alone, and that's it.

Are you suggesting that the solution to dead bedrooms is increasing "drive to seduce" of the ones who complain?

I thought that many of them already have high drive that their partners don't reciprocate.

Even if it isn't fight-or-flight stress inducement, sheer business and exhaustion are also undeniably up.

All one has to do is look at the laundry list of economic differences (housing, health care, education, salary, etc) between the current generations and the boomers.

From my understanding, in Islam, sex is a normal, expected part of marriage. If one partner doesn't want to have sex, it doesn't give the other partner the right to demand it. Rather, if there is a lack of desire for sex, it is grounds for divorce.

As an entertaining example, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's big data book Everybody Lies mentioned a study that asked people in the United States how frequently they had sex, and how frequently they practiced safe sex with a condom. If the resulting data was accurate and projected across the entire country, the United States consume 2.7 billion condoms a year... even though only 600 million condoms are sold in a year.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/our-searc...