The Art of Manliness: What’s Causing the Sex Recession?

Studies show that people, especially young people, are having less sex than past generations did. While many may celebrate this decline as a good thing, the reasons behind the drop in sex may not all be so positive. A decline in physical intimacy may potentially speak to a decline in emotional intimacy, and a struggle modern folks are having with connecting with each other.

My guest explores the decline in sexual frequency as a way into these larger cultural and relational questions in her longform cover story for this month’s The Atlantic magazine. Her name is Kate Julian, and today we discuss her piece, entitled “The Sex Recession,” on why people are counterintuitively having less sex in a time when sex is less taboo and more accessible than ever before. We begin our conversation highlighting the statistics that indicate young Americans are having less sex and whether this decline holds true for other countries and affects married people as well as singles. Kate then delves into the idea that the reasons for why young people are having less sex may suggest deeper issues in how people are relating, or not relating, to each other. These reasons include the way dating apps are shaping in-person interactions, the prevalence of porn, and an increase in anxiety and depression. We end our conversation by raising the question of why people continue to perpetuate relational patterns that don’t seem to be making them happy.

This is a fascinating discussion. I know some of you listen to the podcast with your kids. Due to the mature nature of this show, I’d have them skip this one.

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Today in Focus: How Ukip embraced the far right

With Brexit talks stalled and some of its supporters pushing a betrayal narrative, the Guardian’s Peter Walker charts how Ukip has begun rising in the polls again. But how did the party come to fully embrace the far right in Britain? And do its supporters know how extreme it has become? Plus: Helen Pidd on what young voters in Bolsover make of the Brexit deal paralysis.

When the UK Independence party was first formed in 1993, its aim was to mobilise a relatively small group of voters whose main focus was getting Britain out of the European Union. In 2016, the party achieved what its leaders had always dreamed of: a referendum victory for leaving the EU. Since then, however, Ukip has gone through a succession of hapless leaders after the post-referendum departure of Nigel Farage. Now led by Gerard Batten, the party has begun explicitly appealing to far-right figures, such as Tommy Robinson, for advice and support.

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UnHerd: This demographic catastrophe will hit us all

Birth rates of well below replacement level are now commonplace in the developed world. For instance, Italy’s is about 1.4. If such a rate is maintained over three generations then that means the second generation will be 70% of the size of the first, and the third generation half the size of the first. That’s quite the demographic slide, but consider what happens if the birth rate drops even lower to approximately 1. If that is maintained over three generations, then the second generation will be half the size of the first, and the third a mere quarter. In other words a fall in the fertility rate from 1.4 to 1, which South Korea shows is possible, doubles the rate at which new generations halve in size. [...]

These factors may explain why South Korea has an especially low birth rate, but it’s worth remembering that birth rates are also falling in the most progressive, sexually egalitarian parts of the world – such as the Nordic countries. Even Finland, with its ‘baby box’ package of support for new parents and its impressive schools, has seen its birth rate hit record lows. [...]

We talk about the ‘greying’ of populations due to increasing longevity, but the biggest story is not one of improved retention, but a collapse in recruitment. The fact that birth rates are lowest in the east Asian economies that have low levels of compensatory immigration, but which are also relied upon as the drivers of global economic growth, has implications for everyone.

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Vox: The real reason streetcars are making a comeback (Aug 9, 2017)

 Starting in the late 20th century, modern streetcar proposals started rippling across municipalities in the United States. They’re touted as infrastructure carrying benefits ranging from the social to economic and the environmental. But these projects often make appearances in the news as costly, blunder-filled experiments in public policy.

Cities are willing to bet big on this technology for its potential to develop the local economy. But there is some disagreement as to whether the streetcar is driving this progress, or if it is simply the result of planning *around* the streetcar.

The Guardian: For the EU to prosper, Britain must leave

The rationale is simple, Brexit is – either now or in the not-so-distant future – inevitable. That is because Britain continues to demand impossible conditions for its membership of the community-based, compromise-led, multinational organisation the modern EU represents. Even in trying to exit, Britain is still arguing about “red lines” of its own making. This approach would only amplify if it somehow ended up remaining a member. Britain already enjoys a privileged position in the EU, much to the chagrin of many other member states. Opt-outs from the euro, the Schengen agreement on passport-free travel, the charter of fundamental rights and on any European legislation related to freedom, justice and security have all been negotiated by successive British prime ministers.

European diplomats are exasperated at how this situation is still portrayed in Britain as the creep of an EU super-state. The Luxembourg prime minister, Xavier Bettel, put it best when he said the British “were in with a lot of opt-outs, now they are out and want a lot of opt-ins”. This situation is untenable for the future cohesiveness of the EU; it slows decision making, makes the setting of meaningful objectives difficult to achieve and acts as a brake on meaningful reform.[...]

But here lies the crux of the problem for Britain. The sovereignty-sharing, legalistic model of integration embodied by the EU only succeeds because member states see the bigger, sometimes almost incalculable, benefits of membership. Raging arguments over migration, Russia and populism may be a feature of European council summits in Brussels. The European commission might take Hungary or Poland to task over reforms which threaten democracy. But none of these debates question the wider integrity of the EU project.

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The Atlantic: In 1995, the U.S. Declared a State of Emergency. It Never Ended.

Clinton’s declaration is a case study in presidential powers, which, once activated, chief executives are often reluctant to roll back. The United States has roughly 30 ongoing national emergencies—one of them has been in place for four decades, having been issued by President Jimmy Carter during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979.

That most Americans could live in a “national emergency” for 40 years without noticing says something about the broad—some would say insidious—expansion of emergency powers. The United States has ongoing emergencies for everything from unrest in Burundi to the movement of vessels near Cuba. It’s not that Cuban maritime malfeasance will end in U.S. martial law, or even that Clinton was invoking the same kind of emergency Trump has flirted with to fund his border wall. But the basic legal concept—an emergency allows the president to exercise powers not otherwise granted to him by Congress—is common to all these scenarios. [...]

“States of emergency that last decades are not only a linguistic oxymoron,” Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who serves as a special rapporteur on countering terrorism to the United Nations Human Rights Council, told me. “They function to degrade the rule of law, often consolidate executive powers imperceptibly but distinctly, and more broadly loosen the boundaries between the normal and the exceptional.”

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Quartz: Europe’s richest country has no airport or trains and an official 90-minute lunch break

Now, Liechtenstein, which today (Jan. 23) celebrates the 300th anniversary of the principality’s creation, is thriving. The country is the world’s richest country per capita, driven by a 12.5% corporate tax rate—among the lowest in the continent—and freewheeling incorporation rules resulting in many holding companies establishing offices in the country’s capital, Vaduz. [...]

The country used its low taxes as a selling point. In 1955 Liechtenstein, described itself (paywall) as a country “where citizens dwell virtually tax-free, and where similar freedom awaits foreign corporations.” (The top tax rate at that time was 1.4%.) Foreign corporations with headquarters in Liechtenstein could enjoy “only minimal taxation”—as well as dreamy mountain views. Change did not come as swiftly as the country’s rulers might have liked: At an especially dire point in the 1960s, its ruling family was forced to sell off its Old Master paintings to the highest bidder—among them Leonardo da Vinci’s counterpart to the Mona Lisa (paywall) and four Breughels formerly displayed in prince Franz Josef II’s Austrian hunting lodge. [...]

Its politics remain stuck in the past too: until 1984, it denied women the vote. The country has two ruling princes—the head of state, Hans Adam II, and his son, Alois, who now performs day-to-day duties—who were previously a banker and an accountant before assuming their roles. Since 2003, they have had the right to veto parliamentary decisions, appoint judges, and sack the government. The country’s princes may be high up in their castle on the hill, but they are watching closely nonetheless.

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Politico: Europe in pieces: Where voters disagree

The European Parliament election in May is expected to produce a major turnover in political power in the EU’s institutions, with populist parties making new gains and voters across the bloc split on what issues to prioritize in the ballot. [...]

The EPP, the EU’s biggest political group, is leading the polls in only two of the bloc’s 10 most populous countries. An EPP-affiliated party leads a national government in only one of its 13 most populous countries. Here are its projected results in the EU-wide election: [...]

If the votes of people who abstained in the 2014 European Parliament election counted toward a new party, that party would be the biggest political force in 24 out of 27 EU countries. The graphic below shows the percentage of people who abstained from voting in the last European election.

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Politico: Yellow Jackets protesters announce candidates for European election

The list so far has 10 names and is led by Ingrid Levavasseur, a 31-year-old auxiliary nurse and one of the main figures of the street movement, which began in response to an increase in fuel taxes but has since morphed into a bigger — largely anti-Emmanuel Macron — cause.

The candidates have formed their own group called "Citizens' Initiative Rally" — a reference to one of the main demands of the movement: allowing for a so-called "citizens' initiative referendum," which would let citizens trigger a referendum by collecting 700,000 signatures, or 1.5 percent of registered voters. [...]

A poll last month showed 13 percent of French respondents would vote for a hypothetical Yellow Jackets list in the European election.

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