First I think those numbers are way to high. 25% of men being childless doesn't sound like it would fit in any environment except the modern one. That is an extreme number, and normally, it would lead to massive population loss. The real numbers are probably both well below 10%. In earlier epochs, being childless was genuinely abnormal and rare. Even the Boomers would have told you that number was high. This is why when we see stats from Japan saying 40% of men under 35 haven't had a sexual partner is catastrophic. That is an extreme aberration that is not replicated at any other point in human history. Same with the suicide rate among young adults. It's telling when a modern western man meets with an isolated tribal people, and that those people have almost never heard of suicide, and find it unfathomable.
Second, most of these people who were childless did not just isolate themselves at home, that is a also sickness of post-modernity. (Not even modernity was that bad).
Many of those childless people would have been productive members of society in one way or another: men who worked remote and on the fringes of society who could not settle down due to the work: like pioneers, explorers, sailing merchants, etc. Many of them would have been deeply involved in other work that would be otherwise relatively self-isolating, but community supporting: monks, priests, craftsmen, fishermen, truckers, etc. Except for the monks, prostitutes actually had a moderately wholesome role of being a kind of mimic to those more isolated men who couldn't settle down and raise a family due to the circumstances of their work. I remember an NPR documentary covering over a strip-club that was in a pretty remote part of Minnesota. Most of the clientele were truckers who were older and quite well behaved. This includes more than one of them dropping off a full turkey... to the strip club. It was an attempt to mimic something akin to a family due to circumstances. They would not have been "incels", or even really sexless at all.
This is a far more serious pathology of the modern era.
I disagree.
First I think those numbers are way to high. 25% of men being childless doesn't sound like it would fit in any environment except the modern one. That is an extreme number, and normally, it would lead to massive population loss. The real numbers are probably both well below 10%. In earlier epochs, being childless was genuinely abnormal and rare. Even the Boomers would have told you that number was high. This is why when we see stats from Japan saying 40% of men under 35 haven't had a sexual partner is catastrophic. That is an extreme aberration that is not replicated at any other point in human history. Same with the suicide rate among young adults. It's telling when a modern western man meets with an isolated tribal people, and that those people have almost never heard of suicide, and find it unfathomable.
Second, most of these people who were childless did not just isolate themselves at home, that is a also sickness of post-modernity. (Not even modernity was that bad).
Many of those childless people would have been productive members of society in one way or another: men who worked remote and on the fringes of society who could not settle down due to the work: like pioneers, explorers, sailing merchants, etc. Many of them would have been deeply involved in other work that would be otherwise relatively self-isolating, but community supporting: monks, priests, craftsmen, fishermen, truckers, etc. Except for the monks, prostitutes actually had a moderately wholesome role of being a kind of mimic to those more isolated men who couldn't settle down and raise a family due to the circumstances of their work. I remember an NPR documentary covering over a strip-club that was in a pretty remote part of Minnesota. Most of the clientele were truckers who were older and quite well behaved. This includes more than one of them dropping off a full turkey... to the strip club. It was an attempt to mimic something akin to a family due to circumstances. They would not have been "incels", or even really sexless at all.
This is a far more serious pathology of the modern era.