🔗 Share this article

Picture finding yourself with a open night. You feel refreshed, ready for adventure, and wanting to shake up your typical schedule of relaxing at home. Your options is your oyster! Do you choose a) going to a gig or b) having sex? The response, as is often true with such kinds of hypotheticals, is clearly: “It varies.” Mature individuals could understandably ask: what kind of the show? With whom is the companion? Could it be expected to be good?

Few would choose a intense rock concert if the other option was one enchanted evening with Jonathan Bailey. Yet change any part of the scenario, and it turns less obvious. For the thousands surveyed asked this question from a gig organization, no such details was provided – and the response was revealed decisively and overwhelmingly supporting concerts.

Survey Results Indicate Surprising Choices

An international report, polling 40,000 people from 18 and 54 from multiple countries, found that live music are now the world’s top form of entertainment, ranking above sports, movies and – yes – sexual intercourse. Given the choice to only one option of activity for the rest of their lives, nearly four in ten chose concerts, compared to film attendance (17%) and games (14%). The group was more than twice as inclined to select attending their preferred performer live (70%) rather than sexual activity (30%).

You show up hopeful of being happily shocked – and frequently you might find with another person's locks in your mouth

Factors and Reflections

Of course it makes sense that a PR survey carried out for a live event company would result so heavily supporting concerts – and, in the freewheeling spirit of a hypothetical choice, if your favourite artist is, say an iconic star, one can appreciate why attending his concert could prevail rather than a routine experience. But this binary choice between concerts or sexual activity, obviously silly even if it seems, is fascinating to think about amid the peculiar point we’re at with each.

The Transformation of Concert Culture

In recent years, gig-going has evolved into more than a communal experience but a competitive sport. Event companies rightly note that arena crowds has “increased threefold annually”, and music festivals sell out quicker than before. Just obtaining tickets now requires detailed strategy, instant reactions and deep finances (or a high spending capacity). Though you’re successful, it’s not enough to merely attend and watch the performance. There’s now an expectation, at least among pop fans, that you might enhance your enjoyment value by going multiple times (even travelling internationally), studying the performance lineup beforehand and knowing your marks to perform and calls-and-responses established by past attendees.

Numerous fans report feeling scarred by their experience at major tours: appearing as a orchestrated show of huge audiences, where some individuals came unaware of the routine. That 18-month event, generating billions, demonstrated of the lengths to which attendees will push to experience a historic occasion and experience their top musician play, even if the live sound seems increasingly overshadowed by the spectacle.

The Situation of Modern Intimacy

Sexual activity, by contrast – an affordable and available enjoyment – faces dire straits. Based on contemporary studies, approximately 25% of people engaged sexually in an average week, while nearly 30% were sexually inactive. In a different nation, modern figures revealed that a significant portion of individuals said they had not sex a single time in the last twelve months, rising from smaller percentages in earlier years. Across these regions, the shift has been associated with decreased encounters among younger people. Contrast this with the industry expanding rapidly for major events and the intense rivalry for tickets. Naturally it’s not as simple as a simple decision between both alternatives – “could you choose attend a huge concert often, or remain abstinent?” – but it might be an indication of what is viewed as the more consistent satisfaction.

Unexpected Similarities

Sex and live music are closer aligned than people often believe. Both represent the initiation of a relationship, a actual experience of expectations or possibility that could have built solely in your imagination. You arrive with a basic expectation of how it’s likely to go, but anticipating pleasantly surprised – and if it turns out satisfying or frustrating rests largely on how your vibe and hopes match theirs. Regularly you’ll end up with a stranger's hair in your mouth, and afterwards be hanging out for a cigarette and a moment alone alone. Similarly for each, stimulants and beverages can potentially heighten or lessen the experience (but definitely make the most unpleasant occasions easier to weather).

Seeking Harmony

The appeal to concerts and intimacy hinges on finding that elusive sweet spot between familiarity and novelty, similarity and difference, challenge and comfort. Naturally it occurs infrequently – but it's the remembrance of successful moments, the understanding that it can happen, that inspires us to try again: to {