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Envision being gifted with a night off. You are rejuvenated, ready for adventure, and looking to change your usual routine of evening scrolling. The world awaits your choice! Could you opt for a) attending a concert or b) engaging in intimacy? The answer, as typically the case with these sorts of queries, is plainly: “That depends.” Mature individuals could understandably inquire: what's the concert? Who's the companion? Is it likely to be enjoyable?

Few would select a Limp Bizkit/Slipknot/Korn triple bill if the choice was a dream date with a beloved celebrity. Yet change any part of the comparison, and it becomes less clearcut. For the participants presented with this choice through a major concert promoter, no additional clarification was offered – and the response emerged unambiguously and heavily preferring live music events.

Survey Results Indicate Surprising Trends

An international study, interviewing thousands of participants ranging from 18 and 54 across 15 markets, showed that live music have become the world’s top form of entertainment, ranking above athletic events, cinema and – absolutely – intimacy. Given the choice to only one option of activity for the rest of their lives, nearly four in ten selected live music, versus film attendance (17%) and games (14%). They were also over two times as inclined to select attending their preferred performer in concert (70%) rather than sex (30%).

You appear expecting to be happily shocked – and quite often you might find with another person's locks in your mouth

Context and Considerations

Certainly it makes sense that a promotional study carried out for a concert promoter should come out so strongly preferring concerts – and, with the speculative spirit of a either-or question, if your favourite artist is, say an iconic star, you can see why attending his concert might win out instead of a ordinary encounter. Yet this binary choice between live music or sexual activity, obviously silly though it may be, is interesting to consider given the odd juncture we’re at with each.

The Evolution of Concert Culture

In recent years, live music participation has evolved into more than a shared activity but a serious endeavor. Event companies duly point out that stadium attendance has “increased threefold each year”, and live events are fully reserved faster than ever. Just obtaining tickets now requires detailed strategy, rapid-fire response times and significant funds (or a high spending capacity). Though you succeed, that alone won't do to simply turn up and enjoy the show. Nowadays exists an expectation, at least among concertgoers, that you could increase your experience quality by attending more than once (potentially going abroad), swotting up on the set list beforehand and memorizing the cues to perform and fan traditions established by past attendees.

Many attendees report feeling shaken by their participation at large concerts: what seemed like a choreographed performance of huge audiences, to which particular fans turned up unfamiliar with the routine. That 18-month tour, generating billions, was proof of the extents that people will go to participate in a cultural moment and experience their top musician play, although the real performance seems increasingly less important than the show.

The Situation of Current Relationships

Intimacy, on the other hand – a relatively cheap and accessible pleasure – faces difficult times. Per recent surveys, about a quarter of individuals engaged sexually in an regular period, while just under a third were abstaining. In a different nation, modern figures showed that more than 25% of individuals admitted to avoiding sexual activity a single time in the past year, rising from smaller percentages in the past. In these areas, the shift has been attributed to reduced intimacy among younger people. Juxtapose this with the industry driving growth for stadium extravaganzas and the cutthroat competition for passes. Of course it isn't straightforward as a simple decision between both alternatives – “could you choose see a major tour repeatedly, or stay celibate?” – but it’s perhaps an signal of what is viewed as the more dependable satisfaction.

Surprising Parallels

Intimacy and concerts are more comparable than one may assume. Each symbolizes the commencement of a connection, a real-world test of expectations or promise that could have built just in your mind. You come with a basic expectation of how it’s likely to go, but expecting to be happily shocked – and whether it proves enjoyable or disappointing rests largely on whether your energy and expectations align with others. Regularly you could wind up with someone else’s hair in your mouth, and following be hanging out for a cigarette and personal space alone. Similarly for each, drugs and alcohol can either enhance or reduce the event (but definitely make the most dire experiences more bearable).

Finding the Balance

The wonder to concerts and intimacy depends on locating that hard-to-find balance between familiarity and novelty, consistency and change, work and relaxation. Certainly it happens only rarely – but it's the recollection of when they did, the awareness that it’s possible, that drives us to try again: to {