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Picture having a night off. You feel rejuvenated, ready for adventure, and hoping to shake up your usual routine of relaxing at home. Your options is your oyster! Do you choose a) going to a gig or b) being with a partner? The outcome, as typically the case with such kinds of questions, is plainly: “It depends.” Thinking adults may reasonably ask: what kind of the show? With whom is the companion? Could it be going to be satisfying?

Hardly anyone would select a Limp Bizkit/Slipknot/Korn triple bill if the other option was one enchanted evening with a favorite star. However tweak one side of the equation, and it becomes more complicated. In the case of the thousands surveyed asked this question by a live event company, no such details was given – and the result emerged clearly and overwhelmingly in favour of concerts.

Research Findings Indicate Interesting Choices

A worldwide survey, polling a large sample aged between 18 and 54 across different nations, found that live music are now the most popular pastime, surpassing sports, cinema and – yes – sexual intercourse. If restricted to one type of enjoyment forever, a significant portion chose live music, compared to film attendance (17%) and games (14%). Participants were over two times as inclined to choose watching their top musician live (70%) rather than intimacy (30%).

You arrive expecting to be pleasantly surprised – and regularly you could wind up with another person's locks in your mouth

Context and Considerations

Of course it makes sense that a marketing research carried out for a gig organizer should come out so strongly preferring concerts – and, with the speculative tone of a hypothetical choice, if your top performer is, for example a legendary singer, you can see why seeing him may be chosen over a routine experience. However this either-or decision between concerts or intimacy, obviously silly as it is, is fascinating to think about amid the peculiar juncture we’re at with each.

The Change of Concert Culture

Lately, concert attendance has grown beyond a communal experience but a competitive sport. Major promoters appropriately highlight that stadium attendance has “grown significantly year-over-year”, and festivals are fully reserved faster than ever. Just obtaining passes now requires extensive preparation, instant reactions and deep finances (or a generous credit card limit). Though you manage, it isn't sufficient to simply turn up and watch the performance. There’s now an anticipation, at least among music enthusiasts, that you could increase your experience quality by seeing several shows (including overseas trips), swotting up on the performance lineup ahead of time and understanding the rituals to hit and fan traditions developed through previous crowds.

Many fans admit to shaken by their attendance at large concerts: what seemed like a choreographed performance of thousands of people, to which certain attendees arrived unaware of the steps. Those lengthy tour, earning massive sums, demonstrated of the extents that attendees will push to feel part of a cultural moment and see their favourite artist play, even if the live sound seems increasingly overshadowed by the production.

The Condition of Contemporary Sexuality

Sex, conversely – a relatively cheap and accessible pleasure – is in difficult times. Per contemporary studies, nearly one in four of adults were intimate in an average week, while nearly 30% were sexually inactive. Elsewhere, modern figures indicated that a significant portion of adults said they had not sex at all in the past year, increasing from lower numbers in the past. In these areas, the change has been attributed to reduced intimacy in youth demographics. Juxtapose this with the industry expanding rapidly for large concerts and the intense rivalry for tickets. Naturally it's more complicated as a straightforward choice between one or the other – “would you rather experience a popular event often, or stay celibate?” – but it's possibly an signal of how people see the more consistent enjoyment.

Surprising Parallels

Intimacy and concerts are closer aligned than people often believe. Each symbolizes the commencement of a bond, a actual experience of ideas or possibility that may have developed solely in your imagination. You show up with a basic expectation of what might happen, but anticipating happily shocked – and how it ends up enjoyable or disappointing depends very much on how your vibe and expectations align with others. Regularly you’ll end up with another person's locks in your mouth, and afterwards be hanging out for a cigarette and a moment alone by yourself. Likewise with either, drugs and alcohol can either enhance or lessen the experience (but definitely make the worst occasions easier to weather).

Achieving Equilibrium

The wonder to both gigs and sex relies on finding that hard-to-find balance between familiarity and novelty, consistency and change, challenge and comfort. Certainly it's uncommon – but it's the recollection of successful moments, the understanding that it’s possible, that drives us to give it another shot: to {