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Picture having a night off. You are refreshed, ready for adventure, and hoping to shake up your usual routine of evening scrolling. Life itself is your oyster! Do you choose a) going to a gig or b) having sex? The response, as is often seen with these types of hypotheticals, is obviously: “That depends.” Mature individuals may reasonably wonder: what's the concert? Who is the other person? Is it expected to be good?

Hardly anyone would choose a intense rock concert if the other option was one enchanted evening with a beloved celebrity. However tweak one side of the comparison, and it grows less obvious. For the participants asked this question by a live event company, no such context was provided – and the answer emerged decisively and strongly in favour of concerts.

Study Data Show Surprising Choices

A worldwide study, polling a large sample aged between 18 and 54 from different nations, revealed that gigs have become the world’s top pastime, surpassing athletic events, cinema and – absolutely – sexual intercourse. If restricted to one type of enjoyment forever, nearly four in ten selected live music, against going to the cinema (17%) and athletic competitions (14%). They were also significantly more as likely to select seeing their favourite artist live (70%) over intimacy (30%).

You arrive hopeful of being delightfully amazed – and quite often you’ll end up with a stranger's hair in your mouth

Context and Considerations

Of course it's expected that a marketing research carried out for a gig organizer would result so heavily supporting live shows – and, amid the playful mood of a hypothetical choice, if your top performer is, say an iconic star, you can see why attending his concert might win out rather than a common or garden situation. Yet this binary choice between concerts or sex, clearly absurd even if it seems, is fascinating to reflect on amid the peculiar juncture we experience with both.

The Transformation of Live Music Experience

Lately, live music participation has evolved into more than a communal experience but a serious endeavor. Event companies appropriately highlight that large venue turnout has “increased threefold annually”, and festivals get booked up quicker than before. Just obtaining passes now demands extensive preparation, rapid-fire response times and deep finances (or a generous credit card limit). Although you’re successful, that alone won't do to simply turn up and enjoy the show. There’s now an assumption, at least among concertgoers, that you could increase your experience quality by seeing several shows (even travelling internationally), learning the set list in advance and memorizing the cues to follow and calls-and-responses established by earlier audiences.

Numerous fans describe being shaken by their participation at large concerts: appearing as a choreographed performance of massive crowds, to which certain attendees arrived unaware of the protocol. Those lengthy tour, earning massive sums, was proof of the extents that attendees will push to participate in a significant event and experience their top musician perform, though the real performance grows somewhat secondary to the spectacle.

The Condition of Contemporary Sexuality

Sexual activity, conversely – a relatively cheap and available enjoyment – is in dire straits. Per recent surveys, approximately 25% of adults engaged sexually in an typical week, while about three in ten were abstaining. Elsewhere, recent data revealed that more than 25% of individuals admitted to avoiding sexual activity at all in the previous year, rising from lower numbers in the past. In both territories, the shift has been attributed to reduced intimacy among younger people. Compare this with the sector driving growth for stadium extravaganzas and the fierce battle for tickets. Of course it isn't straightforward as a straightforward choice between both alternatives – “could you choose experience a popular event repeatedly, or avoid intimacy?” – but it’s perhaps an indication of which is perceived as the more dependable pleasure.

Unexpected Similarities

Relationships and gigs are closer aligned than you might think. Both represent the activation of a bond, a practical trial of ideas or potential that may have developed just in your mind. You come with a basic expectation of how it’s likely to go, but hopeful of being delightfully amazed – and whether it proves good or bad rests largely on if your enthusiasm and hopes correspond with partners. Quite often you might find with someone else’s hair in your mouth, and following be lingering for a cigarette and a moment alone by yourself. And, in both cases, substances and drinks can sometimes improve or detract from the experience (but definitely make the worst experiences simpler to handle).

Seeking Harmony

The magic to concerts and intimacy depends on locating that elusive sweet spot between familiarity and novelty, similarity and difference, challenge and comfort. Of course it occurs infrequently – but it's the recollection of when it worked, the understanding that it’s possible, that motivates us to give it another shot: to {