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Picture having a open night. You are refreshed, open to experience, and wanting to break from your typical schedule of relaxing at home. Your options awaits your choice! Could you choose a) attending a concert or b) engaging in intimacy? The answer, as is often the case with such kinds of queries, is plainly: “It varies.” Thinking adults could understandably wonder: what's the concert? Who's the other person? Could it be expected to be enjoyable?

Few would pick a Limp Bizkit/Slipknot/Korn triple bill if the choice was a magical night with Jonathan Bailey. However tweak any part of the equation, and it turns more complicated. Regarding the thousands surveyed asked this question through a major concert promoter, no such clarification was provided – and the response came out unambiguously and heavily preferring concerts.

Research Findings Indicate Interesting Trends

A global survey, questioning a large sample aged between 18 and 54 in 15 markets, found that gigs are now the world’s top leisure activity, beating out athletic events, cinema and – absolutely – sexual intercourse. When limited to a single form of enjoyment permanently, a significant portion chose live music, compared to film attendance (17%) and sports events (14%). Participants were over two times as inclined to choose seeing their favourite artist live (70%) over intimacy (30%).

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

Perspectives and Analysis

Certainly it's expected that a PR survey conducted for a concert promoter should come out so overwhelmingly preferring live shows – and, in the freewheeling spirit of a would-you-rather, if your preferred musician is, such as Paul McCartney, it's understandable why attending his concert may be chosen over a routine situation. Yet this either-or decision between live music or sex, clearly absurd even if it seems, is interesting to consider considering the strange point we experience with each.

The Evolution of Concert Culture

Lately, live music participation has evolved into more than a group event but a intense competition. Major promoters duly point out that stadium attendance has “increased threefold annually”, and festivals get booked up quicker than before. Just obtaining passes now requires detailed strategy, instant reactions and significant funds (or a substantial budget). Even if you manage, it isn't sufficient to merely attend and watch the performance. There’s now an assumption, at least among pop fans, that you could increase your return on investment by attending more than once (potentially going abroad), learning the set list beforehand and knowing your marks to follow and calls-and-responses created by earlier audiences.

Numerous fans describe being scarred by their attendance at popular events: appearing as a orchestrated show of thousands of people, where some individuals arrived unfamiliar with the routine. Those lengthy event, earning massive sums, was proof of the degree to which fans will travel to participate in a cultural moment and see their favourite artist sing, though the actual music grows somewhat less important than the production.

The Condition of Contemporary Sexuality

Intimacy, by contrast – an affordable and accessible pleasure – faces difficult times. Based on contemporary studies, about a quarter of individuals were intimate in an regular period, while nearly 30% were sexually inactive. Elsewhere, recent data showed that over a quarter of people reported not having intimacy at all in the previous year, increasing from lower numbers in previous decades. In both territories, the trend has been linked to reduced intimacy with younger generations. Juxtapose this with the industry expanding rapidly for major events and the fierce battle for admissions. Naturally it’s not as simple as a simple decision between both alternatives – “would you rather attend a huge concert multiple times, or stay celibate?” – but it’s perhaps an signal of how people see the more reliable pleasure.

Interesting Comparisons

Sex and live music are closer aligned than you might think. Each symbolizes the initiation of a relationship, a actual experience of impressions or promise that might have amassed only in your head. You come with some idea of the probable outcome, but expecting to be delightfully amazed – and how it ends up satisfying or frustrating rests largely on whether your energy and anticipations align with others. Frequently you could wind up with a stranger's hair in your mouth, and later be lingering for a smoke and personal space on your own. And, in both cases, drugs and alcohol can potentially heighten or lessen the situation (but definitely make the most unpleasant situations easier to weather).

Finding the Balance

The magic to live events and relationships depends on locating that elusive sweet spot between the known and the new, sameness and variation, work and relaxation. Of course it happens only rarely – but it's the recollection of when it worked, the awareness that it can happen, that drives us to attempt once more: to {