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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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The collapse in Saudi tfr happened well before recent liberalization, and in fact the largest collapse occurred during the most severe period of post-Siege of Mecca religious reactionary conservatism, when Saudi society became much less feminist, the Niqab was mandated, the modern guardianship system was mandated, middle and upper-middle class women were largely removed from the professions, Saudi society became more markedly segregated even among urban elites and so on.

Saudi Arabia was already oil rich by 1980. The World Bank says that female college enrollment in Saudi Arabia has risen steadily and consistently and massively, from a mere 5% in 1980 to 75% in 2020 -- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR.FE?locations=SA --, which correlates well with the decline in TFR during that same period. If there is a religious conservative backlash, they seem to have utterly failed at even arresting female empowerment, much less actually rolling it back, or else female college enrollment would have gone down, not up.

Second wave feminism was a necessary reaction to the sexual revolution (which was invented by powerful men for the purpose of basically sexually exploiting women without recompense),

Sex positive feminism and women-should-work feminism was pushed by elite men who wanted easy access to cute young women. Many women liked it too because it is crack for women to be around the highest status men. "MeToo" feminism is bolstered by dads who don't want to see their daughters run through by the football team, husbands who don't like their wives being seduced at the office, beta men who are resentful of alpha men hoarding the pussy, and elites who find metoo incidents as useful way to take down competitors. Many women on board with #metoo because sex-with-no-strings actually left them very hurt. Unfortunately, everyone has misidentified the problem as being one of lack of consent, as opposed to the problem being inherent to fornication and adultery.

Can someone explain to me how sex with no strings hurts people, and specifically how it hurts women more? In an age of contraceptives?

I'm not saying it's not true, it obviously is. I've been in situations where "sex with no strings" turned out to have a lot of expectations attached after all, while I on the other hand would be perfectly fine if we just went on with our lives. As would most men I know. (Maybe I'm some awful combination of high value enough to be given a chance, but not high value enough for it to be free.)

So it must be true, because they wouldn't bother pursuing anything more un

Can someone explain to me how sex with no strings hurts people, and specifically how it hurts women more? In an age of contraceptives?

There are two potential problems with "sex with no strings" -- either the sex is bad or it is good. If it is bad, it is bad. If it is good, high chance that one of the two people "catches feelings" -- and now that person has formed a bond with someone else who might not be good for them, or that into them. Forming a bond with someone who is bad for you is very damaging. And forming a bond to someone, exposing your nakedness and vulnerability to someone, and then having that person reject you is also tremendously damaging and hurtful. This goes for both men and women.

"Sex with no strings" is not something that was common among our ancestors, it is not something we have evolved to handle. Young men and women have not evolved to make good decisions in some lazzei faire sexual marketplace, nor have they evolved to even predict how they will react to sex. "Sex with no strings" is simply not something that can be predicted a priori. Impossible.

Sex did evolve to generate a powerful, intense bond with your partner (especially for women), which helps bind the couple together through the difficult years of child rearing. Sex with random people at best fritters this bonding power away, and at worst makes people bonded to partners who aren't properly screened or committed and thus will end up creating great hurt.

Alright, makes sense. I guess I'm just one of those people who doesn't form romantic bonds. Completely alien to me.

But I will note this reads a bit like ideology in that it conflates a useful social technology of monogamy with something natural and true. It seems like throughout history and today, powerful men had no issues with such bonding, and in fact one of the main motivators for men is access to a variety of women. Their goals aren't to faithfully commit to a single one.

But I will note this reads a bit like ideology in that it conflates a useful social technology of monogamy with something natural and true.

I would say that Christian teaching with regards to fornication and monogamy is rooted in natural law; natural law I define as follows: Given human nature, human sexuality, human group dynamics, the basic realities of the world, etc, natural law is the set of rules that result in the game theoretical optimum for most people and for society as a whole. So yeah, powerful men often like to fornicate, they also like to lie, cheat and murder too, all of which are violations of morality and natural law, it's good for them, but at the expense of others.

I should note though that even a powerful man who enjoys sleeping with a variety of women would prefer if the woman he sleeps with remains attached to him in concubinage. It is painful for almost any man to witness the woman he has slept with, sleep with someone else. If that is not painful for you, you are a true outlier.

there is nothing inherently christian about natural law, it only became part of catholic theology in the 13th century because of thomas aquinas incorporating ideas from aristotelian philosophy, and even then his synthesis was controversial and took some time to be accepted. I assume early christians based their teachings off of the judaic teachings at the time.

also i have never heard natural law described that way, can you elaborate what you mean? like what is considered the game theoretical optimum?