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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I found a post on /r/Destiny which I found insightful enough I want to post it in full here: Credit to /u/hello_marmalade

On the Sexualization of Women in Contrast to Men

A sentiment I've heard about women before is that they aren't valued for things other than sex. I think this is correct, but the sentiment lacks context.

I think something that gets missed, is that men will pretend to be interested in women for reasons other than sex, in order to get sex - however if sex wasn't an option, they wouldn't be interested in those women at all.

I think the implication is that these women would be noticed for their other qualities - but in reality, without the draw of sex, most people will be ignored. That's the reality for men, which I think gets lost in translation in conversations about sexual attention.

I think this is why you get situations where men will be very dismissive of women when they complain about this, or where the attitude in response comes from. From a man's perspective, these women seem full of themselves. The thinking going something like "Why the fuck would anybody be interested in you? You're just another random chick." Now that comes off as misogynist but I think the sentiment comes from the experiential reality of most men being essentially being invisible. This doesn't get verbalized, because I think it's something that happens so early to both genders that it just becomes part of a person's qualia. Like, just knowing that the sky is blue. You can see it, it's right there. You could argue for hours with someone before realizing that the sky is green for them, because you wouldn't even think to consider that they thought it was a different color in the first place.

Now, some complications with this. There are more issues with the constant sexualization of women. One is that it fucks up your ability to trust people. How can you know when someone is genuinely interested in you, or is faking it? Two, there will absolutely be people that will ignore your other qualities in favor of sex. Three, people will correctly, but nonetheless unfairly evaluate you with the awareness that other people may have given you credit for things unjustly in order to try and have sex with you, which will simultaneously do damage to your self esteem.

I think this leads to attitudes in women that make complete sense even if they're kinda shitty. Basically, if you're always going to be evaluated in regards to sex, then fuck it, get the best evaluation you can possibly get. Think of the F&F panel with Sneako. The first question they get asked is "How much to fuck you?" Well shit, if that's where we're starting, does saying "As much as someone is willing to give me," make a woman a gold digger? If all you're gonna be evaluated on is being a hole, then fuck it, might as well get the highest value. This then gets weaponized as those women being entitled, or shallow, but if you were never going to evaluate them on anything else, why should it matter?

However, by the same token, it leads to a situation where men will feel taken advantage of. I can say for myself at least (and I think a decent number of other men) that being horny can feel like you're being 'tricked' by your own body. Hell, there's even a term for the clarity after you cum: 賢者タイム "Sage Mode", or more commonly known as "Post Nut Clarity". The phenomenon seems to be so universal that it has equivalents in multiple languages that are disparate. I think this is where the sort of misogynistic hate and bitterness can come out of some men. There's a power that you feel a woman can unilaterally hold over you in a way you can't hold them, which can lead you to doing foolish things. As such, any woman using her sexuality for personal gain feels like "cheating".

Additionally, I don't think most women really understand just how invisible you can feel being a man - on almost every level. Personally, I think this affects us in a really deep, underlying way. I think every woman understands that they intrinsically have value. They have limited control over that value, and that value can overshadow everything else about you as a person - but you have intrinsic value nonetheless. On the flip-side, as a man, you are essentially worthless until proven otherwise. Nobody cares. You intrinsically are valueless at best, and a drain at worst. I think this also forms a root of resentment in men towards women who seem to fundamentally not understand this. The line of thinking being "Who the fuck are you? Why do you think you should be valued for anything other than being a woman unless you've earned it? Why do you think you've earned it the same way as any man has?" For some women, this is true. There are women who don't recognize that they've been given credit for things that nobody would care about if they were male. However, at the same time, this creates a situation where any woman who has earned her value is looked at with suspicion. Her successes cannot stand on their own.

Anyway, those are just some thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head. Just things that I see come up fairly often, but I don't feel like I hear these things mentioned very much. I think a big problem is that the people who end up seeing these things end up being too invested in their own side to achieve any kind of synthesis of these ideas.

Interested to hear other people's thoughts on this. There's probably some other shit I've missed, since this is mostly off the cuff, so I may add to this with edits later as I remember/think of other shit.

I think something that gets missed, is that men will pretend to be interested in women for reasons other than sex, in order to get sex - however if sex wasn't an option, they wouldn't be interested in those women at all.

I think this is a very weird conjecture. What does it even mean to be interested in a woman?

If a man is looking for a romantic partner, then duh. A platonic relationship is strictly inferior to a complete one. But while sex is necessary for most men looking for a relationship, it's not sufficient. Women claiming most men are looking for a sex bot that cooks and cleans are ignoring the whole OF/Twitch industry of women selling simulated companionship.

Anything other than a romantic relationship? Friendship, business? While women have to rely on their appearance to make a good first impression much more than men, sexual availability doesn't matter. The vast majority of men don't try to have sex with every woman they know, even though there's a daemon in their head that automatically sorts every woman they know into "yes", "not drunk enough" and "can't get drunk enough" piles. If anything, it's easier to form stable non-romantic relationships with the latter two groups.

The vast majority of men don't try to have sex with every woman they know

It's not about the women you know, it's about the women you choose to get to know.

Yes, you're right, I don't try to have sex with every woman I know, but that's because most women (and, indeed, people) I know come as unfortunate by-products of going to school, then work. I got to know them due to being forcibly flung together by circumstance, not because I thought they were an improvement over keeping my own company.

The set of people I would proactively choose to get to know is mostly coterminous with the set of busty women 18-35.

What about men? Would you proactively choose to get to know none of them?

I have yet to meet a male friend in my entire life whose company I enjoy more than my own solitude, so yes.

But I feel this is more a measure of the wonderful richness of my inner life than is is of the spiritual poverty of my neighbours, so I'm not complaining.

I have lots of male friends, I just wish I didn't, they're a tremendous drain on my reading time.

In this case I doubt you're a good example of the median man. While men are more schizoid on average than women, they are less schizoid than that.