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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 that this is oversimplified. Being attractive as a woman takes a lot of willpower (not eating a lot in the modern world), work (applying make-up is not easy) and money (clothes, make-up, perfume, hairdressing etc. are not cheap).

And there are innate things as a man that can make people more pliable to you. For example, I am fairly tall, broad-shouldered, I have naturally very good skin, a prominent jaw, and all my hair in my 30s. These make life easier for me as a man, but I didn't have to work for them.

money (clothes, make-up, perfume, hairdressing etc. are not cheap).

Except 90% of the choices women make in this arena are negative for sexual attraction of men. Thereby blowing the whole theory out of the water. Imagine men wearing orange overalls and telling every woman they meet they are an alcoholic and you have an approximation of women's fashion over the last 2 decades.

Except 90% of the choices women make in this arena are negative for sexual attraction of men.

Just in the interest of avoiding typical-minding, I ask my fellow whore-makeup-appreciation-chads to rise up!

Bad make-up is better than no make-up because I interpret any make-up at all (just as the feminists' nightmares alledge) as a signal that "I am trying to make myself more pleasing to the male gaze", which in turn implies a receptiveness to male advances, which IN TURN is more alluring in terms of attainability bias than the 'natural beauty' it replaces would be.

And yes, yes, I know that we are lectured relentlessly that "That's not what wearing make-up signals you misogynist", but whether my perception of it's implications is accurate or not is beside the point.

Yeah, this is how I feel as well. It is for the male gaze regardless of the official narrative. Not just a receptiveness to male advances, but a tacit acknowledgement that men and women are different and that women should try to be at least somewhat attractive to men. So it signals that she's not entirely lost in the feminist frame.