This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Do some people enjoy being raped?
I normally don't wade this deep into controversial gender stuff, but... once I had this thought it won't leave my head. It's super anti-memetic, the sort of thing that if true nobody would want to admit and everyone who found out would suppress other than misogynists who people would ignore. If it were known to be true and widely admitted then rapists would just use it as an excuse, therefore the media/scientists/everyone lie and say it's not?
A bunch of people have rape fetishes. They are aroused by power and strength, or the courage and audacity to defy social conventions, or the idea of being so desirable that they drive someone insane and make them lose control. Or I've heard someone describe being raised in a super conservative household where you need to be pure and chaste, but they secretly want sex, so fantasize about being raped so that they could experience sex but it wouldn't be their fault and they haven't done anything wrong. I personally can imagine scenarios in which as a teenager a hot girl could have offered to have sex with me and I'd say no because I was a good boy who didn't do that sort of thing, but maybe would have ultimately been happy if she had forcibly insisted? But that never happened so I don't actually know.
Now of course, fantasies are not reality. Actual rape is going to be more violent, less perfectly tailored to someone's ideals, more terrifying, and probably with a much less attractive person than in an imaginary hypothetical. Lots of people have fantasies that they wouldn't actually want to carry out in real life. But it seems like the translation should be nonzero. And the translation of that it actual rapes is also nonzero. That is, if the proportion of people with rape fetishes is A, the proportion of those people who would enjoy actually being raped is B, and the proportion of those people who experience rape is C, and if all of these proportions are nonzero (and not so tiny as to pragmatically be zero), then the product, ABC is the proportion of people who have actually been raped and enjoyed the experience.
And it seems like they would experience an entirely different set of issues than normal rape victims. On the one hand, the experience is going to be a lot less traumatic: Instead of a horrifying and degrading experience they got to have an enjoyable if unexpected sexual encounter. On the other hand, they probably feel guilt and shame for their feelings, which they cannot voice without severe backlash from society. Rape is "the worst crime" possible, it's victims are permanently "Victims" and "Survivors". Its existence is a weapon to bash men and promote women. Mainstream culture is super well equipped to support and assist typical rape victims, at the expense of absolutely silencing and shunning anyone who might have not had a terrible experience and not been traumatized by it. And that itself might just amplify the shame and guilt and trauma for this subset of people. Like the kid who doesn't cry until they know someone is watching, I suspect that this subset of rape victims might not be traumatized from the rape itself, and wouldn't ever be traumatized in a different society, but are traumatized by our society's reaction to them and the need to stay "in the closet" so to speak, because of the backlash they'd receive if anyone found out the truth.
I'm not crazy, am I? Is this secretly a thing that nobody is allowed to talk about? I'm not sure it's really actionable if true. I don't think it makes rapists less horrible people even if they get lucky and target someone who secretly enjoys it, because the expected value of their crime is still catastrophically negative. So it wouldn't indicate reducing criminal or social penalties for rapists. And I don't think it would indicate reducing support or funding for rape victims, a majority of which are still traumatized in the normal way that everyone thinks they are. But maybe it would suggest something along the lines of... giving people the benefit of the doubt? Having more options for how people are allowed to cope with rape on their own terms without assuming they are "victims" when they might just be fine? I'm not sure this makes much difference, but I'd like to hear thoughts and/or statistical/scientific evidence for or against this (if that's even meaningful given the massive reporting biases this would create)
People have fetishes for seemingly everything ,so this would not surprise me either.
The one thing they cannot have a fetish for is 'homosexual behavior' I have been told online.
IRL, I used to work in the same building as a therapist and I used go to lunch with him. He told me it's fairly common in male victims of child rape to fetishize the behavior, that is, at least in the ones who are troubled enough to seek therapy. This didn't take place in a therapy-happy country mind you.
On the contrary, as a supporter since before it was popular of the rights of gay people, I believe that, if one condition is fulfilled, one can legitimately consider someone to have a fetish for 'homosexual behaviour'.
That condition is that one also consider heterosexual behaviour a fetish.
To me, 'equal rights for gay people' means that for a system of ethics to be valid, it must be invariant with regard to gender parity, i. e. the morality of an act or relationship is identical to that of an otherwise identical act or relationship, differing only in that the gender of one participant is reversed.
Isn't a fetish by definition a minority preference? And by implication a small/fringe minority?
Someone saying they have a pizza fetish doesn't just mean that they like pizza; almost everybody likes pizza, it's not a fetish. (unless taken to some extreme; do not recommend googling "pizza fetish")
A fetish, or paraphilia, is traditionally a focus on a part or feature of one’s sexual partners, or oneself considered sexually, or a behavior/role. By contrast, a sexual orientation or gender preference is based in the partner’s identity, and a gender is how one’s sexual features relate to their own identity.
One can have a thumb fetish: for big thumbs, small thumbs, thumb-play, gloves, mittens, art focused on thumbs, etc. Most people would not consider the thumbed to have an orientable identity, so a fetish it remains. (I can think of two specific exceptions for that sentence.)
Features traditionally considered primary, secondary, or tertiary sexual characteristics of one sex (size and shape of genitalia, big/small breasts, long/short hair, short/tall stature, small/large hands or feet, hair color, etc.) can be immediate dealbreakers if they go against one’s typical image of their target orientation. However, they can also be fetishes, not just identifiers.
Race can be a fetish or an orientation. So can height. For people toward the middle of the bisexuality spectrum, major categories of genitalia can be fetishistic; those toward or on the edges will generally consider them orientable.
For furry fans, consult a furry scale. Everyone inside and outside of the fandom will have different opinions on what level of furriness is a furry fetish, what level is xenospecies orientation, and what level is a bestiality perversion. Levels 5 and 6 do not have thumbs. Level 6 does not have linguistic sapience.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link