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 -
Trigger warning - this is related to pornographic material
Lily Philips is an onlyfans model who slept with 100 guys in a single day. She is from the UK and does not have the background of a typical pornstar from the looks of it. Popular Youtube video maker Joshua Pieters made a documentary around it with her in it where at one point she just cracks where she gets a hint of what she just did, in trying to sleep with more guys than most friend circles do in a few lifetimes all for the sake of being edgy.
The clip has gained traction and I feel bad about the girl. Some Christian women are asking for her to be forgiven and taken back under gods grace whilst the Tate Brothers asked their followers to go undercover in her gangbang and literally preach the gospel to a cum infested e celeb. Hell this is the first time I have seen either of them show regret for having ran an onlyfans studio.
Lily and her friends have done similar things before but I cannot find any of it since any mention of her name brings up thousands of links about what she did this week. How do you even describe what she did given that she wants to do a 1000 in a day despite breaking down on camera? The cherry on this cake is that she can get married to a fairly normal guy tomorrow because Riley Reid, another adult entertainer did this too.
edit - removed a question about religiosity, since I think it came off in bad faith which is not my intent at all as a religous person
If she doesn't enjoy it, she should stop. But I don't see any fundamental problem with such virtuosic feats of sex. It's a bit weird in the same sense that hot dog eating contests are weird, but if the people involved were happy about it I wouldn't see any problem.
She might be able to find a fairly normal husband if she wants to, sure, and again I don't see any problem with it as long as both people are happy. A pussy doesn't develop magical destructive powers just because 100 dicks were inside of it in one day.
Also, I don't see why a trigger warning would be necessary. We regularly discuss things like wars, genocide, rape, and capital punishment on this site, so sex is pretty far down on the list of what should really trigger anyone who enjoys this place.
Is this your only criteria? It isn't. Because if it were, you would have no problem with people becoming addicted to drugs and other substances.
Furthermore, let's get into temporal preferences and shifts in self-perspective over time. Maybe this woman can convince herself that she's "happy" with it for some amount of time. I'd argue, given the clip shared, that that amount of time was, at most, the time between the end of this sexual act and when that clip was filmed. Regret may have been forestalled, and it then arrives on camera.
(Interesting aside: this has a bizarre connection to false/not-false rape allegations. Two people are "happy about it" in the moment. The next day, one of them wakes up feeling less "happy about it" and files the allegation. A complex and high stakes legal process then ensues wherein both parties try to somehow prove how they felt about what at which times).
People are often flawed at judging what is good for them and what makes them truly happy. To combat this, we try to develop systems of normative thinking to assist. Some people call this morals, ethics, virtues etc.
Show me the moral/ethical/virtue system that says "Sex with 100 strangers in an hour" is permissible. Aside from moral relativism, out and out hedonism, or nihilism, it doesn't exist.
To the extent that it's a moral system in addition to a political one, it's called liberalism.
So out and out hedonism it is.
Ironically I do think that there are systems of ethics that have a coherent claim to not just allow this behavior but make it virtuous. But nobody actually cares about weird sex positive pagans anymore.
I don't think liberalism is interchangeable with hedonism. My one-sentence gloss of hedonism is "do whatever you find pleasurable", which quickly spirals into libertine degeneracy. My one-sentence gloss of liberalism is "do whatever you want as long you aren't infringing on anyone else's rights", which quickly spirals into endless debates about distributed effects and externalities and "but how does this affect you personally" and so on. But to a first approximation, I fail to see how this adult woman having sex with a hundred consenting adult men directly infringes on anyone else's rights.
Bounded or not by pragmatic guidelines, the ultimate goal is indeed to realize whim and desire with no examination as to whether that is proper.
What OP surely means by a "moral system" is such an examination. Ethics of any kind.
If the answer to "what is to be done" is "realize desire", then it is hedonism.
Indeed the only reason for the limitation you point to is that in violating someone's rights you are preventing them from realizing their desire also. What are we then to believe if not that this is just hedonism, if of a pragmatic nature.
It does not, but that's the contention: that there is more to ethics than consent.
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
More options
Context Copy link