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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3228 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 9, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Why is LGBTQ so important for liberals in terms of foreign policy?

For example, when debating Russia, arguments often amount to Russia is evil because they aren't onboard with pride. Russia isn't putting LGBTQAASASFDSFDSFDSFDSFSD people in concentration camps, they simply seem not to have pride flags while having a don't ask don't tell attitude. Why does that infuriate liberals that much?

Countries in the middle east can engage in all sorts of questionable behaviour but, often it is a lack of LGBTQ flags that infuriates the left. Again, they aren't mass-executing LGBTQ people or having concentrations camps, they simply don't celebrate it or want it rubbed in people's faces.

It seems like existence of pride parades seems to be a key benchmark for judging the moral virtue of a country. Why is this benchmark so central?

About 5 years ago I was hiking in the Grand Canyon with friends and we met a 20-year-old Russian kid at the beach who asked if he could tag along with us for the hike back up to the rim. He spent a lot of the time telling us how great Russia was, which was fine, but one of the things he pointed to in evidence of its greatness was the fact that they could "beat faggots in the street" with no repercussions. I don't know if this kind of attitude is typical, but the fact that any random tourist would find it appropriate to tell Americans he just met that apropos of nothing in particular is at least an indication that the attitudes over there go beyond simply not celebrating it. Hell, even the rural Trump supporter in our group seemed pretty unnerved by it.

The untranslated word in his mind was almost certainly “pidoraz.” He was picturing child molestors where you pictured consenting homosexuals.

Пидорас (not пидораз), and indeed педерастия, is not "pederast"/"pederasty". The primary meaning is homosexuality and pederasty is the less common meaning. See also lurkmore which, after a quick skim, doesn't even seem to mention the second meaning, if you don't like gramota.ru.

Thanks for the corrections.

This word colloqually means simply homosexual, with the non-mangled "pederast" out of use by anyone but historians.

There are other context clues that suggest the man was most likely speaking about homosexuals. Speaking of "beating faggots on the streets" as a particular boon of Russia suggests you can't do so in other places, which is true for open homosexuals and quite untrue for open child molesters. Furthermore, it is a lot easier to find [alleged] homosexuals on the street for the purposes of beating up, since everyone knows those damn faggots wear long dyed hair and tight jeans, or something to that effect. Pedophiles generally don't advertise themselves so, and if you were going by stereotypes you'd have to face down, like, a quarter of middle-aged male population.

Those who want to beat up pedos on the street generally need some sophisticated preparation, such as setting up a honeypot, perhaps take pointers from Tesak. Note his quote: "Are you a pidoras or a pedofil?"

Today I learned. Thanks for the correction.

He spent a lot of the time telling us how great Russia was, which was fine, but one of the things he pointed to in evidence of its greatness was the fact that they could "beat faggots in the street" with no repercussions. I don't know if this kind of attitude is typical, but the fact that any random tourist would find it appropriate to tell Americans he just met that apropos of nothing in particular is at least an indication that the attitudes over there go beyond simply not celebrating it. Hell, even the rural Trump supporter in our group seemed pretty unnerved by it.

Well yeah, that’s an urban attitude. In America you’re more likely to find it in black ghettos than on a farm.

Sure, you might find it among hired laborers who commute in from a nearby trailer park. Honestly a lot of 'based' Russian social attitudes seem like they're copied from the attitudes of people living in... less-affluent settlements. This isn't a great match for the American right, which is driven by rural and religious attitudes, not shitty neighborhoods.

Last time I checked, the country in Russia was notoriously destitute aside from, as mentioned by others, dachas and cottagecore influencers. Not much trailer culture, either.

which is driven by rural and religious attitudes, not shitty neighborhoods.

This is a distinction without a difference. Rural areas that are not subsidised by commuters/retirees who make money in the city and spend it in the country are poor, have crap amenities other than access to nature because of the high cost of proving them in remote areas, and preferentially retain dumber people. The first two of these points have been true for a long time (since before 1900 in the UK, probably around 1950 in the USA), the third since time immemorial (idiot and pagan are derived from Greek and Latin slurs for country bumpkins respectively).

America has a sufficient number of decent if not particularly nice rural areas that this is not, in fact, a distinction without a difference, and homesteading laws have also tended to spread the rural population a bit more thinly than in other places; there are fewer agglomerations of extreme poverty in rural areas. And it’s the slums which I was referring to, not the rural lower incomes itself.

It's hard to say exactly what the percentage of Russians eager to beat up faggots in the street is. I'd assume it is mostly concentrated in the rural/small town chavs, with the older generations of the same class not as eager to do it themselves, but approving it otherwise.

Tangentially, in USA it seems that the prime thing a regular man fears about prison is ass-rape. In Russia, everybody knows that ass-rape in prisons is reserved for the underclass, such as faggots.

But yes, it really does show that American conservative "don't rub it in our faces" and Russian conservative "don't rub it in our faces" are vastly different levels of tolerance.

I'd assume it is mostly concentrated in the rural/small town chavs

I would associate it, quite strongly, with high crime low income neighborhoods. Eg black ghettos, certain trailer parks. Ditto the use of 'fag'. On the other hand I'd associate 'it should be a crime' 'they're mentally ill' 'its like pedophilia- just unnatural' with the normal American reservoirs of social conservatism- religious and deep rural people.

Tangentially, in USA it seems that the prime thing a regular man fears about prison is ass-rape. In Russia, everybody knows that ass-rape in prisons is reserved for the underclass, such as faggots.

My understanding is that being gay on the outside was merely one of many ways you could become a petukh in Russian prisons. Online accounts agree that the local vor could declare any inmate to be a petukh based on broadly subjective grounds like "not defending his honour" or "behaving dishonorably towards another inmate" and that once you were raped once your status as a petukh was unambiguous across the whole prison system.

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