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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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5 or fewer sex partners (‘bodies’).

This seems like the first criteria that you'd want to relax.

I don't actually understand why other men care so much about body count. I mean, I can understand it on an intellectual level, but not on a visceral level. Perhaps that's just a side effect of my general pattern of sexual deviancy. I also have no instinctive revulsion towards incest between consenting adults, for example, although many other people swear to me that they most assuredly do.

It has to be visceral/instinctual; there's just no other explanation that makes sense. The people who do feel that are going to try to rationalize it quite a bit harder and, logically, would rather not have to work at sexual attraction because it makes the relationship much more likely to succeed (for obvious reasons). Compare [the emotional impulse behind] 6/6/6 for women. Preference falsification applies to everyone, especially those that suggest vanity.

Conversely, we should expect men who have to fight themselves every time they need to prove they're attracted to their wife to be worse at marriage, which naturally leads to a higher divorce rate. The implication when it's brought up is that it's all on the woman, but obviously that's not true (and considering the market value of sexual access to the female body has fallen through the floor -> sex is expected when dating, women who might not otherwise want to do that really aren't in a great situation).

It makes sense that the revulsion is instinctual; from a biological standpoint women who intentionally seek out sex are malfunctioning since it's very risky for zero benefit. It's only been within the last 70 years that the risk (of pregnancy) dropped to literally zero, so this trait hasn't evolved out of the male population yet, and the selection pressure might actually be in the direction of reinforcement anyway.

no instinctive revulsion

Interestingly, there are a couple of sex things I do feel instinctive revulsion towards (seeing two conventional men interact sexually is one of those; actually, I suspect this is also true for [obligate] gay men, which probably explains some furries... among other things) so I just kind of map that feeling onto this.


Perhaps that's just a side effect of my general pattern of sexual deviancy.

Personally, I would be more concerned about marrying someone who isn't sufficiently deviant/has too much instinctual revulsion about sex to actually be any fun to sleep with... but then again, low body count kind of falls out of that equation anyway for other reasons so maybe that's just a self-serving rationalization too.

makes sense that the revulsion is instinctual; from a biological standpoint women who intentionally seek out sex are malfunctioning since it's very risky for zero benefit.

Evolutionarily speaking there can be lot of benefit to a woman seeking out the best men instead of letting her genes' destiny just entirely depend on male decisions. This does not have to necessarily include seeking out actual sex with many men, but in practice the two will be correlated.

seeing two conventional men interact sexually is one of those; actually, I suspect this is also true for [obligate] gay men

Nah, no way. Otherwise they wouldn't, you know, spend so much time having sex with men, often times in semi-public places (bathhouses, orgies, etc) where they also watch other men interact sexually with each other as well.

I don't actually understand why other men care so much about body count.

It has a noticeable impact on divorce rates once it gets 'too high.'. 0-1 previous partners is, it seems, the 'ideal' there.

(and women generally had fewer bodies at the same age in the past, using this same data)

Also it correlates with the STI criteria.

And it probably correlates with the mental illness criteria.

OBVIOUSLY it correlates with the single motherhood criteria.

So a man MIGHT compromise on this, but more women having more sex partners is still going to reduce the overall size of the pool of good marital partners.

Yes but it's only correlated with those things. It itself isn't really a bad thing. Much like how a college degree is correlated with professional skill, but it's not equivalent to professional skill, which is why it's not unheard of (especially in say, tech) for people to get hired to highly-skilled positions without degrees.

(You also don't need to measure single motherhood by proxy. It can be measured directly. The child has a correlation of 1 with itself, and the absence of children has a correlation of 1 with the absence of children.)

It's the double standard, though, and it's going to choke relationships if it still is applied. Men want to sleep with as many women as they can, but they want their prospective partner to never have slept with anyone, or at least only one guy before him ("0-1 previous partners is, it seems, the 'ideal' there").

Well, seeing as how the ratio of men: women is about 50:50, that ain't doable. Either a few women are sleeping with all the guys, or a few guys are sleeping with all the women (the latter case not making most men happy at all) or we get Sexual Liberation when women are supposed to be approaching sex with the same kind of mindset as men, wanting casual flings and novel sexual experiences, in which case yeah you're going to get more than 1 previous partner. Men will have to dial down their own body count if they want "women who haven't slept with a lot of guys, but who are still willing to have sex with me while we're dating and before we've fallen in love and before marriage". Or go back to the days of "if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it" and no sex before marriage, and I think modern men don't want that kind of limitation either.

'If you won't marry anyone but a virgin, then you'd better leave a few of them around!'

If you leave any virgins around, they are not going to be virgins when you come back; they are going to get popped by some other cad. So you might as well take what you can get. Like unto a communal plate of French fries; such is the tragedy of the commons.

To solve the problem, need to privatize the commons.

Again, I suspect that if you go to the nearest fundamentalist church you will find at least a few women who are virgins well into their twenties. They may have other problems, but if you wanted to join a filter bubble where you could get a virgin bride those exist.

My guess is that you- like most guys complaining about this- do not actually want the fundy tradeoff set. You don't want to be sole breadwinner, to have to give up porn, etc. But that's what the old-school marriage contract that you say you want looked like. Those are the conditions for having a submissive virgin wife.

Man, I think that men who pine for a virgin bride have caught a glimpse of the loveliness in the life you’ve described. I wish someone could explain the rest to them such that they could see the beauty of the whole package. Some secular men would be moved by it; many others would at least respect it. And it would strengthen the spines and zippers of Christian men and women alike.

I’m not the right person to do it. I’m not even sure what form it would take. But it would be a win for truth and beauty, to say nothing of the people involved.

You don't want to be sole breadwinner, to have to give up porn, etc. But that's what the old-school marriage contract that you say you want looked like.

Those arent the parts of the fundy tradeoff I have a problem with. Giving up porn is not a huge deal for most guys if theyre having sex, doing it in advance somewhat but propably not a dealbreaker for people otherwise interested in that kind of life, if they believe in the payoff. Sole breadwinner, propably is an issue but depends on how much you make - and rich people are less likely to be super religious, so thats propably not the driver either.

If you leave any virgins around, they are not going to be virgins when you come back; they are going to get popped by some other cad.

'Tis an old complaint!

Go and catch a falling star

By John Donne

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Yeah, to unilaterally abstain from the sexual markets while waiting for your hypothetical virgin waifu (lest you get accused of double standards), just means sitting around dick-in-hand while she gets pounded out by other guys.

Might as well enjoy the decline.

And the same goes for women: if you don't put out for the guy, he will dump you. It's a long, long time since I was a teenager, but the advice columns in the girls' magazines were full of "my boyfriend wants to have sex with me but I don't want to have sex but he says he'll leave me if I don't".

Sexual Revolution was not good for everyone.