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 -
I explained why porn is worse for a human than seeing a prostitute, and why prostitution is in prosocial in its orientation. So I wouldn’t say my title is mistitled at all. I wasn’t going to go into the history of prostitute regulation or scholastic theology. If porn is bad and prostitutes are better, I advocate banning porn and subsidizing prostitution. It would be awesome if the RS subreddit made this point often, but I don’t think I’ve seen it, if you can link me that would be cool.
I can’t dispute your personal lived experience, but I do wonder if you’re an outlier. “The same pathways in my brain were firing as the ones that do when I beat it to porn” is extremely improbable given the unique cues associated prostitution. The lack of intimacy is one reason why prostitution is not identical to real intercourse, but this doesn’t supersede the numerous reasons why it is closer than porn. Living in a society where, I think it’s 30% of men haven’f had sex in a year, doesn’t afford us with the counter argument of “just find a gf bro”. Ideally everyone would be in longterm relationships and yet historically cultures saw fit to introduce regulated prostitution.
Re: cleaner, we’re talking about psychological cleanliness involving cues. A girlfriend is a living breathing psychological cue for sex. She doesn’t exist on a tab in your computer. While sure, your bed would associated with sex (with your girlfriend), that still retains more psychological “purity of space” than having porn in the same browser that you work on. The question is what we’re associating together. Associating being alone and the internet with sexual gratification is worse than either a prostitute or having a significant other.
Sure, I just think its a very naive argument.
Neither of those things are trivial.
Not the banning porn or the subsidizing prostitutes. Books can be written on the edge cases and unintended effects of both those policies.
It reads very much as a hot take clickbait title. You don't even seriously attempt to discuss those policies.
I know many other Johns. And their thought process is the exact same as mine. The sugar daddy, hire a prostitute for companionship trope is not as common in the "Real world" as certain media would have you believe.
The prostitute is an entity that lives in <Address of massage place that offers happy endings>.
I don't even remember what the prostitutes individual faces looked like. As I said, you can come up with a lot of armchair psychology on why visiting whores is unlike porn, "cues" and all that, but until you have actually been in the mindspace to have done it for real instead of just thinking about it, you are probably filling in a lot of the gaps with pop-psychology hooplah.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm interested in digging in a bit more on why you think this is important.
More options
Context Copy link
If that's all she is, then you are treating her as a prostitute, and that's not solving the problem you set up.
That is a property of a girlfriend but not the only property of a girlfriend.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link