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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   23302 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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If you've been on twitter in or around the tpot space the last few days, you may have seen Aella blowing up and deciding to go private. I won't recount the whole story, but it is in screenshots in the link earlier.

Suffice to say, apparently she searched her name and saw a ton of vitriolic attacks and discussions around her online presence. She claims that the worst part is the "overwhelming hate with nobody defending me. People are ashamed publicly to support me, they don't want to be called a simp or cringe."

Long story short she basically said that she is heartbroken, is "so sad the world is shaped this way," and decided to quit twitter and go locked for the foreseeable future.

For some quick background, aella is a prostitute. She is extremely successful, and has built up a huge presence on twitter as well as a cult following in rational spheres. She does data science work as well, and claims to be autistic. She is polyamorous and openly promotes and campaigns for that lifestyle, as well as doing drugs. Some of her stunts include things like tattooing her name on the body of men who have sex with her, having orgies while sharing details of who got to get in, etc.

A few darker claims are that she pushed her two younger sisters into sex work (one of them, by her own admission on twitter, was doing camgirl jobs before she turned 18.) She has also said some... problematic things that are edging around support for pedophilia, although she's canny enough not to come right out and say it.

Now as I'm sure many people here agree with, I don't exactly agree with aella's views or lifestyle. That being said I am still torn, the world is a cruel place. At the same time, aella has probably caused harm to a lot of others with her lifestyle and especially her approach to promoting it online.

This equivocation points to an actual underlying tension/confusion I have around liberal expression. On the one hang I think polyamory, sex work, and some of the.... encouragement aella has around minors watching point &c is quite bad, and should not be allowed to happen in the public square. I think a certain amount of shaming is absolutely good and necessary.

However, perhaps I'm frail hearted or something because it does hurt to see so many attack her so viciously, when they clearly have so much hate in their hearts. Perhaps it's Pollyannaish but I wish that we could do our shaming in a more dignified, and less clearly antagonistic way. It seems that most of the people shaming her, from my read at least, clearly enjoy looking down and judging someone harshly, seeing themselves as better than her. From my perspective, that's not just as bad as what she's doing, but still bad.

I'm wondering, I suppose, whether there's a way we can employ shame in a truly good way as a society? Can we somehow shame people without turning into monsters ourselves, in order to protect our children and especially young girls from (imo) degenerate and overall unhealthy lifestyles?

No.

To some extent, when dealing with the topic of whoring, we must embrace the monstrous, one way or another. Here are our options:

  • Tell the kids that whores are disrespectable they will ruin their lives if they whore themselves out, be it for money or attention, because they will be considered at least damaged goods if not somewhat subhuman by most people anywhere and ever. Also tell men with low sexual market value to shut up and stop complaining, they're not getting any and that's final. The shaming is ubiquitous and relentless.
  • Tell the kids that whores may fulfill an important function, that their work is valuable and necessary to keep low-status men satisfied, but god damn if you become one you'll be disinherited and booted out of the house because whoring is still disrespectable and it's the lesser humanoids who should do it, not real people! The shaming is somewhat more limited, but still strictly in effect.
  • Tell the kids that everything is permitted, you can do no wrong, fuck anything that moves, there are no consequences. They subsequently ruin their lives and cannot comprehend how this cruel world does not support them in their brave life choices. You don't shame, but others will do it for you, because not everyone lives in the anti-shame bubble.
  • Tell the kids to do their whoring in style and with discretion, pragmatically and as befits mid- to high-status people. Do it by disguising it as serial monogamy, or "dating", or just do it in private and make sure none of it ever becomes public knowledge. Or just do it in the classic form of medium- to long-term monogamy, they wouldn't be the first trophy wives. You don't shame for the behavior itself, but for a lack of adroitness in engaging in it.
  • You somehow brainwash / reeducate / social engineer all of humanity so they buy into the sexual liberation meme and fuck without a care. Abolish all categories of infames. Restructure the world so that nobody can ever do shamefully wrong because everything is right. Shame on you if you actually believe this to be viable.
  • Abolish the deeply-ingrained, natural and timeless practice of shaming people and instead skip right ahead to capital punishment and damnatio memoriae, for whore as well as client. Nuke the entire institution from orbit. There is no shame when the would-be shamed party ceases to exist.
  • Do it like most western societies do it at present, by mostly just looking the other way and pretending not to see anything. There is no shame when...hey, wait, why are you plastering your whoring all over social media!?

I'm sorry. I can't take the topic entirely seriously when it leads with one of the the least deserving examples possible. Aella, an ostensibly intelligent woman who decided to build her entire name and reputation on doing things that humanity at large considers shameful is surprised when large parts of humanity would rather shame her than praise her.

whores are disrespectable and they will ruin their lives if they whore themselves out, be it for money or attention, because they will be considered at least damaged goods if not somewhat subhuman by most people anywhere and ever

Source? Maybe I'm just in a bubble, but I can't imagine that public opinion of prostitutes is that low.

I mean, can you name any former porn stars who have gone on to become high-status, influential people?

Generally once you've got that reputation indelibly tied to your identity, it becomes impossible for a certain 'higher class' of person to take you seriously.

Extremely depends on what you consider high status, Ilona Staller was famously elected to the Italian parliament off the top of my head.

I mean, I agree in general that active and former prostitutes are generally lower status, but I don't think looking for high status outliers is a good way to show that, since the vast majority of people are not high status or influential by any useful definition of the phrase.

Honestly, former prostitutes have better odds of becoming influential just by virtue of being closer to centers of power. It is not like most nurses or childcare workers have any power or influence either even those are much more respectable professions.

Honestly, former prostitutes have better odds of becoming influential just by virtue of being closer to centers of power.

Ah, you mean like the young women in these paintings by James Tissot?

The Evening of 1878 and the more openly stated later version in The Reception (also known as The Political Lady and The Woman of Ambition) of 1885?

In both paintings we have attractive young women on the arms of much older men, clearly neither their fathers nor husbands, and equally clearly using this as an entrance into society above their original place on the ladder. I read earlier analysis of the dress in "The Political Lady" as being several years out of date, thus demonstrating that the young woman is not keeping up with the latest fashions and hence obviously not natively part of the high society circle, a point developed in this article:

Russell Ash states:

“To modern viewers the woman’s dress is a sumptuous creation, but Tissot’s contemporaries criticized it for being outmoded, La Vie Parisienne declaring, ‘She can’t aspire to being described as elegant, wearing one of those pink dresses that you wish would finish but never do, of antiqued cut, without any bustle but with a pointed black girdle like those worn twenty years ago.’”

Indeed, some of the choices Tissot made in depicting the garment in L’Ambitieuse were not in style at the time; by 1883-85 when it was painted, large, protruding bustles had become the fashion, and frothy, light garments like this one had been left behind several years before.

In the latter painting, look at the expressions of the other men - they're sizing her up and whispering about how she's plainly the new young mistress of the older man, perhaps speculating if they can get access to her as well. They don't seem to be respecting her and whatever influence she may gain as mistress of the older man will fade away once he dumps her or she ages out of being able to attract a sugar daddy.

I don't think looking for high status outliers is a good way to show that, since the vast majority of people are not high status or influential by any useful definition of the phrase.

Honestly, former prostitutes have better odds of becoming influential just by virtue of being closer to centers of power.

I feel like the outliers in this line of work who really are closer to centers of power are probably so rare that it doesn't change the median or mean all that much. Like any other entertainment industry job, my guess is that 99.999% are nobodies without any greater access to centers of power than a laywoman (pun not intended).

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