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 -
This is just spiritualizing Slick’s antisociality. (Surely we can deadname an influential rationalist court prostitute when her name has so much metaphorical import?). Traditionally, there are two kinds of women that men have nothing but respect and reverence toward: committed virgins and faithful mothers. No normal man feels resentment to these women. There’s a reason Koreans worship K-Pop idols only when they know they aren’t having sex, and then lash out when they do have sex. Virgins and mothers are entirely outside the sociosexual competition. A women having sex but not with you is usually the thing that breeds resentment in men. But Slick’s lifestyle of having sex with everyone is inviolable to any resentment based on envy. No same man envies the man paying for a prostitute. She is just gross.
Well, who gets to let their impulses run wild? I enjoy the story of Saint Joan of Arc beating the prostitutes out of her military camp. This fills me with a pleasure that is both more abiding and more prosocial than Slick’s. Why not let the righteous “live and let live”? Who gets to live without stress and vexation, the righteous or the degenerate? Okay, “it’s illegal to do that”, we can imagine a world where it’s not, but in any case we can at least rebuke her. And rebuking her is to chill, because it satisfies the righteous person’s sense of morality.
Generally people stop being praised for curiosity by their teen years. This is an example of the perverse hijacking of attention that Slick is able to accomplish. She is treated online like someone who is not actually an adult with moral reasoning, but someone who deserves constant coddling.
You say that like it's a prescriptive standard and therefore anyone praised for curiosity is being treated like a child. I happen to think curiosity remains valuable beyond teen years, and more than than, since in many people it remains in short supply it should be encouraged.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't care about "deadnaming." But unless she actually changed her name to Aella, I prefer the social norm that avoids casual and unnecessary doxxing.
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah. I was going to say, negative feelings are less likely to arise when an attractive woman won't sleep with you because she is flat out waiting for marriage.
It's when she is clearly having sex with other dudes but for some reason rejecting it with you when the feelings of inadequacy and the male sexual competition drive speak the loudest.
A woman who opts partially out of the sexual marketplace, and dresses and behaves accordingly, is still going to stir feelings in men, but easier to rein those feelings in when its just known that NOBODY is getting the prize, so rejection isn't specific to you.
I’m not sure this is true - nuns have been the subject of male desire for ever, as have Catholic girls and lesbians. And simultaneously the subject of mild resentment - general rejection is still rejection.
Rejection is rejection. No two ways about it.
But "unfair" rejection, when you can look over and see the guy next to you got accepted though he appears equally or maybe less qualified, is what triggers the envy and resentment.
Its not nearly limited to romantic pursuits either. Job interviews, team sports, elections.
I dunno, I think men find it more tolerable to compete for the hand of the 'fair maiden' who is making everyone play the game to win her affections, than to have to face the reality that the maiden isn't so fair after all and they were burning efforts trying to get her to pay heed, meanwhile she's banging Sir Lancelot on the side and was never actually considering his proposal.
More options
Context Copy link
Catholic schoolgirls are probably a teen fetish as much as anything else, and lesbians are a threesome fantasy, right?
Nuns maybe, but it seems far less widespread than the other two.
I think the darker fantasy in both cases, which you see less often now for political reasons, is they’ll give it up for me.
E.g. James Bond and Pussy Galore. The old, anti-gay attitude is, ‘I’ll show you a real man’. Even the threesome fantasy is not about being used as a temporary novelty by a couple who are devoted to each other but not to you, but requires they be at least somewhat interested in the male partner.
More options
Context Copy link
The nun fetish is more about the taboo transgression than any sort of resentment about unavailability. If they were just random women who pledged in a non-spiritual manner not to have sex, there wouldn't be the same type of fetish about it. Like the incest stuff that's taken over the world for some reason.
It costs nothing for the actors to say the word "step-X", so they do. Easy to dub out, too. (I think its prevalence far outstrips those who actually have this fetish for that reason.)
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