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 -
It's a good question!
All humans are familiar with the experience of impulse control, and the failure thereof. You should start that project tonight, but you don't. You shouldn't eat that donut because you're on a diet, but you do. You know that rationally you should be able to control your impulse, and it would be better for you if you did, but that often doesn't help much in the moment. These are universal experiences. The only difference with men is that they experience particularly strong sexual impulses, of a variety which many women find foreign. Like many impulses, they're fundamentally immune to examination by reason (knowing that the donut is unhealthy for you doesn't stop it from tasting good).
Impulse control follows a bell curve. Most men are able to rein in their sexual impulses and live perfectly normal lives in accordance with social expectations. The ones who are cursed with a sufficiently deleterious combination of high impulse intensity / poor impulse control are the ones who become criminals.
The fundamental point you're gesturing at is correct: men are insane! Their insanity has been the engine of so much death and destruction throughout history. But it's also been the engine of so much beauty and goodness. Things in life have a habit of working out like that.
The everyday impulse/akrasia thing you're describing matches female sexuality just fine, I think: certainly pure horniness does impel women sometimes to make choices they later regret. But I quoted your passage upthread, re: male sexual desire conferring an aura of importance and seriousness on its object, because that seems interestingly different. Normal appetitive impulses like eating junk food are hard not to act on, but they don't really involve a sense that "this is serious, this is not a joke," do they? I've gobbled a donut in a weak moment, but I would never say that the donut felt serious at the time, nor would I be annoyed if somebody joked about eating. In fact, I was very aware of the ridiculousness of it, even as I was eating. If somebody offered me donuts in exchange for state secrets, no part of me would think it was the right thing to do. I don't think I would have willingly hurt someone to get at the donuts. If somebody took the donuts away mid-binge, I would be relieved; I wouldn't have laid deep plots to get some more.
Whereas, the passage you quoted seems to be getting at a kind of a weird transvaluation-of-values field that testosterone creates around the object of desire, where whatever the penis wants seems worthwhile and important in itself: not just having a moment of weakness and regretting it, but having one's whole will redirected, such that old values or priorities just aren't relevant anymore. That's probably a stretch based on just the one statement in your comment, but I can think of various other examples that this makes sense of. I've heard people remark on the cold, unapologetic demeanor of men who have midlife-crisis affairs or come out as gay, etc.: maybe they cared about their wife and kids before, but now absolutely nothing feels as important as pursuing that hot secretary or that succession of Grindr hookups, whatever. Fetishists have laid incredibly complex, years-long plans in starry-eyed pursuit of goals that violate basic self-preservation logic, like freezing off their hands to replace them with paws or recruiting another man who will cut off, fry and eat their own balls. That value-revision power gets deployed for good in the whole manic pixie dream girl trope, where just the experience of sexually desiring a fetishized girl (usually a cypher, not a person: normally the guy lusts at first sight after noticing her 1-2 incredibly attractive physical features) supposedly revitalizes the hero's whole life, changes his priorities and makes him a permanently better man.
I obviously have no firsthand experience of male sexuality, but sexual desire that can change your sense of what's important, your affections, and your character, making you permanently callous to loved ones or calmly indifferent to the loss of your limbs, feels qualitatively different from donut-binge genital impulses. The only other thing I know of with that eerie character-rewriting effect is substance addiction.
I'm absolutely not saying that men are crazy, because I don't know what it would mean to be "sane" at the level of basic motivational wiring. It just is what it is. Obviously the process can work for good if young men lust after wholesome people in wholesome ways. I was just saying that it would feel very strange to have a constantly-on hormonal system that could fully rewrite one's conscious sense of reality itself like that, because aside from having a baby, I don't know of any female hormonal dynamics that can accomplish anything similar. But I'd also be curious if this resonates, if testosterone-based sexual desire feels to most men as it does to the hand-freezing-off guy, or if there's something fundamentally missing from my outsider's impressions of how the whole thing works.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link