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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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Got an interesting article to share, with a goofy-ass twist.

https://farhakhalidi.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-male-centered-women?triedRedirect=true

So, my first thought is that it is rare to see a writer lay out so explicitly their hang-ups with sex positivity. She makes the case that heterosexual men exploit the “unwritten rules” of the dating game to string along women for sex, and in doing so, traumatize them through sheer carelessness.

I don’t completely disagree with her assessment of the situation, although I’m confused as to what her policy prescriptions are, and I think she’s in a “Be Careful What You Wish For” scenario.

If you’ll indulge me as I put on my over-analysis hat, the heterosexual dating marketplace can be viewed through an economic lens, with men and women modeled as agents within the marketplace.

The author is making the case that the current status quo privileges men’s interests at the expense of women’s. Even if women would prefer a longer “runway” towards consummating a relationship, it’s the men who get to set the timetable, with their implicit threat of walking away otherwise.

The optimal behavior for women, operating collectively as a self-interested guild within the heterosexual marketplace is to coordinate to demand maximal investment from men in exchange for romantic/sexual relationships. In other words, to collude, act as a monopolistic cartel and engage in price-fixing schemes.

Like every cartel ever, this is hard to enforce because every individual member’s incentive is to undercut the group-set price. It becomes especially hard to enforce in cases of romantic relationships, where people are not fungible economic actors with identical goals of maximizing profits, but flesh-and-blood human beings with radically different goals, desires, and libidos.

The solution that allows women to set a “price floor” for relationships, in spite of both those factors, is to use social technology to align their interests. In this case, that technology would be “slut-shaming”. Any woman who engages in behavior that undermines the interests of Women as a Collective (like being willing to be Chad’s booty call) is declared persona non grata at Mimosa Mondays and banished from the bookclub.

None of this will be new to the average Mottizen, although God knows we never get tired of re-hashing the gender wars. What I find especially interesting in this salvo is the delivery source. In another essay, the author explicitly rejects the patriarchal norms of the conservative community that she grew up in. Despite that, she still converges on advocating for basically traditional conservative sexual morality in women’s dating life.

My concern is that I’ve never really heard of a secular society with those kinds of restrictions on sexuality; the only places that successfully curtail premarital sex do so explicitly through a religious point of view. The Taliban has successfully prevented Afghan women from traumatizing themselves from Hookup Culture, but whether this is better for Women As A Class is left as an exercise for the reader.

The punch line to all this? The author, Farha Khalidi, is an Onlyfans star! She is the bête noire of conservative patriarchs across the globe, and every social system (that I’ve ever heard of) that frowns on premarital sex would consider what she does to be much worse.

So it begs the question: what, exactly, is she advocating for? Quite frankly, I’m not sure. If I had to guess, I think she wants a secular, sexually conservative sororiarchy, where women watch out for their gender’s collective interests and stop each other from undercutting their bids. Either way, an interesting point of view.

Didn't we have a previous article from this lady? A couple of points-

  1. Serious mohammedanism seems worse for women than serious Christianity at any equivalent point along the fundy vs liberalism spectrum. Of course I would say that, but I suggest this woman talk to some ladies living in conservative Christianity.

  2. It comes as no surprise to me that women are not by and large fans of low commitment sexual activities, nor that many women value the attention they get more than anything.

  3. This is not a new problem. The age old refrain of the cad is 'I swear I'll marry you, I just can't wait'. This is just the modern iteration. Of course, when you reject men having the authority to protect women from this, you also reject them having the responsibility to do so.

  4. There is, in fact, a middle ground between 'women are virgins until their wedding night' and 'sex then have a date if the man liked it'. I reject it entirely but it clearly exists. I don't consider any point on this continuum a stable equilibrium but lots of people wind up there.

As to what this woman's solution is, might I suggest that an onlyfans star writing about this on her substack might have motives other than sincerely seeking a solution to a problem?

an onlyfans star writing about this on her substack might have motives other than sincerely seeking a solution to a problem

So that's now two onlyfans performers who determined that a substack is a good way to advertise to some potential clients. Aella and this one.

Has there been an exhaustive deep dive on this board on why the fuck Aella has so much traction in 'rationalist' spaces? Its like nerd porn except it reduces actual sexual activity to shit even Sheldon Cooper would find autistic. That there exists a client base of horny nerds who can afford any dubai portapotty slattern but instead choose to go for a mid tier data analyst who feeds her cock counter into excel spreadsheets and orgasms to the graphs instead of the act.

Some types of people are so used to deriving their self worth from their (real or imagined) intellect that they can no longer admit to being influenced by their base human drives. They are Prometheus unbound! ‘Twas their mind that was seduced, not their PP! Aellla provides just enough of a fig leaf to allow her fans to maintain this ruse. It’s a bit hilarious and sad to anyone outside of the bit, its obviously no more intellectual or advanced than a Midwestern boomer AWWOOOOOOOGAA-ing over the local Hooters waitress.

True cultured men know the mark of being an intellectual gentleman is to only be attracted to obvious signs of intelligence like girls wearing glasses. Everything else is just window dressing.

I see some of the above replies and while I do acknowledge that there is an attraction to data presented beautifully for its own sake, Aellas entire dataset is just her own experiences. Its a personal journal arranged in the style of a corporate presentation. My personal objection to Aella isn't some slut shaming crusade, rather its the extremely obvious nerd parasitism that she feeds upon which clearly can't exist outside of some specific spaces like rationalist forums and hence my opening about the paraphilias common in rat spaces.

True cultured men know the mark of being an intellectual gentleman is to only be attracted to obvious signs of intelligence like girls wearing glasses.

Counterpoint: being attracted to women for stereotypically-masculine traits is childish and gay.

[Note that by "childish and gay", that's "this is how attraction works when your age is only measured in single digits" and "not confident/socially capable enough to trust you can dominate a more feminine woman", respectively. It's also preferring more "universal" traits than specifically masculine ones, if you prefer that framing.]

Counterpoint: being attracted to women for stereotypically-masculine traits is childish and gay.

But then how do you explain tomboys, who are obviously the patrician choice for any straight man?

By noting that "childish" isn't "immature" and "gay" isn't "faggotry".

As the post demonstrates, things are just simpler when you're inherently on the same page, but it's also [weirdly] a conservative thing; either of you could have had a more conventionally attractive relationship, but instead you chose this.

It's why the childhood friend never wins in coming-of-age stories.