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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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So the Bezos-Sanchez wedding took place, and by all accounts it was exactly as overblown, tacky, and vulgar as anyone's little heart could desire. I haven't watched any of it myself, so why am I mentioning it in the Culture War thread?

Well, because Tina Brown commented on it, and it's at least tangential because we've often discussed on here "what do women want/dating apps/men get the rough end of the stick in divorce/other such delightful War of the Sexes fodder".

I get the impression that Tina wasn't on the guest list so there may be an element of sour grapes here, but in general I think I agree. Jeff Bezos, fourth richest man in the world (depending on the day and the ranking) could have pretty much any woman in the world he wanted. So, who did he blow up his marriage for and before we get into the complaining about his wife taking him to the cleaners, it was he who caused the divorce (actually, divorces because his inamorata was also married at the time)?

The woman next door, a triumph of grinding determination to keep her figure through diet, exercise, and plastic surgery. She managed to find a classy wedding dress so kudos for that, as well as showing off the results of all that effort.

Back to Tina's commentary:

Now that the 55- year-old bride Sánchez has proved that landing the fourth richest man in the world requires the permanent display of breasts like genetically modified grapefruit and behemoth buttocks bursting from a leopard-print thong bikini, she’s exuberantly and unapologetically shown that the route to power and glory for women hasn't changed since the first Venetian Republic.

Ouch. But also, yes. What am I trying to say here? Mostly that the next time there's yet another post about reversing the fertility decline by putting obstacles in the way of women going to higher education, steering them to marrying early, and good old traditional 'the man is the head of the house and women should work to please their husband and that includes sex whenever and however he wants it', remember this. Male sexuality is a lot simpler than female sexuality. Jeff could have destroyed his marriage for a nubile twenty-something with naturally big assets, but he went for tawdry 'sexy' with the trout pout and plastic boobs (though once again, I have to salute her commitment to starving and exercising in order to keep a taut muscle tone). It's not much good to criticise women for being shallow in the dating market when the fruits of success are to dress like this and hook your own billionaire.

A thing: If Bezos is on a lot of gear it might be messing with his libido/sexuality.

A more likely thing: That woman is a turn on in more ways than just physical. Maybe smart, confident and sexually aggressive. On top of that she is probably motivated to keep her man.

To that extent it shouldn't be a wonder a 'feminist' of sorts wouldn't like her. Similar to how Amy Coney Barrett is disliked by many feminists, despite being a power feminist wet dream. Lauren Sanchez might just be a go-getter who doesn't care about what the patriarchy tells her and instead does what she wants.

It's kind of funny. Two women expose the lived experience of most feminists as kind of pathetic and their ire against the 'system' as rather fraudulent. Apparently some women can have it all. So why don't you?

I'd be interested in knowing if there is some feminist literature out there on this topic. Inequality between women is a subject usually broached through terms of class and race, but barring that, most of the stuff I can find reads more like a lot of cope. To take a maximally aggressive angle: Why should the women who win at life pay heed to the women who lose? And why should anyone take the advice of the women who are by comparison losers?

A part of the upheaval of Andrew Tate was the fact that he wasn't a 'loser' whilst doling out MGTOW/incel talking points. Does he have a female counterpart somewhere on the internet?