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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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I'm just saying. Women have almost universally settled upon their conception of what 'looks good' by way of what makes men pay them greater attention. In the west, at least, nobody holds a gun to their head to make them wear tight clothing that emphasizes curves and shows strategic amounts of skin, even when those outfits are less comfortable to wear. But they do wear such outfits.

Pull up photos of women attending music festivals. And I mean, regardless of genre, from (warning: Semi NSFW) Metal to EDM to Country, and see that while the aesthetics are different, women generally converge on outfits that are revealing and eye-catching and tight and emphasize the secondary sexual characteristics. (yes, admittedly this is prone to selection effects).

I don't think they 'feel' the biological basis, but its the rare woman who can ignore their own impulses and dress in a way that is actively repellent to men and feel truly satisfied and healthy about it.

Yes, there's some large amount of culturally-transmitted information about what is 'attractive' in the other sex as well, but we haven't seen so much divergence between humans as you'd expect if it were solely culturally informed.

Anyhow, humans are just responding to impulses and they don't really think a lot about where those impulses come from. If you're hungry, eat, if you're thirsty, drink. If you're horny, put on the standard mating display and see if you get any takers.

But humans also have brains big enough to create elaborate, usually post-hoc justifications for actions they take, and so they can pretend that dressing and acting in a way that effectively short-circuits the other sex's thought processes (b/c horny) and claim its all solely motivated by self-empowerment.

But humans also have brains big enough to create elaborate, usually post-hoc justifications for actions they take, and so they can pretend that dressing and acting in a way that effectively short-circuits the other sex's thought processes (b/c horny) and claim its all solely motivated by self-empowerment.

Is that really hypocritical though? Suppose evolution makes it enjoyable to dress in a way that's sexy to men. Why can't women now take that system of enjoyment nature has given them, and use it to intentionally get enjoyment for themselves with attracting men becoming a side effect? It seems kinda similar to evolution making us like certain flavours to help us get the right range of nutrients. Modern foodies taking that capacity for enjoyment given to us by evolution, and employing it for their own non-survival ends. At least in theory, the original evolutionary cause of the impulse can be acknowledged, but then co-opted.