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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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I read your linked comment and right at the end:

I really do think that a lot of the "singleness epidemic" is due to a combination of personal choice and unrealistic standards

Yes, this is almost precisely what I said about you.

And then this claim:

But I don't just go bitch and moan in the corner about how the world's unfair and how people should like me more and how we need "communism for pussy" as @HughCaulk so eloquently put it.

Is ironic because the communism has been benefiting the 'pussy' for years now.

Like, every single change to the economic structure of the country for the last 50 years has been in favor of women and against men. Tax money flows to help women get medical care (including abortions), to get into school, to get hired, and to otherwise live independently. This is generally pulled from the pockets of the most productive men. All the material wealth they rely on comes from male-dominated industries.

Its male labor all the way down.

So basically, the only thing that ISN'T being redistributed is pussy.

This is the core asymmetry that makes men feel as though the social contract is not working in their favor at all.

MY suggested solution isn't communism for pussy (I DARE you to find where I suggest it), and is dismantling some of the communism that's already in palce.

You are, apparently, suffering from some financial troubles.

Negative. I'm making more now than I was with her, and more than, I believe, 90% of my age cohort.

I'm simply pointing out that I'd be way better off if the woman I thought was worth keeping had stuck around.

And that most women would be financially better off if they settled with a decent guy early on.

That's it. Save me the patronization, I have no need.

You could be one of them. What's stopping you?

Ask the dozen or so women I've tried to date in the past couple years.

Literally none of them, LITERALLY ZERO have gone on to find fulfilling stable relationships. This mystified me until I did the research. Its simply because EVERYONE is encountering difficulties.

Some of them became single moms, some decided to get into deeper debt for a master's degree, some of them got fat. Some just putter along on their course.

If I was the problem, why weren't they scooped up by a better man?

Think about your attitude first. Are you happy with your attitude, or are you being a bitch? Start there.

I'm satisfied with literally every aspect of my life aside from the romantic one. I love my job, make good money, I'm in great shape, I instruct at my gym, I've got a healthy routine, a house (a rarity amongst my peers), a dog, a dedicated and supportive friend group, and enough free time to pursue some hobbies.

Life is objectively great. But that just makes the one portion that ain't working out all the more obvious.

Indeed, part of the issue is most women can't even meet my basic expectations for fitness, fiscal responsibility, and mental stability. And the ones that can are taken.

In other words, you have entirely and utterly misjudged my actual material position AND my arguments on this particular topic. And I don't consider my personal material position relevant to the argument anyway. I'm here advocating on behalf of guys who are worse off than me, so you can't just dismiss me as a miserable incel.

I don't just care about the men... I notice that WOMEN are dissatisfied with things as well. they've got everything they claim to want, and they're miserable.

But you don't tell THEM to put on their big-girl-pants and suck it up, do you?

What is annoying is that, as stated, the spiritual boomers don't want to ever, EVER admit that maybe we need to put a tad less pressure on men and tad more pressure on women.

Because as I've said before, what do you think happens when the current generation of young men hit their 30's, have no family, no marital prospects, poor economic prospects, and yet are continually blamed and put down as though its all their fault?

Seriously. What do you expect? I'm genuinely curious.

Indeed, part of the issue is most women can't even meet my basic expectations for fitness, fiscal responsibility, and mental stability. And the ones that can are taken.

This was the most frustrating asymmetry that drove me crazy when I was on the market. Putting in serious effort to be fit, financially stable, mentally stable, well-rounded, interesting hobbies, solid friend group, and all the other many attributes that high quality male candidates are supposed to have, only to be confronted with legions of single women doing, at best, a few of those things. It seemed like the women doing most/all of those things got married to someone they met in college or grad school.

I've never experienced this directly, but it was depressing as hell watching a friend of mine trying to find someone to marry; here was a guy extremely fit, handsome, very well off, retired before 40, with a hobby list as long as my arm, and he still struggled to find a long-term partner.

I couldn't help but watch all this in action and left helplessly thinking, 'Christ, if HE'S having problems, what chance do I have?'

He did eventually get married to a wonderful woman, however, but he's still had to make a number of quiet sacrifices. Nothing technically major, but still...

This is a long story, but I'm getting to a point, I swear.

A buddy of mine in college converted to Mormonism to date a girl. He was a character, but this story is going to be winding enough without getting into that. One day we went over to his girlfriend's house to meet before we all left to go see Lord of the Rings in theaters. I forget which one, maybe Fellowship. It doesn't matter.

It's around Christmas time, and this huge Mormon family is bursting at the seems with wholesome energy. Every little girl wants to show you want they've been baking with their mother. Every little boy wants to show you their somersault or some trick. The house is decorated, the Christmas tree is up, good times. So me and a buddy of mine are awkwardly sitting in the living room, not really sure what to do or say because this is not a vibe we grew up with. In addition to our usual awkwardness I might add. And two of these kids are throwing a little toy football closer and closer to the Christmas tree. My buddy and I, we don't say anything, but we're looking at each other with a panicked expression that needs no words. We are both thinking, if that ball actually hits that tree, a kid is gonna die in front of us.

Anyways, ball hits the tree, ornaments fall, train doing loops around the base falls over aaaaaaaand.... nothing. Dad chuckles, asks them to take it outside, life carries on like nothing ever happened. The boys clean up the mess they made and go throw the ball around outside. After my buddy and I piled into the car to go see the movie once everyone had arrived, we talked about how Christmas was at our homes growing up. How the house was transformed into a veritable museum of Christmas, and our mothers would fly into a violent rage if they so much as heard an ornament jingle due to a single heavy step within 20 feet of the tree. And it slowly dawned on us, that we were the fucked up ones. That family we just visited, they were the happy well adjusted ones.

It sucks realizing in your 20's that you were raised wrong. And not just "could have done better, but basically OK", but fundamentally the opposite of how you should have been raised. With all your intuitions about family dynamics and how to view and treat loved ones horrifically and possibly permanently miswired. It sucks watching the increasingly small demographic of well adjusted, family oriented peers you may have politely filtering you out and pairing off. It sucks getting older and realizing, you've been left behind with the other rejects, and now you've got to find the least damaged item in the returns bin to try to build a life with, knowing full well that's all you are to someone else as well.

I have no fucking clue how I did it. I have no fucking clue how anyone else is expected to do it today, except that it seems even more impossible, and the odds even more remote. But it sucks seeing all the "good ones" taken, and it hurts even worse realizing that goes for you too.

It sucks getting older and realizing, you've been left behind with the other rejects, and now you've got to find the least damaged item in the returns bin to try to build a life with, knowing full well that's all you are to someone else as well.

I have no fucking clue how I did it. I have no fucking clue how anyone else is expected to do it today, except that it seems even more impossible, and the odds even more remote. But it sucks seeing all the "good ones" taken, and it hurts even worse realizing that goes for you too.

Yeah. And it's hard because so many damaged items in the return bin are still convinced they're the well-adjusted ones.

I think a lot about gambling apps in this context. There has been a lot of talk about them, how frictionless they make it to part with literally all your money. How if you actually do make money off them, they ban you. How, against the law, they personally call their worst addicts and entice them to gamble more. There is an argument I've seen made that if we are going to allow gambling, we need to add as much friction as possible to the experience to try to save people from themselves.

Similar care needs to be taken with those of us who end up in the returned goods bin. We don't need tiktok gassing us up about our worth, or dating apps dangling imaginary chads or stacies in front of our noses. We need examples of how non-broken people act in healthy, fruitful monogamous relationships treat one another, and maybe even the fear of god to scare us straight. Or something, anything. Just not this. Anything but this.

And possibly honorable life paths for perma-single people; there are some valuable, honorable economic niches that are hard on marriage and family. Not impossible - but hard. Long-haul truck driving, neurosurgery, stuff like that.

It is indeed a pretty brutal and humbling realization. I knew exactly what you were going to talk about with the Christmas tree!

Having parents explode with anger at children is a terrible thing, and I pray I don't end up doing it if I'm blessed with kids. Except in rare circumstances, of course.

Yeah.

Its a little less bad if you aren't exclusively staying on the dating apps, which I avoid like the plague now.

Its annoying as hell to strike up a decent convo with a woman you find attractive, only to find out she doesn't do much aside from Netflix, Starbucks, Shopping at Target, and maybe Music Festivals or something, and is generally not in great financial shape to boot. Often times they advertise their mental illness diagnoses.

And if you've gone to the effort of squaring away so many aspects of your life, its actually riskier to try to add someone in who might disrupt all those arrangements!

I genuinely ask myself the question "does adding this person to my life improve it or am I basically just getting an overgrown teenager with a caffeine addiction?" and it kills my interest. "The ick" as they say. The times I've gone on dates with such women hasn't done much to improve that perception.

On the flip side, you get the girlbosses who ARE spending their time at work (so have finances in order), slamming out sets at the gym, and pursuing six different side activities at once. Which is kind of neat, but they don't have time to go on dates.

What you rarely seem to find is women who have their lives generally organized, they don't spend money exorbitantly, they stay in shape through regular but not obsessive exercise and watching their diet, and have moderate ambition but are happy to just relax most nights. Someone who would be a nice supplement/complement to your own life and isn't going to disrupt your own routines.

It seemed like the women doing most/all of those things got married to someone they met in college or grad school.

That seems to be the blunt truth of it. The best women are getting scooped early, and, generally, stay in their relationships.

So the pool is mostly comprised of those who either didn't get scooped or couldn't stay in said relationship for [reasons].

This wouldn't be so bad if there were decent ways to filter for what you're looking for (old OKCupid!).

Its annoying as hell to strike up a decent convo with a woman you find attractive, only to find out she doesn't do much aside from Netflix, Starbucks, Shopping at Target, and maybe Music Festivals or something

You must be frequently annoyed then.

The modal chick’s interests and hobbies consist of consooming, painting her face, taking selfies, and teeheeing around in skimpy outfits, but she will complain men are BORING with no sense of irony. Men have the burden of performance.

and is generally not in great financial shape to boot.

Reminds me of a Tweet from some chick that was making the rounds, along the lines of:

Boyfriend: “Would you date a broke, struggling guy?”
Me: “No, for personal reasons”
Boyfriend: “What if I told you that to me, you are that struggling guy?”

I can’t stop thinking about this convo


And naturally some Noticers laughed at her phrasing it as “personal reasons” rather than acknowledging hypergamy.

Someone who would be a nice supplement/complement to your own life and isn't going to disrupt your own routines.

One chick I casually dated at least had some self-awareness on that front.

No one:
Her: “If we got serious one day and moved in together, I don’t see how I would contribute to your lifestyle, you even know how to cook and clean better than I do”
Me: *Anakin face*
Her: “There is something I could contribute, right?”
Me: *Anakin face*

Its annoying as hell to strike up a decent convo with a woman you find attractive, only to find out she doesn't do much aside from Netflix, Starbucks, Shopping at Target, and maybe Music Festivals or something, and is generally not in great financial shape to boot. Often times they advertise their mental illness diagnoses.

This struck a little too close to home for me.

What you rarely seem to find is women who have their lives generally organized, they don't spend money exorbitantly, they stay in shape through regular but not obsessive exercise and watching their diet, and have moderate ambition but are happy to just relax most nights. Someone who would be a nice supplement/complement to your own life and isn't going to disrupt your own routines.

See it sounds to me like you are trying to treat men and women as the exact same and getting frustrated that they aren't. Women are not and shouldn't be as hardcore about discipline and working out etc. as a man. That's ok.

See it sounds to me like you are trying to treat men and women as the exact same and getting frustrated that they aren't.

No.

I have a generalized model for Western Women:

They have a set of three roles they want to be 'seen' fulfilling:

High-powered career woman (Girlboss).

Freespirited, cultured, 'independent' woman. That is, one who travels everywhere, has a fun and carefree life, and flits from party to party. Thirst traps abound here.

Devoted and effective mother.

I'm actually frustrated that they AREN'T acting more different than men, and eschewing the one role that men can't actually fill.

Women are not and shouldn't be as hardcore about discipline and working out etc. as a man. That's ok.

Yes, indeed, all a woman has to do to be considered 'fit' is 'not be obese.' Just don't be obviously and grotesquely fat.

AND YET, they're still the more obese gender.

I don't know what to tell you man, they have an overall lower bar, and many of them don't even try to clear it.

Some of them became single moms, some decided to get into deeper debt for a master's degree, some of them got fat.

Again with the fat, it's always the fat... is it really that much of a dealbreaker?

I think fat girls are sexy af, so I'm biased, and I'm aware my biases are not shared by everyone. But, it can't be that bad, right?

Being fat isn't sexy. It's just a fact. Let's not kid ourselves.

Speak for yourself!

It's not a kind thing to say, but anything over a little pudge is actively revolting to me.

So you see, the gudness of the git gudder matters not, because people will always just reject the message anyway. But it matters not. "Git gud" always reigns supreme in the end, for it is the truth.

I think fat girls are sexy af, so I'm biased, and I'm aware my biases are not shared by everyone. But, it can't be that bad, right?

This is almost indistinguishable from advice sarcastically attributed to tradcons. "Men, you need to git gud, and you need to be willing to marry overweight single mothers!" Boy, what an appealing reward for gitting gud.

Well, appealing for me, at any rate!

(Not the single mom part though. That's one of the few things that actually is a hard limit for me.)

You said you're single. Have you thought about putting your interest in larger women to work?

I absolutely have! I already have bustr installed on my phone.

I haven't actually tried to date anyone in quite a while due to, again, autism, general emotional and life issues, etc. But the intent is there don't worry.

Man, I sincerely hope you don't strike out on an app for chubby chasers. Because if fat chicks have so much brainrot they are shooting you down 99.99% of the time, I'm not sure I want to see the creature you become.

bustr

Excuse me, what-str?

The two most interesting motte posts that shaped my views on the dating world were one by a poster who I don't think posts here any more, who made an argument that the sexual revolution can't be inherently responsible for the male-female happiness gap because such a large gap is present only in the United States and not in Europe, where the revolution happened even more strongly; and @Terracotta linking a chart that showed the massive climb in obesity in the US, suggesting that if you're looking for a woman who does not qualify as obese or overweight, you're limited to the top 25% of women -- who, of course, are interested in similarly-top men.

Both of these convinced me something funky is going on in the US in particular, and that the obesity crisis, as well as general physical fitness (young men don't have muscle like they used to), are responsible for the unique unhappiness of American dating.

is it really that much of a dealbreaker?

If you want kids, its a concern.

ESPECIALLY if you want those kids to be raised to be healthy themselves.

Of course, Ozempic is giving us a chemical solution to all this.

And I am not asking for a rail thin girl, or a muscular one, or even one that goes to the gym regularly.

Just one that actually considers health important and takes necessary steps to maintain it.

It's a pregnancy risk, sure, but, life's full of risks. One of my ex's whole family was fat af, and they managed to reproduce.

Maybe next time before you pass on a fat girl, you could give her a chance for a little while, with the idea of suggesting Ozempic or an exercise plan once the relationship is more established? Just a thought. Could help widen your pool of available options a bit.

Possible. But obesity would have to be her only disqualifying factor.

Oh, did you know there's research showing that obese women aren't willing to date obese men? Even though most obese men would settle for an obese women?

Women are the ones judging obesity (in others) harshly.

Again, why is the onus on the men to settle, here? That's not the source of the asymmetry.

Again, why is the onus on the men to settle, here?

Because female bodies have value, and male bodies do not. You belong to the less valuable half of the human species. We just had a whole ass thread on this.

Although it should be pointed out, said thread also included a post from a woman who said that she felt like she's the one who has to settle, so, maybe the grass on the other side isn't as green as you think it is.

Because female bodies have value, and male bodies do not. [Men] belong to the less valuable half of the human species.

I get the underlying sentiment, but this is such an overextension of the concept that it's almost backwards. Yes, a woman can be literally brain dead and still fulfill her biological function, but in all areas except reproduction and survival in starvation-times, a male body is more useful than a female body—the value of literally doubled upper body strength and 1.5x greater lower body strength at base cannot be ignored. Add on top the other advantages of the male form (generally better grasp of logos, less susceptible to pathological emotionality, peeing your name in the snow), and it's apparent why men are universally considered the default sex.

Men are the ones writing long screeds on the internet about how they can’t get laid. Women aren’t. (Or when they do, it’s because none of the available options are quite good enough.)

This is not a random coincidence. It’s rooted in a biological asymmetry.

That’s all it means.

The women are videotaping themselves ranting on TikTok about how they can't get out of "situationships" and into decent relationships.

Because female bodies have value, and male bodies do not

Yeah. But as the TFR rates are showing, women largely aren't doing the thing that actually makes their bodies valuable.

Whilst men are still using their bodies to do all the work that actually lets us maintain some level of civilization.

Yet another asymmetry. And not due to men's failings.

who said that she felt like she's the one who has to settle, so, maybe the grass on the other side isn't as green as you think it is.

I think that you're kind of proving the point, because a woman has to settle for grass that's less green than she'd like.

A guy has to settle for, metaphorically, starving to death.

The alternative to getting their ideal partner for women is getting a guy they find unattractive.

The alternative for guys is... nothing.