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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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A couple of months ago we discussed the cultural legacy of the Playboy mag of all things under an effort post by @FiveHourMarathon. I was reminded of this by a recent lame-ass political scandal in Hungary in which a local/district volunteer coordinator of the main opposition party and apparently a single(?) mom was doxxed by some pro-government journos as a former porner / sex worker. Technically I’m supposed to call her a former porn actress, but the actual level of ‘acting’ that is involved in all of this makes me decide against doing so; supposedly she also appeared in a grand total of one casting video only (by Pierre Woodman) so calling her an actress would be a big stretch either way. Pretty much the only factor fueling this whole thing was that the party leader and MEP was pictured shaking hands with the ‘lady’ during some public events.

What does Playboy have anything to do with this, you might ask? Well, said party leader decided it’d be a swell idea to reverse the accusation of sleaziness and would also be some sort of clever gotcha to point out that a 51-year-old woman who’s a government commissioner and a former ‘Secretary of State for Sports’ (if you’re one of the few female politicians in Eastern Europe, it’s the sort of government position of lesser importance you can ever hope to fulfill, I guess) appeared in a photoshoot in the local edition of Playboy ages ago.

Anyway, I’m aware that culture wars are waged with maximal cynicism, dishonesty and opportunism, and this is a case of culture-warring alright; no need to remind me of that. Still, I found myself asking the rhetorical question: who the heck actually believes that posing for a photoshoot in a completely mainstreamed, slick, high-class magazine which eventually shifted to a women's fashion and lifestyle brand is the cultural/moral/social equivalent of anonymously getting your holes stuffed and swallowing cum/urine on camera for a handful of cash?

Why not have literal whores become politicians?

Directional whoring is pretty much the overtly default career of young (and not so young) women in the West. They dress skimpily, date industriously, engage in serial monogamy, and are not at all averse to material benefits resulting from these activities. Many women very aggressively argue that all sexual practices and all sexual conduct that does not harm any one party without their consent is nominally okay, and if you listen closely you'll notice that the valence of such conduct is actually considered very positive. That they sometimes turn around and viciously shame individual women for their promiscuity or sexual practices or material benefits derived from either seems more like pokerfaced opportunism than ideological inconsistency.

At the same time, politicians are widely known to be the scum of the earth. Eternally corrupt, consummate liars, shameless hypocrites, will sell out your country for a handful of cash and will ruin your life's work out of sheer incompetence. At best they're naive idealists who produce policy catastrophe after administration catastrophe, but let's face it, when people think "politician", they think either of morally bankrupt sociopaths looking to line their own pockets or of rabid ideologues aiming to stroke their egoes. Natural selection among politicians selects for the ability to out-smear your opponents, not for any sort of object-level competence or moral stature. Politicians are, by necessity, cheats and liars and if they weren't they wouldn't survive.

So why not have whores becomes politicians? Do we lose anything by this happening?

“Directional whoring?” That’s ridiculous and insulting.

None of my half-dozen female cousins are whoring themselves out. None have any overlap between their careers and their relationships.

That’s not because they’re all following the same script, either. One’s an accountant, another works for the government. A third got pregnant in college, but married the guy and started a stable family. She only has a job now that the kid is in school. Not exactly a gold digger.

What’s your justification for insulting the modal Western woman?

“Directional whoring?” That’s ridiculous and insulting.

Actually, it's a typo.

And yeah, I was exaggerating. But what I stand by is this: I frequently hear women express sentiments that actually, promiscuity is good, being a camgirl is a completely normal job, and having a dozen boyfriends in one year and collecting gifts and favors from all of them on the way is par for the course and bystanders should politely not notice it. I very rarely (in fact, not in almost a decade by now) hear the opposite IRL.

And sure, #NotAllWomen. Seriously not. This behavior is not universal. But at least around me, nobody's calling anyone out on it.

What’s your justification for insulting the modal Western woman?

The ability to do so on an online forum without getting ostracized, as would happen if I critisized a woman's weird ideological commitment to this kind of libertine behavior IRL.

I frequently hear women express sentiments that actually, promiscuity is good, being a camgirl is a completely normal job, and having a dozen boyfriends in one year and collecting gifts and favors from all of them on the way is par for the course and bystanders should politely not notice it. I very rarely (in fact, not in almost a decade by now) hear the opposite IRL.

I don't know that I've heard that IRL, though I do recall even in school there were lots of girls who expressed interest in marrying a man for the money, or in using sexual appeal to get things from men, while never expressing interest in the idea of actually loving a man.

I guess these motivations have been around forever, along with the more intrinsic motivations like intimacy, companionship, physical affection, etc. But it's surprising to me how the shoe has moved to the other foot and it's much more rare for me to hear discussions of intimacy, companionship, and physical affection as the core reasons people are looking for a relationship. "I would like to have children" has a strong constituency, but I'd argue that's still an instrumental reason to have a relationship. (But an important one!)

None of my half-dozen female cousins are whoring themselves out.

With all due respect, they probably won't have many problems keeping you in the dark about if they are indeed doing so after all.

Then it’s not much of a “default career,” is it?

I think you’re defending the motte to Southkraut’s bailey.

Are we Russel's Teapotting whoring now?

It’s just the reality of living in modernity. Let’s suppose you’re a Midwestern middle-class or precariat normie and you have female cousins. One of them lives in a different town and you’re on good terms; she’s known as an average decent young woman. However, in reality she has engaged in sugarbabying and escorting on multiple occasions while in community college. She’s also a serial monogamist / is in an open relationship with some cuck and has one-night stands. Maybe she’s also camwhoring from time to time. You don’t know about any of this because she’s discrete about it and your social circles are overlapping only partially. You’re ignorant about these activities as a whole because you’re a normie. The only way you’re realistically ever going to learn about her antics is if someone tells you about it. But who would? Your other female cousins or your mother definitely won’t reveal it to you even if they know about it. Her long-term cuck boyfriend if she has one isn’t going to talk about it to you either. What gives?

Why not have literal whores become politicians?

With a little plausible deniability, a whore can already become Vice President of the United States. The list of male politicians who started their career as a catamite would also be interesting if we knew exactly who was on it.

Directional whoring is pretty much the overtly default career of young (and not so young) women in the West.

This seems false to me. PUA's, incels, and feminists with MSM megaphones all agree that young women who are not sex workers are competing harder because they are competing for the attention of a minority of high-quality men (for various values of high-quality), not because they are trying to maximise the financial return on their dating life.

I knew "career" was the wrong word to choose and might lead to a misunderstanding, but I didn't take the time to work on it. "Lifestyle" might have been better. Or "Calling". The material rewards are not the main aspect here.

But the material rewards are what makes the difference between a slut and a whore.

There is an argument to be had about whether women are getting sluttier. (Survey evidence suggests they are not, but is not exactly reliable). But I'm pretty confident that they are not getting more whoreish.

One manifestation of that are online complaints about the "Chopped Man Epidemic". Fascinating stuff from a culture warrior perspective.

For several years I've been suspecting and feeling that the majority of people in the West are ignoring the presence of quite a lot of female chauvinism, and the indoctrination into this position in many schools (often dominated by feminist teachers). Feminism itself and the creation of subtly or not so subtly misandrist attitudes that are passed down from mothers, aunts, grandmothers, are pretty much ignored as problems or excused somehow, because of "the patriarchy" or whatever else. Now it's Her Turn, etc.

I think it should be obviously true that the teaching of "women were oppressed by men throughout most history until recently and society remains male dominated", regardless of whether it's true or not, is going to result in the feelings that women as a group are the victim and deserve vindication, and that men as a group are guilty and should be sanctioned and put in their place in various ways. If you keep hearing that person A abuses person B and got away with it, you're going to be sympathetic to A and antipathic to B, right? And liberals would be very quick to complain if the media didn't obfuscate the race many violent criminals, precisely because they fear the effects on attitude that unfiltered news would have. They're much less worried about whether any sexism against men pops up, or about current dominations by the female gender of places and aspects of Western societies.

Am I onto something or am I talking gobbledygook...

And let’s also keep in mind that all of this is happening at the same time when rates of obesity, mental illness, hysteria, violence, alcoholism, antidepressant and prescription pill abuse and drug use in general have been rising among Western women for a long time.

What connection are you drawing and what do you think the mechanism might be?

What you described are factors eroding men's incentives to to fulfill their traditional masculine roles as initiators, providers, husbands etc. The factors I described do the same but in a different aspect. Potential rewards are decreasing while potential costs are increasing.

I call this "Men, amirite?" It certainly turns up among the leftists and liberal women I have the unfortunance to interact with.

The attitudes don't get passed down by mothers and grandmothers, though, they get picked up from blogs and influencers and ticktocks and reddit and wherever else it is that women get their programming from.

The most downloaded app, as of today, is the Tea app. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a gossip forum for ‘red flags’ about individual men intended to Help Women Make Better Dating Choices.

The existence of this, and of the "Are we dating the same guy" Facebook groups, is further perfect proof that the 80/20 rule is true.

No, it’s proof of fearmongering campaigns succeeding at generalizing thé behavior of the bottom 20% of men.

unfortunance

Had to check if this is a real word. It is not. :(

Yeah and there's constant double standards about this stuff. "Manosphere" and all that gets maligned like it's automatically slightly evil and should be combated. Bullshit harmful sources of programming for girls/women? crickets Just some concern about whether it's not quite girlbossy enough??