site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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.

Look, it's not much of a bailey. A bailey is a walled area one means to make use of. This is more of a wide open field I took a stroll through on a whim.

Let's see the original claim:

They dress skimpily, date industriously, engage in serial monogamy, and are not at all averse to material benefits resulting from these activities.

For the sake of argument, would you realistically know about it if any of your female cousins did engage in such things?

Isn't "you can't know that it's not happening" more of an anti-argument; a discussion-stopper?

Again, I'm asking you to consider the social reality of living in modernity. If a woman engages in activities that she wants to keep private from men in her social circle who aren't their husband or long-term boyfriend, she can do so with little effort because the women in her social circle who do know about it, she can generally count on to assist her in this.

Okay, but what do we do with that? Where do we go from here? Shrug and move on to other topics?

You move on but keep it in mind.

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?