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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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It is by happenstance alone that my sexual tastes and general aesthetic are commonly accepted today.

"How convenient", said the puddle, "That this hole in the road is exactly the same shape I am"

To speak plainly: I don't think it's happenstance at all, your desires - while certainly grounded in reptilian-brain evopsych - have a large socially conditioned superstructure on top of them. One remembers Ye Olde Fat Venus statues. Idk whether it's liking fat chicks that's biologically immutable and liking thin chicks that's the social meme or vice versa, but one CAN be memed into being attracted to stuff one would not be absent the social conditioning.

Sure. There is some component of socialization in my behavior. If I had grown up centuries ago in Europe it would not having occurred to me to be horny for some sorts of brown-skinned women.

But to push back a bit: it is happenstance of genes and/or prenatal environment that I didn't come out gay. I could, but for the grace of God, have come out a few decades ago as a gay puddle in an entirely hetero world. Then polite respectability (of my open and honest self) could have been forever beyond me. I got lucky being straight and oriented towards certain sorts of women today. Change any of those and I am the one being discriminated against in criminal court.

As a larger principle I don't want criminal trial judges looking at someone's partner or aesthetic tastes in court and deciding to get much stricter based on social norms. "He likes blacks/Mexicans/Asian immigrants" would have caught me. And I can't promise a lack of non-socialized preference for those women, at least after having been exposed to them.

I'll go so very far as to extend this empathy to openly gay men and people with odd consensual kinks. Again: there but for the grace of God go I.