site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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.

16
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

My best attempt is that "woman" is being used in two different senses here.

"Woman" in the context of "wlw" (i.e. "woman-loving women") refers to the objects of a certain type of sexual attraction. Thus, its definition is pretty simple and hard to alter - the things and traits that get a wlw aroused, usually ones that the wlw herself also has.

"Woman" in the context of "transwomen are women" at least nominally refers to a particular kind of social presentation, often associated with verbal and interpersonal focus vice objects and processes, physical weakness/vulnerability, and certain aesthetics including but not limited to the use of particular kinds of cosmetics and the wearing of certain types of hairsyles, cosmetics, and clothes.

This causes problems because: (1) no-one can be secure in the knowledge that they are successfully performing "womanhood" without external validation from society (that's the point of something being a "social performance," after all), and (2) for obvious reasons, many central properties of womanhood-as-social-performance are also arousing to men and wlw. Thus, a lack of sexual interest in transwomen from men and/or wlw - or worse, a claim that transwomen can never be arousing to men or wlw under one or more conditions (i.e. if the transwoman still has a penis and/or testes, or doesn't have female-typical breasts) - is a permanent black mark against the transwoman's ability to fully perform "womanhood."

Insofar as the transwoman's identity and self-worth is bound up in the idea that they are, or are meant to be a woman, being confronted with a permanent shortfall must be quite distressing, which in large part explains the vehemence around the issue. The other part, naturally, is explained by the fact that people in general want to have sex, and being categorically-excluded from desirability as a sexual partner would be also distressing in general (e.g. Incels).

This, of course, rings hollow to the wlw who are in effect being told "shut up and fuck someone you don't want to, bigot!" But the people implementing rules like this are on a righteous crusade for an oppressed group's justice. What they think is likely to happen here is beyond me, though some obvious candidates include:

(1) they legitimately think social pressure can effectively gaslight and/or mold people into changed sexual preferences, and that ultimately people can lose specific physical attractions and/or be convinced to deprioritize them in preference to other, trans-inclusive traits. (This would be an ... interesting stance to take in light of other positions common to this group about homosexuality and/or transgenderism, but pace the Caliph here we all know that arguments are very much soldiers in this discourse)

(2) they're in the metaphorical position of Friedman's "distributor of welfare funds" - allocating burdens to other people, to solve yet another group of other people's problems. Under these conditions, there's little incentive to look too closely at the downsides (after all, there's no burden being imposed on the distributor), but every incentive to be generous to the recipient (isn't charity a virtue?).

(3) they personally do not feel their own sexual attraction to be constrained by qualities that transwomen are incapable of having, and are engaging in that most common of failure modes - typical mind fallacy.

(4) they are acting in bad faith.

(5) ???

I am not going to speculate about particular motives, but it's a sad problem - as, I find, are many of the problems associated with the modern space of gender discourse/confusion.