site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don't think her lack of virginity was an issue, he wasn't quite that hypocritical. She'd told him about her previous partners (but probably not me). That was her worrying about the potential next guy.

Even in India?

India is a big country!

We have:

  • Extremely conservative rural enclaves where premarital sex might get you disowned, or in the worst case, killed. Leans poor.
  • More moderate areas, where people are allowed to date in college or after, but with the clear expectation that such dating is serious. You meet a good boyfriend/girlfriend in college, get engaged after graduation, and marry afterwards. If you don't, no shame in that, arranged marriages are the default. Maybe 300-500 million people might count.
  • The liberal elite or UMC. The part I, and this girl, live in. Norms around sex aren't quite as liberal as in the West, at least for women. Nobody would really care that I have a double digit number of partners. For a woman? That's a big deal, and something to hide or deny. You are allowed or expected to have a few partners in college, uni or after. Your parents would be very happy if you were serious about it, but they're mostly accommodating. If you make it to your late 20s without that happening, arranged marriages are the BATNA. Nobody will look down on you for having one, but they might think that you just couldn't hack it. Perhaps a hundred million, maybe two hundred million.
  • This is a spectrum, of course. On one end, I know people who know people who are in swinger clubs. That is very much not normal, and would be broadly condemned if news got out. I won't even go into the finer details of North vs South, East vs West, or the norms in big cities versus podunk nowhere.

In our semi-shared social milieu, her behavior is excusable, even if it's a negative. People aspire to have a virginal, unblemished wife, but usually cave in and settle for something more realistic. However, she's an ethnic Punjabi, and they're usually rather hypocritical (more than most) when it comes to this. Men are encouraged to sow their wild oats, their moms might tut, but won't do anything. Women? Uh..

She's had maybe 3-5 sexual partners, and most of that happened during longterm relationships. It's not that big a deal to a liberal man, but his family might raise objections. My dad called me later that day, and I told him the whole story to general merriment. I also, half-jokingly, asked if he'd be okay with me marrying her, to which he replied that he hoped I could do better than "second hand goods".

You can see my reply to sun_the_second for a more exhaustive take on why she's right to be concerned. If it weren't for her other issues, I personally couldn't care less about it.