site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19583 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Beware The Femboy Of One Study.

Results Gynandromorphophilia (GAMP) is sexual interest in gynandromorphs (GAMs; colloquially, shemales) ... GAMP men had arousal patterns similar to those of heterosexual men and different from those of homosexual men.

It's fairly obvious from cultures where ladyboys are a thing (most notoriously, Thailand) that the men who fuck ladyboys are not gay.

That is not obvious to me. Are you confounding social cues with orientation or behavior? Do you consider the men who act with ladyboys not gay because they are 'straight-acting'?

Can you define what you mean by Gay?

People who have sex (verb) with people who are are the same sex (noun). Also throw in people with same-sex attraction.

If we can't define what it means to be a woman, that means we don't know what gay means either.

I think we can define what a woman is. Do we define the correct human physiology by the edge cases?

I think we can define what a woman is.

Can you really? Because I don't think you can, or rather, what you define as 'woman' is wrong.

A woman is 'one whose social role is to be the bottom in the relationship', as contrasted to men which are the designated tops. This was true up until the early 20th century, though early efforts to limit bottoming to women have existed since roughly 1000 BC (that's what the 'you must only fuck XX chromosome-havers' Abramic law does).

There are some valid reasons to do this; if you force this kind of bottoming on future designated tops (as opposed to sexually mature women only, where the technology to make this state of affairs untenable would come about around 1900 or so) they won't necessarily work properly after that. And you need your future tops willing to die to maintain your society, so if you make it so they won't, then enemy men eventually come and fuck you. So we'd expect cultures with that meme to dominate.

Now, you'll probably complain, and argue that a woman actually means 'XX chromosome-havers', but you'll need to explain to me why that state had to be imposed rather than the default state of nature for human beings. You'll also note that my definition covers all edge cases [including the men who act as women anyway, or fags for short] while you're forced by angry women/bottoms to equivocate about chromosomal abnormalities and pregnancy.

future designated tops

I see that your pure and elegant category immediately starts getting caveats. This is because the category is bad.

Are you sure you aren’t just working through some mommy issues?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats