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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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This is pure PC nonsense. Would you apply the same logic to pedos and child porn?

The reality is that women respond to the same things in real life that they fantasize about, and why wouldn't they? Why else would they fantasize about it instead of the nice guy who asks them politely.

Wow, thanks for this insight into psychology, fjwief! So if I ask a guy "do you want me to cut your toes off with a pliers?" and he says "no", I should just go right ahead and do that - because "ignoring the hard "no's" causes the person to submit and often they won't tell society and that starts an affair". You can't get much harder a "no" than "no, stop, I don't want this, why are you doing this, you're hurting me, aaaaaahhhh!" and that just means I'm succeeding in winning his heart!

I'll head right on down to the hardware store in order to pick up suitable implements and get started on my future romance!

Even if we posited that the circumstance women fantasize about rape scenarios does in fact imply that they would enjoy those scenarios if they happened for real, it's not like the scenarios they fantasize about involve average men, the typical PUA, or you in particular. Quite a few men also fantasize about being raped by a(n attractive) woman. Does that mean that "just drug and bed him, that's what he actually wants" as advice to an ugly 300lbs woman is (a) useful (as in the man will actually come around that he was just denying his true preference as part of an evolutionary strategy) and/or (b) moral (as in the man's fantasies amounted to forfeiting the right to protest or retribution)?

This is pure PC nonsense. Would you apply the same logic to pedos and child porn?

Yes, broadly defined. Lolicon ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon - includes NSFW images) vs raping children seems to mirror rape fantasies vs actually being raped.

(disclaimer: I am not an expert on this topics nor done research in either topic nor have a personal experience)

This is pure PC nonsense. Would you apply the same logic to pedos and child porn?

No, but I would apply it to men and "lone hero vs a gang of baddies" situation. It's a fantasy so common we have made movies about it, but I don't think anyone would want to get stuck in Nakatomi Plaza without shoes on Christmas Eve for real.

The fantasy is that the man is so badass that if he were stuck in Nakatomi Plaza without shoes on Christmas Eve, he could still singlehandledly whip the asses of Hans Gruber and his gang.

Would you apply the same logic to pedos and child porn?

Probably. Most people want harsher punishments for the former over the latter.

Why else would they fantasize about it instead of the nice guy who asks them politely

Do you only fantasize about stuff that you would want to happen to you in real life? How about non-pornographic media? Do you only enjoy films and books where you want to be the characters? Do you only play games where you would want to live in that world?

I generally fantasize about things I want, yes.

Not the question.

I have done (100% consentual and by-the-rules) CNC play. If a girl fantasizes about rape, there is presumably some BDSM-type scenario that she would consent to, or would consent to in some alternate universe where there weren't e.g. social taboos, dangers to her health, etc.

This is completely unrelated to the question of how pushy a man should be when flirting. Making a woman briefly uncomfortable is not rape, and it's not immoral in my view. (I'm not endorsing the view that women secretly wanting rape => unlimited right to sexually harass them.)

I agree on both points.

My point is that it's perfectly coherent to fantasize about being raped and not want to be raped. I would imagine that most women who have rape fantasies have that combination of preferences.

I fantasize about taking people I don't like outside and beating the shit out of them; and yet somehow it has never happened!

Almost as if there is a difference between imagination and reality.

It hasn’t happened because you would go to jail if you did it. That had nothing to do with whether you want to do that. If you lived in a different world where you wouldn’t go to jail then you likely do it. Like if you were a conquistador you probably would have beaten up some natives and enjoyed it.

You can "want" something on one level without actually wanting it. I "want" to eat 2 pounds of ice cream right now, but don't really want to because I don't want the consequences. Jail is one consequence, yes, but there are plenty of others, from social ramifications to the possibility that you lose the fight.

Fantasizing about something, and even wanting it on one level, doesn't mean that you actually want it.

So what is the “want X despite the real life consequence Y” for the fantasy of rape?

Well I think this is just normal cognition that can apply to anything. I don't understand your question though, are you asking what Y is if rape is X?

What are the elements of rape X: that are attractive in and Y: that are negative that cause people to “want something but not the consequences of it”. For ice cream it’s “tastes good” and “makes you fat”. What is is about rape that fantasizers actually want? Some people say it’s just the sex and others seem to think the coercion is the part that is desired.

Well IDK it's not a fantasy of mine. I don't see why it matters though. If X is coercion, then Y can still be "feeling unfaithful to spouse" or "risk of pregnancy" or "violation of bodily autonomy" or "feeling/being unsafe." Sometimes something can be both X and Y, and in fantasies you just ignore the bad parts and focus on the good parts.

Fantasy is a way of exploring the taboo and the transgressive. A rape fantasy enables someone to play around with the idea of being forced to do something they might want to do (e.g. have anonymous sex with a stranger) but would not do in reality (e.g. the old idea of "nice girls don't have casual sex", and don't tell me that one has gone away, what with the term "cock carousel") or of exploring kinks and fetishes. It's safe because you are in control, can set the parameters of the fantasy up however you want, and can end it at any time it becomes distressing or too real. You can create the rapist however you like - one guy, several guys, how forceful or violent it gets, and so on. And best of all there are no physical consequences like injury or disease.

There are people who participate in BDSM but that doesn't mean that they want to be mugged and beaten up in the streets in real life (or go out and beat someone up in real life). Same with porn - they set up unrealistic scenarios because people like the thrill of forbidden fruit or something spicier than vanilla sex, but that doesn't mean anyone thinks it could really happen (no your hot teen barely legal stepsister won't ask you to help her with her homework and somehow you both end up naked in the shower fucking).

Sex can be scary and troubling and something you need to grapple with, and using fantasy to explore extreme scenarios is one way of working through it all. Nancy Friday wrote a series of books about women's sexual fantasies (among other topics) and the famous one is from the late 60s/early 70s, My Secret Garden:

Need I add that we win in all of our fantasies? Yes, even those involving the so-called rapist, that deus ex machina we roll in to catapult us past a lifetime of women’s rules against sex. That fantasy is as popular today as ever. The women I interviewed don’t really want to be hurt or humiliated. His male presence, that effective battering ram, neatly “makes” her relax sufficiently to enjoy orgasm and then allows her to return to earth, her Nice Girl, Good Daughter self intact. The rape fantasy fools them into thinking the loss of control isn’t their fault.

What tribute to the power of the unconscious that in the day of the internet, of pornographic videos, not to mention of the erotic assaults on television, that with all this seeming permission, there is still a nay-saying voice that requires answering before we can reach orgasm.

Thanks for the effortful response,

A rape fantasy enables someone to play around with the idea of being forced to do something they might want to do

You know what else enables someone to play around with the idea of doing something they can’t do in reality? FANTASY! If a person wants to imagine having a particular sexual experience they can just do so in the privacy of their minds, there’s no need to additionally imagine themself forced. I can’t help but feel the coercive nature is not merely instrumental but rather the point of these fantasies.

What tribute to the power of the unconscious that in the day of the internet, of pornographic videos, not to mention of the erotic assaults on television, that with all this seeming permission, there is still a nay-saying voice that requires answering before we can reach orgasm.

Yeah I suppose “nay-saying voice” is a theory, but it’s somewhat unconvincing as the author inflates the power of the unconscious for every argument against it which she lists there.

I suppose knowing what these fantasies look like would be helpful. Do the women fantasize about special scenarios where the negative affects for some reason don’t exist? Because if a woman fantasizes about potentially being impregnated by a stranger, she is choosing to imagine a nightmarish scenario! I saw someone somewhere else here mention that they are typically handsome men they want to have sex with anyway, which would explain a lot… but something tells me women don’t say “I fantasize about rape” to researchers just so they dont seem like the kind of girl who enjoys sexual fantasies too much or something.

Actual rape results in a bad unjustified consequences for someone who was raped, for start.

(there is a good reason why writing or painting media showing or describing rape is considered as distinct from rape)

Ok you’ve as vaguely as possible gestured towards what Y is, but what about the X and if you’re feeling brave Y but more specifically? Up thread someone used “heroic John Wick power fantasy” but X and Y don’t seem to be the same.

I think it's not so much an event or experience that these women want to have. It's that the event proves something about the man, specifically that he is powerful.

So it's "I want to be taken by a powerful man, but I don't necessarily want to be hurt, or have a child, and I certainly don't want any social consequences." But there's a bit of a problem here, because the women wants the proof that the man is powerful and has power over her specifically, and so she needs either pain, her will violated, or some other consequence, to know that it is real.

Fantasy and reality often have a sheer chasm between them. There definitely is some truth to the fact that some girls enjoy some level of non-consensual encounters, but there is also a wide range from "I said no, but if he ignores that it gives me cover to not feel bad about cheating" to "Some random stranger held a gun to my head and forced me to blow him."

I don't think many, even those who have non-consensual fantasies, would enjoy the latter.

The non consensual fantasies are not about some low-life dragging them into the ally raping them. It’s being raped by 35 year old Donald Trump or Tom Brady or perhaps even for an ugly version something like Harvey Weinstein. So I guess the fantasy still has consent since it’s only with someone desirable. But that person not being able to control himself and taking her without caring about her opinion of the matter.

Of course it’s obvious why females evolved to have rape fantasies. It was a survival tactic. Females survived by being able to emotionally deal with being raped by the more powerful. The rape of the Sabine was a founding story of Rome. 5-10% of the population in some regions have dna directly tied to Ghengis Khan. The Aztecs took the females of their conquored as additional wives (who could become high status)

Of course it’s obvious why females evolved to have rape fantasies. It was a survival tactic. Females survived by being able to emotionally deal with being raped by the more powerful.

In a thread full of pretty terrible hot takes, it may be unfair to single this one out, but since you've been particularly plentiful in providing them, I'm going to use this post as an example to point out the rule to proactively provide evidence for inflammatory claims. Is it "obvious" that women evolved to have rape fantasies, or is this your personal theory, or an evpsych just-so story? You provide zero evidence that it is an "obvious" fact. We are pretty lenient with interesting, even inflammatory, hot takes, but when you're talking about a large group of people you still need to justify your claims about how they all evolved in a way that happens to conform exactly to your assumptions about them with something more than possibly-apocryphal stories about Ghengis Khan and the Aztecs.

5-10% of the population in some regions have dna directly tied to Ghengis Khan.

Or, more probably, a possible patrilineal ancestor of Genghis Khan who was also the ancestor of a bunch of other Mongols that did a lot of raping. We don't have Genghis Khan's remains, so we don't even know if he was part of this patrilineal line.