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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31383 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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I think Sabrina Carpenter is an interesting case study here. Her music is ridiculously sexually explicit, she performs in lingerie and a core part of her act is miming heterosexual sex positions. That said, I get the sense her audience/fanbase is approximately 0% heterosexual male. It gives me the same vibe as burlesque, which seems to be a major form of entertainment for blue tribe women in major cities yet has zero sexual currency with hetero men. Burlesque performances will include lingerie and actual nudity from women, but I don’t get the sense any straight men are watching burlesque compilations on pornhub.

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately, but I feel burlesque is sort of spiritually akin to male war reenactors. They are both reenacting the past to give themselves gender valdiating experiences, men getting to pretend to experience heroism and self-sacrifice in combat, frumpy feminists getting to experience a reenactment of sexual desirability

As someone who recently went on a date to a burlesque circus, burlesque is now mostly queer coded. It was an excuse for mainly gay buff acrobatic men to get nude-ish and then some women in skin-tight gymnast like clothing to do acrobatic stunts.

This discrepancy in nudity between the sexes was startling. It was not designed for the hetro male gaze. It was designed for the queer gaze. If it was designed for the hetero gaze, more men would attend.

There is a French restaurant near me that did burlesque and dinner, and that was much more hetero coded, and equally the audience was more normal (in that it didn't skew queer or gay or woman). It was also more enjoyable, at least for me FWIW.

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately, but I feel burlesque is sort of spiritually akin to male war reenactors. They are both reenacting the past to give themselves gender valdiating experiences, men getting to pretend to experience heroism and self-sacrifice in combat, frumpy feminists getting to experience a reenactment of sexual desirability

Well, damn. I never thought about all that this way before.

They are both reenacting the past to give themselves gender valdiating experiences, men getting to pretend to experience heroism and self-sacrifice in combat

War re-enactors?! No, these are neckbeards playing dress up. They want to be hailed for their assiduous attention to historical detail and accuracy, not their "heroism." Even if airsoft, which is pseudo-athletic, most of the time is spent geeking out over hyperrealistic gear, rather than drilling movement to contact.

The male "gender validation" activity is sports. Go to any sports bar and just listen, you'll find several different styles of conversation, but it's all about the fantasy of kicking the shit out of the other team. You have the has been High School QBs who know more about the game than the NFL does ("sloppy defense!"), you have the hyper nerds who want to systematize dominance ("Davante Adams averages 1.8 yards of separation per target, you can't cover him even if you're covering him!"), and just the highly emotive (and likely drunk) general issue fans ("Go! go! go! COME ON, COME ON, YOU CAN'T CALL THAT A HOLD!").

miming heterosexual sex positions.

I woke up feelin' cheesiest, coach in a kind of DEUS VULT! mood. This has only exacerbated it. Burn the witch.

War re-enactors?! No, these are neckbeards playing dress up. They want to be hailed for their assiduous attention to historical detail and accuracy, not their "heroism." Even if airsoft, which is pseudo-athletic, most of the time is spent geeking out over hyperrealistic gear, rather than drilling movement to contact.

I guess there is a fine line between cosplay and military reenactment, isn't there?

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