site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How is wanting commitment-free sex from a rotating harem of virgins less "stupid and evil" than wanting commitment from a "chad" who probably won't commit?

Women don't want to fuck a beta who fundamentally despises them. Truly a mystery and an injustice wrapped in an enigma.

But "commitment-free sex from a rotating harem of virgins", pumping and dumping, is not the male fantasy. It is an adaptation to our current circumstances, where there is no secure rights over women. Much like the rational response to a lack of secure property rights is to steal anything not nailed down, and to hell with tomorrow, the rational response to a lack of secure marital rights is to despoil as many virgins as you can, then dump them before they dump you.

If you look at men's romance, you will see that what men want is a non-rotating harem of virgins who they commit to for life. No man wants to know that the virgin he has fucked is going to get fucked by another man; it kills the soul. "She was never yours, it was just your turn" is a philosophy of despair.

From "The Three Magic Words" by the Dreaded Jim:

For the higher races to reproduce, have to prevent women from continuing to cruise for a higher alpha all their fertile years. If not allowed to cruise, property of the first male they have sex with, and compelled to honor and obey.

For about the cost of two dates, you can have a hooker, and it is not an adequate substitute. Hookers are only a marginal improvement over masturbation. What progressives offer men, a rotating series of hookups, is just not what most men want, as revealed by men’s actions.

Yes, a harem is better than just one wife, but a changing rotation of whores is not a harem. The point of having more than one woman is having more than one woman. If I sleep with several women that is really great. If one of them sleeps with another man that is really bad and I will certainly dump her, probably beat her, and might well kill her. I will be very angry and sad for a very long time.

...

A man needs to own a woman, he needs a house, and land and children. A man that does not own a woman breaks, and a rotating collection of sluts is not ownership.

If she is free to suspend cooperation at any time, men are disinclined to invest in her and her children. You pump and dump, so that if you are lucky, you dump her before she dumps you. You spin the plates to avoid being spun. There is always someone more alpha than you are. You pump and dump because it hurts less that way. Evolution shaped you that way, evolution makes it hurt, so that you would not waste time looking after a chick that becomes pregnant with Jeremy Meeks’s demon spawn. Evolution has planted the knowledge in you that investing in a woman you do not own is a bad investment.

You don’t plant trees on land you don’t own, and if you don’t have some land and plant some trees for your grandkids, it hurts.

Roissy truthfully tells us how to operate in defect/defect equilibrium with women. But the point is to achieve cooperate/cooperate equilibrium.

And from "Female Sexual Preferences" by the same:

Men want to bang every fertile age woman. Woman want to be banged by Mister one in thirty.

Women are allowed to successfully fulfill their goal, men are not allowed to fulfill their goal.

Men want to own a woman. Even successful players find it terribly disturbing and soul destroying that the woman that they bang has banged no end of men before them, and will soon bang someone else. This leads to player burnout. Even marginally successful players soon get burnout. The knowledge slowly soaks in that in the game of players and bitches, the bitches are winning, and even successful players are losing. One soon starts feeling homicidal, and is apt to kill the adulterous woman and or her latest lover. Players counsel other players “avoid oneitis” “She was never yours, it was just your turn”. Bullshit. This is the counsel of despair.

If one cultivates a detached attitude “It was just my turn, she did me a favor”, one avoids homicide, but this is not very satisfactory at all. If one abandons one’s telos, one is psychologically broken, hence player burnout. She was not doing you a favor. You were doing her a favor. If you adopt this attitude, you avoid homicide, but develop other disturbingly weird and unpleasant behaviors and attitudes. It is terribly stressful. Homicide is less stressful. There is a reason why the bible counsels to avoid sluts, but today, nothing but sluts, so what is a man to do?

Successful pursuit of telos requires ownership. One despairs or becomes homicidal because even if one get one dick wet from time to time, one is failing at accomplishing one’s telos. Player burnout is a manifestation of despair. One avoids homicide, but in a world with no female companionship other than sluts, loses one’s soul.

I don't think any of this makes sense. Any 'rational' approach to sex in this sense wouldn't involve sex with women you won't have kids with. A non-secure marriage is still the best route to kids, other than sperm donation. Modern women and men have lifetime single digits of sexual partners and most end up in one or a series of long-term relationships if not an actual marriage. Players and pumping and dumping just aren't the experience most people are having. And if players generally burn out, but many people who get in insecure marriages don't, what does that really say?

Not that this is a knockdown argument against patriarchy or legally enforced marriage commitments, there's more complexity there, it's just that Jim is very wrong.

Dude. You need to stop looking at Dread Jim for life advice. Hating women and wanting them to be property is not a recipe for happiness.

I lost my chance at happiness a long time ago; hate is all that's left.

There are things under your control. I doubt you're so old as to have no opportunities for improvement. Anyway, if morality doesn't sway you, a desire for truth should. Jim is mostly wrong about everything. He tells a compelling story to doomers who want reasons for their hatred, but these doom prohets are not actually insightful or wise, they're just crafty tale-tellers.

They are both stupid. The former is significantly less evil in practice in that 1) If it works for you, like Genghis Khan, then it is what it is; and 2) Its not supported by majority narratives, so it hurts far less people practically.

Now, its true that far more women in the world will secure 6-6-6 men than men will acquire 6+ women harems that are functional. But since several orders of magnitude more women expect 6-6-6 than expect 6+, the former is significantly more evil as an idea in the world. Its kinda like how murderers are more evil than ghosts.

If it works for you, like Genghis Khan, then it is what it is;

And if it doesn't work for you, society isn't going to tell you that you're settling for less than you deserve. And chances are you won't feel anything negative about it. Personally, as a man, I would love to have 3 or 4 concubines -- beautiful, youthful, exclusively committed to me, and accepting of my other relationships. But I don't feel any sense of disappointment or frustration over the fact that I haven't been able to build a harem. If I complained about the situation online, I would be (rightly) mocked. The most positive comments I could expect to receive is a suggestion to go out and get a few billion dollars or become a world-renowned athlete or actor.

Its not supported by majority narratives

Yeah, average women are regularly told, in substance, that they are very desirable; that they should never settle; that they deserve the best; that if their dream-guy won't commit, it's because that guy is a jerk; etc.

How is wanting commitment-free sex from a rotating harem of virgins less "stupid and evil" than wanting commitment from a "chad" who probably won't commit?

There is an important difference which is that society has no problem telling men that their primal desire for a harem is stupid, unreasonable, anti-social, and unrealistic for all but a very small minority of men. And most men have internalized this message. If a man has one wife, at some level he may desire a couple concubines as well but he won't feel outraged or cheated if this desire is not fulfilled.

By contrast, society is very reluctant to tell average women that her desire for exclusive commitment from an extremely desirable man is similarly stupid, unreasonable, and unrealistic. One of the most common female dating complaints is that the woman is in a "situationship" with a man who keeps stringing her along. Outside of a few dark corners of the internet, most of the reaction she will receive is that the man in this situation is a bad person; she won't be told that almost certainly it's because she's an average woman chasing men who are out of her league.

Women don't want to fuck a beta who fundamentally despises them

Fortunately for women, men are much less likely to despise a given woman than the reverse.

Women may despise individual men, but the few who despise men as a class don't want to fuck them.

Incels despise women as a class but still want to fuck them.

I agree men and women should both be given better advice about realistic expectations.

Women may despise individual men, but the few who despise men as a class don't want to fuck them.

Completely disagree. You just need to search social media for women who post things like "I hate men" or "kill all men" and then check up later on their relationship status.

Incels despise women as a class but still want to fuck them.

Well, they despise women BECAUSE those women won't have sex with them. In a hypothetical world where things were arranged so that the vast majority of men could have a respected, socially approved sexual/romantic relationship with a woman, there would be far less of this type of hate.

I agree men and women should both be given better advice about realistic expectations.

It seems to me this is a bit of a cop-out because there is a world of difference between what society says to men and what society says to women as described in my previous post. Generally speaking, society is far more accommodating of female desires and far more eager to blame men for any problems with romantic/sexual relationships.

The women performatively "hating men" mostly do not, by revealed preferences, hate men. Incels really do hate women, and while you can cast them as victims, they are victims only of their own inadequacy and self pity. Society isn't making them feel that way , and society isn't obligated to reorder itself so women who don't want them will want them.

As for their being such a difference in how society treats women, yes women have their own pressures men don't, which many of them find very unfair and oppressive.

I don't think society is as hard for either one as they say, and find whiny feminists and loser men equally insufferable, mostly victims of their own mindset.

  • -11

society isn't obligated to reorder itself so women who don't want them will want them.

Completely avoiding the moral judgment, if we don't meet a post-scarcity society soon, societies that wish to continue, or at least, continue supporting the elderly, may begin to attempt this.

Whether they succeed or not is another story entirely, but the desperate flailing may be extremely torturous. When women can achieve status in ways other than marriage, they won't marry, and the baby bust trends with marriage bust.

The women performatively "hating men" mostly do not, by revealed preferences, hate men. Incels really do hate women,

Strong disagree. What percentage of incels do you think would accept a romantic/sexual relationship with a reasonably attractive woman? (In fact, incels regularly tease each other over the fact that most of them would "ascend" if they had the opportunity.)

while you can cast them as victims,

The question is what is the source of their hate, not whether they are victims.

ociety isn't obligated to reorder itself so women who don't want them will want them.

Assuming this is so, so what? Have I stated or implied otherwise?

As for their being such a difference in how society treats women, yes women have their own pressures men don't, which many of them find very unfair and oppressive.

Again, assuming this is so, so what? Does this contradict anything I have said?

I don't think society is as hard for either one as they say, and find whiny feminists and loser men equally insufferable, mostly victims of their own mindset.

Again, assuming this is so, so what? It seems reasonably clear that in the area under discussion, society is far more accepting and accommodating of women's unreasonable desires than it is of men.

Of course every incel would leap at the chance to score an attractive woman. That doesn't mean they actually like women.

Does society have more sympathy for women? (The "women are wonderful" syndrome?) Yes, generally so (at least in the West). That doesn't mean incels deserve sympathy, any more than the proverbial carousel rider does.

Of course every incel would leap at the chance to score an attractive woman. That doesn't mean they actually like women.

I'm a little confused now. Above, you said this:

The women performatively "hating men" mostly do not, by revealed preferences, hate men.

What exactly is it that these women are doing to reveal their preferences? I had assumed you meant that they dated men. What did you mean?

That doesn't mean incels deserve sympathy, any more than the proverbial carousel rider does.

I'm even more confused. Let's suppose incels don't deserve any sympathy whatsoever. Does this contradict anything I have said?

ociety isn't obligated to reorder itself so women who don't want them will want them.

Assuming this is so, so what? Have I stated or implied otherwise?

As for their being such a difference in how society treats women, yes women have their own pressures men don't, which many of them find very unfair and oppressive.

Again, assuming this is so, so what? Does this contradict anything I have said?

I don't think society is as hard for either one as they say, and find whiny feminists and loser men equally insufferable, mostly victims of their own mindset.

Again, assuming this is so, so what? It seems reasonably clear that in the area under discussion, society is far more accepting and accommodating of women's unreasonable desires than it is of men.


I'm really having a hard time figuring out what your point is. Please answer my questions so I can understand your position.

  1. When you stated that "The women performatively 'hating men' mostly do not, by revealed preferences, hate men," exactly what are these women doing to reveal their preferences?

  2. Let's suppose incels don't deserve any sympathy whatsoever. Does this contradict anything I have said?

  3. Have I stated or implied that "society is obligated to reorder itself so women who don't want [incels] will want them." If so, where exactly did I do so?

  4. Assuming that "women have their own pressures men don't, which many of them find very unfair and oppressive," does this contradict anything I have said?

  5. Assuming that society is not as hard for either men or women as some say, and assuming that whiny feminists and loser men are equally insufferable, mostly victims of their own mindset, does this contradict anything I have said?

It looks to me like you are just trying to change the subject. Because otherwise, I have no idea why you are bringing up all this other stuff.

They have relations with men that are not consumed with hate and resentment. A PMC chick tweeting about "#Killallmen" is obnoxious, but is she actually spending her life hating on men, like incels do about women? Generally not. When an incel occasionally manages to land a relationship, he either drops the incel act, or his seething resentment and sense of entitlement still poisons the relationship.

2-4: You claimed I was "copping out" by pointing out that society is also hard on women. You apparently take the position that it's worse for men and women have it easier. Much of this seems based on the grievances of men who don't do well. So no, the fact that incels are unsympathetic doesn't in itself contradict any theory of society being harder on men, but it makes me wonder why you are arguing that we should be sympathetic to incels, and why you want a declaration against both-sidedness. Nothing you have said makes the case that society is in fact more unfair to men than women. Society is "accomodating" to women's sexual desires, because men will always "reward" women willing to offer sex. But they are punished differently than men–men are "punished" by not getting laid; women are punished by the reality of the dating market and aging, with some hard truths it is impolitic to talk about nowadays. I reject your thesis that women just coast on "Women are wonderful."

More comments