site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   28507 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Isn't it a stereotype that the hotter a woman is, the less effort she feels that she needs to put into sex?

I've encountered this claim on many occasions. There's no way to express the following opinion without sounding like I'm humblebragging, so consider this an inb4.

I've had an unusually high number of female sexual partners, so my sample size is unusually large. Some of those partners I would consider quite attractive (with the caveat that none were literal supermodels or Hollywood actresses); some were "mid"; some were not even that, and I only had sex with them out of sheer desperation at the tail end of a lengthy dry spell. If this claim (that attractive women put in less effort in the bedroom) has any truth to it, then in my fairly extensive sexual history I honestly cannot claim to have observed it firsthand. I've been with hot girls who starfished and passable girls who starfished; I've been with hot girls who were rearing to go and passable girls who were rearing to go. I think the best predictors of how enthusiastic a woman will be in bed are a) her basal sex drive (controlling for how long it's been her last sexual encounter); b) her sexual experience (everyone's a little shy and awkward their first few times; the trope of the pure virgin who's a demon in the sack during her deflowering only exists in porn); and c) how attracted she is to her sexual partner. In the latter case I'm thinking in particular of a fairly hot girl I met ~7 years ago, who did have sex with me but seemed of two minds about it. I imagine it would have been a very different experience if I'd been someone with whom she had more chemistry.

Frankly, I think this "hot girls are all crap in bed, while mid girls give it socks" thing is one of the purest, most transparent examples of sour grapes in human history. I daresay most men claiming as much have literally never had sex with an unusually attractive woman, and so aren't in a position to make any kind of generalisation.

ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention that my assorted sexual partners came from a diverse array of ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, socioeconomic statuses and so on. It's not like I'm making a sweeping generalisation about the entire fairer sex based on a sample drawn from a single country.

The difference between sex with a lazy "starfish" woman and sex with an unconscious woman seems negligible.

I assure you, it is not. I've had sex with women who seemed a bit unenthused or tired etc., but I would never dream of having sex with a woman who was literally unconscious.

As a contra anecdote - I've also slept with lots of women, and I've found my level of attractiveness varying quite a bit over the course of my life so I've done a decent range.

I've found this meme to be an exaggeration but mostly true. Plenty of mid women are mid in bed, but the gorgeous women were way more likely to be bad, especially 9s and 10s. Being bad in bed doesn't always mean unenthusiastic, but plenty of 9s and 10s just didn't know how to do anything. Importantly this sometimes included what they liked - since they knew they could count on a man trying as hard as possible they never put much effort into figuring themselves out either, much less a dick.

Might be enthusiastic, but technical skills were rare.

Women have a meme about men with big dicks being bad in bed, and similarly it's not universally true but really does seem to capture the heart of it.

especially 9s and 10s

I suppose everyone has their own definition, but assuming a “10” is at least 99.9th percentile for fit, healthy people your age (so probably 99.99th percentile overall; one in ten thousand men or women) I think seducing many 10s would be quite impressive.

Isn't a "10" more likely to be, uh -- 90th %tile?

Unless you are using the female scale, which as I recall is exponential to the point where a 90th %tile man is like a "5" -- men are much more linear!

It seems better to model it like a normal distribution where the vast majority of people are in the 3.5 to 6.5 range. Your way seems to lead to a lot of ambiguity between what counts as an 8 or a 9 or a 10, for example, because they’re all equally common.

That's the female scale! I maintain that my way is far closer to the way that men see the world; it is, in fact, non-trivial to tell the difference between a 9 (maybe even an 8) and a 10.

The neat part is that this... kind of reflects the male view on attractiveness pretty perfectly.

Fair dinkum - my standard for what a 9 or a 10 is is something like "is a model" "could be a model" "if you told your friends she was a model they would believe it." With a 10 being more of a get drunk with your bros and sass each other and they won't disagree she is a 10 even though that is a big brag.

I don't think I've thought of it the terms you describe but it's an interesting thought. If a 10 means 99.9th percentile then it really means something, but I suspect you'd run into taste issues. Sydney Sweeney, Zendaya, and Lisa (Blackpink) are all probably 10s by any objective standard but if you go by 99.9th percentile for an individual man's interest then at least one of those three is likely to get thrown out most of the time (see: the hate for Zendaya here).

Sydney Sweeney, Zendaya, and Lisa (Blackpink) are all probably 10s by any objective standard but if you go by 99.9th percentile for an individual man's interest then at least one of those three is likely to get thrown out most of the time (see: the hate for Zendaya here).

I agree that the people calling Zendaya ugly are overdoing it: by any metric she's a pretty girl. But I'd hardly call her a 10/10. In fact, I think part of the basis of her appeal is that she has a certain girl-next-door quality that makes her seem approachable and down-to-earth: a nerdy MCU fan projecting himself onto Tom Holland could imagine himself dating Zendaya in a way he couldn't with (to pick a handful of her MCU costars) Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman or Cobie Smulders. I think any of these women (in their prime) would be considered more attractive than Zendaya by just about everyone.

I mean this is where taste comes in - you'll note that she doesn't look at all like your other examples.

That said she's literally famous for being beautiful in an industry that the most beautiful people in the world go into. If getting paid millions of dollars a year to be beautiful isn't a sign of being a 10/10 then I don't know what is.

You are allowed to find her not attractive. Many people don't like um ethnic women, or women who are low on curves. That's preference, but if we are looking objectively...

you'll note that she doesn't look at all like your other examples.

The funny thing is, if you look at women I've dated, "women of colour" (to use that horrible phrase) are vastly overrepresented compared to white women. Zendaya is probably a lot closer in appearance (certainly in skin tone) to the median woman I've dated than Johannson, Smulders or Portman.

Even just comparing Zendaya to other female celebrities with comparable ethnic backgrounds (one white and one black parent), I'd say that Halle Berry, Meghan Markle, Lisa Bonet and Thandiwe Newton in their prime were more attractive than Zendaya. Which is not to say I don't find Zendaya attractive. Anyway, I'm sure I've made my point.

We should compare spreadsheets. (You do have a spreadsheet, right?)

I am an adult in a committed relationship now. For legal reasons any spreadsheet would have been deleted looooong ago.

I did have a (female???) friend who kept detailed information on her phone with phallus stats, which should would whip out at parties from time to time.

That was always horrifying and amusing.

Dying to understand the significance of the three question marks.

I am an adult in a committed relationship now.

So am I. The spreadsheet stays.😁

Dying to understand the significance of the three question marks.

Gossiping with your girlies about men's performance is very female coded. A spreadsheet (or document) with detailed stats is very male coded.

So am I. The spreadsheet stays.😁

I like my balls attached, thanks.

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