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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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In the UK among other jurisdictions, rape is defined as forcible penetration with a penis.

And it used to be defined as to not apply within marriage; we changed that, and we can change the other.

No one has ever been impregnated via digital penetration alone. I imagine the number of people who have contracted STDs via digital penetration is vanishingly small.

If Alan rapes Barb with his penis, and he wears a condom, Barb is unlikely to be impregnated or contract a social disease; he is nevertheless prosecuted no less vigorously.

Do you have young children? If so, have you really just multiplied their risk of being sexually assaulted by 9x purely to prove how progressive you are?

No, I take measures to protect them even from a cis-woman.

"if the babysitter has sexually interfered with them, don't hire the babysitter again"

I was more referring to the prodromal phase; what would have been referred to twenty years ago as 'grooming'; don't hire that baby-sitter again if he/she/they start laying the groundwork for the worst offences.

you are demanding we stop discriminating on the basis of one trait we have no control over (sex) in favour of another (gender identity).

No, I am also opposed to discrimination on that basis.

you claim that some males feel "humiliated" by people correctly inferring that they are male, and that they might lash out in consequence.

I truthfully don't get what the threat is here.

I am attempting to illustrate possible nth-order effects.

Society treats people-born-with-male-anatomy as suspicious-by-default --> a precedent is set that people may rightly be judged by the behavior of their demographic rather than innocent-until-proven-guilty --> the 13/52 crowd ignores your distinctions and uses that precedent to treat Black people as suspicious-by-default --> years and decades of being followed in stores/avoided on the street/not picked up by taxicabs/&c. build up until Black people (and their white allies) decide that they have Had Enough, as we saw in 1968 and 2020. If it doesn't boil over, it can still lead to Bad Things done to Black people, such as Emmitt Till; the same can be said of judging individual Jews, such as Anne Frank, by the alleged acts of the Jewish people as a whole.

After the revelation of the horrors of the Third Reich, combined with the cruelties in the Unitedstatesian South, progressives, and in subsequent generations moderates, came to the conclusion that judging individuals by their race/ethnicity is dangerous, and ought to be treated as radioactive. (I don't mean realistic radioactivity, e. g. a glove 1% more radioactive than the 80%-lower-than-global-average local background, or spent fuel pellets that, had they powered Kublai Khan's stately pleasure dome, would have cooled off to the point where one could pick them up bare-handed and, as long as one doesn't eat them, be none the worse for wear. I'm referring to the Hollywood/Simpsons image of three-quarters rusted yellow barrels full of glowing Avada-Kedavra-green sludge that, had they existed in the hoary days when first were laid the foundation-stones of the Great Sphinx, would still cause cancer and monstrous birth defects at 100 metres.)

Subsequently, the same logic was extended to sex/gender, which, even if one does not believe it obligatory per se, nevertheless functions in a manner akin to the Jewish practise of gader saviv HaTorah, a fence around the Law.

"avoid hiring a babysitter who is a member of the demographic most likely to sexually interfere with them in the first place". Being progressive and not discriminating against male people is so important to you that you are completely fine with a male person sexually interfering with your child as many times as is necessary for your child to come to you and tell you that the babysitter has touched them inappropriately – as opposed to just taking the commonsense approach of not hiring a male babysitter in the first place.

My argument is isomorphic to the late Charlie Kirk's 2023 remarks on gun control.

  • In both cases, there is a horrifying-to-contemplate problem threatening the most vulnerable members of our society (rape/mass shootings of the sort of which Columbine is the type specimen).

  • In both cases, a seemingly simple solution is proposed (treat half the population as guilty until proven innocent/abolish private ownership of firearms).

  • In both cases, many innocent people are held responsible for the actions of a few.

  • In both cases, proponents of the suggested policy frame the drawbacks as meaningless, and their opponents' objections as petulant whinging and/or evidence that they deserve to be so held responsible.

  • In both cases, the proposed policy is criticised for potential nth-order failure states (less credibility in opposing the more fanatical thirteen-fiftiers leading to either a racist dystopia or mass civil unrest/Iran in 2026)

  • In both cases, the argument is made that the proposed policy is both:

  1. a cure worse than the disease, and

  2. not necessary as there are better solutions (Mr Kirk's proposal to have armed guards at schools/teach children that certain parts of their body are private and if the baby-sitter shows too much interest in those parts they should tell an adult whom they trust; listen to them if they do so. [Note that if my young child thought as you do and did not wish to be left with an assigned-male-at-birth baby-sitter, I would not attempt to force the issue; this will also show that he/she/they can trust me if the assigned-female-at-birth baby-sitter behaves inappropriately with her fingers/an object, or brings in another person, assigned-male-at-birth or otherwise, who does so.])

you are demanding we stop discriminating on the basis of one trait we have no control over (sex) in favour of another (gender identity).

No, I am also opposed to discrimination on that basis.

Earlier you said:

To the best of my understanding, the pro-trans faction proposed to divide sex from gender, such that all social distinctions would fall under the latter category

What exactly is the difference between "discrimination" and "social distinction"?

I can't help but notice how parochial your dire warning is. If I'm reading you correctly, it's something like this. If we acknowledge people's sex and use that information to make predictions about how they will behave, this sets a precedent that it's legitimate to discriminate on the basis of people's inherent traits which they cannot control. People will hence begin discriminating on the basis of race more openly than they already do. Eventually, well-behaved blacks who are being discriminated against on the basis of something they cannot control will get so fed up with this that they will start rioting.

(Darkly reminiscent of the old joke about critics of Islam, but that's neither here nor there.)

I note that this dire warning is only applicable in societies which contain a critical mass of black men. In Ireland, they represent about 0.65% of the population. So do I have your blessing to carry on assuming that male people are more likely to be violent and aggressive than female people, and taking proactive steps to avoid being a victim of male violence on that basis?

Subsequently, the same logic was extended to sex/gender

Was it, though? Are you implying that I'm some kind of weird outlier because I think it's legitimate to preferentially hire a female babysitter over a male? I actually think I'm the normal one in this regard: you're the first person I've encountered who (claims he) would choose whether to hire a male or female babysitter by flipping a coin. It's trans activists demanding that we abolish sex segregation and the rest of society pushing back. Contrary to your implication that "anti-trans activists" are the weirdo minority, I think the overwhelming majority of people are actually in favour of sex segregation in certain key areas (e.g. sports, changing rooms, women's prisons, hospital wards). So if you're claiming that we as a society collectively agreed that discrimination on the basis of race was wrong and by extension that discrimination on the basis of sex was wrong (in the sense of "acknowledging that male people are responsible for a disproportionate amount of sex crimes"), then I think the latter half of that claim is simply ahistorical. I think it is exactly as difficult for a would-be male babysitter to get a job now as it would be seventy years ago.

If Alan rapes Barb with his penis, and he wears a condom, Barb is unlikely to be impregnated or contract a social disease; he is nevertheless prosecuted no less vigorously.

I'm not suggesting that rape which does not lead to impregnation or STI transmission is more criminal than that which does not. I'm saying that these are the two main reasons that rape (in the "forcible penetration with a penis, without protection" sense) is seen as especially heinous compared to other kinds of sexual assault.

What exactly is the difference between "discrimination" and "social distinction"?

The latter has done a few extra tours on the euphemism treadmill.

came to the conclusion that judging individuals by their race/ethnicity is dangerous, and ought to be treated as radioactive

As somebody who moved from 'commited to colourblindness' in 2010 to what you call "the 13/52 crowd", I suggest you consider carefully if this achieves what you want. There is nothing more radicalising than having people demand that you shut off your eyes, ears and brain to what any fool can clearly observe.

  • No, my white-haired posh dad taking his son to school is not going to be carrying a zombie knife, Mr. Policeman. You and I know this perfectly well, and we know this is just theater because you're not allowed to just go a few blocks over and search all the black teen gangbangers who do.
  • Yes, pretty much every horrible murder and mass stabbing these days is done by a brown or a black man. No, I am not fooled by your steadfast determination to avoid mentioning his race or you referring to him as a 'British citizen' because I possess the mystical art to distinguish between 'Tom Rutherford' and 'Axel Rudakubana' and to google photos of the bastard.
  • Black people commit eight times as many murders as white ones, according to the former head of the Metropolitan Police in a rare moment of candour. Yes, I expect you to do something with this information because protecting the public is your job. I also note that this has been memory-holed to such an extent that I was only able to find it using DuckDuckGo on a webarchive.
  • "Police hold black men responsible for more than two-thirds of shootings and more than half of robberies and street crimes in London, according to figures released by Scotland Yard."

In short, mild discrimination and clear explanations of why that discrimination exists is the only thing that can make multiethnic societies work long-term. As the Denmark authorities say, "obviously we release ethnic statistics, otherwise how could the public trust us?" (paraphrased, I don't have the exact quote).

If you are a pleasant, good-hearted young black man as many are, your greatest fear should be the kind of system that refuses to recognise or guard against the increased threat that you potentially represent, or to impose the social norms of your new home upon you, causing people to shun you in any way they can possibly get away with as in America until the cognitive dissonance finally becomes too much and their grandchildren bring in something far worse. Not to mention that it is of course the best way of protecting you from your co-ethnics.

EDIT: I tell a lie, there is one thing more radicalising. The mealy-mouthed apologetics given by these same people to excuse straightforward racism when it's aimed at whites. I don't accuse you of this but it's all too common.

EDIT EDIT: Perhaps this is a little heated, and for that I apologise. You are not personally to blame for all of the racial dysfunction in Britain. But really, really, try to believe me when I say that what you want is not going to be achieved by the methods you suggest. Moderation is important even in non-discrimination.

Isla Bryson pretty much single-handedly brought down the Scottish government, the most pro-trans government around, and completely tanked their agenda and destroyed the pro-trans movement in the UK. It could all have been avoided if the Scottish government and the trans movement had just been willing to say 'no, the tattooed rapist who decided to be trans five seconds before his court case doesn't get to go to a women's prison'.