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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This Valentine's Day, I am thinking about why the Pelicot rape case has received so little attention, sparked so little discussion. This is the case of a French man, Dominique Pelicot, who invited 72 men to rape his drugged wife, Gisèle Pelicot, over the course of nine years. The trial took place in 2024 (all accused found guilty), but it surfaced in the NYT again this week. I could not find a single mention of it in on this site.
Yes, it's been reported in every media outlet. No, I'm not claiming it's been hidden or suppressed. But the case has no political relevance. It hasn't generated heated discussion. No one seems to care or talk about it that much. Why? Here are my speculations.
You could claim that this was an isolated incident that has no implications for society in general, that one specific forum enabled the perpetrators to find each other. But these men were mostly from nearby towns, within 50km, from all walks of life.
I think it's simpler to just say that some large fraction of men would jump at the opportunity to have sex with an unconscious woman if there were no consequences. This is the nature of men. We have known this since the beginning of time. Most adults understand this already. The vast majority of men know this, because some part of them has the same urge, or if not, they are familiar with the corrupting force of male sexuality in general, and this particular manifestation is hardly a surprise. Women largely know this force, too, because they have been told of it, or because they have been targeted by it, though they sometimes pretend not to know.
Men aren't eager to discuss this particular case because it is unflattering to the male sex. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to inspire moral outrage among men. It doesn't trigger tribal instincts - race was not a factor, for instance. And a couple of the elements that make rape viscerally repugnant are absent in this case. For one, she was unconscious during the rapes. In some sense, apart from the drugging, the violation was merely psychological - the knowledge post facto of the strangers' assault, and the knowledge of her husband's betrayal - and I have the sense that many men simply struggle to empathize with psychological harms to women. Men can empathize with other men, but in this case the would-be secondary victim, her husband, wanted to cuck himself. "So be it," seems to be the unsaid reaction.
It's harder for me to say why women aren't eager to bring this up as ammunition in the gender wars. Doesn't this vindicate the radical feminists? I see it discussed in forums dominated by women, but not much beyond that, and even there not particularly passionately. Maybe one factor is that Gisèle Pelicot herself apparently didn't believe her daughter's claims of abuses at the hands of her husband, and so isn't the perfect victim. But perhaps the whole thing is just unpleasant and depressing. It seems to shatter the possibility of love, and of the dignity of women among men. She thought he was a good husband.
And perhaps it's simply that there is nothing to fight about. There is no toxoplasma, no scissor statement. No surprises at the trial. No one even cares to come out and repeat the defense of the accused, that they thought she had consented. No one wants to argue. There is nothing to be done. Castrate all men? Don't have the bad luck of marrying a depraved cuck? Conservatives have nothing to say. Do liberals have something to say? If so, I haven't heard it either.
Have we really known this? What large fraction?
It would be uncharitable to say you are typical-minding here, and I am not trying to establish myself as some kind of saint by saying "What the fuck?" but really... what the fuck? To me, having sex with an unconscious woman would have pretty much zero appeal no matter how hot she is, and I have a hard time believing I'm some weird undersexed outlier. It's not even just about it being rape (which it obviously is), but it would also be like fucking a RealDoll, which I know some men do also but I have always thought has to be the absolute last refuge of the desperate and pathetic.
Obviously there are men who get off on it (I know there are men who will stick their dicks in anything warm), but I'm unconvinced, even if this guy found 72 of them, that they aren't akin to rapists and pedophiles... sure, we all know these urges exist in the male population, and they aren't super-rare, but neither are they... normal.
It only vindicates them if you agree with them that this is in fact the natural state of men and we'd all do it if given the chance and that every husband secretly hates his wife. That's certainly a view unironically held in parallel, horseshoe-like, by a certain strain of radical feminists and ultra-misogynists, but the problem is that they are largely wrong about men being amoral rapacious monsters barely(unfairly) held in check by society.
Well, yeah. I doubt even our he-man woman-haters will be able to muster much of a "This wasn't actually bad" argument. How do you defend it? She was unconscious so she didn't really suffer? She's female and therefore should be available for any use to which her husband sees fit? You have to go pretty far out there to defend the indefensible. Some things don't engender disagreement even between liberals and conservatives.
I am a man who happens to have this fetish, and indeed I am a man who related this fetish to my gf, she thought it was hot, and we contrived some bs about our apartment being too close to a busy highway in order to get a doctor to prescribe heavy-duty sleeping pills that we could indulge this fetish. And it was great.
It’s the “doing another guy’s wife” and “doing a fugly old grandma” that confuses me about the appeal. Not the unconsciousness, which, indeed, is a distinct improvement over the vanilla sex act.
I can get the appeal of sleep sex as an extension of a freeuse fetish (where the focus is on relieving oneself without the worry of mutual pleasure, essentially enhanced masturbation) but I'm baffled that you consider it a strict improvement. Not being able to see the woman in pleasure is a considerable opportunity cost, even setting aside the lost potential of her active participation.
It's a fetish so of course it doesn't have to be rational, and it's been around a long time. I can't remember where I read this years ago, and I don't know if it's true or just fiction, but there were claims that some Victorian brothels specialised in having prostitutes who pretended to be, or were drugged to be, sleeping while clients had sex with them. Other claims were pretending to be dead, to the extent of lying in a coffin and wearing heavy makeup to look pale and bloodless.
Again, no idea if this is truth or fiction, but it's possible.
More options
Context Copy link
The two parts of your statement do not logically synch up. If you don’t consider it an improvement, then you don’t see the appeal, because, by your own logic, it is not appealing (compared to the default).
I think Eupraxia means that it's one thing for sleep sex to have its own appeal that might make up for the advantages it otherwise lacks relative to conventional mutual sex; and another thing to declare it a strict improvement.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link