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 is where grouping all men who have sex with men as a single “gay” monolith goes wrong.
This kind of man exists in very high numbers, they just aren’t open about it. Go on Grindr and you’ll find that there’s no shortage of “discrete” tops who love twinks and femboys, and not enough supply to meet the demand.
Today a large number of gay men do actually masc-maxx, but just because you can look masculine doesn’t mean you can act masculine. Even if you convincingly manage to imitate masculinity, it’s still just a façade. Two partners pretending to be something they’re not in order to stay attracted to each other is just sad.
But again, there’s multiple kinds of gay men. The very feminine “faggy queens” are highly likely to transition today, not because they want a masculine man, but because they want a man who’s attracted to them as a woman, which they’ll never get if they masc-maxx. It’s not just about how you see your partner, but also about how your partner sees you.
But the vast majority of gay men today are absolutely fine with their partner seeing them as a man. I’ve seen quite a few gay couples where it’s just two regular looking guys, generally a bit fruity sure, but not excessively so and not enough to turn each other off.
Who manages to act masculine in a fallen world where the Secretary of War has a makeup studio in the pentagon, the president loves broadway musicals, and the Bears QB paints his nails?
More options
Context Copy link
No doubt, just trying to tease apart the alignments, misalignments and re-alignments. The potential combinations multiply rapidly.
Fair play, I was under the impression it was the other way around. Maybe that's a function of their discretion. But then why the discretion?
Well firstly the “top shortage” is greatly overstated anyway. Most statistics suggest that for gay men, it’s about half vers, quarter tops and quarter bottoms, within a few percentage points.
But the men who are exclusively into twinks and femboys are almost all bisexual, and bisexual men have a lot to lose by being out. A large amount of straight women would not date a bisexual man, their masculinity would be questioned by their peers, and a lot of people believe bisexual men don’t even exist and that they’re just gay and in denial.
By being on the down low, they can have their cake and eat it too: continue dating women as a straight man, have access to easy, promiscuous sex (relatively speaking), and not deal with having to explain anything to anybody.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The general complaint among the, uh, supply is that the demand is high, but extremely low-quality, even by gay hookup culture standards of quality, precisely because the demand is from people who are principally heterosexual, and probably have deep roots in heterosexual culture -- including, possibly, a wife. Therefore they're exceptionally flaky/indifferent/uncertain, leading to the kind of debasement I discussed in my other reply to you as a desperate attempt to lock-down any reasonably qualified leads. So I'm not sure this is a lopsided market in the way you're suggesting; it's more of a matching market where neither side seems to be happy. Cf all other dating environments.
However, by far the most common kind of pairing you find for this type of person is actually femme-to-femme, both because the masculine options are so low-quality, and because some meaningful fraction of this group is bisexual or AGP. In our earlier discussion on this topic, I was talking about this sub-population; when you assumed I was talking about transmasc-transfemme pairings, I was actually confused! When you said that transitioning "is weirdly common among men willing to openly date trans women," well, that wasn't surprising or confusing at all to me, and it was interesting to see that it was confusing to you.
IMO, trans women who try to date men are, for obvious reasons, often pulling from the pool Blanchard described as "gynandromorphophiles", which are often also AGP. Gender transitioning, for this pool of individuals, is often both appealing in the AGP sense, and appealing in the sense that it gives them "skin in the game" that establishes cred among bisexual trans women who treat cis men with suspicion.
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, there is that whole category of "men who have sex with men" but don't consider themselves gay. I suppose it's the very old distinction of "if you're doing the penetrating/getting your cock sucked, you're a man but if you're getting penetrated/sucking the cock you're female-coded".
More options
Context Copy link
As opposed to continuous tops, also known as homeosexuals
Spelling/grammar corrections and puns; two things of which I will never tire!
More options
Context Copy link
Well, I laughed!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link