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Lots of discussion in the last few weeks on the dating recession, and I wanted to add another (anecdotal) data point to the pile.
I've been swing dancing here in Baltimore on and off for about the last three years (started in 2024 after my girlfriend broke up with me). Initially classes and actual dancing were heavily female dominated, often at ratios of 5:4 or even 3:2. This year that has completely changed: my class tonight was short 11 follows in a class of ~30 total people, meaning the ratio of men to women is about 2:1. The instructors managed to get some more advanced people to drop in to help out as follows, but half of them were dudes who wanted to learn the follow part. This was roughly true in the last session of the class as well although not as pronounced.
What I hypothesize that has happened is the message that dating apps don't seem to work has trickled down to the male part of the population. Around the same amount of women are taking this class as in the before times (2024), but the number of men has almost doubled. Men are starting out to try and meet people in real life again! Which is awesome. But for whatever reason, this hasn't happened with women.
I'm not entirely sure why this is, because dating apps don't seem to particularly work for women either. Maybe the illusion of abundance is enough to keep them from thinking that they need to meet people in real life? Maybe they're all in a situationship with the same man (lol)? Maybe women just have stronger social connections in general and don't need to do something like dancing to meet people?
Thoughts TheMotte?
I've observed it multiple times over the last 4 years.
Any space that is likely to have attractive, single females to interact with in a group setting will quickly draw males who want to interact with such women, and inherently, more guys show up for this explicit purpose. So there DOES NOT exist any mythical IRL space where a straight guy can enter and find a favorable gender ratio to work with. Other than a college campus, perhaps. Other males would notice and also come to exploit it.
This creates the gender imbalance, and the attention/distraction gets overwhelming for some of the women, who might stop showing up altogether (or go to events specifically reserved for women).
This further throws off the Gender imbalance, and also might block new women from joining. No woman is seeking out a space because she heard it had an excess of single guys. And even if some of the guys give up and leave, there'll be plenty more new guys coming in to try their luck, so this imbalance can persist for a while.
So the only women who continue show up are extraordinarily confident... or already have partners. This is maybe the final blow, when the remaining pool of women are already partnered, and drag their partners in with them so that the actual ratio of single women to men is even worse than it appears.
So you can legitimately have like 5+ single guys for every 1-2 single women in attendance.
This happens in any space that doesn't intentionally filter by gender.
I've also commented on the difficulty of getting women to show up to social gatherings even when directly invited. If there aren't other women already going, they're less likely to show up themselves. Even when they claim to want to go they have a decent chance of flaking.
The ability to ensure that a certain number of attractive women will be present is thus very, very valuable.
Most spaces/events don't have someone with this capability.
Partially that they seem to have female friend groups that they can spend time with.
Partially because a lot of women, esp. those with anxiety and other mental issues, find it easier to just stay home and binge Netflix or play games online and build "communities" in Discord or similar.
I know of an upsetting number of women whose lives are basically "work/school, outings for shopping and then... staying in at home, nose shoved in their phone with a TV show on background." They're being 'social' in that they're texting/chatting with a bunch of people, but their actual social presence IRL is virtually nil, and it is VERY hard to coax them out of this cocoon.
Ask me how I know. Female shut-ins are an increasing phenomenon, I think.
And because the underlying logic of romance is "men chase, women select," guess what happens if women don't make themselves 'available'? Men have fewer people to chase, and women have no pressure to take any 'active' steps to find someone.
Larger social dance events like full weekends of workshops and parties are one of the few places that does this obviously and explicitly and still gets away with it, by selling "leader passes" and "follower passes".
Turn up as a male follower. They exist (and are getting more popular), usually taken by experienced men who want a new challenge (it also helps you understand the leader steps better if you know what your follower has to endure when you do a certain figure).
Yes, it's very useful for skill development, and it's really fun dancing with women who know both roles and can pass the lead back and forth during a song.
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I don't know if it's increasing, but it's certainly a contributor to every public social space being a sausage-fest. "The elites don't want you to know this, but women are only 20-30% of the population" might not be factually accurate, but it's directionally correct.
I sometimes ask LLMs to do Fermi estimates on the number of single women in the U.S. who meet certain sets of criteria in terms of their eligibility as a partner.
Those results are usually disheartening on their own. But I haven't dared ask what percentage of those women are actually 'on the market' in any real sense, that is, available such that you might encounter them if your social surface area is reasonably large.
I fear that a relatively chaste/modest, low maintenance woman is also less likely to be out and about and open to meeting people. If you do see them in the real world you'll pass like ships in the night. AI boyfriends might exacerbate this.
I go to restaurants and bars these days and the phenomenon of "woman sitting by herself but dressed up like she wants attention" doesn't seem to be a thing (if it ever was?). You see older adults (in my area, anyway), a few mixed groups, usually one (1) lady's group sitting all together, and a smattering of couples or lone dudes.
More and more young adults living with parents gives a hint here.
Last year I encountered an extremely tragic case of a young lady, cute, petite but pleasantly curvaceous, smart, but her entire life was just working in her parents' business, taking classes, then home to live with her parents, where she played LoL or Overwatch until like 1 a.m.. If she went out it was usually with the same 3 people. Desperately seemed to want a relationship, but didn't know a damn thing about flirting and... get this... at age 25 her mother still controlled her bank account.
I don't think she realized how much of a honking red flag that last bit was, a guy won't want to date a woman whose mother has that much sway over her life at that age. She didn't get out to social events often enough to meet many guys, and wouldn't know how to converse with them if she did. And, alas, she turned my own offer/request for a date down.
She's like 80% of the way to being the complete package for a stable, friendly type of guy, but I daresay she'll hit 30 without a serious relationship under her belt unless she gets out from under Mom's thumb and puts herself out there while avoiding the pitfalls of modern romance.
Or mom makes her put herself out there until she goes out with someone. It happens.
From what I've seen, mom is the source of the problem, wants to control her so she doesn't get into trouble but also wants to be 'best friends' with her.
The habits she's built up are probably quite set now.
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Doesn’t speed dating have a problem with not being able to get enough men?
Not in my local area, distinctly the opposite.
But given the type of woman who signs up for speed dating (read: they aren't getting much attention elsewhere) men may have caught on as to the selection effects at work.
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Isn’t Pilates very female and very attractive for the most part but does not have men showing up?
Does pilates encourage interaction between the participants?
And ask any given woman what she thinks of random straight guys showing up to her pilates class.
My point was it’s not “intentional filtered by gender”. Though there are strong norms against it. Same thing as a girl showing up to a basketball court. Though I am semi-ok with that if they have legitimate game since there are no such thing as an adult female games.
It does kill some male space vibe. And it’s a little weird to play hard against a girl.
As far as I know Pilates does not exclude male participants. But it’s not a thing men have interest in unless maybe your gay.
Men will have interest in it insofar as it can lead to meeting attractive women.
I just think 'you're only doing this to get in my pants' is a reaction women often have when the guy enters the female-oriented space.
Sure. And if you cross a social taboo line without seeming very genuinely interested that’s a reasonable reaction.
I would add it’s very nice having male/female coded spaces. Less of those exists today. I don’t like it when girls join my basketball game. Occasionally it is fine. But if it was 15% female it completely changes male dynamics.
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When I lived in a city, I used to go to yoga 3x a week. The intro classes were generally 60% women, but intermediate/advanced classes could be 10-16 women and 1-2 men.
For the intermediate classes, the other regular guy and I would show up early, BS some, set up our spots, and start doing some warm-ups. A few women would trickle in. 30 seconds before class started, 6-10 women would show up and unroll their mats. The second class ended, they'd roll up their mats and bolt.
Other dude was a married 50something grandfather. I was in a relationship and not looking. I barely talked to anyone besides him. The two of us were hardly putting out predator vibes. Even so, a good half of the women attending class were like frightened gazelles approaching the watering hole. Some had rings on, some didn't, but some without might've been married and just avoiding a ring for comfort during class. Even so, some of them must've been single.
I always wonder just how many of the single ones complained that they couldn't meet anyone, but even in strongly gender-segregated hobby environment, they didn't spend 1 second longer there than they had to.
Yep.
Dance classes/socials at least anticipate that you'll be interacting with the other members, and physically touching them, and getting to show off a skill.
The logic as to why single men would be able to pull attention there is at least sound... if there's a decent gender ratio.
Classes where you just show up, do some work on your own at an instructors behest, then leave without much of a fraternization period might encourage familiarity over the course of time. But that means the guy has to keep showing up, repeatedly, to show he's not just there to pull women, and HOPE that one he finds attractive is open to approach. Not a very active approach angle.
I teach Krav Maga classes at my gym, and when people, especially women, are new they tend to come in two minutes before class, do the class, then bolt, but warm up over time to the social aspect of it. If they don't, they often disappear within a few weeks.
But I've noticed a somewhat unfortunate selection effect where the single ladies who want to take the classes often have sexual assault, stalkers, or similar trauma that compelled them to seek out such training. And they thus have personal issues that make them a little wary of male attention in general.
So ultimately, the sort of event where:
A) Attractive, single women would attend;
B) They're actually actively looking for partners/accept approaches;
C) Aren't damaged goods;
D) Interaction between men and women is encouraged;
and
D) There's a balanced gender ratio.
Just do not seem to exist hardly anywhere, even when people try to intentionally create such spaces.
One's workplace might be good for this but huge risks there.
This one is something of a funny disparity. As an employee at various state government agencies, the hammer of HR has always been hovering, especially with any perceived "power disparity." An attorney dating a legal secretary could expect to be fired if it goes south, even if the attorney wasn't the supervisor. On the other hand, I've seen HR turn a very blind eye to 2 attorneys dating, even when one was the supervisor of the other (until it became so public and such a problem internally that they had to do something). Huge, huge risk for an attorney to date a non-attorney, even if historically that kind of intra-office thing led to marriages.
But small firms? The stories I've heard (from reliable sources) make half of them sound like a continual frat party (especially the ones that are a bunch of solo attorneys or partnerships sharing office space--one I'm very familiar with had a legit "who's the father" freakout among the attorneys with a secretary). This is not all that surprising given the personality types involved, and also that plenty of women get jobs at firms looking for a lawyer husband. You've mentioned being at a small firm, so even if yours is professional, I bet you know of some that aren't (which means you just need to get invited to those holiday parties...).
I have managed to find a balance where I can have a jovial atmosphere around the office, keep morale up by occasionally going out to dinner with staff but otherwise keeping healthy distance such that I don't engage with their personal lives much and definitely don't have text conversations about non work stuff that might lead elsewhere.
That said, since legal assistants tend to either be young women in their early 20's OR older, 50+ ladies, I do see the temptation that arises when you've got a nubile young thing around a bunch of Type A personalities.
I know of at least one attorney who imploded his personal life (not his law practice, funny enough) by getting an assistant pregnant.
We do a Christmas party that involves our other offices every year, and like 5 years back one of the attractive younger assistants got pretty drunk and was hitting on me slyly but openly. The means and opportunity was there, but equal parts concern for my job AND the fact I was still with my ex at the time kept me from acting. In all retrospect, since the assistant left the firm not too long thereafter, and the Ex broke up with me, it probably wouldn't have done much harm in the end. But its the principle of the thing.
It didn't even leave that much impression, since I cannot even remember the assistant's name. Else I might have tried to look her up after the breakup.
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Also a lot of women don't understand how to do the intermediary stages of the dance where they make themselves available but also do some mild shit testing. Or atleast conduct it in a sane way.
I've been involved in multiple conversations with single friends of my wife where they're forlorn over some potential beau not leading hard when they've dropped the handkerchief via liking 2 IG stories and stonewalling DMs. Literally seen women crying over failing to inspire hot pursuit vis texting conduct on their part that, to me if received from an online dating match would have me assume that they're soft dumping me.
Most agentic and emotionally resilient young women.
They’ve more than done their part in deigning to perform the Herculean emotional labor of liking 2 IG stories and stonewalling DMs. Men are supposed to read their minds and know when and how to message them and court jester for them.
Exactly plus it's like... On a scale of 1-10 where 10 is a marriage proposal and 1 is a restraining order I'd have read these messages as a 2.5/10 at best and desisted from further pursuit if I'd been the recipient.
I feel like I'm only successfully married now since my wife is essentially male-brained and met me in the middle in terms of communication
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Yep, separate but related issue. Young women don't know how to flirt, nor how to gracefully reject advances (or reject them in a way that encourages future attempts). I used to think it was just me being autistic, but nah. Often the signal just isn't there.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I've also taken the initiative to push forward whenever I see any positive sign of interest whatsoever and gotten HARD rejected when I finally cross whatever threshold of comfort the woman apparently held in her mind. There's no push-pull. Its just me pushing pushing pushing then an ABRUPT pull away when some arbitrary line is crossed.
Like, I've legitimately heard a woman say that even viewing someone's IG/Snap Stories should be an actual hint, but then you follow up on such things and try to ask to meet up in person and they are suddenly super busy and can't make the time. Because guess what, in person you're expected to use your words and physical touch and you're not 'protected' by a digital barrier of plausible deniability any longer.
Something about the dopamine hit of being desired and getting the other party to express interest being enough stimulation, then the actual stress/tension of actually reciprocating interest seems to snag many of them.
I'm reminded of a platonic female friend of mine who had this like 6 month crush on her boss and was eternally talking about how she wished he'd do all sorts of 50 Shades activities with her.
Then he made one like off-color milquetoast but not like insane joke at the end of a meeting and she instantly icked on him/wanted to take him to HR. A certain part of female sexuality is wanting to be the proverbial dog barking behind a fence who doesn't do anything when let out, but some of the instant 180s I've seen as a third party are jaw dropping.
To what extend would you guess that this ick was motivated by having a crush on him that was unrequited for 6 months? As a third party reading a second-hand text description, it appears to me like cliche-level sour-grapes behavior.
This was like still during the crush, though. If I recall correctly the joke was something like that they were traveling together and there was enough of an age gap that a coworker remarked it'd look like a father and a daughter then he said something to the effect of he'd hope he's in good enough shape that she'd look like a second wife
If anything, that makes the "sour grapes" scenario far more likely.
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Ah, the joke being about her and the age gap makes this more intelligible.
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I can understand changing your opinion on your coworker because he makes an off-color joke, but what I find genuinely hard to understand is the having of a months-long intense sexual crush on your boss and telling your friends you want to do BDSM with him. That's wild.
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This is my diagnosis.
There's a solid number of women who are absolutely down to clown if you get them in the mood. They don't just talk the talk.
But many, MANY of them get engrossed in the fantasy, they read the romantasy books, watch the shows and movies, maybe even watch the porn, and will engage in massive amounts of dirty talk, digitally, but are terrified of having the actual physical interaction. Maybe they dip a toe in and then immediately retreat back to the safe, comfortable world of fiction.
And in some cases, if you end up part of their fantasy world, and then break that fantasy in some way, either from rejecting them, or giving them the ick, or, hell, you actually help them act on the urges but your performance isn't up to snuff (good luck living up to minotaur standards), and they get incandescently angry at you.
Something about the collapsing of the ideal they imagined to the dirtier, lacklustre reality leads to disappointment that manifests as anger.
Its something like accepted knowledge that women get off way more on the mental side of sex whereas men, despite being very visual, really need physical interaction to be completely sated. Hence why strip clubs for women aren't really a thing. And current tech is much more catered towards entertaining the mental aspects of sexuality, whilst keeping the physical at a 'safe' distance. So I'd guess many women now have a completely enclosed, fantasy-centric approach to their pleasure, and the thought of making the jump to realspace is daunting.
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