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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16992 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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He could have also chosen to to warn women against certain behaviors. "If your man is violent, get out before it escalates" is a complete sentence with a clear call to action that fits neatly into a soundbite. If he really wanted to help women, he should have spoken of specific character traits (violence or addiction for example) that they should stay away from.

I suggest we unpack this wider issue from a culture war perspective.

In the context of the mating market and sexual politics, we often see advice getting handed out to women, especially young single women, usually by men and women that are at least ambiguous towards feminist theories, pieces of advice that are rather similar and claim to help women form happy romantic relationships:

Avoid dangerous and violent men

Don’t fall for bad boys

Don’t go clubbing in skimpy clothes late at night while getting drunk

Don’t hook up men who were not vetted by people that you trust from your social circle

Preferably avoid one-night stands completely

Dress modestly during the day and act ladylike

Smile a lot and be pleasant instead of being a standoffish cunt

Present yourself as available and show indicators of interest if you’re looking for a man

Give clear signals to men whom you’re willing to accept

And so on.

You might notice that such advice is usually met with sneering and disdain by feminist or feminist-adjacent, Blue Tribe (in other words, mainstream) middle-class single women. The simple reason is that the message that is actually coming across to them when they hear this stuff is roughly this:

Withdraw yourself from the sexual competition for the attention of the top men. Don’t even try. Don’t copy the antics of your feminist sassy riot grrrl girlfriends. In fact, don’t interact with them socially. Settle for an average boring chopped man instead and service him sexually instead. Do the sort of things with him that he likes watching on porn sites. Put up with all his icky antics. Give a chance to that icky programmer dude that keeps stalking you at the office. When rejecting a man, do it gracefully even if he’s icky as fuck.

All this stuff is just extremely revolting and nauseating to a modern woman. And I think this police chief guy knows it. This is the explanation.

But the advice he did give was "avoid relationships entirely". Surely this is worse in every way you highlight. You can go to the club, have casual sex, and dress in skimpy clothing while also avoiding relationships with men that are violent or addicts. You cannot do these things and not have relationships with men at all.

You cannot do these things and not have relationships with men at all.

Sure you can. The obvious zinger is that you can have relationships with women instead (though as mentioned elsewhere in the thread this is, of course, no guarantee of an abuse-free relationship). But also, you can dress skimpily and go clubbing for you own enjoyment with no intention of pursuing sexual or romantic relationships of any kind. For one thing, there are certainly people who enjoy dancing and getting hammered in a crowd - going to the club is, in fact, meant to be an enjoyable experience in itself, not some cumbersome prerequisite protocol for finding a mate.

(As for the skimpy clothing, setting aside the possibility that they just feel more comfortable with more skin showing - and we cannot underestimate that; naturist camps are attractive to non-swingers! - there are also people who enjoy feeling like a center of attention in a crowd, but don't particularly want that diffuse attention to translate into one-on-one flirtation.)

Naturally doing all those things increases one's odds of being sexually assaulted by strangers. But Peglow's whole point was that this effect is less than you'd think, and the bigger abuse risks are in established relationships. So the takeaway can actually be "what you've been told is backwards: you're more likely to be abused if you go steady with a boy than if you party without settling down". It's a bold point but a perfectly coherent one, and it's certainly not isomorphic to conservative sexual mores.

going to the club is, in fact, meant to be an enjoyable experience in itself, not some cumbersome prerequisite protocol for finding a mate.

I think this is a folk etymology. Dances as rituals for finding mates are one of the oldest human institutions, to the point that they aren't even peculiar to humans.

I'm not claiming that dancing doesn't or shouldn't act as a mating ritual. I'm saying that dancing is supposed to be fun in and of itself, to the extent that some people do it for its own sake - not a chore you need to slog through to get to the good bit. (Compare: sex, procreation.)

But the advice he did give was "avoid relationships entirely".

What else is he supposed to say in the political environment he's in? You mentioned that he made this comment on the issue of rising rates of sexual assault on women. Obviously he was expected to at least say something.

I did suggest some other ways of phrasing it, and outlined why I think the way he said it does more harm than good. If you are correct that women will twist your words from "Avoid dangerous and violent men" to "be a good domestic housewife and serve your man that you don't really like" then I honestly don't know what to say. At that point you are literally making up words and putting them in my mouth.

What else is he supposed to say in the political environment he's in?

I think that he should either give actual advice that can help women (traits to stay away from) or at least avoid causing undue worry through his phrasing. "Call the police when you are in trouble" would have also been useless, but it would have sufficed as a politically neutral and non-inflammatory response.

Because too many of them will accept continued abuse before they will ever accept accountability. "I shouldn't have any obligation to reflect on harm reduction, because people shouldn't behave this way." This is symptom of what I call "living in the should be universe." Regardless of what should be the case that's the way that things are. And if you deal with the way things are, you'll often find that life becomes much more navigable and leads to better overall outcomes rather than walking into situations expecting everything to conform to your idealized picture of the world.

These are problems with people's value systems. A psychopath on one hand is somewhat more forgivable for this hideous acts only on the grounds that they're quite literally mentally deficient people who need professional management. Someone who abuses and manipulates others because they are selfish and were trained to think all their lives that it's simply "okay" to treat people this way are far worse people.

If you are correct that women will twist your words from "Avoid dangerous and violent men" to "be a good domestic housewife and serve your man that you don't really like" then I honestly don't know what to say

I think there is a real risk that "avoid dangerous and violent men" will be twisted to "if a woman is a victim of domestic violence, it's her fault because she made a bad choice." Feminists LOVE to scream about victim-blaming.

I'll never get people who are always permanently adamant and obstinate when it comes to accepting blame for anything and yet can turn around and declare like a harp that you "hold the other party accountable" for days on end without a trace of irony. You can't have accountability without blame. Those things are two sides of the same coin. Physical abuse is never justifiable but that doesn't mean you aren't an idiot if you choose not to leave. How many of these people have you met that live by the same code they decry having their own feet held to the fire over?:

  1. If a man cheats in a relationship he's an asshole.
  2. If a woman cheats in a relationship, he's an asshole.

The cheater will almost always consider themselves justified if they can't spin themselves as a victim. In both cases, it's because the person was lacking in character and should be held accountable for their own choices and actions. But this is about how socially it is perceived more often than not. A lot of people rightfully can blame a man for cheating on a woman, no matter how good or bad things are in their relationship. But when women cheat, it's far more common to feel sense of questioning and empathy regarding the actions of their partner; it's often seen as understandable because he was lacking in some ways. "He was driven to cheat because he can't control himself." "She was driven to cheat... By him."

I'm guessing you're familiar with the phenomenon that were the so-called Slut Walks and what started them? This police chief is probably aware and wanted to avoid the same fate.

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