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 -
How is talking to your daughter going to reduce the number of potential perpetrators? Or are you talking about a different kind of action you are simultaneously undertaking to affect wider society? If you believe that a more comprehensive 'consent maximalist' approach is needed on a societal level, do you also simultaneously advocate for the mass importation of men from countries notorious for a comparatively more 'laisser-faire approach to consent', so to speak? 'Bad hombres' as one quite laisser-faire man himself put it.
Do you also teach your children that the most important consideration while crossing the street is whether or not the light says they are owed the right-of-way, and not whether or not the fast-travelling vehicles actually stop?
Given the fallout of the #MeToo movement in the past few years, is it not questionable whether the most vocal proponents of a maximalist approach to consent are not also themselves prone to consent infractions?
It seems likely to me that the people who need to come up with complicated rules around intoxication and consent in the first place probably are involved in higher-than-average 'complicated' sexual situations that may or may not have to involve a judge at some point.
Isn't that the crux of the matter? If her being intoxicated invalidates her 'enthusiastic consent', his being intoxicated also invalidates his own 'enthusiastic consent' to the rape, he is being falsely accused of what he did not consciously engage in.
Similarly for killing a family while drunk driving. Somehow the important factor is not whether or not the booze cruiser purposefully plowed into the minivan, but that they decided to get drunk in the first place.
In my humble opinion, it should be illegal to serve young women alcohol, as they may unknowingly be carrying a child, to spare potential fetal alcohol syndrome.
If
Well, for one thing, if her date tries to force himself on her using one of the aforementioned excuses, he is less likely to gain her acquiescence and more likely to end up with a face full of pepper spray, a kick to the nadgers, and/or a court summons.
Yes. I am referring to the arcane art known as 'teaching my sons that a woman is entitled a veto over her nether regions, and cannot forfeit it by inchastity.'
I reject the framing of 'importation'. Immigrants are human beings with agency, who choose to relocate; they are not widgets brought in by the container-load.
However, I am in favour of (1.) more efforts to educate immigrants from such countries that women in the West have the right to say no themselves, without the involvement of a husband or a male relative, and that a woman not being under the control of a man does not make her a public accommodation, and (2.) prosecuting brown rapists to the same degree as white rapists.
No, but I would teach them that a driver who runs over a pedestrian does not become less liable because the pedestrian assumed that they would adhere to the traffic laws.
They are certainly not immune to such, but someone who publicly avers that, if a woman does XYZ, he is entitled to coitus with her regardless of her preferences, and to take it forcibly if she does not agree, is probably (1.) more dangerous, and (2.) not someone I want raising children.
Perhaps there was a mis-communication on my part. I am not at this time addressing the cases in which Alice and Bob were both drunk, did the dance with no pants, and Alice or Carol accuses Bob the next morning of rape. I am referring to the simpler case in which Alice does not want to be intimate with Bob, makes this quite clear to him, and he forces himself on her anyway. In that case, Bob is guilty of rape, and his guilt is not lessened one iota because Alice was three sheets to the wind.
And if they don't, what stops Alice from channeling Lorena Bobbitt?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link