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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026

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What do you think of male-female dating dynamics relative to the culture war? I have a lot of thoughts on this but ultimately think the people worth pursuing are not crossing people off their list because they don’t believe in X or Y.

But it might be beyond your control. As an American, I remember swiping on tinder in London and seeing ‘Do not swipe if you are Republican’ but they replaced the word with something called the Tories. Clearly some people will only date people that share the same ideology. Which is fair if you want someone to nod along to whatever you say, I guess.

It gets tricky when you outright pretend to believe things you don’t. It’s not courageous or respectable. Not apologizing for what you believe is paramount to gaining the respect of your partner. Obviously, when I say this, I’m really talking about relatively conservative men dating liberal women. And honestly, except for far left people like Hasan piker that glorify violent revolution in such a way that they do a 360 and put off conservative ethos, I do think men women find attractive aren’t the male feminist, Bernie bro type. It’s almost like a yin and yang thing where you want some tension with your ideals.

Unlike religion, I really don’t see a need to agree with my SO on much of anything (odd to me that JD Vance and Usha married despite this). It’s sad to think that, on the spectrum of ‘not scaring the hoes’ political ideology, you could have a good thing with someone, say the wrong thing, and lose a relationship because of it.

Only thinking this because I’m coming to terms that I don’t necc need to date a based woman who appreciates old Sam Hyde stuff and edgy right wing leaning online happenings. I’d rather not select for political belief, find someone that will lightly argue with me, and has no interest in that stuff. Likewise, I’ll voice my opinion to her but not make fun of her for being on bluesky or whatever

No woman is going to turn up her nose at a man for having different political opinions from her, provided he ticks enough of her other boxes. If a woman says "I matched with this guy on Tinder, but when I found out he was MAGA I ghosted him" – I mean, yes, that's the sequence in which those events transpired. But you didn't ghost him because he was MAGA: you ghosted him because you didn't find him attractive enough (not just physically, but also in terms of charm, sense of humour, financial viability etc.). Claiming that she rejected him for his political opinions is just social desirability bias: she would have been more than willing to overlook the exact same opinions if expressed by a more attractive man.

It may sound like I'm calling women shallow, but I'm really not. Men generally don't pretend to put a big premium on political compatibility with their romantic partner: the social desirability bias in men's case comes from attempting to downplay how important youth and physical attractiveness are to them. Plenty of men will claim not to care about looks and to just want to find a nice, normal, down-to-earth girl they can hang out with, but in practice will put up with a great deal of crazy behaviour from their romantic partner, provided she's young and hot enough.

No woman is going to turn up her nose at a man for having different political opinions from her, provided he ticks enough of her other boxes.

This seem almost unfalsifiable. I might as well say

No company will ever fire someone for being direct and outspoken, provided he is good enough at his job.

Partners and employees are package deals, and rational actors such as woman or companies often evaluate them using scores. Unfavorable traits like excessive outspokenness or an incompatible political foundation can certainly lower your score to the point where they decide that they can do better than you.

And political opinions covers a lot of territory from 'I voted for Trump' to 'I support the establishment of a Caliphate' or 'I am notorious for calling on twitter for the gassing of $outgroup'. If you are a famous and rich Hollywood actor, the median single woman is probably not going to file for divorce if she learns that you voted for Trump. If you are some rockstar programmer, a company might well decide that they will put up with your obnoxious behavior to a degree they would never tolerate from other employees. I am sure that a disfigured billionaire would be able to find a perfect wife who is willing to overlook his unfortunate appearance and see his lovable character instead, but that does not mean that looks don't matter.

This seem almost unfalsifiable. I might as well say

No company will ever fire someone for being direct and outspoken, provided he is good enough at his job.

That just seems straightforwardly true to me. If you add enough value to a company, you can get away with being direct and outspoken (and a great deal worse). That's just a true factual statement.

By the same token, you'll sometimes see girls with lines in their Tinder bio like "if you're a Tory, swipe left" or whatever. But in terms of revealed preferences, I think the number of women who would refuse to date a man whom they otherwise found highly attractive solely because he held conservative opinions is vanishingly small.

I think this depends on the woman's social circle and what kind of behavior "conservative opinions" entail. If you have enough queer friends then you just can't be in a long-lasting relationship with someone with anti-LGBT views, for example - something's got to give.

True – and I suspect the population of heterosexual women who would be more than willing to cast aside their assorted gay best friends for the sake of a committed relationship with a smart man with a lucrative profession would be significantly higher than you might think, and certainly higher than one would naïvely expect based on how many women put "swipe left if you're a Tory" or similar in their tinder bios.

Granted, and I think many more still might just make a doomed attempt to make everyone get along, one big family Thanksgiving dinner that never ends. My point is just that a liberal woman having a rule against dating conservative men isn't necessarily purely about personal preferences/purity standards; it can be a practical matter on a level with "I have three cats, swipe left if you're allergic".

Oh sure, I don't doubt that's true in some cases. But in my personal experience, back when I was active on Tinder, the girls I saw with "swipe left if you're a Tory" in their bios weren't limited to the alt girls with dyed fringes and piercings (who one might reasonably expect to have a significant number of gay or lesbian friends in their social circle), but also included plenty of girls who looked like, for lack of a better term, Stacies, and who I would strongly suspect had no close gay or lesbian friends. Frankly, some of them looked like the kind of straight girls who would be loath to invite a lesbian friend on a girls' trip, out of fear that the lesbian would try to get in their pants.