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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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But most people who criticize Clav don't criticize him for trying to become better looking, they criticize him for encouraging men to do dangerous things like using a cocktail of powerful drugs to improve their looks and lower their social anxiety and to hit themselves in the face with a hammer (which is not actually particularly dangerous I think, since the hammer in question is more like a rubber mallet, but the critics don't know that because they don't bother to actually read a lot about looksmaxxing).

The majority of women's looksmaxxing attempts do not extend to the kind of dangerous practices that Clav encourages men to do. Even most cosmetic surgery, when done by actual doctors, might be less dangerous than Clav's drug habits, although of course all surgery carries some risk of severe injury.

The majority of women's looksmaxxing attempts do not extend to the kind of dangerous practices that Clav encourages men to do.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Anorexia Nervosa is often brought up as a result of body dysphoria and mostly impacts women.

A lady in my local area got arrested and made international headlines for Injecting fix-a-flat into womens' buttocks 15 years ago.

The popular "Brazillian Butt Lift" procedure can lead to literal fat necrosis and associated smell. In fact, in searching up that article I just learned that they're allegedly one of the most dangerous procedures around, death rates around 1 in 4000 or worse????

Probably an honorable mention about tanning beds and skin cancer.

There was in fact a recent, award winning horror film about the implications of womens' constant drive for maintaining beauty. The titular substance is in fact a dangerous drug.

But if you want max irony, the 'Body Positivity/fat acceptance' trend, which results from the insistence that you can be beautiful at any size (but only if you're a woman) has seen quite a number of its top advocates die while arguing against the need to pursue standard beauty practices. So in a way, failure to push women to pursue beauty is also getting them killed.

Steroid and other drug use has been offing bodybuilders for decades now (RIP Zyzz), so its a bit hard for me to see Clavicular's regimen as anything but a tiny iteration off pre-existing practices, and ironically probably more practical for the average guy.

You're not describing practices that anyone is condoning.

But most people who criticize Clav don't criticize him for trying to become better looking

They are, even if they try to find excuses otherwise, as his objective for becoming better looking was explicitly for the goal of attaining women’s attraction, thus implying women’s preferences might be less than perfectly Wonderful. “Looksmaxxing,” the (supposed) movement being seethed about, literally begins with “looks.”

they criticize him for encouraging men to do dangerous things like using a cocktail of powerful drugs to improve their looks

The notion that steroids help you be simultaneously thin and muscular and that stimulants help you be thin was not some magical discovery Ser Braden stumbled upon in the mid-202Xs. Few, if anyone, however, have become so well-known for packaging the two together so explicitly for garnering female attraction.

Many predecessors have discussed steroids and/or stimulants for more nebulous goals such as bodybuilding and sports performance enhancement, but less explicitly in packaging the two together for attracting women. Which goes back to the looks-for-women part. Braden was not supposed to say the quiet part out loud.

lower their social anxiety

Considering how many more women than men are on drugs related to mental disorders, this should be a nothingburger to the extent men look for solutions to mitigate social anxiety. Come to think of it, considering how many girls and women are on hormonal birth control (only for helping with acne and cramps, of course), men leveraging hormone-altering supplementation shouldn’t be a big deal either.

The majority of women's looksmaxxing attempts do not extend to the kind of dangerous practices that Clav encourages men to do.

The encouraged “danger[]” is far overblown. Steroid-use, as practiced by normal gym bros (as opposed to hardcore bodybuilders wanting to be stage-ready) is not that big of a deal at all. At least according to his Wikipedia page, Peters readily admits to a possible linkage between adolescent-steroid usage and infertility, of which his audience is likely aware. I imagine he has expressed similar caveats to his viewers with regard to stimulant use. And like you said, the bone-smashing (more like tapping) probably isn’t doing much of anything good or bad.