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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 25, 2026

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Yeah, but what do you want from me? You asked for topwits and got a topwit.

My bad, it would have been more useful to ask for your understanding of the bottommost topwit or thereabouts.

I'm not sure that she still does escorting? In any case, socializing is basically your job as a public figure and helps feed the fame flywheel.

Sure, but it does not help the "good poasting" flywheel, and I assumed that any assessment of her wits is based on her textual output rather than her life as a Gesamtkunstwerk.

What is so well researched or interesting about her takes? Asking her Twitter followers about something is, I suppose, research, but I don't know it's particularly good.

The data analysis and visualisation, ideas for things to ask, and thoroughness in constructing the questions. I have not seen things like that fetish tabooness/preference by gender/popularity chart anywhere else outside of 4chan, and 4chan is many orders of magnitude more sloppy about it.

I think this is certainly true. I am not sure that conflating "agency" with intelligence is correct.

I would think of agency as at least strongly correlated with some component of intelligence (frontal lobe stuff?), and I say that as someone with very subpar levels of agency.

I think the real just world fantasy is to believe that nobody who is a midwit can attain fame and success.

Both can be just-world fantasies.

Ironically it seems to me that you are the one posting a weak knee jerk criticism here since I'm none of those things and didn't say anything about whether I find her attractive or not.

Fair point on the latter, but I thought it was fair to put you in the "assorted trad" box given your general right-wing alignment (you get that stamp based on memory, but it's not hard to find posts that give it away in your history) and the somewhat gratuitous use of "prostitute" (Escorts are between not covered by the definition and non-central examples in modern usage, so insisting on the world seems to be meant to convey condemnation).

The data analysis and visualisation, ideas for things to ask, and thoroughness in constructing the questions. I have not seen things like that fetish tabooness/preference by gender/popularity chart anywhere else outside of 4chan, and 4chan is many orders of magnitude more sloppy about it.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point, since I don't think I can convince you that the fetishes of Aella followers graphed isn't in fact interesting or quality. De gustibus non dispuntandum est.

Fair point on the latter, but I thought it was fair to put you in the "assorted trad" box given your general right-wing alignment (you get that stamp based on memory, but it's not hard to find posts that give it away in your history)

I probably pass for "right aligned" in, like, San Francisco, but I'm a little baffled to get that label on this forum.

and the somewhat gratuitous use of "prostitute" (Escorts are between not covered by the definition and non-central examples in modern usage, so insisting on the world seems to be meant to convey condemnation).

Sorry, but the definition of a prostitute is:

a person who engages in sex acts and especially sexual intercourse in exchange for pay

Which certainly covers Aella. The goal was not to convey condemnation, it was to describe how she made her money.

I was under the impression that it's a clinical and neutral label for the world's oldest profession, but M-W helpfully points out that I haven't gotten the latest firmware update:

The terms sex worker and sex work are now preferred to prostitute and prostitution, which are increasingly rejected as offensive.

I'll continue to resist this hyperstitous slur cascade a while longer though.

I probably pass for "right aligned" in, like, San Francisco, but I'm a little baffled to get that label on this forum.

I see you use "pozzed" in a post on page 2 of your profile. I consider unironic use to be an unambiguous right-wing cultural marker. (Doesn't it come from right-wing COVID vaccine opposition, which if anything is significantly more right relative to the distribution of (>=mid)wit rightwingers than it is relative to the US right wing as a whole?)

prostitute or not

I have not actually read her CV or anything, but since people referred to her as an escort I thought she primarily sold companionship/romance (not a sex act). She may also have worked as a camgirl (since I remember seeing posts about camgirling), which I would also not group with prostitutes (as long as you can't lose your virginity over a video feed, nothing you can do over one counts as sex, as far as I'm concerned; therefore camgirling is not a sex act). I have no issue with the term "prostitute" for people who take money for performing sex acts, especially if sex acts are the main component of what money is being taken for ("I hang out with you all day and at one point we have sex" feels borderline).

I see you use "pozzed" in a post on page 2 of your profile. I consider unironic use to be an unambiguous right-wing cultural marker.

If you consider this an "unironic usage", I'm gonna take your media literacy license away.

I have not actually read her CV or anything, but since people referred to her as an escort I thought she primarily sold companionship/romance (not a sex act).

This is a bizarre debate. Aella (and her ex boyfriend) refers to herself as a "whore," which is a synonym of, and a significantly coarser word for, "prostitute". Perhaps you are under the impression that performing sex acts in exchange for currency is not the salient part of escorting, and that men would pay almost as much if there were no sex acts involved. I have my doubts but I admit I haven't studied the market for johns too closely. In any case - please take up the validity of "prostitute" as a label for her profession with her first. I will take her word for it.

I may also have worked as a camgirl (since I remember seeing posts about camgirling), which I would also not group with prostitutes (as long as you can't lose your virginity over a video feed, nothing you can do over one counts as sex, as far as I'm concerned; therefore camgirling is not a sex act).

It's pretty obvious that not every sex act results in loss of virginity, and that's exactly why M-W, in its infinite wisdom, draws a distinction between sex acts and intercourse. Unless, of course, you believe that handjobs involve loss of virginity or are not a sex act.