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I'm glad we can say the quiet part out loud now. I'll go further, I'm much more petty and partisan about this. I'm inclined to defend what the wokes outrage against. I'd be perfectly fine with conservatives censoring homosexuality in television. Wokes rail against male gaze on principle. But they are perfectly capable of arresting the slippery slope short of censoring female gaze/gay oriented media. I don’t want to cede the rhetorical terrain or adopt their framework. Even when they latch onto real issues, like domestic violence or sexual assault, I’m deeply suspicious of letting them set the terms. Their track record shows they weaponise these issues as cudgels against outgroups. If someone is especially invested in race riots and sexual violence, more often than not, you'd be right to suspect their real priority is narrative control and status enforcement against whites and men. I think they're perfectly aware of this too, wokes rarely let you discuss men's issues without extracting ritual deference to feminism first. And why they breathlessly defended Amber Heard, because even if they can intellectually acknowledge the veracity of the verdictv, "women never lie about DV/SA" is just a flag to be defended at all costs.
And that principle is (apparently) men are sh*tty and must be punished and humiliated.
So yeah, to borrow from the Wokies' rhetoric, making concessions to them is like making concessions to Nazis.
The censorship problem is "how far do we go, or where do we draw the limit?" Even for the anti-censorship side, there's the problem of "some stuff is so beyond the pale that everyone agrees it should not be permitted", but where do you draw the line? People like to mock the judge who said "I know obscenity when I see it" but when you try to draw up rules, it's very difficult.
"Okay, we have to tolerate some stuff even if we don't like it ourselves". Sure, I agree. But sooner or later we land in the quagmire of "This is degenerate trash, do I have to defend this?" and maybe the answer is "yes, because the same rights apply to everyone, even the horrible people".
But then we sink deeper into the quagmire, because look at human nature. "It's only a drawing, it's only fiction, it's only AI-generated imagery of vore or guro or whatever" may be tolerated, but it won't stop there. "Why is it okay if it's a drawing but not a photo?" becomes "Why is it okay if it's AI-generated photo but not a real photo?"
It's about harm? It's about consent? It's okay, the legal age of consent in this country is twelve, so nothing illegal was done. The kid consented! (Their poor family sold them* to the abuser for a couple of thousand in local currency). The guy agreed I could eat his corpse!
I have no faith in shining human nature or at hard limits holding forever. What was formerly considered unthinkable perversion has now become accepted commonplace normality - look at blow jobs, for instance. What makes us think that in a future period, some form of paedophilia (true paedophilia, not "she was seventeen and three-quarters") won't become acceptable? "Oh well twelve year olds are mature enough nowadays to make up their own minds if they want to fuck a forty year old man or woman. After all, in ancient times, twelve year old girls were legal marriage age in Rome, but never will we give in on six year olds!"
And even twelve is not true paedophilia by strict definition, since that is puberty and true paedophilia is pre-pubertal. So "twelve is fine, ten is not" is the new hard limit, but wait a little longer and that limit, too, will soften.
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I agree, but note this also involves many conservatives: I'm suspicious of anyone too passionate about censorship.
And the arguments for even mild censorship are weak. For example, censoring hardcore porn may slightly reduce domestic violence, but I'd prefer ways that don't restrict stable men, because there are downsides (even to men who don't prefer hardcore porn, as explained in GP). I'm sure everyone has some interest or characteristic (e.g. stereotype) that, if restricted, would reduce some kind of harm; so fairly implementing every restriction "for the greater good" restricts everyone, a nanny-state dystopia.
I disagree. Cable is dying, so television amounts to YouTube, Netflix, and every alternative; the power to censor anything more than realistic CSAM and government secrets from all of these would surely be abused (already DMCA is abused by false takedowns). And it may seem like a small consolation, but I'm sure there's some quality in gay porn that inspires better straight media; for example, a wholesome display of gay affection may be reused in a wholesome display of platonic or heterosexual romantic affection.
Furthermore, nobody can deny that objectively gayness exists. Related, I object to completely censoring homosexuality from children any more than heterosexuality: that means at minimum, they should be told in sex-ed that it exists and it's normal for some people to feel it. Because like it or not, some people are intrinsically gay, and trying to hide gayness from them invariably ends up hurting everyone involved: see those who come out in the most repressive communities, knowing their formerly-generous family will now try to kill them, uplifting and threatening their entire life, just to have consensual sex with another adult (or similarly-aged teenager under Romeo and Juliet morality).
However, I strongly believe that, to a reasonable extent, people should have the right not to see and hear media they don't like, and children should be barred from inappropriate (including sexual) media as much as possible without compromising privacy. This means that (E: children only if it’s too sexual for their age, same as hetero) and adults who don't want to be exposed to homosexuality must endure sex-ed and plain "gay XYZ" advertisements, but beyond that, should have technology to block it, and a distributor intentionally circumventing this technology should be illegal. Offline, when mutual coexistence is impossible, laws and government should seek separation: for example, a gay culture growing in a deeply Christian community should (as it naturally will) be coerced to relocate if there's anywhere else (and vice versa). Likewise, graphic violence, porn, etc. should be allowed, but only distributed to those who present themselves as of-age and actively seeking it.
What does this accomplish? If they're gay, they'll figure it out, as gay people have been figuring out for all of history. They don't need to be told. Especially in 2026.
The political cost of this immense, as it pisses of conservatives, and it accomplishes nothing.
This is net downvoted (not by me) but I think you make a good point
Yes, needlessly pissing off conservatives for zero benefit is a favourite pastime of the modern LGBT movement. See also: drag queen story hour. I would also add trans people in prisons and sports, though those are more a case of benefits existing but not outweighing the costs, as opposed to drag queen story hour and your proposed discussion of homosexuality in sex ed, where the benefits are not close, but exactly equal to, zero.
The downvotes may be from people who want conservatives to be pissed off because it makes it easier for them to win. An LGBT movement that picks its battles better would certainly accomplish more.
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I'll admit I'm being petty here, and I wouldn't have taken this stance 10 years ago. But the current censorship regime is not neutral. Wokes have spent years freely injecting female and gay-oriented content everywhere while selectively pozzing traditionally straight male spaces. Any potential abuse would likely continue flowing in the same direction.
I'll agree to disagree on education, though if my kid came out as gay I’d probably accept it simply because there aren’t better alternatives. I’m not religious, but I still dislike LGBT while acknowledging the underlying reality that they cannot change who they are. If reliable prenatal testing existed that could detect it, I would abort.
My main contention is that straight male oriented media should be completely off-zone for any kind of woke-washing. This means blockbuster films and AAA video games should be allowed to exclusively pander to straight men without any concessions to women or LGBT. And if this happens through the way of censorship, I wouldn't complain. Consider the backlash ShiftUp faced in Korea because Nikke featured an artwork where the placement of a female's hand somewhat resembled the small penis gesture. Objectively, it's such a ridiculous reach and you can't see it even if you squint extra hard. But as a partisan, I'm happy to see a company signal boosting against misandry after 10 years of unabashed anti-male messaging in western culture.
Agreed
Acceptable
I don't think it really will, and it will have a slight opposite effect: the people pushing censorship don't care about free expression and vice versa, so if you censor their side, they will only escalate. I would gladly accept a truce where every art I like is allowed and every art I dislike is also allowed, but I already don't care about the latter. The people who care enough about offensive art to implement censorship, if they have any logic to their thinking, know it will be used against their art; they choose censorship over expression.
I acknowledge, one way censorship does reduce other censorship, is by getting bystanders to notice it used against the other side (which they already don't see), when it's used against their side, so they push back on all of it. So, maybe.
But I think promoting expression is better: you can alternatively (or both, but you only have finite resources) get bystanders to notice by creating media they like that the censors (whose tolerance is always lower than the bystanders') will target. And that has the intrinsic benefit of creating good art, and doesn't have the drawback of enraging the censors (as much) or creating censorship infrastructure (which makes it easier for anyone to censor).
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I largely agree. But, devil's advocate: adding a romance subplot to an otherwise male-centric IP is (was?) a common way to appeal to women (e.g. Han/Leia in Star Wars). Allowed?
Well, it overlaps with Hero gets the Girl (even if THE hero is Luke) part of the male fantasy of growing into status and responsibility. But if you want the female romcom audience to show up, it'll have to be "soap drama wearing Star Wars skinsuit", like Superman & Lois.
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My understanding is that this relates to a Korea-specific moral panic over penis length, rather than being applicable to gender politics more generally. The other key difference with Korea is that the sex (not gender) wars being actively fought on both sides is comfortably inside the Overton window.
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