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 -
Ha, fair enough.
But typically the "demisexual is just normal sexual functioning" arguments are applying to women, specifically. Which is true in some ways, not true in others. I'm not inside the heads of these folks, but there's very much a difference between "sexual desire for a person" and "active willingness to have sexual contact with a person", and I understand that demisexuals claim that both of these come after familiarity. Which for me, is true for some people and not so true for others.
It's very true that many people who talk about sex a lot are also people who don't have so much of it, or have a normal amount with a normal number of partners. I know people who are... prolific, but not promiscuous. Perhaps I'm starting to grok the demisexual thing.
But I also grok where Mr. Meow is coming from here, I could see making out with someone... fairly early in getting to know them, but sex is something to build up to.
Also, wow. "I know your body's a work in progress, but one day you can look like this" is a pretty hilarious thing to tell someone you're trying to have sex with. Hard to wrap my head around what that guy was thinking with it. Is this a "Look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power" negging move? Get the guy to feel insecure? I mean, it seems to kind of work on him...
The "hey, want to play games on discord?" as a bonding mechanism is definitely true-to-form here. A bargain-basement level of rizz pointed at a picky guy is pretty funny.
More options
Context Copy link