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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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This discourse gives a lot of "people talking about sex instead of having it" vibes. Even married couples have dry, unenthusiastic sex often. One person is interested, the other isn't. But they'd just do it and be done with it rather than say no and start an argument. Terminally online people who lack the life experience to understand that awkward, iffy, or straight up unsatisfying sexual encounters are a normal, common part of adult life for most people.

The last wave of allegations against Platner purported that he messaged women while being married and used the Kik app, dubbed the "predator paradise". The insinuation was that he may have traded or soilicited child pornography without directly saying something defamatory. It's interesting to see the MeToo language come crawling back and it's the same arguments we've heard before: "women don't lie about such things". Maybe true 20 years ago, but not in the digital age.

But she did say no. Literally, multiple times.

I feel like I’ve fallen into bizarro world. People are bending over backwards to defend this guy, and it’s not even our usual mysogynists.

Ctrl + F "sloot" and "erwgv3g34" getting zero results is the plot twist of the century for this one

I can’t believe we’re on the same page against here and gone on the definition of rape.

To be clear- I believe women, even sexually active women, are perfectly capable of refusing consent, and that verbal statements that they are doing so should be taken at face value.

The story, what we've got so far, sounds much more like "ugh, go away okay just let him get off then he'll go away" than "help, help, I'm being raped, somebody help!"

That she left the front door unlocked after texting him "no, not tonight" is more like "well if he does come over and if he does convince me to do it" than "I'm done for the night, just gonna lie here and scroll on my phone".

Is there any sign Platner did chase underage women? All the ones mentioned so far seem to be adults, is this just more "any stick will do to beat the dog" in order to get rid of the undesirable?

Ok, but this isn't dry, unenthusiastic sex. This is just straight up rape. She told him no and he persisted anyway. That's the central example of rape. The only issue is whether she is telling the truth and I'm inclined to believe her absent any convincing argument otherwise.

I'll reply to you and @hydroacetylene here.

The "no" sounds more like reluctance and unenthusiasm leading to (as @HereAndGone2 puts it) "ugh, go away okay just let him get off then he'll go away". Yes, a sober enthusiastic "yes" (implied or explicitly stated) is the best marker for consent, and no-means-no is a reliable metric for SA. But it's fuzzy and not 100% perfect, awkward sexual encounters and "I said no/I was drunk but we fucked anyway" seemed to be the recurring theme of many MeToo stories. Technically could qualify as rape, but this depends entirely on what this person was feeling at the time.

Well, we allegedly got "She texted him that she needed her ass massaged but we kept that out of the story", so yeah: "And it was a night where him and I were texting back and forth and he had taken something that I said as as an invitation and that's not how I meant it."

Before publication, a Politico reporter told the Platner campaign that Jenny Racicot, on the night in question, had been “texting [Platner] about needing her glute massaged.” The reporter added, “That detail didn’t make our story.”

Blurred lines, indeed.

Her: "Man, my lower half hurts after I did something strenuous. I could use a glute massage!"

Him: "Literal booty call, I'll be there in a jiffy!"

If she gave consent over text, then he drove there and she said no, it’s still rape. Acceptable recourse for being led on was to (for example) break up with her.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills- be entered her house uninvited and forced himself on her while she was saying no multiple times. In what universe is that ‘unenthusiasm’ rather than ‘actual rape’? Literally, what would qualify as rape to the people defending this behavior as ‘eh, hookup culture gets messy’?