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 -
This is a fun kink, but I'm going to caution again that it's very far from universal. There's no small number of people who need that pressure to perform removed to get or stay aroused such that they can top, and a far larger number who don't need it but still like it. And even for explicit power play, there's a lot of fun in a struggle between near-equals, or 'besting' someone and 'forcing' them through pleasure.
Conversely, rounding dominance or submission to height or build (or, uh, for an example you might enjoy, size (cw: nsfw, extremely gay, if you're logged into furaffinity) alone can be dangerous or misleading.
And, bluntly, about the point where rimming enters the scene and makes one of the very rare good arguments in favor of dental dams, 'perversion of nature' is less a problem and more a goal.
I'll caution that dog breeds had much more aggressive selection pressures (and, even less pleasantly, genetic trees that sometimes didn't even branch).
To the extent they exist (the original version of Beauty and the Beast, maybe? The Frog Prince?), it's also worth recognizing that these were cautioning about invaders at a time people from less than a hundred miles away could be foreigners.
Uh... tmi and probably not something you want to hear about, but: woman who wants to topcan pick whatever size and shape of dick (or dicks) she wants, and never goes soft or demands a condom, and in the unlikely situation she comes before you do, can keep going. There's some disadvantage when it comes to muscle stamina -- cis women don't have the advantage when it comes to thrusting unless they've picked up some very esoteric workout habits -- but it's a lot less likely to be the critical factor than you'd expect. Naturally dominant women aren't common, but if they get a good match there's a lot of ways that can be fun.
And for men who are sexually submissive, there's not really a 'true desire to dominate' under things. I'm sure there's 'submissive' men who really want to be on top but have sublimated it, but there's other people for whom it's an obligation. Subbing means letting that responsibility go, or never having to worry that you're pressuring someone, or that your decision might be the wrong one and no one would tell you.
At the risk of doing some mind-reading? Does Brad happen to have been raised in the UK or western Europe? Because the differences in how people framed 'asian' between the two continents might explain more than a masc bottom having competition, not least of all given 'size' hangups American tops have about sexual partners that they'd never want to 'use' that size.
Uh... can't dispute taste, but even ignoring the murder bit, that's really not high on my list. Not a bad body, but I've seen better faces on Corbin Fisher models. Almost all of them. I guess if you're associating jarheads with masculinity? But I've seen too many of them with their guards down, and Rudy Reyes of Generation Kill would turn every single one of them inside out.
It's a little funnier if you're taller and stronger, and you're still unflinchingly polite and responsive to other men. But that does still result in a situation that won't match your expectations. ((Though I'll caveat I've fucked with my head pretty badly to get to that point; I understand that most guys can't and won't do that.))
I'd caution against reading it as a single universal drive. There's definitely a thing some straight guys in progressive spaces do to performatively show themselves as 'a supporting ally' that's definitely not actual submission or even genuine nonchalance about homosexuality. But there's also some straight guys that see openly gay men as a space they can be more emotionally open without a fear of either being seen as cheating (if they were doing it with a woman) or a consent violation (were they doing it with straight men). And then there's some who it's an attempt to patronize from the bottom of your heirarchy, so to speak.
Yeah, that's plausible. I'm not sure the alternate universe option looks much better -- federal support for transmed stuff was near-universal just for financial pressures, a much milder anti-discrimination push with much stricter gating would have been unavoidable in an Ally's Law sense even without the diehard political front -- but a softer and less confrontational view as crossdressing++ might have left Rowling on the sidelines, even if it still resulted in some rightwing pushback.
But in turn, the ACA's coddling from the healthcare industry was worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to the typical trans woman or trans man, so even that would have been a hard-bought compromise within the grassroots of the movement. Nevermind the actual philosophical objection that many have to being seen as crossdressing++ or lifestylers.
No, Brad was raised in one of those fading industrial cities on the Great Lakes. He was specifically anti-East Asian, often complaining about the Chinese or the Japanese.
Hmmmm, I don't know, I watch the youtube channel "Hungarian Folk Tales" all the time and I feel like every other folk tale is basically telling girls to get a man as soon as they can and not hold out for the one prince who can feel the pea under a hundred mattresses or whatever.
I like guys who look cute and scary at the same time. My other top hottest men of all time are Khabibi and Tom Hardy who also look very cute and scary. I never saw Rudy Reyes until I googled him but hahahahahaa he is not my type at all he looks like keanu reeves but much worse
Sometimes this isn't funny at all but rather obnoxious
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link