Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 78
- 1
What is this place?
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are
appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy;
if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
If in doubt, please post it!
Rules
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What is going on with sports team owners?
In the space of a few weeks:
-- The owner of the Los Angeles Lakers has been forced to sell (to a Kushner brother) the team because of an SEC investigation into financial irregularities at insurance companies he controlled. (((I'll leave the questions about the Trump admin investigating a businessman who then is forced to sell a prized asset to a Trump-family-affiliated entity to Pablo Torre to unwind)))
-- The owner of the San Francisco 49ers was arrested in an East Palestine, OH trailer park in a human trafficking sting, apparently trying to hire a $140 prostitute. He plead guilty to some minor misdemeanor charges and spent a night in jail.
-- The Los Angeles Clippers have effectively been neutered for the next 5-8 years by the NBA's decision in their salary-cap circumvention scheme, in which Kawhi Leonard was paid extra money outside his contract under the table through no-show endorsement deals from affiliated companies.
-- Investigations into the Los Angeles Dodgers are coming to the forefront, involving financial irregularities in their ownership group.
It could all be a coincidence, but it feels weird astrologically.
Shouldn't he be able to easily afford a $1400 D1 escort from UC Berkeley or OSU instead of trailer trash?
Or a quick flight to the legal brothels of Melbourne.
I wouldn't imagine Japan is a quick flight but there is all the sex you can shake a stick at in this country, at all levels of depravity (I am guessing!), with any type of woman that interests you, from respectable college students (who whore themselves twice a week for tuition) to Office Ladies (OLs, yes, that is still a term), to trashy kogyaru street waifs, to thousands of dollar escorts, to pregnant and/or lactating women (I am not kidding, and I am sorry to be the source of this news). Of course paid sex is illegal, yes, but you're not actually paying for the sex, no; the sex is the woman's choice. <--typical legal maneuvering
Japan isn't quite the Sodom of Bangkok, but it has its moments.
Caveat: Not all Japanese women.
I thought that soaplands and the like had a strict "no foreigners" policy? In which case it wouldn't matter how quick the flight was, you wouldn't really be able to go to Japan to get laid.
I don't know much about soaplands, but I think that they are sort of the old school type of establishment. Off the top of my head I cannot think of anyone I know who has ever been to one. At least they haven't told me about it. I think I heard some American/Canadian guys in Tokyo frequented them, but that is a vague memory of 20 years ago and these guys were seedier even than the degenerates that I sometimes spend time with.
Just like anywhere, I imagine some will accept foreigners, some will accept foreigners who can communicate in Japanese, and some won't. There are various sorts of clubs, some of which make the wikipedia article and some which don't. "Delivery health" or デリヘル is probably the closest to what you have in the US in terms of callgirls, though to the best of my knowledge it is entirely up to the girl involved whether she will actually have sex. If she won't go with a foreigner you'll find that out soon enough, but there are literally hundreds of such shops in Osaka city alone. Many of them have English versions of their webpages, suggesting someone is paying attention to the tourism boom. There's at least one completely open red-light district in a rather seedy area in the south. I've been through there, the first time completely by accident, subsequent times to show people who've come to Osaka what it looks like (no one went in.) In this place if they call out to you, you're acceptable. It is total prostitution, completely against the law, but is sidestepped by various small gestures (they are "teahouses," forget about the fact that there is a girl under a lamp showing her cleavage, wearing a santa suit and fishnets, or whatever). There is within a two-block radius of this district both a police station and an organized crime headquarters with its kamon or organizational crest right out on the front door. Tobita shinchi is very old, almost like an Osaka version of Yoshiwara in Tokyo. (I have never been there, no.)
I think part of the no foreigners is probably about awkwardness and communication and the ability to negotiate and read the air, especially in a matter as delicate as whether she is going to actually have sex with you or perform some act like sumata or whatever. In every day life there is so much you have to just "get" about situations (outside clearly tourist situations) without being told that I can't imagine sitting there making a deal on fucking or not would be easy. The argument can be made that this is true in any culture, and I agree with that, but there seem to me to be many more unwritten rules in Japan than say, France. Simple, uncomplicated racism as well no doubt exists in some of these places, particularly in the older dudes who own them, or maybe there's a reputational issue where they want their bread-and-butter Japanese clients to feel they are in a foreigner-free situation. (Note I believe there are delivery health services whose roster is exclusively populated by foreign women [probably Russians or other eastern Europeans], for the Japanese man who has such a fetish. It is also possible some of these places do not accept foreigners. I wouldn't be surprised.)
Edit: There was recently--well a year or so ago--a big deal about teenage girls prostituting themselves in a certain area of Osaka proper. This made the news somehow and the city passed an ordinance where the roads there were....painted yellow. Also signs were put up along the lines of "You are important" and "Don't ruin your life." Or similar. It apparently worked because the girls no longer loiter there. Probably somewhere else. It's a strange world. Tokyo is like Osaka x100 I expect.
Thanks for the info, it was super interesting. I didn't know there was such a wide variety in the sex trade in Japan. Though of course, it's not like I'm particularly knowledgeable about the sex trade in the US, so it stands to reason I know even less about a foreign country.
I know next to zero about what goes on stateside, though I have heard the term lot lizards. The whole milieu has always seemed trashy and generally unsavory to me.
What I noticed strolling through the open genkan of Tobita Shinchi was not the tawdry squalor, but the very Osaka neat Japanese decor, the mannered behavior, and the surprising beauty of many (not all) of the girls/women sitting there. I think it would be quite something to interview some of them but I've long given up on access.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link