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 why slut-shaming is such a bad idea. Give women incentives to make false accusations of sexual assault, or even appear to do so, and women who have actually been assaulted will find the matter treated with much less gravity than it deserves; the perpetrators will then have the opportunity to victimise more women, who otherwise would have been spared such horror.
Many people here will probably disagree with my philosophy, but I do not believe that there is any amount of 'deterring inchastity among consenting adults' that can outweigh 'preventing one instance of rape'.
(TK: an elaboration on this involving a certain controversial Yuletide duet.)
Yes, this is the feminist argument for not slut shaming. The problem is that other feminist reforms to the status quo make false accusations more likely. It's a difficult crime to prove. The feminist line that we should just believe women (or even shower some lucky ones with fame and attention for lurid stories no one can criticize) creates an incentive in and of itself. If women are people, not saints, this cannot be avoided.
The actual purpose of (male) slut-shaming wasn't just to deter inchastity. It was to create an incentive towards behaviors that would not create ambiguity about what happened to a woman in the first place, which was rational given that men were expected to take on the burden and risk of avenging the honor of their women if they had been raped. So the women is expected to take on the burden of not behaving in a way that both puts her at risk directly and implies that maybe she just was a slut who changed her mind and the blood feud/investigation wasn't worth it.
This obviously cannot work in a world where nobody follows those rules. If a woman can choose to get drunk and get a train ran on her and later claims rape, the ambiguity is much harder to resolve.
The only solution feminists have settled on that lets them have their cake and eat it is simply assuming the man is prima facie guilty. Someone is going to have to be responsible for some of these unfortunate cases.
More options
Context Copy link
You misunderstand the purpose of slut-shaming (which is generally [collective] women vs. [individual] woman, not men vs. woman). "Deterring inchastitty" is not its goal.
Somewhat counterintuitively, the collective benefits from more instances of rape, not less (though only to a point).
"See what happens when you price yourself too low, or give your only worth away for free?"
And yes, it does result in scratch-and-dent models having to sell at a discount, but it reinforces the idea that collective bargaining for the worth of sex is collective bargaining (and the rape is simply justification/encouragement to be maximally mercenary when selling), which benefits all women except the raped one. Who, naturally, deserved to be raped for working outside union protection.
In that case, it's natural the woman in question would then proceed to attack targets of opportunity to recover some of the damage. Her product can't be repaired, but she can, correctly, tell herself it was all the buyers' fault. (The only weirdness here is that the collective will attempt to back her up when she does this, but then again, buyers tend to fall over themselves claiming rape devalues the collective so maybe that's not as weird as it sounds. It'd be in the buyers' interest to lie.)
Men doing this is kind of a legacy thing. Their moral opinions fell out of favor around 1900, but so long as people believe in them, they can be used to launder the above operation.
I'd also suggest looking at this from a slightly different angle. I think the grave mistake this girl realized she made was not merely that she decided to be a slut in the moment but that she did so with guys that were either within her social circle or directly connected to it. Because it's not the act of slutting in itself that classic (women-on-women) slut-shaming seeks to suppress but slutting that has a detrimental effect on the social status of any member of the female social group in question. (Because the erosion in the social status of even one member reflects badly on the whole group.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Two issues I have with this that:
a) It's not clear to me it would prevent any rapes on net. If sluttiness becomes normalized any "she's a slut, she wanted to do it" defense becomes more believable by default, and can be abused by actual rapists the same way pathologization can.
b) Somehow these ideas to abolish shame never include things that liberals consider shameful.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link