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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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If the mother was a remotely neutral party, e.g. the daughter had accused her football coach, then I would sure trust her a lot if she said "ok, my daughter claims he raped her, but four weeks ago she was claiming that her English teacher was a cannibal and three months ago that her schoolmate had gunned down a stranger in the woods."

But I expect that about half of the women who are confronted with evidence that their daughters were raped by their romantic partners will react with denial.

The alternative is simply to horrible to contemplate. "My taste in men (or my lack of ability to judge character) resulted in my daughter having her life ruined in my care" is simply not a reality most people could bear facing. If accepting a reality meant one would kill oneself, humans are pretty great at not accepting that reality.

Life with a vindictive lying teenage daughter is not easy, but it beats having a partner who is raping his stepchildren by a country mile. Sure, your neighbors will be wondering how you raised your daughter so wrong, but that is much less of a social death sentence than having them wonder if you were watching while your partner was fucking your daughter.

So her mother claiming her daughter is lying is worth very little, here.

In general one-off claims of sexual abuse from a young child against a stepfather or family member tend to be far more believable than a MeToo or a Cornell 7.

This is probably the one category of claims where we should default to believing the child unless the child is clearly mentally unstable or prone to lying and exaggeration.

The risk of further harm is too great, the commonality of the crime is distressingly high, and children in general don’t have political or social-climbing motivations to make such an accusation.

And it’s also distressingly common for the female partner of the abuser to plug their ears and shut their eyes. See Alice Munro.

"My taste in men (or my lack of ability to judge character) resulted in my daughter having her life ruined in my care"

That's the mistake-theory explanation. Women are literally the character-judge gender, so I give them as much a pass for social "I didn't know better" as much as men get a pass for physical "I didn't know better". (Which for reference is "none".)

The conflict-theory explanation from the mother's side is "permitting my boyfriend to fuck my daughter is the cost of retaining a man who isn't otherwise attracted to me". (The social memeplex about this is sufficiently strong that the mother would have to have The (Anti-)Talk with her daughter about it.)

The conflict-theory explanation from the daughter's side is "claiming my mother's boyfriend fucked me will banish him". This is a natural consequence for any society in which the age of adulthood exceeds reality (since "if you don't like it here, just leave" is practiceable for both parties); you can see that in bodycam footage where the parent(s) say "just take him to jail".


than having them wonder if you were watching while your partner was fucking your daughter.

Traditionalist-leaning men and feminists already give women sufficient privilege to outright murder their children without ever having to confront the realization that they were bad people (or "all women are essentially retarded angels that could never", to borrow an adjacent turn of phrase).