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 -
Are you sure about that ? You think sexuality is entirely environmental, there are is no genetic component to it ?
That's bullshit.
The fundamental asymmetry between male and female genetic interests has been there essentially forever. Submissive men do exist, but they're more rare than the other way around.
And as to cute... ditto. Men aren't cute. You can try to 'consider' them cute, but that's the same level of as talking about feminine penises.
With all due respect ma'am/sir, misstating my argument and then rebutting it with nothing more than 'that's bullshit' is remarkably poor form. But anyways:
Sexuality typically refers to sexual attraction/orientation, which I only tangentially mention.
I don't assert that it is entirely environmental.
I'm not sure about anything. It's a worldview, and I'm open to changing my mind. You'll have to try a bit harder though.
I do believe that many of the things we're discussing happen to be largely environmental, though. Male preference for pants versus 'dresses' varies wildly across cultures; from kilts, thawbs, thongs worn by many tribal peoples, togas and roman tunics, whatever. So no, I don't believe men have a genetic imperative against wearing dresses, nor do I believe that women have a genetic imperative to find men in dresses unattractive. There are centuries of wildly different fashions and norms, even amongst Europeans who (presumably) share your genetic background.
Even if you just want to consider sexuality, I do believe that there is significant plasticity and environmental influence on what and who people find attractive. We oscillate between finding short hair on women attractive, to unattractive, to attractive ad nauseum. Repeat for most traits.
Speak for yourself, I find plenty of men cute. I suspect if you ask some of the women in your life they'll have plenty of examples of men they would describe as cute.
People constantly conflate gender/sex preferences that are culturally/socially contingent and those that are universal (and thus almost certainly biological in nature).
Some actors obviously do this in bad faith. Like the typical feminist/queer theorist who says 'pink used to to be for boys, blue for girls, now it's the opposite, thus proving all gender preferences are arbitrary and that the idea that women prefer people and men prefer things is also arbitrary and socially contingent!' Gotta love those huge non-sequiturs.
Really, you can seperate gender preferences (including sexual preferences) into three rough catagories - (1) things that are universally/biological, (2) things that are socially determined but are influenced and constrained by biology to some degree and thus are not completely arbitrary, and (3) things that are socially determined and are completely arbitrary.
Men liking things and women liking people is an example of number 1. It is universal and biological, and reflects the biological division of labour.
Most (historically) gendered clothing fits into number 2. Clothing still has to reflect the practical needs of each sex, which is in turn derived from the gender role (which in turn is derived from the biological division of labour). But there is obviously a significant degree of wiggleroom which is culturally contingent. An obvious example is the fact that women wear bras and men don't. This obviously isn't an arbitrary completely socially determined choice. Though the specific designs or styles of bras might be.
Colour preference for genders is an example for number 3. There is generally no compelling reason why certain colours should be assigned to either men and women. This is culturally socially determined (though I suppose someone could try to make an attenuated evo psych argument about how red is biologically masculine cause blood or some shit).
All this basically applies to sexual preferences too.
Sexual attraction to well defined, feminine hips might be an example of number 1.
Sexual attraction certain kinds of modes of behavior (e.g. stoic, dominant nature in men) might be an example of 2.
Certain kinds of decoration, such as tattoos might be an example of 3.
I'm not going to deny that there are certain behaviors or traits that are dominated by genetic influences (if we dropped a pair of children off on a deserted island and they made it to adulthood, I'm sure they could figure out how to propagate the species), and I do agree with what you say generally, however I do believe that even in your post you overstate your case.
What do you think the world would look like if from birth all the media men were exposed to showcased men as caregivers while women were out earning a living? Where their male role models were all stay-at-home dads taking care of the domestic duties and their female role models were breadwinners? To the extent that we're all exposed to this pervasive monoculture(ish) it seems to me that it's impossible to say just how far we could move the needle on what you're describing with (benign) environmental changes alone.
From my other reply:
I would say that would be pretty dysfunctional society that wouldn't be able to operate effectively, most people would be miserable, if it didn't just completely collapse on itself. Men and women would immediately (unconsciously) attempt to reverse that situtation if it weren't held together by powerful social engineering/political force.
If you don't like the hips example (you can socially engineer people to deny their most basic biological instincts), another example is youthfullness being sexually attractive.
More options
Context Copy link
Men would watch less TV? For that matter, so would women probably.
Or if it's actually done well, they'd happily identify with the female characters, and not think about it twice, like they do with Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
But waist and hips and well shaped ass is immutable.
You sure about that? I'm obviously not in a position to offer anything more than hearsay or anecdote, but there are plenty (possibly a majority) of modern models with tiny waists rather than child-bearing hips. Ditto with variation in preference for ass size.
The waist to hip ratio is usually the same on both types of models.
More options
Context Copy link
Not sure how you'll take this but I've enjoyed this autistic rant that explains «models» by preferences of predominantly gay modeliers rather than median men or organic looks hierarchy of women.
Edit: I may be biased here. One of the most miserable women I know is a short, voluptuous and fairly inept girl who very reasonably guessed she could make an easy living with her looks (a few mutual friends have rated her 10/10, I'd say 9 is about right), but tried to achieve this through traditional modeling – which completely destroyed her self-esteem through comparisons with lanky scarecrows sporting chiseled cheekbones. Honestly, everyone likes to hate on onlyfans, but in her case it would have been better.
Wasn't this JuliusBranson's shtick? I've read it before and seem to remember him writing a long post about how ancient Babylonian porn proves evo psych arguments that liberals are ugly or something. May have been someone else. Funny either way.
That said, you don't need gay designers to convince normie men that the majority of the women on this list are attractive. A huge fraction of eastern European and Asian sex symbols buck your sex doll trend. Bill Gates and Papas Elon and Bezos who are all richer than G*d could easily have maximized for breast size and didn't.
The flip side of the 'sex doll' argument is that most modern men actively wouldn't marry a stacked girl with >double Ds and a huge ass given the choice because they aren't viewed as respectable. I believe our wiser forebears called this the 'madonna-whore complex.' Meanwhile, whispers from the lost generations living before the Great-Depression (or East Asian countries a generation ago) counsel us to marry someone with 'meat on their bones' and to eat heartily or nobody will find us attractive. All of which suggest that life is more complicated than a genetic drive for bigger ass and tits.
We could make up any number of bullshit evo psych arguments to fit the data. Or talk about barber poles and elites, changing material conditions and environment, the emerging matriarchy, Freudian impulses and Jungian shadow selves and so on and so forth. But my head would hurt and it would still be made up.
I don't think the majority of women on that list are very attractive. Like, at all. The only ones who stand out as notably attractive are Kate Upton and "Angelababy". Besides that, I can easily think of many women I've known in real life who I would rather sleep with before the women on this list.
I know that my own preferences aren't exactly the norm, but, generally women overrate how attractive models/celebrities are to men. There's clearly a specific type that's been selected for by the people who run this stuff, and that type is not to everyone's taste.
More options
Context Copy link
While arguably not a normie, I am a man and I posit they're not exceptionally attractive. They have sometimes amazing faces and are all around okay, but this is despite them lacking feminine waist and hips (I don't mean Beyonce, Megan Fox and other celebrities who got on that list because of being actual sex symbols). I think we can learn more about male preference from actual, organically emerging markets. How prominent are women of this type among [some high percentile] Onlyfans? Among strip club dancers? Are these bodies present in escort girl catalogues? Do women photoshop themselves into that shape? Do they seek out clothes exaggerating those traits?
And how much effect does a typical male's preference have on who gets to the runway?
Seeing Japanese lingerie models, I very much doubt it. Asians may have less interest in bottom-heavy physiques, of course.
There's the notable "billionaire wife" meme, I think they didn't prioritize looks in any case.
I am not sure about that, and the idea that rail-thin (as opposed to just tall) women are inherently more attractive to the higher-status men is on par with the most hare-brained evo psych stories. A fit, non-sagging woman with bigger tits and ass wins, although of course there are trade-offs.
Sure, but I think we don't have to, because the data in all conditions where large numbers of representative men actively express their preference and are in a position to demand the subjectively best possible pick is overwhelmingly in favor of the blogpost's hypothesis, which you are unjustifiably dismissive of.
My high school friends (at least when we still talked about that kind of thing) would beg to differ. Beyond that my only exposure to normies is the internet, so /shrug
And yet who, aside from the creeper admin in the chat, would marry the onlyfans star/stripper/escort? Can tell you from personal contacts that having children with strippers goes poorly. I suppose you could argue that if you strip away all the social context/hierarchy/power and put a spherical man in a vacuum where nobody could watch (which may better be approximated by shmuck masturbating in his basement vs. actually choosing a mate), he might fuck the curvy girl down the street over the Hadid sisters, but real life does carry all that baggage.
You could contrive an experiment where men are asked to rate the attractiveness of a series of naked models while trying to control for race, height and whatever else and maybe converge on some breast size and hip ratio. But then, I could probably contrive an experiment where people read an article about the Hadid sisters being millionaire supermodels lusted after by hundreds of millions of thirsty fuckboys and have them rate higher than your golden ratio girl. On the one hand, lizard brain wants hips and tits. On the other, chimp brain wants status and latest fad. Now, are you a soyboy, low IQ lizard brainer or a chad chimp brainer who wants to play status games with the rest of us?
No, you are unjustifiably dismissive of my justification for dismissing your article. I gave you three or four justifications, you just don't like them.
Besides, I'm not dismissive of it. It's just not even wrong. It's the kind of thing that's fun to read but debating it's truthiness inevitably leads to poop flinging unless we're on the same page already and fistbump over it.
…Come on, this is a trivial confounder. If there's a reason not to marry or date a conventionally hot sex worker, it's not her looks as such. At worst, it's some perverse signaling consideration, like you say, or insecurity about competition, but ordinarily just an essentially moral and practical choice. A fat prostitute, or an emaciated drug addict with anorexic «model» proportions, are obviously even less attractive! And a «decent» woman with a hourglass figure is not seen as non-respectable or non-desirable.
In fact, you can get in trouble for slut-shaming an actual slut! Assuming that a conventionally hot woman who isn't a slut is non-respectable just because of looks that would boost a slut's popularity is ludicrous and frankly suicidal levels of sexism.
Men seem to be generally less influenced by choice copying, though I admit evo psych explanations of this aren't very solid.
I flatter myself thinking I'm a misaligned high-order mesa-optimizer that maximizes abstract notions like model consistency, aesthetics and diversity of possible agents.
But my dick has a head of its own, and I think this is the same for most men. Taste can be socially influenced; but you were discussing raw attractiveness. The position I and your previous interlocutors defend is that there are some damn robust biologically determined attractors in the attractiveness space, and the body shape common to healthy women with normal hormonal profiles is one such attractor for cis men. Another is skin quality (even harmless freckles are a rather minor fetish), another is hair quality indicative of high estrogen. A man can be an ass man or a breast man or even an abs man, but an archetypal shorthair tomboy with visible abs is still just a 90-60-90 girl who's cut her luscious hair short, trained a bit more and ate a bit less. And everything we see shows that the modal desirable female phenotype oscillates around this, actually quite narrow, setpoint.
How is pointing at revealed popular preferences not even wrong? It's clearly less not even wrong than pointing at arbitrarily picked runway models.
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
Women are nowhere near as competitive as men, which means they get underpaid in the workplace.
Women are worse at cooperating than men, because friendships between women are harder and they are more prone to seeing each other as competition.
They're far more prone to use socially approved form of aggression (gossip, exclusion, etc), which doesn't help organisations either.
Furthermore, childcare is low status in society now, hence a man who is willing to forgo a career to take care of children will be seen as less attractive.
If you think you can just snap your fingers and fix this, no, it doesn't work like that.
So, women are less suited for workplaces, will make less money
There simply isn't. Male preferences through history are largely unchanging. Judging by pornography, not fashion which is subject to fads.
You find them attractive. You don't find them cute in the sense of you find kitten or babies cute. It's a problem of vocabulary.
Those are fads, not genuine preferences.
Apart from a very small amount of men with a fetish for short hair, or baldness in women, no one else thinks it's attractive.
Long hair are a good signal of health, same as firm breasts, same as shapely figure.
But is pornography not also subject to trends? I recall an article from years ago bemoaning that all big mainstream porn was trending towards "big dicks fucking big tits." And you'll also notice that moden porn has signifcantly less pubic hair in it than compared to the 70's. Culture is weird like that.
Can't comment on penis size, but this guy did a deep dive into the Internet Adult Film Database and found that, contrary to the widespread impression that most porn stars are buxom blondes, the "average" porn star is a brunette 34B. Granted that the study is from 10 years ago.
More options
Context Copy link
Frankly those are irrelevant. Look at the woman's asses - there was never a popular pornstar with flat ass.
Looking at the most popular pornstars on this list, I can see plenty (https://fameregistry.com/).
Tori Black, Elsa Jean, Sasha Grey, Sunny Leone, Emily Willis, Riley Reid, Mini Stallion, Lulu Chu, Clara Trinity.
All of those first 5 had perfectly shaped assed.
This girl's ass is tiny https://cdni.pornpics.com/460/7/542/13129998/13129998_024_aa5e.jpg.
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