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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34552 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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the effect of online dating is already disastrous and we've only began to feel it, and that you all are intent on dodging, downplaying and misrepresenting the core issue.

I've been wanting to write an effortpost about how TheMotte (or at least, a significant subset of it) falls into many of the same traps that the mainstream does when talking about sex relations, but haven't really gotten around to it and also realise that post is inevitably going to draw an utterly exhausting flood of dismissive rhetoric and criticism.

Even in heterodox communities like this one there's still quite a bit of dodging and downplaying when it comes to many topics surrounding sex relations, specifically those topics that relate to men's issues and especially those with an element to them that doesn't make women look fantastic. It's a thing that's very emotionally charged and controversial even for a community whose purpose is to discuss topics outside of the Overton window, and bringing up these topics seems to elicit from people quite a bit of pearl-clutching and emotional appeal and fervent attempts to justify their knee-jerk reactions to things they'd rather not confront. Hell, I've seen more pushback here on this than HBD. (Meanwhile in the broader public sphere female claims of victimisation are constantly treated as a pressing social issue even when the core claim is incredibly questionable.)

Really, the discomfort ultimately just seems to come down to something deeper and much more instinctual: "Men who complain about their situation as men (and especially those who do so at the expense of those who possess a greater social claim to protection, like women) are inherently low status". In the case of the dating market, that disgust is further amplified by the stigma that already attaches to sexually unsuccessful males. And my posting and engagement with people on the topic has slowed partially because it's really started to hit home that the asymmetry in discourse surrounding sex relations might be unfixable.

EDIT: clarity

also realise that post is going to draw an utterly exhausting flood of dismissive rhetoric and criticism.

Which is why I dropped the bomb before leaving my house for the day out lol.

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