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 -
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/shows/meetthepress/blog/rcna90023
Apparently there’s been a big drop in conservative support for gay marriage, all in the space of a year.
I think this says a lot, mainly because it’s a point I see brought up by a lot of the blackpillers in this community “look, look - even conservatives support gay marriage now, there’s no stopping progressivism”.
Well, what now? Apparently the left has pushed too hard and too fast and it’s turning the GOP away. Being LGBT isn’t seen as some harmless thing anymore, especially when it seems being “tolerant” means accepting gay drag nuns on crucifixes. The parodies are no longer a parody, and grooming children to accept gender ideology seems rife in schools even in deep red states.
Recently I read about a Muslim city in america voting to ban the pride flag. This is just one example of the incoming shift and realignment being forced by progressive extremism becoming more forcibly mainstream
I think a bigger cause for concern is the 6% drop in Democrat support. What's up with that? What changed with regards to gay marriage in the past year that caused Democrats to back off?
My baseless speculation is that these are older people who bought into the "we can't change who we are" rhetoric from years past, but have been spooked by the the obvious into thinking, "hey wait a second, I bet a lot of these gay kids today could change who they are."
As Anita Bryant famously said:
She was called a bigot and cancelled, but time has proven her right.
That's true of ideology and religion, but I don't think it's true of gays.
I'd wager that as an extension of that old "if you wiped out all religions and record thereof tomorrow, the same religions would never arise again, even if different ones did" though experiment, if you erased all knowledge of homosexuality from the akashic record of humanity... You'd probably still have homosexuality happening again in short order. No matter how repressive the society, it still happens. It happens in non-human species.
Yet another example if "if you were wrong, then you would be wrong." If religion is false then it is purely cultural, yes. Assuming that it is false, and then using the fact that it would therefore be cultural as evidence that it is false, is extremely common and annoying.
What is common and annoying is people of different religions assuming that theirs is the true one, with quite scant evidence. Even in spaces that are ostensibly concerned about epistemology.
Purely logically, at least 99 of 100 One True Lord Gods must be fake, or all of them are not as One True as the religions teach.
Sure, and the same is true of absence of religion. Logically, out of the set of contradictory belief systems, at most one is correct.
Besides, I don't care what belief systems we're talking about, you can't just manufacture your own evidence out of nowhere like that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Even assuming another revelation, how else would it go that the exact same revelation would occur again? Even if the Quran or the New Testament were to be revealed again, the culturally and historically contingent events would not arise in the same way. I think the argument here is more in the definition of "the same religion" here.
I mean yeah there would certainly be some minor differences, the question is how major they have to be before it counts as a new religion. If there is a true religion though, presumably the same religion would arise again, minor differences in beliefs and historical context notwithstanding.
So you're saying if there's a sufficient similarity of values and beliefs it is substantively the same to you?
Hayy Ibn Yaqzun argues the same, that Islam effectively arises spontaneously absent human interference.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
True homosexuality is probably not a choice, but homosexual behavior as a kink (a solid part of what's called 'bisexuality' is likely caused by abuse.
Odds of bisexuals reporting CSA are way higher than for straights.
from:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1079063215618378
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Seems like a motte/bailey.
Motte: As a group, homos must replenish from non-homosexuals' offspring, necessarily; if they didn't do this, they'd already not exist.
Bailey: Homosexuality is a choice; what's more, it is actually a movement agentically interested in swelling its numbers. To do so, they must make our kids gay.
The problem with the bailey is the assumption that ... either, kids should rather be gay but stay their lives firmly in the closet; or the way that this looks from the outside, kids should just "choose" to "be" straight. Which, as far as I can tell, is and remains largely impossible.
How long do they have to desist from same sex behavior before they're straight, a year, five?
It's possible for people to find their way out of homosexuality, but if they've made it large portion of their identity and social group it's difficult, like leaving a cult.
I mean, obviously it's possible for gays to procreate with women, since it's what happened historically. You can stick your dick anywhere, what you cannot change easily or at all is what you need to see in front of you, in reality or your mind's eye, to get hard in the first place.
More options
Context Copy link
How long do you have to desist from hetero behavior before you become gay?
No time limit. Once you internalize and accept the gay idpol, you've caught the gay.
As the line goes... if you can be converted to gay by "idpol", you were gay and in the closet, mate. Personally I've noted 0 increase in urges of same-sex sex between my puberty and now.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I didn't have gay sex for over five years, but I was still gay at the end of it.
No gay sex or no sex? Were you trying to have a different sort of life during this period?
Why would I? The notion of having sex with women is totally repellent to me, and likely most women would find me equally repellent, since I lack any positive qualities. To be honest I don't really even like having sex with men, but I do find them very attractive.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Doesn't matter. As long as the impulse remains, they're still gay, even if they deny it.
Like yeah, you can repress, and live a thoroughly miserable existence attached to someone who you don't really love or feel attracted to -- imagine how you'd feel trying to carve a life out with a morbidly obese 3/10 munter to try and "cure" your attraction to fit, attractive people.
This is rank exaggeration. Ugly people do get married and by all accounts live happy lives. Just like them, I expect nearly all people, absent powerful cultural narratives to the contrary, can learn to love whoever they end up married to. I believe this of all gender combinations.
Shrug. Love and attraction are completely different things, as well you should know, assuming you have parents or siblings. Missing out on an entire massive chunk of the human experience, or mutual attraction between partners, is probably not healthy for people. See: incels.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And this is a problem why exactly? They expect me to similarly repress myself if I'm to live and participate in society, so why should I care if other people expect it of them?
Who's expecting you to get into a gay relationship against your sexuality, exactly?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This seems a particularly worse case outcome.
Men with same sex attraction seem especially prone to drug, chemical, alcohol and parphillia induced or adjacent sexual activity. This seems throughly miserable to me. I guess they're fortunate that in current year there's an abundance of degeneracy to allow them to live their inner truths publicly.
'Straight' people sublimate all sorts of impulses and desires into more traditionally socially acceptable directions.
This is a subculture problem more than anything else. You might as well complain that people who choose to wear birkenstocks also engage in this behaviour. Obviously we need to discourage wearing of birkenstocks!
There are plenty of us who opt out of that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the stereotype is, to a degree, self reinforcing; people see this kind of thing touted as how "all gays" are, and so fledgling gays, newly discovering their sexuality, think that's "how to be gay" -- because it's a confusing time, and any kind of guidance is manna from heaven if you don't have a really well developed sense of personal identity at that point (and most teens don't).
I despair and despise every day that Drag Race and circuit parties have become the mainstream representation of being gay in the anglosphere.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-ex-gay?wprov=sfti1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/09/03/conversion-therapy-center-founder-who-sought-turn-lgbtq-christians-straight-now-says-hes-gay-rejects-cycle-shame/
Probably when the high profile ones stop switching back.
I do think conversion therapy bans are signs of creeping fascism, but the ex gay thing has a spotty record at best. Rs committed a massive own goal by endorsing divorce over the years, endorsing a view of human life that centers on self fulfillment over duty. From there gay marriage only makes sense.
And yet it was proposed as being merciful, and opposition to it as being cruel. Same with abortion today: oppose it, and you're a monster. Give in on the hard cases grounds (incest, rape) and then you're a hypocrite if you don't give in on the elective abortions.
More options
Context Copy link
Aren't the
high profileattention seeking ex-gays more likely to be performative?The ex-gay thing is a bit weird but in a similar way so is the detrans thing, both have some genuine members that were likely groomed / self groomed into alphabetism. That there's no reliable treatment or search for a cure among the establishment. There isn't t a well worn path out. Much mental illnesses chronic. Worse many of this cohort are subject to vitriol from their former alphabet compatriots.
I know several seemingly happy, married with children, people that were practicing LGB in the 90's. They don't talk about it, and would be unlikely to join an ex-gay organization.
Elsewhere in this thread it was claimed that the largest increase in alphabetism was amongst the 'B', presumably they have more options / choices. Am I still B if I've not had sexual activity other than my opposite sex spouse in 20 years?
The destigmatization and ease of divorce as it fits into the larger context of the sexual revolution and feminism has had a number of deleterious effects.
It's a very particular type of self fulfillment that frequently looks like self-centeredness or narcissism.
How many white parties and how much cock does it take to find self fulfillment? I find this less creepy than marriage and gaybies, and the associated
assisted reproductionbaby trafficking.If you're still attracted to the same sex, yes.
Or, what, is nobody truly straight until they have straight sex the first time? "Nobody has a sexuality until they lose their virginity" is a logical follow-on from this idea that you must actively practice your sexuality in order to possess it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's crazy to me how blind they are to this mistake. Just on it's face, divorce is a much more lethal blow to the sanctity of marriage than gay marriage could ever be. But the funnier thing is that even if you're just seething about dudes getting married, getting rid of no-fault divorce would probably solve that for you automatically.
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
Is that chart accurate? Is gen Z really identifying at almost 1/5 gay? What the heck…
The jump from 5% to 20% in 10 years is shocking if true, good lord.
There's no cost to saying you're "he/they" now instead of "he/him".
More options
Context Copy link
I genuinely think it's because of the oppression stacking: if you're vanilla cis/straight, this is The Worst Thing In The World. At most, you can be an ally, but you still get the blame for systemic oppression. But if you can just somehow make your way over to the oppressed/victim side, then you're in clover (relatively speaking, because you'll still be judged on the scale of 'are you white/able bodied etc.')
Easy way to do that is to be some flavour of 'queer' - nonbinary, for instance (the ones I've seen online are 9 out of 10 recognisably female, and the remaining ones are just plain weird).
More options
Context Copy link
It’s mostly ‘bisexuals’ and ‘queers’ who coincidentally only date the opposite sex.
More options
Context Copy link
I think the BTQA is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that stat, but it's still bizarre even if it's mostly 'B'Q'A'.
More options
Context Copy link
May be worth noting the difference is almost entirely due to a growth in the bisexual category.
And much of that may just be due to people having lower thresholds—low but nonzero numbers on the Kinsey scale might have previously been considered heterosexual, but now bisexual (at least, if the person wishes to think of themselves that way).
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