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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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Yes, I agree that men and women are different. But are we allowed to invoke that as an explanation whenever we want to? Sometimes men and women behave the same, instead of differently - what then? Do we just say "sometimes men and women are the same, sometimes they're different, and that's all there is to it"? It would give you unlimited explanatory license to justify whatever you wanted in regards to theories of gendered behavior, without ever having to address gaps in the theory.

My concern is that people are starting with the conclusion they want to prove ("gays are icky and pedos are icky, therefore they must be linked in some way") and then working backwards. So you end up with a just-so story that adds more and more epicycles to prove the desired conclusion.

Sometimes men and women behave the same, instead of differently - what then?

Now this is an honest question and not meant to be snarky: When?

I just genuinely cannot think of a single situation in which men and women behave the same. Not one. Not when studying in school, not when walking to the bathroom, not when sitting down for lunch, not when speaking in a business meeting. Maybe I'm just not thinking broadly enough?

Currently though, I'm liable to think the proper heuristic is "men and women literally never behave the same in any situation ever, and if anyone says they do they're either smoothing over differences or autistic." If there are some weird exceptions then those seem to fall more under the "exception that proves the rule" than anything else.

This doesn't give unlimited explanatory power, but it does require every single generalization about people to be split into two more specific generalizations, which I feel will cleave reality much closer to the joints.

Which shouldn't be exceptionally surprising. Men aren't significantly more likely to molest children, I believe, once you account for reduced reporting rates among male victims of female molestation.

This seems to line up with that, taking into account the naturally higher rate of homosexual attraction among women, which pads the numbers somewhat.

Well, "being molested by someone of the same sex turns you gay" is at least more consistent than plausible than "being molested by a man turns both sexes gay". But it should be pointed out that there was an "Editorial Expression of Concern" for this paper that pointed out some inconsistencies (results stated in the discussion didn't match what was actually in the table).

Well, "being molested by someone of the same sex turns you gay" is at least more consistent than plausible than "being molested by a man turns both sexes gay".

Why? If the hypothesis is that "being molested increases rates of homosexuality" and men do most molesting, both of those stories can co-exist with the second one having more explanatory power.