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 -
It seems unlikely that lesbians, in particular, would molest enough girls to create the next generation of lesbians for the ‘far-right’ / conspiratorial theory to be true. Even for males, the evidence for the “gays reproduce by molesting kids” canard seems quite limited.
The mechanism by which this is suggested to happen, in particular, is usually some framing of highly discredited Freudian psychology that, perhaps ironically, proponents of this theory would rail against in any other form.
Maybe lesbians are created when straight men molest girls.
How does that make any sense? What’s the causal mechanism there?
Straight man molests girl, permanently damaging her trust and comfort with men. She then becomes either asexual or lesbian in practice.
This is what some lesbians (usually of second wave feminism flavor) say, at least, and I do believe it's plausible that something like that could bump some Kinsey 4s up to 6s.
But presumably you also want to say that boys getting molested by men turns them gay. So why does it have the opposite effect on boys that it has on girls? How come, instead of the boy’s trust and comfort with men being permanently damaged, he instead becomes hyper-attracted to men and seeks out even more intimacy with men?
(Also second wave feminists thought that being a lesbian was pretty much the most virtuous thing that a woman could do so it strikes me as odd that any of them would try to link it to trauma.)
Male and female sexualities are asymmetric in more ways than one, so I wouldn't consider it the most shoddy prior that males and females are more/less likely to come away with different experiences of the same thing.
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.
The little bit of data I've found seems to align with the original hypothesis (that homosexual molestation is much higher for both sexes):
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.
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
More options
Context Copy link