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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   31679 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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It’s pretty funny how half-decent looking chicks and greater can summon a simp army at a moment’s notice by playing damsel in distress. It reminds me of a possibly-15-year-old-by-now meme of a chick posting a Facebook status update of “feeling sad :(“ and getting a ton of likes and comments to the tune of “omg are you okay?” “what happened?!” juxtaposed against a guy’s status update of “just found a cure for cancer!” that got one like and one comment from a male friend saying “cool dude”. What innocent times those were.

But yeah, nowadays in mainstream online discourse, it’s fairly a given that any male expectation of their girlfriends/wives to not do things like wear slutty outfits, go clubbing, post bikini pics, flirt with other men, grind up against other men will be denounced as toxic, insecure, and controlling. Because such expectations compromise the sacred right of women to have FUN, and anything that impedes a queen’s ability to have FUN must be wrong in and of itself. Men’s preferences are toxic and problematic, in contrast to women’s which are brave and valid. Men’s feelings are fundamentally illegitimate and they’re the problem if they’re compromising their girlfriends’/wives’ ability to feel fun, flirty, stunning, beautiful, brave, wonderful, and empowered.

A bizarre but amusing manifestation of this is pregnant women and alcohol. Whenever a hint of the topic comes up on subreddits such as AmItheAsshole or BestofRedditorUpdates, there’s a vocal contingent that insists pregnant women can have alcohol in moderation and should feel free to exercise that right. Boyfriends/husbands who don’t want their pregnant girlfriends/wives drinking are just being selfish, paranoid, and controlling. Any third-parties who discourage pregnant women from drinking are just invasive, misogynistic naysayers who want to control women’s bodies. I suppose it’s too much to ask a woman to abstain from alcohol for nine months.

While there's probably no level of alcohol consumption that's good for a developing fetus, there really is a medical controversy over what level is harmful. Obviously experimentation is unethical(and humans metabolize alcohol differently from other animals, so you can't just test it on rats or monkeys or whatever), so it's impossible to fully resolve. Reddit coming down entirely on one side of the matter is just what reddit does.

If there's genuine medical uncertainty the only responsible choice for an expectant mother is total abstinence and an expectant father is completely justified in requesting that from his partner

And of course, a father may say “I don’t want my wife taking that risk with my child” without being a jerk.

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