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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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Russell Brand Accusations

Russell Brand has been accused of sexual misconduct and/or rape by four women in a large exposé by the Sunday Times [2]. The mainstream consensus online is that the testimony of these women is absolutely correct. I wonder, though, how many false accusers we should expect given the context of Russell Brand.

Russell Brand is not just some guy, he was at one point a party icon in the UK. As such, he has slept with 1000 women. And these are not just some women, just like Brand is not just some guy. This is not a sample size of the median woman in the UK. The women he slept with would differ psychologically from the average woman: more likely to make poor choices, more likely to be partying, more likely to be doing things for clout (like Russell Brand), more likely to be involved with drugs and mental illness. A study on the lives of “groupies” in the heavy metal scene found that groupies were more likely to use sex for leverage, to come from broken homes, and to have issues with drugs and alcohol. (This is not a one-to-one comparison; heavy metal is different than the rock n roll persona of Brand).

Scott has written that up to 20% of all rape allegations are false. But with Brand, we have a more complicated metric to consider: how many false accusers will you have sex with if you’ve had sex with one thousand women who make poor choices? Scott goes on in the above article to note that 3% of men will likely be falsely accused (including outside of court) in their life. If this is true, we might try multiplying that by 125 to arrive at how many accusers Brand should have. That would bring us to four, rounding up — but again, this would totally ignore the unique psychological profile of the women he screwed.

There’s yet more to consider. Brand is wealthy, famous, and controversial. His wealth and stature would lead a mentally unwell woman to feel spite, and his controversy would lead a clout-chasing woman to seek attention through accusation. What’s more, (most of) these allegations only came about because of an expensive and time-consuming journalistic investigation, which would have lead to pointed questioning.

All in all, it seems unfair to target a famous person and set out your journalists to hound down every woman he had sex with. It’s a man’s right to have consensual sex with mentally unwell and “damaged” women, which would be a large chunk of the women Brand bedded. Of course, this cohort appears more apt to make false accusations. Quoting Scott,

in a psychiatric hospital I used to work in (not the one I currently work in) during my brief time there there were two different accusations of rape by staff members against patients […] Now I know someone is going to say that blah blah psychiatric patients blah blah doesn’t generalize to the general population, but the fact is that even if you accept that sorta-ableist dismissal, those patients were in hospital for three to seven days and then they went back out into regular society

The sexual revolution involved worsening the lives of a substantial proportion of the population (both men and women) to benefit a tiny minority of men. This was probably always an untenable state of affairs, given that even the men in question often had daughters (by contrast, billionaires and kings do not typically have family who are paupers or peasants). Society - even liberal society - is governed by countless rules, minor and major, designed to prevent some parties taking advantage of others even if it is "consensual". You can't pay someone $2 an hour even if they consent, you can't sign up to 30 years of indentured servitude even if you consent, you can't practice as a self-taught surgeon even if all your patients consent. You can't engage in duels or cannibalism even if both parties consent. So we agree that clearly 'consent' isn't everything; we're not (for the most part) ancaps. Some things are social negatives, and it is understood that tolerating them is bad for society, period.


Part of reversing the sexual revolution is making sure that promiscuity has consequences. Yes, that includes for women (although as Red Pillers seem to delight in reminding them, 'hitting the wall' is the consequence for women anyway, and most slut shaming has always been by other women, which continues comfortably well into the 21st century even in progressive circles). But it also means consequences for men. The '60s rocker lifestyle of fucking a thousand 14-16 year old girls while on tour across the country is a net negative for society. It benefits a small number of men at the expense, in many ways, of everyone else (who is impacted directly or indirectly by mountains of damaged women created as a consequence). Sexual libertarianism is as degenerate as any other form of liberalism, and therefore I really do support measures to give it more consequences. If cases like these act as a deterrent for the next generation of Russell Brands, they will have served their purpose, whatever the truth.

And in Brand's case, he really is an infamous asshole, a pseud, and has a proven record of being a huge piece of shit. So it's hard to feel bad for him.

Yes, that includes for women [...]. But it also means consequences for men.

And yet the consequences for men keep coming, and the consequences for women don't. There isn't any reversing of the sexual revolution going on here. Just the perpetration of a new double standard where men get responsibility for both their own choices and those of women.

What would the consequences for women be that they aren’t already? Women are already a main group of losers in the sexual revolution and (as I note) Redpillers already argue that women face great, dire consequences of promiscuity - eg. low social status for having a reputation as a slut, spinsterhood, hitting ‘the wall’, being an ‘alpha widow’, unhappiness, loneliness and becoming a cat lady. By contrast, Brand faced no consequences until now.

Do some napkin math to explain how women are the losers of the sexual revolution. Without any of the variables being plus or minus infinity.

Because this isnt computing.

I could tell you, but I’d rather just copy @raggedy_anthem’s excellent comment:

I'm saying that women are more depressed and suicidal than they have ever been. They are more depressed and suicidal than they were in the Bad Old Days of supposed patriarchy. Like men, they are struggling to find fulfilling relationships or lasting contentment, because the current regime isn't good for them either.

Women are suffering the direct consequences of letting men like Brand loose to enjoy themselves. They are getting raped, taken advantage of, or just used in that sad, grubby way that doesn't amount to a crime. They are getting the resulting STIs and raising the resulting babies by themselves. In return, they don't get the sexual pleasure or status that a rake enjoys. All they get is the fleeting satisfaction of being desired. This is a terrible deal for women, and to be honest it's not one that most women ever even wanted. It's a race to the bottom, where you have to do things you aren't comfortable with in order to get male attention at all. If you want to know what it's like to grow up female post-Sexual Revolution and post-Internet porn, this is a great place to start. Little girls didn't choose this.

I see a lot of assertions that this state of affairs was all young women's idea, and that they need to be punished in order for it to change. That perspective... really lacks empathy or insight into who's actually driving the bus. It's blaming some of the least powerful people involved.

Okay here's my line of thought;

  • "Sexual Revolution" happens.
  • Some winners, a lot of losers.
  • We can do arithmetic all day about as to whether the average, median, modal man/woman is worse off on net on average, etc.

But I do think barring any and all aggregate statistics. The women are still the winners.

Why? Simple. Women are the choosers. They can choose a man of equal status to them and mostly avoid the pitfalls of the sexual revolution. Most women have this option. Most men don't they either get chosen or not. Not doing something is a lot easier than doing something.

Now is it realistic to expect women to do this? Well, no. But on the individual level, this is a non-issue for women.

I think when people talk about these widescale societal issues there is too much meta-talk happening, but a majority of women can avoid the pitfalls, men can't. Focussing on the individual makes this patently obvious.


The elephant in the room remains. Women would rather have this than choose a man of equal status. Revealed preference makes it clear.

Women being choosers, are the only ones who can fix this.

Women in the fifties mostly became married stay at home moms. This is statistically what most women figure out they actually want, eventually. It is also an option that most women do not have access to anymore.

Ergo women have lost something important with the sexual revolution. That’s even leaving out that while yes, it’s easier than ever for women to have casual sex with chads, almost none of them actually want to do so.

So what's stopping an individual woman from marrying a Brad?

I know women as a group don't do this because they are subject to.. a lack of agency, social pressure, retarded messaging, etc.

THem not being able to be SAHMs is more of an economic problem than a sexual one.

My point is yes women as a group have indeed lost something, but that's because they act as a group! Any individual woman can still "defect" and avoid the pitfalls. If anything I will wager it's easier than ever for a woman to get "what they really want a la 1950's" because competition among men is so much more that many will provide it at considerable cost, just to have some coochy.

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