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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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a society gaslighting women into thinking casual sex is empowering

Nice way to pass the buck there, blaming this on "society" rather than "feminist media".

I sympathize with your vexation here. I'm not sure how productive these discussions can be if we have to regularly pause for interjections of "you haven't assigned enough (or any) blame to my outgroup". I think he could have made a better post than that.

At the same time, I also think we would be remiss to completely talk around a very obvious link between female promiscuity and popular progressive feminist messaging. A certain subset of men may benefit the most from modern dating/hook-up college, but this culture has never been broadly or enthusiastically condoned by men, at least out loud. A man may be happy that prostitutes exist if only to satisfy his base urges, but he's not exactly proud of it. And since humans aren't consistent, principled thinkers - while he may be happy that some women sleep around if only for the opportunity for him to get laid, he's probably not thrilled to find out his wife/girlfriend had dozens of partners prior to the current relationship. "X in the streets, Y in the sheets" kinda sums up the attempted propriety.

By contrast, it is feminism that has railed against "slut-shaming", argued that women who sleep around are unfairly judged compared to Chads, whitewashed sexual exhibitionism as personal exploration, and so much more since at least I was in Jr High. I'm not even interested in blaming anybody for our current state of affairs - just an admission that there is an obvious (if not clear) relationship between the dashed expectations of young women and this ubiquitous ideological memeplex. I don't think you can assign more culpability to men for herding women towards the Sex Party - gently pushing against their backsides and reassuing them to not worry, this will all be so fun - versus an industry of Grl Power media that is assumedly produced mostly by women.

As such, I am not interested in curbing or punishing legions of cheating/insistent men that potentially threaten the structural integrity of our society. Not until we dial the lens out far enough to indict a few other groups. Zero interest in "getting men to play by the rules again" when both sexes have defected from them (with women running the full sprint, one could argue), and when the fairer one routinely acts like it never has any agency in these affairs whatsoever - which is unacceptable when you've spent decades trumpeting how you know what you want, you are self-empowered, you don't need anybody to hold your hand or 'mansplain' things to you, and being chaste is just an insecure demand from the patriarchy.

Short of actual rape, there's a lot I'd give amnesty to until this conversation space starts looking halfway reasonable. But I'm not optimistic, and it is for that reason I reluctantly agree that this wound may not heal. All the "stitching up" has to happen on the men's side, and women act like they're just oblivious passengers that never saw the dozen road signs warning "POTENTIAL LANDSLIDES AHEAD".

A certain subset of men may benefit the most from modern dating/hook-up college, but this culture has never been broadly or enthusiastically condoned by men, at least out loud

In terms of the views of the 'people', my general impression is that most men are openly very supportive of the increased availability of sex outside of long-term committed relationships, and that many are openly supportive of the availability of one-night stands. In terms of the public statements of 'intellectuals' - I think thrre were a lot of male intellectuals in the past who supported the 'sexual revolution', and there continue to be so today?

I agree that feminism support male and female promiscuity, but male feminists and female feminists both support it.

In terms of the views of the 'people', my general impression is that most men are openly very supportive of the increased availability of sex outside of long-term committed relationships, and that many are openly supportive of the availability of one-night stands.

I don't think it is really possible to get an accurate picture of sentiment here given the overwhelming amounts of social control and messaging on the topic. Most men are in fact openly very supportive of the ideologies that they are required to support in order to remain employed, but I'm not sure how much of that translates to actual, real support. The constant witch-hunting that takes place these days is, to me at least, a sign that this outward support isn't always matched behind the mask.

Are you suggesting that the average WEIRD man would prefer much less of this extramarital and no strings attached sex, but pretends to like that sort of thing to keep his job?

I think that most men would prefer more extramarital and no-strings-attached sex for sure! But is that what they're actually getting? I don't think that they're actually getting much of that - and statistically, only a very small percentage of them are. When you ask the question in terms of "do you want to have less sex" then obviously you get one answer, but if you phrase it as "Would you prefer a set of social norms that made you much more likely to end up in a stable marriage with a woman, or the modern environment where you have a chance at being in the 10% of men who can have lots of no-strings-attached sex?" then I think you'd get a very different set of answers. Remember that most men are actually losers in the current environment and so what they'd actually be giving up is closer to pornhub than the life of a player.

Edited because I had an odd glitch on the UI that made the post come out half-baked.

But is that what they're actually getting? I don't think that they're actually getting much of that - and statistically, only a very small percentage of them are

We need to distinguish tinder one night stands and sex within premarital short or long-term relationships here. The former is something that most people don't deeply engage with, and has a somewhat lopsided distribution of outcomes. But those who get results love it while thy do it. The latter is something that most people (smoothing over a ton of complexity here) engage in and personally support in an authentic way. Men love that they can sleep with women after 1-3-n dates without commitment to marriage, and then maybe leave that woman and sleep with another.

The latter is something that most people (smoothing over a ton of complexity here) engage in and personally support in an authentic way. Men love that they can sleep with women after 1-3-n dates without commitment to marriage, and then maybe leave that woman and sleep with another.

Subtract out the lingering marriages/bonds/connections from either other cultures (immigrants) or older relationships and what I've seen is a dramatic drop in pair-bonding and a dramatic increase in misery, people complaining about the dating market, people complaining about the other gender, etc. While I have no doubt that plenty of men love the ability to sleep with women without committing to marriage, this paints a somewhat misleading picture because that's an element of modern culture that technically works for them. But if you actually pull that out and interrogate it, the same processes and mores that let men engage in this behaviour are responsible for a lot of the problems that they're complaining about.

Taken in isolation that ability to get laid is indeed great and men will absolutely support it in an authentic way - but at the same time, the benefits of an opioid high are great and people will also absolutely support it in an authentic way. But that stops being a compelling argument when you look at what comes with that high and the consequences that can flow from it.