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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   24728 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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Is this a full blown victim blaming in the most influential printed medium by decorated feminist? Or am I overreacting?

New York Times: There’s a sentence in the new book that I was curious about, and this goes back to the questions about the trickiness of generalizing and of using a certain kind of rhetorical style: You’re discussing the rarity of false accusations of date rape, and you write, I’m paraphrasing, that there are mentally ill or damaged women who will make those kinds of accusations, and the only thing a young guy can do is not have sex with damaged or mentally ill women. That’s a bit of a flip way of addressing that problem, isn’t it?

Caitlin Moran: That’s possibly my most overt piece of feminism. Obviously #NotAllMen, but I have experienced enough men where the thing at a party is that you’re hunting for the girl on the edge of the pack who’s a bit drunk, bit needy. I can remember dads telling their sons in pubs where I come from, “Crazy bitches are always the best [expletive].” It’s just saying to men as a kind and loving mother with some wisdom that if there’s a woman who is mentally ill, disturbed or needy or unhappy or really drunk at a party, leave her alone. The last thing she needs is a penis. If she’s an upset, needy person and you [expletive] her and then the rumor starts going around school, she might need to, for the defense of her reputation, say, “He raped me.” You’ve put yourself in a dangerous situation because you’ve done a foolish thing.

nytimes.com: https://archive.ph/tZn3B#selection-457.82-457.95

How is this different from "You’ve put yourself in a dangerous situation because you’ve done a foolish thing by flirting with that guy wearing that dress"?

As others have noted, the sexual revolution is slowly being reversed, even though the proponents of this reversal (mostly) don’t understand what they’re doing. Before the sexual revolution, if you ‘improperly seduced’ (‘took advantage of’) a girl of reasonable social standing and this behavior was revealed (by her or others), you’d answer to her male relatives. Now you will answer to the government (this in itself is not a new phenomenon, the same shift from responsibility of the tribe to responsibility of the state has happened with welfare, policing, consumer fraud protection etc).

In the end, it is likely that some arrangement between men and women will be reached. Until then, Moran is right to warn men that the age of unimpeded sexual libertinism and rockstars fucking their 15 year old groupies without social sanction has drawn to a close.

As others have noted, the sexual revolution is slowly being reversed

Anything but. We're not witnessing the "reverse-engineering traditional sexual norms". They're reverse-engineering the half where men are 100% responsible for everything that happens before, during, and after sex. That's it.

Notice that there's no restrictions on women or power over them by men being "rediscovered". It's just the parts where men are responsible for everything.

I've actually come up with a name for this. I kinda had to because I'm seeing it more and more these days, and it's more aggressive than ever. I call it "Dark Femme". It's basically this mix of traditional and modern gender norms that always benefit one direction, and frankly, is often incoherent.

I'm just going to put my two cents here, just to make it easy. I do think there's something to avoiding the crazy. However, let me say this. I've seen a lot lately, discussion about it's not actually "All Men" and maybe women should have some agency and responsibility for recognizing and avoiding red flags. And people do not react well to this at all.

Frankly, this Dark Femme culture wants the toxicity and excitement of the red flags, but in a safe controlled way. One of the first things I said when I abandoned Progressive politics (before it was even really a thing TBH) was that I rejected the "theme park" expectations that society be made into a super-safe but still exciting place that caters to people's wants and desires in a perfect way tailored for them. It's just not possible.

So yeah. Don't stick your dick in crazy seems like good advice. But that advice doesn't go down well at all when it's coming back around.

I've actually come up with a name for this. I kinda had to because I'm seeing it more and more these days, and it's more aggressive than ever. I call it "Dark Femme". It's basically this mix of traditional and modern gender norms that always benefit one direction, and frankly, is often incoherent.

I've seen it beautifully summed up on the A Voice for Men website:

Feminists promote gender equality, as long as it benefits women. Anti-feminists promote gender inequality, as long as it benefits women.

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