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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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I believe that as much as I believe that guys watch PornHub for the plot.

The key thing to observe here is that Twilight, the version without the hot sex, was outsold by Fifty Shades, the version with the hot sex.

Are you going to tell me that the romance was that much better?

Yes, there are a thousand differences between the two novels—but let's not be silly here. Porn isn't a feature you take or leave with a piece of media. It's either primarily what you want or you don't consume the material. It's not a matter of statistical chance that the most popular piece of women's media ever is such a hardcore piece of smut.

There is no Playboy for women.

Sure, and there's no Fifty Shades for men. Girl lust and boy lust don't look exactly the same but there's no reason to think that one is inherently more conducive to monogamy than the other.

Look, I’m not claiming women are “purer” or uninterested in sex.

Okay, so what's your point in objecting to anything I said? Well that's obvious: because you do disagree that women are no more pure in their sexual intent. You just spent the previous paragraph praising the virtues of women's sexual gaze, how it's all about relationships and all that. We're talking about non-monogamy and its consequences for the human race. You posted about how specifically men's sexual vices are destroying our societies—the vice of sexual liberalism and the men who pushed it for their own gain: the gain of having less attached sex with women. The gain that men got at the expense of women. Men's ill-gotten gain against women.

Do you think I'm stupid?

Male vs female sexuality isn’t “better” or “worse”, the point is to illustrate that yes, male sexuality is more likely to be responsible for post-sexual-revolution sexual morality than female sexuality. And yes, a simple deductive exercise shows that men are much more interested in the promise of non-monogamy than women, because they want to fuck lots of hot chicks.

If you offered a thousand men and a thousand women the choice between ten years of regular casual sex with a vast array of 99th percentile hotness partners or one monogamous, happy, forever relationship with a kind, very attractive, wealthy, supportive and charismatic woman or man (who was incredibly attracted to them) including marriage and children, this difference would play out in the results.

The fantasy of casual sex with strangers, ie. promiscuity ie. hookup culture appeals more to men than to women. The dream of the sexual revolution wasn’t really a dream that was designed to appeal to women, which is telling when considering how it came about.

Apropos of nothing, I always appreciate your and 2rafa’s contributions to these battle of the sexes conversations even more than elsewhere. I certainly don’t always agree with you, but thank you two for keeping these from devolving into tendentiously male-POV circle-jerks.

I’d be interested to hear more about “growing up in the shadow” of widely available graphic imagery, as compared to young boys growing up in the shadow of female-oriented media like romance novels.

I certainly agree that men are the main driving force behind literal one-night stands. Is this also true for serial monogamy, which seems to be much more widespread, and about which women seem to be pretty enthusiastic? Would they in general (apart from religious conservatives) willingly lose the ability to take a test-ride before irrevocable, lifetime commitment? Would they accept losing the ability to terminate longstanding sexual relationships? My impression from female relatives (none of them especially promiscuous - and I say with love that a couple have big enough mouths that I would have heard about it if they were) and girlfriends is that that would not. Are these not part of the sexual revolution?

Again, with the “having to put out,” as 2rafa put it - I get the general vibe that women are not averse to this? The alternative, both in theory and in practice, was to say ‘yolo’ and hope the guy didn’t have severe ED or otherwise be unsatisfactory in bed. You could historically get the marriage annulled on those grounds in Catholic countries, but only if he was literally unable to penetrate.

How could reduction in slut-shaming, stigma, and sexual repression fail to increase the incidence of promiscuity and casual sex? That’s what those things are for.

Edit: I have no idea why I thought there was a ‘c’ in 2rafa’s handle.

I have no data to prove this, but from all my life experience it seems plain that, if women could still get attention and commitment without having to be sexually available as they could in my grandmother's youth, far fewer of them would be sexually available.

I don't think this is true, or it is at least incomplete. I'm reminded of an old reddit comment from /u/janearcade:

This I'm not sure about. I often read the trope of "men jumping through hoops desperately for the opportunity for sex." But when the topic of the sex trade comes up, I often also read (and this has been more of my experience), "Men doesn't just want sex they pay for, they want warmth and love and support for a woman they can trust."

I think there is a large unmet demand from men for such supportive relationships that women could tap into if they truly just wanted "attention and commitment without having to be sexually available". It feels more like women largely don't want to be supportive of their partners in this way and use sexual availability to get a facsimile of the "attention and commitment" they desire from men instead. I'd wager that women in your grandmother's youth were much more open to providing that emotional support.

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