This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The new House Speaker, Mike Johnson, is an Evangelical Christian that has positions and stances on homosexuality that I do not share (I confess, I remain a Millennial lib that has no problem with gay people doing gay things). Nonetheless, this CNN video where they discuss his positions on homosexuality and conversion therapy just seems so bizarre to me. In it, they refer to the idea of someone going from gay to straight as "debunked", quote Johnson saying, "there's freedom to change if you want to", and "homosexual behavior is something you do, not who you are".
Despite my own inclination to completely accept gay people qua gay people, I find nothing objectionable about Johnson's statements and see them as a much more accurate model of reality than what the CNN crew is expressing. I have zero doubt that sexual preferences and predilections can be substantially altered through a combination of conditioning, cognitive therapy, and repetition. I'm agnostic on whether this could allow someone who has a natural inclination towards homosexuality (or heterosexuality) to groom attraction for the sex that they didn't initially prefer, but it's not obvious to me, and I don't think there's good reason to say that it's deboonked as though this is just a common stylized fact. Likewise, even if it proves impossible to change one's underlying preference, it certainly remains true that one can elect to follow a different pattern of behavior than their natural tendency. I might have a natural tendency to hook up with a flirtatious woman at the bar while I'm on a work trip, but Mrs. O'Dim wouldn't appreciate this and I value her so much more than some stupid hookup. Were I a religious man, I might be inclined to view my religious obligations through the same sort of lens.
But really, the thing that keeps hitting me with dissonance isn't even the above points, which I can at least countenance reasonable counterarguments to, but the incongruity with the belief that gender itself is a mere social construct that is fully malleable to an individual's stated preference. A man attracted to other men cannot become a straight man, but he can become a straight woman. Do the people articulating this view not notice that this is at least a difficult pair of propositions to adhere to? Do they see no conflict? Do they understand the conflict, but believe that it's a question that's been solved by The Science, so better to just trust The Science and move on? Cynically, I think it's mostly that expressing the opposite view will get you bullied and fired.
Simply: lots of work by libs is a sort of gay conversion therapy for straight people. Pride parades, public school education, pride month, trans day of visibility etc. all exist to glorify homosexuality and, explicitly to help straight people easily “come out of the closet” as gay.
I don’t expect ideological consistency here, but it should be obvious that this implies the reverse should be true. Could you be a closeted…normie? I feel like many people go through this transition in their 30s anyway. They have children, regret not doing it earlier, move to the suburbs, and take the grill pill.
I think if we are going to have actual IRL trans/sterilization clinics for children, then at the very least straight people should be allowed to have therapy sessions where they talk about how they wish they werent gay.
Edit: it’s annoying to say this so forgive me but I just feel the need to say it: I have 0 problem with gay people. Many of my closest, and most loved friends are happily married gay people who just want to be left alone to have their families. They’re loving fathers, and seriously cherished members of my community. It routinely brings me to tears thinking about people being mean to them, and I end up feel a sort of parental desire to protect them from the world. I understand why they hear gay conversion therapy and instinctively recoil, but this is approximately how I think most people feel when they hear about trans conversion clinics, or children at pride events.
I find this a very dubious assertion. It seems to me, both in terms of public assertion as well as mildly uncharitable questioning of their inner motivations, that the aim isn't to convert straight people, but to have people who are already gay (or at least not a zero on the Kinsey scale) to feel free to express their sexuality.
Would many activists prefer that their campaigns result in everyone turning bisexual or gay? Maybe, probably. Doesn't mean that's what they expect.
This is distinct from the odd grifter who painlessly claims to be gay for the sake of diversity points, since it's verboten to question them even if they've never sucked an actual dick in their lives, but even then they're more likely to claim to be trans or non-binary. While some activists might grudgingly tolerate this (or feel helpless to call it out according to the standards of self-identification they espouse), I don't think they approve of it per se.
What percentage of people going to gay conversion clinics do you think believe themselves be straight be afflicted with something they find undesirable?
I doubt it’s zero.
In their minds they are straight people who need help overcoming a psychological condition.
I don't think a significant fraction of them think being straight is bad, and even if they did, that's not likely the reason why they endorse Pride. And the tendency of many gays to take pride in "converting" "straight" men is more of a fetishization of the unattainable.*
Of course, I'm trying to interpret the question I think you're trying to ask, because as of the time of writing, what you said:
Makes no sense! I presume you meant "to be straight to be afflicted".
*Many gay people mock the straights, but or ask questions along the lines of "are the straights OK?" but that's more of an in-group catechism and bitching, rather than a genuine belief that being straight is somehow inferior.
Note that I'm specifically addressing gay men (or maybe lesbian too), the trans activist community has an unhealthy obsession with cracking eggs.
His question was how many people go to conversion therapy go there with the intent of relieving themselves of homosexual attractions so they can live their preferred lives.
It is a bit of a tautology.
More options
Context Copy link
I think you’re missing my point, or maybe your being cheeky and I don’t realize it.
A straight person unconverted to gay, and a gay person unconverted to straight are equivalents.
It seems like the assumption is that you can only ever find out that you’re gay, as if that is an evolution. I’m saying it goes both ways. Consider a 20-something who experiments with homosexuality in college and then realizes that they don’t like it later in life.
This is the same as a gay person experimenting with heterosexuality and “coming out” later in life.
We seem to be socially okay with helping straight people convert to homosexuality, but not okay with the opposite.
Yeah. Be married to a woman for thirty years, have kids with her, then come out as gay: you were gay all along, baby!
Straight guy might have once-off sexual encounter of some kind with another guy: Okay dude, that means you're gay. No take-backs.
Gay guy might drunkenly have sex one time with a woman: No, that doesn't mean he's straight or bi! It was just the one time!
It really is a one-way street where you can only move towards and never away from full gayness; if you're bi, you're faking it or too chicken to come out as really gay.
It typically isn’t LGBT activist types who say that a man who has a one-off sexual encounter with another man is gay, though. That’s a ‘masculine’ or red tribe adjacent thing in the modern west, it’s more likely to be a homophobic person who thinks that a guy who fucked another guy once is 100% gay. Progs would say it means he’s bi or queer or whatever.
"Queer" seems to be the new catch-all phrase. And that's what I'm getting at: it's not considered "okay, you're straight, you just did that thing" but "hey dude, you might be queer, have you considered that?" from some of the progressive types.
More options
Context Copy link
They do though. I've seen people declare others are self-hating gays for being slightly effeminate. They do the same thing with transgenderism nowaydays, and throw abuse at people who say it was just a phase for them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There are plenty of people who experiment in college and then end up (almost entirely?) straight. They get a few jokes about them (Lesbian until Graduation and Gay until Graduation), but they aren't particularly subjected to much opprobrium that I can tell.
Is someone who had same sex relationships then went back to different sex relationship straight? or are they bi? I think it might be logically true that if you have been attracted to same sex people and acted upon said attraction, that even if you go back only to opposite sex relationships for the rest of the life, you might not be considered straight.
In other words it might not be equivalent. Especially if, ironically enough we consider straight the default. You either are forever (super) straight or you are not. You don't find out you're straight, you just are.Even the gayest guy I know, who realised he was gay very early in life, originally had the same ideas about romantically rescuing princesses in so on.
Your assertion is they are equivalent, but is it actually the case?
Equivalent for the purposes of my point, which is that “conversion therapy” is morally near to pride, LGBT holidays, trans therapy, etc.
But that only matters if going straight to gay or gay to straight are actually equivalent. If it's impossible to be made gay but possible to be made straight (for example) then they are not the same (and indeed vice versa). Assuming for the moment both attending conversion therapy and Pride are both consensual for now.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
While I'm fond of sarcasm, in this case I presume it's the former.
Even after you've offered a clarifying example, I'd have to disagree.
It's exceedingly common for women (if not men) to "experiment" with each other in college or school. Usually it's just the odd drunken kiss, but it can go further. I know this is true for a fact both because I've heard of it in the West and a friend of my ex drunkenly admitted that we were Eskimo siblings (the friend was a girl). They're otherwise straight, and go on to exclusive have heterosexual relationships and might not even think of a woman romantically again.
This has little in the way of repercussions or even anything beyond mild disapproval from the more staid, nobody I'm aware of advocates for reconverting them after they ceased to experiment with the same team.
I would agree with the Pride activists that any guy who was convinced by a Pride parade or other advocacy to start sucking dick or taking it in the rear wasn't particularly straight to begin with, leaving aside what they identified as.
Female sexuality mores are different than male sexuality.
The real rate of male homosexual experimentation is very hard to figure out and seems to vary by environment.
More options
Context Copy link
How much of that is cultural, though?
Girl-on-girl is a bit of raunchy fun. Guy-on-guy experimentation is likely to ick every woman who ever hears of your involvement, without even getting into man-on-man homophobia.
More options
Context Copy link
I can't say I disagree. But they both are presumably relevant here, and most guys don't even try experimenting with other men, so it's not like I can point at them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link