site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

but we're much more accepting of sexual activity at younger ages

Maybe in theory, but not really in practice. Average age of virginity loss is rising, not falling- this is also a reaction to "oh no, every kid has seen porn by 12" (and more recently, "kids have to know they're trans before they hit puberty or Bad Things will happen, so we should be trying to force the issue at 6-8"). [Also, there is very little "experimenting with sex" today anyway; the state of modern gender relations combined with easier alternatives to sex for young men has seen to that.]

what magic happens with waiting just another four months for her to be legally adult at eighteen?

Well, brain chemistry says she's not a human being adult until 25, so she deserves the rules we give her. (That is what The Science says- it's not like we've ever used brain size comparisons to oppress other kinds of people in living memory or anything like that.)

and we must correct in the opposite direction

Gender and sexual politics follows (and slightly lags) economic conditions. Traditionalist-conservatives should fear an improvement in economic conditions as much as progressives do, because with better times comes more demand for sex that is usually met by relaxing the conditions around it (which tend to push the average age of first sex down).
As times get worse, we should expect more desperate flail by the faction that still needs to wear the concept of sex-positivity as a skinsuit- so while you'll probably see more examples of successful predation because of that flail (almost always male -> male), it's not going to meaningfully improve access to straight sex for men (or boys).