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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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This hits close to this widely downvoted comment I made on the topic.

I want to see people in the camp of 'sex is just like tennis' and even actually 'sex is just like tennis and tennis is a game you can play with a ball or not, and perhaps a racket but maybe not' explain it.

Why is 'groomer' a bad word to them? If open nudity, open fornication, children performing alongside adults in sexualized situations are all to be celebrated... then why not just admit 'yes actually we want to screw your kids' or at the very least 'if somebody else did we're okay with it'?

What is the contemporary justification that this is not okay?

If a father can be shamed for opposing their child dating somebody who is too dark, too male/female, or for deciding that they were the other sex all along... If a child rejecting the father's strict heterosexual, ethnocentric norms is to be celebrated...

Then why should progressives not shame a father for opposing their child dating an older adult who opened their mind about the beauty of inter-generational sexual relationships etc?

"Groomer" implies that the person is doing it for base selfish motivation (of future sexual gratification), when the people you call that believe they are doing it for the sake of the children and society at large. This is bound to be insulting to activists who come from a (sub)culture that denigrates selfishness and have built their internal narrative of purpose around doing what they are doing.

"Groomer" implies that the person is doing it for base selfish motivation (of future sexual gratification), when the people you call that believe they are doing it for the sake of the children and society at large.

"Groomer" has never been limited to sexual motives, and has always been used to describe manipulation/social engineering of the vulnerable for one's personal benefit.

Warm fuzzy virtue feelings are a personal benefit.

Warm fuzzy virtue feelings are a personal benefit.

That I think proves too much.

It's certainly possible for someone to do X so they feel good about it but I think that is stretching the personal benefit clause to breaking point. Otherwise any teacher at a Christian school who genuinely feels good about bringing kids into the flock of believers is also a groomer by your definition. It can't be anything to do with the fact they also actually believe the child will be better off as a Christian, or that they want the child's soul to be saved through Christ AND also feel good about it? In fact any teacher teaching anything who feels good about imparting knowledge is now a groomer? A patriotic teacher who feels good about teaching kids the national anthem and the history of standing up to colonial overlords?

At which point once more we have stretched the definition of grooming to nigh uselessness because feeling good about doing things you think are good is a pro-social human adaption. Most people feel good about doing (what they perceive to be) good even if they have other reasons for doing so (moral intuition, commandments from God, legal instructions to follow etc.)

It also suggests as long as we employ teachers who don't feel good about it, but do so because they are instructed to do so, would be A-OK? That seems a counter-intuitive take on the whole situation. "It's ok, we picked a bunch of teachers to teach the Gay/Trans/Sex Ed curriculum who really don't care about it at all, and in fact would rather teach something else, and thus will get no personal benefit whatsoever and therefore definitionally cannot be groomers" doesn't seem like it would be accepted as a counter-argument.

You seem to object to the technicality of 'grooming'.

But what if teachers did want to have sex with kids and did try to influence them to have sex with them?

They would proceed in the same manner that teachers are currently doing with the trans questions. They're finding the 'trans' kids and helping them come out to their actual identity that was hidden all along.

Except in this case they're finding the kids that just happen to really want to have sex with adults.

Not forcing any kids, just helping them find 'who they truly are' inside.

Would you be opposed to it, and on what ground?

But what if teachers did want to have sex with kids and did try to influence them to have sex with them?

Then that would be bad and then be grooming yes. Adults should not have sex with children, so I would oppose it on those grounds.

Adults should not have sex with children

Why not? What's your moral justification against it (and how does it not apply to puberty blockers)?

What about children with children? If the teachers were to have practical sex-ed organizing orgies between pupils? Perhaps filming for educational purposes as well.

Because I intuit that is wrong. If puberty blockers are a medical treatment for a medical condition then they are probably ok. But it would probably depend on the age of the child, the situation they were in and the opinion of medical professionals. I imagine sometimes they would be ok and sometimes not.

So if a medical professional built up on the work of Wilhelm Reich and confidently came out with something like 'sexually repressed' youth and diagnosed your child, would it be okay for them to get some much needed relief?

How many medical professionals need to get together for you to agree that this is fine? What if all the medical professionals who disagree get banned from X?

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