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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

People were getting their accounts slapped with some regularity though -- not sure whether anyone got a site-wide perma, but there were a lot of site-wide temp bans being eaten due to drive-by report-to-admins of tranny stuff. That makes meaningful discussion of these issues difficult even if it weren't the case that admins were warming up to kick the sub itself. (which I doubt they would have thought twice about if it came to their attention)

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

Women have had the knowledge that men are sex-crazed brutes forever, they tolerate us anyway.

Debatable, but also, let me compare the information ecosystems at work here. Men's many faults and failure modes are part of mainstream culture. Women can open say, in mixed company, in virtually any setting, "All men want is sex." And all the men will nod thinking "Not me, but those other guys sure". If they have daughter's they'll think of all the men they hope stay the fuck away from her. The women might still be thinking of their husbands. But generally, nobody will protest the statement, and it's treated as just obviously true and uncontroversial.

Knowledge of women's many faults and failure modes exists in a ghetto and is profoundly stigmatized. It's not worked into mainstream culture at all. Father's rarely pass the information they've learned onto their sons, lest their wive's overhear and lose their shit that their husband is teaching their sons to "hate women". All we ever hear is a litany of "Women never lie about rape/lie about paternity/baby trap men". To accuse any woman of doing so sets off the entire cartel like you have personally accused every woman of doing such a thing. They cannot dissociate from the "Women lie about rape" the same way men can from "All men want is sex."

So most women are armed against male excesses, and most men are fed into the wood chipper repeatedly until they rediscover the forbidden knowledge from first principles yet again. Or they get lucky and find even some light red-pill takes.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

They'd asked me how old I was. The answer made them gasp, "you're a baby!" Like, come on, I'm on the wrong side of 25. The youngest was HG, who I thought was younger than me, and I think he said he was 32. I was going to add the topic of twink death to my list of nosy questions, but FG straight up told me that gay men hit a wall after 30. That answered things.

Interesting. Perhaps this relates to their non-use of Grindr: my understanding is that, like with straight people, young gay men are very app-oriented and non-commital. "Sleep around in the most friction-less (cough) way in your 20s" seems to be a pretty broad strategy for people who can pull it off.

Even the men who didn't make a move were perfectly welcoming. There's just something about me that has people opening up (it's a good trait to have in a shrink)

Ah, fair enough. Not her scene, obviously, but my mother is the same way. She used to think of herself as an introvert, but I have been telling her most of my adult life how she's extremely extroverted, and people love talking to her. She talks about how when she meets someone who seems gruff or closed-off, she makes it a mission to get them to laugh.

I think if I'd reacted negatively to FG's attempts at flirtation, instead of taking it in good cheer, he'd probably have desisted.

I guess this was my point -- you made it easy to keep going, and that made you fun to talk to!

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

You might be surprised. I'm not the best person to ask about appearances, but there's a good part of gay society where that'd come across as pretty strong masc top signal.

What is an honest straight man who is a zero on the Kinsey scale supposed to do? Go topless? I suspect that would make things worse, heh.

What else do I have in my wardrobe? Hawaiian shirt? I can see where that leads.. Barely worn suits? Probably means I'm closeted and looking for fun on a business trip I'm sure.

I mean, I can't blame them, I was an interloper in a gay bar. That is a strong signal of... something. Poor situational awareness, a liberal worldview, a love of cheap drinks? Pick your poison.

Yeah, they were incredibly rare ten or even twenty years ago, and probably reflected a bunch of conditions that aren't likely to show up again: the whole thing screams of sublimated fears over having to choose between certain infection and complete abstinence not just from sex but even casual exposure in gay spaces.

FG framed it in a manner I've heard before: Back in the day, you're all but guaranteed to get it, unless you give up on the gay lifestyle altogether. Why not just get it out of the way?

Hang on, another memory unlocked. He told me that he had met three potential partners who were HIV positive. I think he said two of them were on PrEP, and he might have slept with them. The other wasn't, and thus was rebuffed. I think this is what prompted the tirade about HIV and monkeypox. He said that man was being an idiot, and worsening general societal perception of the gays, as well as being a risk to their lifestyle.

Oh, boy, that's it's own separate ball of wax. Tbf, there's a lot of complex tradeoffs where the new demographic has some compatibility issues with the standard demos at the same time that it is partly your old clients. But there's also lot of older gay guys that are somewhere between weirded out by and grossed out by trans women as pretty much everything that gay men weren't supposed to do, or just don't like it, and that's a lot more controversial an issue in the field.

Interesting. I'm not too surprised by the existence of conservative or reactionary gay men. These guys seemed to be very liberal in outlook, they were friends with the trans bartender, so I guess they took the concept of LGBT solidarity more seriously!

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

There is also the fact that they are calling a whole bunch of models "GPT-5" and selecting which one to use based on context cues (e.g. giving you the reasoning model if you ask it to please think hard). I understand that the previously available model names (o3, 4o, o4-mini, 4.1, and 4.5) were a fucking mess, but they should have clarified things instead of going full Apple.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

To answer both your and @urquan 's question:

I know the Grindr sound because of a prank video I saw somewhere online. The prankster would clock someone as likely gay, and then play the matching notification sound standing close to them. I think they used women in some scenes, to minimize the assumption it was them. You'd see a lot of men jump and pat their pockets. Including quite a few who definitely didn't look it to my untrained eye.

Wouldn't this also be affected by Pride celebration?

Possibly. I wasn't keeping track, but since this happened literally this weekend, I guess some of the decor might have stayed up.

Closeted men is perfectly valid, but bisexuals? That's not risk management, that's bigotry (pun intended?). And they contradicted themselves anyway, they were offering to hook-up with you despite you having clearly stated you were heterosexual from the get-go, so they were hoping you were at least a little bi-curious.

The majority of the offers came before the phone gallery bit. I'm sure that FG still made more moves, but they were clearly in the "haha, just kidding. Unless...?" tier.

As far as I know sex in a public lavatory is illegal in the UK regardless of the sex of the participants. I would assume a pub (i.e. a public house) counts? I know straight people who've had sex in a bar toilet, so there's no argument to be made that it's an exclusively homosexual act.

His explanation covered both clubs and bars. I think the sex in dimly lit corners applied more to the former.

While sex in a loo might be illegal, I sincerely doubt anyone ever gets charged!

In any case, your talk with these gents made me understand the perspective of some more intolerant people. That "gay culture" seems to be purposefully designed to be repulsive. I understand that being a pick-me isn't helpful, and that loud gays were the ones that paved away for LGBT rights while the polite, respectful homophile movement accomplished little.

FG was by far the most forward. The rest of them, beyond the usual compliments and offers, seemed normal, for lack of a better word. In other contexts, I might have suspected they were gay, but I wouldn't have strong confidence in that notion. They seemed to act like anyone else out for a drink with friends.

Popper-inhaling, incontinent, promiscuous people who go to bath houses and have sex in the corner of a bar where anybody can come in and have a drink, well, I have little defense of that beyond my general liberal principles.

I am generally liberal, and I think that's enough here. If they want to do all of that, with other consenting adults, then it's none of my business! As a straight man, if I could get away with the sex bit, I'd definitely go for it. Sadly women don't seem quite so keen. Gay sexuality is male sexuality, without the constraints of needing women to indulge in it or to provide the civilizing influence.

The poppers and incontinence? Not as pleasing to my sensibilities, but I will defend their right to do as they wish.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

Don't send a guy into a nightclub without either knowing how to dance or knowing how to throw down if someone pushes him around. Preferably both.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

That is because the nicest parts of Malaysia are essentially outposts of Singapore, demographically speaking.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

Despite the entertainment value of missing literal rainbow flags, I'll note outright that you did a lot better reading social signals than I did the first three or five times I went to one, and I had about the same level of interest in a casual hookup.

Okay, now you've piqued my curiosity.

even people who aren't on the meat market'll often have some less-than-audience-friendly photos on their phones.

This is kind of a straight person thing too. I recall seeing memes a few years ago joking about "not opening your gallery in front of strangers." And, really, the era we're living in often involves an exchange of nudes for people in an intimate relationship, so it wouldn't be especially surprising for a straight man to have dirty pics of his wife or his girlfriend on his phone -- though probably an order of magnitude fewer of them. Straight women are maybe? less likely, but I doubt it's unheard of. And both of them might just have dirty pics of themselves in their photos, you have to take them to send them!

From the bi guy side, that's somewhat glossing over the less charitable reasons: there's a lot of gay stereotypes about bi guys as just wanting side pieces, or wanting some fucc in the short time before they settle down with a woman/beard later. But it's not wrong, and people fitting those stereotypes do exist.

The same stereotype works in the opposite direction -- straight women have concerns about bisexual men for the exact same reason. As self_made_human has realized, getting sexual attention from gay men is trivial, and so is both easy to obtain and less valuable per-interaction. So madonna/whoring your mindset and searching for disposable sexual attention from men (whores) while seeking out reliable partnership with women (madonnas) is something you can do, if you're so inclined.

The other thing is that gay men, particularly ones who are interested in companionship more than disposability, often feel trapped by the expectations of gay dating, and are jealous of straight men for whom long-term commitment, exclusivity, and broad social acceptance feel like table stakes. So bisexual men can be "traitors": taking from gay men whatever they can get from them and then fleeing to the arms of a woman when one arises.

This has been somewhat sexualized lately, with the "femboy bf"/"femboy hooters" meme culture which prompts great recrimination in the ongoing femininine-man/trans-woman civil war, but of course that also comes with the corollary memes of "breaking up with my femboy bf because I met a real woman." (I have no idea what the actual prevalence of this stuff is, I'm just way too extremely online.)

Intriguingly, this pattern seems to mirror many complaints about women's sexual behavior from men, and women's complaints about the sexual behavior of extremely attractive straight men: if sexual attention is abundant, using it for temporary affirmation while utterly disposing of your partners' interests and needs is a real possibility. Turns out, sex is not tennis.

In the US, they're starting to push it to the point of having advertisements on bus stops and park benches in my local area... and I'm not in an especially gay or even urban space.

I saw a bunch when I visited DC with my girlfriend. Interestingly, they were generally framed as "use PrEP to protect him" not yourself, like that Simpsons meme about Maggie.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

I think it’s about safety. If a woman cant absolutely feel safe around you, you are done. And one of the best ways to find out if you’re able to stick up for yourself is to try to push on the boundaries until the choice is you stick to your guns or you cave.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

I found it more censored, which is what matters most to me. I could ask GPT-4o to draw me a character with the proportions of Chelsea Charms or Maxi Mounds and get a reasonable response, but GPT-5 is smart enough to refuse.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

That "gay culture" seems to be purposefully designed to be repulsive.

I don't believe that it was "designed" to be anything. It's simply male sexuality in its most natural and unrestrained form.

Do you know how straight men would act if women were as DTF as men are? Hooooo boy.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

That's... pretty damn forward.

Oh no, he made it clear he'd be perfectly happy bending me backwards. Sadly, my yoga days are behind me.

This seems like a great opportunity to use the "hide" function in the Photos app.

My thoughts exactly. I wanted to give these guys a lesson in opsec.

I guess it seems to me that they had every reason to be kind to you -- at least some of them found you attractive. You were offered multiple sex acts. Even after they clarified that you were straight, FG still flirted with you: "Such a shame," FG added, "especially when you're dressed like that." FG in particular seems like he had "elder gay" energy, and a kind of leadership over the group, and he specifically had something for you.

Really? You're telling me this now for the first time. And here I was thinking he was being polite.

FG actually looked a lot older than he really was. I think he claimed he was 35? I was thrown off by the gray hair. I'm presuming he wasn't lying about his age.

A lot of memories are finally coming back to me:

They'd asked me how old I was. The answer made them gasp, "you're a baby!" Like, come on, I'm on the wrong side of 25. The youngest was HG, who I thought was younger than me, and I think he said he was 32. I was going to add the topic of twink death to my list of nosy questions, but FG straight up told me that gay men hit a wall after 30. That answered things.

(Am I a twink? Goodness, I hope not. Perhaps @Corvos can answer that, he's seen me in person, even if he's straight)

It also sounds like their objection to straight men in the bar was about them talking to women there, and you said you did none of that, and even slightly judged a man who was trying to do so.

A lack of opportunity rather than interest! The first two people I thought were women were actually trans. I think a total of two natal women walked in, one left while I was still in conversation. The last one? You know how that ended.

I didn't mean to judge the old dude. He owned the dog, it had a rather painful looking wound on its back, and he wasn't trying to hit on the lesbian woman - he was telling her the story of how it happened. He was telling quite a few other people the same story too.

I'm sure that me being attractive had some bearing on their friendliness, but I don't think it really explains the whole story. Even the men who didn't make a move were perfectly welcoming. There's just something about me that has people opening up (it's a good trait to have in a shrink), and their behavior wasn't out of the ordinary (well...) when it comes to having good conversations with other pub goers.

It also seemed to me that their objection to straight men in gay spaces wasn't just the fact that were straight, or after women but other things:

  • They dilute the pool of available gay men.

  • They react negatively to being taken for gay men even if it's literally a gay club. I imagine the average chav wouldn't be as polite as me.

  • They have the potential to get violent even if the gay men are being gay without involving them. I can believe it.

For the same reason that women who try to be vague and polite when they reject men tend to prolong the interaction. The door could always be more open than you're saying. And gay men are quite reluctant to take "I'm straight" as an answer. "I'm bi" is an invitation to participation in adultery, "I'm straight" is a challenge.

I was indirectly exploring that with my questions about closeted men and bi men. I think that the gay men who actually get a kick out of "converting" straight men are a minority in practice. Sure, they definitely exist, but I doubt they're representative. In a similar manner, most straight men would bang a lesbian chick and brag, but you don't see the majority of us trying.

I think if I'd reacted negatively to FG's attempts at flirtation, instead of taking it in good cheer, he'd probably have desisted.

Apparently late July/August has been "how are the _____ doing sexually?" time on the motte. And, as usual, I have no bloody clue how lesbians are doing, except that the one lesbian I was friends with in college was interested in gender transition. I think they prefer it that way.

Neither do I. I assume they're working on project cars, or playing roller derby. I don't think I know a single lesbian, personally or online.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

Thank you for your service, keeping me inside the overton window.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

The whole thing makes me rather worried about the state of western society/mental health, in the same way that OnlyFans "chat to the creator" feature does.

I've arrived to the stage of "the less I know about it the better I feel" concerning this topic. The previous stage was "wtf is wrong with you people?!" and I couldn't stay there anymore.

We need government enforced grass-touching or something.

No we don't. The government is the same people, only with high sociopathy, high egotism and low self-reflection. Realizing this is a major part of what made me a libertarian. I mean I could be a philosopher-king-monarchist, but I'm too cynical for that.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

No, do both lol. Mma did not help me at all, still an amazing hobby, being unfuckwithable helps a ton.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

Get off of dating apps, hit the nearest nightclub and if you succeed, you'll sound the way me or @faceh or those who did way more with way hotter girls than any of us.

Personally I'd say skip the nightclub and hit the best Martial Arts gym you can find in a 10 mile radius.

Friday Fun Thread for August 8, 2025

Framers do the same thing setting trusses, when nobody's looking -- it's pretty safe actually, and when you think about it there's not really a useful place to anchor a harness at this stage of construction.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

I think one factor everyone is forgetting is that it didn’t actually cost much to be pro-Israel for the last 20 years. It didn’t cost much to be pro-Palastine either. Go to AIPAC conference once a year “blah blah unbreakable commitment to the continued existence of the state of Israel blah blah” pass Go, collect 2 million dollars in PAC money. Or alternatively, “blah blah illegal apartheid regime, boycotts and sanctions” all the college students clap, your leftist card is now good for another three years even though 80 percent of your votes are solely for the benefit of Raytheon. There had only been minimal violence since the end of the Second Intifada, and it looked like things would only get better in the future.

Now, supporting one or the other carries significant costs, and someone is going to hate you whomever you pick. Each choice is also going to permanently associate you with it’s own set of gory videos showing various unsympathetic behaviors by your guys. Politicians have spent the last two years trying to figure out the new reality and how to best exploit it for votes and campaign contributions. In conclusion, blah blah rational argument, blah blah updating my Bayesian priors blah blah Aella HBD whatever give me updoots.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

Great write-up as usual. I'm surprised at how stereotypically gay these lads were, you really got lucky from an ethnographic POV.

I clarified my presence, attributing it to a combination of cultural unfamiliarity and severe myopia. FG gestured towards the numerous pride flags. I claimed to have interpreted them as generic contemporary decor. He then indicated the very large flag by the entrance, to which I could only plead a fundamental lack of situational awareness.

Wouldn't this also be affected by Pride celebration? Where I live even the burrito place will be covered in pride flags for a good two months in summer, and a big greasy burrito full of beans is probably not the kind of food you'd want as a gay man looking for a hook-up.

I was also offered, variously, two blowjobs, a rimjob, and a golden shower. I declined with gratitude. It is good to be desired. It is also good to have boundaries.

I'm grateful that no gay man has ever been this crude with me in person. At worst they've just asked me to go home with them and the rest was implied, or made suggestive innuendos.

I declined to explain how I know the sound.

You could just have said you had a gay roommate or something like that. Declining just invites more questions and idle speculation.

How often do you encounter men who are closeted or who identify as bi? FG avoids them. Too messy, too much drama, too many norm mismatches, and in his experience too much reluctance to test for STIs. Others nodded. This was not about identity policing. It was about risk management.

Closeted men is perfectly valid, but bisexuals? That's not risk management, that's bigotry (pun intended?). And they contradicted themselves anyway, they were offering to hook-up with you despite you having clearly stated you were heterosexual from the get-go, so they were hoping you were at least a little bi-curious.

But from your description of these gents I do get it in one sense. They basically want someone of that's "culturally gay" like them, for whom offering a golden shower to a stranger over a couple of drinks is normal behavior.

Sex in dark corners and in toilets tends to discourage straight tourists and is conveniently hard to legislate away without awkward free speech arguments.

As far as I know sex in a public lavatory is illegal in the UK regardless of the sex of the participants. I would assume a pub (i.e. a public house) counts? I know straight people who've had sex in a bar toilet, so there's no argument to be made that it's an exclusively homosexual act.

In any case, your talk with these gents made me understand the perspective of some more intolerant people. That "gay culture" seems to be purposefully designed to be repulsive. I understand that being a pick-me isn't helpful, and that loud gays were the ones that paved away for LGBT rights while the polite, respectful homophile movement accomplished little... but still I feel like I've had the most headway with conservatives when I explained that deep down we just want to be free to live the same lives straight people do. Popper-inhaling, incontinent, promiscuous people who go to bath houses and have sex in the corner of a bar where anybody can come in and have a drink, well, I have little defense of that beyond my general liberal principles.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

Despite the entertainment value of missing literal rainbow flags, I'll note outright that you did a lot better reading social signals than I did the first three or five times I went to one, and I had about the same level of interest in a casual hookup.

At one point I unlocked my phone to show photos from Dover. This triggered knowing looks. “So, you are not gay, are you?” Correct. They explained that no gay man would casually open his gallery in public. Too high a risk of unexpected appearances.

Fair. Not 100% accurately, mostly because some are paranoid enough to have separate phones or be really aggressive about separating files, but yeah, even people who aren't on the meat market'll often have some less-than-audience-friendly photos on their phones.

"Such a shame," FG added, "especially when you're dressed like that." My attire, a polo shirt under a pullover, was chosen for its extreme neutrality. I suppose this can create its own kind of allure through sheer demureness.

You might be surprised. I'm not the best person to ask about appearances, but there's a good part of gay society where that'd come across as pretty strong masc top signal.

How common are poppers in actual practice? FG looked at me like I had asked how common forks are at dinner. The table consensus: some had used them, none were evangelists.

Sounds about right. My impression's that they were a lot more popular in the 80s, and still had a decent number of strong advocates in the 90s, but even when I was a young bi they'd started to get the same sort reputation whippits did (if far less dangerous). Technically a high, but dumb and risky even by the standards of drugs.

I think there's also some mechanical explanations, in addition to the safety and reputational concerns, though. A lot of by-gay-for-gay literature even into the 90s emphasize them (or similar materials like 'vcr tape cleaner') not for improving climax, but as a muscle relaxant. Improved availability of tools and toys to get certain muscles more trained for certain things, and more expectations for tops to properly manage speed, may have made that aspect a lot less universally valuable.

But they've still got a following for that purpose, and that following has long a litany of first-hand bad experiences (bad headaches) and second-hand horror stories (oh boy, chemical burns).

Do people douche before anal sex? After some deliberation, the consensus was no, not routinely. Diet was preferred. Eat fiber, manage timing, accept that risk can be reduced but not eliminated.

Huh. Wonder how much of that's a genuine geographic or cultural difference, or something tied to the specifics of how UK bars work rather than US sphere stuff, rather than 'oh, that's just a bidet/enema/lotta shower time, not a douche'. It's always been something some people can't stand at all, and definitely not my idea of fun, but it's something I've been hard-pressed to be comfortable without even when pretty confident about diet control.

How often do you encounter men who are closeted or who identify as bi? FG avoids them. Too messy, too much drama, too many norm mismatches, and in his experience too much reluctance to test for STIs. Others nodded. This was not about identity policing. It was about risk management.

From the bi guy side, that's somewhat glossing over the less charitable reasons: there's a lot of gay stereotypes about bi guys as just wanting side pieces, or wanting some fucc in the short time before they settle down with a woman/beard later. But it's not wrong, and people fitting those stereotypes do exist.

Are you on PrEP? Only FG. He is meticulous about screening and uses PrEP as insurance.

You're starting to see that a bit more, but not surprised it's both uncommon and mostly not young gays in your sample. I'm not convinced it's a good decision at larger scales -- a lot of the fresh-out-of-high-school gay guys think it's like complete immunity, rather than 'just' an order of magnitude reduction -- but then again I probably put nowhere near FG's value on sex, so hard to make a serious analysis.

((In the US, they're starting to push it to the point of having advertisements on bus stops and park benches in my local area... and I'm not in an especially gay or even urban space.))

Do bug chasers still exist? Only FG had even heard of them, and he is slightly older.

Yeah, they were incredibly rare ten or even twenty years ago, and probably reflected a bunch of conditions that aren't likely to show up again: the whole thing screams of sublimated fears over having to choose between certain infection and complete abstinence not just from sex but even casual exposure in gay spaces. You do still get some people taking incredibly stupid risks, but they're usually more just going 'max bodycount'.

Do people have sex in the baths. Yes, says FG, wistfully reminiscing about a visit to San Francisco.

Speaking of which: ugh, that's a sphere I'm glad I have no information about.

According to him, the only reliable counterpressure is to make the environment clearly and unambiguously queer. Sex in dark corners and in toilets tends to discourage straight tourists and is conveniently hard to legislate away without awkward free speech arguments.

In the US, you'll sometimes see jokes about it as equivalent to keeping rent down by firing gunshots off at the street corner. Probably not a turn of phrase that'd be appreciated or understood in the UK, though. I think there's more motivation toward low-grade exhibitionism, since a lot of these habits were common back when (or where) straight guys wouldn't enter a gay bar for a sorority worth of women, but fear of gay spaces getting rolled over by a tidal wave of straights is definitely a thing and not an unreasonable fear.

They mentioned the only other gay bar nearby, owned by a man who is both gay and loudly hostile to trans people. They had taken their business elsewhere.

Oh, boy, that's it's own separate ball of wax. Tbf, there's a lot of complex tradeoffs where the new demographic has some compatibility issues with the standard demos at the same time that it is partly your old clients. But there's also lot of older gay guys that are somewhere between weirded out by and grossed out by trans women as pretty much everything that gay men weren't supposed to do, or just don't like it, and that's a lot more controversial an issue in the field.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

"Hey handsome," he said, noticing my interest. "Sorry if I end up spilling any of this on you." I assured him this would be fine, since spilled alcohol represents free alcohol, which represents savings. "I wouldn't mind licking it off you, if you know what I mean."

That's... pretty damn forward.

At one point I unlocked my phone to show photos from Dover. This triggered knowing looks. “So, you are not gay, are you?” Correct. They explained that no gay man would casually open his gallery in public. Too high a risk of unexpected appearances. I learned something.

This seems like a great opportunity to use the "hide" function in the Photos app.

I said I had expected at least one notification during the evening. I declined to explain how I know the sound.

Such a tease, self_made_human, such a tease.

How often do you encounter men who are closeted or who identify as bi? FG avoids them. Too messy, too much drama, too many norm mismatches, and in his experience too much reluctance to test for STIs.

Hm. This seems to suggest to me that the big problem with this group is that they're cheating on women. In particular, STI testing is relatively uncommon among men who date women, and there's a lot of friction to start if you've never done it before. Or, if finding the answer would mean a messy obligation to disclose a compromising health detail to an intimate partner.

In the realistic version I walked home slightly drunk, slightly wiser, and extremely grateful that a bar full of men who had no reason to be kind to me were kind anyway.

I guess it seems to me that they had every reason to be kind to you -- at least some of them found you attractive. You were offered multiple sex acts. Even after they clarified that you were straight, FG still flirted with you: "Such a shame," FG added, "especially when you're dressed like that." FG in particular seems like he had "elder gay" energy, and a kind of leadership over the group, and he specifically had something for you.

And even then, you came from related fields, and could talk about work. So you built a kind of camaraderie on that detail.

It also sounds like their objection to straight men in the bar was about them talking to women there, and you said you did none of that, and even slightly judged a man who was trying to do so. You went to a gay bar and let men flirt with you, and let them down easy... of course they liked you! For the same reason that women who try to be vague and polite when they reject men tend to prolong the interaction. The door could always be more open than you're saying. And gay men are quite reluctant to take "I'm straight" as an answer. "I'm bi" is an invitation to participation in adultery, "I'm straight" is a challenge.

Apparently late July/August has been "how are the _____ doing sexually?" time on the motte. And, as usual, I have no bloody clue how lesbians are doing, except that the one lesbian I was friends with in college was interested in gender transition. I think they prefer it that way.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

I'd say the absolute floor is to be aware of how to handle the "shit test". The fact that women are relentlessly probing your boundaries for weakness, and like children, if you give in they lose all respect for you. If you treat women like peers with mutual respect, you might foolishly give into one of these "shit test" and then you're fucked. You can literally watch them lose interest in you and check out of all future dates.

I have no theory of mind for this behavior. Red-pillology says there frankly isn't one, it's entirely biological. They don't even know they are doing it, and don't even know that's how they are reacting to it. Maybe that's a less inflammatory theory than thinking it's on purpose, maybe learned from those "How to train your man" magazines I always see at the grocery checkout and never read.

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

I can probably dredge up a few if I thought for a bit.

But women will tell it to you directly if you let them.

This video also lives rent-free in my head.

Even straight up liberal bisexual chicks will let it slip.

Also, try flipping through any given Romance book on the bestseller's list these days.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

My first and last serious relationship > The Red Pill > the freshly published Untitled, plus Radicalizing the Romanceless > the rest of Slate Star Codex > HPMOR, The Motte, some Tumblrs. Nowadays I find Kiwi Farms more to my liking, though.