domain:npr.org
WhiningCoil
1m ago
Leaving out any examples of healthy monogamous relationships, in an article trying to figure out how to escape some sort of sex positivity trap, and then throwing up your hands and going "There is no way out! Might as well do sex work!" Is nonsense. Its ignoring the most obvious examples to learn from about how to escape said trap.
But then again, this assumes agency. That there is something women could do in order to find and keep emotionally healthy relationships, as opposed to them being things that randomly happen to some people and not others. And if you dont believe women have agency, I guess it makes sense to not try to learn from them. It would be like trying to learn how to win the lottery.
Which way modern women... which way. If they don't believe they have agency, they'll be treated the way those without agency are treated.
non_radical_centrist
14m ago
That sort of thing stood out to me too. But I think women with holding sex from fratty dudebros and being more aware those fratty dudebros won't make them happy, like this article advocates, would lead towards women looking for other types of men. To select less on looks and more on whether a man isn't douchey.
kiln
15m ago
This is a massive tangent. Is "Ay yo" a Bengali word or an English slang I am unaware of? Or are you using the South Indian Aiyyo? I've never heard a Bengali use the word in this context or any other.
non_radical_centrist
16m ago
That's not what I said. I think women should take more responsibility in general.
non_radical_centrist
17m ago
Rape's not that rare. Lots of men go to the trouble of putting date rape drugs in women's drinks to do precisely what the author claims that random dude did. I hardly think it's impossible that a guy would take advantage of an "opportunity" he stumbled upon that other men go out of their way to arrange.
non_radical_centrist
19m ago
If you can change that then sure, the black mark goes away... but that's a real big "if".
I don't think it's that big an if. We've been moving closer to it pretty much continously for about the past century.
non_radical_centrist
21m ago
Obviously not the parent poster, but one glaring thing about the whole essay is that she doesn't seem to waste a single word of reflection on what she, or the other women she talks about, could have done to avoid the bad outcomes they experienced.
I thought it was pretty clear. They should've more firmly said no to sex when they weren't interested, and they should've had their guard up more against men who just wanted to use them as cum rags.
non_radical_centrist
23m ago
She didn't have a complete solution, but I interpreted it as a fairly clear message that we as a culture should pressure women into casual sex less, and that that women should take the agency to refuse casual sex more.
non_radical_centrist
24m ago
It's fascinating, going through this bizarre, alternate reality hellscape of sexual relations. Absent is even a single person in a monogamous relationship. Not even a single one. How is that even possible? You don't know one single person in a relationship? You don't even know of one? This reads like some sort of speculative fiction where relationships have been outlawed.
It is a bit of an elephant in the room in the article, but at the same time, I don't think it'd be completely necessary to include. Most people agree that a loving monogamous relationship with good sex is the ideal. Saying that out loud again doesn't change anything. The point of this piece is just to push back against toxic sex positivity without back sliding into toxic purity. It's about nudging our current culture a little bit closer to a better equilibrium. It's not about describing the perfect equilibrium with lots of happy loyal relationships for everyone.
Maybe there really are just two breeds of men.
I think it's more of a spectrum, but there are definitely a lot of different male archetypes. Incel and red pill types are mocked for stuff like that video which went something like "Are you a Sigma Male? And is it better than Alpha?" for the weird categories they had, but I think there's a fair amount of truth to those categories.
non_radical_centrist
31m ago
I think some of those norms made sense in certain contexts. In a world with no condoms and no anti-biotics and no anti-virals, I personally would support some pretty harsh norms to stop the sort of disease spread that would occur if all men felt like they had a free pass to have orgies with each other. Since about the 40s, that began to be rapidly obsolete, with a backtick towards relevant in the 80s with AIDs, and today with even better medicine is back to being very obsolete.
SteveKirk
3m ago
Side note for that last one, it was "protester shoots at car they were mobbing, hits other protester mobbing the car"
Clever bit of headline writing to make it sound like the driver did the shooting.
SteveKirk
10m ago
Have any of the non-AR successor platforms taken off? Last news I heard was Germany (partially?) ditching their replacement to go AR. Did the IAR project for the Marines ever happen, or did it get shelved to buy them more anti-ship missiles?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
12m ago
The AR is the American gun. Domestic design, often domestic manufacture. Long history as our service rifle. Strong competition for making both weapons and ammunition.
There’s also a “build your own” factor which gets more people into the ecosystem. This is exemplified by the common top rail, which makes it much cheaper and easier to mount all sorts of optics. But it extends to the stock, handguard, more or less every part. Combined with the hordes of manufacturers, and any gun show becomes a flood of garish polymer customizations and overpriced accessories. While such things are available for the AK, the market is much smaller.
As a mottizen put it, the AR-15 is the Wayne Gretzky of guns.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
15m ago
Are you familiar with Brandon Herrera? I don't think there's any connotation there. AKs used to be the "cheap" option, now they're sorta exotic/cool and impractical, but still generally beloved. ARs are slowly pushing them toward extinction, along with all other species of automatic rifle.
hydroacetylene
57m ago
As the main trade hub for Western Europe it would have had a relatively consistent middle class and some insulation from food shortages.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
19m ago
I suppose to turn the discussion back to you, if you had clear video that Foster did not point his gun at Perry, and was just walking around, would you accept that he like Rittenhouse did not actually threaten someone and thus Perry shooting him was murder?
Yes. See here. As @Capitol_Room loves to quote, "what profits a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?" Tribalism may be an inescapable reality, but it is not the foundation of Justice, and Justice cannot be denied.
I'm not sure how much that's worth, and I'm not sure how much worth it will retain as things continue along the current trajectory.
Also, in before a million arguments with your hypothetical.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
49m ago
It's a minor thing, but I wonder about the coding of AK-pattern rifles (this case) versus AR types. I know right-leaning folks who own AK patterns, but every example of the right bringing guns to a protest seems to prefer ARs. I assume the American-designed AR is more 'patriotic' than a foreign platform? The AK specifically has all sorts of 'adversary' connotations.
But I suspect there are some here far more familiar with the thinking.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
59m ago
There is a narrative here where Rittenhouse was found not guilty (correctly) because he did not point his gun at someone and therefore was not threatening, and Foster also did not point his gun at someone so was not threatening and was thus murdered by Perry.
A "narrative" is all it is. It elides a bunch of significant detail in order to claim two things are far more similar than they are, and therefore make out defenders of both Rittenhouse and Perry as hypocrites.
Does it? Below someone said that because Foster had his gun angled down, but could have pointed it directly at Perry and fired in an instant that Perry was correct to have felt threatened. But we have video of Rittenhouse wandering around gun pointed low where he also could have brought it up and fired at any of the people around him.
If one of those is a threat then surely the other is, even if we removed them from protest situations and just had them standing on the street minding their own business.
Now i'd say neither should really be taken as a threat in and of themselves granted carrying the rifle around is legal. Because it would mean that we have a tension where a legal activity also grants enough of a threat to createthe right to legal lethal self-defence, which just seems problematicly circular.
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