site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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.

I wonder to what extent this is hung upon the weird social expectations around nudity and sex thanks to sex-positivity supplanting prudish abstinence as a norm.

That is, the 'progressive' teachings would suggest that children/teens should not feel shame about their bodies, should feel comfortable talking about and, perhaps engaging in sexual activities (else what are these books about?), and should really view sex as a wonderful and 'positive' thing, and taboos around sex and nudity are just social constructs which one can reject as oppressive. So by all logic the mere act of taking and view nudes shouldn't be some taboo, shameful, or criminal, absent some real harm to a real person.

But surprise, this crashes into the biological reality that males are just hornier than females in general. A cishet guy will literally never say "no" if a young, decently attractive woman wants to show off her body to him. But I'd say most young, decently attractive women are not going to send out nude pics to guys on request, and of course will shame and criticize unworthy men who make the request.

So the equilibrium is not one where females are generous with their nude pics and it just becomes a normalized and expected thing that guys will jerk off to their female friends behind closed doors to photos she took and transmitted on her own, and all of this is considered a positive expression of sexuality.

The equilibrium appears to be that women can send nudes at their discretion, and feel empowered and appreciated by demonstrating their 'freedom' from social stigma, but guys, oh ho ho, are still hamstrung because said women mostly choose to NOT send nudes out and still retain the ability to throw shame at men who express an interest in or request nudes without some explicit or implicit invitation.

And if a guy actually accepts the logic of "nudes are no big deal and sexual desire is natural and good" I don't know how he'd conclude that generating fake nudes could possibly be some massive social violation. So he's now double hamstrung. If women aren't sending him nudes already, he'd be taking on a massive risk by suggesting or requesting it. On the extreme end, he might instantly be labelled an 'incel' with all the condemnation that implies. And if he decides "nah, I won't bother an actual woman with my sexual desires" and generates fake nudes of girls he finds attractive, as we see this gets him labelled a pathetic creep at best, or an actual criminal at worst. And he'll get called an incel anyway.

I know, I know, I'm glossing over the full array of social dynamics at work in such a situation. The main thrust of my point here is that at least with a prudish abstinence cultural standard, it is both shameful to take nudes AND to be in possession of them, and shame is doled out in approximately equal shares to all involved parties. It may not be an optimal outcome but I dare say it would produce a healthier equlibrium overall.