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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It’s kind of comical, actually. Average liberal feminist women seemingly believe that “sex work” is real work and should carry zero shame and no woman should be disadvantaged or discriminated in any way for engaging in it, should be legal etc., but at the same time society should not normalize it in any way i.e. there should never anywhere be even a hint of social expectation of unemployed or cash-strapped young women engaging in sex work. For example, if you’re some fat, sleazy, hairy, balding landlord, the idea of asking that unfortunate young college student barista renter who’s 2 months behind payment to pay off her debt in the form of blowjobs and sex should not even begin to enter your brain, because if it does, this evil society failed her.
All of this makes zero sense, of course. And let’s not even mention that sex work, by definition, is, you know, work, i.e. something you do even if you hate doing it, because you need the money. Also, it gets taxed. I wonder how many of these feminist culture warriors actually thought this through.
I think a lot of people on the left have a power model of sexual agency (and agency in general, e.g. low wage work) which is extremely dangerous, because there's no way to translate a power model into a predictable legal system, in the same way that e.g. a classical liberal or (Abrahamic) religious conservative model can be predictable. Classical liberalism: people have freedom and responsibility, outside of some explicitly demarcated boundaries. Abrahamic religions provide a textual basis for law that can be either consulted directly by the literate, or at least (in a functioning Abrahamic society) there is probably a set group of widely respected interpreters (priests, ministers, imams, rabbis etc.) whose advice is a reliable guide to what is acceptable behaviour, even if you (or they) don't know the whole system of laws.
In turn, this inherent unpredictability of power models of agency transfers huge power onto those social forces with the authority to determine what power relations make interactions "exploitative" or "not real choices", as well as who gets victim status and its perks. A cheap but clear example of this chaotic authoritarianism is given by the handling by the MeToo movement of sexual assault accusations against Brett Kavanaugh vs. those against Joe Biden: there was no predictable and explicit principle, so what you end up with is trial-by-media of a partisan and special-pleading sort.
More options
Context Copy link
An uncharitable assumption, but I think the easiest way of cutting this Gordian Knot is to presume that certain women, straight, lesbian, or otherwise, are fine with performing/acting sexually at/with other women. So long as no men are involved in the production of the act or the consumption thereof, there will be no contradiction.
Or, alternatively, women do like the idea as a high concept, just not so much the actual implementation thereof.
I'm pretty sure that female sex workers servicing other women exclusively don't actually exist.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Contrast the total lack of sympathy scabs got despite the fact that they were just trying to scrape by.
More options
Context Copy link
None of the allegedly contradictory statements you quoted are actually contradictory.
Well, either society normalizes a trade, in which case it carries no stigma or shame, or doesn't, in which case it does. I'd say it's that simple.
Not really, no. The stigma has at least two types, and a society (we'll assume a monolith society for maximum simplicity) can stigmatize both, one, or neither.
One kind of a "stigmatized practitioner" is shunned because he is seen as if he unduly extracts value from society as a whole, particular strata or random victims. Examples: street thug, politician, john, pimp, top 0.001% OF model, business owner.
You shun those from a position of morality, good-thinking and justice. At the same time, you recognize that those people are better off in some way, even if you try to sour grapes it.
The second kind of a stigmatized practitioner is shunned (or at least, their job/patronage is) because it is seen as viscerally, materially disadvantageous for himself. Examples: beggar, hermit, retail clerk, street sweeper, common prostitute, alcoholic barfly, OF whale.
Those people are either looked down on or pitied, but very rarely envied. Those who think of those people with disdain use the stigma on the field as a weapon against the practitioners (while often being fine with perpetuating/patronizing the trade itself, like those who eat at mcdonalds and still believe mcdonalds is not a real job for real people), while those who pity them weaponize the stigma against the field (which usually has type 1 beneficiaries, to boot).
Regardless of how you feel about individual participants or whether you are one, it is not incoherent to stigmatize the trade as a whole. It does not "make zero sense" for women to want to end sex work in its current iteration (which they see as mostly exploitative of women) while minimizing collateral to type 2 sex workers. That you don't empathize, or perhaps see ending sex work or ending the stigma against sex workers as against your interests, doesn't make it illogical.
Wait retail clerk and prostitute are equally shunned? I feel so out-of-touch.
Who said equally? I said that they are. Have you never heard anyone sneer at unskilled menial/service labor and insinuate that to stay at such a job for too long (or at all, in some cases) is a failure of living life? The way customers treat them, or the way approximately no one ever in the history of the earth wanted to work in retail if they had a choice?
I have heard people sneer as you say. This does not mean I agree with them. I worked retail for years when in school, I waited tables, I was a clerk at a gas station/convenience store, I was a bartender, I once was a floor waxer, I used one of those blowers to clean leaves, I have done all manner of such work. Some of the most interesting human interactions I've ever had were in such jobs. As far as I'm concerned these jobs constitute honest labor, and, as my dad would have said, build character--I do not feel similarly about barflies, beggars, or (common?) prostitutes. I found it jarring that you lumped them together. You may of course disagree and that's fine.
More options
Context Copy link
The more snobbish PMC types might sneer at retail jobs in general, but a girl who works part-time at Target while she goes to college isn't going to get anywhere near the kind of lasting stigma her classmate with an OnlyFans is going to get.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link