site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The confounding factor is that most of those DFC-loving perverts are probably also ped—ah, sorry, lolicons.

Go on anime-styled erotic art websites and you’ll find heaps of drawings of girls with massively oversized chests (and somewhat less universally, legs and posteriors). Of course, the dichotomy you proposed was “flat and thin versus round and fat”; if that’s the case, then flat would probably win simply because fat is so repulsive. But for reasonable values of the thickness coefficient, I wager that curviness wins out.

This assessment is largely based on my own lived experience (although does looking at 2D porn really count as living?), but I remember one guy (who roleplays as an Orientalist slave trader—weird shtick) who did a more thorough analysis of popular tags on these sites and came to a similar conclusion.

Waist-Hip Ratio is a better overall guide than cup size or bodyweight. A flat chested girl will have no problems if she's skinny, a slightly softer girl will have no problems if she's well endowed. It's the flat fat girls that need to worry. Everything else is matters of taste.

Waist-Hip Ratio is a better overall guide than cup size or bodyweight.

Maybe, but the absolute sizes going into that calculation also matter, which I think is why certain people (particularly Asians themselves) use the bust-waist-hips model when discussing female anatomy (worth noting that because it's usually given in centimeters, it's going to inflate the importance of small differences).

I think the waist-hip ratio very much does matter to "lolicons", though; where most men prefer 1:1.5 waist-hip (or perhaps golden ratio), I suspect that group would find smaller numbers and a 1:1 ratio more desirable because, uh, that's what "lolis" look like (and I think most men are turned off by that for that reason). And "flat but skinny" doesn't entirely rule out 1:1.5 on its own, either.

Yeah, lack of a defined waist is the big distinction between styles and fan groups. Blue Archive vs Ichigo Marshmallow basically.
Interestingly female artists seem to prefer the "waistless potato" style, like Asami Sekia and PossumMachine.