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 -
Poly for anyone not in the top 10% of attractiveness is a cope. It's the dating equivalent of renting in a flatshare instead of buying a house. It's what you do when you can't do the latter.
Poly for those top 10% is basically just farming simps. If you're the most desirable one in a poly arrangement you have it fucking made. It's just a harem by another name.
I think Poly is hypothetically possible to do in a healthy manner but requires a lot of coordination, patience and understanding between a bunch of quasi-romantically entangled people and has such a tightrope effect that it's probably not worth exploring just to occasionally hump a different partner.
It also requires that you know yourself. Which requires being capable of knowing yourself.
Which is why "poly as identity" really rubs me the wrong way- because if you're not skeptical every time "it's just the way I am, and all of my relations need to just deal with it" as a go-to/the only rationalization for what you're doing, odds are you probably don't understand how love works and are thus doing it wrong.
And at that point, even if you're among the very privileged few that can actually do this successfully, are you going to be Proud of it (and thus cause other people who actually can't do it to get themselves into trouble), or are you going to shut the fuck up about it for the sake of everyone else and maybe not even devote that much time to pursuing it specifically because it's not practical (read: "being oppressed by reality")?
If you're not capable of asking yourself that question, or you're capable of asking that question but can't answer it honestly, indulging $sexual_deviance is probably not right for you. And saying that out loud to people doesn't help as a consequence, so it's not fixable.
And even if you're a very good tightrope walker a bad day or two on the tightrope and you've got to spend a lot of time rehabilitating an exponentially complicated web of relationships. In which the benefit is potentially maybe being able to occasionally indulge in a new sexual partner (and if you're longterm stable Poly you're probably not even doing that any more).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link