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 -
The introductory conclusion is really quite shocking when translated from academeese:
"People are often too dumb to recognize they're pregnant until the 3rd trimester."
The logical follow-on to that, implicit in the author's writing, is "And you can't hold somebody accountable for being a real dumbass! Let 'em kill that baby"
This actually points to a something I've never heard a great answer on. How, in a world with ubiquitous condoms and the pill are we hitting 1 million abortions a year.
People may think this is inflammatory or vulgar, but I think certain ethnicities or cultures just have such little time preference or otherwise truly enjoy orgasming inside a woman. They have no self control to not do it. I recall overhearing a conversation a few years ago around Valentine’s Day where a group of men were high fiving each other about “nutting” in their girl as some sort of gift. This would match up well with racial stats on abortion.
I very rarely in my life used condoms. The withdrawal method works perfectly assuming you have the ability to do it. The whole myth that precum can inseminate women is another lie we were all fed as children.
Then you get the stupid suckers like me, who were genuinely biologically compelled to 'nut' in a perfect mate but thought abortion was like plan B and we could just make another baby later
More options
Context Copy link
It technically can, if you had sex already recently and didn't urinate between then and now. So yeah, pretty damn unlikely.
Ah, to be young again.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's a dilemma. If you want to avoid having kids, you have to pick between diminishing the sensation of sex overall, diminishing the moment of orgasm or relying on pharmacology that isn't 100% and does a number on your girl's hormone system.
The wife is on a copper IUD, is there a downside to that which I'm not aware of? I mean I feel it on occasion which isn't pleasant but compared to all the other options it is always seemed strange to me that this wasn't the default. edit: asked the wife last evening, it is apparently a hormonal iud and not copper, which has less bad symptoms.
Erm, this is strictly an anecdote, but my wife experienced several downsides over time from the copper (paragard) IUD. The most immediate downside was longer periods which progressed to chronic bleeding and endometriosis. The second was more frequent to chronic yeast infections. None of these were official side effects but internet wisdom said that they were in fact side effects and when she finally had it removed after a couple of especially painful episodes of dysmenorrhea the doctor acknowledged these as side effects from the copper IUD and indeed, these issues disappeared afterwards. If your wife ever starts experiencing any of these symptoms, I'd strongly encourage her to have it removed as it can and does get worse over time.
Turns out I was wrong and that it is a hormonal IUD which according to her has less of these problems. She had just referred to it as an IUD before and I incorrectly assumed copper. But I guess it has potentially serious side effects is the exact answer I was looking for so thanks for your anecdote.
Not at all, thanks for your reply. I'm happy to hear that your wife is actually on the hormonal IUD and I hope it works well for her! The side effects of all of the hormonal stuff are much better known and if my wife didn't have a seriously sensitive hormonal balance that was most definitely messed up whenever she tried hormone based BC, even the stuff specifically for women that had issues like hers, we wouldn't have gone down the copper IUD road to begin with.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I wouldn't know. The common sources (Wikipedia) do seem to rate it as the highest-satisfaction contraception method. I admit it didn't come to my mind as I was thinking of contraception, probably because of how long-term it is.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I genuinely can't think of an answer to this other than "a lot of people really like raw-dogging, and a lot of women really hate the side effects of the pill, and a lot of people are just really fucking stupid and don't know how pregnancy works."
Part of it is that condoms seem to be extremely high-variance in how much people tolerate them. With the exception of a few gay guys with pretty specific kinks, no one likes condoms, but I know some people who seem to have slightly reduced sensation, some who it's meh, some who take forever to get there and not in a good way, and some who can't stay hard or perform with a condom period. Ymeshkout's written about about polyamory and condoms that suggest it's got a lot of revealed preference sorta stuff going on.
((The Standard Explanation for condom shyness is too much masturbation, somehow. The conspiracy theory level answer is that the FDA has historically been extremely restrictive about what types and especially sizes of condom are acceptable, for ease of testing, and this leads to a situation where being even slightly off from the average in one of any dimension leads to a condom that's always slipping off or like wearing a bad cock ring. And very few people are average. But I'm not sure.))
This is part of why 'normal use' statistics for condoms end up really close to effectiveness with the withdrawal or rhythm methods, where even perfect-use numbers aren't great.
The Pill has different problems; complex drug and food compatibility, highly dependent on keeping a good schedule, the interactions with weight are a mess, and the personality changes are... not great.
There's a lot of hope that (especially copper) IUDs have/would solve a lot of this -- they're not without their religious opponents, but less so than even the morning after pill, and they skip almost all of the above with a shockingly high effectiveness -- but it's still kinda hard to get buyin from (non-Planned Parenthood) doctors for women of childbearing age, and they're exceedingly painful for most women who haven't been pregnant before.
very good comment, reported for quality.
I think an actually effective sex ed class would involve trying on different condoms to see how they feel and find one that you like. But admittedly that's not possible with the low-trust world we live in. So instead we get a gym coach screaming at us about STDs and maybe, if we're lucky, putting one on a banana.
More options
Context Copy link
Here's my half-joking conspiracy: all condoms are the same size because I've tried every size and they all fit the same until "after"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I mean, even if you assume perfect usage of contraception, a 1-5% failure rate over tens of millions of people over lots of sex will lead to some legitimately accidental pregnancies.
More options
Context Copy link
I love it. If this were the honest popular answer, the whole conversation would be different. Instead, we have the often used euphemism of "I wound up pregnant!" like it's winning the lottery or having a pigeon shit on you.
I like to bring up the old MTV sex ed ads: sex is no accident
"Your honor, I was roller blading while fully erect!"
"Case dismissed!"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Nothing in the author's writing implies that they are in the group of people thinking of what is being aborted as a "baby". Both sides regularly fail theory of mind over this - blues can't imagine someone actually thinking that an abortion is anything like killing a human (and therefore conclude that pro-life must be mental gymnastics for wanting to punish women who have sex for fun), and reds can't imagine someone not thinking that fetuses are human (and therefore think pro-choice is mental gymnastics for cynical murderism).
If there's any implied argument, it's just something like "you can't commit to ruining the life of some dumbasses just to make concessions to the outgroup" - like most people, the author has sympathy and there-but-for-the-grace attitude for way more dumbasses than outgroup members. Forced motherhood = ruined life incidentally is yet another blue outlook that reds often don't believe is real.
I believe that's real. And I believe that basic human moral obligation means that you ought to care for the child. 1) It'll probably give you purpose and meaning. 2) If you don't want to accept the consequences, don't take the action. Nobody ever dies from not having sex.
How much of the "forced motherhood" narrative revolves around the idea that she didn't take the action--her male partner did and she was just a passive participant who now has to deal with the consequences?
At least in Texas, that's entirely possible.
Yes, rape is uncommon. But we're down here because some pundit blamed Walz for eight infant deaths. Surely there's some justification to plan for edge cases?
And at least in the entire US, underage boys are responsible for their children even when raped. What's your point? Forced fatherhood isn't seen as a problem in the slightest. "That sucks, but you're still responsible for the child." is the response we give men who are raped. Why should we treat motherhood differently?
Gross. Maybe we shouldn’t treat men like that.
Problem solved?
The problem is only solved when we stop treating men like that. Can you give a plausible path to that? I don't see one--one side wants both men and women to be held to the same shitty standard while the other only wants to fix it for women. I refuse to support either. I tolerated the status quo under Roe, and now I tolerate the status quo under Dobbs.
EDIT: Rewrote last sentence for clarity.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There's a certain pattern I notice when activists for male rights only seem to bring up male rights issues when they want to take similar rights away from women, and rarely to advocate for granting those rights to men.
No one wants to listen to those dragging others down with them.
There's a certain pattern I notice where gendered issues affecting men are dismissed by framing any support for fixing them as taking away women's rights. Odd how that seems to be designed to cause the pattern you "noticed" isn't it?
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
There's all sorts of "natural" consequences we've gotten rid of thanks to technology and science. Why is pregnancy different?
I still believe in God, gauche as that may be in our circles for the last few hundred years.
More options
Context Copy link
Right, just like how Samuel Colt got rid of the negative psychological consequences of holding a grudge. Progress!
More options
Context Copy link
Human life.
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