site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29626 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Your terminology here seems a bit confusing.

You start out defining “alpha” and “beta” for the scope of this post as comparative terms based purely on fitness, which seems ambiguous... I guess that since reproductive “fitness” obviously isn't on the table, you mean rather health? Specifically strength and non-obesity?

For simplicity’s sake, from here on out I will refer to any male who is more fit[sic] as “alpha” and any less fit male as “beta.”

But then you imply that the comparison isn't between the partners, as you say that a relationship between two “alphas” would be positive... so I guess that you only mean that an “alpha” is fit relative to the population? Or at least relative to their own genetic and environmental potential?

I rank [a beta’s non-abusive relationship with an alpha] as neutral because if you [the beta] aren’t trying to be the top you will feel on some level slightly melancholic about the experience afterwards, that you should have tried harder to push your desires further during sex.

That seems weird. Surely a “beta” (unfit person) would feel even more melancholic after “trying to be the top”? Or would you consider that necessarily an attempt at “taking advantage of” a fit partner?

Gay dating today in America is pretty frustrating because the vast majority of men do not see themselves as alpha. It does not bother me just when American men are my alpha, it bothers me when they are my alpha but see themselves as not an alpha at all.

So, is whether someone is an “alpha” based on their fitness, or their mindset? If someone is “your” “alpha”, but they don't “see themselves” that way, and that's a significant and “frustrating” part of your experience of the world, why did it not factor into the model you introduced at the start of the post?

You enumerate out seven different prototypes of gay relationship:

  1. PoV “alpha” × “alpha”, no abuse
  2. PoV “alpha” × “beta”, no abuse
  3. PoV “beta” × “alpha”, no abuse
  4. PoV “beta” × “beta”, no abuse
  5. PoV “beta” × “alpha”, you abuse him
  6. PoV “beta” × “alpha”, you are abused
  7. PoV “alpha” × “beta”, you are abused

but you conspicuously leave off several possibilities from your enumeration:

  • PoV “beta” × “beta”, you abuse him
  • PoV “beta” × “beta”, you are abused
  • PoV “alpha” × “alpha”, you abuse him
  • PoV “alpha” × “alpha”, you are abused

are these just not relevant? Do you think they statistically don't occur that much versus the seven cases you highlighted? (The claim would seem astonishing to me that two fit men getting together in a healthy, mutually fulfilling relationship is more common than two unfit men getting together in an asymmetric, somewhat dysfunctional relationship...)

If you have sex with a man who is your [physical] superior but doesn’t act like it, you are either going to come away feeling like you’re taking advantage of him or no sex is going to happen at all. Imagine a younger boy who wants to play a game with a bigger boy, but the bigger boy is depressed or doesn’t feel like playing, either the younger boy irritates the bigger boy or they just don’t play a game at all and both parties are sad. This is what it’s like to try dating among men with low self esteem who don’t realize the position they hold. … in the Middle East I was overtly hit on by men everywhere I went … In my opinion Middle Eastern men are very masculine, handsome, and alpha, more so than anywhere else in the world.

Really, this feels like it could have been the whole post, and even it seems ultimately subjective — 3,200 words to ask “Why aren't there any REAL Man's Men / psychological tops in the United States?” — I dunno, maybe we like cuddling more than “acting like” the other's “superior”?

I dunno, maybe we like cuddling more than “acting like” the other's “superior”?

@aiislove To expand on that a bit: From my own perspective, a gay relationship is supposed to be a pleasant escape from the Red Queen’s Rat Race. As someone who doesn't seem to be eligible for the runner's high, strength training is fucking miserable; the only enjoyable part of strenuous exercise is being massaged while sore afterwards; why would I bother for anyone who isn't packing gametes capable of co-producing an actual child with mine?

Positive gay sex experience[:] You are both acting as alphas. You may not be perfectly matched on the hierarchy, but you both believe you are strong powerful men who are good choices for sexual mates. You lift each other up, the real alpha feels secure in his position lifting up the lesser alpha who feels like he is able to learn from and enjoy the other alpha’s sex. It is equally positive for both of you.

If you think that this relationship is really such an underrated delight, and vastly superior to the asymmetric relationship you're “frustrated” at seeing Americans, Western Europeans, and the Japanese bidding en masse for one particular side of, why not make the case for that per se, leaving out the speculative tangents about racial trends in sex roles and your own power struggles with your father?

It seems like the case would need to be made in 2 legs, which are separate and each quite a hard sell:

  • What the case is for being the “real alpha”, especially vs. just getting a wife who's into fitness plus making male friends who are into competitive sports
  • What the case is for being the “lesser alpha”, especially vs.* just being a regular “bottom”

most of the homosexual relationships between men that you’ll find [in the middle-east] are intergenerational. It is nearly always an older man with a younger male. Anecdotally I think these are the strongest types of gay relationships that there can be. Increasingly as the older I get, the less I want to be with someone my own age. What would I as a full grown man want to do with another full grown man living in my house? It really doesn’t sound great, even as a homosexual.

*So you might consider making a case against all the low-testosterone Americans, Western Europeans, and Japanese…

https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/18/typical-mind-and-gender-identity/

I am probably one of the people Ozy calls “cis by default”. I obviously can’t be sure, but I feel like if I woke up tomorrow magically transformed into a (hetero) woman, my first [thought] would be “Huh, cool, this probably makes it much easier to find a mate” … then I’d get into some very rational comparisons to my personality, like … “Nice, now it’s attractive for me to project my standard vibe of passive lack of interest in my surroundings, instead of having to try to appear dominant and take-charge all the time.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20220813174845/https://zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/god-shaped-hole/

“I think it’s a really exciting new opportunity and a way to learn about sex that a lot of men never had before. The feeling of something bigger and stronger just overpowering you and doing whatever it wants. I love it.”

…and convincing them for, maybe, a renaissance of “real”, spiritually-charged, Greek-style homosexuality?

https://www.greek-love.com/general-non-fiction-pederasty/the-symposium-by-plato

“But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are boys, being slices of the original male, they are fond of men and enjoy going to bed with men and embracing them. These are the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but out of courage, manliness and masculinity, and they embrace that which is like themselves. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saving. When they reach manhood they are lovers of boys, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,—if at all, they do so only in obedience to custom; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded.

“One of this nature is inclined to love boys or (as a boy) inclined to have a lover, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when a lover of boys or a lover of another sort meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and can hardly be induced to be out of one another's sight even for a moment. These are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they can not explain what they desire of one another. No one imagines the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other is simply the desire for sexual intercourse, or that sex is the reason why one gets such enormous pleasure out of the other's company. The soul of each evidently desires something else which it cannot express, and of which it has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.

“Suppose Hephaistos, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them, 'What do you mortals want of one another?' they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: 'Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another's company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and, after your death, down in Hades, still be one departed soul instead of two—I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?'—there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats