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 -
[cw: all links involve pretty crude jokes with audio]
I don't think it's universal, but there's absolutely some spaces where variants of gay chicken that get that direction. It's... actually kinda awkward in mixed-orientation environments, especially where not everyone knows each other's orientation is common knowledge (conversation starts at 20:00, relevant bit continuing to 21:30).
Just in the last two weeks, I've had a male co-volunteer at an IRL project I've helped with set up,and continue a joke where the punchline involved him asking me to punch his v-card, and me responding 'I'd have to buy you dinner after', and him laughing at it. I'm pretty sure he's straight? But it's an education-focused IRL project, so it's not like I'm out, there, anyway.
((That said, even those spaces require pretty specific levels of familiarity and have other specific taboos; Fuentes, here, is just being an ass.))
Uh... at least for 'fucked your mom' level jokes, absolutely positively yes.
Those are pretty funny, and also it's interesting that they are so very, very delicate about it: the language is "I want to flirt with your dad" and "I did your dad," both of which are like 5th-grade starter-pack level in the scale of "fucked your mom" jokes. So maybe it will evolve all the way to where a dude can joke about how another guy's dad moaned as he double-fisted him last night, who knows?
While we're in this media sphere, another thing I've been genuinely curious about: what's the standard level of sexual violence theming in gay porn (of the sort actually made for gay men)? Like, does popular gay porn do "dumb twink rammed until he CAN'T WALK STRAIGHT" or "Ten portly bears PUNISH this bratty man's BLEEDING ASSHOLE while he begs" style videos at the same rate as straight porn, and are there similar levels of theming about men getting choked and hit, getting stuck in tight places and begging for help, having guys cum on their face and chest, etc., as you see in videos about male sex with women?
That, uh, says as much about what I'm willing to link (and what can be posted on youtube/twitch/yada) as much as it does about behaviors in certain social circles. I'll admit I haven't seen double-fisting specifically brought to offer, but neither does it stop at teabagging jokes.
I think aoiislove overstates the extent it shows up in all gay male sexuality, but it's definitely present, and pretty common. It's a little hard to calculate exactly, because there's a lot of stuff that's sexual violence to women and also has gay men lining up (sometimes literally) to receive. (and conversely, a few things that are more appalling to gay guys.)
Can't walk straight, definitely, along with a lot of similar stuff ('guts rearranged' is popular right now, 'wrecks hole' been along since before I knew I was bi, sometimes just 'dominates' or even just outright 'bullies'). Ten portly bears definitely, and while it's a little hard as a direct comparison because there's a lot of gay guys for whom that sounds like a great start to a Friday night, there's enough where it's not supposed to be attractive or appealing directly that is pretty comparable. Bleeding is a bit unusual: there's commercial restrictions for mainstream credit card sites that are more intended for actual knives-and-beatings BDSM edgeplay, but mainstream merchants still avoid it. The closest common gay male porn term would probably be some variant of 'gape'.
Yeah. Not my thing, but slapping, choking (with hands or dick), hitting, spitting, markings, comically oversized sex toys, (usually fake) 'insufficient lube', that sort of rough sex has enough of a following you have to put some effort on mainstream sites to avoid it.
These ones are hard to compare directly. The latter in particular is extremely common ('painting', straight-up bukkake), but it's... probably not something most people think about as sexual violence?
I'll point to Braeburned's Room 609 (llama guy puts himself in a hole in a door, gets eiffel tower'd by his roommate and whoever his roommate taps on an app to take the other side) comic as an example of the problem: it's easy to frame what's effectively a gay-male-variant of the 'free use' fantasy that in its het form is very much built around ignoring women's consent and physical integrity... but Braeburned and quite a large portion of the fans of the series are preferentially bottoms, and even in his other comics that have a guy getting a surprise train run on them (eg Gay For Play, where the main character gets roped into a football team prank that ends up... where you'd expect) can credibly make it seem consenting because it's pretty clear the author would love it. That's a furry example, but there are non-furry and conventional-porn ones, just harder to track down names and personalities involved.
That's not to say clearly eroticized sexual violence using these themes is unusual -- I'll point to NakedSav's "Marked Prey" as one that's very much presented from an mdom rather than msub perspective, and the msub side is about as degrading as the author's willing to go. It definitely shows up as a thing in certain types of gay-for-pay or masc4masc genre 'normal' porn. But it may not be useful as a metric, compared to other traits in the work.
Stuck in tight places is kinda a goofy 'plot', even by porn plot standards, and thus pretty rare, but it definitely shows up, including the begging (or at least pretense of it for a couple seconds). There's a mostly-gay-specific thing about (ruiadri just posted a great one today!) about making a sub paint themselves, but I dunno what the comparable het thing would be outside of pegging/pretty heavy femdom.
I'm late responding, but just wanted to say that it's been a while since I read anything so solidly info-dense and enlightening. Wish I could find more deep dives into the entirely foreign and fascinating culture of gay porn. Thank you for this!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link