site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   30376 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

To quote the Wikipedia article on Blanchard's typology (which is generally sceptical of the concept, if not outright hostile to it):

Studying patients who had felt like women at all times for at least a year, Blanchard classified them according to whether they were attracted to men, women, both, or neither.[3]: 444  He then compared these four groups regarding how many in each group reported a history of sexual arousal together with cross-dressing. 73% of the gynephilic, asexual, and bisexual groups said they did experience such feelings, but only 15% of the androphilic group did.[8]: 10  He concluded that asexual, bisexual, and gynephilic transsexuals were motivated by erotic arousal to the thought or image of themself as a woman, and he coined the term autogynephilia to describe this.

From an interview with Blanchard himself in 2019:

When I looked at the relative numbers of autogynephilic and androphilic gender-dysphoric males back in 1987, the autogynephilic cases were already a majority, approaching 60 percent. The proportion had reached 75 percent by 2010, and it might be even higher now.

...

Examples I have collected include: sexual fantasies of menstruation and masturbatory rituals that simulate menstruation; giving oneself an enema, while imagining the anus is a vagina and the enema is a vaginal douche; helping the maid clean the house; sitting in a girls’ class at school; knitting in the company of other women; and riding a girls’ bicycle. These examples argue that autogynephilic sexual fantasies have a fetishistic flavor that makes them qualitatively different from any superficially similar ideation in natal females.

There is also the telling phenomenon of autogynephiles who are involuntarily aroused by cross-dressing or cross-gender ideation, and who complain about difficulties changing into women’s attire without triggering erection or ejaculation. It seems likely that few natal women would give the analogous reports that they wish that they could put on their clothes without triggering vaginal lubrication or orgasm.

Self-identified autogynephiliac trans woman Anne Lawrence, who has medically transitioned, wrote a book about autogynephilia called Men Trapped in Men's Bodies, in which she solicited the perspectives of autogynephiliac males and affirmed Blanchard's typology:

"I would simply like to state for the record that, based on my clinical experience and my reading of the scientific literature, I am firmly convinced that the overwhelming majority — probably 98% or more — of cases of severe gender dysphoria in men arise in connection with either effeminate homosexuality or autogynephilia; most of the rare exceptions probably arise in connection with conditions such as schizophrenia and certain personality disorders. The idea that substantial numbers of MtF transsexuals belong to a putative “third type” that is neither homosexual nor autogynephilic is inconsistent with my clinical experience and is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the best available empirical evidence..."

Scott's survey of his users found significantly higher rates of autogynephilia among trans women than among other groups. When asked the question "Picture a very beautiful woman. How sexually arousing would you find it to imagine being her [on a scale of 1-5]?", the mean response among self-identified trans woman was 3.2.

The highest rates of autogenderphilia were found in bi cis men (autoandrophilia), gay cis men (autoandrophilia), bi trans women (autogynephilia), and lesbian trans women (autogynephilia).

(Scott goes on at length about what it would mean to be a male person who is sexually excited by the thought of oneself as an exceedingly handsome male person, or vice versa. I will freely admit I still have no idea what this entails in practice.)

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