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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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What sex strike? Go to a hundred college sororities across the US, from California and New York to Texas and Alabama over the next month and interview the girls outside, how many would you say have heard of the “4B” movement? How many have sworn off sex with men, not for reasons of chastity or heartbreak, but out of some kind of feminist politics?

Even if you repeated the experiment with the keenest GDI theater kids and socialist club members, my guess is fewer than 2% of women would have knowledge and even fewer would take part. The battle of the Sexes can’t be won because there’s too much fraternising with the enemy etc.

South Korea is a unique situation, but even there people get laid and get into relationships and get married, they just don’t have kids (and when they do, they have 1). The reasons for that are economic and cultural, but have relatively little to do with third-wave feminism and almost nothing to do with the “4B Movement”.

As has been said here before, Western reportage on Korea is overwhelmingly by upper-middle-class foreign correspondents and English-speaking local journalists, both typically of Korean descent, who studied abroad, dislike their home country, have fully adopted Western progressive politics, and are on the hunt for an ‘interesting’ story that foreign audiences will click on to justify their pay.

Maybe sorority thots aren’t going to stop sorority thotting, but marginal effects affect the margins. Maybe the drab psychology major decides dating isn’t worth the hassle and dedicates her attention to social causes instead. Maybe the shy hypochondriac is afraid of health complications of getting pregnant (my god have those been bullhorned lately), and decides to keep to herself instead of downloading a dating app.

Yes, precisely this. Anyone who doesn’t think there’s already a large cohort of late millennial and gen-Z women with no interest in realistic romantic relationships is either wildly out of touch or willfully blind.

Sure, but they were already 4B, I don't think having no romantic relationships, sex, or babies is actually spreading.