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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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As a parallel comment already stated, there is not actually anything confusing about instances of people not enjoying something that they claim is enjoyable. There are people who overeat, people who are fed up with doing daily quests in live-action games, people who drive for 8 hours to go to an amusement park and spend their whole time there bored, people who align their whole lives to enter a profession and then are miserable from the realities of it, and even people who go halfways across the world to visit a city and break down from disappointment; yet, nobody generally takes those things as evidence that food/games/amusement parks/professional commitment/international travel need to be made exceptional and/or taboo again.

The Rationalists had a phrase I admired, "I notice I am confused". They realized confusion was useful, and an opportunity to seek deeper understanding. For those who hold that sex is harmless entertainment, this seems like it ought to be confusing. Why did she expect to enjoy doing this, and why didn't she enjoy it?

This sounds like you are confused (about the lack of visible confusion from "those who hold that sex is harmless entertainment"). What do you think could be possible reasons for this lack?

Every time someone goes viral having a bad experience from sex, conservatives like clockwork parachute in to run victory laps wearing their best told-you-so face, as if the case for the sexual revolution rested on an argument that nobody can ever possibly not enjoy sex. Have you ever seen this persuade someone - not in the way where someone already agreeing pretends to be persuaded, or someone who is in the process of joining your tribe taking notes on the ideological package they are supposed to download, but someone who actually isn't with you and isn't about to be performing a very specific update to their worldview regarding whether the sexual revolution was a good thing?