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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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opposition to feminism

Underdefined.

opposition to pornography, support for abstinence-only sex education

Progressives decided to fight on the hill of children's book about leather daddies, but outside of schools he doesn't seem to care. Vance might.

opposition to LGBT rights

He just appointed a married gay Huguenot to the Secretary of the Treasury. Lumping them all together is what generates the confusion, and contributed to the backlash that got Trump reelected.

support for school vouchers, support for homeschooling

Funny how quickly homeschooling went from left-hippy coded to right-coded.

opposition to gambling,

He owned a casino! Politicians are no stranger to hypocrisy but he doesn't seem opposed to gambling. And given the disaster that is sportsbetting, he probably should be.

Can you show me which children’s book about leather daddies you’re talking about?

Grandad's Pride, scroll down to "Reviews with pictures" if you're curious. Or here's an article with a description:

Will Taylor described two particular images in the book: ‘We identified two images of men who are partially naked in leather bondage gear. One has a leather cod-piece moulded tightly around his crotch along with garters running down his thighs. He also has a studded dog collar around his neck and knee-high boots. Both have various leather straps around their bodies and studs/spikes.’

I'm pretty live and let live and not exactly put-off by collars and garters, where appropriate. But I'm baffled by the fact anyone thought this book was a good idea, and anyone that green-lit it should be on a watchlist. I wouldn't complain about- what was it, penguins with two dads that was popular for a while? The line between encouraging acceptance and being porn-brained creep is not thin; there's a great big flashing wall between those, and yet here we are.

If you want to say conservatives abused the "groomer" thing, I'll agree. Unfortunately, there's just enough wackadoos that pull this shit and useful idiots that defend it to provide a good supply of ammunition.

The line between encouraging acceptance and being porn-brained creep is not thin

But their calculus isn't following that line; instead, it's just a sliding scale of "fuck you".

No kid is going to think that's sexual; but they are going to realize it's objectively ugly and obnoxious, and suggesting they should accept ugliness/obnoxiousness from certain types of privileged adults in their lives because it's correct to do so is the actual problem (and the ultimate goal) here.

That is just as destructive as the sexual misbehavior when men do it, for the same reasons; conservatives are failing to punish that, trying to frame women's (and womanly) bad behavior through the lens of men's (and manly) bad behavior (which is what those who use "groomer" are attempting to invoke), and most people instinctively understand that description isn't correct, which is why it fails.