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 -
I think its worth making explicit that Asian women are also the thinnest grouping in 'racial group broadly defined'.
Asian women are vastly less obese than the non-asian population of the United States.
There is this idea that white people (and weebs in particular) think of Asian women as this old practically Victorian Era submissive 3 steps behind the husband trope but I contend that that's not the primary appeal of Asian women to White guys.
In an American context Asian women are far more likely to be
Japanese, Korean, or Chinese descendent
roughly speaking are thinner than white women by 30 pounds, hispanics by 40 pounds, and black women by 50 pounds
more likely to be intelligent as well as college educated
less likely to come from a family that's undergoing social breakdown from fentanyl/drugs.
match speech patterns/accent to the local White population if they grew up in a predominately White area instead of adopting a distinct dialect of opposition.
If the Hispanic population in the US was small, distinct, and had the same level of thinness and educational attainment I maintain that Hispanic girls would have a similar highly desired status as Asian women today. Imagine a situation where the US was 4% Chilean, Argentinian, and Uruguayan with the same traits as expressed above. I guarantee if you talked to a random white guy he'd go 'oh yeah. hispanics are cute. I love hispanic girls'. But hes just using physical features as shorthand in order to estimate an what is overwhelmingly an expression of body type & compatibility. It's not a desire to obtain a lifestyle of tropes from old media and/or pornography about what "foreign women" are like.
That would all make sense if all the aspects of fetishizing Asian women that you glide glibly past, and the fetishization off Asian women, didn't predate the broad American obesity epidemic and the high educational attainments of Asian women by several decades.
I also simply refuse to pretend that there isn't a huge childhood anime obsession to adult Asian fetish pipeline. Your materialism is nothing to observed reality.
Anyway the much more likely material element is that taking white Americans as your base group, Asian features tend to read as more feminine. Hence the inverse effect on Asian men, who would otherwise benefit from most of those elements.
But my point had less to do with Asians in particular and more to do with all races in all contexts. Foreign girls fetishize white American boys, suburban white girls fetishize black men and black men fetishize them right back, Indian exchange students fetishize hooking up with white classmates before their in-caste marriage kicks in, so on and so forth. It goes on between every racial group combination you will ever see, and I've seen most of them already. I'm sure someone out there has a fantasy involving aboriginal Australians for whatever godawful reason.
ETA: which to get back to OP, might lead to a gap between theoretically approving of an interracial relationship and actually engaging in an interracial marriage. When you ask me if I'd marry/date/fuck an X I picture an attractive X, not an ugly X. If attractive Xs are thin on the ground then I will not actually marry one, while still being totally willing to.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link