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 -
But that's the thing right there! "High body counts"! That is, the kind of women willing to have, or only looking for, casual sex who don't want anything more long-term and aren't interested in a relationship. If you're fishing in that pool, of course your view of women is that they don't mean what they say, don't know what they want, and all the rest of the views about women only wanting handsome bad boys and ignoring the nice guys who would want a relationship, until they're too old and used-up to get men and then they want to hook a beta provider.
Do the guys with high body counts pick a permanent/long-term relationship out of the girls they landed and then discarded, or not? That's the question that needs to be answered.
Yes and no. Do you think a handsome guy who is smelly and mean will get anywhere? A rich guy who is smelly and boring may do, and we all know what the bargain is there. I think the longer version is "Okay, if you're average looking and not very poor or very well-off, the thing that makes the difference is grooming and personality", and that people do have to understand that, life being unfair, the best-looking, richest, and most charming (in whatever combination of those qualities) is going to get the benefits first. Just like tall men allegedly do better than short men even at work, which is unfair, but that's how things are set up.
How many guys, faced with a choice between a plain girl with a lovely personality and a 10/10 girl who is a little bit dumb and airheaded, are going to pick Plain Jane? Works the same way for women.
So yeah, the advice should be worded "if you're not handsome and rich, then in order for Sally to pick you over George, Bob, Phil, Mike, Harry, Eugene and the twenty other guys online dating, you need something like an edge, be that grooming or being funny or whatever".
Another complaint I've seen is that women judge most men on dating sites to be unattractive, and while that sounds wrong because c'mon, they can't all be uggos, I do think that there is a problem of aesthetics going on. I have seen (and being as vague as possible so as not to identify any place or person) dating profiles where the guy puts up a selection of photos, clearly under the impression that "yeah, I look good here" or, something I am coming to think is the salient factor here, "this shows off my interests".
So he'll put up a photo of him after mountain climbing or hiking, thinking "This shows how outdoorsy/fit and active I am", and thinking this is something to back up what he's put in his profile. Meanwhile, looking at it as a woman, he looks like a bedraggled drowned rat in it. A woman isn't thinking "wow, he loves hiking" (unless she's really into hiking too), she's thinking "oh my God, couldn't he at least have taken a shower first before taking this photo?" I've seen photos that made me think "He could have looked really good here, if he only did X, Y and Z" and that would have moved him out of the 85% pile.
So advice like "get a better haircut, get someone to help you pick out clothes, get a good photo taken" really does make a difference.
EDIT: Also, I think guys have no idea of the amount of photoshopping/airbrushing that goes on with magazines etc. when showing models and actresses. I saw one cover today of a woman in a bikini and I went "yeah, they did photo editing to give her wider hips" because the figure as presented wasn't anatomically possible. But a man will look at that and think this is how women can/should look (see the thigh gap thing - when taking fashion photos there's tricks of stance and angles to get the apparent gap).
Men look at photoshopped Insta and OF pictures all the time.
Not the same photoshopping, one removes pimples (or buccal fat) the other makes tits and ass bigger. Most of womens complaining is about the former.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link