site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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.

14
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

SRS doesn't "usually prevent achieving orgasm". It definitely sometimes causes that, but in >75% of cases i'm pretty sure it doesn't (and it's probably higher). example reddit posts, iirc studies from surgery clinics found >75% could orgasm. I don't think it causes "severe sexual disfunction" in most cases either.

will significantly interfere with the ability to have meaningful sexual relationships in the future

Yeah, but in an entirely different way from sexual abuse. From a purely outcome-based perspective, the way it prevents that is much closer to 'cancer surgery gone wrong' than 'sexual abuse'.

in the same class as those of sexual abuse

Why does that make it bad in the same way? None of the things that are supposed to make sexual abuse 'VERY BAD' - e.g. "there are a bunch of opportunists who will take advantage of children if they're given the opportunity" - apply to it.

Why call it sexual abuse, i guess? SRS doesn't have that much in common with the features that makes sexual abuse specifically bad. Accidentally injuring a penis during sex is also 'harm of a sexual nature', but it's not sexual abuse. Same for getting STDs.

"there are a bunch of opportunists who will take advantage of children if they're given the opportunity"

There are here too. Maybe it would be more appropriate to refer to the entire grooming scenario as sexual abuse rather than just the surgery itself in isolation. That is, you have some sort of "therapist" who thinks that being trans is wonderful and good and better than being cis, which is a bias and agenda motivating their reasoning. Even if not strictly sexual in desire, they have ulterior motives of pushing the trans agenda. They then convince kids with mental illnesses or other social problems that the cause of their problem is being in the wrong body, push them down the trans chain, which ends in surgery. I would argue that this entire process is sexual abuse more than the surgery alone at the end of the line. And this is opportunists taking advantage of children given the opportunity, even if their motive is money and/or personal fulfillment and pride.

Accidentally injuring a penis during sex is also 'harm of a sexual nature', but it's not sexual abuse. Same for getting STDs.

None of this is accidental. Nobody is accidentally chopping off genitals. I agree that we can't take a purely consequentialist perspective completely devoid of intent, but the intent is to cause harm "for the greater good" rather than the harm being accidental. Purposely injuring a penis during sex is sexual abuse. I would argue that deliberately giving someone an STD, not just negligent sex while infected but deliberately acting with the intention to maximize the chance of giving it to them, is also a form of sexual abuse. Even if it doesn't meet some strict set of criteria that you might use to define the term, it's something comparably bad such that mislabeling it sexual abuse isn't carrying any false connotations.