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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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As Anita Bryant famously said:

As a mother I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children. Therefore, they must recruit our children.

The recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality, for since homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must recruit, must freshen their ranks.

What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life.

She was called a bigot and cancelled, but time has proven her right.

That's true of ideology and religion, but I don't think it's true of gays.

I'd wager that as an extension of that old "if you wiped out all religions and record thereof tomorrow, the same religions would never arise again, even if different ones did" though experiment, if you erased all knowledge of homosexuality from the akashic record of humanity... You'd probably still have homosexuality happening again in short order. No matter how repressive the society, it still happens. It happens in non-human species.

"if you wiped out all religions and record thereof tomorrow, the same religions would never arise again, even if different ones did"

Yet another example if "if you were wrong, then you would be wrong." If religion is false then it is purely cultural, yes. Assuming that it is false, and then using the fact that it would therefore be cultural as evidence that it is false, is extremely common and annoying.

What is common and annoying is people of different religions assuming that theirs is the true one, with quite scant evidence. Even in spaces that are ostensibly concerned about epistemology.

Purely logically, at least 99 of 100 One True Lord Gods must be fake, or all of them are not as One True as the religions teach.

Purely logically, at least 99 of 100 One True Lord Gods must be fake, or all of them are not as One True as the religions teach.

Sure, and the same is true of absence of religion. Logically, out of the set of contradictory belief systems, at most one is correct.

Besides, I don't care what belief systems we're talking about, you can't just manufacture your own evidence out of nowhere like that.

Even assuming another revelation, how else would it go that the exact same revelation would occur again? Even if the Quran or the New Testament were to be revealed again, the culturally and historically contingent events would not arise in the same way. I think the argument here is more in the definition of "the same religion" here.

I mean yeah there would certainly be some minor differences, the question is how major they have to be before it counts as a new religion. If there is a true religion though, presumably the same religion would arise again, minor differences in beliefs and historical context notwithstanding.

So you're saying if there's a sufficient similarity of values and beliefs it is substantively the same to you?

Hayy Ibn Yaqzun argues the same, that Islam effectively arises spontaneously absent human interference.

So you're saying if there's a sufficient similarity of values and beliefs it is substantively the same to you?

Yeah I'd say so, what else enforces religious continuity? The survival of institutions? Seems to me like beliefs are by far the most important aspect of most religions.

I think generally you can count on the belief system, if there is a true one, actively interfering with the world to bring the true religion back. Muslims believe an angel appeared to Mohammed; under their belief system surely another angel would show up to a new guy and share God's word again if that knowledge were lost. Us Mormons believe this has already happened--some of God's word was lost from the bible so more was sent.

In general I think pretty much all belief systems, including atheism, are confident enough about their premises to believe that they would show up again were all their adherents killed somehow.

I'm not sure a second revelation after the destruction of Christianity is, properly speaking, Christianity. Any more than, say, Islam is Christianity.

Well it just comes down to how you define the religion. To be clear I only really think a resurrected Christianity would count as Christianity if Christianity were true. More precisely, both the old Christianity and the new one would be institutions set up by God for his own purposes, and that's way more relevant than any historical context or beliefs of either religion. It's just a question of definitions though so at this point I'm not sure the answer matters either way.

True homosexuality is probably not a choice, but homosexual behavior as a kink (a solid part of what's called 'bisexuality' is likely caused by abuse.

Odds of bisexuals reporting CSA are way higher than for straights.

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) occurs in all cultures and societies (Pereda, Guilera, Forns, & Gómez-Benito, 2009; Stoltenborgh, van Ijzendoorn, Euser, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2011). In addition, although not all research has demonstrated that the prevalence of CSA among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals is substantially higher than it is in heterosexual populations (Brennan, Hellerstedt, Ross, & Welles, 2007; Meston, Heiman, & Trapnell, 1999), higher prevalence of CSA among nonheterosexual individuals has been revealed in participants from the United States (e.g., Balsam, Rothblum, & Beauchaine, 2005), Canada (e.g., Saewyc, Pettingell, & Skay, 2004), and Australia (e.g., Zietsch et al., 2012), as well as in studies using the retrospective methods (e.g., Hughes et al., 2010), prospective methods (e.g., Wilson & Widom, 2010), and meta-analysis (e.g., Friedman et al., 2011). Moreover, empirical investigations aimed to determine the chronology of CSA and nonheterosexual orientation in adulthood are limited. Thus, the objective of the present study was to explore whether nonheterosexual orientation increases the risk of CSA by adding the variable of childhood gender nonconformity (CGNC) and applying the instrumental variable method.

from:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1079063215618378

Seems like a motte/bailey.

Motte: As a group, homos must replenish from non-homosexuals' offspring, necessarily; if they didn't do this, they'd already not exist.

Bailey: Homosexuality is a choice; what's more, it is actually a movement agentically interested in swelling its numbers. To do so, they must make our kids gay.

The problem with the bailey is the assumption that ... either, kids should rather be gay but stay their lives firmly in the closet; or the way that this looks from the outside, kids should just "choose" to "be" straight. Which, as far as I can tell, is and remains largely impossible.

remains largely impossible

How long do they have to desist from same sex behavior before they're straight, a year, five?

It's possible for people to find their way out of homosexuality, but if they've made it large portion of their identity and social group it's difficult, like leaving a cult.

I mean, obviously it's possible for gays to procreate with women, since it's what happened historically. You can stick your dick anywhere, what you cannot change easily or at all is what you need to see in front of you, in reality or your mind's eye, to get hard in the first place.

How long do you have to desist from hetero behavior before you become gay?

No time limit. Once you internalize and accept the gay idpol, you've caught the gay.

As the line goes... if you can be converted to gay by "idpol", you were gay and in the closet, mate. Personally I've noted 0 increase in urges of same-sex sex between my puberty and now.

Any decrease?

I think this may be a bit of semantics but there's certainly a cohort of men that have had some same-sex experience that never accepted / identified with the gay idpol.

The stereotype of the libidenous man between girlfriends who'd accept oral sex from 'gay' guys because the casual sex was easier.

Are you gay if primarily you desire opposite sex experiences and you don't identify with the idpol?

I think it's the shift from sex with men is something you do, to I have sex with men because I'm a gay. Is how you catch gay from the idpol.

I didn't have gay sex for over five years, but I was still gay at the end of it.

No gay sex or no sex? Were you trying to have a different sort of life during this period?

Why would I? The notion of having sex with women is totally repellent to me, and likely most women would find me equally repellent, since I lack any positive qualities. To be honest I don't really even like having sex with men, but I do find them very attractive.

How long do they have to desist from same sex behavior before they're straight, a year, five?

Doesn't matter. As long as the impulse remains, they're still gay, even if they deny it.

Like yeah, you can repress, and live a thoroughly miserable existence attached to someone who you don't really love or feel attracted to -- imagine how you'd feel trying to carve a life out with a morbidly obese 3/10 munter to try and "cure" your attraction to fit, attractive people.

Like yeah, you can repress, and live a thoroughly miserable existence attached to someone who you don't really love or feel attracted to -- imagine how you'd feel trying to carve a life out with a morbidly obese 3/10 munter to try and "cure" your attraction to fit, attractive people.

This is rank exaggeration. Ugly people do get married and by all accounts live happy lives. Just like them, I expect nearly all people, absent powerful cultural narratives to the contrary, can learn to love whoever they end up married to. I believe this of all gender combinations.

Shrug. Love and attraction are completely different things, as well you should know, assuming you have parents or siblings. Missing out on an entire massive chunk of the human experience, or mutual attraction between partners, is probably not healthy for people. See: incels.

By all accounts ugly people are attracted to each other too. Given all the weird stuff people are into, I find it very unlikely that human sexuality is so static as to be incapable of attraction towards the person with whom you share all sexual experiences.

By all accounts ugly people are attracted to each other too.

what do you mean by that?

@Astranagant compared marrying outside of your sexuality to marrying a very ugly person. I agree with that comparison but add that very ugly people still often have great relationships with each other which seem to include genuine attraction and romance.

And this is a problem why exactly? They expect me to similarly repress myself if I'm to live and participate in society, so why should I care if other people expect it of them?

Who's expecting you to get into a gay relationship against your sexuality, exactly?

I'm pretty confident most people expect me to avoid relationships, if not interactions altogether, with people I'm attracted to.

Yeah that's not even remotely the same thing, sorry.

It feels like you're both missing or ignoring the other's points here?

I read @Astranagant as having revulsion because pedophilia is terrible. Fair. And there are ways that pedophilia is terrible that don't extend to being homosexual—acting out of pedophilic desires tends to involve power dynamics and large differences in maturity and judgment that wouldn't necessarily be present in a homosexual relationship.

I read @thrownaway24e89172's point as that having to live with having to repress attractions is actually a reasonable thing to expect in some cases. It's also possible to read his comments as saying that he would prefer no such thing, in which case I have a lot less sympathy with his argument.

In any case, @thrownaway24e89172 hasn't addressed the point that there might actually be some rather relevant differences between the two, and @Astranagant hasn't addressed the point that some repression is good, and so the relevant part is where should the lines be drawn.

At least, so I read it.

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No, it is exactly the same thing. You just don't want to admit it because doing so would require either admitting that such repression can be expected of some groups in a tolerant society (and thus it is on the table for gays) or admitting that the LGBT community is not actually a tolerant one (and thus must cede the moral high ground).

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live a thoroughly miserable existence attached to someone who you don't really love or feel attracted to

This seems a particularly worse case outcome.

Men with same sex attraction seem especially prone to drug, chemical, alcohol and parphillia induced or adjacent sexual activity. This seems throughly miserable to me. I guess they're fortunate that in current year there's an abundance of degeneracy to allow them to live their inner truths publicly.

'Straight' people sublimate all sorts of impulses and desires into more traditionally socially acceptable directions.

Men with same sex attraction seem especially prone to drug, chemical, alcohol and parphillia induced or adjacent sexual activity.

This is a subculture problem more than anything else. You might as well complain that people who choose to wear birkenstocks also engage in this behaviour. Obviously we need to discourage wearing of birkenstocks!

There are plenty of us who opt out of that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the stereotype is, to a degree, self reinforcing; people see this kind of thing touted as how "all gays" are, and so fledgling gays, newly discovering their sexuality, think that's "how to be gay" -- because it's a confusing time, and any kind of guidance is manna from heaven if you don't have a really well developed sense of personal identity at that point (and most teens don't).

I despair and despise every day that Drag Race and circuit parties have become the mainstream representation of being gay in the anglosphere.

Drag Race and circuit parties have become the mainstream representation of being gay

and gay cruises, gay resorts, gay pride, gay...

The 'other' gay orthodox path in current year is 'marriage' and sometimes gaybies. Though this does not preclude drag, circuit parties, drugs and parphillias.

Calling it a subculture problem seems a little dismissive, especially when any move against it is met with accusations of bigotry or homophobia. Would the Birkenstocked claim bigotry against their sensible shoes?

self reinforcing

Largely because there's so much more of it, and it's so accepted by segments of society. Is there any counter messaging that there are other ways to be gay, or you might not even be gay just a confused horny teenager without a regular non-gay outlet for your libido?

and gay cruises, gay resorts, gay pride, gay...

Same subculture. This is the problem when you co-opt the name of the entire sexuality for your club...

Is there any counter messaging that there are other ways to be gay

Yes, but we're suppressed just as much as hetero opponents are. We're accused of being "not real" gays, of being traitors, handmaidens, internalised homophobia, all that good stuff. There's nothing leftists hate more than a traitor, remember.

or you might not even be gay just a confused horny teenager without a regular non-gay outlet for your libido?

There used to be a lot of messaging around "it's okay to experiment, it doesn't mean you're necessarily gay" when I was a teen, but that seems to have faded over the years with the rise of the cult-like aspect.

messaging around "it's okay to experiment, it doesn't mean you're necessarily gay" when I was a teen

I'm not sure if we were teens at the same time, I was a teen in the 90's. I heard this messaging then too. We would object to being 'labeled'.

suppressed just as much as hetero opponents

Are there enough of you to rebrand this gay lifestyle?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-ex-gay?wprov=sfti1

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/09/03/conversion-therapy-center-founder-who-sought-turn-lgbtq-christians-straight-now-says-hes-gay-rejects-cycle-shame/

Probably when the high profile ones stop switching back.

I do think conversion therapy bans are signs of creeping fascism, but the ex gay thing has a spotty record at best. Rs committed a massive own goal by endorsing divorce over the years, endorsing a view of human life that centers on self fulfillment over duty. From there gay marriage only makes sense.

a view of human life that centers on self fulfillment over duty

And yet it was proposed as being merciful, and opposition to it as being cruel. Same with abortion today: oppose it, and you're a monster. Give in on the hard cases grounds (incest, rape) and then you're a hypocrite if you don't give in on the elective abortions.

Aren't the high profile attention seeking ex-gays more likely to be performative?

The ex-gay thing is a bit weird but in a similar way so is the detrans thing, both have some genuine members that were likely groomed / self groomed into alphabetism. That there's no reliable treatment or search for a cure among the establishment. There isn't t a well worn path out. Much mental illnesses chronic. Worse many of this cohort are subject to vitriol from their former alphabet compatriots.

I know several seemingly happy, married with children, people that were practicing LGB in the 90's. They don't talk about it, and would be unlikely to join an ex-gay organization.

Elsewhere in this thread it was claimed that the largest increase in alphabetism was amongst the 'B', presumably they have more options / choices. Am I still B if I've not had sexual activity other than my opposite sex spouse in 20 years?

The destigmatization and ease of divorce as it fits into the larger context of the sexual revolution and feminism has had a number of deleterious effects.

self fulfillment over duty

It's a very particular type of self fulfillment that frequently looks like self-centeredness or narcissism.

How many white parties and how much cock does it take to find self fulfillment? I find this less creepy than marriage and gaybies, and the associated assisted reproduction baby trafficking.

Am I still B if I've not had sexual activity other than my opposite sex spouse in 20 years?

If you're still attracted to the same sex, yes.

Or, what, is nobody truly straight until they have straight sex the first time? "Nobody has a sexuality until they lose their virginity" is a logical follow-on from this idea that you must actively practice your sexuality in order to possess it.

Nobody has a sexuality until they lose their virginity

I don't think this is true. I'd argue for internalizing and owning the identity. It may be concurrent with first sexual contact but does not have to be.

actively practice your sexuality in order to possess it

Non-offending pedophiles aren't still pedophiles?

I think you've interpreted me as being on the opposite side of the argument to the one I actually am.

Non-practicing gays are still gays, and the same for paedos.

Would you say that Chirlane McCray is a lesbian?

Rs committed a massive own goal by endorsing divorce over the years, endorsing a view of human life that centers on self fulfillment over duty. From there gay marriage only makes sense.

It's crazy to me how blind they are to this mistake. Just on it's face, divorce is a much more lethal blow to the sanctity of marriage than gay marriage could ever be. But the funnier thing is that even if you're just seething about dudes getting married, getting rid of no-fault divorce would probably solve that for you automatically.