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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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I think it would be more accurate to say that wokeists are responsible for the age of consent increasing over time but simultaneously want activities traditionally seen as sexual that they believe shouldn't be considered sexual to be free from that restriction.

In a vacuum, woke is responsible for the AoC increasing over time when it's a hetero pairing and the younger of the two is a woman (they aren't, for instance, particularly concerned with the definition of rape being a crime women cannot commit in the polities where this is true). This tracks given what we know about the demographics of progressives (a majority female movement concerns itself with imposing female sexual dynamics- what a shock), and

want activities traditionally seen as sexual that they believe shouldn't be considered sexual

if restated as "want activities traditionally seen as sexual to enjoy the plausible deniability of being sexual when it suits them", is an accurate description for how that demographic functions in the sexual marketplace.

I don't think progressives care that strongly about what the AoC should be when the younger of the two is a man aside from adding an extra layer of defense on top of the above special privilege/needing to pretend they care. Which was why NAMLBA was even tolerated in the first place back in the '70s (you really think one focused on girls would have gotten that far?) and why all the sexual "experiments" (like that German 'let's place kids with rapists and see what happens' one) never involved girls.

I would characterize 'wokeists' as a recent evolution of progressives that is distinct from those who tolerated NAMBLA in the '70s and other groups that did in fact argue against the AoC including for hetero pairings featuring older men and younger women (famously Foucault et al in France). I think they do care about the AoC when the younger of the two is a man, but this is counter-acted by their (charitably) unrecognized biases in recognizing behaviors toward men as being sexual.

EDIT:

if restated as "want activities traditionally seen as sexual to enjoy the plausible deniability of being sexual when it suits them", is an accurate description for how that demographic functions in the sexual marketplace.

I think that's a fair restatement. To build on that, I'd say a key difference between 'wokeists' and other branches of progressives is how they approach the intersection of power and sex. The woke from my perspective see sex as a tool for power, and their policies reflect a desire to control and wield that power while denying it to their opponents whereas other progressive groups have been more focused on freeing sex from such power plays.