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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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That is interesting indeed. Bi men are assumed gay and women aren't all that attracted to them...while bi women get treated like experience dispensers. I suppose that might be why bi people have worse outcomes than gay and straight ones. I suppose that being openly bi might be an honest, expensive signal that you're able to withstand the slings and arrows.

Based on my personal experience - a lot of bi friends - I've seen a lot of attractive openly bi women. However, more than a few have significant mental-health issues, or had had them in the past but had overcome them. There's a disproportionate number of queer young people in local psych wards.

People who are most vocally part of any deviant sexual community are often those who are hoping that standing in the community will get them laid.

That, too, is interesting. There's more than a few fat, awkward, nerdy men in BDSM circles, although I would suspect that most of them have the sense to not openly talk about their involvement in BDSM. If you're unattractive enough, the fact that you're interested in sex or relationships at all is fundamentally transgressive, outside of perhaps certain niche communities. I guess that if you're just barely attractive enough to be allowed to be openly interested in sex and relationships, you might join a BDSM community or talk about being openly bi as an attention-grabbing strategy.

I've seen the same thing in poly and in BDSM communities IRL, ugly people who are constantly going on about "the rules" and "the community" and resent the hell out of hot people who break those rules successfully. In the hope of enforcing rules that will force women to sleep with them.

Isn't this sometimes seen as creepy, transgressive, or just bullshit? I suppose that women can get away with this a lot easier than men can...but even then, why isn't this kind of behavior just seen as sanctimonious and puritanical? Also more than a little bit gross: the 5'3" guy in the BDSM circle, or the 300lb woman, should damn well know that they are being allowed to both participate and express interest in people by their community. Generally speaking, I see publicly representing oneself as anything other than a celibate monk or nun who's dedicated their life to something prosocial as a privilege, not a right, granted by the community. Something like the flirting/sexual version of a driver's license...most people can get them, but a small percentage can't or shouldn't, and nobody's pitching a fit that blind or epileptic people can't drive.