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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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I appreciate you always giving a rigorous defense of women when these sexual marketplace topics get brought up. I may not always agree, but it's a needed service! I rarely see these arguments being made anywhere, unfortunately.

Don't you think the argument that the average 18-yr-old girl in modern secular France has no power over the average boy his age is so obviously far-fetched that it basically belongs to fantasy land?

I'd say @2rafa was arguing that she doesn't have power over the situation. Yes a girl has some power over the average boy, but not enough power to get him to commit to her if she won't put out.

Not enough power to do that, yes, I agree. But this entire conversation, and the one before this, about Russell Brand, was about the perils of women engaging in hookup sex. I'd argue that young women engaging in premarital sex in monogamous relationships is not a product of the sexual revolution, but was more or less the social norm before that as well. As far as I know, research proves that even roughly half of the Puritans had premarital sex this way, for example.

Interesting, I haven't heard that before about premarital sex. Would be grateful if you had something to read on that.

There are research findings that half of all brides were pregnant at the time of the marriage in Puritan communities. I remember reading about this, but this was more than a decade ago.

I mean, yes, within the narrow window of said average girl asking said average boy to not have sex. All the power such a girl has over such a boy is because she gatekeeps sex. He'll move heaven and earth if he thinks he has a shot. If the singular ask of that girl is to not do the one thing he'll do anything to do... yeah, she has no power over that.