site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25094 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I just read about a real life version of the "isn't there someone you forgot to ask?" meme. Woman finds out a guy in his 30s dated a girl 13 years younger. She writes a story with their details, except in her story the guy is a creep. And now they're making a movie based on the story.

This is the short story: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person

This is the movie trailer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J2VukOLSxoY

And this is an essay where the girl in the relationship says the guy was great: https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/cat-person-kristen-roupenian-viral-story-about-me.html

Alexis, a senior in high school, briefly worked with Charles at a restaurant. She was a hostess and he was a waiter. They liked each other and texted a lot. They slowly started dating. He was the liberal type who wouldn't own a car because it was bad for the environment. He even asked for consent before he kissed her for the first time. She said he was very gentle and caring and they had lots of things in common.

The only downside of the relationship was the fact that she felt people judged her for it, and that she felt she was growing up too fast by being in love with someone so old. They eventually grew apart and broke up when she was a sophomore in college, after dating for 2 years.

A few years later, Kristen Roupenian has an "encounter" with this Charles, after which she finds out that he dated someone much younger than him. She decides to write a story that includes personal details about him and the girl, including their small hometowns, places they worked at, the place they had their first date at, the way the guy dressed and a description of his house. Except in her story the guy is a creep, bad at sex, a liar and manipulator, who becomes abusive when the girl breaks up with him.

The story goes viral during the metoo movement. Alexis and Charles find out and are weirded out. Alexis thinks the author couldn't have known so many details about her life without stalking her online. Charles said he started questioning whether he was really an asshole and would go through old texts to make sure that was not the case.

A few years later, Alexis finds out Charles died. No cause of death is mentioned, other than the fact that it was unexpected. Earlier in the essay she says he was on antidepressants, so suicide is a possibility in my opinion.

Alexis tries to contact Kristen and she responds via email with a half-assed apology in which she says she shouldn't have included some of the details. Alexis writes this essay to tell her side of the story, but it doesn't change much.

And now they are making a movie based on this story.

Also, these are the pictures of the women mentioned in this post. I will let you figure out who's who.

https://imgur.com/2gApE3K

https://imgur.com/l2cfZtd

Plenty of relationships between older men and young adult women in modern history. It relates to the dynamics between the sexes. Last thing we need now is discouraging sex and relationships when we have a problem of a rise in the decline of relationships.

It would be better if we had films discouraging people self destructive choices that make them more lonely. Or have romantic films that focus on positive potrayal of relationships. Movies showing this dynamic but portraying it as a good thing.

As you get older you realize that physiognomy as applies to beauty and character is essentially true.

This is not because the ugly are born innately cruel or wicked, but because they live harsher lives and are more readily exposed to the way people treat those they consider beneath them. This is why considered, smart cosmetic surgery is such a great leveller to those who can afford it.

Beautiful people see a better side to humanity and so tend to be more kind, more optimistic, more friendly, more empathetic, more charming, and have more faith both that people are good (because they’re good to them) and that the universe is fundamentally just.

People discuss the halo effect, which is true, but it’s also true that the beautiful often really are more pleasant and fun to be around.

This comes across like anti-wisdom. As I've gotten older I think I've gone the opposite direction. Realizing beauty is only skin deep.

To the degree attractive women are more fun, it's because it's fun to be attracted to someone. Are they more pleasant on average? No I'd say not. To say nothing of moral character, more substantive.

I'm sorry if I'm a little dense, but who did whom forget to ask?

In case you're unfamiliar with the meme

Alexis, a senior in high school, briefly worked with Charles at a restaurant. She was a hostess and he was a waiter. They liked each other and texted a lot. They slowly started dating

A few years later, Kristen Roupenian has an "encounter" with this Charles, after which she finds out that he dated someone much younger than him. She decides to write a story that includes personal details about him and the girl

Alexis and Charles would be the couple, and Kristen would be the person they "forget to ask" about whether they could date.

Ah, I see. The chronology made the analogy a bit hard to see. But I get it now, that's a fucking hilarious application.

So I also noticed how the Slate article is actually from 2021, and wanted to thank you for posting it here, I'd probably never hear of it otherwise, and it's profoundly whitepilling to me.

As I've said before the thing that bothers me the most about SocJus is not the collective judgement, not the censoriousness, or the way it makes it into every aspect of our lives, but how, at least for some people, it ends up reframing things, experiences, and people that they loved or enjoyed as something evil, harmful, or dangerous. Making you love Big Brother, and rejecting all other loyalties, grand or trivial. Judging by their politics, Alexis and Charles are exactly the kind of people I'd be extremely on guard against if I ever met them IRL, but that doesn't mean they deserve to have their brains messed with in this way.

This story involves a tragedy, but it's very uplifting to hear about someone who was tempted, but ultimately found her courage and decided to fight for the memory of the man she was with. Earlier I quipped that it's this story that would make a great thriller, and I unironically believe Alexis deserves to have a movie made about her.

I share that general opinion for some things. There are lines I won’t cross as far as morality (in general going against the idea of equality under the law, advocating violent overthrow of the government, or genocide) but I don’t think it healthy to let political causes overrun your life to that degree. In fact, I tend to consider excessive obsession about any single subject to be ultimately unhealthy and probably a sign of other problems. Enjoying a piece of art even one you see as problematic for whatever reason, is perfectly fine. Seeing everything through the lens of ideology or religion cuts you off from experiences that make life enjoyable and makes you much more narrow as a human being.

More to the culture war point, I think such ideological purity makes understanding and getting along with other people who disagree that much harder. If you’re dropping everything that smacks of “outgroup ideology”, you probably don’t have many relationships with people who hold those ideologies. How do you share a society with people you don’t know, don’t understand and refuse to talk to? How do you solve problems?

I always found the decision to write the Slate article rather weird. It felt like grabbing the spotlight for herself. If I were her*, if the story features the guy as a creep, then it clearly isn't my story. After all, he wasn't a creep. It's a weird reflex insecure people carry to show their whole ass under broad accusations, like people getting upset at someone being called dumb or ugly because it is mean to dumb or ugly people, as though anyone who isn't wildly insecure would group themselves under the categories "dumb" or "ugly."

In the final analysis it's a fairly innocuous story structure, the kind of thing that happens every day on every college campus across the country. While certain details made it identifiable to those close with Nowicki, Roupenien did change many details; Nowicki's argument is that Roupenien did not change enough of them. The interesting thing about the story is the internal monologue of the hypo-agentic and anhedonic protagonist, not any particular plot point lifted from Nowicki's life or not, which most anyone would understand bore only a vague similarity to any real person. She could easily have said to the handful of people who would have identified her "Hey that's not how I remember it, I've never even met this writer" and moved on with her life. Instead she chose to make the whole incident the first Google result under her name, taking it to the whole public, not just to those who knew her then and remembered these details, but to everyone she would meet in the future. That's an...odd...response to the supposed invasion of your privacy. Taking what would have been a private fun fact and making it into the first thing any new employer, romantic partner, etc will learn about you.

To me it is perfectly legitimate to write a story like Cat Person, in which you hear about a scenario and then imagine how you would feel if you were in that scenario. I'd imagine that is one of the most common ways that authors create stories, they hear about a scenario and then they insert themselves into it, how would I feel how would I react what would have made me do something like that. From Lord of the Flies to For Whom the Bell Tolls to The Killer Angels. It's.a long tradition. Jean Ross' Family still takes the time to critique the classic musical Cabaret every time there is a big production of it, "Our Grandmother Wasn't a Whore!" is always good for one or two headlines in a few midwit newspapers; the controversy is the primary reason anyone ever talks about Jean Ross anymore, which lead me to read more about her fascinating life. Seizing the controversy for oneself is seizing a slice of fame from a great work for oneself.

For what it's worth, regardless of the (dead) author's or most people's interpretation of Cat Person, I found it a very strong and interesting work of fiction. Not so much as a critique of men along the lines of "the guy was a creep all along" or whatever, but as a critique of the female protagonist's mindset. The way she drifts in and out of wanting to be involved in any of this, but lets herself get swept along for lack of any better ideas, the way she gets distanced from her friends and peer group by her relationship with this older man, is a genuine warning to girls. The kind of warning my mother gave to both me and my sister when we reached early teenage years: Never Go On A Mercy Date. Don't date people who you aren't super into. If you end up doing too much with them, that will be upsetting; if you reject them anyway you are only making it worse after stringing them further along. You think you are doing them a favor by giving them a little bit of you, but this will only make them angrier when they can't have all of you. You think they should be happy you spent time with them at all, they get angry that you won't spend more time with them. "Whore" is how that transaction inevitably ends. ((I mostly followed this advice, but not always as well as I should have.))

It comes back to the generalized advice I give to all young people: the optimal relationship states are Happily Married, and Slutting it Up. You should always be aiming to remain at one of those poles, the spots in the middle are hazardous, that's where people get hurt because they are emotionally depending on something that has no substance to it. If you're not married, or on the path to getting married, no commitment, no dependency, you don't make any decisions in your life with them in mind.

*I can't, of course, speak to what the viral story about your life experience must actually be like. The largest audience a short story or poem written by a former love ever found was a creative writing class; I'm lucky to have avoided sleeping with good writers, or I'm lucky to be so boring my story would never catch on.

It comes back to the generalized advice I give to all young people: the optimal relationship states are Happily Married, and Slutting it Up. You should always be aiming to remain at one of those poles, the spots in the middle are hazardous, that's where people get hurt because they are emotionally depending on something that has no substance to it.

Almost everyone is doing this (usually the former), though. What is even the middle ground between your (a) - looking for or working toward a serious relationship that can lead to marriage and (b) - being noncommittal and having, or trying to have, casual sex?

Maybe some weird poly people (although I suppose by their definition many are “happily married”), but even serial monogamists are usually trying to find a long term relationship, they just fail at it for various reasons. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone outside those two categories since high school, maybe (and even there kids in their first real relationship often think they’ll get married, because that’s what it feels like when you’re 16). What even exists outside those two groupings?

The things that are not “happily married” or “slutting it up” are usually the product of people trying sincerely for either (again, usually the former).

What is even the middle ground between your (a) - looking for or working toward a serious relationship that can lead to marriage and (b) - being noncommittal and having, or trying to have, casual sex?

Serial Monogamy, and particularly cohabitation prior to marriage, that's what I'm arguing against. We're going to be arguing definitions and personal anecdata here, but there's nothing else to go off of. The whole concept of a "Long Term Relationship" that is not on a direct and planned path to marriage is that middle ground I'm arguing against. You phrased (a) as "a serious relationship that can lead to marriage," I phrased it as "on the path to getting married." That's a difference big enough to drive a truck through.

By "Path to Getting Married" I mean direct, short term, achievable (within two years) timelines and checkpoints that will lead to marriage. As in: next year, or when we graduate in two years. Not "Eh, maybe, eventually, in a few years, when I've got everything else in my life in order, I would consider starting to have a conversation about marriage." More like, before any commitment is made the conversation is had about what you're looking for, what the timeline is, and what the checkpoints are. We're distinguishing intent here, so arguably it is useless advice, but what I want is a ruthless look at whether you really plan on marrying someone, if you picture the rest of your life with them and no one else, and if not you should cut them out immediately. I'd argue most 20-somethings aren't in those kinds of relationships, they're in a series of vague sort-of long term relationships from 3 months to a year, that both parties sort of understand are unlikely to end in marriage but are good enough for right now; when they picture their lives they imagine they will have more of these kinds of relationships.

Maybe your friends were more direct, in which case I applaud them, I found that most of my friends got into multiple "serious" relationships over the course of their lives, and many (largely women) missed out on opportunities they turned down for a partner who wandered off anyway, or wasted their 20s on a series of losers and wound up hitting their 30s unhappily single when they would have preferred to have been married. Or moved across the country to stay with a girlfriend who ditched them. Or spent their college years doting on a sexually frigid girlfriend they didn't wind up marrying anyway when they could have been out at parties. Or moved in together, broke up, and got screwed on everything from leases to furniture to pets with no legal framework to determine who owned what. Or merged social circles, only to break up and make everything awkward as their independent friend groups had withered on the vine years ago.

Serial monogamy is a trap. It lures people into a false sense of chastity, it's ok if we're in a relationship and we love each other, what total bullshit, serial monogamy is temporal polygamy, your body count isn't discounted for saying you were dating. It lures people into a false sense of security, moving or making financial or social decisions based on a person who can disappear from your life with no obligations to you whatsoever. It lures people into making bad tradeoffs, the opportunity cost of investing in one person you don't end up with instead of enjoying pleasure, freedom, and choice. It makes people into liars, normalizes lying about one's intentions.

It is best if one is brutally honest. If one is looking for a casual encounter, whether sexual or merely someone to go to the movies with, say so. If one is looking for marriage, say so and under what circumstances it will occur, plot a course for marriage. Don't drift vaguely in the direction of marriage and hope you wash up on its shore (or worse, that you don't).

I'd argue most 20-somethings aren't in those kinds of relationships, they're in a series of vague sort-of long term relationships from 3 months to a year, that both parties sort of understand are unlikely to end in marriage but are good enough for right now; when they picture their lives they imagine they will have more of these kinds of relationships.

I know you married young, but in my experience this just isn’t true. Almost everyone I know in a long-term (certainly after 2+ years) relationship expects that they will marry that person unless something very surprising happens. They don’t picture that they will have many other relationships in their life, they’re expectant this will be the relationship that leads to marriage.

Serial monogamy is what trying to date seriously for marriage in modern secular culture looks like. You’re not particularly trad and have no problem with sex before marriage so I’m not even sure what you’re suggesting the difference is between dating for marriage and want most people who want a relationship are doing, really.

Serial monogamy is a trap. It lures people into a false sense of chastity, it's ok if we're in a relationship and we love each other, what total bullshit, serial monogamy is temporal polygamy, your body count isn't discounted for saying you were dating.

Is your body count discounted if you have an open relationship and sleep with others after you’re married? I’m surprised you’re commenting on a sense of chastity (I’m still curious about how you’d feel if your wife sought out a male lover, even for a one-night thing). I agree that serial monogamy can be an excuse for promiscuity, but that’s really because the term is broad enough to fit a large number of behaviors.

I’m surprised you’re commenting on a sense of chastity (I’m still curious about how you’d feel if your wife sought out a male lover, even for a one-night thing).

I don't particularly value chastity for myself, but many people do, and I want those people to be able to get what they want out of life. I eat meat, and basically can't get through four hours without dairy, but when I'm cooking for a vegan friend I do my best to make sure that what I'm serving allows them to stay within their beliefs. I've seen quite a lot of girls do the whole "Well it's ok to have sex if he says he loves me" thing, compromising their personal code of morals only to be disappointed over and over again, and find themselves in a quiet crisis by their mid to late 20s. A lot of people use the faux-commitment of a "Serious Relationship" to deal with their guilt over sex that they want to have. I'd like to see those people think about things honestly, and then decide to make love or to remain chaste on an honest, rather than a false, basis. Confront the realities of what is going, and see if you really believe that what you are doing is good. If you think it is, great, do it; if you think it isn't, don't.

As for my wife, if she said that her being free to seek out a male lover was a condition of our open relationship, we would then close the relationship and be monogamous. Our relationship structure has always been about what works for both of us and makes us both happy. I'm not pretending I'm some hyper-libidinous-alpha-Dionysus who needs fifteen lovers to be satisfied, I don't need anything extravagant but it's fun and if it makes everyone happy I have no problem taking it. I've been happily monogamous before and I will be again in the future.

I think the implication is that you shouldn't enter a relationship (maybe you thought it was marriage potential, maybe the person you were slutting it up with wanted to take it further and you went eh, why not, still getting laid) and, once it starts looking like you're in something serious but it's not about to lead to a marriage (or you don't want that), you continue dithering and sticking around with it instead of breaking it up.

I always found the decision to write the Slate article rather weird. It felt like grabbing the spotlight for herself. If I were her*, if the story features the guy as a creep, then it clearly isn't my story. After all, he wasn't a creep. It's a weird reflex insecure people carry to show their whole ass under broad accusations, like people getting upset at someone being called dumb or ugly because it is mean to dumb or ugly people, as though anyone who isn't wildly insecure would group themselves under the categories "dumb" or "ugly."

Alternative hypothesis: the story is actually deliberate propaganda against a particular type of guy (and against a very specific guy, once you're familiar with the details), and arguably even a particular type of girl, and it's reacted to accordingly. It's a little bit like someone wrote a ficitional story about Jews murdering Christian babies, and drinking their blood, and when understandably people got upset you counter with "Well, do you murder Christian babies and drink their blood? No? So the story is not about you". Bonus points for the characters closely resembling a particular Jewish family.

Or to take a less inflammatory example, given tomes upon tomes written about various types of representation, and how they're problematic, it seems par for the course to point out the problematic nature of this particular representation. Especially since, again, it seems to closely resemble very specific people.

While certain details made it identifiable to those close with Nowicki, Roupenien did change many details; Nowicki's argument is that Roupenien did not change enough of them.

And when all her friends are swarming her with text messages asking if this story is about her, maybe she has a point?

That's an...odd...response to the supposed invasion of your privacy. Taking what would have been a private fun fact and making it into the first thing any new employer, romantic partner, etc will learn about you.

That's where the story being propaganda comes in. Maybe she didn't like the looks she was getting when dating the guy, and she doesn't like the idea of the story making people treat other women the way she was treated?

The interesting thing about the story is the internal monologue of the hypo-agentic and anhedonic protagonist, not any particular plot point lifted from Nowicki's life or not, which most anyone would understand bore only a vague similarity to any real person.

For what it's worth, regardless of the (dead) author's or most people's interpretation of Cat Person, I found it a very strong and interesting work of fiction. Not so much as a critique of men along the lines of "the guy was a creep all along" or whatever, but as a critique of the female protagonist's mindset.

But not only was "the guy was a creep all along" how the "dead author" meant it, it's how most of the audience saw it as well.

To me it is perfectly legitimate to write a story like Cat Person, in which you hear about a scenario and then imagine how you would feel if you were in that scenario.

Is that what she did? Or did she write a story where her ex is a creep, as some kind of release? Because it definitely doesn't look like she just put herself in Alexis' shoes, she also had the male character behave in very particular ways, and of course she had to finish the story with him texting her "whore", just so it's clear he's a bad guy. Writing as release might still be valid, but see below:

To me it is perfectly legitimate to write a story like Cat Person, in which you hear about a scenario and then imagine how you would feel if you were in that scenario. I'd imagine that is one of the most common ways that authors create stories, they hear about a scenario and then they insert themselves into it, how would I feel how would I react what would have made me do something like that. From Lord of the Flies to For Whom the Bell Tolls to The Killer Angels. It's.a long tradition. Jean Ross' Family still takes the time to critique the classic musical Cabaret every time there is a big production of it, "Our Grandmother Wasn't a Whore!" is always good for one or two headlines in a few midwit newspapers; the controversy is the primary reason anyone ever talks about Jean Ross anymore, which lead me to read more about her fascinating life. Seizing the controversy for oneself is seizing a slice of fame from a great work for oneself.

Except this being nothing new doesn't automatically mean the authors are the ones who are right. This was even a point of drama in The Haunting of Hill House, the family was salty at their brother who made bank from writing a story about a traumatic even they all went through. Are their grievances automatically invalid because artists gonna art? I'm not convinced. Apparently neither was the author of the Haunting, since he thought it would make for a good point of drama.

Alternative hypothesis: the story is actually deliberate propaganda against a particular type of guy (and against a very specific guy, once you're familiar with the details), and arguably even a particular type of girl, and it's reacted to accordingly. It's a little bit like someone wrote a ficitional story about Jews murdering Christian babies, and drinking their blood, and when understandably people got upset you counter with "Well, do you murder Christian babies and drink their blood? No? So the story is not about you". Bonus points for the characters closely resembling a particular Jewish family.

I think a complication in this metaphor is that, as far as I know, Jews murdering Christian babies and drinking their blood was never once actually a thing that happened. But this archetype of creepy man is very much a real thing, and I know of a few guys at the school I went to like that. I am sympathetic to your point, because when the archetype in fiction and also the blogosphere becomes really common, it makes it seem like roughly 50% of guys are like that, and that's like an attack on all guys. But there are a real rough 1% of guys who really are just like that and I think it is important for people, and especially women, to be aware of and slightly on guard against that archetype.

If someone would write story inverting reality, with enough details that it would identify me as being involved - then I would at least try to make clear that they are malicious liars.

This was even a point of drama in The Haunting of Hill House, the family was salty at their brother who made bank from writing a story about a traumatic even they all went through. Are their grievances automatically invalid because artists gonna art? I'm not convinced. Apparently neither was the author of the Haunting, since he thought it would make for a good point of drama.

The Haunting of Hill House was written by Shirley Jackson? Or are you talking about the recent TV series?

TV series. Wanted to read the book but never got to it. I thought the adaption is fairly faithful?

There are two movie adaptations that I know of; the first is a 60s black and white movie which scared the crap out of me when I watched it on TV as a kid, and then a late 90s remake which I haven't seen, but which seems to have taken some liberties.

Looking at the Wikipedia article on the series, it does seem to be loosely adapted - they made the characters into siblings of a family which moved into the house, instead of the original SPOILER idea that they were a group recruited for a paranormal study, hosted in a haunted house. It seems to have mashed together the original builder of the house with the modern family and made a lot of other changes.

The 1963 movie seems to be the most faithful adaptation.

I haven't seen the TV series, but based on this review it seems like a very loose adaptation. Shortly after reading the book I watched the 1963 adaptation The Haunting and thought it was very close to the plot of the novel (but not as scary). I don't read a lot of horror but the novel is one of the better horror novels I've read, worth checking out.

t's a little bit like someone wrote a ficitional story about Jews murdering Christian babies, and drinking their blood, and when understandably people got upset you counter with "Well, do you murder Christian babies and drink their blood?

Isn't this more like the argument had over and over in fantasy and sci-fi circles, where any "greedy race of traders and merchants" (Trek's Ferengi, HP's Goblins) gets called antisemitic, and any violent and stupid race gets called racist against blacks/arabs/whatever? I disagree with it there, I disagree with it here.

I don't really get the obsession on all sides with the ending of the story. It strikes me as pretty milquetoast, neither providing material for a harrowing psychological thriller nor an automatic indictment of character. He used a bad word to talk to a girl who dumped him, that's pretty normal behavior. Hell, my best friend and I used to get drunk and make free online texting numbers just to bother his ex-gfs, when inevitably the new boyfriend would text back threateningly, we would issue a florid challenge to fistfight and then give him an address at an empty house we'd find for sale online in the wrong town. Only two of them were ever dumb enough to actually show up, then text the fake number to call his putative opponent a pussy. It was great fun, normal human behavior.

  • -11

It was great fun, normal human behavior.

Bro... no.

Hell, my best friend and I used to get drunk and make free online texting numbers just to bother his ex-gfs, when inevitably the new boyfriend would text back threateningly, we would issue a florid challenge to fistfight and then give him an address at an empty house we'd find for sale online in the wrong town. Only two of them were ever dumb enough to actually show up, then text the fake number to call his putative opponent a pussy. It was great fun, normal human behavior.

This seems pretty douchy and childish.

Yes. It was. Which can be great fun and is normal human behavior (particularly for a 20 year old male), not indicative of a deep psychological or moral flaw.

Which is my point, people do flawed bad things all the time every day.

not indicative of a deep psychological or moral flaw

I disagree (though maybe it depends on what you meant exactly by "make free online texting numbers just to bother his ex-gfs" - but my assumptions are that it was going into things qualifying as deep moral flaws)

You consider making annoying but harmless pranks against people you personally dislike as deep moral flaws?

"make free online texting numbers just to bother his ex-gfs" does not sound like "annoying but harmless pranks" but rather like "nasty crude harassment"

(possibly it was actually good-humoured prank but "when inevitably the new boyfriend would text back threateningly, we would issue a florid challenge to fistfight" suggests otherwise)

More comments

Isn't this more like the argument had over and over in fantasy and sci-fi circles, where any "greedy race of traders and merchants" (Trek's Ferengi, HP's Goblins) gets called antisemitic, and any violent and stupid race gets called racist against blacks/arabs/whatever? I disagree with it there, I disagree with it here.

Call me crazy, but I get the impression that especially the DS9 Ferangi were very deliberately taking inspiration from Jewish culture (not in an antisemitic way, though).

I don't really get the obsession on all sides with the ending of the story. It strikes me as pretty milquetoast,

Sure, but the point is that the author knew how the intended audience is going to react to it (given how ubiquitous pop-feminism was/is), and the critics knew that's why she put it there.

Call me crazy, but I get the impression that especially the DS9 Ferengi were very deliberately taking inspiration from Jewish culture (not in an antisemitic way, though).

Huh, I always thought the joke was that they were runaway capitalists, a parody of 20th century Reagan-consensus Americans. We see in the eternal Jew the flaws we hate in ourselves? (Ferengi itself is an antique Persian derived word used to refer to European traders)

Sure, but the point is that the author knew how the intended audience is going to react to it (given how ubiquitous pop-feminism was/is), and the critics knew that's why she put it there.

Sure, but then let's push back on that attitude of simpering prissiness rather than give into it. In the same way that the reaction of Ferengi are greedy >>> They Must Be Jews says more about the reader than it does about the writer.

Huh, I always thought the joke was that they were runaway capitalists, a parody of 20th century Reagan-consensus Americans. We see in the eternal Jew the flaws we hate in ourselves? (Ferengi itself is an antique Persian derived word used to refer to European traders)

I may be out of line as I'm hardly an expert on Jewish culture, but the scenes with the Grand Nagus, and Quark's and Rom's mother felt like they're playing with some stereotypes (again in a harmless gentle ribbing, or even heartfelt appreciation kind of way).

Sure, but then let's push back on that attitude of simpering prissiness rather than give into it. In the same way that the reaction of Ferengi are greedy >>> They Must Be Jews says more about the reader than it does about the writer.

But why does that involve pretending she did put that ending with a very specific purpose in mind?

I found it a very strong and interesting work of fiction. Not so much as a critique of men along the lines of "the guy was a creep all along" or whatever, but as a critique of the female protagonist's mindset.

I enjoyed it when I read it: it has a certain amount of subtlety and complexity that I like in a story. Where it goes off the rails is when it has the guy call her a whore abruptly at the end, which comes out of the blue and mostly serves to make it more of a simple morality tale. Even if that wasn't the author's intention, it adds nothing to the story and coarsens it by encouraging readers to view it in that frame.

Well obviously she made the guy a creep- it makes for a better story that way, and besides, a story about a 17 year old girl dating a 30 year old man would(quite reasonably, I might add- in the society in which we actually live, a large majority of grown men chasing teen girls do not have honorable intentions) not go over well.

Now obviously this went viral, and the people it’s about don’t like that. And that’s perfectly reasonable, but it also seems like writers taking inspiration from real life is normal and commonplace, so the solution is that she should have changed the details more significantly.

I enjoyed the bit where Hollywood cashed in twice

it seems like men hating is becoming Hollywood's new profitable strategy.

Profitable?

Things have been out of season in Hollywood for quite awhile now. It’s been slowly turning into a propaganda firehouse for every type of garbage out there. With occasionally a few pieces of corn in a pile of shit.

Kirsten Roupenian says she learned about Alexi Nowicki "from social media". (Good old online stalking.) But I don't believe it, it seems like she said it to distance herself while the details are too intimate, my bet is that Roupenian must have read through Charles phone or knew him more. Doesn't have to be romantic, maybe she was just a friend to which he poured his heart out in a vulnerable moment. Frustrating that the "encounter" is not clarified.

Anyway, I found this poignant:

We are all unreliable narrators. Sometimes, to my own disappointment, I find myself inclined to trust Roupenian over myself. Had Charles actually been pathetic and exploitative, and I simply hadn’t understood it because I, like Margot, was young and naïve? Had he become vengeful and possessive after we broke up, but I’d just blocked it out in order to move on with my life? The story is so confident and sure, helping the reader to see things Margot herself does not. In December, David told me that Charles kept his old iPhone even after he got a new one so that he could look back at his old messages with Kristen from time to time to see whether he had actually been an asshole. Sometimes it feels easier to believe the story that everyone knows than the one they don’t.

I present my sketch of Cat Woman, an entirely fictional story:

Kirsten Rubenyan is a lonely, struggling MFA student. At some point she has a fling with a perfectly ordinary and fine enough guy she thinks is a lesser-than (after all, she's working on her MFA and he doesn't even have a car) and eventually that goes sour. She is testy about how the relationship went, so she stalks the social media of an ex he mentioned and spins a tale intermingling lots of concrete identifying facts with projections of how she felt about him.

It turns out surprisingly decent with interesting subtleties and ambiguities, but she realizes that her stand-in protagonist is a bit too unsympathetic, so she tacks on a bit at the end where the guy calls her a whore so readers know who the bad guy is. It bursts onto the scene as an internet sensation, and everyone is able to identify the guy and thinks he's an abusive asshole. The guy falls into a neurotic depressive spiral wondering whether he was as bad as she depicts him, constantly rereading his texts with her to figure out what he did to deserve this fate as his life falls apart, until ultimately killing himself.

Kirsten walks away with a movie deal but vacillates between feeling she's the victim of a mean misogynistic society and having nagging doubts that maybe she did something wrong.

Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

spins a tale intermingling lots of concrete identifying facts with projections of how she felt about him.

I mean this is kind of the issue. I've got a lot of female friends, some of whom are prone to flights of romantic fancy/chronic daters, and every relationship is undoubtedly re-evaluated at the end through the lens of it having failed/that particular emotional state. I've sat through enough abortive non-relationships where one week it was booking a marriage venue, the next week the ick has been triggered and the potential paramour is/was a horrible ogre the whole time in order to be pretty skeptical of this kinda narrative.

Even sticking in the Whore thing, whilst tilting the story in favor of the feminine to most readers, seems pretty weak to anybody who's actually been in the market

I don't mind the unreliable narrator of the story, really, or an unreliable author even. The issue is people who take the unreliability at face value (Humbert is so romantic!), and an author who drops in an identifiable real person as the target of their ire from a position of relative power.

Is that not just a woman’s standard internal monologue?

Low effort, zero value comment. You've been told before not to post like this. Next time will be a ban.

It seems that it was a woman that wrote the article setting the record straight, so probably not.

It's sort of interesting that the movie adaptation of "Cat Person" has been fairly widely panned by critics. For example, on Rotten Tomatoes it has a 45% critic score (and a 71% audience score, which is also interesting: it's one of the few liberal-coded movies I'm aware of that has that kind of critic/audience split). A lot of the critics seem to like the first 2/3 or so of the movie but claim it goes off the rails towards the end and becomes a horror movie, which is pretty curious given the source material. Another weird point: it's pretty difficult to find a complete synopsis of the film online. Even the Wikipedia page doesn't spill the beans on the final act horror-movie twist.

I enjoyed "Cat Person" when it came out and thought it said something real and true about the dynamics of modern dating (certainly a vastly better #MeToo story than that account of an awkward first date with Aziz Ansari). I received Roupenian's first short story collection (which includes "Cat Person") as a gift a few Christmases ago and for the most part enjoyed it.

But yes, reading the Slate story sullied the experience for me a bit. I won't go quite so far as to say it was an act of character assassination targeting Charles, but Roupenian could have done a lot more to distance her fictional character from his real-life inspiration.

According to Freddie deBoer the movie is laughably heavy-handed. The minute I heard they were adapting it as a "psychological thriller" I was wary, because the story is nothing like that.

According to Freddie deBoer the movie is laughably heavy-handed.

It might be; I have seen the trailer and based on that I would not be surprised. But in that piece, he describes Past Lives as being about "a woman’s struggle over whether to stay with her husband or leave him for another man," which it absolutely is not. Whatever the male lead's hopes might be in that regard, the female lead shows no interest in kindling a romance with him. That really casts doubt on his judgment about film, especially in a piece about lack of subtlety in film, given that "Past Lives is about a woman’s struggle over whether to stay with her husband or leave him for another man" is the most unsubtle take ever; it is what the audience might expect the film to be about, but in fact it goes in a completely different direction. I agree with him that it is somewhat overrated; it is good, not great.

I guess I'll have to disagree with you there because my read of Past Lives was essentially the same as Freddie's. It was obvious to me and my girlfriend that Nora is absolutely crazy about Hae Sung, has never stopped loving him, and would jump at the chance to pursue an actual relationship with him if it wasn't for her pesky husband and career. What was your read of it?

(I joked that perhaps the reason Freddie didn't like the movie as much as I did is because he's subconsciously worried that one day his Korean girlfriend's own Hae Sung will show up on their doorstep and throw his life into greater disarray.)

It was obvious to me and my girlfriend

Watching this sort of media with an SO has always felt awkward to me throughout the years. So far I’ve successfully avoided it with mine due to her particular preferences in media consumption, but I have to wonder if either of you pattern-matched the on-screen narrative to your own lives, even in hypotheticals? Do you feel more like Arthur, or Hae Sung?

I'm white and a native English speaker and my girlfriend is Asian, so on paper I should be identifying with Arthur. But I didn't really find myself "identifying" with any of the characters on-screen. My immediate thought after watching the movie was that Nora's dilemma could never happen to me, as there's no Hae Sung (an old flame, the "one who got away" with whom I have an undeniable and unshakeable romantic bond) waiting to turn up on my doorstep. For the same reason, I could never find myself in Hae Sung's shoes: there may be women in my past who occasionally pop into my head and I wonder how they're doing and what might have been, but I'm very confident that the feeling isn't mutual. The very reason Hae Sung can't stop thinking about Nora is that he knows she's just as attached to him as he is to her, which eats him up inside.

There's one line of dialogue that, depending how you interpret it, I quite related to. Nora and Arthur are lying in bed talking about their situation. Nora assures Arthur that she loves him, and Arthur says something like "I know you do. I just have a hard time believing it sometimes." There's two ways you can read this line: does Arthur mean that he has a hard time believing that Nora specifically loves him (perhaps because there's still such a huge part of her that loves Hae Sung)? Or does Arthur mean that he has such poor self-esteem that he has a hard time believing that anyone loves him? If the latter, big mood.

Great introspection, much appreciated, but also importantly, what might/did your girlfriend feel? That would be my curiosity were I in your shoes.

She was tearing up in the cinema and felt sad for a few days afterwards (as did I). She was so touched at how supportive Arthur was being in light of the fact that, from his perspective, it looked very much like his wife was reconnecting with an old boyfriend and was feeling torn about which man she wanted to be with. I didn't get the impression that she was "identifying" with Nora, and I'm quite confident that there's no Hae Sung waiting in the wings for her. She just told me that she thought the film's depiction of the immigrant experience was very true to life, specifically in how Nora expresses herself vastly differently in Korean than she does in English (not just the manner of speaking, tone of voice, vocal pitch etc.; but also the content of what she says).

Well, they reconnect on Facebook 12 years after parting as children, when Hae Sung reaches out to her. After some time, Nora says that she wants to stop communicating "for a while." But she never tries to reconnect with Hae Sung. Twelve years later, Hae Sung tells her that he is coming to New York and would like to see her. Nora never once initiates contact, and as far as we can tell, she never would have.

And see this interview with the director in which she notes that the film was inspired by an incident from her own life:

The movie hinges on the concept of “inyeon,” a Korean word for “destiny” or “fate,” the idea that every human interaction – no matter how deep or fleeting – was preordained in a previous life. In actuality, when Song’s friend came to New York, her feelings were only platonic. But Song is quick to point out that inyeon doesn’t just mean romantic love.

“My feeling was, ‘This is a really incredible level of inyeon.’ That’s really what I was feeling,” Song says. “He knew me as a 12-year-old, and because it was hard to keep up our friendship in adulthood, the conception of me and him never evolved. On the other hand, my American husband doesn’t know anything about the 12-year-old because he’s never met (her). He’s seen photos, but it’s not really real to him. So that was primarily the feeling, like: ‘Wow. Neither of them know what the other person knows.’ “

My read of it was as follows. Nora still retains a deep affection for Hae Sung, as indicated by the fact that she's still thinking about him even prior to learning that he was trying to track her down on Facebook (evidenced by the phone call she has with her mother, during which she discovers that Hae Sung was looking for her). Over the next few months, they text each other constantly, have Skype conversations which last for hours, go on virtual "dates", watch each other's movie recommendations - in other words, do everything you'd expect a couple in a long-distance relationship to do. Both are scared of coming on too strong and getting hurt, so neither of them comes out and says exactly what they feel or want, maintaining a plausible deniability over the increasingly intimate relationship. Hae Sung refuses to commit himself by visiting New York even though he clearly wants to see Nora, and Nora says she's looking up flights to Seoul - do you really even consider flying thirteen hours just to meet an old childhood friend, with whom you've had no contact for twelve years and for whom you have no romantic attraction*? When Nora says she wants to stop communicating "for awhile", Hae Sung asks "were we dating or something?" When he says this, Nora feels like either she's grossly misread a purely platonic relationship, which is humiliating; or she's infuriated by Hae Sung's affected nonchalance and refusal to acknowledge the intimacy of the relationship. The combination of humiliation and/or anger cements her decision to break off contact with him indefinitely. Eventually both of them decide that they need to be "realistic" and not let a long-distance romance get in the way of their careers.

When they reunite in New York, their intimacy and chemistry is immediately obvious, including to Arthur (who barely even pretends not to feel threatened by Hae Sung) and even to passers-by (as demonstrated by the opening scene in which two unseen people watch Nora, Hae Sung and Arthur in the bar and speculate that Nora and Hae Sung are a couple, as opposed to Nora and Arthur). Nora makes no secret of the fact that she finds Hae Sung more physically attractive than Arthur (granted, only when prompted by Arthur). Certain lines of dialogue only make sense in the context of their being old flames (as when Hae Sung observes that Nora began dating Arthur shortly after they stopped talking, and Nora testily retorts that Hae Sung found himself a Chinese girlfriend around the same time - why would she care if she never felt any attraction to him?). When Nora and Hae Sung stand on the street waiting for his taxi, their body language makes it obvious that there's plenty that each of them wants to say to the other, but can't. After he leaves, Nora immediately bursts into tears.

To me, all of the above is entirely consistent with Nora being in love with Hae Sung but staying with Arthur out of loyalty.

*When Hae Sung later flies thirteen hours to see Nora, Arthur correctly infers that Hae Sung is crazy about Nora - the logic cuts both ways, to even consider doing the same, Nora must have had romantic feelings for Hae Sung, at least at this time.

Much of that true, but also not quite on point. DeBoer's claim was that the movie was about a woman trying to choose between two men. Yes, Nora has an emotional bond with Hae Sung -- they were childhood friends after all -- and she might even find him attractive. But there is very little evidence that she ever considered being with him, because they are of different worlds (a big theme of the movie is immigrant identity, and it is very significant that she left Korea at age 12, whereas he never left) and because, and this is the major theme -- she is no longer the person for whom a relationship with him is a particularly attractive option. Hence the discussion of that being a possibility only in a future life.

Interesting that your interpretation of the film was so different from mine, and to me the film never seemed intentionally opaque or impenetrable, like it was knowingly left open to interpretation.

I feel like GDanning's interpretation is very male-brain, for lack of a better term, of the issue. In which he acknowledges Nora is attracted to her prior flame but fails to understand the dance a bit. Stuff like 'If she was so incredibly enamored, why did she never reach out on Facebook' which is like standard female-brain behavior, but mystifying to a male or substantially male thought process.

More comments

I enjoyed "Cat Person" when it came out and thought it said something real and true about the dynamics of modern dating

Ah, cool! This is exactly what I remember about the discussion here when the story was published, except my feeling about the story was there's something deeply wrong with the whole thing, and the insistence that it, and the reaction to it Says Something About Society felt very gas-lighty. Needless to say I feel quite vindicated with this story coming out, and incredibly frustrated at the demands of taking Current Things seriously, and additional context coming years down the line when nobody cares about it anymore.

According to Freddie deBoer the movie is laughably heavy-handed. The minute I heard they were adapting it as a "psychological thriller" I was wary, because the story is nothing like that.

I think you could make a great thriller from Alexis' side of the story.

I think you could make a great thriller from Alexis' side of the story.

You mean Margot?

No, Alexis. The actual person who dated a guy for a few years, and was stalked by an aspiring writer who took the details of her relationship and twisted them into a dark mirror-universe version of reality. The story became viral, and so acclaimed that it ended up making her doubt her own memories at times.

Oh yeah, now that would make for a compelling thriller.

I didn't think "Cat Person", the story as written, contains the necessary ingredients for a psychological thriller.

Is there still a working reddit search site somwhere? I remember we discussed the original story at the time it was published, and wanted to compare notes.

Here's three mentions I found in TheMotte:

  1. https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/njr5h0/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_may_24_2021/gzcjcw7/ big discussion pile!

  2. https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/njr5h0/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_may_24_2021/gzb7qp6/ deleted, but children quote parts show it's cat-person posting

  3. https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/oe16bz/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_05_2021/h4ij0lq/ small bare-links discussion of the later slate article

Even better, one of the /r/TheMotte threads contained a link to an /r/SlateStarCodex thread:

https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/7j0f9d/comment/dr4ykqs/

Here's three mentions I found in TheMotte:

Thanks! But also: how?

Local archive of the subreddit from before the API ban

That's dedication!

Woman finds out a guy in his 30s dated a girl 13 years younger. She writes a story with their details, except in her story the guy is a creep.

Because it’s a man’s fault if women his own age refused to date him when he was younger? Might as well tax a man for not living on Mars.

Because it’s a man’s fault if women his own age refused to date him when he was younger?

Where did you dig that out of it all? There's nothing there to say he couldn't date women closer to his age.

On the one hand, I can see why the writer changed the story to be one about a bad relationship, because "two people date, have a good relationship, break up amicably" isn't going to make a movie. On the other hand, she should have changed the details a lot more to preserve anonymity.

Now, if the guy is preferentially hanging around 17-18 year olds when he's in his 30s, yeah that's a problem. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Because it’s a man’s fault if women his own age refused to date him when he was younger?

Well... yes? The implication is (both from a broad feminist narrative and in this specific case) that if you can't get dates from women your own age, this is because they can see the red flags of your unsavoury character. The solution is therefore to Be Better and self-improve until women your own age DO want to date you. The solution is not to instead date inexperienced young things, these being the only things you can get, because their red flag detectors haven't grown in yet.

t. Man dating a woman 13 years younger than him right now.

How old are you?

The dichotomy is 34M/21F

The implication is … that if you can't get dates from women your own age, this is because they can see the red flags of your unsavoury character.

And the same argument works the other way around. If you’re a woman who has trouble finding suitable men your own age, you should begin with your own self-assessment to determine what your contribution to the problem is. And if you’ve delayed too long and burned your advantage, there’s nothing a man can do for you except to tell you you’re incompetent at making decisions.

The solution is therefore to Be Better and self-improve until women your own age DO want to date you.

No. He ‘did’ do better. He went to a table with better odds, and found women willing to be more receptive to him. “Do better” =! Jump through hoops for me until I’m satisfied to the point where I want to date you.

The solution is not to instead date inexperienced young things, these being the only things you can get, because their red flag detectors haven't grown in yet.

And how do people get experience? If all it takes for a man to earn a red flag is to be met with female disapproval of such a facile kind, well, good luck with that, but I doubt she’ll get much support with that one. More 30+ year old men these days have less dating experience than a newly minted female adult does, now, more than ever.

Men left out in the cold aren’t writing opinion pieces and accounts wallowing in self-pity or rage, when women reject a man who owns a pencil box and a lime green T-shirt, but will give 6 children to an alcoholic that beats them. If you want to meet an appropriate man your own age in your youth, be less stupid.

No. He ‘did’ do better. He went to a table with better odds, and found women willing to be more receptive to him. “Do better” =! Jump through hoops for me until I’m satisfied to the point where I want to date you.

Also a lot of the 'do better' is relationship/dating-experienced link. Whilst there's a lot of baseline attractiveness stuff that can be done, there's a large factor of 'Can't get job without experience, can't get experience without job' at play

Well any functional relationship is never going to be one-sided. The problem with relationships today is far less rooted in “experience” or lack thereof; it has to do with people’s expectations and larger cultural shifts.

As it relates to the last part of your statement, I think that finds itself in many places of society. I recently came extremely close and lost out on a very promising job opportunity as a result of a this dynamic at play. As to be expected, it was a government position. Let’s just say I brushed too close to the edge in my background interview to things that I guess make me a highly suspicious candidate. Despite having no criminal background of any kind.

It’s a similar problem in a way to the difficulty the government has in hiring hackers. Highly qualified candidates get passed up due to their eccentric lifestyle, in favor of unqualified stooges that are always playing catch-up in cyberspace. You wouldn’t want a pedophile to babysit at a daycare for instance. That’s obvious. But should that also mean you shouldn’t have poachers as gamekeepers? There’s a difference between “thinking like an attacker” and “acting like a criminal.” But there are times also where those two things appear to come awfully close to one another, and in some cases may even converge.

Relationships and institutions that can resolve these contradictions (which isn’t difficult to do) whether it’s in relationships, employment, or public policy, are almost always going to stay ahead of everyone else.

Man dating a woman 13 years younger than him right now.

Depends where the age ranges lie. Women in their 20s up, not so bad. Teenagers - yeah, that's a problem, because 17 year old girl (or boy) and 30 year old man (or woman) is too much of a difference where they both are in their lives. Think of it this way - when he was her age (18) she was 5. He'd be babysitting her, not dating her.

The good old "half your age plus seven" rule says that a 13 year age gap becomes fine when the man is 40 and the woman is 27.

27 should be old enough to know your own mind, but I do fear somebody would go "he took advantage of the power imbalance!"

So "half your age plus 7" for our 30 year old guy and 17 year old girl would be 'she should be 22', which seems fair enough.

Teens to early 20s is young and inexperienced, so even a reasonable gap at such ages does mean unequal life experiences. 20 dating 33? Yeah, she's a bit on the young side. 25 dating 38? Much better. 15 dating 28? Dad should be getting out his shotgun 😁

The solution is not to instead date inexperienced young things, these being the only things you can get, because their red flag detectors haven't grown in yet.

If someone sincerely believes that young adult women's red flag detectors are so bad that they can't tell the difference between good/bad yet then they should support a chaperone like an elderly family member having a level of control over young women's dating lives who can help them filter out the bad ones from the good ones. Unfortunately feminists really don't like that either.

At this point in my life I basically ignore anything coming from a self-professed feminist. I would encourage others to do the same, your existence will get better.

they should support a chaperone like an elderly family member having a level of control over young women's dating lives who can help them filter out the bad ones from the good ones

Unfortunately, 15-19 year old girls are right at the period of life where they're insistent "but we love each other! I'm so mature! you don't understand! it's not fair!" and they won't listen and will rant online about abusive parents trying to break them up and making plans to run away etc.

Seemingly you can't just lock your kids in their room anymore if they're trying to sneak out and see the unsuitable boyfriend.

Unfortunately, 15-19 year old girls are right at the period of life where they're insistent "but we love each other! I'm so mature! you don't understand! it's not fair!"

Not just girls. Though it never happened, reportedly my father wanted to get married at 16. We often joke about the lengths horny young boys would go to in order to get laid, some of them might even agree to marry, of all the crazy things.

If someone sincerely believes that young adult women's red flag detectors are so bad that they can't tell the difference between good/bad yet then they should support a chaperone like an elderly family member having a level of control over young women's dating lives who can help them filter out the bad ones from the good ones. Unfortunately feminists really don't like that either.

I think you could sell the idea to some of them (particularly those that have children), as long as the elder family member is a woman too.

But this isn't even about feminism, it's a general issue with post-classical liberalism. On one hand we must maximize individual autonomy, so the grasp that the family, church, and community have over us must go. On the other hand we cannot just stand there and watch as people drive off cliffs, so we must establish a quasi-totalitarian system of social control that will try to reproduce the benefits of family, church, and community.

Another part of the puzzle is that in order to destigmatize premarital sex, we ended up almost throwing away the very idea of romance. I had this conversation with my wife recently, where she was telling me how an older dude at work is creeping on a friend of hers. I felt that might be unfair to the guy, and we ended in an argument until I asked what is supposed to be wrong about the guy having feelings for her, and courting her with honest intentions. She said there's nothing wrong with that, but that is definitely not what that guy was up to.

But in this modern world a stable monogamous relationship (or, heaven forbid, marriage and family) is not a better thing to aim for than a series of casual flings, so we must once again invent a quasi totalitarian system of social control, that will try to do what the traditional one did, but with extra steps, so maybe no one notices.

I think you could sell the idea to some of them (particularly those that have children), as long as the elder family member is a woman too.

Oh sure, I don't think that would make much of a difference at all. The political attitudes gap between men and women closes once people enter their 50s, I don't expect a woman's mother to make significantly different decisions from her father, in fact I'd expect her to be even more cautious than her father in who she's willing to accept for her daughter because of greater risk aversion.

I think you could sell the idea to some of them (particularly those that have children), as long as the elder family member is a woman too.

Is that not the default for arranged marriages? Certainly ultra-orthodox Jewish matchmakers are women, and most Muslims I’ve spoken to mention that arranged marriages are really arranged by the mother even if in theory men make the decisions.

So they'd probably say "based" to the Jewish matchmakers, but be skeptical of the Muslim setup because formally the power is still with the man (we are still talking about feminists, rather than trad women). Not saying they're a majority, in fact it's probably a fringe of a fringe, but there's a strain of feminism feels like they've been taken for a ride by the powers that be.

Yep, generally it's women who do the heavy lifting in the arranging of marriages for us too. The father generally defers to his wife in like 95+% of cases, and it's widely agreed that it's a good thing (regardless of what the soap operas may display, they are designed to be interesting stories for viewers, and do not reflect real life statistics at all).

Yeah, realistically that’s about what I’d expect. It just seems like a job that winds up being women doing it because they want to do it more than men do.

Yeah. Male role is more of a rubber stamp/final approval in most matchmaking-driven cultures. Indian & Chinese, from what I can see, vast majority of the matchmakers are women.

The solution is therefore to Be Better and self-improve until women your own age DO want to date you.

Tangentially, I find the near-horseshoe with the whole "alpha male" mindset community (or whatever the term is, idk) fascinating. You suck, be an alpha. She didn't want to date you? Not alpha enough. She broke up with you and started dating someone else? You weren't alpha enough. What's the issue, bro? Just be an alpha? Why aren't you more alpha? Just be alpha like me!

This is partly why the Alpha Male communities kinda work/get adherents, since it's the same messaging from both sides and yet the Alpha Male/dating bro types are the only ones who provide actual explicit instructions about what getting better/'alpha' looks like. Meanwhile the other side is 'Be better' but either doesn't spell out what that is or provides inaccurate feedback

Everyone is “alpha,” without a receipt. Especially those in the Manosphere community, if you want to even call it that these days. Whatever semblance there was of an organic community was virtually lost, the moment it exploded into popular discourse and started gaining traction.

Just look at some of their popular figures in the YouTube circuit. Rich Cooper. Coach Greg Adams. 21 Studios. These aren’t people going out and ‘slaying’ every night. These are people who’ve found a business niche.

From a letter from the author to the woman whose life the story was based upon:

"It has always been important for my own well-being to draw a bright line, in public, between my personal life and my fiction. This is a matter not only of privacy but of personal safety. When “Cat Person” came out, I was the target of an immense amount of anger on the part of male readers who felt that the character of Robert had been treated unfairly. I have always felt that my insistence that the story was entirely fiction, and that I was not accusing any real-life individual of behaving badly, was all that stood between me and an outpouring of not only rage but potentially violence."

Basically, she used her fear of violence from men to justify pretending the story was entirely fictional. Looks like the character of 'Robert' was treated unfairly compared to his real life counterpart, but to be honest about that might have opened the author up to danger from the author's perspective (ostensibly anyway).

Edit: Author also asked for a phone conversation to be considered off the record after she was told the guy 'had died'. I can see how the unfairly maligned man suiciding as a movie demonising him the fictional version of him goes into production not be great for ticket sales.

This goes to show how victimhood in progressive thought is anti-fragile. You can write a story about some guy in the New Yorker to critical acclaim that smears his name with lies, get it made into a movie, the guy kills himself, and when you get a negative response you are still the (even bigger) victim! People wonder why wokeness is so popular and THIS IS WHY! How can you even defeat that?

To be fair the guy killed himself years after the story was published in 2017, and the counter article by the young girl who dated him was written in 2021. The guy probably offed himself in 2020 or so and the movie is coming out in 2023 so likely didn't go into production until after his death.

The rest of your point about crybullying as a defense against criticism stands though.

Is it confirmed that he killed himself? The OP seemed very uncertain

No its not confirmed. It seems likely based on the deliberate lack of description of how he died as this is common in media reporting.

True, but if she starts getting push back about the guy killing himself as this movie draws more attention to it, she will still make it about her and how it affects her. The push back will be "harassment" and "trolling" and "violence" and she will feel even more strongly she is a victim. This people are so predictable. She will never apologize or think she did anything wrong.

Okay I'll bite on the pictures: the first, more attractive, woman is the nice one who wrote the Slate piece, and the second woman is the one that wrote "Cat Person".

🏆🏆🏆

This works in large part because you wouldn't have asked us to guess if it had been the other way around.

Yeah I would've. I love misdirection and anti-humour as much as I love making fun of ugly people.

More effort, less obnoxious jeering and dunking.

Standard physiognomy win, nice

I'm not going to confidential state that bioleninism is true. But it might be.

Don't read too much into it. It was 50/50 that the better person would have been more attractive and if it had gone the other direction he just wouldnt have brought it up

More than that, if you google the "nice one," the second picture you find of her is much less attractive. OP chose his photos intentionally. Which, hey, fun trick.

/images/16976646449606984.webp

Is this really a dunk? Both photos still substantially more attractive than the other woman, even if she's less presented in the one you've just linked.

No accounting for taste I guess. Both land so far left of the swipe line for me that the comparison is irrelevant, and I typically have pretty loose standards.

Not saying she's some vision of loveliness but like nice pic was her as a 7.5, less-nice pic was her as a 6 and the other woman a 3 to me

More comments

Yeah, seriously, 'physiognomy' as it's used on the internet is mostly socially distributed selection bias. Every time I've tried to get an unbiased independent sample of two groups where one is claimed to be more attractive because they're morally better, there wasn't a difference. Whether that's 'historical reactionaries (claimed to be more attractive)', 'left-wing extremists (claimed to be less attractive)', etc.

There's a modest association between physical attractiveness and intelligence (poor health reduces both), and I think a bunch of subtler relationships between various ways one looks and various clusters of human behavior, but ~ all of the e-right claims about it in the current year are just comically false.

I agree that you can't correlate inherent attractiveness to politics, but in this case, the author has that lesbian/feminist look and alexis the traditionnally feminine. One of them is trying to appeal to men visually and the other isn't (if not repel them). Maybe the "male gaze" doesn't even enter into it, they are just straightforwardly signaling their politics through their looks. In any case, given the details, it's not 50/50 at all as to who is likely to be who.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats