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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Like circumcision, except they don’t stop at the tip. If you have your daughter’s genitals mutilated because of your weird-ass sexual beliefs, you’re either the worst most cruel backwards reactionary or a brave progressive fighter against that same oppression.
I am glad that you bring up circumcision because, while it probably does not cause as much damage to the individual as full-on transitioning, it also affects vastly more people. Yet I rarely see anyone here inveigh against it. Not sure why. Is it just because it has been around for so long that people are used to it?
Circumcision is an interesting example of a practice that would be viewed as horrifying by probably most of society if it came out of nowhere and suddenly started to become popular. But because it has been around for thousands of years, it gets a pass. In one way it is actually much worse than the trans kids thing. Infant circumcision is done without any consent at all from the person that it is done to, whereas kids who transition are significantly older and often the motivation to transition at least in part comes from the kids themselves, rather than entirely from the parents.
The effects from circumcision are ‘my underwear is slightly less comfortable and there may or may not be some reduction in sexual pleasure, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, but there’s still quite a lot of it, in exchange for hygiene being slightly easier. I can’t totally go back on my parents decision but if it bothers me enough I can regrow some of the skin’.
Notably this is massively different from transition, like not even in the same wheelhouse, even if I think it’s a bad thing(and to be clear, my sons will not be circumcised absent clear medical indications or them deciding to get it done, and paying for it, themselves. But I say that as someone who thinks that being circumcised is not worth whining about).
More options
Context Copy link
This framing is kind of pants-on-head, just so you know -- source: am circumcised, and am not convinced that there's any significant ill-effects, much less within orders of magnitude of lifetime sterilization and pharma dependency. (plus whatever surgical and social side-effects)
The problem that always comes up in this debate is that very few people are actually qualified to comment on what difference it makes to sexual pleasure or whatnot, but have strong opinions on it anyways for reasons that are unclear to me.
There has actually been the odd adult-circumcisee wander into these conversations; mostly on the reddit site IIRC. My recollection is inconclusive, but what I remember was one guy who said 'pretty much no difference', another who agreed, and one who chimed in to say 'somewhat worse'.
I personally can't know how much better sex might be if I weren't circumcised -- but, like -- it's pretty great? I'm not exactly some coomer connoisseur, but I struggle to think of a situation in which I've felt like *more *sensitivity would have been helpful? BJs with a condom on are lame I guess, but I'm not sure circumcision is the main problem there.
In short, to me this is like you are comparing tonsillectomies to kidney harvesting or something -- can you say what makes you think that the two things are even in the same ballpark?
Well, I figure that the people who deeply regret having transitioned as teenagers are balanced out by the people who are happy with it. On the other hand, almost no-one is actually made happy by having been circumcised, most people just feel neutral about it and a significant though small minority is unhappy about it.
My statistics could be off, though.
Something to consider I guess is that this is an irreversible procedure taking place in and around puberty -- a time when many people are unhappy regardless. So the set one should be interested in is not 'people who are happy with their trans interventions' rather 'people who would have been happy anyways, and without the burdens associated with the interventions'.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You just might not be paying enough attention. Whenever circumcision is brought up here, I see a fair share of people speaking out against it. It's just that it's almost never brought up due to not being a CW issue, since, as you allude to, one side of the "war" has had complete victory for as long as anyone can remember.
More options
Context Copy link
There’s enough mra-adjacent types like me here that circumcision is sometimes denounced, but it is true that it is also often defended under the aegis of ‘religious freedom’ , the ‘value of tradition’, and what I view as a more legitimate justification, parental authority (though even granting total parental authority rights, it does not excuse their moral fault). That’s why I brought it up, two birds one stone.
And there’s an extra problem for trans supporters: They deny parental authority, so that justification collapses. It’s bad enough if your neighbours mutilate their children, but here the trans claim the right to mutilate yours (for their own good, of course).
As to the consent justification, children are somehow incapable of consenting to using their genitals once, but capable of consenting to destroying them for their whole life?
More options
Context Copy link
You know, when my wife and I were expecting our first kid, we had a conversation about this. I basically didn't want it done if we had a boy, for a host of reasons. She, at the time, had a more normie perspective, but no strong feelings one way or the other.
I think it is slowly falling out of favor in the US? I haven't checked rates or anything, but anecdotally I see more people questioning it and saying they won't do it to their children.
But it doesn't come up here because there is no culture war flashpoint over it. Weirdo's who control institutions aren't trying to get it done behind parent's backs. In so far as it's a "problem", it follows the usual pluralistic principles of it being nobody else's business what someone does with their kids.
We decided against it when we had our son. I couldn't come up with a good reason to remove part of a perfectly healthy baby. Circumcision rates may be falling, but some of that could simply be due to demographic shifts.
An underrated reason it’s probably falling is cost-savings in government provided care- the number of states covering it under Medicare seems to be dropping slowly over time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
So, caveat, this was told to me in a Global Ethics class circa 2004. But supposedly the biggest proponents of female genital mutilation in the middle east are the older women who had it done to them. They are deeply invested in continuing the practice, because their entire identities are subtly intertwined in valorizing how it was done to them. To walk that back undermines everything they understand about themselves.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link