site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27875 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You might as well not have sex at that point.

I would like to suggest that perhaps you are not quite doing it correctly.

Fucking with condoms is like eating candy with the wrapper on, only worth it if you're starving.

Perhaps it's different if you're circumcised and have somewhat limited sensitivity in the first place.

I honestly don't understand this perspective. What about the rest of the meal?

If I were a woman and a guy told me that, I would be insulted.

Edit: And some of the best sex I had did not end in an orgasm, at least not for me.

Good foreplay only makes it worse.

Also, regardless of whether the sex ends in orgasm or not, the sex is so much better without a condom. The goal is as intimate and pleasurable sex as possible, condoms are a major impediment to both, with or without orgasm.

But your initial claim was not merely that sex without a condom is better; rather it was that it was pointless: You said, "You might as well not have sex at that point." That was the claim that I was skeptical of.

That's not what I said and I don't see a contradiction.

I don't understand. I literally quoted you.

You literally didn't.

Well, I literally copied and pasted it from your comment, so perhaps you are employing an eccentric definition of "literally."

It's high-variance, but there are a subset of men (both straight and gay) who can't get very far with a condom on during penetration, sometimes up to the point of losing the ability to maintain a decent (or rarely, any) erection entirely. The exact causes cover wide ground, such as low-level skin sensitivity, mental overhead, performance anxiety, mumblemumbles-it's-not-just-soccons-afraid-of-jerking-it, or for... not entirely understood reasons (one fun hypothesis: American condom sizes are moronic).

This class of problem is less 'well, I guess I just have slightly reduced sensation and might just be edging with my partner today', 'it's time for a long oral session!' or even 'I'd rather bottom', and more 'this is going to be actively frustrating for everyone involved, and not even in a fun chastity cage sorta way'.

Contra some of the other posters, I don't think this is universal, or even disliking condoms is universal -- there are a surprisingly large number of people with condom-related kinks, for entirely unsurprising reasons. Some of these frustrations might even be solvable with practice and familiarity. But a lot of the mainstream model of the complaints is dismissive in unhealthy ways.

(one fun hypothesis: American condom sizes are moronic).

Please elaborate on this if you've a theory.

I don't endorse this, but the theory goes:

American condom sizes are established by the FDA, as a rule, partly for standardization reasons, and partly to simplify testing. Condoms must have a fully-unrolled length of at least 170mm, and has a narrow band of widths. Technically, the standard uses a 'flat width', as one-half the unstretched circumference. While this has somewhat expanded in recent years, from 50-54mm 'flat width' (100-108mm circumference) before 2008 to 50-57mm 'flat width' (100-114mm circumference) in 2008, and in 2022 with limited acceptance of more broad sizes for ONE-brand condoms, in practice if you go to a big-box store, chances are pretty good you're going to get something in the 52-54mm 'flat width' range (104-108mm circumference), and if your store doesn't sell ONE-brand, most of the sizing guidance is worse-than-useless or actively misleading.

And that works for the average guy, even if it's technically a little long.

Go much away from those bounds, and it doesn't work as well, and they're narrow bounds. For obvious reasons, this is a more popular cause celebre among the well-endowed. You can fist a latex condom if you want, but it gives a bit of a pinch, not even in the useful way that a cock ring would, and most dicks are more sensitive than forearms. There's people who can kink on pinched there, but there's a reason chastity cages don't work like that. Too-short condoms are prone to rolling off or breaking, and this can turn sex into the unfun sort of wrestling match.

But the problems are, if anything, worse on the shorter or slimmer sides: having a much-too-long condom leaves a bunch of cruft at the base, and having a too-wide one augments the whole 'fucking a plastic glove' problem. And for people who are nervous or don't have the hardest erections, there's a worse feedback loop, where a condom that's just a little loose when fully erect is a constant (and boner-killing) struggle to keep on and tight enough to get significant sensation from if not at full mast.

The UK/EU standards aren't much wider, but they're still at least better.

As a victim of MGM I have always found complaints about condoms to be wild, I can hardly tell the difference, so maybe you are onto something.

The sensitivity thing is also interesting as, to my mind, increased sensitivity would be strictly a bad thing as a man. If I could magically wish for more of it, I wouldn't. The physical pleasure from sex is pretty far from the top of the list of things I enjoy about sex. It seems to me that sensitivity would trade off directly with endurance. I really viscerally enjoy the sense of masculine prowess I get from absolutely destroying a woman for a prolonged session, but I am only really able to achieve that with mental and physical tricks to actively reduce my sensitivity.

As a victim of MGM I have always found complaints about condoms to be wild, I can hardly tell the difference, so maybe you are onto something.

I had the procedure done for (in hindsight, unnecessary) medical reasons, in early childhood but not so early I can't remember it, and I know for a fact that my glans became less sensitive, since for the first few weeks post-op the mere sensation of it rubbing against fabric was unbearable. I still can feel the superiority of not using a condom, even using the thinnest latex you can get here.

Oh well, at least it gets me more head, I've had a number of women tell me that it was a relief compared to the finely marinated stench of smegma.

Oh well, at least it gets me more head, I've had a number of women tell me that it was a relief compared to the finely marinated stench of smegma.

Whenever stuff like this comes up I'm left wondering, who the fuck doesn't wash his dick?

Quite a few men, sadly.

He lives in India, hygiene norms might be different there and a significant portion of the population doesn't have running water.

Datapoint of one, but I live in the US where my parents were of the "buy the kid books in lieu of having a puberty discussion", and the books definitely talked about needing to wash under your foreskin, so I'm assuming it's the default here for uncircumcised English-speakers.

I've heard similar complaints made by Western women about their men, not that I'm in a position to compare base-rates.

I don't recall ever being explicitly instructed to do that myself, though it would be a bit moot.

At any rate, these guys were certainly capable of accessing running water, I wasn't dating women from the ghetto. Men can be slobs, and unlike a stinky armpit, they can get away with it until..

He lives in India

I'm not sure about that.

Eh? I do, well I'm there right now. I've got yet another set of exams to give, after which I'll enter training to be a shrink. I could have left earlier, I've gotten my GMC license.

Sorry, I'm not tracking it, you have been in Britain for a while and I figured you might have made another temporary hop.

More comments

I despise condoms and avoid them where I can, and I'm circumcised myself.

The only people I've heard offer apolagia for them (from a non-std prevention pov) are circumcised men, which leads me to believe that there is a connection.

I would think the "fuck condoms" attitude is only possible in places where most of the women are on birth control.

Am circumcised, condoms suck -- I think you need to do some more field research man.

I think you misunderstood me, perhaps I was unclear.

I'm not saying that everyone who's circumcised defend condoms, I'm saying that the ones that I've heard defend condoms are cricumcised.

Anyone who's saying condoms aren't that bad is an extreme outlier in some way -- to the point where I'd question their honesty.

There are some men who genuinely do like them, though not in the sense of "can barely tell it's on at all". Condom kink as revolving around either the sensation of pressured latex (compare bodysuit latex fetishism, or pooltoy fetishism) or as a psychological thing isn't the most common kink, but neither is it especially rare.

I have yet to hear a man tell me, in person, that sex with a condom on is just as satisfying as going bareback. It's usually women insisting on it, and me protesting, but it might still be a necessary evil for the usual reasons.

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