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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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What do you even consider "male fantasy"?

Harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women. More emphasis on physical activity, less on emotions. Zero angst.

I still don't understand why people consider this unusual.

Go read a couple chapters of Manacled. It is weird and unusual. It's not about the sex. The sex happens in about 5 lines where Hermione's super ashamed and humiliated about it. It is not written to arouse. The writing is good and I'm intrigued by the premise of this mysterious secret... but the actual content of the story is pure suffering (there's a heavy Handmaid's Tale influence). It's mostly about angst and severe trauma. I'm guessing that it's the ultimate 'I can fix him' fantasy where Hermione subdues this super-evil, hypercompetent Draco Malfoy with her wiles.

Harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women. More emphasis on physical activity, less on emotions. Zero angst.

I broadly agree, but it's not that simple. Here's what top 30 games by "weighted rating" on f95 are (I've tried to be liberal with the definition of "harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women"):

  • Pale Carnations - drama, consequences and very attractive women
  • Eternum - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Desert Stalker - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women (as far as I've played it)
  • My Pig Princess - not touching that, but it certainly doesn't have harems of very attractive women
  • Once in a Lifetime - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Leap of Faith - drama, consequences and very attractive women
  • Being a DIK - drama, consequences and very attractive women
  • Projekt: Passion - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women (if you're into space opera aliens)
  • Katawa Shoujo - drama, consequences and disabled women
  • Star Periphery - not touching that, but it certainly doesn't have harems of very attractive women
  • Superhuman - not touching that, but it certainly doesn't have harems of very attractive women
  • Hero Party Must Fall - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • City of Broken Dreamers - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women (as far as I've played it)
  • Artemis - haven't played it yet, but likely drama, consequences and very attractive women
  • Rick and Morty: Another Way Home - not touching that, but looks like harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Ripples - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Race of Life - drama, consequences and very attractive women
  • What a Legend! - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Eruption Imminent - not touching that, but it certainly doesn't have harems
  • Harem Hotel - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Light of my Life - not touching that, but it certainly doesn't have harems of very attractive women
  • Monster Girl Club Bifrost - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women (I think)
  • A House in the Rift - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Good Girl Gone Bad - drama, consequences and sex with very attractive women (and men of various attractiveness)
  • Summer Heat - drama, consequences and very attractive women
  • Aurelia - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Game of Hearts - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women (kinda)
  • Mist - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women
  • Straight? - not touching that, but it's all gays
  • Stormside - harems, casual consequence-free sex with very attractive women

Out of 30 games, we discard 3: one for being made by a self-declared woman about a woman, one for being about futas and one for being gay. Three more are too fucking weird and I don't feel adequate to classify them. We're left with 24 games, out of which:

  • 16 (2/3) are what you called a typical male power fantasy
  • 8 (1/3) have multiple very attractive women that are willing to have very explicit sex with the male protagonist, but feature additional interpersonal drama that makes it impossible to treat them as Pokemans

The two genres are more evenly matched if we take only the top 10 games.

Interesting, I guess I could make excuses like 'games need some kind of conflict to be interesting'. I don't really know anything about lewd games though.

I guess I was trying to describe the platonic ideal of male sexual fantasy. On a three-axis chart of 'high quality vs low' 'male vs female' and 'vanilla vs weird', not much would be firmly clustered around the male end. The most popular and best products will have broader appeal - Katawa Shoujo for instance, it's not just about sex either. Even within the male area, there's a certain tendency to cover all bases and all tags - consider Project Harahel. Extremely male oriented but it puts in the weird stuff like vore too, as an option. It fits the male fantasy (as is obvious visually) but that's not all it has to offer. And it's not just about sex but power too.

Go read a couple chapters of Manacled. It is weird and unusual. It's not about the sex. The sex happens in about 5 lines where Hermione's super ashamed and humiliated about it. It is not written to arouse.

This is completely normal for female erotica. It's what gets women off. From "The elephant in the living room":

When I say that fertile age women are sex obsessed, I don’t mean that they think about the sexual act itself as much as men do. If you skim through a romance novel, there are nine hundred pages where the male love interest demonstrates how aloof and alpha he is, a hundred pages where he breaks down, gets weepy, and shows his soft inner core of twu luving betaness, and one page where he tears the lady’s clothes off with his teeth and the couple finally at long last get some action. As men understand sex obsession, women are not sex obsessed.

And from the comments of "Reaction 101: The reactionary red pill on women.":

The typical romance novel has a thousand pages, and the insert character only gets one page of dicking. Does this mean that girls are not interested in dicking? No, it means that the other nine hundred and ninety nine pages are about dick selection. Porn is men conquering and women surrendering, romance is men performing and women choosing.

there are nine hundred pages where the male love interest demonstrates how aloof and alpha he is

Good point, the actual point of diversion in the story was Draco manning up and killing Dumbledore early in book 6. Some Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and a Killing Curse out of the blue dealt with the most powerful wizard on the planet. He then goes on to hunt down and personally execute a good number of the remaining anti-Voldemort rebels under a false identity. He's got everything: aloofness, alpha energy and a secret identity.

I'm mildly sympathetic to such a manly, proactive character. In contrast, Hermione has a panic attack going down the hallway and spends most of the chapters I read plotting and failing to kill herself. She's exhibited no agency thus far, she gets chosen to be with Draco and the plan is that after she gives him 3 children they'll send her off to be bred by others. Instead of fighting in the war, Hermione was a Healer, undoing curse-injuries. She got the most passive, feminine, supporting role imaginable. Things happen to her.

And these women love the story! It's in all these collections:

Dramione Fics I Go Feral For, Lions Among Men, hp fics for when I need my fix, ResonatingFiction, hp god tier, BrilLiANT Hermione Fics, loved every second of it, Dramione to keep me sane, hp fics I would die for, draco fic, America Runs on Dramione, Goddess Tier Dramione, Dramione Fics that Avada my Kedavra, dramione faves, dramione fics that fucked me up lol, HP Fics That Deserve Film Adaptations, Dramione is bae

If there's one thing that Jim and co got right most of all, it's that sex differences are very great. Completely different mindset.

If there's one thing that Jim and co got right most of all, it's that sex differences are very great. Completely different mindset.

I'm going to tattoo this on my forehead for the next time my girlfriend suggests we watch a Victorian period drama jfc