to be even even more clear, if you push trad sexuality culture spectrum slider all the way far, you start getting some fucky stuff where people's natural impulses are shamed and suppressed (e.g., the gays). if you push liberal sex slider all the way, you also get fucky stuff
Conversation
my discomfort with trad sex discourse is that I'm not always fully convinced that ppl in it are aware of the variety of fucky stuff that can happen at the edges, that they take seriously the ways far-slider versions have hurt people in the past
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I feel like I'm uncomfortably running behind like "are u sure you're aware of that failure mode cause you don't seem to be looking at it yourself". I think if I saw independent discussions among those ppl like "how do we make sure we don't push slider too far" I'd feel better
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something like, I've seen people really deeply hurt by far-slider trad sexuality, and I want some reassurance that trad sex ppl aren't gonna do that again, that they actually care. given that, I feel a lot of flexibility and space for it.
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What I’m trying to offer is that trad folks are fundamentally motivated by what they want for themselves, many are driven by harms from modern sexual culture that really are no less profound, and they are misrepresented by the assumption that they e.g. don’t care about gay rights
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I don’t think trad folks don’t care about gay rights, I’m saying “suppressing deviant sexuality” is a historic failure mode with that as an example (much as “pressure women to like kinky sex” would be a failure mode of progressive sexuality)
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I do think the harms *are* less profound, at least in direct contrast (given that subjective suffering is always independently valid). Also think trad ppl motivated by ‘wanna live my life the way i want’ is extremely good and i strongly support it and you’re right to fight for it
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I think you’re wrong, at least insofar as sexual trauma, unrelenting anxiety and a sense of hopelessness can go. In terms of actual enforced barbarism, maybe not, but I’m not sure how much further “subjective suffering” can go when someone is already suicidal or close to it.
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Yea i disagree here and I’m trying to figure out how we can measure this independently, like what criteria of ‘how much does this suck and for how many ppl’ would capture both types
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FWIW I also think you probably don’t actually understand trad culture very well if you think it’s largely concerned with “deviant sex,” which I think it’s safe to assume a lot of them are having in the context of relationships where the partner is expected to not just walk away
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I mean I get the impression from hearing neo-trad-culture ppl focus on the sexual behavior norms of modern life; I used the word ‘deviant’ but if you’d prefer ‘promiscuous’ or ‘kinky’ or ‘nonmonogamous’ I’m flexible
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I don’t think monogamy or promiscuity are on the same axis as kink. Monogamy as a value is AFAICT serious commitment + a desire to accept rather than fight prefs that would cause jealousy. Re: kink, I think they mostly think it’s irresponsible to normalize fairly violent stuff
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