The Difference Between Culture and Mere Opinions

I wrote an essay about 3 months ago which recently went semi-viral after an incubation period. If you’re reading this you’ve most likely already seen that essay, but here it is just in case.

I have learned something interesting during this whole process of feedback, discussion, and debate.

Obviously, that essay was about men, women, relationships, and sex. Sex is the ultimate hot-button topic: you’re always going to get extreme responses out of the population when you talk about it. Because it’s important to most carbon-based lifeforms. One of which we are. And humans take it very personally from all angles. Many people don’t like seeing sex from anyone’s perspective but their own — people get personally offended that you could possibly see this topic any differently than they do.

Which brings me to the specific problem: people are mistaking disagreement for “cultural suppression.” I received a number of messages, replies, and comments from women (and men, and faceless avatars) deriding my limited view and explaining to me how women’s sexuality is still suppressed (and men’s isn’t). The worst comments I received were attacks on me personally. And they mostly contained a common theme: that women still aren’t allowed to express their sexuality, and that men’s is still in charge — and that I’m a such-and-such for not understanding this.

The attacks I can handle. Because I don’t care. But these particular kinds of comments made me realize that many people don’t understand the difference between disagreeing with someone, and not being allowed to express something. Or having your opinion shoved down, shut down, and ignored.

When most people talk about “suppression,” what they’re actually talking about is merely a difference in opinion. That wasn’t always the case, but it is today in much of the West. Today, it’s almost socially and institutionally impossible to “suppress” anyone. Because everyone, at least in the U.S., can pretty much do and say whatever they want all of the time.

(One obvious exception would be academia, which is almost more gatekeeper than it is content at this point. However, what I’m talking about here are simple, everyday opinions that everybody has and shares.)

For a simple example, if you go to a book club about The Lord of the Rings, and the people across the street in the Dune book club talk badly about you, maybe it means they don’t like J.R.R. Tolkien. Maybe it means they don’t like hobbits. Maybe they just think you’re ugly and don’t like the cut of your jib.

But what it almost certainly doesn’t mean, is that they’re keeping you from hosting your book club. They aren’t suppressing you, they just don’t agree with you. And they’re not going to host you as a guest speaker in their club. Which is fine, because it’s their club.

You can still host yours.

Now to take the harder example: it really isn't realistic anymore to say that women in the U.S. are having their sexual identities “suppressed.” In fact women are now allowed to be just as honest about sex as men are — both in relationships and in public. Maybe even more honest, because there’s a certain cultural celebration that comes along with female sexuality that absolutely does not come with male sexuality.

And yet some women still talk and write about how society is lashing back at them. Why is that?

It's because people have different opinions and values. There is always going to be someone more progressive than you, and there is always going to be someone more conservative than you. Always, everywhere. Some people feel it’s gross for a woman to be immodest about sex; some people feel it’s ludicrous and a waste of time for a woman to be modest — she should just go after what she likes. There’s never going to be consensus on this, ever. So don’t hope for any.

Some people are really bad at taking wins. Some people are still fighting the war for freedom of expression as if it hasn’t already been won. And what I’m trying to say is, take the win.

In the modern United States of America, you’re allowed to have a blog for just about anything you want. Sex, drugs, communism, socialism, nationalism, the supremacy of anime, the supremacy of classic literature, men’s issues, women’s issues. You’re even allowed to write hate pieces about world leaders. There is almost nothing you can’t write.

You can log onto Twitter and call the President of the United States a deranged monkey-fucking lunatic and criticize every single thing that comes out of his mouth with no consequence whatsoever. Even people whose voices probably should be suppressed, aren’t.

It’s just that not everybody is going to agree with you. No matter what you’re writing about or where you’re publishing.

People have been using Sabrina Carpenter as an example of how female sexual openness is being looked down upon. However, take a more careful inventory of the situation. Sabrina Carpenter is one of the most celebrated artists of the decade so far. Her tickets are selling. Her music is being streamed. Women are applauding her. Even some men are applauding her. And teenage girls are absolutely applauding her.

And yet in some circles she’s being labelled as some sort of martyr, like she's going down for the cause, taking one for the team. I'm not sure what data these plaintiffs are looking at, but an artist who is making millions of dollars from her songs isn't being suppressed. She's getting rich and having a damn good time doing it. That's the opposite of being suppressed.

And some of the most widely-shared, widely-celebrated articles I’ve ever read have been about female dating and modern female sexuality. And they were great articles. Even if some portion of the comments were negative, most were positive.

Another thing people often misunderstand is absolute numbers versus ratios.

If some girl from your high school was a bit loose, and had 5 people that liked her and 95 people that hated her, then she was 95% hated. And even if those 5 people who liked her were very loud and very supportive, the ratio of people who disliked her was still overwhelming.

But now take the opposite example with Sabrina Carpenter (or with Cardi B, or Chappell Roan). It really doesn't matter if 10 thousand people are talking badly about her. Because there are 10 million downloading her music.

The most popular books of the 2010s were explicitly and entirely about female sexual fantasy.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour just ended, and grossed a final revenue of 2 billion dollars. That’s 2 billion with a B, for Taylor to stand on stage in something akin to underwear and sing about the feminine side of heartbreak and love. Femininity is winning, not losing.

I mean, my god, the #1 song of August 2020 was a female collaboration called Wet Ass Pussy. “Bring a bucket and a mop for this wet ass pussy,” we all sang in unison. The song debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and broke a series of records for its popularity. It was a pure, raw, vulgar round of applause for female sexuality. And even if men tried to squash it with some tyrannical boot (which they didn’t), they couldn’t have. Because women’s voices matter. What women want in the sexual marketplace matters.

If Abraham Lincoln would have heard this song and realized most of his voters were listening to it, he would have had a heart attack and died. We have come a long, long way.

“Culture” isn't suppressing Sabrina Carpenter. Or OnlyFans models, or porn stars, or female authors of sexual fiction. Culture, if you want to take the broad view, is predominantly celebrating them. By giving them a paycheck, watching their content, and going to their shows.

In fact, I’d argue that women are at an advantage in terms of music about sexuality — because hearing about a man’s sexuality hasn’t been popular since the bedroom R&B of the 1990s.

“Culture” as an institution really can’t suppress anything these days. It’s almost impossible by definition. Because our culture, for the most part, is “say what you like, do what you like, be what you like.” And whatever you’re saying, being, and doing, there’s an audience for it. And people who’d like to date and fuck you for it.

And to poke fun at men for something I find equally ridiculous: culture isn’t “suppressing” males-only podcasts, either. No matter how much they claim women have ruined their lives or that women have hijacked the young male psyche, the fact remains… they’re just putting out shitty material. Sitting around talking about how masculine you are and how much women owe you is just a stupid thing to do. No one is suppressing you, you’re just not interesting.

No matter what your opinion is, somebody more conservative than you will be telling you to turn the volume down and somebody more progressive than you will be telling you to turn the volume up. These individual voices don’t represent “culture.” They just represent individual opinions.

So when I hear that culture is still failing or that culture still doesn’t recognize different people’s sexuality, I just don’t buy it. Maybe it would be good to redefine culture. Culture is what you are surrounded by — and, for the most part, you get to choose what you’re surrounded by. Social media sites have a block button for a reason.

We wanted globalism, and now we've got it. Now everybody's opinions matter all of the time.

Except they don't. You still don't have to listen to everybody's opinions. Most people’s opinions don’t actually affect you. They don’t actually matter. And you're never going to get the entire world to agree with you. Culture is supposed to be a small, tight thing, not a problem that you solve the world over. The world is never going to have one cohesive culture. So just take the win of being able to express yourself, block people who attack you for it, and start living the life you want.

And drink some wet ass water.

JR

“Part of freedom is the right of each of us to go to hell in his own fashion.” - David D. Friedman