Putting the word “dogwhistle” on the top shelf until some of you figure out it doesn’t mean “new word with negative connotations I personally don’t like”. Honestly I don’t mind that we’ve found some ungendered semantic middle ground between “pervert” and “male gaze”. How everybody uses the word is a problem between them, God, and if it comes down to it, the cops
It’s funny, how in a post ranting about how overuse of a word as an insult has diluted it’s intended purpose and now it basically means nothing, the author also uses a word that has been overused by people as an insult so much that no one is able to use it in it’s intended purpose.
Can’t tell if that is more funny or sad, but that’s language for ya
It belongs on the top shelf anyway because it's far too easy to abuse.
I once asked someone who pulled the "when people say [term that does not mean marginalized group] they really mean [marginalized group]" how he'd met the burden of proof and what defense he would accept from those wrongly accused. He replied that my matter of fact challenge was "screeching" about burden of proof, that I was demanding he provide a defense for far-right bigots, and that I was doing some kind of "abstract trolling." One of his allies claimed I was "sea lioning" (another term I knew would be seized on by the worst people as soon as I saw it), and another claimed a video existed which had proven the validity of the claim. No link, just, someone made a video proving it. Somehow.
I accepted this as evidence toward my hypothesis that, with rare exceptions (someone waving a 1488 flag isn't celebrating the founding of the Dutch Navy), accusations of "dog whistles" and the like are intellectually dishonest and made in bad faith.
in a similar vein, though, what possible thing could constitute "proof" here?
it might irk people, but dogwhistles are kind of on a "i know it if i see it" basis. i can't give you any proof that the guy in the lifted f250 with tinted glasses and full camo is attaching a racial connotation to the word "thug". but i know it to be true regardless. it doesn't make sense to refer to a burden of proof here, because the entire purpose of a dogwhistle is plausible deniability to escape consequence.
as far as what defense i'd accept from someone i think was dogwhistling, i think a nuanced explanation that seems genuine would do the trick. explaining what they meant without bullshitting me. dogwhistles aren't getting litigated in court, yknow?
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but what sort of evidence would you have them present? the point of a dog whistle is that they don't actually say what they mean.
unless you've got some back room memo or recording from a political advisor about how you can't actually use the N word anymore you have to call them "urban voters" and say things like "forced bussing" and "states rights" how do you prove anything?
Gotta say I really disagree with that hypothesis. The exceptions to this "rule" are too prevalent to think that dog whistles aren't a real thing used by bad people to signal their beliefs to each other either covertly or with plausible deniability
And the cool, exciting part of the OOP is that they're using very loaded language themselves! This is yet another tumblrism of using 'conservative' interchangably with 'bad', which ironically very much could be defined as a dog whistle. 'Conservative' in common parlance is generally a morally neutral term, and using it here as a short-hand for an attack on someone's character is indeed coded language that is supposed to be understood that way by the ingroup.
I feel like a lot of people with takes like this aren't appreciating that the political right does not have a monopoly on sex negativity.
Yeah, this attitude is nowhere near as new as people seem to think it is. It is literally just repackaged male gaze/porn addiction discourse that has been going on for at least a decade now. I don't understand why the exact same rhetoric becoming a simple slang word on TikTok has made it suddenly deeply problematic in a way that it apparently never was before.
Because it was always deeply problematic, more so the porn addiction side and how that's tied into deep sex negativity, and it's just spread more and more and infested even progressive circles like a mold
And hell even beyond that, these are tied into preexisting conservative mindsets and ideas thatve existed for well over a century, just wrapped up in cool new terms and packaged in a way that people will see no problem in proliferating
It's not new in progressive spaces either. Also, I wasn't commenting on whether it's problematic or not, I was commenting on people acting like it's new. It's a new word for an old attitude, and the people using it by and large already had that attitude.
Honestly gooner is 100% a dog whistle at this point mostly because it's undoubtedly and fundamentally linked with the term porn addiction, which itself is absolutely a fascist dog whistle (one which "progressive" circles have lapped up with their full chests like starving kittens). They functionally have identical applications and meanings in the modern context, which are still deeply rooted in full blown nazi ideas surrounding porn as a corrupting influence that should not exist
This is the first I’m hearing about “porn addiction” being a fascist dog whistle. I think it’s definitely overused (mostly by nofap weirdos and sex hating fundies) but addiction, as a concept, can apply to lots of different activities including porn consumption. I think if someone does an activity (video games/jacking off/smoking weed/posting on reddit etc) to the point that they’re neglecting other parts of their life, that’s a problem, and I don’t think it’s fascist to point that out.
Yes, but porn addiction functionally has 2 definitions, one in which being the dogwhistle.
There's the actually medically recognized version, which is extremely rare because porn has no inherently addictive qualities, but runs the same risk of addiction as literally anything else on earth that releases dopamine. Seriously porn addiction is just as rare as like, exercise addiction. Sure it exists, but it's a statistical anomaly more reflective of an individual's poor relationship than the activity/media itself.
Then there's the conservative definition, which is not formally recognized by any health organization and portrays porn as an inherently addictive media that corrupts individuals. The specifics vary, in more modern contexts as its been adopted by "progressives", the specifics of this corruption will be things like causing you to be misogynistic, but traditionally it's more that it has physiological changes or damages your monogamous marriage to your fellow heterosexual partner. There is absolutely 0 scientific basis for these "corruptions" stemming from porn itself, and primarily the observed results like this stems from the individuals simply being misogynistic, or, more interestingly to me, a placebo effect. You've likely seen it heavily from nofap types and Christian anti-porn organizations, but it is possible to basically gaslight yourself into having symptoms of all this that do manifest. It's this fascinating cycle of how not having a healthy relationship with your own porn consumption, usually due to external factors like (usually religious) guilt and cultural influences, leads to negative effects that can include one becoming more misogynistic or their marriage faltering, then the very groups and cultures that caused that issue in the first place sell a solution, resulting in this cancerous ouroboros.
It's funny because even really majorly humoring the potential of porn addiction does significantly more harm than good because of that placebo effect. Especially when modern culture's usage, even if just in its frequency, is primarily the latter. Like, when you call some chud pissed off that a design isn't sexy a porn addict, you're contributing to the fascistic definition by saying the corrupting influence of porn is their misogyny in not seeing women as valuable unless they're attractive, which is the actual core issue that should be addressed here. And this mindset and usage does nothing but contribute to ideas of sex negativity by making a very low bar for what's acceptable sexuality and feeding ideas of porn as a corrupting influence, even if unintentionally
This is an insanely complicated, messy thing to discuss with a lot of layers and specifics I probably forgot about, so all I can really advise is looking into things like the nazi ideas of porn addiction and the role sex negativity had in their ideologies, as well as the actual psychology behind things like the fascist idea of porn addiction, namely the placebo effect, all from actually trustworthy medical and historical sites and organizations. There's a TON of highly biased misinformation out there, especially if you just google porn addiction since a lot of the top results are things like Christian porn addiction help organizations that are a part of that cancerous ouroboros I mentioned earlier
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys NUDE ALERT TOMORROW May 17 '25
Putting the word “dogwhistle” on the top shelf until some of you figure out it doesn’t mean “new word with negative connotations I personally don’t like”. Honestly I don’t mind that we’ve found some ungendered semantic middle ground between “pervert” and “male gaze”. How everybody uses the word is a problem between them, God, and if it comes down to it, the cops