Green Martians and Blue Martians have one thing in common: They both derive a tremendous amount of utility from tickling humans behind the ears, using their soft, feathery tentacles. In fact, the utility that they derive from this is so intense that most scientists believe at some time in the recent evolutionary past, there must have been a large selection pressure directed at ensuring that Martians were motivated to tickle humans.
There are numerous differences between Green and Blue Martians. One of those differences is that whereas the feathery tentacles of Green Martians contain stinging hairs similar to nettles, the analogous anatomic part of the Blue Martian contains a safe drug with an euphoric effect. Therefore, humans who are tickled by green martians experience a moderate stinging pain, whereas those who are tickled by blue martians experience mild to moderate pleasure.
Human ethicists have long struggled to come up with a coherent ethical theory that determines whether tickling humans is morally acceptable. Some have suggested that tickling humans behind the ear is ethically permissible if and only if you are a blue martian. However, many other thinkers are worried that this line of thinking results in an unjust world, where the ethics of an act is determined by characteristics of the Martian that they cannot be held responsible for.
However, human ethicists are not very familiar with Martian physiology, and the situation is actually even more complicated than they suspect. In fact, all Martians are born Green. They can shed their green shell and become blue Martians only after they have perfected the art of tickling humans with their feathery tentacles. All Martians aspire to one day become blue, but the amount of practicing it takes to reach perfection is highly variable - some martians reach perfection at their first attempt, whereas others keep trying their whole life without making any discernible progress. Therefore, if the ethical code says that green martians are prohibited from tickling humans, ethical Martians will be unable to reach their full potential in life, and will be stuck as Green Martians forever. Under this ethical code, only unethical Martians will be able to metamorphose.
Making the situation even more complicated, is the fact that a group of recently metamorphosed Blue Martians are vocally spreading information on the internet about tickling techniques. These techniques are sometimes effective, but if used imperfectly they increase the sting of the stinging hairs fourfold. Importantly, it seems that part of the reason some young Green Martians are naturally better ticklers and therefore metamorphose earlier, is that they intuitively understand these techniques, and are able to apply them without increasing the sting of their tentacles. Moreover, while the tickling technique has empirical support, the theory behind it relies heavily on speculation about human evolutionary history that may not be true, and which is offensive to humans.
This raises a number of additional ethical questions: Is it unethical for a Green Martian to attempt to metamorphose? Does this depend on whether they believe themselves to be fast or slow learners? Should only the small subset of Martians who intuitively understand the tickling techniques be allowed to use them? Is spreading explicit information about the techniques unethical?
(Note : This parable is obviously an allegory for something. Discussing whether the allegory is valid is interesting, but will lead to mindkill. I would prefer if the discussion could stay focused on the Martians, so that we can discuss the ethics of a hypothetical scenario that may not be relevant in real life. I am genuinely confused about the ethics of this, and I think this can lead to an interesting question regardless of whether it is applicable to humans)
BOTH ARE TRUE. Let me explain what intersectionalism looks from my end:
Patriarchy has given 90% of men and 100% of women a raw deal. Look at Dr. Robert Sapolski's work with baboon troops for an excellent model of this. The bullshit dominance hierarchy that is ingrained in our ancestry leaves all women and most men physically sick and emotionally damaged, all for the sake of putting a few violently aggressive jerks on top.
The women's movement made a fatal mistake, of identifying the enemy with 'maleness' instead of 'violent dominance'. It tore down structures that made men's lives bearable at the expense of women's, but instead of proposing and cultivating new, nurturing structures, the narrative seems to be "you're on your own, that's what you get for the thousands of years of oppressive dominance!"
And meanwhile millions of men in Western society, who are constantly bombarded with images telling them what is expected of them and texts telling them that they are horrible for following those expectations, and who aren't stupid, are desperately clamouring for some way to add meaning and emotional significance to their lives.
PUA is offering them a toxic way to reclaim a paltry sliver of the meaning that the old dominance structure gave them.
Feminism can't even offer them THAT. All feminism can do is blame them and shame them and villainise them when they look around and take the only deal that's being offered.
And that's TERRIBLE, because PUA is TERRIBLE. What's worse, a lot of PUA is going about things in a VERY methodical, scientific way - which means that it often actually WORKS, and it finds out true things about men and women. But because it was PUA culture that discovered those facts, they are tainted by association with horrifically unethical goals and values, and so the feminist culture turns away from facts that it could be using to improve itself.
I am so totally, completely on board with equality, and negotiation, and mutual respect.
I want to live in your world.
I want to negotiate a place in your world.
I am very, very lucky, in that I have a much higher than normal sense of self-awareness and drive for introspection, so that I can explain all this to you in this way. Because I feel the same need that young PUA acolytes do, very keenly. And so when these conversations come up, my urge is to get your side to understand, because your side is in a position to offer compassion and to provide a non-terrible alternative.
Would this be the same patriarchy that build civilization, developed science, etc.?