The essay by Noelle Perdue has some blind spots but she was struck by one of their kink practices:
The wider network of Effectively Altruistic, Bay Area AI tech brotherhood has been covered on and off- in varying degrees of concern- for their seemingly wide community interest in kink, BDSM and “Consensual Non-Consent,” aka rape play. I experienced this myself, sitting in a circle of self-identified rationalists as they explained to me the pleasures of “red means no” parties; full-contact “rape orgies” where participants are encouraged to fight back.
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(Being forced to have sex is) a relatively common fantasy in individuals, but one I’ve never seen such widespread community interest in outside the Bay Area.
Scott Alexander and Scott Aaronson mostly want a woman to produce and raise babies. Gwern does not seem to post much about sexuality. Kelsey Piper probably keeps that to Tumblr and Project Lawful although she is queer and polyamorous. Caroline Ellison was into submission to men and being in a hierarchical harem. Duncan Sabien didn't mention BDSM fantasies in his post about what he was like in bed. Yudkowsky is into dominance, sadism, and horny Japanese pop culture. Brent Dill liked master/slave relationships with much younger women which are a kind of consensual non-consent. Polyamory is big in this subculture. I don't know much about Burning Man culture. But I can't recall anyone in Bay Area rationalism and EA expressing interest in rape parties until Aella showed up. So is this like Yudkowsky spreading AI doomerism, and Alexander spreading neoreaction?
There is a difference between old school SoCal kink, where you spend a lot of time making fursuits and paddles and occasionally use them with someone fetching, and Aella's version where you rent a house or a field and go to town on each other. Kink culture stresses skill and technical proficiency whereas Aella likes to feel helpless in the power of big strong men. The Rationalists don't like the protective measures which kinksters have learned from experience, like limiting or banning substance use, safewords, and joining a national or international kink community so you can get a second opinion about that proposition on FetLife. (Yudkowsky has posted "of course I use safewords, but what if I didn't?" and I have seen a claim that the rape parties involve games like drugs roulette). Many of them are hostile to mainstream ideas of informed consent, preferring a Libertarian approach where if you sign a contract what happens after is your responsibility.
Part of it is sex-magick culture, carried in the Bay Area mostly by Satanists but also by some hippies. Basically, men are supposed to be "superior men", which means controlling their desire to control and keeping it internalized instead of externalizing it onto their partner; women are supposed to be "superior women", which means rejecting their desire to reject and keeping that internalized instead. Psychoanalytically, the superior man repeatedly fails to control his own expressions of safe and invited sexuality, leading to D/s play; the superior woman repeatedly fails to reject her own notions of restricted and volitional sexuality, leading to C/NC play. The superior woman is in control of the relationship outside the bedroom but the superior man gets to be sexually dominant in return. The superior man knows that he can humble himself to his wife but that's okay because he still gets to determine when and where sexual relations occur; the superior woman knows that it's okay to be a little girlbossy with their husband in social situations in exchange for giving up sexual control in private.
If I've made it sound a little bit like 1950s housewifey tropes, well then yes. If it sounds more than a little heteronormative and transphobic, also yes. TBH it also kind of reminds me of some of the ways that I've heard Tiktok tradwives talk about their relationships and maybe it's part of a wider traditionalist theme.
Why would anybody be attracted to this? For sexually-listless people, there's the suggestion that this theory neatly explains why they're sexually unfulfilled. The theory's analysis for men starts with the question "Why am I not more confident in the bedroom?" and for women with the question "Why am I not more open in the bedroom?" These are Barnum questions that apply to just about any sexually-mature person, but that can be hard to notice for anybody who is also struggling with feelings of insufficient masculinity or femininity.
Source: I studied lots of religions, including esoteric traditions, when I was younger. I've turned down sex from a Satanic polycule while visiting friends in the Bay Area. A card-carrying Satanic pick-up artist has tried to get me to buy his e-book about being a superior man, also while in the Bay Area.
Some thoughts.
Paschal Beverly Randolph is a curious character.
Emily Nagoski writes that she still meets undergraduates who think partners should have simultaneous orgasm like Randolph recommends.
Napoleon Hill's 1937 Think and Grow Rich has a chapter on channeling your sexual energy.
Someone called Mitch Horowitz spoke about sex magic at Hereticon, an event where Aella spoke about her kink events. Aella is definitely woo-curious.
Your take on sex magic reminds me of the Taoist version (I think the Indian version is more about joyfully breaking taboos- I don't know if Aella knows she is following the Left-Hand Path of Vamachara or if she is a natural like REH's Salome).
I find that the ways American kinksters talk about sexuality are a mixed bag, but kink practices seem good harm reduction. The one Bay Area kinkster I talked to had never heard of the Rationalists until I asked. I think any reasonably experienced Bay Area kinkster who heard the story would advise a young person to avoid our friends.
I would not underestimate how much one person with money and extroversion can influence Bay Area rationalist culture just by organizing events. Most Rats seem too scared of the outside world to go to a munch or a dance club where they might meet people with sawdust on their clothes and people who work in warehouses, and people who have punched a Nazi. If the sex parties in your community are rape-themed, a lot of men will decide they are interested in rape play (maybe obtaining some Viagra and some drugs that reduce inhibitions). So I think Aella organizes these events because she likes to be ravaged and because it lets her manipulate and corrupt people. TvTropes tells me that Project Lawful has a theme of the evil nation using BDSM to corrupt the Dominant hero.
Nothing that they have shared sexually is uncommon, but getting mild-mannered geeks to effuse about the house parties with a sexual free-for-all and the capture-the-flag games where if you capture the other side's women you get a sexual forfeit is. Those are unusual ways to work through these desires, and most people into things that risky keep it private.
Oh my...
My mind went to pickup stuff more, had not thought of the sex magic angle, but makes total sense. Esp combining the two.
If you ever borrow some of these books from people, like Anna for example, it is amazing how badly written they are.