# Good incels vs bad incels **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114 "2022-06-29T14:23:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2022, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/281 "2022-07-19T18:37:08Z")
🙂 No worries! I have a talent for being difficult to parse sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2022, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/282 "2022-07-19T18:39:49Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You are fortunate to not have to visit toxic environments. > > I haven’t heard the term in the wild in over a decade, but back when I worked food service and other such jobs, it was used as an insult that went beyond just calling someone a loser who couldn’t get laid. It wasn’t frequent, but it certainly was out there. > … > I was going to say, “form and maintain healthy relationships”, but most of the people in that environment, even though they were having sex, were not in healthy relationships at all. Now I’m picturing that Ryan Renolds movie “Waiting”. This kind of came up in another thread about PUAs, but there is not necessarily a correlation between what makes someone successful in society and what makes them successful at getting laid. And often that correlation is inverted. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2022, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/283 "2022-07-19T18:42:25Z")
That’s the ticket…it’s your fault! ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/284 "2022-07-21T17:49:32Z")
There are only 4 types of people you can still safely make fun of/hate or scorn without risk of a vast public outrage…and 1 is going away and may not even be part of the 4 anymore. - Short guys - Karens (can often include women that lodge a complaint even if legitimate) - People that can’t get dates - Fat women. Fascists used to be the fifth one…but…something happened… ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/285 "2022-07-21T22:25:07Z")
I had many years as a “person who can’t get dates” and was never made fun of for that. Has something changed, and have you personally witnessed this? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/286 "2022-07-21T22:43:56Z")
As another guy who struggled getting dates when I was younger, nobody ever _personally_ made fun of me for it. (Granted, it wasn’t something I shared regularly.) But insulting someone by implying they can’t get laid, or are bad in bed, or are otherwise sexually inadequate are pretty common generic insults. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/287 "2022-07-21T22:51:45Z")
There’s a few others. Trashy people comes to mind. But yes, a fat unattractive women acting overly assertive in her doomed sexual pursuit of a short man who has no hope of ever getting laid but still isn’t willing to have sex with her is pretty much the hardest you can punch down. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/288 "2022-07-21T23:07:35Z")
I like you! ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2022, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/289 "2022-07-26T22:54:18Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > This is a really weird distinction you’re making. Are you saying that if you’re merely physically attracted to someone based on their smile, eyes, or laugh, that you don’t want to have sex with them? Do you have to see tits before you can feel true sexual attraction? This distinction between attraction and desire is actually something I’ve been thinking about recently and find interesting to try to tease out. In my experience, it is not unusual to find someone physically - even sexually - attractive without wanting to have sex with them (or touch them) at all. I have heard it claimed, although I don’t know if it is true or to what extent, that this is a source of misunderstanding between men and women. In this claim, women tend to assume, wrongly, that if a man finds a woman attractive it means that he will want to have sex with her. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/290 "2022-07-27T00:36:09Z")
There’s a distinction that can be made between feeling attracted in a way that sufficient personal experence tells you can lead to blatant sexual feelings under the right circumstances, and feeling blatant sexual feelings towards someone. It takes interpretation and sexual awareness and some experience to figure out what you’re feeling. I had what were essentially sexual feelings before I knew sexual attraction _existed_. As a child I knew about _romantic_ feelings (fondness, delight, wanting to hug, wanting to spend time with) and I knew about how babies were made (didn’t sound pleasant, a lot of ick factor to get past, you’d have to really want a baby pretty strongly to do that, huh?) but had not been informed about adults having an appetite for the behavior that makes the babies happen. And before that state of sexual education got much improved on, I found to my secret and very closeted amazement that I found the shapes of girls’ crotches, as in _where they pee from_, seriously, umm, very fascinating. I discovered masturbation on my own and that’s what I liked to think about when I was doing it [yeah, I know, TMI, deal with it]. But I still didn’t connect any of this with sex, i.e., the baby-making activity. With all that in the foreground of the discussion… there are a lot of people who have feelings that they don’t consciously interpret as “Ooh sex with this person would be so yummy, our crotch-parts linking and moving together, ooh baby” and they are only partly conscious that that’s the kind of feelings that they’re experiencing. To varying degrees this can be because staring at that fact directly takes the fun out of it and makes them overly self-conscious instead of feeling clever and witty or warm and happy or whatever. And some people have not had a lot of reinforcing experience of these feelings leading right on down that path, so they’re less cognizant of them being sexual feelings. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2022, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/291 "2022-07-27T19:28:19Z")
There’s still a fair amount of ridicule and/or microaggressions toward fat men. I think the fat woman one has shifted somewhat (or maybe it’s just my age)- back in say… 1991, there was a pretty harsh dividing line between normal and “fat”, and “fat” was anything other than what we’d call pretty thin these days. Over time, we’ve grown to the point where someone like Christina Hendricks is known for her curves and beauty, and is cast as a sexy character, not as the “fat friend” or some sort of object of ridicule. In 1991, that would have NOT been the case. But we still draw that line. Christina Hendricks can look like she does and be considered hot, but I’m not so sure there are a lot of men out there who are thinking Lizzo looks particularly hot. The line just shifted. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/292 "2022-07-28T17:05:18Z")
For fat women, there are the fat fetish guys at least. Also see plenty of fat woman/skinny man couples. Not really the reverse. 30 years ago, there was Roseanne, probably not a lot of other fat women cast in anything at all. I don’t know about the fat men. Right now we seem dominated by the idea that any man is potentially creepy. I don’t know that a sympathetic portrayal of a lonely man, i.e. 1955 Marty, would be possible in this environment. I don’t keep up with everything, so I certainly could have missed something. Along this same track, there was a thread here arguing if men were bigoted if they chose not to date trans women. I think that fat women, culturally, are moving into this class, that men **should** date them. Now the question is will the same pressure on sexual selectivity be applied to women? I don’t think it will be. Women are not going to be pressured to date trans men, or men they otherwise see as undesirable. Now with a trans man, particularly a trans man not yet undergoing hormone therapy, the concerns of women of safety should alleviate, because the trans man will be far weaker than any other man she would be dating. Also presumptively no pregnancy risk. So the typical reasons for a woman to be selective aren’t there; nevertheless, I don’t think there will be the sort of public pressure on women that they should date certain men. So the double standard will stand. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/293 "2022-07-28T17:55:00Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Also see plenty of fat woman/skinny man couples. Not really the reverse. Really? I’d argue the reverse is far, far, _far_ more common, both in real life, and especially in popular media. In my personal life, I know exactly one m-f couple where the woman is significantly larger than the man, and I can’t think of a single example of that in film or television. “Fat guys with hot wives,” on the other hand, are so prevalent it’s a cliche. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/294 "2022-07-28T17:59:26Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Really? I’d argue the reverse is far, far, _far_ more common, both in real life, and especially in popular media. In my personal life, I know exactly one m-f couple where the woman is significantly larger than the man, and I can’t think of a single example of that in film or television. “Fat guys with hot wives,” on the other hand, are so prevalent it’s a cliche. The popular media portrayals peaked 15-20 years ago or so. I don’t think there are any new portrayals of “fat doofus husband, understanding wife” being created. Yes, I know The Simpsons are still on, but that’s not new. Typically women characters of today are portrayed as “she’s just as crazy as the men if not more so.” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/295 "2022-07-28T18:06:06Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Along this same track, there was a thread here arguing if men were bigoted if they chose not to date trans women. Got a cite for that? I do remember some threads where the question was asked whether it was somehow intrinsically bigoted for cishet men to not be sexually attracted to trans women, but in my recollection the consensus of responses always came down firmly on the “no” side. Irrespective of the respondents’ own gender-identity status or level of support for trans rights. There might perhaps have been a tiny minority of posters in such threads advocating otherwise, although I can’t specifically remember any. But if you’re going to claim that there was an entire thread actually demanding that cishet men had to be willing to date trans women in order not to be bigoted, I’d like to see a cite for that. > [@Jay\_Z](#): > > I think that fat women, culturally, are moving into this class, that men **should** date them. ISTM that people have been making such claims about cultural expectations “pressuring” men to date fat women at least since the movie Shallow Hal over 20 years ago. But I don’t see any real evidence that men are being pressured to date women they don’t actually want to date. There is certainly some cultural movement toward a general societal acceptance that fat women can be considered attractive and that men don’t have to be ashamed of dating them. Naturally, men shouldn’t avoid dating fat women whom they like just because they’re afraid that fatphobic fellow men (and fatphobic women) will make fun of them for their choice. But that’s a long way from asserting that men “should” be dating fat women if they don’t want to. > [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Now the question is will the same pressure on sexual selectivity be applied to women? I don’t think it will be. I don’t think any such pressure is actually being applied to men, to any significant extent. It is a common feature of transphobic anxiety (“oh noes the PC will go so mad that we’ll all have to date transgenders to prove we’re woke enough!”), but transphobic anxiety is usually pretty dissociated from reality. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/296 "2022-07-28T18:06:08Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > The popular media portrayals peaked 15-20 years ago or so. I don’t think there are any new portrayals of “fat doofus husband, understanding wife” being created. Yes, I know The Simpsons are still on, but that’s not new. If they’re still making new episodes, it’s still relevant to discussions about the current media landscape. But what new shows out there have reversed the cliche? Do you have any examples? > [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Typically women characters of today are portrayed as “she’s just as crazy as the men if not more so." We aren’t talking about “crazy,” we’re talking about “fat.” Let’s keep those goalposts in place. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/297 "2022-07-28T18:39:53Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > ISTM that people have been making such claims about cultural expectations “pressuring” men to date fat women at least since the movie Shallow Hal over 20 years ago. But I don’t see any real evidence that men are being pressured to date women they don’t actually want to date. There’s a difference between real life and media and politicized Internet discourse. No, I don’t think anyone will actually pressure me in real life over who I choose to date. I think the media portrayals and discussions do show something of a slant. I don’t expect if Lizzo ever makes a movie it’s going to be “Shallow Helena.” It’s going to be “You Go Girl” where Lizzo gets the man of her choosing. On the trans dating thread, I do remember concerns by a poster of her trans women friends and their dilemma over revealing to their dates or potential dates of their status. I know that in that thread, men were allowed to decline trans women as potential dates. It’s more that a thread like that starts in the first place. I don’t anticipate a thread bemoaning Caitlyn Jenner’s dating prospects because she is interested in dating women. I do think that publicly, women are given more latitude in rejecting suitors, even when it’s in a way where their status as a woman isn’t significant. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/298 "2022-07-28T21:57:06Z")
Before I retired, I worked as a statistician. While it wasn’t my area, I did get to see data on discrimination and “discrimination” (being in quotes because it wasn’t illegal but it was still people being punished/held back due to physical characteristics. Things may have changed in 20 years, but back when I saw it the level of discrimination in terms of pay was huge for short guys and obese women but not for obese men. The income level was so marked because, especially for short men (defined as 5’4" in this instance), it was even worse than African Americans! Obese women were not that far behind. If it wasn’t for the “giggle factor” which makes it socially acceptable to discriminate against shorter men and obese women, they would have every right to be a protected class. So I can believe obese men suffer some aggressions, it does not compare to shorter men or obese women (it appears). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2022, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/299 "2022-07-31T02:26:23Z")
Yeah, I can well believe that short men still get a huge amount of unfair treatment professionally. There’s still a lot of ambient social prejudice too against their dating taller women, but [it seems to be becoming somewhat fashionable nowadays to reject that prejudice, largely due the example of a few celebrity couples.](https://the-take.com/watch/the-tall-girlfriend-and-short-boyfriend-ending-the-bias) ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2022, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/300 "2022-07-31T03:07:51Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > I think that fat women, culturally, are moving into this class, that men **should** date them. I haven’t been able to take that argument even half-seriously since this [train wreck of a thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-a-fat-woman-gets-to-see-a-short-guy-as-equivalent-a-form-of-sexual-affirmative-action/758108/29). Though, to be fair I never could take it seriously in the first place. No one is forcing anyone to date anyone else, pretty much ever (arranged marriages aside, I suppose). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114.md?page=14)