# 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:** 3
**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:** [June 29, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/41 "2022-06-29T16:27:19Z")
With an added dash of “Sometimes people who aren’t Nazis get called Nazis, so we need to abandon the term ‘Nazi’ altogether.” ---
**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:** [June 29, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/42 "2022-06-29T16:29:46Z")
What would people who now identify as incels have been called in the days before social media? Creeps? Jerks? I was “involuntarily celibate” through much of my young adulthood, but I had a circle of friends. I assume that those who didn’t date and became misogynistic didn’t for the most part. My friends probably would have said, “P-man is a good guy; too bad he can’t seem to get dates. He just doesn’t seem to be able to connect with anyone romantically.” They’d tell me I’d find someone; I disagreed, but they ended up being right (although to nitpick, Ms. P found me). Those who became “incels” have always been around, but I would think their toxicity would have kept them isolated. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/43 "2022-06-29T16:29:55Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Yes they are. They are incels. They really aren’t. They are not having sex, through no choice of their own. That is not “incel.” Examples have been provided. You can say that the literal application of the two words means that everyone who is not having sex but wants to is therefore an incel. _That’s not what incel means._ ---
**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:** [June 29, 2022, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/44 "2022-06-29T16:35:26Z")
A bit of both. Not everyone who isn’t having sex through no choice of their own is, or is likely to be called, an incel. But if some male who isn’t having sex complains about their social situation and makes the charge that there are unfair or unequal expectations, they can sure get called “incel” in a hurry even if they haven’t expressed the faintest bit of blame on women or any hostility towards them. And that’s typical of labeling. We tend to behave as if multiple meanings are inherently boxed together to form an identity, and we can be very resistant to unpacking the separate pieces and considering them separately. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/45 "2022-06-29T16:38:25Z")
"Just because I’m the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party that doesn’t make me a Nazi!’ [![](https://images.nationalgeographic.org/image/upload/t_RL2_search_thumb/v1652302097/EducationHub/photos/adolf-hitler.jpg) ](https://images.nationalgeographic.org/image/upload/t_RL2_search_thumb/v1652302097/EducationHub/photos/adolf-hitler.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/46 "2022-06-29T16:40:34Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > What would people who now identify as incels have been called in the days before social media? Creeps? Jerks? There’s a (deeply weird, IMHO) 1987 study by Dr. Brian G. Gilmartin describing such people as “love-shy.” ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/47 "2022-06-29T16:44:18Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > In short, nobody uses the word “incel” except incels. And the people accusing someone who is perpetually single of being an incel. > [@bump](#): > > Yeah, “Incel” is a term that’s self-applied, not a blanket term applied by society. Some may have had it self applied, but IME, it is something that is accused. It’s not applied by _society_, just by people who look down on those who are not as romantically apt as they are. Part of the reason people become incels is because they have unrealistic expectations and get bitter about not fulfilling them. The other is because society has expectations, and looks down with contempt upon those who do not fulfill them. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/48 "2022-06-29T16:46:53Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > And the people accusing someone who is perpetually single of being an incel. I never see anyone being accused of being an incel just for being single. It gets used when someone is being hateful and misogynistic. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/49 "2022-06-29T16:50:18Z")
Just to add something- if someone is centering their identity on “not having sex, but really wanting to” then the label _is_ likely to be applied to that person as an _insult_. At that point, it is meant to convey the negative elements of the community of bitterness, misogyny and toxicity. It is not a neutral statement of sexual activity or lack thereof. It’s not “Internet parsing” to understand a word’s meaning as it is typically intended to be understood. If someone calls someone else an asshole, they are not saying that the target is literally a rectal ampulla culminating in the anal opening. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/50 "2022-06-29T16:50:19Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > And clearly it’s not _always_ an unjustified allegation, even if it is most often used by the right to attack progressives. We’ve had threads on this before. I’ve pointed out before how the term was coined as an ad hominem attack. And that is how it is used the vast majority of the time: you are virtue signaling, therefore you are wrong. No proof is offered that the person is actually only saying it for show. And logically, whether or not I am saying something for show has no bearing on whether my argument is correct. (Even if I only say that smoking is bad to make myself look good, it doesn’t mean that smoking is good.) But we can argue about that in one of the many threads on the topic, if you would like. My main point is that it was coined as a pejorative. This is unlike “incel”, which was coined as a self-identifying term. Incel **didn’t** start out as an insult. The people who self-identified as incels were such horrible people that it became insulting. That difference, I think, changes the dynamics. You can attempt to deconstruct a term coined as an insult by questioning whether what the insult actually is used for is actually bad. But you can’t do that so easily with the name of a group. A better analogy is the MAGA example above. It is a self-identifying term. It does not mean everyone who wants to Make America Great. You can’t turn around and try to argue “but is MAGA really bad?” ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/51 "2022-06-29T16:51:00Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Some may have had it self applied, but IME, it is something that is accused. No, it’s _widely_ used by people about themselves and to identify their subculture. The archetypal closed subreddit was called r/Incels. > **[Reddit bans 'involuntarily celibate' community](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41926687)** > > 'Involuntarily celibate' men congregated in a 41,000-strong corner of Reddit to share misogynistic abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/52 "2022-06-29T16:53:21Z")
You can’t forget: perpetual victim-hood is a key part of being an incel. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/53 "2022-06-29T16:56:34Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > With an added dash of “Sometimes people who aren’t Nazis get called Nazis, so we need to abandon the term ‘Nazi’ altogether.” This pretty accurate, except that in the case of “Nazi” it’s either pretty ridiculous or not entirely inappropriate, not in that uncanny valley against people who are literally involuntarily celibate. It would be more appropriate if a large number of people who are called Nazis are leftists who are skeptical of globalism due to it being beneficial to huge corporations: since they are nationalist and socialists, they must be National Socialists. But the main point stands, that just _because_ a word is misused doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be used at all. But sometimes it does become less useful, such as “fake news” which successfully got co-opted by the right. If “incel” gets mainly used as a pejorative against people perceived as inept losers, that’s different from it only being used as such occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/54 "2022-06-29T16:56:36Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > there are people who will want to widen the term because they hate men they consider unattractive. What? What? ---
**Author:** ![HorribleMutantBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/258eb7/32.png) [@HorribleMutantBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorribleMutantBoy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/55 "2022-06-29T16:57:30Z")
The term was originally coined online to describe those who were unlucky in their romantic and sexual life but were by no means misogynistic. It’s only fairly recently that the incel community became more radicalized. The problem is when you got huge groups of socially awkward young men who spent more time online as it became easier and finding like minded individuals. It’s very easy to blame others for your shortcomings especially when you have thousands of people just like you telling you it’s not your fault you’re a virgin but feminism or whatever. It’s the same deal with the swastika. Yes it’s a symbol of luck from thousands of years ago but to westerners it’s become associated with nazism. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/56 "2022-06-29T16:59:00Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > And the people accusing someone who is perpetually single of being an incel. Who would that be? Being perpetually single is entirely different. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/57 "2022-06-29T17:00:35Z")
You didn’t know? The reason incels exist is because women are allow to pick their partners. (I seen actual incels call for rape to be legalized so that men can control women’s sexuality as intended.) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/58 "2022-06-29T17:04:51Z")
[“Incel” is weird, because it started as a much more value-neutral term](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#History): > [@](#): > > The first online community to use the term “incel” was founded in 1993; a Canadian university student known only by her first name, Alana, created a website to discuss her sexual inactivity with others.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-dark-side-6)[[32]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-:7-32)[[33]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-:30-33)[[34]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-:0-34) Titled “Alana’s Involuntary [Celibacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibacy) Project”, the website was used by people of all genders to share their thoughts and experiences.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-dark-side-6) In 1997, she started a [mailing list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list) on the topic that used the abbreviation INVCEL, later shortened to “incel”, for “anybody of any gender who was lonely, had never had sex or who hadn’t had a relationship in a long time”.[[35]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-Taylor_Aug_2018-35) During her college years and after, Alana realized she was [bisexual](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexuality) and became more comfortable with her identity.[[34]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-:0-34) She stopped participating in her online project around 2000 and gave the site to a stranger.[[36]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-:21-36)[[33]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#cite_note-:30-33) In 2018, Alana said of her project: “It definitely wasn’t a bunch of guys blaming women for their problems. That’s a pretty sad version of this phenomenon that’s happening today. Things have changed in the last 20 years”. The term is 100% corrupted–but it didn’t need to be. 20 years ago, someone self-described as “incel” could be a perfectly decent person. Today, not so much. To me, the biggest difference is where someone lays the blame for their involuntary celibacy. I had a helluva time dating when I was younger, due to some social anxiety around dating and some weird self issues and such. I knew about the anxiety, but that didn’t lessen it, and when I did ask someone out, my anxiety made me come across as a weird needy creep. And I knew that too, and knowing that didn’t change anything. Wrote lots of emo poetry and even a country song about it. It sucked. But I didn’t blame women for my lack of romantic success: I knew I was responsible for my own bullshit. I was involuntarily celibate, but I wasn’t anything like the modern incel movement. I occasionally see individual people making asshole judgments about those with social anxiety. But media articles condemning incels are condemning the misogynist movement, not condemning people who just wished they could get a date. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/59 "2022-06-29T17:06:49Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Not everyone who isn’t having sex through no choice of their own is, or is likely to be called, an incel. But if some male who isn’t having sex complains about their social situation and makes the charge that there are unfair or unequal expectations, they can sure get called “incel” in a hurry even if they haven’t expressed the faintest bit of blame on women or any hostility towards them. In your statement, at least, the blame is implied. Who is it they are accusing of being unfair? And who are they unequal with? Sure, in theory they could be blaming the patriarchy, saying the problem is other men. But it usually isn’t. That said, I don’t tend to see incel used when someone just complains about gender expectations in dating. Usually the person has to actually be expressing some level of animosity. I mean, sure, there are the occasional assholes who misuse the term just to rile people up. But you have to filter out the trolls to see what people really think. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114/60 "2022-06-29T17:09:10Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The fact that _you_ are not familiar with the usage of this word (or apparently even the concept of an idiom) does not mean that everyone else is equally unfamiliar and that we are _deriving_ semantics from Wikipedia. I think that the problem here is that you are claiming not to be familiar with the word outside of its specific use in dictionary contexts, and don’t believe that it is a label that is used (incorrectly, sure) as an insult. > [@Riemann](#): > > If people are referencing dictionaries or Wikipedia these are descriptivist data points to demonstrate to people unfamiliar with the word that there is _consensus_ on usage. Tell that to the people who use it as an insult. > [@Miller](#): > > dash of “Sometimes people who aren’t Nazis get called Nazis, so we need to abandon the term ‘Nazi’ altogether.” I don’t think that _anyone_ has said that we should abandon the term. I’d say it’s more, “Anyone that has a shaved head sometimes gets called a Nazi, so we shouldn’t automatically assume anyone called a Nazi is a Nazi.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-incels-vs-bad-incels/967114.md?page=4)