# "Why are incels so angry?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 28, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269 "2018-04-28T16:45:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/41 "2018-04-28T22:22:28Z")
For your perusal, [one of the main fora for incels](http://www.returnofkings.com/), and [one of the main fora for mocking incels](http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/). ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/42 "2018-04-28T22:42:58Z")
> [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](#): > > I’m pretty sure that being “involuntarily celibate” is merely the corollary to being “enthusiastically repellent.” The whiny entitlement (an entitlement to someone else’s body, no less), the callow insistence that if they don’t get what some other people do it’s a fundamental flaw in society, the assumption that rejection is always and entirely due to one or more of the myriad character flaws inherent to women and the misogyny that goes along with it, the utter lack of introspection, and _especially_ the casual conflation of sexual urges with violent impulses, all come from a poisonous psychosexual dung heap that most people can recognize quickly and at a distance. Yeah, that pretty well sums it up. Then add in that women no longer feel compelled or inclined to put up with shit like this in order to “be in a relationship” as though that were compulsory and, in fact, have their own online spaces to compare notes on whether or not a given behavior is okay or gross and that pretty much puts the period at the end of the sentence. I’m pretty sure it’s the incels who’d be wild to put _The Handmaid’s Tale_ into the realm of everyday reality–that seems right up their alley. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/43 "2018-04-28T22:45:30Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > For clarification, I am not promoting the violence, of course. But I am pointing out that the societal “recipe” for addressing the incel issue (if there even is such a recipe) hardly adds up to anything good. > > The societal approach is basically, 1) mock incels for not getting laid, 2) give them Internet with which to gripe together, 3) put them in a country with 300 million guns, 4) act surprised when something like Elliott Rodgers happens, then 5) rinse and repeat (yes, it’s true that the Toronto attack involved a vehicle, not a gun, but I expect future incel attacks to revert back to the gun method.) That is hardly a recipe for solving the problem. > > There is a highly sexualized culture in which people believe or assume that others around them are getting laid and laid often (that’s what society would have us believe, even if it’s exaggerated,) in which getting laid a lot is praised, in which not getting laid is taken as an implication that “something is wrong with you” and in which virgins are mocked for being virgins. Given this culture, it should be no surprise that not being able to get laid would lead to immense anger and resentment in some people. I think there’s some truth in all that. And it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for anyone who’s deeply disturbed in any way. But there are certain levels of “disturbed” where there’s little that can be done other than keep the individual in question physically restrained from hurting people. Rodger saw a psychiatrist but rejected his advice and refused to take the medication he was prescribed. What the hell can we do in these cases? [QUOTE=Ascenray] I read hunks of Elliot Rodger’s manifesto too, and what impressed me was the internal coherence of his ideology—Women are mindless animals who should have no sexual freedom and men like him deserved sex from the women he found attractive. He was a violent fascist. [/QUOTE] By “like him”, you essentially mean _him._ Full stop. He hated not only women, but _all other men_, with literally one exception, a French guy named Max who was an exchange student who lived with his family briefly. I actually remember that part because he specifically stated numerous times that the ONLY other male in the world that he didn’t hate, was this guy Max, who I guess he viewed as the only person who was ever nice to him. Everyone else deserved to die, in his “opinion.” He talked about wanting to capture men and flay them alive (quite obviously inspired by _Game of Thrones,_ since this concept was not commonly known before that show and Rodger was not exactly an avid student of history. He thought he was God. Anyone else familiar with this case, ever wonder why he never does what most sexually desperate guys with money do - hire escorts? A normal guy can’t get laid, he hires escorts, if he can afford it. It’s because this guy was not a normal guy in any way. He didn’t need to pay for sex, he _deserved it._ He didn’t need to work for a living, he literally _deserved to win the lottery._ Elliot Rodger was half-Chinese and half-European, and had a phenotype (features) that resemble the ideal-typical “cute boy” that women adore in places like Japan, China, and Korea. Did it ever occur to this guy to go to one of those countries and try to meet women there? Even if _for no other reason_ than to get laid? No. It didn’t occur to him, because he _deserved_ to have sex with blonde American women. Elliot Rodger never made sexual advances towards a single woman. He literally, and I mean _literally,_ would sit outside cafes and other gathering places, just _waiting_ for women to come up to him. That is literally how he thought he would attract sexual partners. Not even, like, “pull up in my BMW wearing a slick outfit and lean against it smoking a cigarette and looking cool.” Like, “I’m going to sit at this table and eventually women will come to me and have sex with me.” The problems with this guy went far, far beyond anything that our culture could do to influence him, regardless of sexist, nihilist attitudes that might be part of the culture. Rodger was part of the 1%, or however many it is, who was an American Psycho. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/44 "2018-04-28T22:58:36Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > 😕 > > Why do you think a post taken out of any context from a different thread has anything to do with a statement that “Nothing posted in this thread defends the vitriol spewed or the violent actions taken by those referred to in the op”? > > I did not participate in the other thread you linked to about vehicular attacks, or **Velocity** ’s answer to a specific question of how to deal with it (apparently arguing against mocking the issues and for taking the concerns seriously) and without the context of having done that cannot judge if that is “defending” them or not. But it was _not in this thread_ and has nothing to do with what **don’t mind me** quoted. Pay attention. **don’t mind me** asked if Dopers are defending them. They are. You looked here. I looked elsewhere because your search was narrow and incomplete. We have a poster who feels that we should “agree that their gripes are legitimate”. Their gripes include: Women are lying to and deceiving men by wearing makeup. Women are decreasing their quality by having too many sex partners. The government isn’t doing enough to help men have sex. Society is gynocentric. Not having sex for over six months is somehow horrible. These are not legitimate gripes. The banned Reddit group included threads like “All women are sluts”, “Proof that girls are nothing but trash that use men”, etc. The phrase “give sex”…wtf. So do \* you\* think we should agree their gripes as legitimate? ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/45 "2018-04-28T23:00:17Z")
Do we have any data at all to support the idea that Elliot Rogers and the current deplorable actually were that angry “ **because** women wouldn’t sleep with them”? Because Rogers seems to me like the sort of guy who could have had five girlfriends all at a time and still been mad out of his skull that Taylor Swift said no to him. How do we know the desire to kill lots of people didn’t come _first_, and the justification just tacked on afterwards, because they needed “a good reason”? Stephen Paddock had a girlfriend - that didn’t stop him murdering 58 people. I think this about Islamist terrorist too - that they’re just generally hyper angry with their life, hear someone talk about the oppression of Islam by the west and go “Aha! There’s the excuse I’ve been looking for!”. I don’t think any of these people are introspective enough that we can actually trust their reports of what’s going on in their own brains ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/46 "2018-04-28T23:19:24Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Do we have any data at all to support the idea that Elliot Rogers and the current deplorable actually were that angry “ **because** women wouldn’t sleep with them”? > > Because Rogers seems to me like the sort of guy who could have had five girlfriends all at a time and still been mad out of his skull that Taylor Swift said no to him. How do we know the desire to kill lots of people didn’t come _first_, and the justification just tacked on afterwards, because they needed “a good reason”? Yeah, this is what I’m trying to say. Most guys who are frustrated that women won’t sleep with them…well first of all, most of them _try_ to get women to sleep with them rather than literally sitting on a bench and thinking that they would come to him. But the guys who try and fail, they usually either keep trying until they succeed; resort to escorts if they can afford it; drown their sorrows with alcohol or whatever else they want; and generally just shut the fuck up about it and deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2018, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/47 "2018-04-28T23:47:09Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Pay attention. **don’t mind me** … > > … So do \* you\* think we should agree their gripes as legitimate? Pay attention? My attention is freely given to that which is worth it, not paid. The poster quoted me and responded to discussion in _this_ thread asking the question. The post you chose to respond to was a specific statement that no defense of incebs was occurring in this thread. I am not going to review a complete other thread or comment on it. To answer the question you asked, no I do not think we should agree their gripes are legitimate, they are not, _and_ I think that even gripes that are absurd and pathologic should be dealt with in a serious way that attempts to understand what they believe and why. Sometimes, not always but sometimes, the most effective (or perhaps better put as “least ineffective”?) tool to de-escalate those disturbed individuals reaching a point that violent action is being considered is listening so that they at least feel heard. To my read in this thread and that one post you linked to that was the main thrust being expressed, not not their gripes are justified. _That_ position, even if not fully applicable here (and I lean to thinking it is not) is not “defending” them. Exploring why there is now an “online misogynistic subculture of men who blame women for their sexual frustration” is not defending them. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/48 "2018-04-29T00:07:52Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Have we had genuine “incels”? Or just their MRA kissing cousins? I think [this guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=728397), banned awhile back, went well beyond MRA. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/49 "2018-04-29T00:08:05Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Have we had genuine “incels”? Or just their MRA kissing cousins? > > Not that it matters much, I suppose - it is all a continuum of toxicity. It’s just that, naively perhaps, I’d assumed that genuine incel-spouting ideologues would be relatively rare. I mean that is just such an extreme form of whackadoolery, you’d kinda hope they’d be a pretty uncommon breed. Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by “_genuine_ ‘incels’”. If you mean people who referred to themselves using that term when posting here then I doubt we’ve had many. But we’ve certainly had our share of whackadoodles, and when I heard about Elliot Rodger I recognized him as a familiar type. They usually don’t last too long here though, and you might (understandably) have dismissed them as trolls. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/50 "2018-04-29T01:00:50Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > But the guys who try and fail, they usually either keep trying until they succeed; **resort to escorts if they can afford it; drown their sorrows with alcohol or whatever else they want** ; and generally just shut the fuck up about it and deal with it. Yeah, they could do those things, but heaven help those who say they’re not happy about it. ---
**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:** [April 29, 2018, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/51 "2018-04-29T01:15:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think [this guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=728397), banned awhile back, went well beyond MRA. Ah, gotcha - good find. And good memory - I was just reading through that thread thinking “huh, glad I missed _that_ nut” only to find that I had actually posted in that thread :D. Blech. ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/52 "2018-04-29T01:28:17Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > For your perusal, [one of the main fora for incels](http://www.returnofkings.com/), and [one of the main fora for mocking incels](http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/). Says who? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/53 "2018-04-29T01:45:35Z")
> [@Tee](#): > > Says who? Says me? ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/54 "2018-04-29T01:54:18Z")
OK. Why would you think that’s a main forum for incels? ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/55 "2018-04-29T01:55:42Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Have we had genuine “incels”? Or just their **MRA kissing cousins**? > > Not that it matters much, I suppose - it is all a **continuum of toxicity**. I have nothing to do with Inel ideology. I am 100% against blaming women for their sexual choices. I think Escort Services should be legal, but if they are not then **the law is the law** – I would not even commit a misdemeanor of using illegal Escort or using Marijuana. As for MRAs. I have almost been chased off this board. Unfortunately too many users on this board classify anyone who talks about ways in which men are discriminated against as toxic. Men are discriminated in Divorce, they get 63% longer sentences for the same crime, male DV victims are arrested more frequently then helped. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/56 "2018-04-29T02:26:29Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > For your perusal, [one of the main fora for incels](http://www.returnofkings.com/), and [one of the main fora for mocking incels](http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/). Return of Kings is alt-right nuttiness. Incredible racism and sexism. They may have some overlap with incels, but I don’t think of the site as really an incel site. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/57 "2018-04-29T02:33:03Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > 1. Sex is a powerful basic human need. Being deprived of it naturally makes people unhappy. Some people get stabby. Mocking them doesn’t make their basic need go away. > > 2. People naturally seek equality. When they perceive someone else getting laid more than they, it can make them unhappy, especially if that person is perceived as being less deserving or a worse person than they. Like an employee who works 50 hours getting passed over for promotion when the boss’s nephew works 20 hours a week and gets promoted with ease. > > 3. Mocking or ridiculing such people doesn’t make their anger go away. By analogy, if mocking Islamic terrorism were the solution to Islamic terrorism, 9/11, ISIS, the USS Cole bombing and hundreds of other terrorist attacks would never have happened. > > 4. For decades, America has been promoting an entitlement culture. You deserve this, you are entitled to that, you have a right to this or that, etc. So some incels are simply a natural product of the entitlement culture in which they have been raised. Nonsense. Not getting laid didn’t turn these people into assholes. Being assholes was what kept these guys from getting laid. And these guys aren’t the product of what you’re calling entitlement culture. They’re rejecting it. “Entitlement culture” is when everyone gets a trophy just for participating. And that’s what’s making these guys mad; they want to have the only trophy and they don’t to have to share it with anyone else. They’re mad about everyone getting equal treatment when they feel they deserve better treatment. These guys are Randian objectivists. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/58 "2018-04-29T02:35:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Nonsense. Not getting laid didn’t turn these people into assholes. Being assholes was what kept these guys from getting laid. I don’t think either of those things caused the other. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/59 "2018-04-29T02:39:15Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > 1. Sex is a powerful basic human need. Being deprived of it naturally makes people unhappy. Some people get stabby. Mocking them doesn’t make their basic need go away. Food is a basic human need. That doesn’t mean we can’t mock someone who calls 911 because McDonalds is out of chicken nuggets. And I think love is closer to being a basic human need. Quite a few people do perfectly well without sex (at least sex with other people), while going without loving and being loved seems very hard for most people. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2018, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/60 "2018-04-29T02:59:52Z")
I think it’s because they see ugly, short, bald, overweight, men with shitty cars still getting chicks. But they still cannot. It helps that we live currently in a culture that tends to wanna judge your worth before deciding if you deserved whatever befell you. A culture that literally means tests it’s compassion. Couple that with the, ever popular, assigning of blame, plus this culture doesn’t exactly encourage people looking inward so much as finding _anything_ external that can possibly be blamed. And then run with that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269.md?page=4)