All my friends who had to listen to me whine about not being able to get a date through most of my late teens and twenties should be glad I didn’t turn into one of these sociopaths (I think that’s an accurate use of the term, since these guys believe their behavior is justified). Seriously, I think that they are just using the most convenient excuse they can find. If it wasn’t that, it would be something else. Also, I suspect the majority of males and females are more likely to blame themselves if they don’t get the love/sex they want.
I would’ve considered myself an “incel” at one point in my life. I desired to have romantic relationships with women, but the most part, I was too shy, not conventionally attractive enough, or just too awkward to get beyond the first date or two. I’ve had some short-term relationships (as those who recall some awkward OPs of mine from a decade or so ago may recall), but nothing long-term or really emotional. I can certainly empathize with these guys a little - you grow up in a culture where you’re told that the measure of a man is how attractive he is and how much women want him, where “studs” and “players” are idolized, where getting married and raising a family is touted as the be-all and end-all of a human being’s purpose on Earth - and when you aren’t getting those things that you expected and you see other people getting so much more, you feel like you’ve been given the short end of the stick.
I’ve come to terms with that, though. If women aren’t interested in me or I’m not capable of maintaining a relationship, that’s because of who I am and my choices and proclivities, not because women are denying me something I’m entitled to. If I never have another relationship in my life, I’ll be OK with it, because I’ve realized that sex isn’t everything and that I don’t need the approval of an antiquated notion of gender roles to be happy in life.
What we’ve got here is people who lack that level of emotional maturity.
I’m in the same boat, sort of. I haven’t given up hope, but sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier if I could.
This thread features the star of the thread paying is a visit…
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=683445&highlight=Incel
MHO: Some people are just plain old not supposed to be partnered.
Return of Kings would be the kind of site that incels would bitch and complain about. Return of Kings has stuff about game and dating, even if it’s from a really cynical, nihilistic, sexist vantage point. It still encourages the idea of a man developing his skills at various things for the purposes of getting laid. They still accept that the guy has to put some work into getting laid.
The incels are more fucked up imo because they don’t even WANT to work on it, they can’t even view it in cynical game-theory terms as the PUA guys do, they think IT SHOULD JUST HAPPEN TO THEM, as if women literally exist to fuck them, specifically, and the fact that they don’t do it is 100% the women’s fault and 0% the guy’s fault. Like I said, it’s a form of psychopathy. And it’s utterly unsurprising that it overlaps with so many violent and extremely menacing individuals.
And that participation trophy is finding someone who loves them who they are attracted to. You have to be blind to not notice that our culture teaches that. Everyone always finds someone unless they are a bad person. Being a virgin is shameful for guys.
I don’t know why people are freaking out about what Velocity said. Virgin shaming is a thing in our culture. When a group of people are shamed and no one will fight for them, they tend to get angry. When angry people come together and keep feeding that anger, some will get violent. It’s just human nature for those who feel oppressed and powerless to move to the power of violence.
I could say the same thing about white supremacists who become violent. It’s the same phenomenon. That doesn’t mean I’m defending white supremacists.
That said, I do have a little more sympathy for incels. The violent ones are rare. The angry ones are common, and the bigotry is common. But that doesn’t mean they don’t face a very real bigotry of their own. As I said, virgin shaming is a thing. We do have a culture that teaches virgins that they are worthless–especially virgin males.
Even in this thread we have people acting like all they’d have to do is stop being angry and that somehow that would fix the problem. Does that not sound familiar to people on the left?
No, the solution is that we need to abolish the toxic masculinity that creates this entitlement. We need to change our culture so that virgin shaming isn’t a thing, and people’s value is not correlated to being in relationships. Destroy the foundation that leads to the anger in the first place.
Are there people who are just awful and wind up in these places? Sure. But that’s true of any group. It doesn’t explain why the anger is there in the first place, though. It just describes those who take advantage of it.
More like a guy working 50 hours in a job that is beyond him being mad at the person twice as smart as he is getting promoted.
You gave a long list of reasons why a person could be an incel, including wrong race. 
Unless someone is the only member of a race, how is this a thing? Plenty of people in all these categories have relationships. Now if a person who is not very attractive and inept socially thinks he deserves a supermodel, he may have a problem.
I think you are right about it being an entitlement problem, but not a new one. I think it is the entitlement that used to exist and which made married men think their wives owed them sex whenever, and the kind of entitlement that Cosby and Weinstein and Trump have. People with lots of money and fame get away with it. Shlubs like me wouldn’t.
Judging from the incel types who have posted in the past, I agree with those who say their problem is that they don’t want to work or compromise to have a relationship.
Virgin shaming is bad, but no one needs to wear a red V on their shirt. Not having a relationship today does not mean you are a virgin.
I never could understand people who get mad at others about not getting laid. Just beat off and get it over with, no matter how bitterly you come into your washrag. Internet porn is vast, and free. Just don’t wipe it on the curtains, please.
Watching this play out, I am struck by two things:
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The Internet can be a place where a lack of ownership of one’s own problems can be reinforced and weaponized. “It’s their fault and it’s okay to hate them for it” is a message that can gain traction in the echo chambers online, across a variety of hates being cultivated.
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The Internet has shown that mass shootings and truck mow-downs are a way get attention to your issue. You can be an al qaeda terrorist, a deeply troubled kid with guns, a white supremacist terrorist, a woman-hating incel, etc. - if you think your pain is worthy, you draw attention to it in a known, established way now. Fuck.
This seems to me to be the reasoned counterpoint to Velocity’s take. Does that approach, or even the attention gained by the articles linked to in the op and by this thread itself, encourage more attacks from whoever feels angry and unheard, since the attacks work as a means of getting heard?
Would anyone, let alone any sane individual, have ever read Elliot Rodger’s sociopathic rant if he had not killed people? Would any of us be considering anything about this subject if it was not for the more recent Toronto episode?
This statement could be understood in more than one sense, and it probably deserves some unpacking; but in one sense it is both wrong and dangerous. Wrong because plenty of people live all or part of their lives without sex, and no one has ever died from lack of sex. And dangerous, because if something you don’t have is something you believe you need, you’re going to be much more alarmed and upset and resentful about not having it, and to justify doing whatever you have to to ensure that your need is met.
Food is a basic human need. We have programs in place, both government and private, to try to make sure everyone has it. If someone is starving, we don’t just say, “Sorry, it’s entirely up to you to find food for yourself.” We feel a moral obligation to share with them.
Health care is a basic human need. One of the biggest issues in this country for quite some time has been how to ensure that adequate health care is available to everyone who needs it, and what laws and rules and systems the government should put in place so that health care is provided. “Is health care a right?” is hotly debated, here and elsewhere, with some people asserting that it is.
So look at the chain of logic:
- Sex is a basic human need.
- Basic needs = basic rights.
- When you are denied your rights, it’s natural to become angry and even violent.
I’m certainly not claiming these premises are correct, but each one has a substantial number of adherents.
There are two groups of frustrated adult virgins.
There’s the Forever Alone group. Low self-esteem-having people (men and women) who are social isolated and/or unable to find romantic relationships, despite trying all the conventional advice. They may put some of the blame on society. Some of them have the mentality that the world’s cruelty explains their predicament, and if only people were nicer, they could get laid and have friends. But most recognize that they have major shortcomings–hence, their low self-esteem.
In contrast, Incels probably have low self-esteem, but they outwardly act like they are the master race. They don’t ever reflect on their shortcomings. They have been denied what they are rightfully entitled to and they are going to blow up all the Stacies and Chads until they get what they are owed.
In summary, Forever Alone folks are sad and direct their pain inwardly. Incels are full of jelly and bitter juices and direct their pain outwardly. I’m guessing that many of latter started off as the former.
I don’t think there should be any mystery why they are angry. Just like there’s no mystery why the Forever Alone people are sad. Virgin-shaming is a thing (along with parental basement dweller-shaming), and so is the notion that relationships are the best indicator of self-worth. We never see images of happy loners doing their own thing. No, happiness always seems to be the domain of the guy/girl who has a significant other and all the other conventional trappings of success. It’s nice to think that everyone should be evolved enough to ignore these messages and just be happy with their lot in life. But if you were consoling one of these people, who would you point to as a role model for him to follow? All the positive role models out there are conventionally cool, good-looking people who are in relationships. The only role models who are relatable to people at the bottom of the social hierarchy are bad dudes who mow down people on the street.
And yeah, some things have changed over recent years. It is harder for low-achieving, socially awkward guys to find mates because there are fewer women out there who want to settle (and who these guys would be attracted to…that’s the key). And women today have more agency than they have ever had. Back in the day, a 25-year-old woman without a husband was considered a spinster (or at least someone who was on the verge of becoming such). Her parents would have practically pushed her into the arms of the first dork who showed her any interest. Nowadays, it isn’t unusual to discourage a 25-year-old woman from getting married, especially if she hasn’t started her career yet. Parents would prefer their daughters stay single than settle down with the first dork who shows an interest. So women don’t feel a whole lot of family pressure to escape the single ladies club (they might feel it from friends, but not from parents). And frankly, I think women can handle the single life moreso than men can since women are more likely to fill their emotional needs with close friendships.
So yeah, it is not a huge mystery to me why the whole incel thing should surface as a problem now and not, say, 30 years ago. Add in the current job market pressure cooker (which doesn’t provide wages that can get the average 20-something out of their parents’ basement), the outdated and unwanted advice that Boomers keep handing to their forlorn children, and the internet echo chamber, and it’s no wonder we have young guys losing their gotdamn minds out there.
Best example I’ve seen recently of the warped way some guys frame their lives. They assume a social contract that isn’t there and in fact is impossible in a free society, and this contract demands love and devotion and attractiveness on their partner’s part, and nothing on theirs. May I be hardly the first to say, ick.
This shaming doesn’t exist for people who have the good manners to keep their sex lives private. In fact, I’m willing to say it mostly doesn’t exist at all: I can’t remember ever being part of a group (male, female, or mixed) that spent any amount of time identifying and ridiculing people who weren’t having sex. I can see how a really self-absorbed guy might imagine he was being shamed, though.
So, I gotta fight…for your right…to party?! This looks like an attempt to conflate these “incels” with groups who have faced actual, unjust oppression, which is a false equivalence designed to foster sympathy where none is deserved, so I hope you’re not doing that. None of these guys are being denied jobs, or housing, or being physically abused, or murdered, because they can’t get a date. Not a thing. Groups that are actually oppressed frequently respond with non-violence, so human nature isn’t the unstoppable force some claim it is.
White supremacists are not oppressed, oppression isn’t why they are violent (it’s because they hate nonwhite people and want to hurt them and assert dominance over and oppress them and believe some imagined superiority gives them the moral right to do so), and if we did oppress and shame white supremacy, it would be the right thing to do. So, in short: No you can’t, no it isn’t, and yes it does please stop.
Actual murderers are not nearly rare enough, and public violent ideation and cheerleading is the norm. No they do not face a very real bigotry of their own. They are taking their self-imposed humiliation at being rejected and externalizing it so they can blame others, particularly women. I don’t believe, beyond a few sparse anecdotes that we’ll find examples of virgins, male or female, being told they are worthless on account of it.
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The hideousness of these guys is not normal, it is not natural, it is not to be expected. The normal response to being rejected is disappointment, followed by self-examination and thought about what you can do to increase chances of acceptance next time, followed by masturbation, followed by a nap.
Anyone who’s blaming culture or women or the internet or whatever else for the problems in their life has to face the simple fact that there are millions of other people living alongside you in that same situation who aren’t having those problems. At some point you have to consider that maybe the source of most of your problems is you.
They are NOT the victims of bigotry. That’s entirely in their twisted minds.
did you skip high school or something?
I get that too. I’ve spent a fair amount of time getting rejected from romantic relationships that I really wanted to see progress further. It’s hard, it’s frustrating, and when people find out it’s been (well) over a year since you’ve had sex, they mock you.
And it doesn’t help when this is more or less the default attitude towards those who are having romantic difficulties.
Being called an asshole because you are a bit shy, or lack self confidence, or because you are not so physically attractive helps to push you away from mainstream thought, and puts you on the path towards radicalization.
I think it’s important to go back to the fact that these guys are absolutely NOT just frustrated and angry about sex. They say they are, but that is obviously false; they are in fact full-spectrum losers.
Of course most men go through dry spells, that’s normal, but most men are not full-spectrum losers. I’ve had periods of romantic failure and I’m ugly, but during those periods I had jobs, friends, family, hobbies, and other elements of success and ambition in my life. Elliot Rodger had dropped out of school two years before the Isla Vista massacre and seemed to have nothing going on in his life I can discern. Alex Minassian was essentially a failure to launch as an adult human being; he scraped through school but was unable to consistently hold down work or friends. Marc Lepine was equally a failure (both Lepine and Minassian, interestingly, tried joining the Canadian army, and failed.)
I am going to hypothesize that you will find it very difficult to find a dedicated Incel woman-hater who is a reasonably capable adult aside from the lack of a girlfriend.
A number of people have made this claim, but I’ve seen no objective evidence it’s true.
Are fewer women willing to “settle”? Maybe, for some values of “settle.” Does that mean low-achieving men can’t find low-achieving women? No evidence of that presented. Does it overcome the fact that society is much more sexually free than it once was? No evidence of that presented. Absent evidence that we face a unique period in which it’s harder to get laid, why should anyone believe it is, in fact, harder to get laid?
I mean, do you guys not know men and women who are not the most impressive people you’ve ever met but seem to be able to find love? I sure do.