I didn’t find the other stuff you said to be that disagreeable, but this is patently wrong. Virgin shaming is a real thing. Just because you have never experienced it doesn’t mean it isn’t a thing. It was a thing when I was a 20-something (I’m a 40-something now). And it is a hugely real thing for in the hate-filled internet content world that 20-somethings today face.
I was “virgin shamed” out of the blue a year ago. I was chitchatting with a group of coworkers and one of them started playfully teasing me about my socks. This guy (who I only knew as New Guy, not even knowing his name or what unit he worked in) decides he wants to be a part of the conversation and, completely apropos of nothing, asks if I’ve ever been with a guy. * I don’t even know this motherfucker’s name.* The silence that followed was deafening, but once it passed we pretended not to have heard him. I never talk about my sexuality in the workplace. I try my hardest to socialize like everyone else and just blend in. No one knows anything about me, but especially that guy. But I was still a target for some reason. (Shortly afterwards, someone registered a formal complaint about him for some other reason and he was demoted. I think it’s just a matter of time before he’s fired. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.)
Society “shames” all kinds of social deviants. Hell, society shames people even when they represent a sizable portion of the population (fat people and adults who live with their parents being two such groups). So tell me why would adult virgins be spared? What is it about adult virgins that make them immune to the hate of the world?
I have been innocently asked if I have ever been in a relationship. Usually I get these questions from people who want to befriend me and probably want to know which direction I swing. Often when I volunteer the truth, I get a negative response in return. Usually expressions of pity. If I’m real unlucky, that person will come back later with a joke at my expense. Should I hang my head in shame for not having the “good manners” to keep my mouth shut? Cuz check this: I would prefer NOT to lie or to play coy all the time. I would prefer to talk about myself as unapologetically as anyone else. I don’t always want to be the enigmatic eccentric. But it seems to me you’re saying that I should not be honest, because if I am, I deserve whatever shit is flung my way. That is nonsense. That is bullshit. As long as people like me keep our lives secret for the sake of your “good manners”, the more stigmatized and marginalized and lonely the unhappily single will feel about their lot in life. And the happily attached will continue to think that only basement-dwelling losers have no experience with romantic relationships.
Also consider this: Every generation has seen its aimless, low-achieving socially awkward men thrown into the military wood chipper. It has been a long time since the herd has been culled in that fashion. Why wouldn’t we expect changes in our social dynamics to reflect this absence?
Of course I know not-so-impressive men and women who have found each other. Just like I know some not-so-impressive people who still manage to find good middle class jobs. Just because some people luck out doesn’t mean everyone does. And it actually doesn’t matter what the facts are. It’s all about perception. If the only images that you see are Chads and Stacies hooking up, then it doesn’t matter that not everyone in a relationship fits the Chad or a Stacey stereotype. These guys aren’t working from the vantage point of 40, 50 years of wisdom about the real world. They live in a world presented to them from their laptops, tablets, and phones. Not the real world.
The average 20-year-old lacks the critical thinking skills that you, a grown-ass man, has. You didn’t grow up on social media. This is the only thing these people know.
I hope I don’t come across as an apologist, because that’s the last thing I am. But people are up here acting like we’re talking about a bunch of bad guys who have decided independently to be bad. No, we’re talking about a bunch of guys who are reacting to the world in a bad way because they aren’t equipped with the coping skills they need to handle the world’s demands. And everyone keeps acting like coping skills are something you should automatically have, so if you’re finding support on the darker corners of the web, then you must be an awful terrible human being. I don’t know what the solution is. But we’re not going to get anywhere by acting like this a problem created in a vacuum.
I agree with monstro and others that there is a stigma attached to adult virgins. I imagine that this stigma can be self-internalized in a number of unhealthy ways and can push those who might already be prone to sociopathy over the cliff.
In addition to the theories others have posited, I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason we see more “incels” than decades ago is the result of less warfare. Guys like the Toronto killer would’ve easily been a conscript back in the day. Less picky military standards would’ve meant a lot more men being combat fodder. And maybe these are the guys that wouldn’t have had soldier buddies sticking their necks out for them, leaving them vulnerable to both enemy and friendly fire.
I think the anger that we’re talking about in this thread needs to considered carefully. Are incels really angry because they can’t get laid and/or find relationships? Or does feeling angry fill an emotional void in people that would otherwise feel aimless and lost (in part because of their lack of romantic success)? I wonder if incels connecting with other incels on the internet suddenly makes them feel like part of a greater cause—an angry cause—that suddenly gives meaning to their lives that was lacking before. In the absence of joining this cause, yes they might still feel resentful and angry, but they wouldn’t have these emotions reinforced and amplified by others. So the anger would be less entrenched and destructive.
The ironic part is that the real O.G. pioneer of the whole “trading murder and mayhem for getting attention to your cause” bit was the Unabomber, who was decidedly anti-internet. Now, every dude with a gripe is scheming to engineer the perfect click-bait manifesto.
Internet is enabling the Travis Bickles of the world to think they’re joining Project Mayhem so they can become Tyler Durden. If he’d been Muslim, he’d have joined ISIS. Not much different from the 2014 Parliament Hill shootings: 2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa - Wikipedia
Unless there are several more incel-related violent acts, I’m not sure I would put a lot of importance on the ideology he latched onto. He was a dysfunctional 15-25 male, the prime homicide-committing demographic.
I agree with most of what you’re saying, but I do want to hit pause and say we should’nt be implying that female achievement has caused male to “suffer” unemployment. This is the kind of thinking that leads self-entitled men to feel cheated simply because they are expected to compete against groups their fathers and grandfathers did not.
In many respects, we could just as easily be talking about white nationalist racists who suddenly find themselves left out in the cold because jobs are harder to find and the white women they desire are open to dating other races. Just like the incels, they find themselves unable to cope with a changing society. Rather than seeing that they are digging themselves into a hole by refusing to adapt, they seek solace in anger, bitterness, and hatred.
I don’t know what to do about either the racists or the incels, but we need to see their “plight” from a historical perspective as much as a sociological one.
This doesn’t prove, or even really strongly suggest, that it’s harder for men to get sex. You know what else has happened in the last 50 years? People having more sex outside of marriage. Do you think there may be a connection between that and the decline in marriage rates?
And let’s be clear; educated, employed women are NOT hurting men on the job front. That is a lump of labor fallacy. Educated and job-capable women increase opportunity for everyone, they don’t reduce it. If that was not so, the unemployment rate would be catastrophically high right now. your own cited NY Times article notes that the percentage of women with jobs has fallen in recent years, too, so the tradeoff you imply is happeing is not happening.
What ridiculous nonsense.
The idea that military service disproportionately targets “low-achieving socially awkward men” is just dumb. That isn’t how drafts work, as the most cursory examination of the evidence will show. It’s also rather obvious that men in military service are on average more physically impressive than the average man and will include essentially no truly physically incapable men, by virtue of the military’s needs for fundamental physical capabilities.
If one uses the USA as our example, the effect military casualties will have in modern society on the number of “socially awkward” men is not significant. Vietnam killed six hundredths of one percent of all males in the United States, and of course not all or even most were “low-achieving socially awkward men.” The numbers would be frighteningly high in some countries and times, like Russia or Poland in WWII, but those are historical outliers.
Is there really a big correlation between socially awkward and underachieving? There are certainly lines of work where socially awkward people can be successful. During the time I was a total zero in the dating world I was doing very well in jobs that required a lot of working with the public. Is there any evidence that folks who are dissatisfied with their romantic prospects are more likely to become mass murderers? I’d hate to see a world where people are afraid that every sad sack who can’t get a date could snap at any time.
Also, while there will always be a few guys who slip through the cracks or who were able to detachedly complete the military training/service without absorbing any of the camaraderie, I’d think going through that experience would help a guy develop some of the confidence that could help him get laid, or if not, at least the determination to work on improving himself so that he can.
Well, yeah. Women do, as a matter of self preservation. We don’t have the luxury of being able to not know about incels and “nice guys” and their ilk. We run into them all the time online and in real life and they’re scary AF. We’re the ones who get our inboxes flooded with rape threats for daring to cross some pissed off entitled shitheel who figures if no woman will have sex with him then he’s entitled to take what he wants–and says so to all and sundry. We’re the ones who deal with “dates gone wrong” when the guy we figured was okay turns out to have worms in his head when we decline to suck his dick in return for dinner.
The difference now is that we too can go online, find out just how prevalent these men are, figure out that their problems are not our responsibility no matter how much they rail and insist it’s our fault they can’t get laid in a whorehouse and learn methods of identifying these pricks BEFORE they attack us. The internet is a great resource for all kinds of people with all kinds of problems.
I’m under no delusion that there aren’t multiple reasons why people aren’t so quick to get married. Sex is no longer being put up on a pedestal. People aren’t getting married because they “have to” but because they want to. I’m sure we can come up with a whole lot of other reasons.
But I’m also not under the delusion that dynamics are the exact same for the current 10th percentile of the social hierarchy as they were for the same cohort 30, 40, 50 years ago. You seem to be positing that the world hasn’t changed all that much, but there’s plenty of evidence that the world HAS changed. And our expectations haven’t kept up with this change. We still keep telling young people the exact same advice that our parents and grandparents handed out a generation ago. We need to realize that all the games and tricks we learned back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are a bit outdated, and that the challenges we faced back in those days aren’t like the challenges being experienced today.
I mispoke. I didn’t mean to phrase it the way I did.
I’m finding it VERY interesting that you are talking about “physically impressive”, when I was clearly talking about men of low achievement with horrible social skills, irrespective of their physicality. The Parkland school shooter was no physical slouch. At least, he didn’t look like one. He sure did know how to handle some guns. Fifty years ago, he would have been sucked into the Vietnam War the moment he’d been expelled from high school. Today we expect young men who get expelled from high school to all on their own find happiness and health in a society that has determined they are losers. There is no place for them to go but down.
How many incels are there? Are we talking about millions of young men, or just tens of thousands? Because if it’s the latter, then we are talking about a similar percentage killed in the Vietnam War. Since I don’t see a whole bunch of single people in my day-to-day life, I’m not thinking we’re talking about a whole lot of people.
But no evidence is being presented that this is causing the creation of a group of young men with no hope of romantic relationships. Sure, things are different; things are always different. so what? Where is the evidence the group of hopeless celibate men is increasing? Not idle conjecture; facts?
No, what we’re talking about is men who can get sex, and physical appearance must surely factor into that. If you think soldiers are disproportionately unlikely to get laid… I mean, it’s just comical.
I’m socially awkward. Maybe not as awkward as I was when I was a 20-something, though.
I am definitely seeing more of an emphasis on being a team player than being a nerdy genius. It is great if you–generic employee–prefers working alone in your dimly lit cubicle, closed off to the world with your earbuds. But your employer expects you to give public presentations, actively participate in staff meetings, negotiate with vendors and contractors and clients, and schmooze at networking/social events. Social anxiety be damned. Nerds are valued, but you have to be nerd who is still likeable, easy-going, and affable. Cuz teams don’t work well when its members don’t get along.
So yeah, I think people who struggle socially have it harder nowadays. And it does seem like there are more social landmines out there, just waiting to explode when you least suspect it. The other day I was at a meeting and I overheard a white guy say to an Asian guy named Oliver, “I always get you confused with Lester! You two look just alike!” Lester and Oliver look nothing alike, but they just happened to be the two Asian guys in the room. Is the white guy socially inept? Probably not globally inept, but perhaps in the arena of race. Not because he’s a bad person but because he simply lacks experience and awareness. Yet in this fast-paced world, we expect everyone to stay current on what’s acceptable and what’s not. Woe to the person–nerd or not–who isn’t paying attention because they will be judged harshly.
Hi monstro. I enjoy and often profit from reading your posts, and here’s another one. I was aiming for disagreement, not disagreeable. Let’s see if we can achieve a better understanding.
I concede that there is such a thing as virgin-shaming. When people are uptight and unpleasant about it, someone may mutter “S/he needs to get laid.” When an acquaintance adopts some unfashionable accessory or hairstyle, someone may think it funny to say “congratulations on your vow of celibacy.” It is not an excuse to say that the target of such remarks is actually the bad behavior or sartorial choice–we wouldn’t give a pass to someone who said “That outfit is tres Gay” as a disparagement. Self-described “incels” probably would, though, and that’s a small part of the problem I have with using virgin-shaming as an explanation for them: they have no problem demonizing others. Appearance-shaming (in all it’s forms) is as evil as virgin-shaming, surely: yet these “incels” gleefully indulge in it while describing the women who are not good enough for them. The hate-filled internet world “incels” inhabit was created by the “incels” themselves in order to express their hatred and contempt for women. If there were some social contract that promised them anything, they’ve already breached it and would be entitled to nothing.
Please note that I’m not saying that your painful experiences are invalid or anything other than deplorable. I am saying that virgin-shaming does not even belong in the conversation when it comes to “incels’” misogyny and murder.
Your feelings about that encounter belong to you and are not up for debate. That question was rude, tone-deaf, and boundary-violating, and it did reference virginity, so I accept that in context it was an example of virgin-shaming, and I’m sorry you had to experience it. But I’m glad it happened a year ago: most LGBTQ people of my acquaintance have to go back only a few hours at most to find their last encounter with the demonization or disparagement of their particular brand of otherness; my ex, who was overweight, never made it through a week. I, being merely bald, can go a couple of months between incidents of what I might call “bald-shaming.” I also find it hopeful that society, as represented in your workplace, apparently does not encourage virgin-shaming, not out of deference to you, but just as a matter of course.
Isn’t it possible that you were the target because you were already the target (the socks) when this lackwit joined the conversation? Not that it excuses such rudeness, of course.
They’re not immune: noone (For me, it’s a word) is. Paraphrasing A. Whitney Brown, there are millions of minorities, and everybody is a member of at least ten of them. But that fact does not give everyone an equal claim to victim status, and you know that better than I do.
I confess to wanting to know something that’s none of my business: what these negative responses are: something along the lines of “what a shame” or “that’s a pity” strike me more as half-witted conclusions to a failed pick-up line than anything else. I can’t imagine what “joke” they might come back with later (and I have heard a lot of ethnic, religious, and sexuality-based jokes). And do they really ask, not if you are currently in a relationship, but if you have ever been in one? I believe you, but I have never heard anybody ask that of anyone.
[QUOTE=monstro}…Should I hang my head in shame for not having the “good manners” to keep my mouth shut? Cuz check this: I would prefer NOT to lie or to play coy all the time. I would prefer to talk about myself as unapologetically as anyone else.[/QUOTE]
No, you should not, and I didn’t say so. If you want to answer a question about your sexuality to a person whom you like or trust, great. If you decide to go public and write a personal manifesto in the hopes of reducing the stigma you suffer from, also great. I said that well-mannered people don’t indiscriminately discuss their sex lives, but frankly, you have a point: that rule applies mostly to people who have sex, because another person’s privacy is involved. I’ll concede this: virgins who proclaim their virginity should not be punished or disparaged or made the butt of jokes for it. I may not want to hear about my friends’ sex lives, and when hearing about it means hearing about someone’s virginity, well, that hits the exacta of being both TMI and kind of boring.
But do you realize how far we’ve come from the topic at this point?
This is as close as you have ever come to making me think you might be less than perfect. Did I really say you shouldn’t be honest? Certainly you have your boundaries clear: you keep your life secret at work, and share it on a pseudonymous message board, which is fine, and you’ve decided to do that with no input from me. Did I say you deserve anything whatever, good or bad? Are you an “incel,” defending murder in the service of creating a social contract that entails nonconsensual sex? Consider, then, that maybe when I’m talking about them, I’m not talking about you. I’ll admit that I think that Elliott Rodger might have helped himself and all of us with a little self-imposed quietude and reflection.
Honestly, reading your post, it’s kind of hard to tell (1) whether you have simply opted out of sexual relationships and are upset that such a choice is often an object of ridicule; (2) whether you’re really talking about virgins or more generally people who don’t have sex for a while; or (3) if you are abstaining from sex but are kind of unhappy and resentful about it (pretty close to my description). I’m not asking, but assuming each one leads to a very different interpretation of what you’re saying.
In short, monstro: Virgin-shaming is real, at least among peer groups. I am not convinced that it is as widespread or as venomous and harmful as the hate and derision directed at almost any other despised “other,” who all seem to avoid coalescing into internet hate groups advocating (and sometimes committing) murder, inventing an entire ideology of misogynistic lies to excuse it, and I have to say, you have reinforced, rather than undermined, that skepticism. I am absolutely sure that self-called “incels” are not entitled to any claim of victimhood as they continue their fight for the right to victimize women. Stigmatized and marginalized and lonely is exactly how (until enlightened) these guys should go through life.
I’m socially awkward, but have always been considered a team player. My job evaluations have usually had statements like “P-man is universally respected by his co-workers.” My social awkwardness has been very specific; because I couldn’t read signals of interest of disinterest from women I was interested in, I had a deer in headlights demeanor that was universally offputting. With Ms. P K was approached directly with no doubt of her intentions. Ergo, no awkward appearance.
I don’t get the sense of entitlement that the “incels” have. If a significant number of women say they are not uncommon, I have no reason to disbelieve. But is there a significant minority who are prone to violence?
I’m not sure it’s more virgin shaming as it is people being very uncomfortable with those who identify as asexual. In the past couple years I’ve decided that, at this stage of my life, that ace describes me better than anything else. I have random sexual feelings but nothing very directed and the idea of actually having sex again is very “no thank you!” for me. Imagine my surprise when I walked into a conversation between a gay man married to a trans woman (they married before she transitioned) and a staunch lesbian in which they both vehemently agreed that “asexual” has NO place in the LGBTQA spectrum and ace shouldn’t even be acknowledged as a sexual identity. THAT was an eye opener! I mean, having identified as bi for most of my life was similarly problematical (but this fence is so comfortable!) and now I’m actually in a category that everyone agrees is completely suspect.
So yeah, apparently quite a lot of people have a lot of mistrust and side eye for those of us who’ve opted out of the genital games. Dunno why, but there you go. I guess it’s like being atheist–you’ll be accepted no matter how weird your religion is or how out there your god, just so long as you HAVE one. Opt out and whoa nellie–you’re firmly beyond the pale.
I’m not asserting that they are increasing. I am only arguing that changes in the environment have intensified the “loser’s” perception that the world is stacked against them. Some of the perception is based on reality (it actually is hard to find financial success–as defined by Boomers–in this economy, and it’s true that social skills are very important to acquiring that success). And some of it is only perception (“Only Chads and Stacies have success”).
Physical appearance means nothing if a person is so socially inept that they can’t hold a decent conversation with someone of the opposite sex for longer than five minutes. There has never been a time when women, as a whole, have thrown pussy at rando guys just for having biceps and a critical mass of chest hair. Men have always had to bring something else to the table. Most of the mass shooters/killers over recent years (the Oregon guy, the Parkland guy, the Santa Barbara guy, the Virginia Tech guy) had some serious social defects. But none of them were hideous looking. None of them were physically incapable, however the hell you are defining this.
I think your fixation on looks is interesting because Incels share the same fixation. “I’m not ugly! I even work out and have a full beard! Why aren’t these bitches spreading their legs for me!?” Well, duh! It ain’t all about looks. Women have never held to looks the way that men have. But it’s easier to blame the opposite sex for being superficial and petty than it is to look inward. Real talk: Ain’t no one got time for a 20-something underemployed male who worships guns and video games, but who can’t run a vacuum cleaner without being asked to a million times. Switch out one of those things, and maybe some sexiness could be gleamed. But the combination of all that is distinctly unsexy in this day and age of bills, rent, mortgage, and student loans. And the woman who would be attracted to such a guy likely isn’t one the guy would be attracted to, since that guy’s only image of a “hot woman” is the one he sees on his computer screens. The quintessential hot woman who is a size 2 with big booms, perfect skin, long flowing hair and confident. He ain’t checking for more attainable, more flawed women because they exist in the “real world”. And that’s not where he lives.
The internet has made it so much easier for all of us to avoid the real world. It’s just most intense for the Incel because the internet is all he has.
I find awkward nerds attractive. What’s unattractive is angry conspiracy theorists who respond to my engagement with them by punishing me on the basis of their general rage that can’t be satisfied because it’s bonkers.