Yeah, I think some people in this thread may have the mistaken idea that an “incel” is anyone who isn’t having sex but wants to. The term is a lot more specific than that. It describes a particular ideology, not merely the state of not getting laid. I’ll quote from a recent NPR interview with Arshy Mann, a reporter who’s been covering incels:
I feel pretty comfortable saying these aren’t nice people.
Of course we would, ye of little faith. They were noticed and addressed. On Reddit, the Incel show went on for years and it resulted in all kinds of people being increasingly put off by their antics. It’s a self-selected, self-styled group that chooses to marinate in rage, tear each other down, attack targets, reinforce stereotypes, spread misinformation, and demand solutions to problems of their own making. The problem is not necessarily that they can’t get women, as already noted. The object is not necessarily the same as Forever Alone, coping with a lonely life. Here is an incel responding to concern:
*I have never once thought about bettering myself. I am content to shut out everyone. I’ve done it hundreds of time, and destroyed everything in my life. I have nothing left to live for but my intense hatred of everything. I may have been a victim for a time. But now my life is my OWN self inflicted punishment. I refuse to let the world destroy me I much rather just break myself on my own terms. You care? That’s just bull crap you and everyone else in the world doesn’t give a single shit. The world has given up on people like me. Being an Incel is giving up on the world in the same way. So do us the favor of fucking off mate. Go back to IT. *
So, warm feelings for society’s vulnerable people aside now, please note that Forever Alone and Incels are two similar groups on equal footing, with different goals. Incels is hate-fueled and they eat their own with pleasure. Some people in there could use some help, but there are also noisy ignoramuses who self-identify as being 5’5” and therefore blocked from dating top shelf women according to their own rules, and you wonder how much of it is organic and how much is 4Chan. If an incel wants feedback from his incel buddies and posts his picture, the response will be “kill yourself” or “dude why are you even bothering, you might luck out as someone’s betabux.”
It isn’t who they are, it’s what they do.
Don’t know how to be anything else. Sorry. And, given how you’ve reacted to polite, I have no interest in how you would react to anything else. So far, it’s been plenty discouraging enough.
Okay. But what do the issues of adult virgins like you have to do with the issues of misogynistic, hateful and violent self-described “incels” that are the topic of this thread? They’re the only people I’ve expressed an opinion about.
You know what, you are right. At no point did you ever imply that you, personally, ever felt pain on account of social, romantic or sexual rejection, (though the question of how that reconciles with your professed agony at virgin-shaming is a puzzlement). But if you had felt such pain, as I and everybody I have ever known (besides you) has, I would still feel sympathy for you, up until you started to blame innocent others for your problems, as the “incels” do. So far you haven’t, so that’s cool.
I fully support your effort to live the sex life you want, or the asexual life you want, or your effort to make your way from one to the other, as long as it’s consensual. What this has to do with the “incels” and their pathologies, or this thread, is beyond me.
I’m seriously regretful that my posts here seem to offend you.
From what I can see, this so-called “virgin-shaming” is not separable or distinguishable from toxic masculinity/bullying in general. People shouldn’t be humiliating other people in public for their personal characteristics or misfortunes in general.
What I don’t believe is that we can take seriously the idea that virgins are a disadvantaged group like a racial group.
After all, no one has to know you are an “involuntary virgin.” As someone above said, you’re not being denied a job or an apartment because of it.
And considering that a LOT of people have to live with a lack of sex for long stretches of their lives makes it hard to be to broken up over this.
The fact is that no matter what else might happen, there are always going to be a lot of people who are sexually rejected by the people they are sexually attracted to. That’s just life.
I’ve gone long dry spells and it’s never occurred to me to blame it on society or on women in general or the men who get lots of sex. That’s just twisted.
When it comes down to it, we can’t force someone to want to be on an intimate relationship with someone else. We can only treat this like any other social dysfunction that might be helped with health care.
Some of that treatment might help someone overcome social dysfunctions but much of it might be just to help people accept they can’t have everything they want.
And let’s be clear about incels—they are not willing to open up the world of sexual possibilities to all possible people. They are only interested in hot women.
To some extent we are trained to expect that we will get hot women as a reward from popular culture, but emotionally healthy people come to the realization that that isn’t real.
I’m currently celibate by choice - which is probably an important distinction in this discussion - but I’ve gotten a bit of disapproval about it. It’s not that I couldn’t get sex - I had one very polite offer from a Doper who lives relatively near me, and I have a friend in my area who has made it very clear he’d like to jump my now-single bones. However, both gentlemen have been just that - gentlemen - when I declined. I’m just not ready to become intimate in that manner other than with my late husband which, for obvious reasons, is not going to happen.
Other people, though… I’ve been told to “move on”, to “get living again” as if the only criteria is whether or not living or moving is that I’m fucking someone. I’ve had little old ladies urging me to get on J-date, people asking me if I’m dating, people asking if the male friend who is helping me work on my pickup is my boyfriend or not… Even when it is well meant it is too often intrusive. Clearly some people view me being the single widow as something to be corrected, as if being single is wrong.
So… if that’s my experience as someone who is not a virgin and who chooses not to be in a relationship at present I can only conclude that for others who have gone years or decades it is worse, and for those who are single/celibate/virgin not because they chose it but because of X, Y, and/or Z it is significantly worse.
Bottom line, a person’s worth should not depend on whether or not they’re having sex.
There is no fixation on looks here. What I am trying to point out is this:
Your claim that casualties in war reduces the number of men unable to get girlfriends because soldiers are likelier to be such men is extremely ridiculous.
Is that clear?
These losers (I totally agree with RickJay on this!) need to take a big bite of reality, in my opinion.
If a teenage girl listens to Boy Bands she’s a dumb follower! If she reads comics or plays video games she’s a poser fake geek girl. If she likes sex she’s a slut, if she doesn’t she’s a prude. If she wears makeup she’s fake, if she doesn’t she’s a slob. If she has low self esteem she needs to learn to love herself. But if she’s confident she’s vain or pushy. Into politics? She’s a crazy SJW. Prefers to stay out of politics? She’s a dumb airhead. Girls are literally mocked for everything they do, no matter what it is.
Should they develop early or be well endowed they will be constantly, ruthlessly, publicly harassed.
As grown women they will be shamed for; breast feeding/not breastfeeding, not having children, or not at the right time, or natural child birth, for being working Moms and for being stay at home Moms. This list quite literally has no end.
There are too many magazines to mention dedicated to convincing women they should have different bodies, hair, boobs and noses. ‘Slut’, is just attacking a woman for saying yes, ‘friend zone’, is attacking a woman for saying no.
Prisoners on death row find love, Charles Manson managed it, after all. It’s not women that are making these losers feel shite, it’s other men. More to the point if you don’t want people to remark on your webbed toes, maybe don’t show them your webbed toes!
This whole delicate male ego line is a steaming pile.
They should seriously consider estrogen shots, maybe grow some ovaries, toughen up enough to catch up to thirteen year old girls in emotional maturity. I, for one, am delighted to know none of them will likely reproduce. Yay Darwin!
Thanks so much for this, Broomstick. The dismissal of virgin shaming by people who have never experienced the stigma of adult virginity (ugh, I wish there was another term!) is very much an example of how being in a privileged position robs one of the ability to understand what the non-privileged are experiencing.
I have kind of made it my mission to reach out to the unhappily unattached on the internet and be a listening ear for them. I do this by challenging their more nonsensical notions without invaliding their feelings or experiences. I think most people can handle being pushed back on ideas and notions. Most of us can handle a healthy intellectual debate even if the subject matter isn’t wholly intellectual for us. But few people can handle having their feelings and experiences invalidated and dismissed, especially by people who are clearly clueless to what is going on. This is very frustrating.
oh please, we don’t need any sea lions here.
Translation: “I can’t find a way to challenge your valid point about “physical impressiveness” not mattering one bit to this conversation, so I’ll just throw out an insult in hopes that it will shut you up.”
I never felt shamed, even when I went 3 years without a date and 6 years without sex in my twenties. Of course I didn’t go into that kind of detail with people I didn’t know well. A lot of co-workers knew I didn’t date, but they couldn’t see any reason I shouldn’t be. Unless someone saw the sheer terror I went through any time I tried to ask someone out, why would they. And no, it never got easier. If I had it in me to feel hate for other people, maybe I would have been susceptible to the messed up kind of thinking described in this thread. What would have happened if I hadn’t met my wife when I did? I wasn’t going to take it out on anyone, and I wasn’t going to harm myself. Thanks is conjecture, but I think it’s likely that if I hadn’t met someone when I did I probably would have ended up being hospitalized with severe depression. I also don’t think I’ve lost the disability, if I can call it that, that caused me to go dateless for long periods of time. I’m one of the lucky few who actually did have someone walk up to me and change everything. Could it have happened with someone else the next day of I hadn’t met the future Ms. P when I did? It could have, but the odds wouldn’t have been good. I finding my self really resenting people using the very real pain that I and many others have felt as justification for taking lives of celebrating lives being taken. I’ve always had a lot of sympathy for posters who have started “I can’t find a partner” threads, but once somebody wishes for someone else to suffer because of their pain my sympathy disappears.
You are absolutely right. But you’re not disagreeing with me here, unless you think virgin-shaming is a nutritious part of a wholesome breakfast excusing misogyny and murder. I think I’ve made it clear: while virgin-shaming is a form of bullying, and should be punished/suppressed/stop, it does not rise even close to the level that racial/religious/ethnic/attractiveness/LBGTQ minorities (who, by the way, DO NOT generally resort to violence or create websites devoted to violent ideation, etc.), have to tolerate.
Tell me about the virgin who was tied to a fencepost and beaten to death, like Matthew Shepard, or the virgin who was threatened online with unspeakable crimes like Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu, or the cops who saw an unarmed virgin and shot him a dozen or more times, like (oh for pity’s sake, is there anyone who can’t up with 20 names here?), or – seriously, Broomstick, give me a break.
Excellent. Honest, you’re a star. But if you think the American experience is the same for African-Americans, elderly white Americans,immigrant Americans, female Americans, and sex-deprived Americans, “tone-deaf” doesn’t begin to describe it.
I’m pretty sure I spent a lot of words assuring monstro that I was not quarreling with how she felt about any of her experiences, even while respectfully disagreeing with her. You’re mistaking disagreement for something worse.
ahem
I posted the link because I think what I wrote at the linked article was germane to the discussion. And I’m vain enough to think I said it well and that it’s sufficiently relevant that y’all should read it.
P-Man, I hope you don’t think the people in this thread who have shared how they have been shamed are somehow expressing sympathy for Incels.
I know why I don’t feel hate for people, and it has nothing to do with how evolved I am as a person and everything to do with the people around me. I’ve been given a million chances to show the world I’m alright gal, despite my flaws. Of course, I do try my hardest to do this. But I’ve also lucked out on getting a lot of chances to show my worth.
A lot of young people don’t feel like they have the same opportunity that I’ve been given. I don’t know what we can do to convince them they are wrong because I am not even sure they are wrong. I don’t know if they need anyone’s sympathy, and I also think they are assholes. But seems like we need to do something besides call them assholes while patting ourselves on the backs for not being one of them.
I’m not sure I can muster much sympathy for a group of people who get together and talk about how horrible women are, how much they are owed sex from hot women, and fantasize about how they are going to take revenge on society and hold up Elliot Rodger as a hero.
How is that any different from any other hate group?
No, MOST people who are victims of anti racial/religious/ethnic/attractiveness/LBGTQ
bias do not become terrorists… but a few do. It’s not just being mistreated that creates monsters.
For that matter, there are people who apparently are never victims of bias or mistreatment who become monsters.
But saying there’s no connection between mistreatment (real or perceived) and acting out is naive.
You completely missed the point that it’s not a goddamned pissing contest over who has suffered the most.
The fact your leg was burned off by a blow torch does not in any way mean the pain of the person the next bed over whose leg was “merely” shattered in three places doesn’t exist or isn’t valid, or that the person yet one more bed over suffering a migraine so bad it’s causing her to throw up repeatedly isn’t suffering.
Yes, some people in group X have it worse than people in group Y. So what? Group Y is still suffering. Trying to say “but THESE people have it WORSE” is belittling the pain of group Y. We’re not talking about those other people, we’re talking about group Y, their pain, and what happens to them.
So stop making it a pissing contest.
Again - this is not a pissing contest. No, all those groups have different experiences. Know what? We aren’t discussing those groups. We’re talking about people who aren’t having sex and/or aren’t having sex for various reasons and what effects that has on them. Also, the effect of how society views them. Saying “But - but - but gays have been beaten to death!” is irrelevant unless you want to engage in oneupmanship over who has been hurt worse, which is not helpful.
No, I think you’re coming across as condescending and dismissive, but hey, that’s just my opinion and you’ve made it clear what you think of my opinions.
Nope, I don’t see anyone expressing sympathy for incels. I see explaining, but not justifying.
Well, the article at the beginning of the thread said some of the incel community condemned the violence. So I’m reluctant at this point to condemn all of the community based on the loud assholes. But yes, if ones identity is defined by hate and blame of others, one is an asshole.
That’s a really, really bad translation. Allow me to clarify:
Your claim that casualties in war reduces the number of men unable to get girlfriends because soldiers are likelier to be such men is extremely ridiculous.
Seriously, it’s preposterous. It makes no sense at all.
I think there are multiple factors at play here. I’ve read studies about how our culture is becoming increasingly individualistic and narcissistic as the result of social media and we also have a culture of instant gratification. At the same time women are out there competing with men in college and the workplace an in some jobs/positions are beginning to supplant men, there are a lot of women who are more successful than men of a similar age.
Now think about a narcissist, if they are “winning” at life they are t going to set out to do much more harm than the usual type. But if you are a young man who is a narcissist, you feel you are smarter, better looking, superior, but day-to-day reality reminds you that you for some reason in your mind: women, the current culture, society, you will feel like you are losing a game you were supposed to win, money, sex, respect, etc. You begin to feel emasculated and angry, these “inferiors” are beating you at the game you always expected to win.
The culture is changing in a lot of ways, but human nature and gender norms are still traditional or “oldschool” in some ways. I read a poll and maybe I can dig up cites later that even women who are more liberal leaning that out-earn their partner or spouse, feel embarrassed, and depressed about their situation.
Slightly tangential, anecdotal, and not about incels per se but something I find interesting. I’m about to graduate with a degree in the medical field that is female-dominated( no it’s not nursing). I’ve talked with a lot of the ones that are married or have boyfriends while at clinical and many, many of them make a lot more money than their partners. And it seems like all they do is talk horribly about their partners even if they are hard workers just because they make less money, one even told me how her husband thinks they don’t have enough sex and he has a full time job but makes less money and she talks to me about him to me a total stranger, like she hates hits guts.
There is a real need among men to “feel manly”, even if some don’t want to admit it. I think a lot of guys that are married or partnered feel very emasculated the way things are changing in the culture, if you are also single, not making good money, not getting laid and feel emasculated on top of it, there are going to be a lot of angry young men out there, and sadly violence is often how men lash out to reclaim their masculinity. I’m not assigning blame, just making some observations and things alive thought over regarding how the culture is changing.
