Obviously I can understand why mysoginists are hated upon, As their belief is all women are trash or men are superior etc. But why are incels also generally hated upon? They are lacking in a way that makes them unable to gey in a relationship, but that shouldn’t necessarily mean they are mysoginists, right?
What am I missing here? I haven’t ever had a relationship with a woman, but I don’t hate all women either. I just consider myself unlucky. Does that make me an incel?
I’m sure there is a load of political world-building around it in little corners of the internet but for most people ‘incel’ is a just a byword for a creepy and desperate guy. If you’re creepy and desperate you are therefore an incel. You’re saying you’re not like that though, so you must not be an incel. It takes a lot of effort as a young man to maintain an immaculate record of never being horny and lecherous, so you might actually be an incel sometimes too. My advice as an older guy is to just not worry about it. I see a lot of young guys on the internet worrying about never getting a girlfriend and blaming themselves. Just be patient and nice to girls and eventually you will get into a relationship. It is basically that simple.
I really don’t think you understand how bad it is. 30% of young men are in a relationship, while 65% of young women are in a relationship. Makes things pretty difficult, you see.
This comment is basically the equivalent of telling a depressed person to just be happy.
No, it’s telling a young single guy to be patient. The other thing that statistic tells you is that later on you can expect to have a girlfriend who is significantly younger than you, which many guys would actually be happy about.
I think the problem with your comment was that you summed it up by saying ‘it’s simple’ when it’s a time of our lives when we start to have some freedom to explore our desires (sexual or otherwise) without the control/pressures of home and/or school life. There’s also ongoing peer pressures pushing and pulling us about. It is nothing like a simple time in our lives (hence why so many people go online and talk about if, as you highlighted).
Yes, I’d agree with the sentiment to keep treating others well and to be patient (broadly what my approach to life has been, now 45 so older like you), but it certainly isn’t easy or simple to do especially when there’s a lot of seeing others having what you don’t.
Sure, and I do agree with you. Being young is really intense and having identities like ‘incel’ pushed at you doesn’t help with that. Saying it’s simple might sound dismissive but young guys these days need a bit of hope and encouragement because our culture is doing a particularly bad job of both reflecting the realities of being a typical adult man and of offering a positive vision of what that could be in the future. Each generation of guys has its own challenges (for mine it was alcohol dependence) but with hindsight you can see that all of them do come out the other side with a good haul of girlfriends :)
That statistic is wild. I don’t understand how people have such a hard time finding girlfriends. I feel like you give a girl a little affection and she sticks to you like glue.
I think incels specifically it makes sense because they have a warped and negative perspective on the world. And nobody wants to spend any significant amount of time with a negative Nancy, much less a deluded one.
Where did you get that stat from? With the lopsided numbers I would wonder how accurate it is, or if there is a difference in how men and women classify “in a relationship”.
The lopsided numbers reflect younger girls being with older guys who are outside of the quoted age bracket. It’s pretty much been like this for all of human history. At the end of the day, the biggest ‘losers’ in this game of musical chairs are older women. So, the fairest way of making sure that everyone gets matched is to put the old single women with the incels.
Saying what probably causes the numbers to be lopsided is really not the same as citing a source.
Either it’s the way I said it, or there are billions more lesbians in the world than we ever could have known, or there are billions of guys in the world who have more than one girlfriend. Unless of course we’ve been misled and there are in fact billions less girls in existence than we thought.
Or, and hear me out, the statistic is just something some guy on Lemmy said and was never substantiated and is (at the very least potentially) unreliable.
As an older woman, I can testify that we totally won the game. We’re out loving life while everyone else you mentioned lives in a strange combination of fear, avarice, and disappointment.
Then the incel’s quest must continue!
Ah, I miss the good old days of r/incelwithouthate. The perfect site for a subhuman like me without the possible terrorism.
Go on any incel echo chamber and you’ll know.
I don’t believe anyone cares for Incels as people just in involuntary celibat letting their day go by with studies, work and their hobby.
Incels who are loud misogynistic is the only people we know are actually in involuntary celibat, and mad about it.
Grown ups don’t hate virgins by default.
They tend to be rapy child predators.
Im pretty sure an incel blames women for not being able to get a relationship.
Its the change in mental framing from “maybe i should work on myself” or “i just havent had the right opportunity” to more of a “women hold too much power over me and are playing with me” or “ive done everything right, women owe me this”Wikipedia sums it up better than i can:
Description of incels
The subculture is often characterized by deep resentment, hatred, hostility, sexual objectification, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, blaming of women and the sexually successful for their situation (which is often seen as predetermined due to biological determinism, evolutionary genetics or a rigged game), a sense of futility and nihilism, rape culture, and the endorsement of sexual and nonsexual violence against women and sexually active people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel
So, unless you find yourself blaming/resenting women, then you arent an incel. Your still just figuring things out like tge rest of us!
Because people who give themselves that label identify themselves with a community that openly spreads hatred and bigotry.
Does that make me an incel?
No, not unless you approve of that community and want to be part of it.
The word incel has evolved beyond its literal meaning to refer to a specific subset of people.
Also I may be wrong here - but I think the term originated as a self-designation by a group of openly misogynist men? So even when the term originated it would have had that connotation.
Either way, there’s a big difference between someone who can’t get laid an an incel, even if the terms don’t reflect that difference.
Stereotypes. That’s basically it. The way they go about their dilemmas has left an impression, which isn’t unique in the slightest among subgroups of humanity. Especially as an asexual woman, I’ve had bad encounters with some, and although I recognize not all of them are guilty of anything, the ones that do make things difficult cloud the identity.
That itself would be enough of an issue, but then along comes Jordan Peterson. He is the choice idol of the majority of incels, and he uses this power and esteem imposingly. Without saying it explicitly, he encourages the idea that physical fun time is a human right to receive and a duty for all peoples to give. They cite him frequently and such ideas have shimmied us into a world where asexuality is somehow uncanon in reality, when it shouldn’t be hard simply to have a bit of voluntaryism.
I think theres what the word actually means, and then theres the stereotyped version that maybe has more power, ie angry about being celebate, poor mental health, usually hates women because of it.
Perhaps involuntarily celebate and incel mean slightly different things to each other by now.
Based on that last bit of your post, it sounds like you may actually not be that familiar with the incel community.
Short answer is that it goes much further than it seems at first glance. So,if you’re feeling unhappy about your prospects, I’d recommend looking into other communities for the sake of your mental health.
Honestly, just focusing on a hobby of some kind and making connections with the community surrounding it would be infinitely better for you.
But why are incels also generally hated upon?
Your previous sentence answered your question.
Their belief is all women are trash or men are superior.
There is nothing wrong with being an adult and not being sexually active.
Making your sexual situation become your whole personality and using the obvious regret they feel about it as a springboard to justify hate against others is not.
I am in a similar situation as you, I am 36 and have never been in a relationship, Infon’t blame anyone, I am a bit sad about it when I think of it, but I can’t blame anyone for it, it is just circumstances.
I think that “incels” are defined by their feeling that they deserve a relationship with a woman, that they are being denied what they believe is rightfully theirs and that by just being polite they can convince a woman to fall into their arms.
I don’t concider myself an incel, for me based on circumstances if anything I have choosen to not persue a relationship, there are reasons for this, late maturity, being overweight, balding, concern for if I would find a woman who would be fine with me having zero experience in both day to day things as well as intimite moments.
But these are all problems that I have to work on, and I do my best with the tools I have.
Fwiw, about the zéro expérience thing, I hope you know that plenty of women would enjoy helping their partner explore how to share pleasure and day to day intimacy with them. Being inexperienced and realistic about it also means you won’t have that overconfidence that leads some men to disregard their partner’s personal likes, needs and body quirks, and that can be a very reassuring premise.
Source : this old crone was that woman once.
That is a very good point I had not considered, thank you!
While the incel movement may have seemed to be just some men who found community in others who haven’t been in a relationship, something rather innocuous. It very quickly got hijacked into what it is today. It went from “I haven’t been with a woman yet but I’m still looking and in the mean time i have my friends” to “It’s women’s fault that I haven’t been with one and they use sex for power and are horrible people” and it devolved into worse things from there. The incel community was preyed upon by misogynist far right fascist and nazis. They were assaulted with propaganda in their communities, a place they had finally found that they were comfortable in. And when you are around those you care about, and they start espousing bigoted beliefs, some start to agree with it, and then most of them fall for it. It’s not unreasonable to want community. Everyone wants that. But the incel community quickly became a community of people who hated that they were virgins and were willing to take their anger out on others. Particularly women identifying individuals.
You say they are lacking in a way they can’t get women, I don’t think is wrong. They really haven’t been taught well by our society how to interact with women. They’re trying to get into a relationship using what they’ve been taught, but they’re floundering, reasonably, because society has taught them to view women as sex objects. Incels as a movement are a failure of our society, a failure of us teaching our kids how to act around others, including the gender they’re attracted to.
I’m not nearly read up enough to give you much more information, but if you want, there’s a book called Escape from Incel Island by Margaret Killjoy. It’s really good and helps explain things far more eloquently and fully than me, a random lemmy user can.
Also, never having been in a relationship doesn’t make you an incel, it just makes you someone who hasn’t experienced that yet. And that’s okay, we all grow at different speeds, it’s okay to not having been with someone. We attach way too much to the idea of being with your first person. It’s important to be able to respect and care about yourself somewhat before getting in a relationship, and it’s okay if that takes a while. I didn’t have that experience until my mid 20s, but it didn’t make me any less of a person. Just remember to respect yourself, and to respect the others around you. And also don’t treat women like sex objects, we are just humans, like any other. And there are 100% multiple people out there who will be interested in you, even if it takes a while to find one. I know you’ll find someone, especially considering you’re asking this question. You’re willing to ask about tough topics and that is something a lot of people can’t do. So good on you.
Just remember to respect yourself, and to respect the others around you. And also don’t treat women like sex objects, we are just humans, like any other. And there are 100% multiple people out there who will be interested in you, even if it takes a while to find one.
This is not true for everyone. Meeting new people is difficult, especially when you’re older. Add to that several (mental) health issues that mean actually going on a date would be practically impossible. Even getting past that, I wouldn’t be able to give a woman the life she deserves.
I don’t blame anyone, I wouldn’t date me either. Can I do things to improve myself? Sure, but not enough for it to matter, the real fundamental problems will remain. Why waste effort on things that give no return on investment?
I generally agree with your comment, but this
They really haven’t been taught well by our society how to interact with women. They’re trying to get into a relationship using what they’ve been taught, but they’re floundering, reasonably, because society has taught them to view women as sex objects.
I think is wrong.
The whole problem is that the patriarchy absolutely teaches (especially white) men that women are objects, and that men are entitled to women and sex (but that only virginal women are worthy of marriage).
Some men unlearn this shit early on, some remain “neutral” assholes (those who will end up abusing but aren’t doing it consciously out of ideology, but still from the same sense of entitlement), and some take the entitlement to the extreme and adopt it as their ideology and way of life, but I think it’s really fucking important to highlight that they are in fact not taught anything different by society before that point, they just take their entitlement to another level once they’ve found others to confirm it for them.Either way, the name is a complete misnomer - they aren’t “involuntarily” celibate, they are celibate because they actively refuse to not be walking entitled pieces of shit.
I feel like the term “Incel” has developed somewhat. I guess in the beginning it was used by men struggeling to get into a relationship to refer to themselves. It was used to find others with the same issues, and form a kind of self help group that could provide comfort and maybe even inprovement. If thats what incels were today, they wouldn’t be hated like that. Perhaps they would be belittled or made fun of.
But that’s not what we understand incels to be today. Incels now seem to be extremely bitter, delusional, pathetic individuals. They don’t recognize the issue lies with themselves, instead it’s supposedly the fault of the women, who won’t accept their place in society. In the mind of an incel, they deserve to have sex, and that means that it should be a woman’s duty to please them.
So no, you are probably not an incel, even if perhaps you would have been under the original definition.
Exactly this. I think I remember an interview with the woman (yep) who originally coined the term for herself and her online support group of sorts for people who wanted to better themselves. She has had to watch it morph into what it is now.
Originally, the label wasn’t bad. However, it turns out a lot of pathetic people out there fall into the same description and suddenly the traits they brought along with them shifted the understanding of the words meaning.
Originally it was simply a way for lonely men to get encouragement from their fellow lonely men, hence the “involuntary” part of it all is that they don’t want to be in their situation. However, with the evolution of the term and all the d-bags that jumped on it, it now means something almost completely different—certainly not something involuntary, that’s for sure.
The framing of it as involuntary from the get go was misguided even if the subculture started off apparently innocent. It’s a blame shifting phrase and implies that some outside force is responsible for said celibacy like it’s happening to them or being perpetrated by women.
It’s not surprising at all in light of the above, that they hit critical mass and have become legitimately violent. It was a matter of time. The ideology is inherently toxic.
basically it became it’s own sub-culture instead of just being a situational label.
