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“You say you want a revolution”: Incels, Ideology, and Charles Murray
For those that are unaware, Incel is a portmanteau of “involuntary celibate,” and encompasses men who fit just what that description implies, but also a range of other behaviors and opinions. The term was originally coined by a female Canadian university student as a reference, and the name for an online support group, to people of both genders that struggled to garner romantic relationships. Incels today are almost all men and are quite far afield of the original version of that term. In addition to their virginity, they have a developed system of thought on women, society, and romantic life.
To put it bluntly, the vast majority of Incels consider women non-human. The kindest might deign to mark them as animals, or human-like creatures, hence the common use of the term “foid” (female humanoid). In their minds, women are incapable of love, loyalty, selflessness, real strength, or rational thought; they live to engage in casual relationships with high-status men (“chads”), and when they are inevitably made worthless anatomically and physically by this, spend the rest of their lives with desperate low-status men who provide them with money while they have children born of countless extramarital affairs. But maybe women who chose not to follow this path are slightly more highly regarded? No. Not even a little. Unmarried women are unimaginably selfish evildoers who live to lead on an endless stream of innocent men, and those that chose not to have children deserve instant death because they haven’t fulfilled the one purpose that women have in the world as breeding sows.
Educated women, career women, and the vast majority of women over the age of 18 are given to similar contempt. The first two groups because they had nothing to do with their own success, which was earned solely from their bodies and looks, and the third because all women over that age (often much younger) are regarded as “used up”, having already had hundreds of partners. Simply put, their “femoids” have no intelligence except cunning, no worth except as objects, and no reason to exist outside of the biological imperative. In keeping with this lovely and totally rational system of thought, female survivors of sexual assault are the lowest of the low, and in incels terms not only deserved what happened to them but enjoyed it, labeling it a violation only when it happened at the hands of an unattractive man.
“Soyciety”* perpetuates this state of affairs, and helps to keep Incels, as well as their MGTOW, red pill*, and black pill* brethren, down. Incel history posits that until the early 20th century, men had been in absolute control of every civilization that ever existed, and that the West made a mistake in granting women wider rights and equal status with men. Societies like Saudi Arabia, where women are treated as property and have little to no say in everything from government to their own personal lives, are the ideal from which the West has strayed, and will eventually overtake the West. Men are second class citizens and should unite to rise up and take back their traditional rights in order to put history back to rights, consigning universal suffrage and consent laws, among many other things, to the past. They are enthused to use concentration camps (which would double as breeding centers) and widespread sexual assault as weapons in carrying out that revolution, which would be easily won when all men realized the truth of their ideas, and because women are so inferior in physical strength and intelligence.
Naturally, there is also a healthy amount of racism mixed into Incel beliefs. Most buy into the standard “Jews run the world, Rothschilds are hiding under my bed and stopping me from getting women, using capitalism to enslave me” line. They also have a deep obsession with height, skin color, race characteristics, and canthal tilt; women are hypergamous (always seek to marry those of a higher genetic and social position) and thus Incels are denied their “looksmatch”, as is almost any man under 6” who doesn’t look like he just stepped out of a Harlequin romance novel. It should also be noted that their ratings of women are wild, with most supermodels falling into the 5-6 range on a 10 scale, in large part because they either don’t look like 2-D Japanese anime girls or because they lack the features that make men attractive (height, strong jaw, etc).
Of course, in a society like this, especially when women are beings of such evil, Incels are incapable of having romantic lives. Some try to blend in as socially normal, while others run to the other extreme, becoming NEETs (not in education or training) who take up residence in their parents’ basements and/or live off of government benefits. Few have hobbies beyond viewing adult material, video games, “blackpill” philosophy, and spending hours on Incel and related forums (many of which encourage pedophilia and the grooming of younger female relatives, hence they are often hosted on servers outside the US). They occasionally report on their interactions with females in the real world, largely adding up to detailed first-person narratives about a history of anti-social, abusive, and sometimes all-out criminal behavior. A few, both in the US and abroad, have committed large scale violence, like school shootings, and estimates put their numbers anywhere from the thousands to the hundreds of thousands.
What causes this phenomenon? Incels have received a lot of press, even internationally, in the last few years, and the majority of those detailed reports hit the nail on the head; untreated mental illness, closeted homosexuality, poor family relationships, and/or simple malignancy are the main ones. But I would like to posit another, which is both economic and philosophical. Charles Murray, in Coming Apart, argued that men in “Fishtowns”, areas of low economic development with poor social cohesion or community formation, were vastly more likely to turn to drugs, crime, dependency, and suicide than counterparts from higher economic statuses with more coherent communities. I think Incels fit into this, but not in a neat, tidy way.
Some percentage of them, in addition to the other issues listed above, do choose to become Incels because of the impact of the factors Murray explored, in the same way, that their counterparts might choose drugs. Bad backgrounds will always have an impact. However, some measures of incels come from “Belmont” rather than “Fishtown” and have a variety of options presented to them in life, a pretty great amount of privilege in some cases. And I think their anger, and Incel status, flows from a sense of entitlement. Life has not been perfect since childhood and when they see others of the same background, and even worse ones, flourishing, rather than seeking to find the font of their romantic (and other) issues, they shift blame. Many tales are told in Incel forums of young men dropping out of high school and college because all was not as they expected; women didn’t throw themselves at them, courses were challenging (although all “foids” will obviously pass because of their sex), and social lives took effort. In essence, they absorbed and idealized a warped picture of 1950s America (one which conveniently cut out a lot of the casual racism and some women’s dependency on drugs as the post-war society demanded that they give up jobs which had given their lives purpose), and feel that they deserve a white picket fence, three kids, a dog, and a loving wife. Society, romantic norms, and evil women like me, who chose careers over marriage with kids (and engage in male pursuits like boxing and higher education), are the root of their problems and must be eliminated in order to re-establish paradise.
I’ll end this on a slightly preachy note. If you have a child, grandchild, or friend that you think might be falling into an ideology like this, please reach out to them. Communities like those centered around Incel ideology are borderline cults, and they do as much damage to their members as their members seek to do to women at large. Some men get out, but other men end up ruining their lives (and others’) in pursuit of fulfilling Incel thought, and any time that can be prevented from happening is a wonderful thing.
* “Soyciety” = Present-day society, which has been robbed of ‘manly’ virtue by allowing women equal rights and status to men. The soy moniker is based on the argument that soy introduces high amounts of estrogen to the body, and Soyciety also sometimes encompasses the argument that elites are using chemical means to ‘feminize’ society through chlorinated drinking water, vaccines, etc.
*”Red Pill” = “The incel red pill can be explained by the 80/20 rule, which says that 80% of women desire just 20% of men. This means that the vast majority of men will never be desirable and consequentially will never find sexual fulfillment and happiness.”
*”Black Pill” = “The Red Pill’s nihilistic cousin. The idea behind “redpilling” is that men recognise that the world is unfair and stacked against them in favour of women. From there, they can game the system by becoming an “alpha” male, going to the gym, treating women poorly, and so on. The black pill rejects this, saying that there can be no personal solutions to systemic problems, and that the world was, is and always will be stacked against men who are “genetically inferior”, and that women are inherently wired to prefer men with particular kinds of facial features, bone structure, and body type.”
Published in General
‘Incel’ is hard to pin down. Is it a choice? Sort of. There have always been people who never appeal to anyone of the opposite sex. But it’s not the failure, it’s the ‘lifestyle’ and associated misogyny that does it. It’s creepy and pathetic except when it’s evil. I remember hearing of a Navy guy who referred to women as ‘walking life-support units for [redacts]’ so this kind of thinking isn’t completely new – the ‘battle of the sexes’ was at least somewhat related in that it was them versus us.
The truth is that how people find mates has undergone a lot of change, and not for the better.
And computers are a large part of that change. Whether it is porn, or whiner support groups, there is a lot of poison* for a young man to consume.
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*I don’t think porn is poisonous per se. But it is kind of like carbon monoxide in that it gets in the way of the oxygen people need.
Not really the same cause, but a similar attitude:
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Mental Mic Drop.]
The cure, of course, is to be kidnapped by pirates.
Psst! KW is a girl!
I wonder how pervasive this culture is and how it developed. Given what we know now, the Columbine shooters might have been on the leading edge. Maybe it’s just that school shooters and incels share so many pathologies that it’s hard to tell them apart. The incel shooter I mentioned above gave off frightening signs for years, as schools shooters typically seem to have done. Sort of moot since other than their families and maybe school officials with frequent contact, no one can really do anything about it.
My goodness KW, the places you go!!
There is a very NSFW and non-CoC compliant and frankly rather in your face youtube piece on Incels by (trans) woman Natalie Wynn – which seems quite insightful, and in some surprising ways. Also beautifully shot.
I’ve seen that, it’s actually better than some of the documentaries that have been done on them by big name news services (though to be fair, they can’t get into quite as much explicit detail because of censorship rules).
From what I’ve read, a lot it it developed out of that original blog, which spawned message boards, some of which were much less strictly moderated and more male dominated than the comments and attached message board on the Incel blog. I think it became a big thing on 4chan and Reddit in the subsequent years, which makes sense considering the kind of content that was increasingly common in Incel communities. Nowadays it seems to mostly capture high school aged to mid-30s men, which would broadly make sense as an age group which grew up with Internet culture, and feeds off of attracting MGTOW, red pill, pick up artist, and just lonely (and probably mentally ill in a good number of cases) guys.
I feel bad for the families that end up with a kid that falls into this, although obviously there are cases where the family dynamic created the possibility for it. Part of what might keep parents from acting (other than the kid doing a good job keeping things secret) is that there is so much obscure terminology involved that they might really not understand what they are seeing. Some of these geniuses do end up trying to “convert“ friend and family members, and treat their mothers and sisters like slaves, which ends about as well as you would imagine. You are right, though, I think there’s probably a decent overlap on the Venn diagram between people with a school shooter mentality and Incels, even if only a fraction (for whatever reason) end up perpetrating violence.
I have no sympathy for someone like who you describe, but it’s an extreme portrait and your definition is so dark and distinct it likely describes just a handful of psychopaths – at least if they grew up in Western Culture. I strongly suspected you were female, since most men don’t encounter such people in real life, one has to be an outsider to fashion such a stark stereotype.
I myself am the opposite of an incel. I have women who want to marry me, and I’m not even rich! Not bragging…I have good genes I guess. Like females who are ‘hot’ ( like my 22 y/o daughter) it’s not all it’s cracked up to be 😉🙄. My cousin has it even worse than me. ( I’ve been married twice, 10 years, and currently over 20 years, one daughter from each pairing) he’s had a series of emotionally predatory girlfriends, and still at 66 is a ‘catch’.
But I have some sympathy for them generally, although as individuals, many might well deserve their status – Definitely, if they are on the internet complaining incessantly. They are the mirror image of radical feminists, and possibly an inevitable social development of such.
I object to lumping them in with the MGTOW guys. Unfortunately the laws are so skewed toward women, I’d advise my son ( if I had one) to be extremely careful getting into any marriage-like arrangement with any woman. It’s not their fault, but the legal incentives combined with the zeitgeist – make it a dicey prospect over time. There are few, and diminishing, forces that encourage women to stay in a marriage if something goes even slightly wrong, and lots of incentive and encouragement everywhere to leave. But it’s certainly her right, and I’m not going to argue…
Incels are the easiest people to mock, so I try to pick on someone my own size, myself.
I think the opening post is a bit overwrought (I’m being polite). There is no cult like misogynist movement to belittle and enslave women, at least none of any significance. There are a lot of unhappy people trying to cope with the contemporary dating scene which is a dystopian wasteland. Marriage is down. Fertility is way down. There are real problems there.
I agree with you on the sympathy bit, and I would say that though maybe I pointed out more extreme examples, these guys do talk in a way that lends to stereotyping. Honestly, I brought it up mostly because I thought it (might be) an interesting extension to Murray’s theories about modern America, and because I thought it was something people with younger male relatives and friends should be aware of. A friend from HS fell into the red pill/pick up artist thing, and it’s been sad to see such a warm, funny person made bitter by his experiences (and how he choses to view them to some extent) and become kind of creepy around women.
I would also note that I left out a good deal of more extreme/disturbing stuff, because there was no way to politely rephrase it as I did with other ideas here. In the end, I guess it just boils down to the fact that human nature can be a truly ugly thing, and we all have to do our best to fight our own demons.
Thanks! I should probably put it in my bio, but it’s too fun to see what people who aren’t familiar with me assume. To be fair to them, the Google algorithm isn’t much better; I always get ads for nursing homes/in home health aids, men’s divorce attorneys, and ED meds (so apparently I’m a bad geriatric husband who wants to get back out there with a vengeance).
Do incells have to be virgins?
You document the symptoms very well.
And what you describe, every word of it, is answered by the affects of Western “affluence”. You hit it on the head with “because all was not as they expected”. Especially with the loss of God, and the loss of Biblical acculturation, post-WWII affluence has become the reason for existence, or at least the anaesthesia for a meaningless existence. Everything you’ve described appears to be the reaction to gross boredom and societal disaffection.
Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll will assuage you only so long. And when the societal and economic debt has to be paid (school loans for college which doesn’t provide you with commensurate income, and a fairy-tale existence promised by prosperity and promulgated by the entertainment industry (movies, video games, and magazines, etc.) anything short of perfection loses its appeal.
Gone are the humbler and less prosperous days when a teenager or young man ungrudgingly got up at six and worked at a job which required physical endurance, just to put bread on the table, and otherwise to to provide for a family, and maybe save up a little money year by year for a car or the next piece of furniture or a TV.
But there may be a bigger picture here that I can’t really comprehend the fullness of. Mark Steyn recently wrote about P. D. James’ Children of Men, in which human sterility caused the loss of all desire and the collapse and ineffectual reformulation of society. Taking away the family, actually destroyed society, and human psychological drives. Steyn also likens James’ world to what is happening in Japan now, but it clearly is happening in all first-world societies. It started with the Pill and people choosing not to have children, or limiting their families to only two children. In James’ world even the sex act itself, including orgasm, lost its appeal. And I think this is what’s in the process of happening today.
In Japan, there was an intense loss of religious belief as well as increased expectations of success.
That’s almost always the case, although there is a smattering (often men in sexless marriages) who have before. Hence the acronym: KTHHFV (“Kissless, touchless, hugless, handholdless, friendless, virgin. Each of these is a status marker in the incel community. As with many other statuses, it is simultaneously a mark of sadness and loneliness whilst also indicating purity and authenticity as an incel”).
They claim that their virginity is the font of their mental issues, and that, instead of therapy, medication, or self improvement, they should be issued women by their governments as compensation for and a cure for their distress. Ironically enough, Incels believe that it is healthy and necessary (and natural) that men have a variety of sexual partners, but claim that women who do so are evil and ruined anatomically (their understanding of human anatomy is both hilarious and mind boggling). Basically, the external male reproductive system undergoes no change with multiple partners, while the female becomes permanently damaged (although only having one partner doesn’t do this magically). They also have zero understanding of consent, and many fantasize about sexually assaulting women, or claim that women’s experiences of sexual assault are nowhere near as painful or traumatizing as their virginity.
???
Well I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at people believing in insane things anymore but humanity keeps raising the bar.
I think that’s true in some part, but these guys also have a warped view of the pre-Free Love/’60s world. They don’t recognize any drawbacks to that society, and want women in the exact same place, even worse. It’s also a view based on entitlement, not any principled yearning for a more moral world. I know that the world is different, and worse, in some ways than it was 70 years ago, but it’s also better in quite a few, and as a woman I’m grateful for the more equal status and greater range of opportunities that are available to me now than existed then. I come from a lower middle class family, and it would have been 10x as hard for me to get a top tier college education, or even make it past that without marriage and kids to satisfy society (and probably never advancing educationally), than it is today. It’s far from a perfect world, but I’m grateful everyday to be born into a society that tries to give women the same opportunities as men, so that seeking a fulfilling career instead of or in addition to a husband and kids doesn’t make one a social pariah or is simply impossible.
Yes. But don’t you mean “intense loss of religious belief as well as unfulfilled increased expectations of success”?
Wikipedia (yeah … I know, I know) says that Jolt went bankrupt in 2011, but they are reintroducing it.
Commentary on the crazies … by another crazy.
Don’t do it, KW. Your brain will get stuck like that.
In a world with sex workers it’s clear these boys aren’t just talking about sex, whatever they claim. They’re talking about love and intimacy and a meaningful place in the world (perhaps using sex as a proxy). Still completely dysfunctional and lacking in self awareness, but that’s what it looks like to me.
Absolutely. They do talk about sex workers, but there’s a kind of Incel Great Schism on whether using them to “ascend” is legitimate or not. I think part of the reason they fixate on sex is that they perceive it to be about power; in their minds some kind of powerlessness has afflicted their lives (genetics mostly) and relationships, genuine intimacy, etc obviously require a real give and take, while sex is something that can be forced, a way they can feel in control (if they can get it). Frankly, the amount of disfunction and inability to see women (and even a lot of men) as fellow human beings means they probably need some pretty serious help before they pursue the things they want deep down, if they can ever escape that mindset.
When I saw diet caffeine-free Jolt maybe 20 years ago, I knew it wasn’t long for the market.
Thirty-five years ago I heard a guy say, “Women are just reproductive organs and enough brains to avoid being hit by school buses.” I have no idea if he thought that was witty or if he really believed it.
Charming. I love guys who say (and think) stuff like this, and assume that no woman would every suspect it, if they don’t just say it outright. Of course some women will still fall for them, but there’s an inborn creep/potential abuser radar that generally tells us to steer way clear.
The guy who wrote Naked Lunch said that men and women have different wills and purposes in the world. Maybe. At this point, all I’m sure of is that women are flesh and blood human beings with their share of failings. Same with men, though each sex may have some failings that are uniquely its own
That’s odd. I though women actually liked the bad boys. Something like a misguided they-are-strong- and-will-be-able-to-protect-me thinking.
That sounds pretty fair to me. At the end of the day, it’s still best to take people as individuals.
‘Black pill’, ‘red pill’ and ‘soy’ are common internet phrases that are almost never used in the context the OP describes; look them up on urban dictionary, and most meanings are likewise inconsistent with the definitions presented in this thread.
There probably are tens of thousands of misogynistic losers online who justify their shortcomings by dehumanizing women….and there are millions of ordinary people on the internet who use these same terms in a different context, usually in expression of a right-of-center political or philosophical worldview. The OP seems to have fallen for a Progressive smear campaign against ordinary, even ubiquitous online terminology, which is intended to cast suspicion on non-progressive younger people.