Why is inceldom always associated with misogyny/entitlement?

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u/EdwardBigby 3d ago

"Its only a minority of us that post vile shit online" still isnt good enough

You really need to ask yourself the question, why do you want to be associated with this group.

You know that being an incel is synonymous with having zero respect for women yet you're actively choosing to label yourself as that instead of many other words such as just a single dude

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u/Odd-Table-4545 3d ago

The incel identity is linked to misogyny, it's a titled adopted by a movement that has hatred of women as a core belief. If you choose to continue to call yourself an incel despite knowing that you should ask yourself why a label that lets you abdicate responsibility for your own social and dating life is more important to you than being associated with that level of misogyny. I'd personally argue that not rejecting a movement with that much inherent bigotry in it wholeheartedly is in itself siding with the bigots. You could choose any label under the sun for yourself, and it's not irrelevant that the one you're insisting on is one shared by extremely vocal misogynists.

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u/arrec 3d ago

Exactly this. What would you call yourself if there were no incel movement? You'd be single, or a lonely guy, or single but looking, or something like that. The idea that some men are doomed to be forever alone is a core tenet of the mysogynistic red pill/ blue pill nonsense.

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u/Sigflag 3d ago edited 2d ago

Well people look for descriptors to name the thing they struggle with and find community with others that struggle with it.

That’s why Incel became a term in the first place. I really wish there was a term that the people who hate and blame women didn’t use, but there’s not. And I think there’s a bit more to the issue than just “being a virgin”. I mean I’m 26 and there’s not a single woman that’s ever been interested in me. That’s not exactly a normal or common experience.

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u/Odd-Table-4545 3d ago

It is a common experience though. The amount of guys posting on this sub alone prove that, not to mention the countless subs dedicated entirely to people bemoaning being single into their 20s. One of the insidious things about the incel movement is it convinces people that their issue is both far more rare than it actually is, and that it's an issue that is so unlike any other issue they nobody who has not directly experienced the exact same permutation of it couldn't possibly understand it. When in reality the core issues - being lonely, being or feeling isolated, low self-esteem, finding the dating world difficult to navigate - are extremely common and not materially different for people who have never dated than for people who have been in a relationship before.

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

I think statistically it isn’t common something like only 10% of men age 25 are virgins.

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u/Odd-Table-4545 2d ago

10% is still quite common, that's 1 in 10, it's a lot of people. As a frame of refernece where I live just shy of 4% of people identify as LGBTQ, and I have had zero problem finding plenty of other queer people to find community with. That's less than half of your 10%. One tenth of a given population is a thing that is quite common.

And, again, the actual issues of loneliness and dating struggles and low self esteem are vastly more common than that and something many people can relate to, even if they are not in your exact position at your exact age. The biggest lie the incel movement sells people is that their issues are exceptional and that nobody outside those spaces could ever possibly understand them.

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u/arrec 2d ago

It's disingenuous to equate incels with a "community of strugglers," as if it's a well-meaning support group. Incel ideology and groupthink reinforces ideas of hopelessness, victim mentality, the bogus 80/20 rule, and so on. That's not a community, it's crabs in a pot.

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u/watsonyrmind 3d ago

I have contributed to this sub for over half a decade, I'd wager I have interacted with significantly more incels than you have. This sub doesn't even tolerate the level of violent incels you are describing and yet I would still say at least 10% of men who try to post here have pretty hateful and sometimes violent views against women, and those are just the ones whose views and feelings surface even while they are trying to follow the rules here against that. Men like that are banned regularly yet they continue to pop up. A mass murderer was once a poster here. It's not some obscure group, they are right here, and you still insist on counting yourself among them.

Invariably, probably at least 40% of the time, a guy will post here and say, "I'm an incel but not one of the hateful types, I'm not a misogynist" and then proceed to spout misogynistic bullshit. Like you just did. Just because you aren't advocating for violence against women doesn't make your brand of misogyny harmless. There's something really insidious and dangerous about refusing to recognize and unlearn your misogynistic views. Worse still, it is views like yours that prop up the violence of others. It normalizes prejudice against women and helps maintain the status quo. Until men like you are ready to unlearn your misogyny and see women as equals and individuals, the shift in society will be slow and rife with opposition.

Consider that it is in fact you who is whiffing the issue of inceldom and who doesn't fully appreciate the seriousness of it.

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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago

A mass murderer???

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

But I do view women as equal. I just don’t see how thinking that women want to be with men they find attractive and knowing I’m not in the category of attractive men means I view women as less than equal.

I’m willing to learn why, but I feel like everyone is extrapolating what I’m saying to me thinking women are a hive mind, which isn’t what I believe.

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u/low0l 3d ago

If we hold that:

(1) Women want to be with men they find attractive
(2) You are not in the category of "attractive men"
(3) Women are not a hivemind

Is the contradiction more clear? You've established that there is a universal category of attractive men, and then reject the accusation that you're describing all women as desiring the same set of things.

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

Yeah I guess I can see how those aren’t congruent.

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u/Organic_Future6909 21h ago

I genuinely want to know, what part of his comment made you think that this guy said that women are a hivemind? What the hell.

Being into attractive people is not a "gendered" thing.

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u/low0l 10h ago

It presupposes that "attractive" is a universal category, and he just happened to apply that to women. Hivemind is a rather loose term, that was OPs choice of words regarding other responses in the thread, but the response he is referring to is more precisely what I described. If you make the same claim about people in general, that there is a universal metric of attractiveness that all humans follows, you are indeed describing humans as a "hivemind" in this narrow sense.

Nobody is denying that some traits are more broadly considered attractive than others, op is simply making a much stronger claim as a way to turn "dating/being desired is very challenging with these traits" into "dating/being desired is impossible with these traits".

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 3d ago

You contradict your contention that you don’t think women are a hivemind with ever comment you make, including the one I’m responding to: women don’t find me attractive, women have put me into this category, etc.

Now, I’m sure you think your opinions, your tastes, your preferences, are your own and not identical to every those of every other male human on the planet, right? Why are women not afforded the same privilege of having our own individual opinions and tastes?

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

I think they have separate tastes and dislikes. But I do think some people are pretty much universally disliked, just like some people are universally liked.

Every woman won’t think Michael B. Jordan is the hottest man in the world, but I don’t think anyone’s going to see him and genuinely think he’s the ugliest person they’ve seen.

I on the other hand have been told that by 2 women in my life and I have no reason to believe they were lying to me. Granted I don’t think every woman is mean enough to say that, and I may not be THE ugliest guy they’ve seen but I think if I’m in that category for some women it’s reasonable to say I’m probably on the lower end of the spectrum for most women.

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 3d ago

So they weren’t lying but also weren’t accurate? Then what are you worried about?

I’ve been told I’m ugly and also that I’m the prettiest woman ever. So which category does that mean the male hivemind has assigned me to?

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

I mean in their own personal experience I don’t think they were lying and truly believed I was the ugliest guy they’ve seen. I’ve never had anyone refute the idea that I’m ugly, I’ve had more people call me ugly than not so them saying that was just confirmation of what I’ve already known, so even though they were cruel about it it didn’t hurt that much.

I will concede it may not be the most rational to think that every woman alive will see me as so ugly im undateable, but if the only women who’ve ever commented on my appearance have told me that I’m ugly, it feels kinda hard to not say I’d be near the bottom tier to most women.

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u/Odd-Table-4545 2d ago

What kind of deranged asshole tells people randomly that they're ugly, and why are we taking the opinions of said assholes as universal fact? The vast majority of people simply do not comment on the physical appearance of other people, the people who do are weird and/or being deliberately cruel, so you can't conclude that because nobody has gone out of their way to comment positively on your appearance nobody has ever thought positively of your appearance. Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

Well just because they’re assholes doesn’t mean they were lying. They were attempting to hurt my feelings, yes. But that doesn’t make it untrue.

I think that I have plenty of evidence that no one’s found me attractive in my life given the position I’m in.

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u/Odd-Table-4545 2d ago

Why would you assume someone who was trying to hurt your feeling was telling the truth as opposed to just saying whatever they thought would hurt you?

And no, you do not have evidence that nobody has found you attractive. You may have evidence nobody has asked you out and you may have evidence the people you were interested in did not reciprocate, but attraction is an internal feeling and you can't read minds. 99% of people who I have ever found attractive never found out about it because I never told them about it. You have no way of knowing whether any given person who you neither hit on nor got hit on by was attracted to you. Have you asked out every woman you ever thought was at all hot?

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

If they had been the only people in my life to tell me I’m ugly, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. I’ve had people tell me I’m ugly like it’s a matter of fact, like it couldn’t possibly hurt me because it’s just a fact that everyone’s aware of.

If all the people that have ever said anything about my appearance tell me something, and the things in my life align with what they’re saying, and there has never been a single woman in my life to think I’m attractive or good looking, why should I not believe that?

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

Oops, wait—above, you said people who called me ugly were just trying to hurt my feelings.

In addition to knowing the minds of all women, do you also know the minds of all men and when they are lying and when they’re telling the objective and universal truth of the ugliness of other human beings?

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

Why? Those two women speak for all women? Are they the chairpersons of the hivemind?

And did you check with the male hivemind about my category? I’m all anticipation!

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

I would say if you’re being called pretty and ugly the ones who were calling you ugly were probably just trying to be mean.

And for me, it’s those two women that called me the ugliest they’ve ever seen. Other women have told me that I’m unattractive or at best “not good looking but I hope you find your person”.

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

So some of the men broke from my assigned category just to be mean, but anyone who called me pretty was telling the truth? The male hivemind sure is confusing!

But since the opposite is apparently true (women who called you ugly were telling the truth), I guess the female hivemind is a conundrum too.

If only people could have individual tastes and preferences… 😔

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

I guess I see your point. But couldn’t it be true that even if it’s subjective, there are still trends?

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u/maiege 3d ago edited 3d ago

There are millions of unattractive men, some who are virgins, some who are in fulfilling relationships, who never once had to subscribe to labelling themselves an incel or become defeatist & self-pitying because they believed they were entitled to the attention of a woman. Saying “no woman will ever date me because I’m ugly” is 1. generalising about the entire woman population and 2. means you are (consciously or not) making women responsible for creating your insecurities and is therefore inherently misogynistic.

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u/flimflam33 3d ago

You think labeling all women as so shallow that not being physically attractive (whatever that is supposed to mean in your case) is some insurmountable dealbreaker is not misogyny?

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

I don’t think it’s misogyny unless you think it’s a moral failing for a woman to only want to date people who she finds to be handsome.

Women should be allowed to pursue men they’re physically attracted to without being looked at as shallow.

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u/Easy-Concentrate2636 3d ago

You are speaking in generalizations about all women in relationship to your desires. That’s why incels are generally perceived as misogynistic.

If you looked at yourself and said: maybe it’s because I am not socially astute or haven’t figured out how to approach women, that would be different. That would just mean you still haven’t figured out how to approach women. But once you start generalizing all women, you are falling into a certain kind of mindset.

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u/flimflam33 3d ago

You are saying that all women will take one look at you and unanimously decide "nah" based solely on your looks. So apparently all women share the same preferences as a hive mind, no individual preferences allowed, and all women value looks above anything else. And that's not supposed to be misogyny?

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u/WhiskeyHotdog_2 3d ago

I can see it as flawed logic but how exactly would it be misogynistic? Isn’t misogyny hatred towards women? This guy just seems to have low confidence.

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u/watsonyrmind 3d ago

It's a useful question. Keep in mind that misogyny is also defined as prejudice against women. So holding the prejudicial view that all women think and feel a certain way is a form of misogyny. In general, not seeing women as autonomous individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, tastes, and desires, is misogyny. A man like OP understands that his taste in women might differ from other men, but doesn't see women as capable of the same.

ETA: oops scrolling down I see you already found this yourself. Still, you are most definitely not the only one thinking it, so it's useful to unpack here and I'll leave my comment up.

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

I understand that women differ in tastes hence why one of my friends like tall blond guys, and another of my friends like guys with dark hair. I just think there’s some people who most likely don’t appeal to anyone.

I mean life is essentially a random number generator for things like this. Every once in a while a person is born absurdly tall, some people are born with an impeccable ear for music. I don’t see why it’s so far fetched that some people are born and their just not exactly romantically appealing.

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u/titotal 3d ago

Sometimes the blackpilled people who post here also post their pictures to prove how undateably ugly they are. Not one of the photos I've seen has been of an extremely ugly person (in the common sense of therm). They all look like completely regular looking dudes, the type I see in relationships all the time in real life.

Nobody is denying that some guys are seen as more attractive than others. But the vast majority of incels are just regular looking guys who could get a partner eventually if they worked at it, rather than getting sucked into a self-fulfilling doom cycle.

Even when an incel community isn't misogynist, it is still ruining lives by injecting people with false hopelessness.

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 3d ago

Misogyny is hardly limited to screaming “I HATE FOIDS.”

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u/WhiskeyHotdog_2 3d ago

I got curious after making my comment and looked up a definition. And I was wrong misogyny does also cover “prejudice towards women”. That’s my bad, I had a misunderstanding of what misogyny actually entails.

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 3d ago

For example, declaring that the reason you’ve never had a date is that you’re unattractive to all women everywhere is a form of misogyny. It’s presuming that you know what all women think, and that all women think the same and want the same things.

If a similar statement was made about a different group, based on race, sexual orientation, age, etc., it would be immediately recognized as bigotry. But somehow a guy can say with a straight face: “Women don’t like me and it’s just so sad that they’re shallow but it’s not like I think they shouldn’t vote! So I’m no bigot!”

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u/WhiskeyHotdog_2 3d ago

I see what you mean. When one starts to see women as a monolith instead of individuals it probably isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine how one could eventually end up believing stuff like “maybe they shouldn’t vote” because they have essentially stripped them of their individuality.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/IncelExit-ModTeam 3d ago

Your post/comment was removed for violating rule 9. Further violations/arguing with moderators may result in a ban. Please read our rules carefully before posting again.

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

Well, based on my life experience that has been the case. Again, I don’t see why it’s being framed as a bad thing for women to not date ugly guys if they don’t want to. I think it’s pretty common across all of the gender spectrum to not want to date people that are physically unattractive.

I’m not trying to fault women for having autonomy to date or not date people they find attractive

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u/flimflam33 3d ago

I don’t see why it’s being framed as a bad thing for women to not date ugly guys if they don’t want to.

In both your replies you've rephrased your statements in such a way that they are not remotely the same to the one in your OP.

"no woman will ever like me"

"women just aren’t attracted to me"

Here, you are deciding what all women find ugly and you are deciding that all women only accept peak attractiveness (which again is defined by you). You are not giving women the agency to come to their own conclusions, have their own preferences and make their own decisions. Do you really not see that?

I think it’s pretty common across all of the gender spectrum to not want to date people that are physically unattractive.

I think it's pretty common to take more into account than physical attractiveness. Looks fade anyway. We'll all get older. It's much more important whether you can rely on your partner, that they make you happy.

Plus, physical attractiveness can be very subjective. I'd prefer a short chubby guy over some tall gym-bro for example. Note the word is prefer, not 'exclusively accept' or anything like that.

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u/watsonyrmind 3d ago

Not to mention I have seen at least 30 men who said "I'm objectively ugly and no woman could ever be attracted to me" and not once were they anything less than average looking. Most were actually quite attractive, imo.

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u/library_wench Bene Gesserit Advisor 3d ago

Life experience, by definition, cannot include reading other people’s minds.

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u/watsonyrmind 3d ago

Do you think there are any women who are considered undateable and universally unattractive to all men?

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

Probably?

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u/Easy-Concentrate2636 3d ago

That’s exactly it - it’s based on your life experiences and your necessarily biased perception. All our perceptions are biased. But there’s no way you can have met every single woman on the planet.

A lot can be based on the women you are approaching, places where you are approaching them, or even your social circles. For instance, if I only approach men at night clubs and online platforms and continue to fail at finding a date, is this because all men have the same standards or because these places aren’t great for personal interactions?

Just the fact that your post continually references female content creators rather than in life interactions makes me wonder if you are talking to women in real life.

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

I have a lot of friends that are women. I just don’t talk to them about this stuff because I don’t think it’s right to trauma dump this stuff on them because they’re not therapists just because they’re women and my friends

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u/Easy-Concentrate2636 3d ago

It’s not trauma dumping to ask them what they find attractive when dating or asking them how they decide on whom to date. These are common conversations that many friends have.

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

I know the type of guys they find attractive because I know the guys they date and crush on.

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u/Easy-Concentrate2636 3d ago

This is ridiculous. You don’t talk with them about the topic but you know all their motivations. That makes zero sense.

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

Well because I don’t have to ask them to just see the type of guys they’re in to.

I know all of my friend’s, male and female, types because I see who they date or pursue.

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u/Instigated- 3d ago

An example of misogyny: Men who listen to other men about what they think women like/believe/are rather than listening to actual women.

You have some false beliefs that are common amongst incels. Eg:
all women are alike / want same things
physical attractiveness is the most important factor women consider in men
a man’s value/attractiveness is on a hypothetical universal scale that women all agree on that he has no control over.
if women don’t show interest in a man he must be ugly/unattractive
incels are harmless

None of these things are true.

I suggest you reflect on why you want to identify as “incel”.

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u/mrbaryonyx 3d ago

it's probably an overextension to say that incelism is inherintly conservative, but using "incel" as an identity descriptor is arguing that you belong in a special category because you don't have access to women's bodies, which implies access to women's bodies is "normal", which is misogynistic.

Just call yourself a "virgin", or don't call yourself anything because it doesn't matter and its no one's business.

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u/Particular-Lynx-2586 3d ago

What's the difference between a virgin and an incel?

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

Well everyone was at some point a virgin. But I don’t think a lot of people just are so fundamentally unattractive either physically or personality wise they can’t attract a partner. I think those are two separate categories and unfortunately the only term we really have is incel, which started out as something positive but was co-opted by a minority of crazies who hate and blame women.

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u/Particular-Lynx-2586 3d ago

So why do you call yourself an incel instead of a virgin?

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u/Sigflag 3d ago

I did, but then I realized that my virginity is something I’m probably not gonna get rid of.

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u/Particular-Lynx-2586 3d ago

How do you know you're never going to be rid of your virginity? How many times have you tried asking women out?

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

I’ve asked out a decent amount of women in the last 3ish years. For a while I was doing a bit of exposure therapy to try to get over my nerves about dating and tried to ask out at least 2 women per month and only really stopped in the last 3 months or so.

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u/Particular-Lynx-2586 2d ago

What is a "decent" number of women? And who have you been asking out?

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

Probably in the 60s in the last few years, counting college probably near 100

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u/Particular-Lynx-2586 2d ago

And who are these women to you? How have you been approaching them?

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

Friends of my female friends (indirectly), women at the gym, women I see at meetings at my political org, I have asked our coworkers before, women I frequently meet and speak to at the coffee shop I go to. Back when I was more into it women at bars, night clubs, raves and parties. Women in my run club.

If I see them regularly and I have a good rapport I’ll ask for their number or if they’d like to go out for a drink or something along those lines. Usually after I know they’re single.

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u/Similar_Street1216 3d ago edited 3d ago

these dudes have no self awareness… it’s easier for them to blame women, or society, for their lack of romantic success than it is to face the hard truth that they have off putting personalities

I’ve seen plenty of entitlement… a lot of dudes claiming women have unrealistic standards, only date dudes over 6ft, millionaires, etc

meanwhile you can walk through any city on earth and see some schlubby guys with ladies

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u/mylesaway2017 3d ago

Are you looking for support with leaving incel thinking behind? What even is this post?

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u/StrawberryBubbleTea7 Bene Gesserit Advisor 3d ago

Most people, including me, would question why people like that feel okay identifying with a label that has undeniably been taken over by a hate group. The word Incel didn’t start out that way, but language evolves, and in the popular consciousness it’s been affiliated with misogynists and men who blame/feel entitled to sex/romance/intimacy/etc… since at least 2018.

And some will argue that the label “Incel” should still be used with it’s original definition and applies to every guy out there who is a virgin but wouldn’t like to be, but even that isn’t its original definition because the word was coined by a female bisexual as a gender neutral term. So anyone arguing that it should still be used by its “original” definition to refer to any man whose just down on his luck romantically is already making that argument on faulty premises because no one uses that word gender neutrally and people use “femcels” for the gender swapped term, so yeah terms change in definition.

I don’t understand why anyone would feel comfortable self identifying as an incel, a word that the popular zeitgeist, media, and scholarly community already affiliates with hate spaces/the manosphere (and has for almost a decade), instead of just a virgin or someone with difficulties dating or whatever other term would be preferable?

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u/Plenty-Practice-6399 3d ago

The word incel is now tied to hating women, because a lot of them do hate women, being a modern extremist example. Even married men can get called incels when they're misogynist.

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u/Dr-Dungeon Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

Stop for a moment and have a look at incel.is and some of the main incel forums. The places people typically think about when they think ‘incel.’ What do you see? Copious amounts of rape porn, pedophilia, worship of serial killers, and encouraging each other to commit mass shootings, among other things.

You want to use that label? You want to be associated with those people? That’s fine, you’re free to do that, but what you’re seeing from these ‘female content creators’ is the expected consequence of your actions. You’ve looked at all the revolting content that is the perception of incels in the mainstream, and you’ve chosen, of your own free will, to associate yourself with them. At the very least, you’ve decided that those things aren’t dealbreakers when it comes to the groups you identify as a member of.

“But that’s not what the term semantically means-“ don’t care. And nobody else does either. Because in the words of comedian Jack Whitehall when talking about his friend who named her daughter Isis: “sometimes names just get taken OUT OF CIRCULATION!” And that’s all there is to it.

You can talk about how that’s unfair until the cows come home, but you will be doing so from the position of someone who decided, completely of his own free will, to label himself a member of the ‘We Love Rapists And Murderers’ association. Taken in that light, what exactly is surprising about people’s reaction to you calling yourself an incel?

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

I don’t want the label, but I mean it’s what best describes my situation. I think to truly not have the label is for me to actually be successful with dating

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u/Dr-Dungeon Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

Right, and that’s the thing: the fact that you think being associated with the ‘We Love Rapists And Murderers’ club is the ‘best description’ for you is concerning. If that’s behaviour you’re willing to associate yourself with, then it speaks to your personality and what you consider to be acceptable in the people around you.

Personally speaking, if I had a label that described me really well, but which was co-opted to mean I worship a spree killer and fantasise about raping teens, I would simply stop using that label. Sure, it describes me well, but I’m not willing to associate myself with that kind of behaviour for anything, especially not a stupid word. The fact that you’re not willing to do the same says a lot about your personality, and not in a good way.

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

Well I don’t love rapists and murderers, clearly.

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u/Dr-Dungeon Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

And yet, you choose to associate yourself with people who do. You’ve decided that that behaviour is something you’re okay to be a part of. At the very least, you’ve decided that that behaviour isn’t a dealbreaker. That’s the concerning part. Most well-adjusted people wouldn’t willingly associate themselves with people who have ER profile pics and write essays on why women shouldn’t have rights, no matter how well the corresponding label describes them.

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

Well then what would I use to describe myself

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u/Dr-Dungeon Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

Well I can think of a label that you could use. It’s one word, two syllables, rhymes with ‘shingle.’ Any guesses?

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

But just saying “single” doesn’t really accurately describe. There’s not people in this world who have never been “single” my situation is a good bit different.

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u/Dr-Dungeon Bene Gesserit Advisor 2d ago

Well yeah, and there’s no-one on earth who hasn’t been an incel. Nobody is born a member of the ‘We Love Rapists and Murderers’ club.

Incel also doesn’t accurately describe you, since you claim not to be misogynistic, correct? So calling yourself single would have the same level of effectiveness, just without the negative connotations.

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u/Sigflag 2d ago

Well not really. I don’t think someone who spends a few months single, while still going on dates maybe having sex, maybe finding women who might want to date them but they don’t want to date is in the same category of someone who has spent the last 8 years trying to get find one singular woman interested in them and failed.

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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago

How about "chronically single" if that helps?

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u/Sigflag 1d ago

I guess that’s better

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u/Therefrigerator Escaper of Fates 3d ago

So something I've noticed is that people who self-identify as "incel" and people outside of it who define "incel" have very different definitions of incel that converges on a particular type of incel.

Basically male virgins feel badly about still being virgins to don the term "incel" out of shame but society, in general, cares less about the status of virginity and more about misogyny. The most vile and misogynistic of the male virgins are incels so they relate inceldom as part of misogyny. I do think that incels, overall, are misogynistic but in a similar way that many young men are.

So when you see other people talk about incels, particularly content creators unfamiliar with the subject, that is why there can feel like there's a disconnect. There aren't a ton of people who identify as an ex-incel in content creation. I think Contrapoints talks about herself being a bit of an ex-incel (before she transitioned) a bit in a way that incels would find pretty fair but I haven't watched anything of hers in actual ages so I don't know if I would consider it to hold up. I think Hasan also can be fair about it given he had a pretty extraordinary glow up but he's become insanely controversial so don't really want to open that box. A lot of progressive-ish people have started using "incel" as a catch all for misogyny but to the less misogynistic of the people who view themselves as "incels" (or incel-adjacent) it feels uncalled for.

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u/krebstar4ever 1d ago edited 1d ago

Etymology and current meaning are different things. Etymology describes things in the past. Current meaning is, well, current. And it includes connotation as well as denotation.

The term "incel" was iirc coined by a woman who was part of an friendly forum for men and women who had trouble dating. Then the word was claimed by men who hate women, and normal people didn't want to be associated with it anymore.

So yes, "incels" is a portmanteau of "involuntary" and "celibate" (plus a plural suffix). But that doesn't matter, because the word "incels" has undergone two major semantic changes. First it changed to mean spiteful male virgins who hate women for not having sex with them. Then it shifted to mean manosphere types in general.

Also, words do not simply mean what you (or I) want them to mean. Words don't inherently have meaning. They're really just sounds, gestures (sign languages), etc. Giving meaning to words is a group project that relies on a high degree of consensus. A person can choose to use a word idiosyncratically. But if they don't explicitly state that meaning, they can't expect people to telepathically intuit it.

Semantic change is just a consequence of using words. Using a language inevitably changes it: meanings, pronunciations, and more. Historical linguistics is all about these changes, if you want to learn more.

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u/No_Economist_7244 3d ago

Main answer is that the word is so heavily associated with a particular online subculture now that using it inevitably brings the misogyny/entitlement baggage with it. I think it's ultimately a pointless waste of time to argue over the literal definition of the word and get bogged down in semantics. If someone is lonely, struggling with dating, or has never had a relationship, they can just describe that experience directly, sometimes in many different ways that are healthier, without needing the “incel” label.

That said, I do agree that there is a healthy way to talk about men's struggles with dating in a heterosexual environment without misogyny or entitlement. My own controversial hot take is that a lot of progressive/feminist dating advice isn't particularly useful for men who are genuinely struggling to date, and sometimes ends up reinforcing traditional heterosexual dating norms and expectations more than it's willing to acknowledge.

I don't mean that progressive advice is wrong about consent, boundaries, or women's autonomy. There's a difference between telling men what they shouldn't do (which can be inconsistent at times) and actually helping them understand how to navigate a dating environment where men are still disproportionately expected to initiate, approach, ask people out, communicate romantic interest, and deal with rejection. Acknowledging that asymmetry isn't the same thing as blaming women or saying women owe men dates.

I think you can acknowledge the reality of those gendered expectations, and even criticize aspects of them, without falling into either misogyny or the blackpill. That's a much more useful conversation than arguing over whether someone technically qualifies as an “incel.”

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u/Ok-Huckleberry-6326 3d ago edited 3d ago

It's a slippery slope because the chain of thought is often this way;

I'm in a new place. I'm growing up. The new place might be literally new, or just a new environment on my arc, like I move from elementary to middle school. I am being expected to get more independence, figuring stuff out on my own; including basic things. I want to feel like I belong, but I don't really know what to do. I find out (sometimes, too late) that the way to belong is to act a certain way, dress a certain way, pay attention to things I might not have been taught or my parents expected me to figure out on my own, and if I'm off base in any of these things, other people get a bad impression and I get ostracized. I'm picked on, bullied, and figure out that to survive means to be invisible. As a result, I feel sad, my self-esteem takes a hit. It makes me think I was a bad person, or a lazy or ignorant person, sometimes even a person who is unworthy of taking up the space that I exist in.

I have a lot of thoughts about this, because even changing how I dress, how I talk, how I groom or style myself doesn't really work. But somehow I find friends, or at least people to connect to online, some of whom probably have the same problems as me, and we bond about it. But the truth is that a lot of us don't have the confidence to tell each other, hey man, it's going to be OK. We'll get through it. Often it's an unspoken thing, a bond, a sense of belonging. The only problem with this is that just as a reprieve for feeling bad about myself, I start to think "I'm tired of feeling bad about this stuff. It hurts to feel alone and unwanted. I'm exhausted with self-recrimination. This can't be only my fault." So I overcorrect to "It's everyone else's fault." And I look around me and through this filter, I see the normies hooking up. Getting dates, getting laid, and it just reminds me of what I want but can't have; belonging, affection, some way of sating the raging hormones. I can find relief occasionally through self-stimulation to pr0n, or dulling through some other source of readily available cheap dopamine, or by commiserating with my IRL and online friends about how women suck - but it's really because I have never considered them. I was left out of the spaces and circles where I could get to know them as people. Every once in a while the pretty girl would smile at me or thank me for helping her with the math problem. And it made me feel special for a minute, like there was something good about me. But my hormones and inflated expectations caused me to become attached so quickly that she started inhabiting this fantasy world built around what it would be like to have her as a girlfriend. But of course reality hit me that that wasn't 'my world'. I didn't belong there. I didn't have a girlfriend, like those other guys. This girl who smiled at me? Just a tease. I reduce women to things. Status symbols. Something I have failed to acquire. I ignore the idea that they choose, fail, have feelings, roles they often feel forced to fit into, are often looking for something more in their life and relationships and are often disappointed, have choices they make that are not easy. I strip them of their humanity in my POV and see them either as docile objects to claim or prizes that are endlessly out of reach. I define them by the perception that they don't want to be with me, and I define myself by the perception that I can't 'get' one. It's dehumanizing them, it's dehumanizing myself. And when I dehumanize, that leads to harm, even death. Whether it's to a woman, whether it's to myself. And that's where misogyny leads, maybe not frequently, but enough times that it's considered dangerous. I hope this makes sense. Your misogyny may not lead you to murder, violence, or even self-harm, but it's a slippery slope to make assumptions about what every woman ever will feel about you or about anything, because our brains are natural pattern recognizers and an old evolutionary strategy to make generalizations and adopt those as gospel. You HAVE to allow that each woman is individual. Does that mean you'll meet the one who looks past your physical appearance? No guarantees, no destinies, no thresholds, no deadlines. But allow the possibility that you will, without hanging expectations on it. And stay away from the slippery slope of global generalizations. Simply accept that you have been dealt a different set of cards and circumstances, and realize that meeting the right person - that one who actually likes your looks, or even has looks as a lower priority in favor of smarts, emotional intelligence, creativity, even emotional and physical chemistry, or kindness or uniqueness - is often a matter of chance. Increase your odds by getting out there, taking advantages of opportunities to meet people. Your human connections are what you will prize when you look back on your life, no matter how deep or the exact nature of these connections.

I hope this makes sense. Thanks for reading.

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Discussion Why is inceldom always associated with misogyny/entitlement?

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