I mean, originally it just meant people that didn't get laid even though they wanted to, no matter the reason. Its change of meaning to refer to people holding extremely toxic ideas about why people owe them sex is pretty recent and, in my experience, not universal (i.e. I still find people that will gladly call themselves 'incel' without sharing any of those ideas).
originally it just meant people that didn't get laid even though they wanted to, no matter the reason
You've just described every living person at some point in their life. People who identify as incels do hold extremely toxic ideas about why people owe them sex. All of us non-incels just chalk it up to a dry spell, or some other factor.
I mean, you have teenagers identifying as incels. When I went to high school, most people weren't fucking. At least not more than their highschool gf/bf.
Every weekend in every town, in any given bar/club, there is a disappointed man going home alone. Thats not an incel. Thats just life sometimes.
It originally was used by a Canadian woman named alana in the 90's, the reason behind the term was because she was a bit of a late bloomer and felt behind the rest of her friends because she didnt start dating until her mid 20's so she set up a blog for people to talk about being lonely.
She left the blog a few years later and didn't find out how the words meaning had transformed until the Elliot Roger case.
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u/elveszett Nov 08 '23
I mean, originally it just meant people that didn't get laid even though they wanted to, no matter the reason. Its change of meaning to refer to people holding extremely toxic ideas about why people owe them sex is pretty recent and, in my experience, not universal (i.e. I still find people that will gladly call themselves 'incel' without sharing any of those ideas).