Vox article on incels

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: To the stove; give me the heat and then I’ll add the wood.

Most of these InCel type guys seem to have the world backwards; people like to hang out with who they feel good around and people feel good around people they don’t want anything from them and people who truly enjoy them for who they are.

It would be highly unlikely that one of these InCel dudes has a lot of friends because guys like that aren't capable of being real friends with someone; everything to them is about who is a loser and who isn’t, who is richer etc.

So if you’re reading this Incel guys you don’t need to work on your game, you don’t need anything except a giving spirit, a genuine interest in others and pure intentions- once you’ve mastered these skills you will be having all of the sex you could ever want. Of course when you do wind up with someone who truly cares about you and you will look at her with disdain and think that she must be a loser for liking you because you have a core built around self-hatred.

45 M

*ding!* *ding!* *ding!*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Pardon my lack of sympathy for someone's rejection or awkwardness. What an utterly benign problem these incels have.

In the US, men are killed by men at rate about four times higher than the rate of women killed by men. In fact, only one woman per 100,000 can expect to be murdered in the US. For white women, the homicide rate is much lower, as low as 1 homicide per 600,000 women.

But how many men are killed by women?

Men are clearly a greater risk to both men and women. I don't think it matters that men don't generally suffer violence at the hands of women. The point is that men are *more* at risk from other men than women are from men AND men are afraid women will laugh at them. And even though men are a lot more likely than women to suffer violence at the hands of other men, men aren't generally fearful of those other men. So, it feels like: a) men are in more danger than women; and/or b) women exaggerate their actual risk.

Women tend to be targeted because they are women. Men are seldom attacked because of their gender.

This.

I went into a running store not long ago, to talk about running watches and belts and things. The (male) employee was showing me all the great things I could wear that allowed me to run without my cellphone, because it was so "freeing."

The fact that this is something that he can entertain as a man while running alone, is fascinating. I wonder what that's like to run alone and completely let down your guard, carry no phone, and just enjoy your natural endorphins - it must be nice.

I have been followed while running. I also had to call police for a woman who was randomly sexually assaulted. Simply for being a woman out and about.

Are men attacked sometimes? Sure - but it's likely a mugging - your wallet, your phone, maybe your shoes. They're very very rarely, randomly attacked just for being a man who's outside.

My husband and I talk about this all the time. He is really big guy - I am five feet tall. We live in a neighborhood with lots of back alleys. He loves walking around in those back alleys at night. Thinks they're interesting and peaceful. Even this many years into being together, he seems surprised that I would never ever ever in a million years walk down those alleys by myself at night - and don't even always love it during the day. This comes up in our approach to home safety as well. I am vigilant about making sure the doors and windows are all locked at night. He is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re: "refusing to date women who don't meet their own standards of attractiveness."

My son is 15 and I was just thinking about whether/how to talk to him about "leagues." I know I should tell him generally that he should be looking for someone who enjoys his attention. But, should I suggest to him that physical attractiveness generally sets the boundaries of who is going to be interested and who is not?

Ideally, looks are just one factor among many. In practice (and with some exceptions), I think physical appearance is the primary filter with other qualities nudging that up or down a few notches.

That’s not true.

Go for kindness and intelligence and strong work ethic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Male humans are the only mammals that get the opportunity to have sex without winning a physical battle over other males. They have it pretty lucky. Men feel entitled to sex and think that they shouldn't have to do anything for it. These incels are just not accepting that no one deserves access to women's bodies.

Be decent to women and maybe they will want to have sex with you one day.

+1 I am of the opinion that every pot has a lid in that even if you are not attractive, you can always find someone if you are a good person and good to the other person.

My brother, for example, is not much physically. He's barely 5'4", very slim build, kind of a geek/nerd. But, he is generally a good person and has a decent job (not six figures) and lives in a high col area, and he managed to find someone to marry (albeit in his late 30s and never had a GF before this). She's not all that, either, but I assume it works for them because they have been together now for 15 years. Neither were looking for just looks.

I actually don't think it takes all that much work for men to find a decent woman, but I think if a man thinks he should be entitled for the woman he is interested to return the interest just because, then he will be disappointed, and angry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: "refusing to date women who don't meet their own standards of attractiveness."

My son is 15 and I was just thinking about whether/how to talk to him about "leagues." I know I should tell him generally that he should be looking for someone who enjoys his attention. But, should I suggest to him that physical attractiveness generally sets the boundaries of who is going to be interested and who is not?

Ideally, looks are just one factor among many. In practice (and with some exceptions), I think physical appearance is the primary filter with other qualities nudging that up or down a few notches.

I don’t think you talk to him about “leagues”. Because a woman in his league can still reject him. I think you talk about taking risks knowing that he could be rejected. But it’s better to try and fail than never trying. Teach him how to deal with rejection. The sting, the emotions, the hit to self-esteem but that he will survive. And that sometimes you get rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with you. The other person has their own preferences and baggage too.

And, I'd add, how to look for signs that someone might be interested, or might not be interested, and take that into account. How to read a girl he's attracted to, just like he reads other people's reactions, to gauge whether or not attention is welcome. Women are just people, and they are not all interested in or attracted to the same things. Treat them like individuals, pay attention to what they say and their body language and their facial expressions, and figure out whether they might be receptive. Or not. And if someone isn't interested, how to accept that and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Zack Beauchamp, writing for Vox, has a longish, interesting read on the "incel" community and how it has evolved over the years. It was actually started by a gay Canadian woman as a sort of support group and has morphed into an incredibly toxic, woman-hating presence on the Internet and, too often, in the real world.
<https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit>

Most of the incels now are male and between the ages of 16-30. I'm well beyond the target range but back when I was in the target range (80s/early 90s) identified with a lot of the commonalities they mention. I'm almost certainly better off that the Internet wasn't a huge presence back then. I was awkward and shy, too skinny but not ugly. Girls weren't approaching me, and I mostly wasn't approaching them. My first couple of tentative efforts to ask a girl out didn't go very well so I stopped trying. In retrospect, I know the problem was mostly on my end. And, I was fairly well aware of my shortcomings, but I frequently vented about what I regarded as the hypocrisy or disingenuous statements by "women" about what they wanted (this mostly came from unreliable sources like magazine articles, etc.) where money, aggression, and muscled-good looks weren't cited so much as "wanting a guy with a sense of humor." I'm funny! I make girls and guys laugh. Girls aren't beating down my door, so they must be lying! Some truth, but mostly bullshit that was really me expressing that I was unhappy. I don't think my experience was terribly unusual -- regardless of gender. A ton of us have a difficult time with the opposite sex and feel awkward as we make our way through adolescence. From my perspective at the time, it looked like girls had it way easier. But, part of the maturing process is recognizing other peoples' challenges, and girls obviously had plenty.

Anyway, for a lot of guys who feel similar these days, the Internet -- and especially these incel and Men's Rights type sites -- can add kerosene to the fire.

"The degeneration of LoveShy reflects the rage that many men express offline. Angry, entitled misogyny is a fact of the world, and it was inevitable that this reality would shape virtual spaces as much as real ones. A forum for young, dateless men was always a prime candidate for where misogynist ideas would come to dominate. All it took was the opening of a venue uninterested in heavily policing its users for this real-world anger to become a defining feature of the virtual incel world — and that’s what LoveShy provided.
. . .
The “manosphere,” a loose group of websites united by their belief in various male-dominant ideologies, was even more important in reshaping inceldom. It includes “men’s rights” activists and pickup artists, or PUAs, men who teach other men that they can sleep with women by insulting them and manipulating their psychology.

These overlaps produced a fairly large and networked group of sexually frustrated men, united in blaming their situation on women. These men appropriated the term “incel” for themselves and their idea, outcompeting the IncelSupport community for ownership of the term.

Then in 2014, a self-identified incel went on a killing spree in Isla Vista, California."

Now these sites are full of guys celebrating Elliot Rodger in various ways. It's tough to distinguish the guys who are just trying to be transgressive and shocking - just doing it for the lulz - from the guys who actually mean it.

I guess I'll have to have a talk with my son and my daughter about this sort of thing. Hopefully "don't be an asshole and don't put up with assholes" will cover most of it.

Agree with all of this. Boys that age are ripe for exploitation. It’s a toxic brew of hormones and immaturity. Some never grow out of it. But most do.


The REALLY scary part about all this is that right wingers and their donors are actively targeting this group of young men for political purposes.
Steve Bannon pitched the Mercers on using Breitbart as a way to radicalize boys like this. And the Mercers gave him that money.
Prager “U” targets that crowd and tells them men are discriminated against and women are ascendent.
So does the Daily Wire (Montreal shooter loved Ben Shapiro). Both of those sites were funded by the Wilkses.
Daily Caller: same audience. Koch-funded.
Jordan Peterson is pretend-intellectual pablum for the same crowd.

The real problem in our society is that billionaires have figured out how to use mass media and social issues to appeal to people like incels to use them to achieve the billionaires’ political ends. (Now grifters like Peterson and Shapiro ride that wave.) That’s very very bad for the rest of us.

+1. This is a larger part of the dynamic of profiting off of telling people their aggrievement is righteous.

The whole Democratic party lives and dies on exploiting peoples emotions of righteous aggrievement - I'm a Democrat and I can at least acknowledge that this gets people out to vote. If you think it is just the Republicans, you really need to look in the mirror. Like clockwork, you can expect for their to be racial tension / news stories in the months leading up to the 2020 election.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re: "refusing to date women who don't meet their own standards of attractiveness."

My son is 15 and I was just thinking about whether/how to talk to him about "leagues." I know I should tell him generally that he should be looking for someone who enjoys his attention. But, should I suggest to him that physical attractiveness generally sets the boundaries of who is going to be interested and who is not?

Ideally, looks are just one factor among many. In practice (and with some exceptions), I think physical appearance is the primary filter with other qualities nudging that up or down a few notches.

But... but... in this other thread, women assure us that what attracts them is kindness, compassion, humor, and intelligence. Just teach your son to have those things and he should be able to have any girl he wants, right?

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/800609.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This.

I went into a running store not long ago, to talk about running watches and belts and things. The (male) employee was showing me all the great things I could wear that allowed me to run without my cellphone, because it was so "freeing."

The fact that this is something that he can entertain as a man while running alone, is fascinating. I wonder what that's like to run alone and completely let down your guard, carry no phone, and just enjoy your natural endorphins - it must be nice.

I have been followed while running. I also had to call police for a woman who was randomly sexually assaulted. Simply for being a woman out and about.

Are men attacked sometimes? Sure - but it's likely a mugging - your wallet, your phone, maybe your shoes. They're very very rarely, randomly attacked just for being a man who's outside.

Oy vey, enough with the pearl-clutching already. I grew up before cell phones, and I went running by myself, without a phone, for many decades without incident. Want to know what that's like to run alone and completely let down your guard, carry no phone, and just enjoy your natural endorphins? You don't have to ask a man, just ask a woman of 55 like me. It was great!

[Anonymous]

The REALLY scary part about all this is that right wingers and their donors are actively targeting this group of young men for political purposes.
Steve Bannon pitched the Mercers on using Breitbart as a way to radicalize boys like this. And the Mercers gave him that money.
Prager “U” targets that crowd and tells them men are discriminated against and women are ascendent.
So does the Daily Wire (Montreal shooter loved Ben Shapiro). Both of those sites were funded by the Wilkses.
Daily Caller: same audience. Koch-funded.
Jordan Peterson is pretend-intellectual pablum for the same crowd.

The real problem in our society is that billionaires have figured out how to use mass media and social issues to appeal to people like incels to use them to achieve the billionaires’ political ends. (Now grifters like Peterson and Shapiro ride that wave.) That’s very very bad for the rest of us.

LMAO as if the Left isn't actively targeting women, minorities, and every other designated victim group for political purposes.

Lonely young white men are probably the last group of people in America to be mobilized politically. Until recently nobody gave a shit about them. In fact, pretty much nobody does even know. They are regarded with contempt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The whole Democratic party lives and dies on exploiting peoples emotions of righteous aggrievement - I'm a Democrat and I can at least acknowledge that this gets people out to vote. If you think it is just the Republicans, you really need to look in the mirror. Like clockwork, you can expect for their to be racial tension / news stories in the months leading up to the 2020 election.

At the risk of turning this into a political debate, I have to point out that the Republicans are masters at stoking aggrievement. For purposes of the present discussion, I can live with the idea that both sides do it. The idea that Democrats have a lock on this dynamic I would regard as too inaccurate to let pass without comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Pardon my lack of sympathy for someone's rejection or awkwardness. What an utterly benign problem these incels have.

Their lived experience shows that it's not a benign problem.

Compared to life or death? Yeah, it's absolutely a ridiculously petty and benign problem. I'll take men laughing at me as a woman all day, every day, for the rest of my life, if it meant I never ever had to worry about my physical wellbeing ever again.

Disagree, and I’m a woman. You’re presenting a false choice, a choice none of us will ever face. The real issue is that we can and should tackle multiple issues at once. We can tackle violence (and should tackle it first) but we can also tackle things that make life easier for others, like self-esteem issues for men and for everybody else. You’re basically saying, let’s ignore your measles while we treat your cancer.

It's not really a false choice. I know what it's like to be laughed at - and sure, it doesn't feel good. But it's infinitely better than the kinds of safety risks women face pretty much all day, every day, and the choices we are required to make to minimize those risks all the time. And yes--I'll say let's ignore your acne while we treat our cancer. Acne sucks, but the comparison is also asinine.

All the stats show that men die by violence from men more frequently than women, are victimized by violence from men more frequently than women, die by all causes more often than women, live shorter lives than women, are much more likely to go to jail or be a victim of police violence than women [b]because men commit far more crime, are more likely to end up homeless than women, commit suicide more often than women, die and are injured on the job more frequently than women, etc. etc. etc. Maleness as a package is not a low-risk proposition at all. And the self-destructive frustration and isolation these men are stuck in probably contributes to all of that.

There is very little empathy for men in our culture, even if you think men are misguided or troubled there should be room to acknowledge that their issues are very real.

There will be more empathy for men when there is more honesty about who is responsible for the violence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
NONE OF THIS obviates the fact that women are attacked by men at far higher rates than they're attacked by other women. So: men and their violence are the problem in either scenario.

Attacked, or killed? There are higher rates of domestic violence (aka attacks) in lesbian relationships than in heterosexual relationships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NONE OF THIS obviates the fact that women are attacked by men at far higher rates than they're attacked by other women. So: men and their violence are the problem in either scenario.

Attacked, or killed? There are higher rates of domestic violence (aka attacks) in lesbian relationships than in heterosexual relationships.

Yeah I’m gonna need a citation for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There will be more empathy for men when there is more honesty about who is responsible for the violence.

Why should a guy be less deserving of empathy just because his attacker was another man?
I think almost everyone agrees that men are a lot more violent than women. But, the fact remain that men suffer more at the hands of men than women suffer from men.

That said - most of this violence discussion is a drift from the original topic -- how and why the stew of loneliness, pain, and Internet enablers turn boys who were maybe just socially awkward at first into toxic monsters. Even if those young men don't warrant much sympathy, letting them go down this path has costs for everyone (but mostly for women). So, as a society, we'd probably be better off if we can nip their transformation early somehow. Just yelling at them not to be assholes doesn't seem to be working. (Telling women to just have sex with them - as I've seen in one form or another - is a pretty awful idea as well).

[Anonymous]

So in this thread we have established that...

- Men are dangerous creatures who can’t be trusted.
- Men are on average less attractive and less successful than women’s expectations
- Men do not deserve to have their physical and mental needs addressed and not only that but wanting those needs addressed is misogynistic

Add in that men are told over and over from a very young age to be strong providers and protectors only to grow up in an economy that makes that incredibly difficult and in a society where attempting to be the patriarch is treated with scorn. We won’t even get into the myriad of mental health issues that men face.

Any you wonder why some guys get fed up and lose perspective.

Are these guys jerks? Sure, but if you had been laughed at and treated as a failure since you were 9, you would probably respond similarly.