Why have incels gotten so much attention?

[metatron]

Not being as willing to ask for pay raises,

Agreeableness correlates with pay. Negatively.
We could quote the unspeakable man talking about this datum.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But certainly it's toxic as all hell and self-destructive, though I do not believe incels or loners or whatnot are going to commit more crimes-- just because a few of them do, well, a few of most subsets turn out to be bad people. So more media hype I guess.

Of course, much like the question posed to the fictional evil overlords, "If you succeeded, then what?". Are they going to be like some fish and die after they mate?

True, I wonder if their baseline crime rate compared to the global average is significantly different. It would probably be a nightmare to even attempt to categorize.

And don't you diss evil overlords, they can keep right on doing evil things because it's evil. A truly fantastic profession if you're genre savvy, but generally not so much otherwise.

your story is absolutely insane and I'm very sorry for what happened. still though, that's kinda hot. (again, sorry to trivialize your suffering, maybe I watched too much xena: the warrior princess as a kid)

Problem is when Xena kills people, they still get to walk away IRL. It doesn't take that much force or a high pitched, unique scream to prevent that with a knife IRL, and even less with a gun.

You can find similar cases pretty easily in the news if you search for them, but the news is more likely to pick up outliers. How often do these kinds of things get handled correctly day to day in the legal sense? You can find videos of how bystanders react to completely identical male-female violence depending on who is committing it.

 

[Ajidica]

To answer the OP, it is because incels are whiney white guys and the media loves nothing more than covering the plaintive noises made by whiney white guys.

 

[Lexicus]

It's really not that hard.

The sad thing is, it is hard for many people and not always for entirely unsympathetic reasons. In fact, the whole "incel" thing was started by (IIRC) a woman:

Alana expressed regret at the change in usage from her original intent of creating an "inclusive community" for men and women who were sexually deprived due to social awkwardness, marginalization, or mental illness.[25] She has since started a new project, "Love Not Anger", which she describes as "a project to research how lonely people might find respectful love, instead of being stuck in anger".[17]

The other thing is that I think that if you're going to as a feminist have a critique of culture then in order to be intellectually consistent you need to be at least somewhat forgiving of individuals who are warped and in a sense victims of that culture. I think many incels are clearly deeply warped and damaged people. People are responsible for their own choices and actions but I hope they are also mostly redeemable.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The other thing is that I think that if you're going to as a feminist have a critique of culture then in order to be intellectually consistent you need to be at least somewhat forgiving of individuals who are warped and in a sense victims of that culture. I think many incels are clearly deeply warped and damaged people. People are responsible for their own choices and actions but I hope they are also mostly redeemable.

Maybe it's just the way I've lived my life, but the number of people I've met who made it to fifteen without being warped and damaged can be counted on one hand and leave enough fingers to make a fist. I think @adcarrymaokai has the general idea, which isn't about how easy it is to get a mate in these times, but how easy it is to get past that damage. I doubt that in human history there has ever been better access to help, or less demand for avoiding help...be that help external or just making a choice to, as he puts it, grow up.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

The question of whether video games make people violent is more similar to the question of whether porn images make people misogynists. And it's distinct from the specific arguments about how porn (or video games for that matter) can affect brain chemistry, which are quite well-supported in neuroscientific literature unlike the strawmen you keep erecting here.

Sure, but I don't like biological determinism. Because:
1. If certain biochemical processes are irreversible, we can establish a correlation between porn watchers and rapists, and surely this will go into trying to classify whether a person will end up being a rapist or what, which is unethical.
2. If certain biochemical processes are reversible, then a person can work hard and snap out if it, in which case this point is moot.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

The sad thing is, it is hard for many people and not always for entirely unsympathetic reasons. In fact, the whole "incel" thing was started by (IIRC) a woman:

I am aware of this, but at this point I am talking about the Reddit incels.

The other thing is that I think that if you're going to as a feminist have a critique of culture then in order to be intellectually consistent you need to be at least somewhat forgiving of individuals who are warped and in a sense victims of that culture. I think many incels are clearly deeply warped and damaged people. People are responsible for their own choices and actions but I hope they are also mostly redeemable.

1. I am not a feminist.
2. I am not trying to be intellectually consistent because nobody is truly consistent or "ideologically pure" (whatever you call it).
3. Everyone in the history of humanity has been deeply warped and damaged by something. There is no human being who has never been hurt or damaged by some experience in life, but how come some people deal with their trauma and continue living their lives (thinking about all the women who have been raped and didn't go around ramming trucks into civilians), while others kill people and make themselves the center of attention. Being damaged is never your fault, but how you deal with it is fully in your control. And you know, I am completely fine with incel men being angry or whatever, but let's be honest here: they aren't just angry. Some of them threaten and kill people. And that is the problem.

 

[Lexicus]

1. If certain biochemical processes are irreversible, we can establish a correlation between porn watchers and rapists, and surely this will go into trying to classify whether a person will end up being a rapist or what, which is unethical.

That...isn't really how this works.

2. If certain biochemical processes are reversible, then a person can work hard and snap out if it, in which case this point is moot.

The changes in question, or at least some of them, are reversible - by not watching porn. I'm not really sure how this makes the point "moot" though.

Maybe it's just the way I've lived my life, but the number of people I've met who made it to fifteen without being warped and damaged can be counted on one hand and leave enough fingers to make a fist. I think @adcarrymaokai has the general idea, which isn't about how easy it is to get a mate in these times, but how easy it is to get past that damage. I doubt that in human history there has ever been better access to help, or less demand for avoiding help...be that help external or just making a choice to, as he puts it, grow up.

3. Everyone in the history of humanity has been deeply warped and damaged by something. There is no human being who has never been hurt or damaged by some experience in life, but how come some people deal with their trauma and continue living their lives (thinking about all the women who have been raped and didn't go around ramming trucks into civilians), while others kill people and make themselves the center of attention. Being damaged is never your fault, but how you deal with it is fully in your control. And you know, I am completely fine with incel men being angry or whatever, but let's be honest here: they aren't just angry. Some of them threaten and kill people. And that is the problem.

I don't really disagree with any of this. I also don't mean to defend people who react to sexual deprivation by becoming "incels", I'm just saying that some people are sex-deprived for reasons that are basically sympathetic and to react to the problem of incels by saying "it's pretty easy to have sex, just grow up!" may be counterproductive. Another issue here is that while it may be fairly "easy" in some sense to simply have sex, it may not be so easy for some people to have "good", that is, completely ethical and mutually enjoyable sex. And there is no question whatever in my mind that no sex is better than bad sex.

1. I am not a feminist.

o

2. I am not trying to be intellectually consistent because nobody is truly consistent or "ideologically pure" (whatever you call it).

Well, fair enough. I used to be more concerned with intellectual consistency than I am now.

 

[Broken_Erika]

2. I am not trying to be intellectually consistent because nobody is truly consistent or "ideologically pure" (whatever you call it).

The ones that claim they are intellectually consistent/ideologically pure are the ones you should worry about.....

 

[adcarrymaokai]

That...isn't really how this works.

It is. You've never heard "oh this guy comes from a bad family, he is gonna end up in jail"? If there is some kind of proof that porn causes chemical changes in the brain, surely you will see conservatives going around and claiming that porn-watchers are mentally unstable because of course they are more worried about people being potentially a threat than people who actually assaulted other people. It will be decontextualized and peddled around the mainstream media fishing for clicks.

I don't really disagree with any of this. I also don't mean to defend people who react to sexual deprivation by becoming "incels", I'm just saying that some people are sex-deprived for reasons that are basically sympathetic and to react to the problem of incels by saying "it's pretty easy to have sex, just grow up!" may be counterproductive. Another issue here is that while it may be fairly "easy" in some sense to simply have sex, it may not be so easy for some people to have "good", that is, completely ethical and mutually enjoyable sex. And there is no question whatever in my mind that no sex is better than bad sex.

I see what you are saying. I guess I am just speaking from my personal experience dealing with whiny guys who can't get any sex. Like I said in one of my previous posts, some of these guys are conventionally good looking and successful in their careers. Their problem is not some kind of damage or child abuse (or maybe it is? I just don't know?), but their attitude. Even I wouldn't want to be friends with them, and clearly they aren't interested in having sex with me. I also have female friends who have told me about guys hitting on them, being rejected, and then threatening them because of rejection.

For example, recently my female friend went to a networking event and talked to this one guy who works at a famous company, and he is pretty successful there given he is only 30. This guy then invited her for dinner and then added her on social media and started messaging her. He imagined that they had a connection after she repeatedly told him she is not interested in dating him. He sent her a few insulting messages and she stopped talking to him. A week later he hit her up with a new message asking to be friends, to which she replied, sure we can be friends if you stop hitting on me. But he continued. He sent her ESSAYS about their "situation" and how they were meant for each other. She showed his messages to me, and it was a combination of cringe and facepalm. When a woman says she is not interested in you but you continue typing self-serving delusional paragraphs of vapid content, then it is not really some trauma. It's really you not being to take "no" for an answer and move on with your life.

I guess this is what I think about when I talk about incels and just dudes who whine about women. And it just happens that every "incel" I met had a stinking attitude towards life in general.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not saying that people believe movies happened literally, that's dumb. People mostly don't think that Transformers are "real". What I'm saying is that all art / content / entertainment has both an agenda and an underlying narrative, especially if we are talking about Hollywood movies. Those affect us on a subconscious level.

Pretty much all experiences impact us on a subconscious level. The trick is finding what is actually allows us to anticipate future action correctly, if we want to legitimately claim causation.

While I definitely agree with you that porn is not what causes inceldom, that is likely to be some deeper seated psychological issue(s), I think it perpetuates a vile cycle of negative feedback. It also significantly affects one cornerstone of inceldom, which is mysoginy.

From what I've seen the driving motivators are some combination of misplaced resentment and entitlement. Media people understand is fake generally won't be a big factor in this, I imagine only a tiny portion of people actually let either porn or transformer movies constrain their anticipation about what they expect will happen in reality. It's like positing kids get bratty because their parent's can't buy them a unicorn...I don't think the TV show with the unicorn is reasonably the problem here, even if unicorns do turn out to be inherently unhealthy viewing. Way too many people see them and don't turn out that way.

Though reading through the story above, maybe a lack of a decent grip on reality is the issue in some cases after all.

The ones that claim they are intellectually consistent/ideologically pure are the ones you should worry about.....

Nobody is a perfect rationalist or always self-consistent without exception. It'd be nice to never make mistakes though.

However, an argument that lacks self-consistency *is* a flawed argument, and it is possible to avoid them.

 

[Traitorfish]

2. I am not trying to be intellectually consistent because nobody is truly consistent or "ideologically pure" (whatever you call it).

Those are not the same thing, my guy.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

@The thread veering into "adult territory"

Wow, I actually felt good talking about this with others and for once thought I had found my own safe space, guess I was wrong This is a family friendly forum, therefore I would say it's especially important to have an open discussion about the effect porn has on younger people's minds and how it demeans women. As long as the language isn't getting too graphic and the descriptions aren't too personal I genuinely don't see how any of this is problematic. We discuss murder and rape in other threads, as adults, and that's okay, too.

In fact I really do hope some youngster stumbles upon mine and Lexicus' posts and thinks to himself: "holy **** I don't want to turn out like these losers"

I started searching for porn online when I was 15, and it really helped me understand my sexuality and human sexuality in general better because these are not the topics you can just willy-nilly discuss at a family gathering. I also remember the adult bodies and acts looking really exaggerated, but I think I understood very early that porn aesthetic does not reflect real life. Just like movies, literature, and art in general are mostly fantasy, I always treated porn as a kind of fantasy and not something I would want to enact in my personal sexual life. I must have been watching porn for 15 years now, and somehow it hasn't screwed me up in any way. I also haven't sexually assaulted anyone. But yeah I agree that some porn is really denigrating to women, and I don't watch that. In fact, these days I am interested in amateur videos where regular people do regular things.

And your post honestly sounds like some Christian fearmongering a-la "masturbation is Satan's deed".

Speak for yourself lol. For me it is entirely the other way around, I have always been able to talk about sex with my parents and friends (and other adults, really) and I think this is a much better introduction than "blonde slut is pummeled into submission part 4". It's nice that you understood porn as kind of a fantasy, however you always project your own conclusions onto others. I definitely think that many youngers don't think of porn as an alternate reality. Porn sites don't have disclaimers about porn being far from reality, they don't warn you that literally every other title has a slur word for women (slut, hoe, *****, though these are the least bad ones tbh..) and even if they did, no one would read that ****.

I'm not Christian nor am I trying to stop anyone from watching porn, I'm just raising concern.

Moderator Action: Warned for PDMA. --LM
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Lexicus]

Wow, I actually felt good talking about this with others and for once thought I had found my own safe space, guess I was wrong This is a family friendly forum, therefore I would say it's especially important to have an open discussion about the effect porn has on younger people's minds and how it demeans women. As long as the language isn't getting too graphic and the descriptions aren't too personal I genuinely don't see how any of this is problematic. We discuss murder and rape in other threads, as adults, and that's okay, too.

The secret is that "family friendly" is a code phrase that means "conforming to a deeply conservative sense of propriety"

It is. You've never heard "oh this guy comes from a bad family, he is gonna end up in jail"? If there is some kind of proof that porn causes chemical changes in the brain, surely you will see conservatives going around and claiming that porn-watchers are mentally unstable because of course they are more worried about people being potentially a threat than people who actually assaulted other people. It will be decontextualized and peddled around the mainstream media fishing for clicks.

This is quite a reach and no more convincing to me than the argument that we shouldn't conduct research into human genetics because there are racists out there.

I also have female friends who have told me about guys hitting on them, being rejected, and then threatening them because of rejection.

This is dirt-common.

For example, recently my female friend went to a networking event and talked to this one guy who works at a famous company, and he is pretty successful there given he is only 30. This guy then invited her for dinner and then added her on social media and started messaging her. He imagined that they had a connection after she repeatedly told him she is not interested in dating him. He sent her a few insulting messages and she stopped talking to him. A week later he hit her up with a new message asking to be friends, to which she replied, sure we can be friends if you stop hitting on me. But he continued. He sent her ESSAYS about their "situation" and how they were meant for each other. She showed his messages to me, and it was a combination of cringe and facepalm. When a woman says she is not interested in you but you continue typing self-serving delusional paragraphs of vapid content, then it is not really some trauma. It's really you not being to take "no" for an answer and move on with your life.

Also dirt-common. But you shouldn't underestimate the degree to which men are conditioned to act this way by the culture.

I'll see your tweet and raise you

 

[MaryKB]

Thank you very kindly gentlemen for your last several posts, I feel there's a lot of dismissal of women's feelings here generally, but your messages here are very refreshing to read.

I feel @yung.carl.jung feels very similarly to how I do about pornography, how it teaches young men how women are sexual objects, and also really importantly how we're here at their disposal, which I feel is very critical and feeds into incel feelings. I've read a lot about how access to pornography feeds into feelings of how women exist for sexual gratification, and it's all artificial and men learn not to respect women as equal people, and I can see how a sexually frustrated man could get confused because he's always thought he was just entitled to sex from women, but that's not a reality and he doesn't know what to do, and he blames women for this lie he's been fed all his life.

I do have sympathy for incels as people, but I do not ever excuse their anger or behavior. I understand they're suffering from toxic masculinity, and how they've believed in expectations of themselves as men and their place and "rights" in regards to women, and our world's changing rapidly and it's not what they were promised. But I absolutely do not tolerate them blaming women for all of this, you know what I mean?

@Lexicus is so right now those situations are extremely common. I myself dealt with a dangerous stalker earlier this year; he approached me because he knew my literary interests, and he pretended to want to be my friend and discuss books. So I got sucked in, but something was always sort of wrong because his discussions were very superficial, but I was in a pretty lonely place (I broke up with my long term boyfriend about 6 months earlier, and I had very little human contact outside of work for a long time), and he tricked me into thinking he was my friend. He kept trying to tell me he had no romantic or sexual interest in me, but I later learned that's all a lie. He started sending me photographs of himself through email (he's in his sixties, he tricked me into giving him my email address), and he was demanding photos of me (not just pictures, but he wanted me wearing certain clothes and in poses he insisted on, which was gross and I never did.) And when I started seeing my new boyfriend, he completely lost his mind and became abusive. And then he started giving me unsolicited advice on sex, and he began sending me links to online pornography, and humiliating me on a message board (he was banned for that). I've had him blocked for a long time, but he kept coming back with new accounts and such trying to contact me, he'd send me threats how I better keep a gun in my purse because he's going to find me, and he'd send me messages how I'm going to be beaten and raped, and he spoke about the futures of my non-existent children (he had names and stories for them and such), just generally really super creepy. I haven't heard from him for like three months now, but wow he was scary obsessed, you know what I mean?

My situation may seem rather extreme to many men, but I know things can be a lot worse, and his general attitudes are more common than you'd think, just to varying degrees (about how he's owed something by time he puts in giving attention to a woman)

Lexicus I hope you don't mind if I save that image you posted?

 

[Mouthwash]

Also dirt-common. But you shouldn't underestimate the degree to which men are conditioned to act this way by the culture.

I'll see your tweet and raise you
View attachment 506135

Culture isn't an arbitrary construct. Men are conditioned that way because it works.

I do have sympathy for incels as people, but I do not ever excuse their anger or behavior. I understand they're suffering from toxic masculinity, and how they've believed in expectations of themselves as men and their place and "rights" in regards to women, and our world's changing rapidly and it's not what they were promised.

I don't think you'd like being told your experience with stalkers is a result of your culturally conditioned feminine arrogance. Would you?

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Thank you very kindly gentlemen for your last several posts, I feel there's a lot of dismissal of women's feelings here generally, but your messages here are very refreshing to read.

I feel @yung.carl.jung feels very similarly to how I do about pornography, how it teaches young men how women are sexual objects, and also really importantly how we're here at their disposal, which I feel is very critical and feeds into incel feelings. I've read a lot about how access to pornography feeds into feelings of how women exist for sexual gratification, and it's all artificial and men learn not to respect women as equal people, and I can see how a sexually frustrated man could get confused because he's always thought he was just entitled to sex from women, but that's not a reality and he doesn't know what to do, and he blames women for this lie he's been fed all his life.

I'm not a neuroscientist at all, but here is one of the big factor issues, not with pornographic videos or with the way women are treated in the industry, but with the way our brain is wired. I'll go on a tanget here. The human brain evolved very slowly, as we all know evolution is a process that takes thousands of years. Human culture however is unstable, may develop exponentially or regress (if you belive in linearity), but in general one can say that there is a big disconnect between our hunter-gatherer brains and human high-culture. we operate on old hardware, with the newest software, so to speak.

So what actually happens when you're confronted with hundreds of videos of women who suggest they want to be inseminated by you? (VR porn goes even further here, basically getting rid of the male actor and replacing him with THE VIEWER, so that for a short time it actually feels like you are the one procreating, even though we are all aware that is not the case). Our brain goes absolutely wild. Having that amount of sexual partners offered to you is something that never (rarely ) ever happens in real life. Subconsciously we are choosing our ideal mates from all the proposed women, making us feel empowered, because obviously our brain will reward us if we strive for the best possible offspring. That is one of the ways pornographic websites trick the brain, and also one of the mechanisms of addiction. I explained that very poorly, but there is lots of material

Novelty plays a central role in male sexual arousal. Animal studies show that nature works to keep the male fertilizing willing females, particularly when new ones are nearby. However, a male mammal needs more and more time between copulation and subsequent arousal to copulate with the same mate. If you keep introducing new females, however, he can get the job done far more quickly. He will keep repeating the cycle until utterly exhausted. It is the male mammalian arousal pattern, the Coolidge Effect, which explains the explosion of Internet porn and its addictive effect on men.

For porn-viewing males, it’s not images of nudity and sex per se, but the novelty of an ever-new supply of those images that sends arousal skyrocketing. Males brains and bodies fire up for each new image. Men’s old, mammalian evolutionary programming perceives each new “mate” on the screen as an opportunity to pass on their genes. The male brain, in order to keep the male “fertilizing” the screen, releases a “hit” of the neurochemical dopamine for each new image or scene. Eventually the man will tire, but as long as he keeps clicking, he can keep on going – and so will his dopamine. This process is addicting. Of course, even though the hunt for the next arousing scene is almost endlessly compelling, the viewer is not just looking. He is masturbating himself to orgasm. In having sex with his human partner, after orgasm he might soon roll over and sleep. But as each new “mate” enters the room, he soon experiences new arousal. This is essentially what happens with Internet porn. The male sees see more stimulating new “mates” in ten minutes than his hunter-gatherer forefathers would have in several lifetimes. Even though technology has changed, our hunter-gatherer brain has not. There has been little time to adapt to changed circumstances.

He started sending me photographs of himself through email (he's in his sixties, he tricked me into giving him my email address), and he was demanding photos of me (not just pictures, but he wanted me wearing certain clothes and in poses he insisted on, which was gross and I never did.) And when I started seeing my new boyfriend, he completely lost his mind and became abusive. And then he started giving me unsolicited advice on sex, and he began sending me links to online pornography, and humiliating me on a message board (he was banned for that). I've had him blocked for a long time, but he kept coming back with new accounts and such trying to contact me, he'd send me threats how I better keep a gun in my purse because he's going to find me, and he'd send me messages how I'm going to be beaten and raped, and he spoke about the futures of my non-existent children (he had names and stories for them and such), just generally really super creepy. I haven't heard from him for like three months now, but wow he was scary obsessed, you know what I mean?

My situation may seem rather extreme to many men, but I know things can be a lot worse, and his general attitudes are more common than you'd think, just to varying degrees (about how he's owed something by time he puts in giving attention to a woman)

I'm actually not surprised at all. I know of 2 girls that are very close to me who had the exact same thing happen to them. one of them actually had two stalkers at one point, one being an abusive ex-bf and the other a man she turned down. word for word they told me the same story. the demanding of very specific pictures, in specific poses, with specific clothing. the constant barrage with mails. the volatile, unexpected flip between "nice guy" and abusive ******* that happens every other day.. these people are obviously mentally unstable, but they're not as rare as one might think. very brave of you to post all that online, I commend you

 

[Lexicus]

Culture isn't an arbitrary construct. Men are conditioned that way because it works.

No one said it was "arbitrary". We all know it works. It works to get men laid and if the price is a certain amount of sexual violence and hurt women most men seem willing to accept that...which is precisely the problem.

 

[Mouthwash]

So what actually happens when you're confronted with hundreds of videos of women who suggest they want to be inseminated by you? (VR porn goes even further here, basically getting rid of the male actor and replacing him with THE VIEWER, so that for a short time it actually feels like you are the one procreating, even though we are all aware that is not the case). Our brain goes absolutely wild. Having that amount of sexual partners offered to you is something that never (rarely ) ever happens in real life. Subconsciously we are choosing our ideal mates from all the proposed women, making us feel empowered, because obviously our brain will reward us if we strive for the best possible offspring. That is one of the ways pornographic websites trick the brain, and also one of the mechanisms of addiction. I explained that very poorly, but there is lots of material

Finally, finally we are seeing the unconditional feminist acceptance of sex-positivity being challenged. It's been, what, twenty years since the last time?

No one said it was "arbitrary". We all know it works. It works to get men laid and if the price is a certain amount of sexual violence and hurt women most men seem willing to accept that...which is precisely the problem.

If the price is being utterly lonely or excluded, then yes.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Men are conditioned that way because it works.

and how is it working out for you, bub? it just works, eh?