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Thoughts on Incel


Guest Jetsun Milarepa

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4 hours ago, G1P0 said:

I don't really get incel as a whole, but that's probably a given. I don't know much about it either.

 

What I do wonder though, is how much toxic masculinity plays into it. Not as an attack or anything, but in terms of how a man's value is determined (in part) by getting laid in our society.

 

Or is sex just an emotional need among allosexuals I wouldn't fully understand?

For standard run of the mill people, yes, it is. The media of course hypes it up to over the top levels, but as a baseline point of reference, run of the mill men and women have a sex drive, and if it is not fullfilled, they can start to become a little loopy. It's exactly the same as people that are isolationist. Human beings need contact with other human beings. Somebody who lives alone for many years can of course manage to survive being alone, a testament to human adaptability, but you notice that long standing loners are often a little loopy as well. It is one thing to control the instincts built into us, but another matter entirely to have them denied completely. Psychologically it destroys people.

 

It's not a green card to drive a van into people, but it's there. Discarding social expections, pressures, and portrayals, the baseline is that most people have a sex drive. Comparitively, most men have a much higher drive than women. In the timespan of a month, an average woman will be receptive to wanting sex probably in single digits. For the average guy, any day of the month will do.

 

As a point of reference again, I can cite what happened to me when I had a sex drive. Being unable to fullfill it in any satisfying way left me extremely restless and moody. My temper was hair trigger. In a way, I suppose it's almost like a reverse version of periods for women. Women have a set and built in build-up period to the time of the month. If left alone for long enough, so do men, in a parallel sense.

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Telecaster68
4 minutes ago, E is for E said:

most men have a much higher drive than women. In the timespan of a month, an average woman will be receptive to wanting sex probably in single digits. For the average guy, any day of the month will do.

Sources, please.

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I won't say sex specifically is a need, but loving affection is definitely a psychological need for humans. For most adults, there will be a needed romantic/ sexual component to that. 

 

Incels aren't wrong that affection is a need. Problem is, just because something is a NEED doesn't make it a RIGHT. No one is entitled to affection, even if they need it. If that sounds odd, think of it this way... if something is a right, that means someone is obligated to provide it. Rights and duties are the flip side of the same coin (I'm citing Kant for this, but it's a basic proposition). No one has a duty to give any other person affection. 

 

And therein lies the problem with incels. Instead of taking personal responsibility for their predicament, they externalize. My partner is asexual, but it would be absurd of me to call myself an incel because I'm not... ultimately it is on me to put myself in a position to be able to have sex. Being angry that someone else doesn't want to give me something I'm not entitled to... that's not the proper way to cope. 

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Telecaster68
2 minutes ago, Skullery Maid said:

No one has a duty to give any other person affection. 

Parents and chidren?

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3 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Sources, please.

I'm afraid that I can't dredge up books from a dead library. Even without those claims from memory and through simple observation, it's pretty easy to see that most guys on average have a higher sex drive than women. It's what testosterone naturally does to a body. Including other factors into the mix, that isn't to say that all women have low drives in comparison. Some of them out there can go quite high as well. The same as some men having a lower drive.

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7 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Parents and chidren?

Mmmm... not sure about this one? Parents definitely have a duty to care for their children, but I would not say they have a duty to give physical, romantic and sexual affection, no. 

 

If a mom has horrible OCD and can't deal with cuddling or hugs, she isn't violating a duty, IMO, by not cuddling her kids. May make them feel more distant, may impact their relationship down the road, but consequences don't automatically signal a duty. 

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Telecaster68

But short of an actual medical condition preventing them?

 

Clearly romantic and sexual affection isn't the issue. Neuro research shows a lack of physical affection in early childhood has measurable, permanent effects on the brain. It's more than being a bit needy. 

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

But short of an actual medical condition preventing them?

Yeah I mean your mom can be very standoffish, but as long as she takes care of you. 

 

But it's not relevant anyway. Parent/child is a role. You can't compare the duties of strangers to the duties that accompany a chosen role. If someone chooses to become a girlfriend, for example, that person does have a duty to provide at least some semblance of affection. The consequence for failing to meet that duty is a break up. 

 

But, see, the duty goes with the role. Once the role is gone, so is the duty.

 

No one is obligated to enter a relationship that necessitates affection. If you prefer that language, there ya go. 

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3 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Sorry, not good enough. It's utter crap.

Would you like me to link the first few pages of google search results in studies done? Granted, the books I read at the time may be out of date by now, but reading through the various articles just on the first page of a quick google search brings a similiar conclusion to what I said. Guys tend to have a higher sex drive on average than women. What's neat for me is the articles, being a little more up to date have things that weren't there in texts previously. But there's generally a unanimous claim on the vast majority of them.

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Alejandrogynous

Parents have a duty to ensure that their children are cared for, but not necessarily to do so personally. That's why hired help exists, or adoption/fostering. 

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Telecaster68
1 minute ago, Skullery Maid said:

You can't compare the duties of strangers to the duties that accompany a chosen role.

Your proposition was that no human is entitled to affection. Different thing. But it's a bit of a diversion from whining incels.

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Telecaster68
2 minutes ago, E is for E said:

Would you like me to link the first few pages of google search results in studies done? 

No, you made the claim, you back it up. That's how debate works.

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21 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

No, you made the claim, you back it up. That's how debate works.

I'll return later in the day when I've more time to trudge things up then.

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34 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Your proposition was that no human is entitled to affection. Different thing. But it's a bit of a diversion from whining incels.

Well, I think it boils down the same, but it wasn't sufficiently precise. Remember I've been gone for awhile... The precision needed for law is nothing compared to the demands of an aven thread! 

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37 minutes ago, Alejandrogynous said:

Parents have a duty to ensure that their children are cared for, but not necessarily to do so personally. That's why hired help exists, or adoption/fostering. 

That's what I was thinking too. Parents who ship their kids to boarding schools are still caring for them. And my partner was adopted, and thank God because her prostitute meth addict mom would have given the wrong kind of affection. 

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Telecaster68
34 minutes ago, CBC said:

Lol. I have absolutely nothing of actual intelligent-sounding value to add to this, but I laughed out loud.

 

I assume this need for precision is why we have specific words here for when someone desires sex with non-binary people only on rainy Tuesdays in July between the hours of 11.53 and 17.02.

That's an entire orientation... 

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Prufrock, but like, worse

@Skullery Maid

 

There is a bunch here that I think my previous comment was a bit too snarky about.

 

I really, really take issue with the idea of objective attractiveness and "stay in your caste." It is not right to tell people that already hate themselves to think of themselves as the lowest rung in a hierarchy. You're throwing gasoline on the pity-party's bonfire.

 

It's also not a matter of "lowering standards"???

 

You're correct it is unreasonable and evil to demand that women fuck guys they don't fancy.

It's also unreasonable and evil to demand that men fuck girls they don't fancy.

 

You're not doing that, you're saying they have the choice between "improving" and forgoing sex and intimacy. And in a lot of cases of people who label themselves as incels (and many who don't, even) there is absolutely a need for improvement to meet basic standards of human decency. They'll quite frequently tip their hand and reveal a madonna/whore complex, or saying women must be subservient, or calls for government-sponsored sex slavery, and I agree that these are all horrible qualities that must be purged.

 

But I put improving in quotes because you basically say "stop being ugly by working out and wearing socially mandated clothing." And frankly... no? Not everyone shares one scale of attractiveness? Not everyone's ideal self aligns with your ideal partner?? The part that you linear-self-improvement types leave out of "nobody is obligated to sleep with you" is invariably "well, except your conscience." It certainly seems like everyone agrees on what's attractive sometimes, because being attracted to the "wrong" person or trait is something considered worthy of ridicule. This is an evil aspect of society that must be fought.

 

Phrasing it in terms of "find someone with low enough standards" is gross. I want a SO who likes me, thanks -- not "we are both hideous monsters who will never get anything better." How in the hell is "I asked you because you're gross enough" not a fucking turn-off in your mind?!

 

I don't like to talk like this or volunteer this sort of information because objectification etc, but it's relevant:

I think the overweight chick in my class that just ended is legit hotter than most celebrities. This is from a purely physical standpoint; factoring in personality only widens the rift between them.

A friend of mine (a bi woman) is dating a shy nerdish dude and talks about how wonderful he is like he's a god on Earth. She also says that abs look uncomfortable to cuddle and that she doesn't see the appeal.

It is absolutely not that we are attracted to 5/10s. We set the bar at 9/10 but assign nines differently.

The way you assume attraction works implies that everyone's attracted to Taylor Swift, but most can't, so they lower their standards.

You'd have to lower my standards to get Taylor Swift on my radar at all.

 

But never mind the abstract concept of "lowering your standards," because it doesn't work like that. I end up actually wanting a relationship with relatively few people so I don't know what it's like to experience actual attraction to everyone who you notice has a nice ass (for example, and for your own personal definition of nice). Importantly because what I want is connection, not just sex, so of course standards are going to be higher insofar as I actually have to mesh with their personality. But I can't just magic myself into being attracted to people that I'm not. I'm not sure why skulls thinks anyone can. (Is this a thing?)

 

There are a lot of reasons that the incel movement exists, and I'm calling them a movement because they're basically a recruitment pit for the alt-right. As mentioned by @CBC toxic masculinity plays a big part. Women are only upgraded fleshlights; other men are only competitors at the game of being the biggest asshole; any sort of nonbinary/agender type person is a loser at best and an I-won't-even-say-it at worst, certainly nobody to be around. In other words: within their ideology, nobody can be a friend. Except other incels because they're men who have given up on the competition, of course. How convenient. This is cult tactics 101.

 

@Tarfeather hits on another nasty point: the term "involuntarily celibate" describes a situation, not an ideology. You can argue all the day long that it isn't technically possible, but whatever. Factoring everything said above, you can exhaust the full list of people you're attracted to, you can be aligned with your ideal self so that any significant change represents becoming someone you dislike. And I don't claim to be at that point myself, but I can't believe that I have to point out that different people want to be different people, and the "become closer to the ideal man" thing is annoying because the American conceptualization of the ideal man is, in several ways, the thing I have repeatedly instructed my friends to kill me if I turn into.

 

Being a lonely guy sucks. Being lonely sucks regardless of what gender you are, but men are brought up to not seek emotional support outside a romantic relationship, and will actively be shamed for seeking it elsewhere (or seeking mental health care, or doing any of a quadrillion "not going insane" things.) Any man who expresses despair about having used up his options and facing the choice of "go unfulfilled or become someone I don't want to be" runs the risk of being labeled basically the same as people who demand sex slaves. And that's fucked up, because this is part of how incel groups recruit! "Yeah, they hate us just as much as they hate you, but we understand your pain. We sympathize. You can talk to us." And considering the whole "men aren't allowed to show emotions" crap, the chance to vent is the most alluring bait in the universe.

 

I'll be frank. I used to believe redpillish stuff. Not deeply, mind. I was told "this is how attraction works," and I thought it was all evil, and that was a big part of my initial decision to label myself asexual: I would have none of that immoral crap. The thing that started me on the path away from that was befriending a woman and realizing she wasn't out to get me in any of the ways the MRAs claimed. And I know that by writing the thing that happened to me there are 7 replies being penned saying "oh so you want people to reach out to incels, is that it?" NO. I mean, it would be really nice if people would reach out to lonely guys who lack support networks before the evil people take that role and twist their minds. I don't think any specific person ought to do it. SOMEONE ought to do it, and I try to be that person to the best of my ability, but I am one person and I can't fix a loneliness epidemic alone.

 

I literally cannot understand your thought process if you think the guy who says "Nobody I like likes me back. I will respect their boundaries, obviously, but the situation saddens me," is exactly the same as the guy who says "The government should enslave some woman for me to fuck."

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2 hours ago, Skullery Maid said:

In real life, people try to understand each other. On AVEN we all try real hard not to understand. :D

What do you mean?

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paperbackreader
5 hours ago, Skullery Maid said:

Sometimes, one's bitterness and negative self worth are a psychiatric issue, not a movement and certainly not a marginalized group. 

Oh, finally something we can agree on concretely! :lol: my choice of words perhaps influenced by my imagining of how you make people that fit in your description feels. 

 

I think our views on what thoughts /actions are abhorrent are similar, I am just less willing to think the whole group is entirely homogenous, and I struggle with your approach because I feel it worsens the situation and wedges wider divides.

 

Thanks @CBC for the smile and @J.AlfredPrufrock for sharing,

 

Personally, the red pill sites makes me cringe loads more (much more than incels ever did), but there's both men and women in to this batshit... So I guess as long as they don't force their philosophy unwillingly on others I'm not gonna interfere with their right to live as they are... Though you've got me thinking on where the line is in terms of ethical recruitment...

 

Off to contemplate and potentially redraw  boundaries in my head! 

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@J. Alfred Prufrock

 

Whether people like it or not, you have one and only one choice... find someone who fancies you. If no one fancies you, there's a reason. That reason resides inside yourself. Find it and fix it. People of all appearances, physical abilities, races, orientations, intelligences, talents, age, etc, find partners. There is no such thing as being too ugly to date. Whatever it is that's holding you back, it exists within yourself. Solely. 

 

Maybe you're so awkward that you can't hold down a conversation. Maybe you talk too much about yourself. Maybe you come off creepy. Who knows!! There are a million little things we can do to turn people off. I'm not trying to beat people into the ground, self-esteem-wise, but they do need to take a genuine, objective look at themselves. 

 

Lots of people decry the pickup artist approach. I do not. I think it's a perfect place to start. The benefit to the pickup artist approach is that it properly places the responsibility of being wantable on the people who want to be wanted. Girls don't like you? Learn how to talk to girls! 

 

But in a real talk moment, I've never run across an incel who wasn't setting their sights on people out of their league.

 

I don't like the idea of castes or leagues either, trust me. But what I dislike more is hypocrisy. When someone says "I don't want to date a fat girl" but then gets all butthurt because skinny girls aren't into their mopey, flabby ass, that's bullshit. You cannot reject people because they're beneath you and then bemoan others treating you the same way. The single best way to get girls is to let go of the idea that there are different classes of girl.

 

Ive never had a problem getting a date. I'm not beautiful. But I don't judge others on appearance. I don't date people based on appearance. I don't fuck people based on appearance. Know what I found out? Treat everyone well and they'll be more likely to treat you well back. 

 

 

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Oh boy, are we getting philosophical now? Should a bring out the....booooks?

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25 minutes ago, Flower Boy said:

Oh boy, are we getting philosophical now? Should a bring out the....booooks?

You have books?!? Dats some fancy shit right there. 

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9 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

No, you made the claim, you back it up. That's how debate works.

Okay doc. Here's some sources.

 

 

Articles, yes, unfortunately. Several of them link to same names of a rather popular published study. Vohs, Baumeister, and Catanese. Some of the articles are kind enough to cite sources at least. I've read through a few of the citations but am working on the pile. So far, a general consensus points to men having higher libido than women on average. I cannot raise from the dead the books I read in the library, but I assume their information is obsolete. When I have more spare time I'll search for some proper figures research. See what you make of that in the meantime. There must be some credability to the claim, no?

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SorryNotSorry

I've lurked on those kinds of online communities before. They're a bit like Superman wanting kryptonite. These are some things I've noticed they all have in common:

 

1. Unwillingness to change. These are overwhelmingly men who pine for a past that never was, work at brain-dead 9-to-5 jobs, have contempt for anyone with enough ambition to break out of the 9-to-5 bit and become self-empoyed, hate "liberals" (whatever that term is supposed to mean), and believe they're incapable of being wrong. In short, thy dislike anyone who doesn't have the sort of love-hate attitude about life that they do.

 

2. They tend to get kicked off hosts' servers one after another because of the whole gist of their sites.

 

3. Outsiders are admitted with caution. You know the saying "sunlight is the best disinfectant"? It also explains why members of such sites are averse to meetups: they're too afraid of lurkers like me showing up in person.

 

4. Now this is the most contradictory of all: they all want pussy, but they don't like the women said pussies are attached to (there now, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?). I find it amusing in a grim sort of way how much denial and dislike they have toward men like me who don't have any urges to have sex. They're like junkies who need their next fix but hate the hell out of their dope dealers.

 

As you can see, what makes these guys tick is a mess of contradictions that would frustrate the hell out of anyone who buys into it.

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Telecaster68
11 hours ago, E is for E said:

Okay doc. Here's some sources.

 

 

Articles, yes, unfortunately. Several of them link to same names of a rather popular published study. Vohs, Baumeister, and Catanese. Some of the articles are kind enough to cite sources at least. I've read through a few of the citations but am working on the pile. So far, a general consensus points to men having higher libido than women on average. I cannot raise from the dead the books I read in the library, but I assume their information is obsolete. When I have more spare time I'll search for some proper figures research. See what you make of that in the meantime. There must be some credability to the claim, no?

I've had a chance to comb through those links, and some of the research they cite.

 

The Semantic Scholar link is the Baumeister paper. The Web MD, Psychology Today, and Kinsey Confidential pieces are all journalistic summaries of the Baumeister paper. The NCBI paper cites Baumeister and one other piece of meta research from Peterson and Hyde, which actually concludes:

 

Quote

 

“The majority of gender differences in sexual behaviors and attitudes are small, indicating that within-gender variation is larger than between-gender variation in reported sexual behaviors and attitudes”


 

The Peplau article uses Baumeister for its section on comparing levels of sexual desire. Medical Daily story has nothing about comparative levels of desire between sexes. The Emphower story is 300 words of journalistic generalisations, with no particular sources. However it does say

 

Quote

 

Several researchers are quick to point out that just because women need more time doesn’t mean the male libido is higher. The two sexes just respond differently to stimulation


 

However it wouldn’t be fair to lean on that too much since it’s just these faceless ‘researchers’...

 

So basically, you have one paper. Baumeister. And he has a big problem in the terms he uses.

 

Baumeister’s main criterion for the strength of sexual desire is spontaneous arousal, in one way or another, but it’s flawed as a way of comparing male and female sexual desire, because it assume spontaneous desire as a norm. In fact, spontaneous desire is just more common in men. If he’d measured responsive desire he’d have found it more common in women (I’m using Nagoski’s research as a basis for this).

 

Both spontaneous and responsive desire are about wanting sex, but Baumeister has simply defined his research to exclude the type of desire that’s more common in women, and concluded that they’re not as keen on sex.

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