[CONTENT WARNING: Misogynistic violence, rape apologia]
His complaint was a familiar one:
I think every girl is a type of slut, they are fussy with men nowadays, they do not give boys like us a chance.
You can find nearly identical laments in the profiles of self-described “nice guys” on OkCupid, on Men’s Rights blogs, and on forums for self-described “Incels” comisserating about their “involuntary celibacy” and what they see as the shallowness of young women.
But these words actually come from a video filmed by Ben Moynihan, a British teenager who was convicted of attempted murder earlier this week after stabbing three women in an attempt to take a sort of revenge upon the “weaker” gender he felt had made his life miserable by denying him sex. Another young man trying to punish women with violence for the “crime” of not dating him.
“I am still a virgin,” he wrote in one note. “Everyone is losing it before me, that’s why you are my chosen target.” In another note, he declared that “all women needs to die and hopefully next time I can gauge [sic] their eyes out.”
Moynihan’s twisted logic is of course eerily similar to that of Elliot Rodger, who went on a shooting spree in Isla Vista last spring in an attempt to “punish” women for their lack of interest in dating him, which he declared to be “a crime that can never be forgiven.”
Thankfully, Moynihan, unlike Rodger, was captured by police before he actually succeeded in killing anyone.
Not so thankfully, both of these men have their fans, including some amongst the usual suspects I write about on this blog. On the incel hangout slutHATE – the successor to PUAhate, on which Elliot Rodger was an occasional commenter – both Rodger and Moynihan have become heroes of a sort to some of the more bitter commenters. Or at least the source of much amusement.
In response to news about Moynihan’s trial, one slutHATEr posted a thread asking “Okay, which one of you did this?” “A new supreme gentleman rises,” wrote another in a different thread devoted to the would-be killer.
A third commenter, going by the name Homesick Alien, asked the question “Are Females days numbered?” listing an assortment of incels who’d killed “females” in an act of twisted “revenge” for their lackluster or nonexistent dating lives. In the comments, Homesick Alien chillingly wrote that
I’m sure someone somehow is rightfully very rageful currently planning the next shooting spree . We can only hope it’ll be more elaborate. Female entitlement is off the charts now, they are out of control,. It’s about time they are put in their fucking place.
Another posted a link to Rodger’s 150-page manifesto, suggesting that “it has the potential to motivate incels to damage the females.”
In a thread from several months ago, a slutHATEr calling himselt NewGenious119 went after fellow incels for not supporting shooting sprees enthusiastically enough.
Seriously, is there something mentally wrong with you? Thinking that a school full of sluts and frat stars getting slain by an incel is a bad thing is characteristic of a normalfag mindset. Our ONLY hope for ever getting to fuck multiple hot sluts is if there are enough incels in the western world who snap and cause bloodshed. It’s the only way that sluts and alphas will realize and accept that there are serious consequences for allowing so many males to live their lives in misery.
Emphasis mine.
As it turned out, there was no need for him to worry that other incels didn’t support spree killngs aimed at “sluts,” as assorted commenters soon let him know.
The rogue MRA and American-Women-Boycotter who calls himself John Rambo seconded his sentiment, writing
I wouldn’t do one myself. But I wouldn’t prevent one from happening if I knew it would as long as I wouldn’t die or a girl that willing to fuck me would. …
Honestly, I truly have very little sympathy for the victims.
A commenter calling himself Worthless Trash only had one complaint: that the death tolls weren’t higher.
I just wish these guys would make better plans and kill their targets and more of them, but sadly most of them have a weakened will-power after all the years of rejections and maybe bullying.
Also i don’t care if it will solve the problem or not, i just feel better hearing this, it’s like divine justice, they feel so superior but in the end they die like worms, just like they treat other guys, like worms, so in the end we are all equal.
Still others offered their assent:
I personally rejoice whenever I hear news of a school shooting.
The higher the death count, the better
i like their kill count high, because it’s always satisfying seeing someone arrogant going from rich to poor, beautiful too ugly from popular to dead
While a few commenters spoke out against the idea of mass murder as a reasonable response to a lack of dates, they were in the distinct minority.
And then there was this guy:
i support ERism [Elliot Rodgerism], but I would never do it myself, my brother is a doctor and his career would be ruined if our family name ever got tarnished
It would be a little easier to dismiss all this as merely internet dumbassery, were it not for the fact that Rodger went out and killed 6 people after posting similar comments on the message board that later became slutHATE.
While commenters like these are a distinct minority even in the sordid world of the manosphere, the sad and scary fact is that there are a frightening number of young and not-so-young men who have embraced one of the central assumptions of the murder-spree-supporting incels of slutHATE – the notion that women who put “nice guys” in the “friend zone” are committing some kind of crime against them, and deserve to be punished for it, individually or collectively.
You can see variations on this in assorted memes attacking women – much as Moynihan and Rodgers did – for supposedly preferring “bad boys” and assholes over the “nice guys” of the world.
Other “friend zone” memes are a bit darker.
And darker still:
And somehow even darker than that:
And we’re just begun to scratch the surface here.
In a followup post, I will look at the ways in which the rampant “slutbashing” of Men’s Rights Activists and other manosphere denizens helps to feed the toxic culture of aggrieved sexual entitlement that has contributed to violence against women.
About the health care… it isn’t like we have to force people to become doctors/teachers. It is a job market responsive to needs (and if we need more doctors, we could just open up more seats in medical school). More people with healthcare coverage = more paying customers = more doctors. Same with teachers.
Sex… doesn’t work like that.
Sluthate is really misunderstood.
Oh my god, someone please put this on a coffee mug for me.
Yeah. We do.
Because teaching men about toxic masculinity and how their measure of worth isn’t how many women they fuck and how to handle their emotions instead of just shoving them down because “boys don’t cry” is a huge step towards teaching them about their own entitlement and showing them how it’s wrong.
Of course, I wouldn’t think that you’d need your fucking hand held to understand that murder, torture, and rape are Very Bad Things, and thus you shouldn’t fucking do them.
Equating sex with intimacy/companionship is particularly aggravating to me. We are social animals, and solitary confinement has amazingly terrible psychological effects that make it inappropriate even for convicts. That doesn’t mean sex is the same thing as general human relationships. You believing lack of sex is as bad as lack of human contact is completely on your head, not on human nature.
To blame everyone external to you for your lack of intimacy… That’s a special kind of conspiracy mindset. Literally everyone in the world is dead-set against being your friend for absolutely no reason (or every woman in the world is specifically avoiding sex with you for no reason)? Is that what you think is going on? Get over yourself.
Goodness, what *are* feminists proposing to stop these men from being violent? Because men can’t possibly do anything about it, of course. Hey, maybe the answer was in the article you criticized. My own solution involves rounding up shitbags who post about murdering women and segregating them from society because it’s been proven that they’re a fucking danger. Quick, misquote 1984 as if you’ve actually read it.
“In my opinion, sex is a need (so is intimacy).”
Then you said:
“Sure, you can live a fulfilled life without sex”
I don’t think you know what a ‘need’ is. A ‘need’ is like food, water and oxygen in order to survive. I’m a 20 year virgin so if sex is a ‘need’ then I should be dead by now. You don’t have to worry about extinction of the human race for quite a long time.
“I believe feminists only apply that selectively. For example, they rightfully decry attempts to violate female bodily autonomy. But, then they turn around and claim that they have the rights to the fruits of others labor in terms of birth control, education, etc.”
What feminists? Who is saying this?
“I don’t understand why everybody here is so hostile to the idea that showing some of these men a little compassion may not be such a bad idea. It seems, quite bluntly, that feminists are intent on bullying the same guys who have been bullied their entire lives.”
Yes let’s show compassion and coddle the killers. /s
“We are able to understand how the bullying culture contributed to the Columbine tragedy. Why can’t we talk about the way our society talks to and treats involuntarily celibate men contributed to Elliot Rodger?
And no, it’s not male sexual entitlement. It’s female and male mocking of men who lack sexual experience. It’s female and male (and feminist) mocking of any guy who complain about the guys females pick to have sex with over him.”
No we mock men who want to rape, abuse and murder people all because they don’t get what they want. Even if they were bullied then they should seek a counselor.
“A support system is possible. But, feminists need to recognize the ways in which they have been counterproductive in creating one. I’d love a society where men didn’t define themselves by the amount of women they’d slept with. But, contrary to what they say, feminists have demonized every attempt to do so. Feminist indoctrination isn’t a solution. Self loathing isn’t a solution. Male spaces where men can honestly talk about their experiences with women and powerlessness without being made fun of or called entitled really could go a long way here.”
Again what feminists? And if there are male spaces that are filled with men that want to do bad things to women when they don’t get what they want then they are ‘entitled’ and should be reported to the police. There are ways for a man to express himself without violence and anger. Everything you said makes me think you have a very low opinion of men.
What does “involuntarily” mean here, anyway? That you only want to bang 9s and 10s, but your wish isn’t coming true?
In that case, I’m involuntarily mansionless.
Pardon the double post, but I just read this bit.
*ahem*
WANTING TO RAPE, TORTURE, AND/OR KILL PEOPLE FOR NOT FUCKING YOU IS ENTITLEMENT. FULL FUCKING STOP.
It’s not just “anger” we’re seeing, it’s rage and a desire to FUCKING HURT WOMEN FOR NOT HAVING SEX WITH A MAN.
The fact that you don’t see this as entitlement is terrifying. You’re literally saying “They’re just angry, no big deal.” You’re minimizing.
Frustration is fine, that’s normal. Rage and threats of violence are NOT.
It’s so high school to obsess about quarterbacks. It’s also very US centric. Is there any evidence that football players and cheerleaders are any more likely to bully? None of the people who were ever mean to me belonged to either of those groups. I’ve met former and current football players who were perfectly nice. My ex boyfriend was a football player in high school. He was very nice and also very opposed to sexism and homophobia. He wasn’t an archetypal alpha male at all.
Also, if you aren’t in high school, nobody cares if you were a jock or a cheerleader. Seriously. The only people that care are these whiny “Nice Guys”
Sex =/= Intimacy. Even the wiki page on Maslow’s hierarchy doesn’t specifically talk about sex as a human need. Talk to any asexual person, or any voluntarily celebate person, or any person who hasn’t decided to trash-talk a whole gender or go on a murderous rampage because they haven’t had sex. Trust me, there are many of them.
I’m involuntarily Hawaiian-vacationless.
I’m involuntarily 8-shaft Glimakra standard-less (and probably will be until I have something bigger than an apartment).
Look at the precious:
http://glimakrausa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/standard-loom-04.jpg
I just wanted to share the pretty.
ooh, very pretty wordsp1nner
I feel comfortable asserting that your closest friends are actually assholes who had relationship trouble because they were assholes. I’m comfortable with this because you’re an asshole, and nobody who was actually nice in the literal sense would give you the time of day.
Oh, so you’re arguing against a strawman. Good to know.
Now you’re pulling an argument from authority. Is there a logical fallacy you won’t use?
That’s complete bullshit. We can all go back and read what you wrote. It’s still back there a page. Gaslighting doesn’t work very well when there is a written record of what you said.
Put them in fucking jail for terrorist threats.
What’s stopping “incel” men from arranging to have sex with one another? That was a suggestion made back a few pages, and it’s brilliant. THEY’RE NOT INVOLUNTARILY CELIBATE. They’re voluntarily celibate because the people available to them don’t meet their standards. They feel ENTITLED to sex with people from a specific demographic. Their frustration is not justifiable and their attempts to murder women because of their unjustifiable frustration are heinous and you are heinous for trying to make excuses for it.
Sex is not a need. Your life is not seriously affected if you don’t have sex (unless you delude yourself otherwise). However if you don’t have education you will not have the knowledge and skills to function in the world. That WILL seriously affect your life.
Bullshit. There are plenty of women who aren’t getting the sex or relationships they’d like. The reason you don’t hear about them is because they don’t hang out on Internet boards whinging and plotting revenge.
Yes you can. Not sure why you’re contradicting yourself but at least we agree here.
No you can’t.
The “man’s got needs” biotroof is not real. It was created to pressure women into sex. Many many men go for ages without sex and They. Are. Fine.
This also is not real, at least not as sweeping theory. It happens, but not as much as the “Nice Guys” say it does. It is an invention to blame someone other than themselves for their romantic disappointments.
And what is this “compassionate approach” supposed to look like? How can we be compassionate without encouraging them in their ideas that women should give them sex no matter what they themselves want? Are we supposed to agree with those dudes that the girls that turned them down are selfish and cruel?
You do realise that birth control and education were intended from the start to be available to whoever wants them? There is such a thing as inventions for the common good.
We do. But it’s not that society taunts and bullies incels. It’s that society carries the attitude that women are for men’s sexual pleasure. This is the attitude that incels carry. This is entitlement.
It’s the mocking of men who have less sexual experience, yes. It’s the belief that sex is what makes a man. This is problematic. But it’s also the attitude that they automatically deserve sex from the women of their choice. YES THAT IS MALE ENTITLEMENT.
[the rest got cut off]
Have you seen these spaces? They’re full of anger and hate and support for physically harming or raping women. These are not spaces that will help anyone! They act as echo chambers where disgruntled men are encouraged in their rotten attitudes and spurred on to commit violence. They are NOT the solution!
Shit, by Tommy Boy’s definition, I’m involuntarily celibate because I’m not fucking Channing Tatum, Roman Reigns (WWE superstar), Christina Hendricks, or Paige (WWE diva) right now.
(Since I’m pansexual, and thus can be attracted to anyone of any gender, does that mean I get to get “angry” at everyone on the planet and threaten genocide because I’m not getting sex right now when I want it, Tommy Boy?)
You know, I’m not actually sure Tom Saw is even reading all these comments before he reacts.
The part where he said that WE all missed HIS point was pretty funny, though, in that way that clueless hypocrisy so often is.
This doesn’t even make sense. The buzzword for men criticizing women’s sexual choices is slut-shaming; male entitlement refers to something else entirely.
Protip: leading with a demonstration of how little you even understand about the subject at hand is not usually a strong start.
Yes, and women have the right to find that venting distasteful, obnoxious or threatening, and to say so. You get to critique my choices, and I get to critique yours. Ain’t free speech grand?
That doesn’t seem productive or terribly mature. Getting angry because someone else has something you want isn’t really disproving the whole “entitlement” thesis.
Calling women irrational for objecting to sexism. Wow, sure haven’t heard that one before.
Also, Warren Farrell is a raving misogynist who thinks women who don’t put out on dates are committing fraud – which is just as bad as date rape – and that women have all the power because we have butts. This is your idea of a healthy (and non-gynocentric) male role model?
Misogyny deserves to be demonized, and fuck you for arguing otherwise.
The men in the OP are calling for women to be murdered on the basis that they share a sex with the women who aren’t fucking them. And what you’re angry about, what you chose to get all high and mighty and complain about, is the people objecting to those comments? Look at your life, bro. Look at your choices.
Nope.
Birth control is a form of preventive medical care; a warm body to stick your dick in is not. Apples and oranges, asshole.
Sex is a desire, not a need. I’m sick of seeing this argument everywhere that equates sex with hunger. A psychological theory that says otherwise isn’t going to change my mind about that.
“Fifth. What exactly are feminists proposing to stop these men from being violent? Do you really think that calling them entitled or having culture teach them that their anger is just entitlement is going to prevent violence?”
Actually, yes, it will. If we remove the idea that anger and aggression is a justified response to rejection, then it will help to prevent those incidents. If we challenge the idea that people are entitled to a particular person’s time/attention/body, then people will stop expecting that and are less likely to be aggressive towards a person when they’re rejected. If we don’t do that, nothing will change. Angry, potentially violent men who don’t have their ideas challenged will continue being angry until someone gets hurt, especially if they think they’re justified in hurting people who turned them down (which is what sluthate says).
It’s also a better suggestion than “make women feel guilty for not lowering their standards / not sleeping with every man who approaches them / not approaching men they’re not interested in just because they feel bad for them.”
Letting men talk about their feelings is NOT the same as reinforcing those feelings. You’re treating the two as if they’re the same. We don’t have to be okay with men who talk about how they want to harm women. We won’t silence them, but we’ll certainly call them out on it, because nothing will change if we don’t.
I was considered an ugly girl in middle school. Guys actually paid each other to dance with wallflower me as a joke and laughed at me to my face and behind my back. I got my heart stomped on repeatedly throughout high school (no boyfriends, not so much as a single kiss), and yet, in the face of all that dreadful humiliation, I survived just fine without sex (but oh, the education and insights I got!) until I was well into my twenties, when my looks and self-esteem finally started to kick in for realz. I got treated like shit because some idiot dudes thought I was below their bizarre ideas of what was “par” — and these guys were not even outrageously good looking, they were just average halfway attractive Joes.
And yet, after growing up actively mistreated by that bunch of entitled little shits, I’m supposed to buy the idea that women owe “compassion” to some poor intimacy-deprived incel dude? Hell to the NOPE. If guys don’t take sexual pity on girls they wouldn’t ever want to be seen with, why should we do that for them? Pity is not an aphrodisiac. My ladyboner don’t lie down with no pity-party man.
But what the hell do I know? I’m an evil socialist feminist, not a know-all flibbertigibbertarian like Tom the Repulsive Troll.
For a while I followed the local equivalent of an Incel forum. Not as bad as Sluthate or something similiar, more like an attempt of a self-help forum. Some really lonely guys but the loudest and most aggressive ones are all like the common known ones. With one exception: prostitution is legal here and almost all of them visit prostitutes but still call themselves Incels. They are still angry that women won’t sleep with them without money and they are still complaining about how feminism ruined everything, women are too picky/hypergamous/whatever. And they all are certain that they are the Nice Guys but women only date assholes. No, this isn’t about having no sex or being single, awkward and lonely, it’s just entitlement and misogyny.
Quoted for excellent truth.
@weirwoodtreehugger:
Yeah, I’m constantly amazed at how often presumably grown men use ancient high-school tropes to describe the modern adult world. What better evidence is there that they really need to grow up?
Okay. Let me lay out my points simply here so they will be easy to understand. First:
1.) There is no right to sex
2.) The Elliot Rodgers and Ben Moynihans of the world are disgusting and deserve no compassion
Okay. Now, here are the points I am making:
1.) Sex is more than a luxury
2.) Sex is as much a need as things like education and mental health care are
3.) A life without sex can be terrible without any support system
4.) Feminist demonization of “nice guys” is callous and counterproductive
5.) In some instances, a guy CAN be justifiably angry at a girl who rejected him. Violence is never justified, but benign frustration and anger can be.
6.) A woman, on average, has a much easier time getting laid than a man (I don’t think anyone can dispute this)
7.) Sex positive feminism has played a role in creating this new masculinity that defines men in how many girls they’ve had sex with. Let me expand on this point a bit:
Imagine being a involuntarily celibate male on a college campus. All around you are posters advertising birth control. Cultural events celebrating open sexuality. Friends talking about the sexual experimentation they’ve taken part in and girls talking about the guys they’ve slept with.
Being in this “sexually open”, “sex positive” culture as somebody who is not sexually active but wants to be can be very painful. Unlike the experience of “nice guys” (which I never really was), I did experience this early in my college days (which is a while back now). It was awful. I felt inadequate all the time. I wondered what was wrong with myself. I was in a culture where sex was supposedly happening all the time and I never seemed to be part of it. I couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong with me. Yes, sometimes this led to me to be angry at myself. And, yes, sometimes I was angry at the culture around me. I couldve used more of a support system, but it wasn’t there.
Sexual revolution and sex positive feminism had a lot to do with creating this culture where free sex was the norm and it made guys who weren’t part of it feel awful. If sex positive feminism would at least acknowledge some blame for this, a lot of anger these guys hold would be directed away from feminism.
YES. And if you have a problem with that, well, you have a problem. And it’s on YOU to get the fuck over it! Because a lot of us grew up with things to get legit angry about (see my last post), but we do NOT believe that we are entitled to go around shooting and stabbing people for not meeting our so-called “needs”.
Or rolling off teal-deer lists and boring them to tears, either.
Are you really this stupid? Birth control isn’t a sexual aid, you ignoranus*. Birth control is a health care issue for the same reason vaccines are: they both prevent potentially life-threatening conditions.
Also, who said anything about depravity? Is the mere act of having sex while female “depraved” in your tiny, hateful brain?
*not a typo