As bad as most of the misogynistic ideas I write about on this blog tend to be, they at least have a certain perverse logic to them; if you accept their deeply flawed premises, at least long enough to try to parse the arguments, the conclusions make a sort of rough sense.
But when I wander into the online worlds of the so-called “involuntary celibates” I can quickly lose my moorings. Most incels are hugely depressed, and as I know from my own experience dealing with depression of varying degrees of severity over several decades, deep depression not only distorts your thinking; it also can make you weirdly self-obsessed, assuming that everything that happens in the world has something to do with you — both with your own imagined failings and with the alleged injustices the world supposedly imposes on you.
When you combine all this with the standard bad ideas of the misogynistic manosphere, incel “logic” can quickly become very strange indeed.
I say all this as a sort of introduction to this little “true story”I found on the Incels subreddit, a story that starts out with an awkward not-quite-interaction on a largely deserted bus and ends with a plot twist I have to say I never saw coming.
So let’s take a look at the post titled “Feminism’s fault I’m incel,” (archived here) by a fellow calling himself Brazierlord.
I was sitting next to this girl on the bus the other day and as the bus starting emptying out, I stood up to change seats like a good male is supposed to. I would be labeled as a danger to females if they saw me continue to sit next to that innocent female when I could easily move – obviously I was preparing to stalk her and rape her as soon as we got off the bus.
Obviously what he means by that last bit is that the others on the bus might consider him a bit creepy if he continued to sit next to the girl in question when there were now plenty of open seats. But his choice of words here, while meant sarcastically, make him seem even creepier than he intends.
So I stand up and I see her look at me through the corner of my eye. I move to the seat behind and at angle of -45 degrees from the horizontal to her. The entire time she is tracking me. Once I am seated she looks away and lays her head on the window.
Maybe she’s “tracking you” because you’re “tracking her” as you move to a new seat.
We get to our stop and she glances back at me. I am standing at this point and she hurries off the bus and nearly breaks into a run in the opposite direction.
Either she’s in a hurry, is nervous about being out alone, or our narrator really is giving off a creepy vibe.
So far, this seems to be a relatively straightforward story of a guy who may be giving off more of a creepy vibe than he realizes.
Then we get this:
If it weren’t for feminism I wouldn’t have changed seats and she wouldn’t hate me for breaking her heart. She probably would have followed me to my apartment and asked me if she could have sex with me and I wouldn’t be a virgin anymore
WHAT.
What the fuck are you talking about?
You didn’t break her heart. At best, she barely noticed you; at worst, you creeped her out. That’s it. Everything else is going on in your head, and nowhere else. Women do not follow strange men to their apartments to ask them for sex because they happened to sit next to each other on the bus. This is the sort of fantasy you come up with when you can’t imagine actually interacting with a woman as a real human being.
Get off of r/Incels and into therapy. Please. For your sake, and for the sake of every woman you sit next to on the bus.
Sorry – both points already made on page 2 (I wrote that at the end of page 1)
@JS:
This is a very niche sort of friendship, but one that makes me very happy, and it’s instantly changed my opinion of her.
What did she say that was astrophysicist friendly? I really want to know now.
I can’t even the entitlement and creepiness in this mega creepster’s entire post.
I have anxiety and depression. It’s very bad and even I would change seats no big deal and not stare or whatever. But him to actually think that the girl wants him and follow him is just wow. I am so scared that dudes like him actually exist and not taken seriously and being labeled “trolls” and “mentally ill” and not seen as terrorists scares me even more.
@EJ
We’re a natural fit for each other. I figure a dashing zeppelin captain like yourself could use a roguish yet ladylike and elegant Flying Machine Pilot like myself. I wonder if your vessel has an internal hangar like the airships in Crimson Skies.
@Moggie
Thanks for reccing Beyond Infinity!
I love reading books by Asian women. I’ve been reading the hell out of some Yiyun Lee recently.
@Dalillama
Just saw your comment, i am from odesa. But rest is right. I probably said some ignorant things which i apologies for. And to be honest i did get very upset before about davids russia posts so it understandable that you think i am russian ?maybe even a putin bot. But no! I just keep my thoughts to myself now on those matters here.
She tweeted “The existence of Twitter is forever validated by the following exchange.” You do need the context to see why that’s astropphysicist friendly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jk-rowling-astrophysicist-climate-change_us_57b2dae7e4b0c75f49d807ba
There’s probably more out there, but that’s the one that’s been reported on.
@Ariblester
Having not watched the actual trailer and not intending to, I’m giving it a 2/10. They’ve got a bit of the basic aesthetic, but there’s no rhyme or reason or indications that the underpinnings of the technology on display are worked out. Or the setting in general, really.
@Francesca Torpedo
re: Steampunk, you might take a look at Nisi Shawl’s Everfair (Steampunk Congo aided by British Socialists), and Steamfunk, which is a concept anthology from a number of authors.
The author’s rather underestimating Black people of the 12th-17th centuries, I feel. A Renfaire set in Al-Andalus or Songhai or Mali or Awkar would be pretty fucking sweet, IMO. (I wouldn’t feel it appropriate for my white ass to personally participate, but I’d love to see such a thing.)
I want to say that I’m amazed at what ignorant tools they are, but I’m really, really not.
@Valentine
No, that’s totally my fault, I know you’ve said this before when I’m around. Sorry.
@Dalillama
Thanks for the recs!
Also, in the hypothetical you describe, I think as many white people should see it. Perhaps not participate, yes, but definitely they should show up and look at it.
They need to see an image of black people that aren’t slaves or rappers or twerk team strippers.
It is for similar purposes that I write about unconventional black people (unconventional in pop culture in America at least) – space pirates, emperors and empresses, diplomats, cybernetic ninjas, etc.
@Francesca Torpedo
I’m finding this particularly surreal, as I have strong memories of the writing style in the old zork games and stuff like hhgttg. I don’t have the talent myself, alas.
> look
You are in your basement apartment. Light, hope and fresh air stream in through the doorway to the north.
There is a femoid here. It is having sex with you.
> go north
You can't go north, there's a vagina in the way.
> examine vagina
Eew, no.
@ Francesca
It would be a good excuse to learn Bartitsu. Then you can still engage in Nazi punching but with an air of panache.
@Francesca Torpedo
1)That sounds like stuff I would like to read.
2) Based on that, I’m also gonna recommend Tobias Buckell and Nnedi Okorafor. Buckell has a space opera setting and a couple near future spy thrillers, Okorafor has all kindsa fantasy and SF, I can’t easily summarize.
@dalaillama
No problem. But actually you made me look at what I said about the lifts in a totally different way. I dont know if my girlfriend takes lifts or if my friend who gives lifts, gives to women and others, not just men. I thought i didnt worry cos its normal where i live, but maybe its normal just for me as i see no danger as i am a man.
I would play the shit out of a Femoid text adventure. Meanwhile, maybe I need to find my Infocom collection and play Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
@ Francesca and Dalillama
Not quite steampunk, but you might enjoy Warren Ellis’s ‘Ministry of Space’. Set in a universe where the British got to Peenemunde first and stole all the scientists in an operation paperclip sort of thing. Shades of Dan Dare but with subtle social commentary (to the extent that when something is revealed at the end you’ll go back and read all the seemingly irrelevant background chatter again with a new perspective).
@Francesca Torpedo
@dalaillama
I am reading Everfair now and it’s so good !
I’d also recommend Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, a Victorian/regency era Steampunk-adjacent magic tale with a Black protagonist, Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older, a contemporary urban fantasy with a Black girl protagonist and basically anything by NK Jemisin
“Well, then, you can’t roleplay as a king, because they didn’t exist in large numbers either.”
Thanks for the recommendations, everyone!
@Dalillama
I’ll be sure to link you to my published works.
@Pie
That’s exactly the response I was aiming for!
@Shaenon
Well, to be honest, the roleplay chat wouldn’t let you RP as a king or queen.
HOWAYVER…mostly everyone would roleplay as a Lord or a Lady and roleplay having Illicit Medieval Sex. Same rules would apply, I would imagine, though, because for every Sexy Lord and Lady there was like 10,000 grubby peasants.
My character? A small blind black girl beggar…who didn’t get to actually do anything because of the aforementioned ban.
@ Fran(s)cesca, now I am picturing you steampunkishly like this:
http://68.media.tumblr.com/8766568957417b0791814c3466c5d909/tumblr_nxl8wqtSWd1s9c6nao3_500.jpg
http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/search/Black+Victoriana
@Croquembouche
Oh snap, you linked to the blog white nationalists hate so much.
Seriously, so many white nationalists hate that blog, and I love it partially because of that, and partially because it displays black people doing things in past times that aren’t slavery or tribalism.
And, yes, that is basically me in real life. Where did you get that? Have you been stalking me? :O
@ Francesca, yes when I googled to find the address again, I did notice all the sites claiming to “debunk” it. Clicked one to see the level of rigour involved – poor, of course. I must now return to my search page to click a few of the more reputable pages. Damn you, google algorithms!
Re: black people in Britain
Just leaving this here…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6293333.stm
@franscesca – i used to love crimson skies. So dissapointing that there has been no update on a modern platform.
I have to disagree with the comments encouraging this dude to talk to women on the bus.
He should not strike up conversations with women on the bus. He should not strike up conversations with women who are not on a bus. His policy of not speaking with femoids is solid. He should keep at it. He needs to solve his problems before he tries to talk to women; talking to women will not solve them, and talking to women with them unsolved isn’t going to help him.
No woman’s life is going to be improved with this dude in it at the moment, so inflicting him on some random stranger on the bus in the name of his self-improvement is not a good plan. Women on the bus don’t exist for the purpose of improving his socialization. They are people.
Hate to break it to you dude, but you’re not Gallant. You’re Goofus.
“Good males” don’t treat basic social etiquette as some kind of odious burden designed to victimize them. Incels find it hard to be considerate towards women because they’re seething with contempt for their “lessers”. Add in a cargo-cult approach to human interaction, and you get a) constant anger at being expected to perform the rituals b) aggrieved bewilderment when the sex fails to materialize as promised.
…he says sarcastically, and then proceeds to sound like an F-14 pilot preparing to intercept an enemy aircraft:
The specificity of that angle makes me shudder. Somebody’s trying to get extra credit in Trigonometry for Creeps.