By David Futrelle
The “Incel” cult not only encourages so-called “involuntarily celibate” men to hate and blame women; it also teaches these men to hate themselves, obsessing endlessly over alleged physical flaws and other imaginary impediments that they think make them undateable and fundamentally unlovable.
One of the most insidious ways in which the Incel cult harms those in it is by discouraging clearly depressed men from seeking the psychological and psychiatric help it is clear so many of them desperately need.
Some incels dismiss therapy and medication as frauds, convinced that nothing will work for them. This is self-defeating but at least understandable. Therapy is hard work, and meds. while generally effective in helping most people, aren’t a panacea, and when you’re deeply depressed it’s hard to believe anything will help.
But there are plenty of incels who reject therapy and meds not because they think they won’t work, but because they’re afraid they will. These deeply miserable men don’t want to be cured of their misery because they don’t believe they deserve to be happy. Or even to live.
In a recent post on the Incels subreddit, someone calling himself StarvedOfHumanTouch argues bluntly that “[t]reating incels for depression should be illegal.”
“Some anti depressants and anti psychotics are too fucking effective,” he writes.
They have the ability to turn even the most suicidally depressed men into tax contributing good goys.
So far, if we ignore the not-too-subtle hint of anti-Semitism at the end there, StarvedOfHumanTouch is rehashing an old and silly argument put forth by some social critics who wrongly think that antidepressants turn everyone into “shiny happy” conformists. But his argument quickly gets much darker.
Depression like all other state of minds has a purpose. It is meant to hurt, weaken, and ultimately kill you. Trimming the fat from society so to speak. It is in the benefit of all to let the weak and disabled die off.
He’s including himself in this group.
So why keep us around? Is it compassion? Sadism? Or are we just a buffer to keep around to take the blow when shit hits the fan in society every other decade?
As far as I can figure out the logic here, StarvedOfHumanTouch apparently think that “normies” conspire to keep incels and other alleged “undesirables” around as, I guess, designated sufferers when crises roll around. It doesn’t make much sense to me either.
But StarvedOfHumanTouch’s fellow incels seem to have little trouble understanding what he’s getting at.
“[W]e subhumans exist so chads and staceys can feel better about themselves that they arent subhuman like us,” writes PM_ME_STRIPPERS.
“Yes, and conning them into “therapy” should also be a stoneable offense,” adds Thizizwhyimincel,” whose flair for the subreddit suggests that his “[m]other deserves to be raped by ISIS.”
Any normie, or whore, who recommends therapy for an incel, is intentionally trying to steal money from an inferior man. They absolutely deserve the rope for even suggesting this.
3K-caloriespurple-pilled non-incel is of the opinion that”letting people suffer is [un]acceptable.” But instead of suggesting that sufferers get treatment to ease their suffering, he thinks that “euthanasia should be legalized for people with severe depression or mental issues.”
As someone who has struggled with depression for decades now, I can tell you that this sort of bullshit is the last thing any depressed person needs to hear. Treatment is available; meds help. Incel is, as I’ve said many times before, poison. It makes everyone it touches worse off. It’s suicide fuel.
consumed by the nyoom
can’t stop hitting replay
pls send halp
@PeeVee, glad you liked it.
@Dimmy…well, the heat death of the universe will occur eventually.
@epitome of incomprehensibility, @Troubelle,
After thinking things over (and then getting chomped on by RL for a few days >.< ), I think I might owe you guys a bit of an apology about the Ritalin stuff. It had been a few years since I read that argument, and may be misremembering all of the details this guy was arguing. And until I get that chance to go back to the blog in question and hunt down that old post to refresh my memory, I won't touch that argument again in this thread.
Again, sorry.
@Redsilkphoenix – I just saw in the sidebar that you’d commented in this thread. No problem, ne worriez pas! I didn’t mean to criticize YOU, just saying that the article didn’t seem that credible. Sorry if I sounded grumpy.
Also, hope things are going better!
ETA: “Ne worriez pas” = don’t worry. Apparently tiredness causes me to revert to my childish habit of mixing French and English. Je me sorry 🙂
@CMH
For the same reason any other kind of increase in strange symptoms and behaviors should worry us. There might actually be a yet unknown, under-documented, under-studied medical issue beneath it all.
Some of these guys might indeed snap but a lot of people snap for a lot of reasons.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
Obviously, there’s no medical condition called “involuntary celibacy” per se. Men (and women) usually end up being “incel” as a result of a host of issues (some of them medical).
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes
How a person looks in a picture is only part of the picture (pun intended).
If you were to actually meet many of these people on the street you’d see the real issue is with their involuntary behaviors.
The direction of their gaze, the way they move and talk, that’s what triggers the “something’s wrong with this person” instinct in other people (a.k.a “normies”).
A lot of these people aren’t just “incels” but also have very few friends because not a lot of people want to risk sitting around to see if the sensed danger is real or not.
A follow-up for @weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee:
These are by no means rigorous but it seems this issue has been on the mind of at least a few professionals:
http://www.webmd.com/men/features/sexless-in-the-city
and
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/minority-report/201706/involuntary-celibacy
That’s it about this subject from me.
@Chris
There might be, but why is a suddenly-and-mysteriously appearing mental disorder a simpler explanation than changing cultural behaviors? People don’t start relationships or get married out of necessity or practicality so much anymore in our society. Actually, maybe it doesn’t need to be a simpler explanation, just a more desirable one; if there’s a disorder it’s not their fault and they don’t need to make the effort to behave.
By the way, that Psychology Today article does say that more young women are estimated to be sexless than young men. Are women more afflicted with this medical issue then? Or is the only real symptom complaining about lack of sex?
I don’t mean to attack you for bringing up a different explanation, but I’m sure you understand why some of us just don’t find it convincing.
Y’all, read the commenting policy. We don’t internet-diagnose people on this site. There are numerous reasons why, and if you really need those reasons we can discuss them, but stop internet-diagnosing people.
The label “incel” is new. Male entitlement to female time, attention and bodies and rage at women for not complying with their desired behavior? That’s as old as the hills.
Okay, the WebMD post was from 2003. It doesn’t describe the online incel culture because that didn’t exist yet. It also seemed to be suggesting that the pop culture depiction of everyone having lots of sex partners and going on lots of dates can feed into self esteem issues that already exist and may be worsened by mood disorders. Which is not news at all. It doesn’t describe incel as a medical condition nor does it discuss the genocidal rage towards women found in the almost exclusively male online incel community. So it’s kinda off topic.
The Psychology Today post is a little more relevant. It’s also short and reads like something a high school student taking a psychology class would write. Very amateurish.
First of all, this assertion isn’t backed up.
Second of all, while it may be true that our culture equates getting laid with masculinity, it also equates success at marriage and babies with femininity. So it still doesn’t explain why there’s male anger surrounding lack of intimacy but not equivalent female anger about the same.
Third of all, calling 15 year olds “sexless” weirds me out. I’m too lazy to look up the stats right now, but I’m pretty sure that the majority of people that age have never had consensual sex. There’s also such a huge amount of cognitive and emotional development between the ages of 15 and 24 that it doesn’t make sense to me to lump them all together.
Again, we have an assumption that’s not backed up. Something like half of mass shooters have a history of domestic violence. Indicating that plenty of angry men have had success finding partners. The author didn’t establish a correlation between sexual frustration and violence let alone show causation. There does seem to be a correlation between misogyny and violence but it’s not mentioned in this post.
Chris, this doesn’t back up your view. Since there are cultural factors as well as medical, it doesn’t make sense to armchair diagnose incels by their internet posts alone.
“euthanasia should be legalized for people with severe depression or mental issues.”
Psychopaths taking advantage of them, laughing watching them suffer, masquerading as one of them to further fuel their anguish from behind a mask.
Men’s mental health is an issue.
The reason they don’t want help is that they don’t believe their problems are caused by internal flaws, but by a fundamentally rigged world, which is, in my opinion, a very logical reasoning, and probably true. I mean, if you’re ugly and you’re denied sex for that reason, and this causes anxiety and depression, why should you seek help at a shrink’s office, why would you think you’re to blame, while is not true. Why would you treat aids with a cure for cancer. It just doesn’t sound logical.
People that visit shrinks think their problems lie in themselves, and they culpabilize themselves for it, while in reality, you just live in a shitty unequal world, and you’re just a victim of outside factors, outside of yourself and your own power.
Most of their core logic is very very logical, it just doesn’t fit into mainstream views.
@hammertime
You’ve never known a man who was not conventionally attractive and yet enjoyed a good relationship — not to mention a happy life?
You’ve never even seen a man who was not conventionally attractive out with his partner, enjoying himself?
They’re not hard to find. And no, they’re probably not rich either.
PS: The same holds true for women. A woman who is not conventionally attractive can still have good relationships and a happy life. Not that any incel would want her. No, only an HB8+ will do. His loss.
@hammertime
Not sure why I’m doing this. You probably won’t listen. I certainly wouldn’t have when I were younger.
If you’re walking down the street and some asshole hits you with his car then drives off, why should you seek help at the ER for your broken bones? After all, you’re not to blame for them. Yet, you do.
If you’re sitting at home and the frost suddenly cracks one of your windows clean in half, why should you repair it? After all, you’re not to blame for it happening. Yet, you do.
It’s a weak excuse, mate.
Since when have people ever been logical? Betting you personally can give a hundred stories about “Guy I know was in this situation. Instead of doing the sensible thing, he did this instead – what the hell was he thinking?”
People includes incels, hard as that can be for them to believe at times. Trying to apply logic to an emotional situation (and sex or lack thereof is a very emotional situation) is merely a way of going spectacularly wrong with confidence, since you can’t use logic without having a firm factual basis, and no one (and I mean no one at all) can look at themselves dispassionately enough to get those facts.