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Check out my piece in the HuffPost: “The Time for Incel Explainers Was Years Ago”

Torontoans remember those killed in the van attack

By David Futrelle

I’ve got a piece up on the HuffPost today on incels. An excerpt:

At this point, it should be clear: The entire manosphere ― from the faux-respectable Men’s Rights Activists to the anonymous Twitter trolls who threaten and harass any woman who dares express an opinion they don’t like ― is irredeemably toxic. The incels are the most hateful of them all. We need to start regarding them with the same revulsion and disdain that most decent people feel for those who inhabit the resurgent fascist movement known euphemistically as the “alt-right,” to whom misogyny is almost as central as white supremacy.

The time for 101 explainers has long since passed. Misogyny kills, quite literally, and we need to shut it down.

You can find the piece here.

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Z&T
Z&T
6 years ago

Another excellent piece David! 🙂

Wow, HuffPo?

And “Guest Writer”? Ooo that sounds super fancy to me! 🙂
YAY!

And yes it’s too bad that all this has to be a “thing”.

But attention must be brought to it all, and David you are doing an excellent job!

You most definitely are doing a huge public service here! And with all your writing.

As others have said too, – don’t work too hard. Down time and relax and all that.

idli sambar revolution
idli sambar revolution
6 years ago

I hope they invite you on CNN or Good Morning America or 20/20, David.

This incelhater, inceldomter menace is getting covered by the press online, but it really needs to be exposed on TV.

Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
6 years ago

Thanks, David, for that insightful look at the world of incels.

Alan, add me to the list of people who will steal your remark about the Nuremberg trials.

Apropos of all things incel (shudder), the New York Times has an article on “the redistribution of sex” by well-known asshat Ross Douthat (double shudder). I can’t read the article because I’ve hit my limit for the month with the NYT, but I did read this piece about it:

The Redistribution Of Human Flesh, By Ross Douthbag
By
Robyn Pennacchia

https://wonkette.com/633401/the-redistribution-of-human-flesh-by-ross-douthbag#het1x03UCL7DYkHC.99

I especially appreciated this thread in the Wonkette comments (the emphasis is mine):

unrulysunshine • 2 hours ago

I just want to bé seen as à full human by enough of society for there not to be thinkpieces in one of the country’s biggest newspapers about how maybe those guys who want to kill and/or enslave me have a point about my human rights and personal autonomy being less important than some dude getting his dick wet. Apparently that’s too much to ask.

arrrghle unrulysunshine • 2 hours ago

This, exactly this. There is no other response to this article.

Rasilom unrulysunshine • 2 hours ago

It is not only not too much to ask, you should never even have to ask. I say stupid misogynist incel bastards like these should be removed from general society and transported to a remote island where they can live out their Lord of the Flies fantasy and slowly die off because they have no one to reproduce with.

28 Percent • 2 hours ago

You didn’t even get to the worst part of Douthat’s column, because he wasn’t actually advocating for prostitution or sexbots at all (c’mon, this is Douthat, we all know what the punchline is going to be, right?) Douthat – probably unwittingly – finished the op-ed by making an argument in favor of the incels’ fantasy: he said that women have a choice between living in what he describes as a “Hefneresque” dystopia where women will be killed by left-out men and whatcanudo? Or else we can avoid being murdered by becoming “chaste” and accepting the protection of “conservative” patriarchal marriage. That man is _vile_.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
6 years ago

I’m glad people like the Nuremberg quote, but to give credit where credit’s due, it’s a paraphrases of something I heard in an interview recently. I think it might have been Ben Ferencz.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
6 years ago

Ok, so there’s a site called ‘Inceltears’. It posts some of the most egregious examples of incel behaviour from their own fora and sites. But apparently a few days ago they received an email saying that if they didn’t take down the site the people known to have brought incel activity to the attention of the authorities would be ‘doxxed’.

The mods of Inceltears didn’t think anything of this, but it seems the incels have started to release details of the relevant individuals.

It’s just another example of incel vindictivness; I do however like this comment from one of the posters:

I’m confused. “We know you reported potential criminal activity to the LEOs. Stop doing it or we will tell all your friends about your civic-mindedness. We are timing this information to come shortly after a self-identified incel murdered several people in Canada, so that everyone around you will know these reports were not specious or unfounded.”

In what universe does that qualify as blackmail? At all?

Lumipuna (nee Arctic Ape)
Lumipuna (nee Arctic Ape)
6 years ago

Alan:

Maybe there’s some risk of violence and vandalism against Inceltears activists? Incels seem to be a fairly small but easily violent community.

Or maybe they do have a large number of lurking sympathizers, the kind of people who eagerly take any excuse to harass people online?

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
6 years ago

@ lumipuna

Yes, that’s the worry. No-one seems too concerned about the revelations to family, friends, employers etc.

“Stop telling people about our illegal activities or we’ll tell everyone you’re a decent human being.”

But there is genuine and understandable worry about the threat of violence. Recent history demonstrates that incels are not just a bunch of annoying, but otherwise ineffectual, keyboard wankers.

ETA: People have been making the very good point that it illustrates the incel mentality that they think people would be embarrassed by their views and activities being made public. But it’s classic projection. When you’re a loathsome troglodyte, festering in your own vileness, you probably can’t imagine decent people haven’t got anything to be ashamed about.

Who?
Who?
6 years ago

Any sympathy for incel went out when reading how they tread others.
Can you perhaps have sympathy for one of them sure.
Best to help them is get them out. (there are programs to help get out of other hategroups, should be easier on incel since they are more anonym)
But the movement is so toxic that they should be watched and it should be made more difficult for them to recrut.

Bina
Bina
6 years ago

@Kat:

…he said that women have a choice between living in what he describes as a “Hefneresque” dystopia where women will be killed by left-out men and whatcanudo? Or else we can avoid being murdered by becoming “chaste” and accepting the protection of “conservative” patriarchal marriage.

Orrrrrr we could do away with all of that (because both “options” are just the obverse and reverse faces of patriarchy, which can go die in a fire and then go on burning forever in Hades), and do something that neither Ross Douche-that nor the incels have even thought of: Acknowledge that women (and nonbinary people, who also exist), like men, are autonomous human beings with rights, among which is the right to choose their partners or (gasp!) remain unpartnered, as they please.

And once that’s done, badabing! No more need for women to be “protected” by conservative patriarchal marriage, because there won’t be any more “incel”-predators to “protect” us from. The warped beliefs that made them not-so-involuntary celibates will cease to exist, and no one will feel bad if they’re currently doing without sex, because their value is in their humanity, not their sexuality.

Humanity. What a radical concept!

And @Alan:

“We know you reported potential criminal activity to the LEOs. Stop doing it or we will tell all your friends about your civic-mindedness. We are timing this information to come shortly after a self-identified incel murdered several people in Canada, so that everyone around you will know these reports were not specious or unfounded.”

So, basically, incels are now threatening to go nuclear on anyone who alerts police to terroristic and murderous plots afoot in their community?

Golly, such Nice Guys™. Can’t imagine why anyone’s not boffing them.

Bezoar
Bezoar
6 years ago

Back in my day, men who weren’t getting laid were expected to figure out what they were doing wrong and fix it. But these guys, maybe they’re secretly gay and they don’t really desire sex with women? If I remember correctly, Caesar Augustus commissioned the writer Ovid to pen a book of verse extolling the desirability of retiring to country life for discharged legionnaires; Augustus didn’t want all those violent types living in the city. This strategy was reported as being very successful by Gibbon. Maybe the incels could be induced to take up homosexuality with each other by appropriately insightful pornography? Then they could get all the sex they need and want without having to put up with someone very different from themselves; win win win!

Jaygee
Jaygee
6 years ago

Thanks for writing these much needed articles, David.

Anne
Anne
6 years ago

Great piece, David. And thanks for your hard work and this blog 🙂

Jesalin
Jesalin
6 years ago

eyeroll

Hey, maybe they’re secretly alien ‘greys’ from the 12th dimension too!

Rhuu - apparently an illiterati
Rhuu - apparently an illiterati
6 years ago

Back in my day, men who weren’t getting laid were expected to figure out what they were doing wrong and fix it. But these guys, maybe they’re secretly gay and they don’t really desire sex with women? If I remember correctly, Caesar Augustus commissioned the writer Ovid to pen a book of verse extolling the desirability of retiring to country life for discharged legionnaires; Augustus didn’t want all those violent types living in the city. This strategy was reported as being very successful by Gibbon. Maybe the incels could be induced to take up homosexuality with each other by appropriately insightful pornography? Then they could get all the sex they need and want without having to put up with someone very different from themselves; win win win!

No. This is not a problem that straight men get to push off onto everyone else. This is your shit, YOU deal with it.

kupo
kupo
6 years ago

No. This is not a problem that straight men get to push off onto everyone else. This is your shit, YOU deal with it.

????

Jesalin
Jesalin
6 years ago

????

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
6 years ago

Oh boy.

Hi, @Bezoar! Holy noodle, you have some thoughts there. I’m gonna peel them apart a bit. Please don’t take this as a personal attack, it’s not.

Back in my day, men who weren’t getting laid were expected to figure out what they were doing wrong and fix it.

No they weren’t.

If you think “men throw hateful murder-fits over women” is a new thing, you haven’t been paying attention. Jack the Ripper is fucking celebrated.

As Rhuu pointed out – own this shit. It’s not “kids these days”, it’s you.

But these guys, maybe they’re secretly gay and they don’t really desire sex with women?

“Maybe they’re gay” comes out every time a misogynist rears their heads in the media.

Being gay has nothing to do with murdering women. These guys aren’t acting this way because they don’t get sex whenever they want. Some of them are in relationships. It’s not about sex. It’s about hating women.

Associating their hate with homosexuality does nothing but label you a homophobe.

If I remember correctly, Caesar Augustus commissioned the writer Ovid to pen a book of verse extolling the desirability of retiring to country life for discharged legionnaires; Augustus didn’t want all those violent types living in the city.

comment image

This strategy was reported as being very successful by Gibbon. Maybe the incels could be induced to take up homosexuality with each other by appropriately insightful pornography? Then they could get all the sex they need and want without having to put up with someone very different from themselves; win win win!

While I completely understand and support the urge to isolate these execrable characters from the rest of humanity, or the reasons above – let’s not say “lol I bet they’re gay,” hmm? It isn’t about sex, it’s about hate, and the LGBT community has enough burdens to carry from the garbage society piles on them.

Rhuu’s advice is good, you should take it.

Austin G Loomis
Austin G Loomis
6 years ago

Bezoar’s closest approach to a valid point:

Maybe the incels could be induced to take up homosexuality with each other by appropriately insightful pornography?

Or, if all else fails, the work of Billings’ best-loved science-fiction writer (name of Chuck).

Steven Dutch
Steven Dutch
6 years ago

“We need to start regarding them with the same revulsion and disdain that most decent people feel for those who inhabit the resurgent fascist movement known euphemistically as the “alt-right,” to whom misogyny is almost as central as white supremacy.”

I’ve put off posting this because it will upset some people, but what, exactly, is the moral difference between killing someone because you’re angry women won’t give you sex, and killing someone because you’re angry they won’t give you your wallet?

I gave up on Pharyngula ages ago and am not the least surprised they are running psycho-twaddle about the need for understanding incels. Understand them, yes, the same way we understand Ebola or any other pestilence, but not in the sense of pretending their ideas have any worth.

And while we’re treating incels with the disdain we feel for the alt-right, maybe we should start feeling that disdain for ALL criminals.

kupo
kupo
6 years ago

@Steven Dutch
Are you really so unaware of how awful it is to have a hate group actively want you dead? Do you really not understand the difference between the risk of being the victim of a random mugging and the risk of being the victim of a hate crime? Do you really not understand the difference e between someone who would very much rather you live at the end of an encounter but it goes badly and someone who seeks you out specifically because they want people like you dead?

weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee

Isn’t it amazing how this latest incel murder spree has inspired so many white dudes to give their hot takes about how women’s bodies are comparable to money and other inanimate objects. They just keep oozing out of the woodwork.

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Also, where has anyone said that murdering someone in a robbery is no big deal?

Dalillama
Dalillama
6 years ago

@Steven Dutch
1) Point to a mass murder motivated by robbery in the last, say, 30 years. (Extra points if you know why I picked that timespan)

2) Provide links to at least one website or forum where people gather to celebrate murderous robbers, fantasize about how they will kill people for money, and egg each other on to shoot dozens of people for their wallets.

Alternately, recognize that you have nothing worthwhile to add to this (or indeed any) conversation and shut the fuck up.

idli sambar revolution
idli sambar revolution
6 years ago

Actually Bezoar, there are some gay men who complain that because the majority of men are hetero, they aren’t getting enough sex, or the relationships they need. So if straight incels can call for sexual communism, why can’t gay men with regards to straight men. If women should be forced to “service” incels, why shouldn’t incels be forced to “service” gay men? Just a thought experience ala Robin Hanson.

jone
jone
6 years ago

Huff post is big time! Way to go!

And this College Humor video perfectly explains the whole “but if you’re open minded you can’t be angry about my terrible idea” phenomenon of the right and mra/mgtow/incel specifically.

It’s my right to hold this turd