By David Futrelle
On Reddit’s IncelTears — a subreddit devoted to mocking and critiquing the toxic incel subculture — someone claiming to be a former incel has posted an account of their escape from inceldom. It’s a throwaway account, but the story he tells seems pretty convincingly true to me.
“In the wake of the horrific events in Toronto,” he begins,
I wanted to share some of my experiences as a former incel, and how I eventually changed my behaviors to become a better person.
Being an incel is awful, it’s an awful predicament, with an unhelpful community to back it up. Often when people describe an incel, the general description is “Involunaty Celebate”, someone who can’t get girls, etc. This is the most glaring issue and the one bought up by the community but it isn’t the only issue in most cases.
When a guy can’t get a girl to save his life there’s usually some undelying social issue at play and that issue has an affect on that individuals entire social life, not just the intimate aspect. You don’t feel important, you don’t feel valued. This starts to play on your self esteem and is partially to explain for the very self-hate low IQ trodding nature of the community.
Unfortunately, the incel “community” only makes this self-hate worse.
The community’s biggest problem is that it does nothing to fix the problem and only goes to reinforce ones already held beliefs. So you’re someone who can’t get a girl, shunned from society (to various degrees) and you go online to find people like you, and when you get there you find false explanations for your problems and an echo chamber of your ideas.
You confide in this group and as a result, you start to inherit some of that group think and ideas. These ideas don’t help you in the real world but rather make things worse, it’s a downward spiral.
So what was it that led him to start questioning incel dogma — and eventually extract himself from this morass? As he explained in a followup comment, he literally got off of incel forums and into the real world, where he quickly found that most of what the incels say about men and women and dating and pretty much everything is just plain wrong.
One of the things I did was get out there, almost in a literal sense.
When I was an incel I never went out. I had never been in a bar, never been to a club, I didn’t know that life in the slightest. So when I went online it was very easy to believe the things you read about bars/clubs/women/chads/stacies/etc because I had no comparison in the real world to call bullshit on one way of the other. The first time I went out to a bar, 20 minutes in and getting a drink I saw a guy, probably 3 inches shorter and twice as round sitting in the VIP section with a bunch of hot girls nearby. Seeing that shattered by worldview because according to the incel community, that guy was doing something that was fucking impossible in their eyes.
I’m not sure that the VIP section of a nightclub is what I’d call a representative sample of reality, but it’s certainly the case that the easiest way to challenge many of the central myths of incel is to simply open your eyes to the evidence all around you in the real world, where you’ll find men of all sizes, shapes, heights, and ages happily paired off with women of all sizes, shapes, heights and ages. You have to be willfully blind to believe that women won’t date short men, or men with improperly angled eyebrows, or men with inappropriately sized wrists (and yes, these are real incel beliefs).
The former incel continues:
After that I kept going out and every time I went out there was always something different, not a single night was the same. Always different characters, different situations, different interactions. I started to see that there wasn’t just one pre-disposed type of person to get a particular girl and I learned that anything could happen, literally anything.
Yep.
I’ve been thrown out of a bar on to the street only to be invited to an afterparty 5 minutes later, I’ve gotten harshly rejected by a girl in front of her boyfriend only for her to run back to me before the bar closes and give me her number. I was in the corner of a bar talking to a girl telling her about where I was from before some drunk guy decided to roundhouse kick me because he thought I was lying about my nationality (that a was fun night). Countless upon countless situations where I’ve walked out of it going “what the fuck just happened”
I guess this is one possible escape from incel. But you don’t have to get into bar fights or get invited to any afterparties — or even set foot in a nightclub at all — to see that incels live inside a collective delusion that only vaguely resembles life on this planet.
Overall, it was just replacing the knowledge I had acquired from places like incel subreddits and forums with real-world experience. You can read PUA and incel forums all day long and get two totally different ideas of nightlife, or you can go out and get another idea entirely.
Yep. All it requires is that you just GET OUT of the incel subculture for a short time — whether you literally start going to nightclubs or simply free yourself from incel thinking long enough to see that what the incels are telling you is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Our former incel admits that this can be more difficult than it sounds.
When I finally came to my senses it involved me throwing out all of my previously held beliefs and ideologies. In theory, it sounds easy but if you’re a Democrat or Republican, imagine making the intellectual leap from one side to the other, it’s like doing that. Here you’ve been told to despise women, despite attractive guys that get those women, despise pop-culture and the things around it, now you have take all that and conclude that it was all wrong and you need to listen to the other side. And all the while you are trying to do this the community that you had around you is pointing to reasons why you shouldn’t make that ideological leap.
Nonetheless, it is possible. This guy did it. Others have done it.
The former incel ends his post with some words for those still caught up in the incel cult:
From this I want to leave a bit of advice for Incels that might read this. It can be hard to embrace advice from a side of society that has ostrizied you. But at the of the day what side do you want ot be on. Give whatever excuse you want but at the end of the day you know where you want to be. My journey from that community took years of standing the corner at parties, getting rejected by girls, getting into fights, it was painful. But from my experience, the pain is worth it.
I’d be curious to hear more stories from former incels who got out. If you’re someone who was once (but no more) under the sway of incel ideas — whether you were a regular on some incel forum or just someone who found themselves being drawn in by their rhetoric, please drop me a note (dfutrelle at gmail) or post your story in the comments below. Tell us what drew you to incel in the first place, how you got pulled in, and how and why you ultimately rejected that way of life.
I think “narcissistic rage” is probably the best description of what goes on in the incel and related communities. Apart from that these people probably need an entire disorder dedicated to them.
These are people who literally have a fault in their psyche that will twist their perceived world into the most contorted of shapes to make any failure, even a small one, not be their psyche’s own fault, to mask their own faults with rage.
And, of course, there’s a spectrum when it comes to affinity to such delusions, and another spectrum when it comes to creativity as applied to creation of delusions.
edit: also to be fair to regular narcissists, those will work hard to match their aggrandized self image the best they can. These folks… not so much.
I will also agree that the Incels are an ideology and a political movement – they want society to do things and to be a certain way, and they’re taking action to do that.
I just don’t think we should refer to them as an ideology or political movement primarily, because that papers over the foundation of entitlement that makes them that way. And yeah, like WWTH pointed out, it gives them an air of legitimacy that they don’t deserve.
And for any pedants reading – we’re talking about Incels, the hate group, and not all-people-who-aren’t-having-sex-but-would-like-to. Just in case anyone on-thread is confused about that.
<3 Peevee
Hugs Peevee
I know what it’s like to lose a furry friend, as do many here I think.
Oops. Hit post too soon.
But male entitlement is political. It exists because of patriarchy and patriarchy is very much a political structure.
“I can’t get a date/get laid” on the other hand, is not a political issue. Beauty standards are. The way our culture privileges couple over singles is. There are many issues surrounding this that are political and we can talk about those, but it is not the job of a political movement or society or governments to obtain a partner for someone. There is literally no way to come up with a program to change someone’s lack of ability to find a partner that is not coercive.
There’s a reason that women, while just as likely to have trouble finding a partner and more likely to be depressed or have anxiety are not creating hate sites about the issue. That reason is male entitlement. Patriarchy teaches that men deserve access to women just for existing. It teaches that women are not people, but status symbols and prizes. This is why they have so much rage over not achieving the “can get a hot chick” status. This is why even though they want to have sex, they hate women who do and call them roasties. Because having sex with a woman doesn’t get them much patriarchy approved status if she’s not hard to get. If incels are not the product of male entitlement, who is?
Aw, thanks, Alan!
Troll: “You hate all men! You say this and that horrible thing! You are unfairness incarnate!”
Everyone: “Citation needed.”
Troll: [makes same statements, again provides no evidence]
Pug, if you want to debate us, you’ll have to actually respond to what people say because otherwise you’re just going to look ridiculous.
My two cents: I’m a survivor of sex abuse myself – and one who also finds dating/sex a deeply uncomfortable proposition – and if I saw anyone on this blog using the phrase “mommy issues” or otherwise minimising abused men, I would be making my feelings known about that in no uncertain terms. I support other abused people, whatever their gender.
“Support” does not mean I let them get away with trolling us, though.
I noticed that Pug is less talkative since the term “starter girl” was introduced. That must be why most trolls don’t want to cite any sources, since if they do people might actually, y’know, read them and find out what’s really there. Though if you had to hear “Relax bro, It’s just a joke, why can’t you be nicer and be more fun” all the time you might get to know how feminists feel. So, maybe you should keep hanging out there but only if you make feminist arguments to fellow incels and SEE how they really react.
@Sol
Though it depends on how your dysphoria manifests and how you identify, I *highly* recommend HRT. It’s basically magic.
And therapy. Depending on where you are an assessment is mandatory before HRT anyway. But yeah, dysphoria is a bastard, you don’t have to stay stuck in it though (I hope).
I would agree, but a few things. “Male entitlement” as a phenomenon is political – insofar as it must contain at least an implicit statement about how men and women should relate to each other – but it’s not ideological, since an ideology requires justification: an explanation for why things should be this way. This might be splitting hairs, since obviously the patriarchy model (as you pointed out) is an ideology – or at least an umbrella term for many ideologies – but I think the entitlement fostered by patriarchy is somewhat different than the sort you see in incel communities. A man’s romantic failure in patriarchal ideology is mostly laid at his feet – he’s not masculine enough, not successful enough, not attractive enough. It is (I think) primarily conceptualized as a personal failing, not a political one. The man might still externalize his rage (a response that might be partially attributable to other aspects of patriarchal ideology), but his actions can’t be contextualized or justified in an articulable program like – well, like the Incel Rebellion. A rejected man who kills a woman (or others) under patriarchal ideology is a loser, a failed man desperately trying to reclaim some semblance of his manhood. A rejected man who kills under incel ideology is a hero, a “saint.”
And while male entitlement (broadly defined, in some form) extends beyond the manosphere, and may at least partially inform how many men react to romantic rejection or their own body anxiety, nonetheless only a tiny fraction of men who have trouble with romance are incels. But so the question remains: why these men? Why are they so unusually hateful? You can’t just point to ambient “male entitlement” in the broader culture, because it doesn’t generally extend this far, and it doesn’t generally take such a concrete and idiosyncratic form. I posit that the answer is that they have an unusually deep and conscious conviction that their virginity – or their sexlessness, or their lack of intimacy, or whatever – is at least primarily political, not personal. And I think that conviction is a relic of their ancestry, which is the manosphere, especially the online PUA/Red Pill and men’s rights activist communities which have been pushing a gender politics predicated on an extreme mutual antagonism.
And the implication here is that (to loop back to my earlier point) in incel I think we might be witnessing a direct effect of the manosphere on broader cultural phenomena, like (for example) increasingly unattainable male beauty standards, the rising prevalence of male body dysmorphia, social atomization, and so on. Does the presence of the manosphere and their ideological models make it more likely that some men will feel their social and sexual anxiety as explicitly political – as something done to them by (women/Chads/gynocentric society/manginas/etc)? I think it might. Obviously some have always felt that way, consciously or not, to one degree or another – but the manosphere provides a fully articulated, coherent and (in some ways, for some men) compelling framework for them to contextualize their anxieties, which is (I think) a new development.
@ Aaron
But they do claim a justification. It’s the very title of this blog.
@Sol
Someone has to tell you – you are wise. Stop laughing, cause thats not a joke or a tease. 😛
Sometimes, doing nothing instead of doing something just for the sake of it really is the best course of action.
Can’t comment on your path – it’s not mine – and there are several excellent people here who can, but you’ve got someone over here pulling for you. Luck to you.
Everything in the manosphere, all branches of it is the patriarchy taken to the extreme though.
The complaints of incels, when you strip away all the jargon, boils down to one thing. Women are allowed to choose who they do or do not have sex with and they aren’t choosing them. Patriarchy has always been about controlling women’s bodies. Especially who we do and do not have sex with. That message is reinforced constantly by religion, by pop culture, by politicians. Everywhere. Incel wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for patriarchy. Neither would male entitlement.
You’re trying to make it this big mystery, this complicated thing that merits long posts full of big words. It’s not. It’s very simple.
Stella Gibson has it covered (although this would be regarding serial killers, not incels)
@Sol I’m gonna third the recommendation for HRT. One of the nice things is that the emotional effects of being on the correct hormones start up LONG before the visible physical effects; if an HRT regimen really disagrees with you, you can probably stop well before big permanent changes happen.
Therapy OTOH has been a mixed bag for me, and more bad than good. Being in Massachusetts I can get HRT without a therapist’s note, which is really good, because mine would never have consented in the first place – she had to see the results of 5 months of estrogen treatment on my behavior and feelings before she understood. I’ve yet to find mental health professionals out of queer-dedicated settings who I haven’t had to educate on gender dysphoria, trans physiological stuff, basically everything. Most mental health people I’ve encountered still swear by Freud, and reflexively bring Oedipus complexes into talk about gender feelings.
Be careful. Protect yourself. Never take a therapist’s word as divine ordnance.
Re being “incel” because of dysphoria. I… honestly hate the term “incel”, but I understand this context well. See, a mess of trauma, dysphoria, self-distrust, lack of confidence, mental illness, and burning hatred of traditional gender roles kept me out of relationships until I was 28 (when I met my first partner, also trans fem). I was incredibly, oppressively isolated until I became friends with her, and then started meeting other trans people through her (and actually fitting in). To this day there are things that give me flashbacks – actual trauma flashbacks – to that period of isolation. The idea of being so socially alone again scares the living shit out of me; I doubt I could survive it.
And being really honest, at my worst I tended pretty heavily towards a kind of Joss Whedonish Nice Guyism, with emphasis on romance and emotional bonding rather than sex. I can’t confirm yet if this is a common pattern for trans women, but I’ve seen similar from a few other people.
… Oh and now I’m openly poly and don’t want to marry, go figure. So there was probably some internalized relationship bigotry under there too.
Anyway sorry for rambling, really hope this helps. Transition doesn’t always drag in personal growth and accountability, but for quite a lot of us it does. Good luck. <3
Ideally that assessment is done by a therapist experienced in LGB (and especially) T, issues.
ETA: The gate-keeping is a serious pain in the ass. Informed consent is great, but that approach isn’t available everywhere (my province for example).
Just flashed back to that (…hopefully) brief period in college when I used to argue that Arabs CAN’T be anti-Semitic because they’re/we’re a SEMITIC PEOPLE TOO SO THERE. And then I gradually came to realize that meaning carries infinitely more weight than etymology.
Anyway. Can’t imagine why I thought of it.
Sorry, I’ll try to keep it shorter.
Okay – I certainly agree that all the assorted manosphere communities are linked to “mainstream” ideas about men and women and gender. But this:
still seems not quite right to me. The manosphere takes elements from mainstream patriarchal ideas, but it’s still its own thing: distinct in the same way that incel itself is distinct from, say, Red Pill. It’s a weird pastiche of a lot of ideas and a lot of anxieties coming from a lot of different places, and I think it’s wrong simply to think of it as purely an appendage of the patriarchy “dialed up to eleven.”
Anyway, I’ve more or less said what I wanted to say, and I don’t want to overstay my welcome. Thanks for engaging – a lot to think about.
@Jesalin: true, and sorry.
@WWTH: holy moly that show looks amazing.
The Fall is great. If you have Netflix, it should still be on there.
@Cyborgette
No need to be sorry, you’re only speaking of your experience after all. I’m very very glad you didn’t have to wait for gate-keeper approval!
Hopefully that won’t be the case for too much longer. Then again I tend toward wild optimism at times.
Bloody hell, that’s just plain terrifying.
Pug said:
Pug, I don’t know anything about Maajid Nawaz, but you realize you’re getting mad at me for a post in which I talk about a guy who … was once an incel and he now does what he can to get people to leave that group and that I agree with his efforts 100% (if not all the misogyny he’s still exhibiting).
@Sol and Tessa
Thanks for sharing.
I applaud this guy. Maybe he got lost in the trenches of that swamp for a while, but it certainly takes some good inner strength to make such a big change (of any kind) and he clearly has it and managed to find it.
I almost wish some like this would start grabbing some of those other miserable souls and take them out – be it a bar/club or some other social activity – and show them actual real life.
about andrea dworkin, from her (and others’) perspective porn and prostitution are exploitative of women. 2nd wave feminism largely held this perspective (some exceptions), so dworkin wasn’t an outlier at the time. a contemporary argument is that legalized and culturally normalized prostitution can bring down the patriarchy and that’s why prostitution still remains largely illegal and non-normalized in mainstream culture (the patriarchy doesn’t want to fall). however I don’t see how such a thing would bring down patriarchy being that patriarchy itself seems to have invented prostitution. historically prostitution arose in civilization after the advent of agriculture, which gave rise to monogamous (and polygynous, but less polyandrous) marriage and more defined gender roles. and then prostitution arose out of that. so in that sense, prostitution was an extention of agricultural based patriarchy. maybe this theory’s been debunked by now though.