By David Futrelle
Evolutionary Psychology is a problematic discipline to begin with, relying heavily on simplistic evolutionary “just-so” stories that for some mysterious reason always seem to reinforce the most reactionary notions about gender and human nature.
But if you add a dollop of incel ideology to the Evo Psych stew, you get something truly horrifying. Over on the Incels.me forum — a reliably repugnant forum popular with some of the world’s worst “involuntary celibates” — one commenter recently tried to use evolutionary biology to explain why rape was not only justified but something close to a sacred duty for all men who want to “advance our species.”
“It is Your Biological Duty to Impregnate Females,” ItheIthe began.
As a male, your evolutionary and biological impulse is to impregnate females and spread your seed. Each and every one of you is responsible for advancing our species. That is what you are here for. If you fail to do so … [y]ou have done nothing to pass on your genes … You are among lowest form of life there is.
Weird, because there are plenty of people who have contributed mightily to human civilization without ever having kids, including Jane Austen, Susan B. Anthony, Beethoven, Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Debbie Harry, Haruki Murakami, and, er, Betty White, to name just a few on this giant list I found after literally ten seconds of Googling.
Also, what the fuck does it matter if you “advance our species” or not? Live the best life you can. Try to be decent to other people and nice to pets and other animals. Life is tough enough; don’t burden yourself with weird and grandiose expectations on top of everything else.
However, because the purpose of existing is to pass on our genes and advance your species, the true alpha male is the male who has the most children. He did the most to advance our species.
Donald Trump has five kids (that we know of). Neither he nor any of his terrible children are doing anything to “advance our species.” (Barron might turn out ok; we don’t know yet.) Indeed, there’s a good case that he’s dramatically increased the risk that our species might destroy itself and much of the world with it through nuclear war and/or unchecked global warming. His ignorant recklessness is one of the main reasons the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday clock is now set to the truly scary two minutes to midnight.
Up until this point, ItheIthe has mostly just been wrong. But his argument is about to get very, very ugly as well.
Morals are real, because we need them to function as a unit. However, morals do not apply to females, as they are evil and cold-hearted, as well as good for nothing.
ItheIthe went back on that last bit pretty quickly after he remembered where babies come from. But first:
They are biologically inferior to us, and we, as morally, emotionally, and physically superior, are free to do what we please with them, as we would with any other species we dominate, such as cattle or oxen.
It’s a little hard to take someone’s “science” seriously when he thinks women are somehow a different and inferior species from men.
Since females are only good for reproduction, there is morally nothing wrong with raping a female – as long as you don’t pull out – to ensure you do your biological responsibility and pass on your genes.
Well, that’s horrifying, but at least he remembered the basic facts of reproduction (even if he has forgotten about the existence of trans women and infertile people).
This is not only okay to do, it is your biological responsibility. The only exceptions are: 1. A female in a “relationship” because societies function better without adultery, and 2. Virgin females because they are extra valuable for a “relationship”. All other females are in bounds.
I guess traditionalists can feel grateful he’s remembered that whole “virgin/whore” dichotomy.
Once again, females are biologically inferior to males. Males are good at all the physical labor that is required to uphold infrastructure and housing. Women are not. Men have made virtually all the advances in science and technology. Women have not. Men have many productive hobbies and interests. The only thing women do is try to seduce males.
At this point I’m pretty sure he’s never talked to a woman outside of his family, or cracked a book outside of a math textbook or video game guide.
That is proof that being used for reproduction is their only purpose. In third world countries, especially African ones entrenched in wars, rape happens all the time and no one gives a fuck.
There are people in all countries — rich or poor, peaceful or war-torn — with some pretty fucked-up ideas about rape; hell, our shithead president brags about sexual assault. But there is no society on earth in which “no one gives a fuck.”
Society here only pretends to give a fuck because we pretend to be romantically monogamous. But we’re not, the average female has like 30+ partners lifetime and therefore has romantic value.
I think there must be a word missing at the end. Surely he doesn’t think women have any “romantic value,” whatever that means.
More to the point, the average American woman doesn’t have dozens of sexual partners over her lifetime (not that there’s anything wrong with that). As I pointed out only a month ago in a slightly different context, incels and MGTOWs and other misogynistic douchebags tens to wildly overestimate how many partners women have. In fact, according to the CBC,, the median number of (opposite sex) partners that American women between 25 and 44 had over their lifetimes (as of 2011-2015) was 4.2; men had 6.1.
Virtually everything these guys think they know about female sexuality stems from fantasies rooted in misogyny and their own insecurity.
The only thing it is good for is passing on genes. There’s nothing wrong with the rape of these females.
Referring to a woman as “it” — the cherry pit on top of this incel shit sundae.
I’m not saying I’m going to rape a female, I’m just saying there’s nothing wrong with it, since females are unworthy of us.
Says someone whose biggest accomplishment in life is posting 3,993 messages on Incels.me under a fake name.
I would not only say that rape is acceptable, I’d actually encourage it as your biological and primitive responsibility to rape a female and advance our species, as long as that female fits those brief conditions.
And on this thoroughly reprehensible note, ItheIthe’s wrapped up his latest contribution to the advancement of the human species.
ItheIthe’s argument got a mixed response from his fellow incels. While some commenters hailed it as “high IQ” brilliance, others dismissed it as the “autistic rant” of a cuck with an extremely poor understanding of biology.
“The reason incels exist according to evolutionary biology is simply because they are cucked by Chad due to his outstanding genetics i.e. survival of the fittest according to Darwin,” wrote warriorgenetics, perhaps the harshest critic.
As far as your autistic rant about raping women just LDAR [Lie Down and Rot] bro let your inferior genetics end with you if you can’t out compete Chad in this cuck or be cucked world we live in.
But others found ItheIthe’s post, well, inspiring.
“If rape was legal it would be definitely better for us,” wrote someone called mentalcel.
Currently chad and high status men are using law against to keep their women … Women are far from making rational decisions … their choice of men is not even good for the society.
“Rape isn’t even a big deal,” wrote armis, “they just get upset because it wasn’t Chad or Tyrone doing the raping.”
“What’s the point of dehumanizing the enemy if you don’t want to abuse them?” asked Atavistic Autist.
I think foids can count themselves lucky if all they get from an incel is rape. That is, unless foids would prefer death to having an incel touch them.
While more than a few of the commenters blanched at the idea of rape, some of them still found ItheIthe’s assessment of women persuasive.
Someone called engineerescortceller declared flat out that he didn’t think rape was “good morally” But at the same time he agreed with ItheIthe that “females”
simply care about Chad and not much more. Men on the other hand (maybe because many are born ugly?) want to fulfill themselves in other ways.
Females are the most egocentric and hateful beings on the planet. Their goal is to get Chad, get babies and pass them. If you get in the way of their plans they’ll try to destroy you and they will wish you death.
I believe that’s what the regular psychologists would call “projection.” Hatred and self-loathing are a terrible mix — and the incel movement is an amplifier of both.
@Cyborgette
@Fabe thank you, I was worried about that 🙁 I wonder if there are any queer-only dojos in Boston. It feels like there should be. Must research.
I should also talk more to my martial arts buff friends. Just hard to raise the spoons right now because I have so many other hot messes happening.
@Scildfreja
Thank you for caring, seriously. You keep safe too. ❤️ I wish you all the luck there is in this broken, woman-hating world.
And hmm
(CW: Hollywood sexism, trauma rants)
I’m… A bit worried about the consequences of pepper spray in confined space, close quarters, or with men who have Hollywood level pain tolerance. US culture likes to tell us that women are made of jello and men of solid steel, and it’s very hard to tell what of that is real sometimes. And commercial news media is always full of stories where male suspects overpower armed female police officers, etc.
It’s gaslighting as culture. Reality is hard to pin down.
(Some films take this to the extreme, where bullets fired by men can kill and those fired by women are never effective. There is a reason i barely watch movie or TV media.)
Anyway yeah, him being a better fighter… Almost certainly yes. I suck in fights, that’s not my area of crisis competence. Though I tend to stick my neck out regardless. You probably know the deal, everything goes cold and clear until I crash afterwards.
TBH, due to repeated violence trauma I have some pretty nasty triggers around superior male strength, which is very inconvenient because that’s generally a reality. On bad days I despise men for having that strength without having to work for it. IDK, thinking in systems can be hard when your world is full of individual oppressors.
@ cyborgette
Don’t know if this is any use to you, but one of my old mates teaches self defence in Boston. He does a lot of women’s self defence workshops, although not aware of any specifically queer space ones. I can ask though if you like.
Anyway, this is him…
(Not quite sure what’s going on with the YouTube links there)
That reminds me that the best argument against this Incel’s nonsense rant about women being useless is the fact that even today they’re not allowed to do many things as they want, just look at what happened at a Japanese medical school:
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/07/636480117/tokyo-medical-school-apologizes-for-test-scoring-practices-to-keep-women-out
Also, I’ve noticed that Japanese society is a favorite amongst alt-right nuts, and even one YouTuber, who I very much have contempt for saying that as a Mexican immigrant I’m part of the problem, lives there as just another “exiled Canadian” as I would say. But again that’s what I feel about the whole movement that hates my guts for existing. Returning the favor I guess.
Also David, do the Incels ever notice you reporting them that they try to brigade here? I’m just curious about that especially after reading that NYT article about your work.
Yes because “obviously” women will always eat their own children if we don’t hold a gun to their heads, which “explains” why we have been able to survive as a species.
Yes, we should eat women! They’re “not” human. That wouldn’t be cannibalism.
Yeah, women have never been leaders, or ever invented anything, or saved anyone’s life, therefor forcing your will upon them is okay, since they only exist to have children.
Wow, this guy is messed up, even for your typical MRA!
I was a psych major as an undergraduate as well. My research methods and brain and behavior professor was an evolutionary psychologist who had us read a lot of Buss. Funny enough, my dissertation chair was a constructivist sociologist whose work centered on human sexuality, so the two were pretty much ontologically opposed. In fact, my chair’s primary research dealt with men’s sexuality and men’s issues (male friendship, boyhood, definitions of masculinity, etc.), and he’s the furthest thing from the manosphere movement or pseudo-intellectual academics like Farrel or Peterson. It is possible to be a men’s study scholar without being a misogynist or anti-feminist.
Of course, he would have kicked my ass if I tried to support my conclusions by data collection so flimsy as informally polling wait staff to find out who pays more for meals, which seems to be rigorous scholarship in Farrel’s world. Although to be fair, my undergrad methods prof would have kicked my ass pretty hard too if I tried to construct a study with such crap sampling and internal validity problems. *lol*
@Cyborgette
This trans girl offers you all the support she can give! And hugs, if you want them. <3
On the subject of martial arts, yeah, that sounds like a pretty big red flag. Hope you'll find some place that works for you! 🙂
@Aleph
Yeah. A lot of alt-righters seem to fetishize Japan for its strict laws related to immigration (did you know third- and fourth-generation Korean immigrants to Japan do not have the right to vote?), never mind that the country’s population is basically dying off.
And the alt-reichers do love them some anime, don’t they? Sigh…
@Cindy
I’m convinced that the alt-reichers’ love of Anime and Japanese culture stems from racial and cultural stereotyping. As always, follow the porn: the women are near universally portrayed submissively, with an obvious discomfort that always weirded me out. This is true of both Japanese porn as it exists in live action and animated form.
Whole essays can be written about the psychosexual hangups of racist white guys. Actually, most of those essays have probably been written already. They certainly have about interracial “cuckold” porn. Whenever some smug glibertarian tells me that the “free market” will solve racism because it’s bad for business, I remind them that Blacked.com remains a very popular thing.
@Katamount
Yeah, there is certainly a stereotype of east Asian women in general as feminine and submissive, compared to women from the “anglosphere”, as so many PUAs called it. Also, on Japanese porn: Yeah, that is pretty fucking gross, and probably a factor in the alt-reich’s fascination with the culture and the country.
@Cindy
Thank you ?
@Alan
Thank you too, I’ll check that out later.
And @all, after the creepiest Lyft ride ever just now… Holy shit, I swear that dumpy little white dude had violence written all over him. No smiles, probing questions, stare like a surgeon’s scalpel. I have never been that scared of a Lyft driver before – on getting home I literally gave a prayer of thanks to my gods for protecting me.
What the hell am I doing to attract all these creeps?!
(I mean I probably should have taken the hint and cancelled the ride with the “conservative, laid back” guy with the creepy mug, but HOLY SHIT.)
It’s funny, because I’m always seeing white guys on the internet threatening to move to Japan because the west is so awful*. Yeah, dudes. Good luck with that. Sure you can stay there for a while as a tourist or on a work visa, but if you think you’re going to get citizenship because your angry racist misogynist ass is so valuable to them, think again.
* My favorite was an MRA type who was mad on a Game of Thrones fan site because some fans objected to the Cersei-Jaime rape scene. I bet you anything, that this dude who wanted to flee the country over people having an opinion about a TV show he doesn’t like is also one of those people who think the asylum seekers that the Trump administration is abusing had it coming because fleeing gang violence or domestic abuse is not a legit reason to seek asylum.
I’m going to just say it
They need to not be around women period
Once you decide rape is ok you need to stay away
Its not because you’re ugly or fat or socially awkward (I’m 2 of those) its because you are dangerous
It is not mental illness that you can blame this on either (I’m mentally ill so don’t even try with me )
You have reached a danger point and need to reevaluate a lot
Uuuuuuugh
FWIW, when I was taking martial arts in high school, there was one guy there who could take a full-strength kick to the nuts and laugh while it happened.
…that said, everybody else’s pain tolerances were well within the normal range.
While most subduing techniques rely on pain to a greater or lesser degree for their effectiveness, if you strike to break a person’s joints or bones, it doesn’t actually matter whether they can withstand the pain or not; with its structural integrity compromised, the affected limb won’t work well, if it will even work at all.
My sifu used to say that if you were in a life or death struggle – and you weren’t dealing with an armed opponent – your best bet was to break their knee by kicking perpendicular to their leg (preferably from the side) and then running like hell, because there’s no way they can keep up with you at that point.
@ Cyborgette:
Also, eyes. They don’t take much to fuck up, and I’d rather be dealing with a blind asshole than one who can see.
@Gaebolga
Thanks re the leg tip. Eyes, yes, that’s usually what I think of first (along with throat, strikes to the nose/chin/cheeks, stomping on instep, back kick to the shin, that kind of stuff). Having very low natural empathy for men might help, but I feel like the main thing is I’m used to getting the shit kicked out of me rather than the reverse. So, the usual learned helplessness shit.
(CW: physical fight stuff)
Being honest, I’m strong for my size – partly just lifestyle, partly because I’ve been deliberately exercising to avoid estrogen muscle loss because fuck reality. I can pick up a 220 lb person, spin them around, and put them back down where they started without straining. But at the end of the day a 6′ or so guy is still a lot stronger than me, probably without having to work for it; and will have speed, reach, and surprise advantages. I know this from experience, what with being on the receiving ends of choke holds a bunch of times.
Also worries:
– them getting me on the ground (because they’ll do that)
– them getting me off the ground (because I’m short, they’ll do that too)
And TBH I’m not surprised about the guy who could take kicks in the nuts. Like I said, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes between Hollywood shit, and men just being almost supernaturally horrible.
How far do these shite stains wish to take their evo psyche? If they are determined to pass on their DNA, if they take a woman who has children will they kill the children first before impregnating her? Like a tiger would in the wild? Or maybe just kill the male children and keep the female children for sex as well? Do they realise that if a Chad comes he’ll have to fight to the death then Chad will take his wife / sex slave and kill his children in return? Is thus reasonable behaviour in Incel land?
Specialffrog:
My standing response to this kind of argument is to point out that trying to turn scientific observations into morals means that since physics says falls off 100 foot cliffs are lethal, you’re morally obliged to jump off a 100 foot cliff and die. It makes as much sense as any of this “obliged to spread our genes” garbage.
Cyborgette:
I consider myself fairly observant of media tropes, but I never noticed that one before. I can immediately think of dozens of examples and now I’ll never unsee it.
@Michael
Happy to be of help 😉
Feminism: not exactly like the sunglasses in They Live, but you can see it from here.
Hmmmmmmm…
I’ll tell that to Woolworth’s
@Alan
Thank you for sharing that video.
For me, the message I’ve been keen to share with friends from the research is that sexual predators seek out people who don’t enforce their no’s. That’s not to victim blame, not least because women are socialised into unclear no’s (either because it’s rude and unladylike, or because it can prompt a violent or abusive response, take your pick). It’s to tell women to listen to their gut. If someone tries to buy you a drink, you say no thanks, and their response is anything other than “you sure? Ok. Come find me if you change your mind”, you are entitled to raise your first red flag.
[I just deleted about three paragraphs of ranting. Not because it wasn’t relevant, but because I was in danger of writing a book.]
Tl;dr Recognising it as a pattern of behaviour has really helped me. As has recognising that, if I feel uncomfortable in a situation, I’m allowed to leave (whatever anyone else thinks).
@Weatherwax:
I’d read that book.
@Cyborgette
I’m really sorry that happened to you and ruined your pleasant evening with your friend. Not to mention that the fear reaction lasts the rest of the night. I too have always been wary of equalizers that could be taken away from me and used against me. And in the specific case of pepper spray, I always worried that I’d make my assailant even more angry – what with the burning eyes and all.
As for the self defense classes, I don’t think it is legal to exclude you – not that you want to deal with that kind of hassle, but I really don’t think it is all right. You shouldn’t have to find a queer only class – you just shouldn’t. Classes are for everyone.
Hmmm, self defense, I want to learn some too. My son and a family friend once tried to teach me a little, but it seemed to be mostly theoretical – at least I didn’t come away feeling anymore confident than I did going in. “One of you is going to have to really grab me – like you mean it – and repeatedly so I get over the automatic reaction of being pants shitting scared and don’t automatically go to other means and tactics of survival.” I don’t think either of them felt comfortable, but that is what I would want a self defense class to do for me – make it real enough and the lessons put into muscle memory enough that I would have them in a fight, flight, freeze situation.
@Ambassador Kat, Simon, Alan – Thank you for the interesting links – especially Kat – I knew about the greater fortitude and endurance and other types of strength in women, but it was great timing to read it now when I’ve been feeling especially vulnerable physically.
@Alan – I didn’t know you liked racoons. I wish I could teleport you to my deck at dusk. I have an entire family that comes through the yard every night, even though I have been trying to discourage this. First, the female showed up in the spring and would sit outside the gazebo.
“You’re a girl? I’m a girl too. Let’s look at each other through the latticework.” She seemed to say.
Now she shows up with her five kits. I was worried when her alpha baby made aggressive moves at one of the cats, but that is my affable cat and I swear the mother racoon told him to behave himself, that there wasn’t a threat. I watched this happen. I’m really starting to think that in addition to ears, tail and body language that there is a telepathic or empathic element to animal communication. I once came home to deer in the yard and my Siamese having a “nice weather we’re having” conversation with the yearling buck that was with them. It is very strange. Anyway, I have tons of racoons. Glad to know that somebody likes them.
As for the topic of rape, years ago, when I gave my son some Atwood to read, a friend pointed out that he would have to read the defining sex scene from the male point of view. In considering that, I also considered the whole topic of rape from the point of view of the rapist. As a woman, I am concerned about being raped and never thought about doing the raping. I was repulsed when I actually thought about forcing another person. I’d never thought about it and once I did I understood the look of revulsion many men get on their face when the topic arises. No excuses, there is something wrong with anyone who wants to do that to another person in any combination of orientations or genders. It is just cruel and disgusting and an act of power and abuse. Sex drive doesn’t explain it or excuse it.
@Scildfreja – Thank you for giving me more to think about regarding Maslow. I’d always had problems because he seems to think that people will go simply and stepwise through the process, with no repetition of stages and no changes due to changing circumstances and no overlap. Then there is the problem that people do amazing things in adverse circumstances when they aren’t having any needs met, raising the question of does a need have to be met all of the time or does the fact that the need has been met previously allow people to cope with the temporary lack of the need being met?
Nor is there any discussion of developmental and life cycle effects on the cycle. Obviously people have literal survival needs and social and developmental and needs of aspiration and achievement and attachment, but how these things work and how they affect each other is much more complex than Maslow thought.
Warning, everyday misogyny ahead.
I gave a fiftieth birthday party for a friend of mine this weekend and the guys came over to help me clean up the next day. We did party post mortem and I am finding it very interesting to hear what the average guy thinks. And for a change I am emotionally detached enough from my usual fear of men and anger at the way so many act that I can take it on board without being too triggered.
One guy, let’s call him Robert, had a date for the party. A very sweet woman who went out of her way to be nice but seemed sad and preoccupied at the party and I couldn’t draw her out, though I tried. Robert has been dating this woman for about six weeks and dated her in high school. He pretty much ignored her during the party. I as hostess paid more attention to her. Robert also made an announcement during general conversation about how he “didn’t want a serious relationship.” (Just as an aside, I am feeling better and better about saying a constant no to R when he has flirted with me and asked me out in the past. His best friend is a friend of mine, the guest of honor at the party, so I have had wider social reasons to put up with this.)
There was another woman attending the party that a few of the men took a shine to – partly because she was kind of a bad ass and properly assessed these guys and brushed them off like she was shooing flies. My conversation with R the next day went like this.
“Well, Petunia is a sweet girl and we will always be friends but that woman Amanda, she is really something. And she is smart which is always a draw for me,” says Robert.
“Yeah, I noticed that you pretty much ignored Petunia, your date, not that polite, Robert.”
“Oh, she was preoccupied and I had the conversation about my theory of relationships.”
“With her? I heard you make the general announcement.”
“No, just generally, so she heard it.” Great, you’re a coward too, I thought to myself. Now, before I paint this guy with a completely black brush, he takes very good care of his daughter and his aging parents, he is a hard worker and intelligent and from what I have heard is honorable in his business dealings. And he was never creepy/scary with his slight advances, made more because I think he had no idea what to make of me than attraction. If I ever called him on his sexism, he would be genuinely confused because he thinks he is feminist in his thinking. Oh – and his mother? Truly a woman to be reckoned with. Took a bus here from Mexico alone when she was 17 and made it. Had a serious career at the local army depot and even in her eighties takes zero nonsense from anyone. I adore Robert’s mother. And Robert comments on the sexism and racism his mother had to cope with in the workplace in the seventies and eighties. It isn’t like he is unaware.
“If you are going after Amanda you better bring your A game and have something to put on the table other than bullshit. I don’t think that she’ll be like Petunia and let your two besties show up at your date and wait around until 3 in the morning for them to leave.”
“We’ll see,” says Robert. And the tone of his voice made me look up sharply, because it didn’t suggest that he was going to bring something real, but that he was looking at her as a challenge and a conquest. But holy WTF? Are even regular guys just…..secretly horrible?
FWIW, my intuitive impression of Amanda was that she has been badly hurt in the past and is wary, but that she has also discovered that she is worth something and isn’t going to settle for being used.
I told this story because it overlaps the issues on this site and because it has been bothering me. I didn’t plan on telling it when I began this post. Because here is a guy who unconsciously thinks of women primarily as sexual objects (I didn’t detail the things I’ve heard him say about women’s bodies) and not quite as human as he is and he is unconscious of this fact. Worse, he thinks of himself as an equality guy.
As much as he loves her, and as good as he is to her, last summer, I saw him enforce the patriarchy on his own daughter – and me, but only because I happened to be sitting there, the primary target was his daughter, who he loves. What on earth do I do with this? Even in my own mind? Because the incels and the MGTOWS are one thing, they are at least easy to identify, but what do we do about the men we know?
@jesalin It was Paul Gottfried, who Spencer associated with early in his “career”. (I graduated before spencer knew him, and the class I had was a research-methods type class devoid of much actual subject matter, for which I consider myself lucky). He denies being racist…I don’t believe him.
@kupo — I am truly, truly sorry. I was trying to mock what a bitter, selfish idiot I was in my younger days, which I think studying evolutionary psych contributed to, not to belittle the toxicity and evil of what incels are saying or doing. I never wanted to hurt or control women and I didn’t intend to make the equivocation between what incels want to do and being a loser guy, but I definitely spent my HS and early college years filled with bitter jealousy toward the cooler/more popular guys. Again, my apologies to you (and the rest of you, too).
… Er, how does this jive with your earlier post at all?
I assume you spoke from experience regarding evo-psych leading to misogynistic conclusions?
I’m not sure how one comes to misogynistic conclusions WITHOUT wanting to hurt or control women.
I suppose the “best case” scenario is that said unsuccessful bitter, jealous, misogynistic dude doesn’t want to PERSONALLY hurt or control women, and just wants OTHER people to do it, so he doesn’t have to.