By David Futrelle
In June, former security guard Sheldon Bentley was convicted of manslaughter in an Edmonton, Canada, court for kicking a man to death while he lay unconscious in an alley. At his sentencing hearing yesterday, Bentley asked for leniency, submitting a presentence report saying that at the time of the killing he had been angry at the world and suffering from “involuntary celibacy.”
It’s not clear whether this alleged mitigating factor had any effect on the sentencing decision. While the judge did acknowledge that Bentley “was frustrated with his lot in life” due to his alleged “involuntary celibacy” and other stresses, he also noted that such frustration “does not give anyone licence to impose violence on anyone else.” Bentley was sentenced to four years, with two already served.
While Bentley did use the term “involuntary celibacy,” it’s also not clear if he had been a part of the so-called incel subculture online at the time of the killing, or if he simply picked up the phrase from the media in the wake of the Toronto van killings earlier this year.
Regardless, it’s appalling to hear someone try to use their inability to get laid as an excuse for literally stomping a man to death.
Over on Incels.me, the reliably repugnant forum for the worst of inceldom, some of the regulars have already enthusiastically embraced Bentley as one of their own, in spirit at least.
“Can you feel it boys? ITS TIME,” wrote Crustaciouse, an extremely prolific Incels.me commenter with more than 6500 posts to his name.
“[I]t’s time to go ER on them.really.they declared war on us offically,” added someone called Cuyan.
“Am i wrong for feeling excited about this?” asked Copingtillidie.
“Why couldn’t [he] have done it to a foid,” wondered Damo the incel.
The most enthusiastic celebrant was someone called Vodaccenu, who offered up this all-caps mini-manifesto calling for his fellow incels to emulate Elliot Rodgers and other mass murderers:
KICK THE CUCKS
TIME FOR THE BETA MALE REVOLUTION
GO ER
GO LEPINE
GO CHO
But for every Incels.me commenter celebrating the killer there was someone suggesting that this was “fake news” if not an outright false flag, designed to make incels look bad.
Someone called (presumably ironically) MarriedAndLookin4Fun complained that this was
Obviously more fake news created by the media to blame us for everything. There is no video or recorded evidence of him saying that he was an incel.
I don’t know if there’s a tape, but the phrase “involuntary celibacy” does apparently appear in the report that Bentley himself submitted to court.
“Canada again,” sighed someone called Opus132. “Somebody up there really trying to pin everything on incels.”
Zielony4, another prolific commenter, with more than 3600 Incels.me posts to his name, couldn’t quite decide whether to celebrate or decry the killing a false flag.
He should have done it to a woman instead. Lol. I bet this guy killed someone just to claim he is an incel and to make us look bad.
You know how to stop from looking bad, guys? Stop celebrating murders and murderers. Stop calling for more murders. Stop adding “lol” to your comments about the murder of women.
Bentley has no excuse for his actions. Incels.me commenters have no excuse for, well, themselves.
H/T — Thanks to Shadowplay for bringing this story to my attention!
To restore the honor of Canada, something we have done: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/08/30/toronto-built-a-better-green-bin-and-oops-maybe-a-smarter-raccoon.html
@alan, you’ll like this one.
@RabidRabbit LOL! Thanks for the link. 😀
@ rabid rabbit
Oh god, if I’m ever the subject of a police manhunt, I want that on the APB.
Thank you so much for that link.
OT:
The Village Voice is shutting down.
http://gothamist.com/2018/08/31/village_voice_is_officially_dead.php
I’m not a New Yorker and never wanted to be one, but … damn.
@ V.P.
aaarrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
That sucks out LOUD!!
The Voice is two years older’n ME….
@Victorious Parasol:
That’s a shame. When I lived in Connecticut, Hartford had its own pale imitation of the Voice, called the Advocate. I wonder if that hasn’t folded, too.
@Shadowplay:
You’re right. It seems ridiculous to me, because incels seem to be an almost entirely online movement. But, then again, so are MRAs.
Weirwoodtreehugger, maybe it’s too much time on their hands spent inside during the winter? On the other hand, thanks to climate change our winters are getting milder and so we’d be seeing them drop off if that was the case.
Fortunately, the closest I’ve ever come to knowingly encountering any of them was a sticker affixed to a streetlight.
Nobody needs to do a thing to make those guys look bad: they do it all by themselves.
I’ve said before, the only other group of people I can think of that’s this eager to take credit for killing people is fucking ISIS.
“Why couldn’t [he] have done it to a foid”
“He should have done it to a woman instead.”
I have the solution to this puzzle, and it’s a simple one: he lacked the opportunity. Typically, women make a habit of not lying around unconscious in alleys, since we know that this is the way certain people feel about us, and since we know that (what’s more) their friends will defend them after the deed is done by pointing out that alleys are no place for women (especially unconscious women) and that, as women, we ought to know better (which we do).
I don’t like to mention this, but I’m going to anyway, because history (to my sorrow) bears me out.
Semi-Off Topic?
I actually have an Incel ‘friend’; It wasn’t that way when it started– I re-met him after I came home from College. Over time, I noticed that he would completely boil over at the mention of women and dating, but I wasn’t sure why. He used alot of manosphere terms which eventually helped me figure out what he had become while I was away. I’ve been avoiding him alot this year, but I unfortunately can’t completely cut him loose– he lives way too close to me, and pops over my house when I don’t answer his calls after a while. It’s awful; I feel like a trapped rat.
It’s more scary with headings like this– I kind of wish there was some sort of way to report these bozos.