By David Futrelle
I‘ve got a piece up today at NBC News THINK explaining how one of the most toxic ideas popularized by the Men’s Rights movement has helped to fuel the hateful ideology of the alt-right.
Specifically, I look at the way the misogynistic notion of “hypergamy” — as defined by a white nationalist, popularized by Men’s Rights Activists, MGTOWs and “Red Pillers” generally, then fed back to the right — underlies the alt-right’s obsession with, and insecurities about, “cucking,” both on a personal and cultural level, which the alt-right weaponizes in its attacks on immigrants. Misogyny feeds into racism, and vice versa.
From the article:
This fear of female sexual “disloyalty” has its roots in the notion of “hypergamy,” a discredited evolutionary psychology theory promulgated by Men’s Rights Activists and similar anti-woman communities convinced that women are biologically wired to abandon loyal “beta males” as soon as an alpha walks by. Men’s Rights Activist Paul Elam several years ago wrote that it drives “women outside their marriages for more sexually exciting adventures … with physically superior male specimens” who can provide both better sex and more masculine genes for her offspring. Elam, like many other proponents of the spurious theory, is convinced that a huge percentage of married men are unknowingly raising children that aren’t their own. (Multiple studies, meanwhile, suggest the actual number is around 1 or 2 percent and has been for hundreds of years.)
“Alt-rightists” have taken [this] notion one step further, attacking white women not only for allegedly cuckolding their husbands but also for cuckolding their race by dating and having children with non-white men. In a 2015 post on The Daily Stormer, neo-Nazi polemicist Andrew Anglin denounced what he called “the greasiest cuckolding of all,” declaring, in all seriousness, that “[t]he White European female’s craving for Black d— threatens to collapse civilization itself.”
There’s a lot more to the piece, but that’s the key argument. You can read it here.
The piece has already inspired some deep thought and introspection among right-wingers.
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Why on Earth would testicles be needed to respond to an internet discussion invitation???
Lawd have mercy I DO NOT UNDERSTAND technology….
Didn’t da Vinci think the seminal ducts were directly connected to the spine? In which case testicles are directly connected to the brain, so it makes some sort of sense. (And da Vinci was a white dude, so he must have been right.)
@ Rabid Rabbit, that mathematical complexity you described, that’s the whole reason we invented algebra!
Thanks for the link; I don’t remember if I saw it or not, but I’ll check it out!
@ Weird Eddie, NOT thank you for that truly appalling mental image… *shudders* @ Rabbit, da Vinci may have been white, but aren’t we pretty sure he was also gay (I know modern concepts of sexuality and orientation don’t always apply when talking about historical situations, but still). So I assume the incel-dudes would not be ok with him?
(For the record, I saw Da Vinci’s statue at the Uffizi museum in Florence, and had a picnic on the steps below his feet. So that’s my connection to him. ?)
Oh, come on, do you really expect them to know enough about da Vinci to be aware that he was, by our definitions, flamingly, flamingly gay?
…I live in hope? ?
@Alan Robertshaw
Gonna be completely honest I have no idea what that is.
@Bookworm in hijab
There is nothing like a fresh baked, home made, warm gooseberry pie with a big glob of ice cream on it. I had to hide the second one because I leave sweets like that out in the open and it’s gone the next day with my roommates. Also my fiancé probably doesn’t fit the right mold for them either since he’s not white. He’s Latino.
There speaketh a teacher. I shall bring flowers to your hope’s grave. :p
@LindsayIrene
I’m with you. I don’t care if ever single “incel” lives their lives and dies without ever having sex. It’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t make a life any worth living. They can masturbate like the rest of us and get over themselves. Out of all the bullshit Mr.David brings to our attention I probably have the most disgust for incels. They act like being sexless is a crime against humanity.
Not gonna lie, I was simultaneously relieved and disheartened by the findings cited in the WaPo article. You see, for the past two and a half years, I’ve been, well, I guess, an incel (or, as we used to say, suffering a dry spell-far more accurate). I was relieved to know that it wasn’t just me, that there were greater social and economic forces at work, and disheartened because, well shit, I can’t do much about that, now can I?
However, I never once blamed a nebulous feminist conspiracy or hypergamy or whatever. More than likely, the factors mentioned above are to blame. That said, I do think dating apps have also played a role, given how they’ve dehumanized and commodified the dating experience. On the other hand, it’s not like feminists invented Tinder.
P.S. Based on my experience, I suspect that another factor is that folks no longer feel obligated to sleep with people they’re not actually attracted to. I could have made a positive contribution to the statistics, but I also have, ya know, standards, so I’d rather go unlaid.
Incel is not synonymous with dry spell. It is a very specific ideology that people self-identify as. Be very careful not to conflate the two or call yourself the former if that’s not actually the case.
They only do that if you use them that way. For introverts like my husband and I, they gave us the opportunity to actually meet.
I’ll write about the apparent sex drought thing at some point soon. At the moment I don’t really have anything to add to what people here have already said.
I agree with kupo that dating apps/sites have made dating easier for a lot of people, esp. introverts. But I can see how certain ones like Tinder that are all about instant swiping could feel dehumanizing.
Wow, TruthSpeaks has, um, a really cohesive and well-thought-out argument. I just can’t disagree with him.
(that was sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell)
Nice article.
Sex droughts. I regularly experienced these – of up two years or so – as a heterosexual woman when I was unpartnered and also while married. I was not happy about it.
Now that I’m getting close to 50, I am not experiencing a sex drought. I’ve had more sex in the past two years than I did in almost 20 years of marriage. Yay!
Incels would describe him as pretty ‘beta’, but whatevs. He suits me. We do our best to make each other happy.
Thank the Goddess that Incelsior had the courage to assert that David’s balls are at best shrunken — and possibly nonexistent — thus challenging David’s claim that he’s irresistible (and also irresistible!) to women.
I dunno, Kat…David may be irresistible to women, but he’s not irresistible to women.
He can’t be, because those are mutually exclusive.
So stick to your claims of being irresistible to women, David, but don’t try to claim that you’re also irresistible to women. That’s just taking it too far.
Nice article Dave.
Useful to have something to refer others to online when I fear referring a newbie straight into a WHTM maelstrom of what looks like impenetrable jargon to a casual visitor wouldn’t be really effective. A stand alone piece is quite handy.
@Kupo
Sorry, I should have clarified. I don’t consider myself an incel, nor have I ever (and I suspect the incel community wouldn’t either, given that I’ve, y’know, had sex before). I only referenced because I wanted to point out to Incelsior that 1, he’s not the only one, and 2, it’s possible to not get laid and also not succumb to batshit conspiracy theories.
I’m also an introvert, and I was initially excited about dating apps for that reason. However, after two years of mostly radio silence, ghosting, fading, being stood up, and the occasional awkward date, it’s just become exhausting and demoralizing. I dunno if it’s the city I live in, something about me, or just plain bad luck, but online dating stopped being fun and started being a chore. I decided to do myself a favor and swore off apps for my New Year’s resolution, and while I’m still alone, I think I’m happier for it. The folks I know who are most successful on apps treat it as a numbers game, and maybe they’re right, but that’s just not how I operate.
I know folks who do that, but I never did. And I never would have met anyone that shares my interests by going out and doing things I’m not interested in. I made dating apps work by ignoring all profiles with red flags and reaching out to all the ones I was actually interested in. And it took me 2 years of dealing with verbal abuse from random strangers to find someone, but it did work out. I’m not saying it works for everyone, but if you treat it like a numbers game *you’re* the one dehumanizing the dating experience.
I think I’d rather stay celibate. Yikes.
@LindsayIrene
Yeah, men are pretty awful when no one but a woman can see their messages.
Well I, for one, am consistently attracted to David’s irresistible hot, hot wording and analysis.
It’s funny, I saw the title of the article linked on Facebook and thought, “Well yeah, anyone who’s been reading We Hinted the Mammoth for the last 5 years knows THAT,” then clicked on the article and saw who wrote it!
I had a dry spell.
A 10 year section of my life where the only time I’d get laid was when I either asked my spouse (and they accommodated while not being interested in it) or went on grindr, which was something I did very rarely.
Then we realized the reason my spouse had lost their sex drive was from dysphoria. Now that he’s on T and living as the man he always was I’m getting crazy sex, kinky sex too.
Of course, I’ve since figured out I’m nonbinary.
So I’m not sure which of us is the beta cuck in this scenario.
Pls Halp Mr Incelsior, I need to know if I’m the beta or if my trans husband is. I’m so confused.
Oh, wait, nevermind, I’m fine.
@Gaebolga, @David F.
***
David F., as Gaebolga pointed out, you can’t have it both ways.
Nor can you duck the subject.
You have a responsibility as a journalist to disavow one of your claims.
Maybe it’s one of those quantum mechanics things; where he can be both simultaneously. David is just cats in an overcoat after all.