In a Twitter thread yesterday, a self-described “public health activist and grassroots organizer” named Alexandra M. Hunt set forth the outlines of what she sees as a solution to the problem of “involuntarily” celibate men. Many of her suggestions are sensible and good in themselves — decriminalizing sex work, improving sex education, “creating outreach programs that help young people develop healthy sexual habits.”
But she wraps up her thread with a deeply misguided “solution,” advocating a “right to sex” for everyone — a “right” whose insidious logic would challenge the right of women (and men) to say “no.” I’ve written about the deep problems with this idea in a number of posts — most recently in a post explaining with a chilling example showing why sex workers are not the solution for what ails the incels. I think it’s worth going through her thread tweet by tweet to illustrate where she goes wrong.
She begins with a couple of sloppy misrepresentations of the data that make it look worse than it is. First of all, as you can see in the chart she provides (borrowed from the Washington Post and featuring data from the General Social Survey), it’s not true that 28 percent of men under 30 “have not had sex.” In fact, the survey shows that 28 percent of men under 30 have not had sex in the past year. A dry spell, even a long one, is a very different thing than remaining a virgin until you’re 30.
Also, 28 percent is not “nearly a third.” It’s closer to a quarter. “Nearly 30 percent” would be more accurate. But why not just give the actual number as it appears in the graph? The data is alarming enough already; no need to exaggerate like this.
As for the “deeper problems” underlying this increase in celibacy for both men and women, well, we don’t actually know what exactly is causing this. Some of the “problems” may be better described as “changes” — the shift to online interaction over real-world interaction, greater numbers of people working remotely, the rise of home entertainment (greater choice and quality of TV shows, the spread of video games). Others may reflect healthy developments: women may be becoming more choosy about their partners and less likely to put up with the bullshit of bad partners. It’s complicated.
The shuttering of Craigslist’s “erotic services” section has undeniably made life more dangerous for sex workers who can’t as easily screen potential customers. But to suggest that its the cause of a 1/5 increase in violence against all women in the US is a bit much. Even a much-cited study that cannot prove causation — i.e. that the end of the Craigslist erotic services section caused an increase in female homicide — doesn’t suggest that the numbers are that high.
This is true, though a lack of sex doesn’t turn every celibate man into a raging “incel.” Otherwise, there would be a lot more mass shootings by monks. And given that a dramatically increased number of women are celibate as well, it’s striking that there is not even a whiff of a female “incel” movement as nihilistic as the male one. Not all celibates, even if they’re unhappy about their lack of sex, turn into bitter, dangerous self-described “incels.” These guys are a small minority of men. The roots of the (male) incel movement lie as much in toxic masculinity as they do in celibacy.
I can’t argue with these suggestions — they would all help. And they would help sex workers as well as currently celibate young men.
And here’s where she goes terribly, terribly wrong. As I and many other people have argued before, a “right to sex” is fundamentally incompatible with the right of others to say no to sex. And we can’t use sex workers to “pick up the slack” and have sex with men no one else will have sex with. If you spend even a few minutes reading the Incels.is forums — the most popular incel site by far — you’ll see that there are good reasons why no one is having sex with these guys. It’s not because they’re too ugly, or because their wrists are too small — or any of the other reasons incels cite for their sexual failures. It’s because they’re nasty, bitter, and often quite dangerous boys and men who fundamentally hate women as much as, if not more so, than they hate themselves. These are the sorts of men that most women reject instinctively — and that sex workers try to screen out.
Hunt elides the harsh realities of this issue by referring vaguely to “services that meet people’s [sexual] needs” without acknowledging that real people — sex workers — would have to provide these services. Were sex seen as a “right” akin to any of our fundamental civil and human rights, someone — most likely sex workers — would have to have sex with the men that other women rightly reject as too dangerous to date.
Despite Hunt’s good intentions and good suggestions elsewhere in her thread, this is a very dangerous idea.
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I have to wonder how Hunt would react if someone suggested that perhaps she should practice what she preaches and allows the next man to make a pass at her to use her how she pleases.
Because I find that women (or rather, people in general) like her realize what they’re really saying only when they are the ones who have to make the so-called sacrifices.
Oh, and all those mental health problems have less to do with not getting sex than they do with being part of a capitalist system that is increasingly open about how little anyone outside of the ruling classes matters to it- given how hell-bent said system is on turning every possible human connection into another method to make money, I’m surprised it’s not even worse.
@David: Everyone’s increasingly working terrible hours for little pay; they don’t have the time, energy or money to wade into the dating pool. Easier to sit home and play a video game or stream a movie (But even that can be “Netflix and chill”). Probably got worse during lockdown — who wants to swap bodily fluids with a stranger when there’s a plague on? I’d like to see this chart extended further to cover that era.
Incels are simply terrible excuses for human beings. Men who aren’t movie-star gorgeous and whatever other crap incels whine about still manage to get dates and sex if they’re not horrible, toxic vicious wastes of air.
@Anon: What you said.
Incels just need to learn how to grow a personality that isn’t shitty and full of victim complex. My husband is fat and balding now. We still have sex all the time.
There is a lot which could be done to help sex workers, but probably the lowest-hanging fruit would be to eliminate the need for survival work. This insures that the (non-trafficked, non-enslaved) sex workers consist only of people who actually want to be doing it. This means less harm done to those who would only do it out of desperation, and less local competition among those who remain, the latter of which means that they can afford to be choosier about their clients. And it would also probably make trafficking and/or enslavement a bit more difficult. And that’s just if this were the only improvement made; there are other, more subtle effects this would have in combination with other things.
The reason why I would consider this to be the lowest-hanging fruit is because it actually has nothing specifically to do with sex workers; it would help quite a lot of people and improve society in general, so any moralizing about why we “shouldn’t” do such a thing is unlikely to focus on sex work.
As for what would help self-described incels, that’s tough. They’re only likely to actually call themselves that once they join a crab-bucket community. And communities like that are defined by the fact that the members tear each other down, and try to inure each other against leaving or seeking help. An effective solution to crab-buckets would be a strong start, but I have no idea what that would look like; what little expertise I can claim in that area only involves helping people who have already mostly gotten out and need help with staying out.
Under that sort of system, watch the government conscribe convicts into doing the honors—particularly those already convicted of prostitution, and if the cops can’t find a prostitute when they’ve got a quota to meet, they’ll make one.
Yes, incels should be able to masturbate when they want to. Not anywhere, of course. Keep that stuff behind closed doors. Incels, you might be frustrated with autoeroticism because you hate yourselves so much. Try treating others well, and see if that doesn’t improve your self-esteem and therefore your solo sex life.
I don’t get this. I didn’t have sex before 30 either and I didn’t find that particularly horrible or noteworthy. Now, I shouldn’t be all like “I had more important things to worry about,” but…I kind of did?
(Also I’m not on the ace spectrum, to my knowledge. Based on Very Scientific Surveys…fine, casual conversations with friends…it appears I’m not the horniest person on Earth but not the least horny either.)
So idk, but it seems like men who turn this into a “movement” are mainly looking for reasons to blame women. Having sex won’t necessarily help them, like David said before. But decriminalizing sex work and providing safer platforms for it seem like good ideas in general.
(edited because it’s late and I can’t grammar)
I feel like that post was mostly just badly worded.
Like…
I personally believe every child should have the right to be fed. No child should ever go hungry. That doesn’t mean that I in any way think they have the right to have a pizza, candy and chocolate cake buffet 24/7, even if that’s what they REALLY REALLY want. Nope. Tonight, you can pick from spaghetti with mixed veg on the side, a cheeseburger with a green salad, or dinosaur-shaped fake-chicken nuggets with broccoli and a little shredded cheddar. You can have milk or water, and pick from jello or an apple for dessert. These are the (healthy) choices for tonight, because it’s what I’ve got available at this time. At least one of those choices is pretty much available all the time as a backup.
So if we extend that logic to this situation, then we can believe that Joe Q. Incel’s right to sex is more of a right to find A way to seek sexual release without stigma. It obviously includes the right to seek a prostitute, use sex toys, or find legal porn for masturbation. It shouldn’t mean he automatically gets sex with the individual he wants, or even that he is assigned some random woman who has to do what he wants. That’s a “pizza, candy and chocolate cake buffet” thing. There are healthy sexual release options available that suit the time, situation, and his level of emotional maturity/engagement, and he should feel free to use those options, even if they are pretty much everyone else’s backup options.
If another guy has a better personality and gets a date, and she agrees to have sex with him, he’s got that as an extra option to choose from depending on time and situation, while still having the others as backup options.
The cool part is that in a lot of parts of the world you can have sex when ever you want. It’s self sex, but it is sex. you can do it with your hands, a pillow, various wonderful toys, there is an old joke I heard once about microwaving a cantaloupe that may hold some truth for all I know. It’s good for you and a great way to relive stress. Will it replace a human connection, no of course not. But just having sex with another person won’t replace a human connection either.
@Elaine
100 agree. 10/10 no notes.
Regarding the Twitter thread… so much misleading with the truthy veneer of science. This increase in 1/5 in domestic violence: is it a 20% increase adjusted for population? Or is it a 20% increase simply because there are more people now, so of course there is more violence? Is it an increase because more women feel comfortable reporting? Because women have a lower threshold of tolerance before reporting abuse? Or is it exactly the same criteria of abuse in each sample case, and adjusted for population? I can’t trust that it is after the misreading of the first graph.
The same thing is being done with “men who do not have sex suffer—they are likely to experience depression […] and other mental health issues”. Sure. Are all those suffering men incels? (Are all 28% that didn’t have sex in the last year incels? For sure? None of them chose not to? Zero asexuals even.) But that aside, are we really sure that the not-sex-having is the causative agent of mental illness here? In some (many, most, because depression/mental illness is more common than incel assholery), is it not noted that your mental health can affect your libido (as can, in fact, some of the treatments for some illnesses, a double whammy) and therefore, your sex-having?
Basically, I’m not buying it, even before she got to the part where some people shouldn’t be allowed to say no.
A “right to sex” is a plainly stupid idea, unless you really put forth the mechanisms and safeties and such.
I mean, sweet Cthulu! It’s just as dumb as anything CAN be.
That jumped out for me as well. Until the beginning of this year, I’d been in an 8 year dry spell. When cooking a meal or running a bath is too much effort, putting yourself out there to try to find a partner is pretty much out of the question, and the side effects of SSRIs meant that it didn’t seem particularly worth bothering with anyway. Not having sex can be depressing, but being depressed is also often a barrier to having sex.
I think the M in Alexandra M. Hunt must stand for “meathead”. For real, I wouldn’t trust her to give advice on making my first coffee of the day, let alone dealing with the issue of consent.
Hang on a bit. Somethings just jumped u and bitten me. I’ve never heard of this particular Alexandra before. And I’m struck – after far too long – with the downright sloppiness of this idea.
It originates in the careless use of the oh-so-American notion of framing everything in terms of rights rather than old-fashioned duties & obligations (often reciprocal) or the more modern expressions of boundaries & permission-consent in interpersonal relationships.
Pretty good going. Managing to dodge, duck and dive, slip and slither, over walls and under hedges like some logics version of inventing a bullet that goes around corners. Proudly missing every possible target of moral ethical sensible legal or social limitations restraints or discipline. Way to go!
I’m reminded of a Heinlein book (Glory Road) in which one character declares prostitution and marriage are both based on the assumption women can only provide a limited supply of sex.
It’s one of several novels I’ve read that hypothesize a society with zero sexual hangups and plenty of free love, so there’s no sexual frustration. But that assumes nobody ever wants to have sex with a particular individual who doesn’t want them or that some people might be too jerky/creepy for anyone to want to sleep with them.
I find it telling that most of the discourse around “right to sex” is focused around young men who have not found a partner, as opposed to say, the rights of incarcerated people. I think there could be a much more interesting rights and dignity conversation around say, should incarcerated people have access to private spaces for masturbation? Do people have a right for say, conjugal visits if they have a willing partner? Should there be sex toy access?
I have never worked in a prison but I have worked in psychiatric institutions, and some of these are the kinds of conversations we were having. And at least my patients had access to private bathrooms / showers / etc so there were appropriate spaces for masturbation, which is not true of most jail / prison spaces.
Also maybe this is my bias talking as someone on the ace spectrum, but IME our societies massively conflate sex with intimacy and touch, and celibacy with touch starvation. And these things are not the same, at all. I suspect a lot of “sex starved” men desperately want touch, desperately want to be held, and would be much less bothered about their lack of sex if they had anything at all helping with the touch starvation.
And that doesn’t give adults some fundamental right to be touched either (gods no, I am not giving hugs on demand for violent incel douchebags). Just… mass culture is incredibly fixated on sex as the alpha and omega of intimacy and physical affection, and it really is not. And it’s hard not to see that weirdness as part of how we get incels. FFS, we train men to think they’ll go violently mad from lack of sex regardless of their own desires, and that sure does seem to me like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A lot of these discussions wilfully, it has to be wilful by this point, ignore or outright dismiss asexuality. They just refuse to even consider the range of the asexual spectrum at all. Not all decline is sex is a result of bad things, not is it automatically a bad thing. Not what is driving the boldness of incels, who definitely are not asexual.
Oh hey. Alexandra M. Hunt was a candidate for the US House of Representatives. She lost badly. She’s a former stripper. Even though she lost her election earlier this year, her campaign website is still up and still has merch. Here are the slogans on her merchandise: Voting Makes Me Horny, I’m No Corporate Whore, and Elect Hoes (I kind of like this last one). Also — and in the complete opposite direction of her recent tweet — Men: Stop Talking.
@Kat
That’s… Pretty weird. Current and former sex workers I’ve known have been very big on the right to say no, and very against the idea that anyone has a right to sex. I can’t speak from that place myself, but it still kind of shocks me to see a former sex worker offering that take.
I’m 30, have never had sex, and am underemployed with mental health problems – and I’m female. But… so what? That’s not society’s fault or their problem (the sex part, anyway; I’d like more societal support for mental illness but that’s a whole other kettle of fish). I just don’t see why, “fewer men are having sex,” is actually a problem.
Stripper? Um. Well. Hmm. I’m wondering if maybe she has worked in strip clubs which do lap dances? And somehow imagining it’s not much of a leap from that to socialized brothels? Even ignoring that we (in the US) can’t even get socialized health care, and generally treating sex work which involves actual sex with clients as real work seems to be an even harder ask… (legal) brothels can and do blacklist abusive or unruly customers. Otherwise virtually no one would willingly work there. I suppose it could work with a “you forfeit your access for N years, and maybe get fined, if you break the rules” type of deal which is common with government services, but that’s technically a benefit or an entitlement, not a right.
Everyone else including David has already covered key issues, so I’ll just chuck in an additional question: what did they define as “having sex”? I’m gonna assume PIV intercourse (only because that’s the norm in most surveys when asking about sex between men and women) – if so, that doesn’t mean those men had no sexual activity or intimacy whatsoever.
I’ve been trying to find the original data and wasted too much time already, lol, but the sample sizes aren’t huge and they excluded anyone living at uni (which, afaik is really common in the US?). So, for multiple reasons, not the most representative data.
Could’ve been a good chance to discuss the real changes that are happening to younger people’s lives, but on Twitter at least it’s devolved into the usual dead-end.
This appeared in the Grauniad between updates as to whom the Prime Minister currently is.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/20/involuntary-celibacy-incels-problem-right-to-sex-not-the-answer