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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@Alan Robertshaw:
…between updates as to whom the Prime Minister currently is.
How exaggerated is this Tumblr thread on the subject?
https://canadianwheatpirates.tumblr.com/post/698571493813190656
@ FMO
I think this German lady expresses it best…
https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1583068995527200768
I’ve just looked at her Twitter account, I think that what she’s advocating for is the decriminalisation of sex work, not rape or sexual assault, though I don’t think that would solve the problem.
Presumably, a lot of those people probably want relationships, not just hookups and yes there are more lonely people who are single for various reasons, including more use of social media rather than going out and meeting people, lack of social skills etc. Unfortunately, loneliness is a thing and I do think that everyone deserves a chance at love and relationships but that does not necessarily obligate other people to have a relationship with them even if they don’t want to and the issue can be resolved without that. They can try using dating apps or learn to improve their social skills, for example.
I recently saw some vaguely similar discourse on Finnish mainstream media. It went according to the following lines:
(1) The current low birthrate in Finland is a problem, because demographics, economy, blah blah blah.
(2) In many cases these days, young people do want at least one or two children, but end up not having any because they fail to establish a stable romantic relationship which is generally necessary.
(3) Less educated men are at much higher risk of staying childless, apparently because of the abovementioned issue. (Specifically, there was a weirdly strawmannish comparison between the stats on college educated men vs. men with only primary school diploma.)
Solution: Develop the society and education system so that no men in particular drop out of education after primary school (which is mandatory and passed by just about everyone). This of course has been the general goal anyway, because finding a job effectively requires at least vocational training at the secondary level, if you don’t go into the college pipeline. IIRC, majority of school dropouts in Finland are boys/men.
There didn’t seem to be any discussion on what exactly is the causal relationship between men’s low education and poor dating success. I can only assume it’s that subpar education causes a huge risk of chronic unemployment (and associated heavy alcohol use, drug use, social maladjustment, criminality), and chronically jobless men are not seen as suitable life partners by women (at least by women who do want children). But it could be more complicated, with all kinds of issues tangled together.
(It was specifically noted that uneducated young men might be successful at finding sex and short relationships – the problem is successfully settling down with someone).
Presumably, there’s a roughly equivalent group of women who remain childless against their will, because they fail to find an acceptable man. I don’t see any discussion on who exactly they are. What is their statistically defining feature, if they have any? Could they be helped by the society in some way? Would they (or some other women) be willing to marry the sort of men who currently drop out of school, if those men were successfully helped into getting a secondary school diploma? Or even a diploma and a job? Would those men be willing to marry the sort of women who currently fail to find a man, for whatever reason?
(There’s also no discussion on how much low income or economic instability contributes to couples’ choices to have no/fewer children, though we do have relatively good family support systems in Finland).
@Lumipuna: BTW, my Lenovo updated itself without having Vantage on it, and without re-installing it. Yay! YMMV, since I think you said yours is a work machine? Onnea!
@Alan: I watched it without sound, and even her facial expressions convey that. Also, to me, she looks like Everybody’s Mom/Grandma In The 70’s.
Also, the Tories seem to be taking “the whip” too literally. It’s kind of a weird term anyway.
@ gss ex-noob
All the chaos was precipitated when No 10 said a particular vote last night was to be regarded as a vote of confidence in the PM and thus a ‘three line whip’. That means MPs have to attend, and have to vote with the government. Otherwise they lose the whip. i.e. are no longer members of the Conservative party.
Of course, guess who managed to somehow not vote in favour of herself?*
That’s what prompted the F-ing out of here quote from the chief whip.
This all does sound very risqué.
Mind you, Liz Truss seems to have such a tolerance for humiliation that I’m starting to worry my criticism of her is crossing the line into kink shaming.
I don’t see what it’s a problem that men are not having sex. Just masturbate.
Many incels state they don’t want to pay for sex. They want a Stacey to desire them.
Even if a sex worker was paid for by someone else and provided to the incel, he would either decline or go forth and take out his anger at the situation on her.
Incels don’t want a solution and it’s not society’s job to provide them one.
Also her “outreach programs to help young people develop healthy sexual habits” will send right-wingers reeling. But even I’m giving that a side eye given the “right to sex” context here.
Right to sex is such a skewed way of thinking. Better to teach that being human can be difficult and we don’t always get what we want and sometimes we just need to learn how to accept and still find something to be grateful for.
If you read enough of the incel crap, you realize it isn’t even about not having sex. It is about being insecure and craving domination and control over another person as a result.They want to hurt women because they have been rejected. Their matryr fantasy isn’t going to be sated by a prostitute. Many of them post they want a women to want them and that they can own and abuse.
@Alan: And here’s an article that I giggled over:
https://www.themarysue.com/things-we-saw-today-even-her-own-party-is-laughing-that-liz-truss-was-ousted-before-her-rise-to-power-book-hits-shelves/
https://www.themarysue.com/things-we-saw-today-even-her-own-party-is-laughing-that-liz-truss-was-ousted-before-her-rise-to-power-book-hits-shelves/
@Alan,
I see the lettuce won its contest with Liz Truss 🙂
@ mish
Ah yes. But was it Leaf or Romaine?
(I’ll get my coat)
@Alan Robertshaw: It took me way too long to get that joke. I facepalmed once I finally got it.
@ Alan Robertshaw
It was an iceberg . . . which is so appropriate to the disaster of the Truss premiership.
@Alan Robertshaw
It took me 24 hours, but I finally got the joke. It’s pretty funny.
I think the incel problem is really a poor socialization problem. It’s obvious that the angry incels you see on these forums have not been properly socialized. We’ve allowed people to become too isolated I think. Kept boys in the basement and allowed them to be on the internet all day and play video games. Parents need to make their kids go outside.and touch some grass. They need to give kids independence. Let them go to public schools. Let them hang out with friends. Let them take a walk for christ sake without worrying that some pedophile in a van is going to snatch them off the street. There is just too much anxiety running rampant. We’ve allowed fear to dictate our lives. People aren’t having sex because they aren’t socializing.
@Steven:
Not as simple as it used to be Back In The Day:
http://i.redd.it/y9qwuv9l49481.png
If you think that’s bad, consider my own childhood. Not just living in a place like that, surrounded by busy streets and private this, that, and the other with little in the way of public space to hang out in, but my parents moved house seemingly every year or two. They weren’t even chasing jobs: they were boomers with the sort of stable salaried white-collar employment that used to be standard, but which have largely been withheld from mine and younger generations. But they (or the father, at least) seem to have felt the need for frequent changes of scenery, or maybe frequent upgrades. (He’s mellowed, later in life. He only moves every four or five years now.) With those moves came new neighborhoods and new schools.
So, it was impossible to make any kind of stable attachments outside of the family. A family consisting of just four people, and two of the other three were an emotionally unavailable father and an asshole prankster brother. (Guess which two are still alive now?)
I can only imagine how much worse this has gotten now, as ever more things are privatized, fenced off, and toll-boothed, and as job-chasing becomes the norm for an ever growing fraction of the population, including parents with dependent children …
I recall seeing a conservative argument against ‘healh-care is a right’ to the effect that such would degrade or destroy the rights of doctors, nurses, technicians, and so on not to agree to work.
(I don’t find that a great argument, given that the greatest degrader of anyone’s right to just say ‘No.’ to alienated labour is fear of hunger and of homelessness, and these same right-wingers don’t seem to be against those as motivaters….)
More generally, I think the idea that a right can not be fundamental if it conscripts someone else’s time and labour is probably worth considering. (I’m not as concerned about taking wealth, especially from the wealthy, because the State is essential to the dependable retention of property, and also makes a few very important forms of property possible in the first place.)