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why are incels frowned/hated upon?

Obviously I can understand why mysoginists are hated upon, As their belief is all women are trash or men are superior etc. But why are incels also generally hated upon? They are lacking in a way that makes them unable to gey in a relationship, but that shouldn't necessarily mean they are mysoginists, right?

What am I missing here? I haven't ever had a relationship with a woman, but I don't hate all women either. I just consider myself unlucky. Does that make me an incel?

185 comments
  • @DarthVader

    "Incel" doesn't just mean someone who is involuntarily celibate.

    It's a bit like how "Democrat" doesn't just mean someone who participates in a democracy and "pro-life" doesn't just mean someone who likes life on earth.

    Incels are a specific subculture, it has a violent misogynistic ideology and has spawned several mass murderers.

  • You've already had some great answers, but I'll just leave another point here for you to consider - they are literal terrorists.

    Not one, but several have used their "inceldom" in their manifestos before going on mass shootings (often targeting, or trying to target women exclusively) and many other shooters were active members of incel forums (and many active incel forum users who still haven't gone on a shooting spree openly talk about going on one).

    I will strongly second whenigrowup356 - stay as far away from these people and their spaces as possible, they are toxic violent terrorists, and you should not only not want anything to do with them, but also not let them convince you to feel sorry for them, because as opposed to what they call themselves, the state they are in is anything but "involuntary".

  • While the incel movement may have seemed to be just some men who found community in others who haven't been in a relationship, something rather innocuous. It very quickly got hijacked into what it is today. It went from "I haven't been with a woman yet but I'm still looking and in the mean time i have my friends" to "It's women's fault that I haven't been with one and they use sex for power and are horrible people" and it devolved into worse things from there. The incel community was preyed upon by misogynist far right fascist and nazis. They were assaulted with propaganda in their communities, a place they had finally found that they were comfortable in. And when you are around those you care about, and they start espousing bigoted beliefs, some start to agree with it, and then most of them fall for it. It's not unreasonable to want community. Everyone wants that. But the incel community quickly became a community of people who hated that they were virgins and were willing to take their anger out on others. Particularly women identifying individuals.

    You say they are lacking in a way they can't get women, I don't think is wrong. They really haven't been taught well by our society how to interact with women. They're trying to get into a relationship using what they've been taught, but they're floundering, reasonably, because society has taught them to view women as sex objects. Incels as a movement are a failure of our society, a failure of us teaching our kids how to act around others, including the gender they're attracted to.

    I'm not nearly read up enough to give you much more information, but if you want, there's a book called Escape from Incel Island by Margaret Killjoy. It's really good and helps explain things far more eloquently and fully than me, a random lemmy user can.

    Also, never having been in a relationship doesn't make you an incel, it just makes you someone who hasn't experienced that yet. And that's okay, we all grow at different speeds, it's okay to not having been with someone. We attach way too much to the idea of being with your first person. It's important to be able to respect and care about yourself somewhat before getting in a relationship, and it's okay if that takes a while. I didn't have that experience until my mid 20s, but it didn't make me any less of a person. Just remember to respect yourself, and to respect the others around you. And also don't treat women like sex objects, we are just humans, like any other. And there are 100% multiple people out there who will be interested in you, even if it takes a while to find one. I know you'll find someone, especially considering you're asking this question. You're willing to ask about tough topics and that is something a lot of people can't do. So good on you.

    • Just remember to respect yourself, and to respect the others around you. And also don't treat women like sex objects, we are just humans, like any other. And there are 100% multiple people out there who will be interested in you, even if it takes a while to find one.

      This is not true for everyone. Meeting new people is difficult, especially when you’re older. Add to that several (mental) health issues that mean actually going on a date would be practically impossible. Even getting past that, I wouldn’t be able to give a woman the life she deserves.

      I don’t blame anyone, I wouldn’t date me either. Can I do things to improve myself? Sure, but not enough for it to matter, the real fundamental problems will remain. Why waste effort on things that give no return on investment?

    • I generally agree with your comment, but this

      They really haven’t been taught well by our society how to interact with women. They’re trying to get into a relationship using what they’ve been taught, but they’re floundering, reasonably, because society has taught them to view women as sex objects.

      I think is wrong.
      The whole problem is that the patriarchy absolutely teaches (especially white) men that women are objects, and that men are entitled to women and sex (but that only virginal women are worthy of marriage).
      Some men unlearn this shit early on, some remain "neutral" assholes (those who will end up abusing but aren't doing it consciously out of ideology, but still from the same sense of entitlement), and some take the entitlement to the extreme and adopt it as their ideology and way of life, but I think it's really fucking important to highlight that they are in fact not taught anything different by society before that point, they just take their entitlement to another level once they've found others to confirm it for them.

      Either way, the name is a complete misnomer - they aren't "involuntarily" celibate, they are celibate because they actively refuse to not be walking entitled pieces of shit.

  • Terrorism and mass murder. I actually lived near one, a van attack in Toronto.

  • The word was originally coined by a woman to describe her own situation. It got adopted by the manosphere, and then the connotations changed over time to what it is today, which is a slur and a stereotype label.

    Sorry if I sound like a pedantic linguist here. But the meanings and usage of words can change over time.

    There's a podcast called "Incel" that you might find interesting. It's not my cup of tea, but the host does attempt to form a neutral, high level understanding of the incel subculture.

  • they're just insufferable. the problem isn't the situation. it's the mindset they develop.

    it basically becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for them. they can't get a woman, they develop unhealthy views, related to self-entitlement, and they become walking red flags to normal, adjusted individuals, which drives their isolation, and then feeds into what they think always happens.

    a defeatist attitude never gets anything done. being a person is, in part, about self improvement.

    if your skills won't get you hired for a job, you need to improve your skills. dating and having successful relationships is not much different. the problem with many incels is that they improve all these other aspects of their life (job, property, car), and then can't understand why the other sex doesn't flock to them. they fail to realize that hitting all these various metrics is just a part of the equation, but not the whole she-bang.

    if you haven't had a relationship, maybe you haven't had the right circumstances, or met the right person. the trick is to understand not to necessarily take that personally, as recursive as that sounds.

  • Because people mostly know about the vocal minority that posts a lot of hateful content, presumably mostly for attention. This is exacerbated by the just world fallacy — people want to believe that if someone is unhappy, they must have done something bad to deserve it.

  • Incel is a shit person who is unable to have romantic relationships with women and blames/hates them for that. They also tend to hate men who are successful in that regard. They are simply toxic squiggly emo worms.

  • I think theres what the word actually means, and then theres the stereotyped version that maybe has more power, ie angry about being celebate, poor mental health, usually hates women because of it.

    Perhaps involuntarily celebate and incel mean slightly different things to each other by now.

185 comments