The overthrow
It’s possible that the Toronto sidewalk-murderer is one of those guys who thinks he’s entitled to sex and thus that women are required to say yes to his demands for sex.
Shortly before a rented van ploughed into a crowd of pedestrians in Toronto, killing 10 and wounding 14 others, a short and cryptic message was posted on the Facebook account of Alek Minassian, the man accused of carrying out the attack.
The post referred to another mass killer – Elliot Rodger, who shot dead six people and wounded 13 others in Isla Vista, California, in 2014 – and said that the “incel rebellion has already begun. We will overthrow all the Chads and the Stacys”.
What’s “the incel rebellion”? You know, it’s where men who think women owe them sex are going to unite and fight and just take it.
As in other reactionary subcultures that reject consensus liberal beliefs, those who take on the incel creed are said to have taken “the red pill” – referring to the scene in the science fiction movie The Matrix where the protagonist chooses to leave his illusions behind.
Frequently such ideas lead to a generalized bitterness towards women. Indeed, the big incel hubs are often viciously misogynistic and regularly feature calls for rape or other violence.
It couldn’t be anything else. If a man believes a woman – any woman – has no right to refuse to have sex with him, he is by definition calling for rape, and that of course is misogynistic.
Some with this mindset take it upon themselves to commit horrendous violence. In videos and a manifesto, the Isla Vista shooter Elliot Rodger justified his own mass homicide in 2014 by presenting it as revenge for his own romantic rejections, and the fact that at 22, he was still a virgin.
It’s such a bizarre belief, this idea that because you have a burning desire to stick your penis in someone, therefore that someone is obliged to let you stick her penis in her, quite regardless of her thoughts on the subject. Bizarre yet utterly pervasive.
Behind the layers of irony and disavowal, then, some incels have constructed a kind of violent, insurrectionary rhetoric from romantic failure and the belief that they are owed sex.
If only they could just put all the women under some kind of house arrest so that every man would be able to stick his penis in at least one of them whenever he wanted to.
I find this sentence amusing, in a sort of sick way. These ideas do not lead to generalized bitterness toward women, they arise from a generalized bitterness toward women. The big incel hubs are not often viciously misogynistic, etc, they are always viciously misogynistic. They arose for that very reason, and that is the only reason for their existence. It’s in the very name – incel – the idea that they are being denied something to which they are entitled (natural rights, anyone?).
Always whitewashing just a bit to remove these things from culture as a whole, when the reality is that this sense of entitled rage comes from a culture that has fed them since birth on the different roles for men and women, and led many men to believe that women exist solely for the purpose of giving them pleasure (and making sandwiches).
iknklast: And the messages are so damned pervasive and toxic it can be hard to track them all. We Hunted the Mammoth does a good job of monitoring the incel movement, and it was a real eye-opener for me when I realize just how many of them use the phrase, “nice guy” to describe themselves, or as a generic term for “guys women don’t want to fuck”.
And Ophelia, while I’m sure you’re aware of this, these guys don’t want to ‘have sex with’ women. They want to fuck them. Having sex with someone is a mutual activity. For the incels, this notion is actually a turn-off. The psychology of it is pretty perverse–it’s like the most demented version of the old Groucho Marx line about not being willing to join any club that would have him as a member. I’ve never fully understood the ability to simultaneously have a such a low-self-image that you believe any woman who would voluntarily have sex with you must be too damaged to be a decent partner, AND still have the belief that you are somehow entitled to fuck women you actually want.
(BTW, while I’m down with you on the issue of legal prostitution, it’s very revealing that these guys also believe hiring a prostitute is an unacceptable option–not because of the dangers of trafficking or other abuses, but because that means she’s getting something out of the interaction, and this is unacceptable to them.)
What iknklast & Freemage said. And also what Hadley Freeman said somewhere: we shouldn’t use their name for themselves. They’re not “incels” (stands for involuntarily celibate, afaik). They’re misogynists.
(And also too, I think we need a blunter term than something that probably sounds like a Greek salad dressing out there in the great wide world. Womanhaters. It’s what they are.)
The whole You-owe-me-sex garbage has nothing to do with sex. It’s a symptom of the last caste system too many people believe in, because they think it’s real. The male-female caste system.
Having sex is just a marker of caste in that world view. Men who have it get their man cards endorsed.
It’s got nothing to do with desire or sex or any of that. If it did, they’d just masturbate.
No, they’re furious that the servant class is not giving them their due. That lowers their man card status. How dare the scum not bow and scrape and serve?! That’s also why prostitution isn’t good enough. It’s like DonnieTwo Scoops, not at all mortified anybody knows about his revolting sex life. But he’s frantic for everybody to know he doesn’t have to *pay* for it.
The usefulness of understanding the motivations of the murderers is we could stop worrying about how much sex these guys are having. They don’t want sex. They want status.
And the only real solution is to dismantle the whole stupid caste system.
Maybe that’s why newscasters would rather talk about sex.
The bit about overthrowing the Chads and Stacys would be hilarious for its sheer pathetic-ness if it wasn’t for the fact that some of these fools are turning to literal violence. I mean, what does their end-game actually look like? Laws requiring women to have sex with them? Have they even thought it through that far? The MRM at least has a set of articulated grievances (albeit misguided and bogus ones) with the system, that could potentially be redressed legally.
@3: May I suggest “celeries” in mockery of their self-chosen label? An insipid vegetable, best avoided. (To my taste, at least)
Steve, in answer to your question about the end-game… Yes, laws requiring women to have sex with them IS something they push for at times (others simply want to redefine ‘rape’ to the point where it wouldn’t apply to anything they do).
One of the more regularly discussed incels over on We Hunted the Mammoth was a fellow called “governmentgetmegirlfriend” who literally claimed to have called 911 on his parents for failing to acquire a suitable female for him to fuck.
Freemage – on the have sex with/fuck distinction…well, yes, but I think I made that pretty clear with the “obliged to let you stick her penis in her” bit.
quixote @ 3 – Hadley Freeman said it on Twitter. Her tweet is why I avoided the word except one time in scare quotes.
She’s dead right; the word is infuriating. It translates not letting someone stick his penis in you as an act of coercion.
And doesn’t recognize the reality that this is just part of the human condition – you may or may not be particularly attractive to the opposite sex, and that is something you may or may not be able to do something about.
And women find themselves in the same position, no man wanting to be with them, and afaik, they don’t set up entire websites and twitter feeds devoted to hating the sex that won’t have sex with them, or advocating the violent bondage of an entire sex for the purpose of pleasing them. It’s a part of life that people have to cope with – their libido, and their view of themselves, may not meet the reality of their circumstances. Sooner or later, you have to deal with that, and failure to deal with that is a sign of an immature mind (and yes, that includes those who call themselves “incels” who are past their prime, and about to enter their so-called declining years).
Regardless of age, these are a bunch of adolescent thinkers who haven’t figured out how to maneuver the adult world appropriately, and chafe at the restraints provided on their juvenile instincts. Now they’ve got a president who thinks the way they do, and it’s emboldened them. They think that’s proof that they are right, not proof that our nation had some sort of brain cramp at the ballot box.
I’m not implying you, Ophelia, hasn’t twigged to the status aspect of all this. No, no, no. My comment is more of a rant on the general coverage I see everywhere.
It’s more than the sex/fuck distinction, although that’s important too. That’s the sex/masturbate distinction.
The entirety of their desperation to stick penises into things (yes, things…) is a desperation for status. Part of what I’m trying to say is that the fucking is incidental, it’s just a marker.
And the actionable part is you don’t fix vast inadequacy the same way you might try to help someone learn how to navigate female – male relationships more attractively.
Basically, it’s Marc Lepine all over again, but with now with an online movement encouraging it. Whether it’s fucking or engineering school, those women have no business being the ones in control of it.
I imagine they’d find themselves vastly more appealing to women – and yes, it’s on them to be appealing to potential partners, not on the partners to just submit like it or not – if “only” they tossed the entire “red pill” crap and regarded relationships as mutually desirable potential affairs between equal, free agents with dignity and mutual respect.
They’re not involuntarily celibate – they’re voluntarily grotesque.
You win. You may pick up your prize. (location of pick up to be announced sometime in the vague, indefinable future).
Hm… “Volgros” actually sounds like a pretty good name for the movement.
from the Wikipedia at 00:50 MDT
” … During the confrontation, Minassian repeatedly drew his hand from his back pocket and pointed a cell phone toward the police officer as if it were a pistol.[12][13][14] Officer Lam ordered Minassian to drop to the ground, while Minassian tried repeatedly to provoke the officer to kill him, saying “shoot me in the head!” when the officer warned him he may be shot. Lam then went to his cruiser and turned off its siren. As Minassian and Lam advanced towards each other, the officer recognized that the object in Minassian’s hand was not a gun, holstered his pistol, and took out his baton. Minassian then dropped the object from his hand, went to the ground and surrendered to Lam. Minassian was arrested uninjured at 1:32 p.m.[15]
”
The (Canadian) cop put away his gun and managed the arrest without firing a shot.
what a wimp
sad