Comments

1

Twitter is an unmitigated catastrophe.

2

Can you please make your own personal blog Dan so we don't have to read your self-aggrandizing bullshit on here? Nobody gives a shit that somebody said something mean about you.

4

@3 ;-)

5

@2: Dan is the Stranger's Editorial Director. So in essence this is his blog.

6

Dan catches so much gratuitous, undeserved shit all over the Internet that he could probably make a second job out of responding just to it. This is so typical of how people get taken out of context and abused online in all manner of ways. For Dan, radfem sites complain that, among other things. GGG is coercing women into the partriarchal trap of providing pleasure for men. Pro-trans sites say he isn't adequately prostrate over their community's needs. Even some gay sites say Dan isn't "flamboyant" enough for old-school types. And don't even get started on how the assholes on the right abuse his words. In all cases, people twist or misrepresent what he says by condensing it to a bullshit version of a more nuanced point. Sadly, this seems to be the way of life these days, and not just for known quantities such as Dan.

7

Dan,
Surely members of the media-left wouldn't INTENTIONALLY take something out of context to validate their own anger on a subject by blasting someone else, would they? I mean we know right-wingers do that, but left-wing people? Unfathomable!

8

@7: Are you intentionally undermining yourself or no?
Either way, watching you do it is delicious.

9

Shorter @2: "I so totally do not give a shit about anything Dan Savage writes or what other people write about him that Imma gonna post a comment on one of his articles just to prove to everyone how much of a shit I do not give."

Dear @2: That's not the way you demonstrate NOT giving a shit...

10

Er, who is Denise Balkissoon?

11

@10: Apparently she's a Canadian journalist? Hard to say, given that she's shown no investigative capability/interest in this case, she's only responding to hearsay that's reached her through Twitter.

12

Look, Dan said a lot of stuff about how sex workers shouldn't be thrown at incels in a very long post about how normalizing sex work would help prevent incels from existing in the first place, so it does sort of have the feeling of "I'm not racist but..."

I don't necessarily disagree with Dan's original piece and I think sex work is work and should be destigmatized and probably it would help certain people and prevent some radicalization, so sure. I let it go, though I thought a thing similar to the criticism he's getting.

Because at the core of it, what Dan did not mention in his original piece (and in Dan's case, I think it's just that he doesn't know much about the history of this movement) is that these young men are being actively radicalized online - this has been going on for a few years now and it's linked to the alt-right. It's a form of fundamentalism and it's causes really have nothing to do with how much these guys are getting laid or not- that's just one thing that some of them latch onto to channel their resentments. But I don't feel like getting into the big long history of that movement. Instead, here's a couple articles if you want to learn more, both from before the attacks. One of these authors published an entire book on this issue last year:
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/new-man-4chan-nagle
https://newrepublic.com/article/147744/rise-male-supremacist-groups

13

@11

That's weird. I kind of thought she might have been an activist. If she's writing about Dan Savage, she is unlikely a mainstream journalist.

14

It's too late Dan, the Internet Youths have already judged you to be a privileged warmongering transphobic misogynous racist neoliberal, it doesn't matter what your actual views are.

15

Isn't the whole point of Twitter so that you can address people directly with stuff like this?

Seems odd to use a tool that is built for that, yet passively aggressively snipe at people through it (or in blog posts) as if you are leaving whiny post-it notes all over your shared apartment.

16

@10/11:

Um, you've heard about this thing? Called teh Google? You should definitely check it out, cuz it's totes useful for finding links to information and stuff, like:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/denise-balkissoon/.

17

Dan,

Please send Denise Balkissoon a link to both this article and your original article, if you haven't already.

Legalized sex work would be a net positive for society for many reasons, and your original article made a very good case for that.

Thanks

PS - Do you think we commenters could get links and all that other good HTML stuff back?
Please. 😇I promise we will be good😇

18

Dan, you did kinda say exactly that for pre-incels, though not for full blown incels. Having sex with them sounds like a shitty work environment too. How do you even tell them from incels safely?

Think about if you're a sex worker vetting a potential client. He fundamentally doesn't think women are people. He shows a lot of anger at 'having to buy it'. Do you want to take his word that he hasn't discovered Reddit yet, so he's okay? Or try somebody else unless you're desperate?

These guys are made more of anger and misogyny and self-righteousness than they are of sexual frustration, as witnessed by how many sexually frustrated guys don't even go in this direction at all. These pre-incels are going to be Very Angry at the sex workers for doing it for free with alphas. And many know how to exploit a woman's reluctance to contact authorities.

After these guys get their rocks off, they are a high, high risk to cheat their sex worker, or threaten her, or get violent.

19

From Twitter:

Conversation
Denise Balkissoon
Denise Balkissoon
@balkissoon
On Twitter, and I should have made it clear that he said sex worker safety and choice was paramount. But he did suggest paid sex could alleviate "deprivation."
MIRPs
@NoonerPodcast
Replying to @balkissoon
When did Dan Savage say that? I read his post last week that said exactly the opposite: (link: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/04/25/26093525/on-sexual-deprivation-sex-workers-incels-and-violence) thestranger.com/slog/2018/04/2
.

I'm not on Twitter.
Dan, did you say anything like that on Twitter?
I'm guessing you didn't, but I thought I better ask to be sure.

20

@12 yes, the shape of the 'movement' and its penumbra (my phone autocorrects to "penile") have to be in this. Maybe Dan is looking at this through a sex lens, not that he's socially / politically naive, but I don't think he's using the whole picture here.

21

I think a lot of people don't understand that a lot of these so-called incels actually have perfectly normal sex lives. They still identify as incels because they're insane. They think if they lose their virginity at age 23 they are already ruined for life because they didn't lose it sooner. Many also think seeing a prostitute doesn't count. Incels highly discourage/ban suggesting anyone see a prostitute. They also hate women a lot so they can often rationalize a reason why any woman they sleep with is inferior and doesn't count. Source: I read a lot of r/incels before it was deleted because I like laughing at people.

23

No Mtn Beaver,

His article - the long one he posted last week or whatever- does in fact betray some lack of knowledge of the larger red pill / RoK / incel-volcel thing. I don't remember if Dan wrote about Gamergate. He avoided writing about Milo for a long time so it's possible that Dan knows a lot more than he discusses because he didn't want to platform these freaks. So I don't think he's necessarily as naive as he comes across- he probably knows more and holds back- but then maybe best not to write such a long post trying to suggest ways to help if you won't actually discuss the problem? Simplest thing is, I think Dan is out of touch with some of this. As Last Comment and others (including journalists who've been writing about this for years and commenters on the other article including myself who have visited these forums or talked to some of these young men) will tell you, this isn't just a matter of not having sex. Some of them do have sex. Others are VolCels- so they are celibates but voluntarily. They also don't count sex workers (not like there is a consensus here- it's not an official group with rules) and there's crossover with people who want to have sex with younger girls, white supremacists and also strategies about how you keep the women in your life in their place (those women are supposedly having sex with them). So Dan is off the mark when he is talking about sex. I think he's correct when he talks about the need to detach masculine identities from how much game a man gets, etc. But then the issue (from that lens) is about sex in the context of toxic masculinity. I also think he's right about the need to destigmatize sex and sex work to level the playing field so to speak, but that would only help otherwise lonely people who are dealing with the depression of not having intimacy- a legitimate goal in and of itself but one that really has little to nothing to do with what makes someone join these MRA type communities.

In short Dan is doing what liberals always do- he's trying to attack a problem that is structural and ideological with "rational" solutions based on individual needs. Which will help some people- as I said, I'm not saying he's wrong. But it's not going to take care of the problem.

24

@16
Of course, but I just didn't want to Google her and then finding her pop up on my browser from now on.

25

Also some of the less online and less alienated sorts who have crossover with this movement like the Proud Boys- and those guys actively do not want prostitutes or sexual liberation and they take some weird pride in not giving into their sexuality outside to certain contexts, including No Fap and all that. So I get what Dan is saying, that a more sexually liberated and destigmatized society would be better for everyone, especially in that it might detach male worth from whether or not he can get "the prize" (and it would be good for young women too as some of them play up their role as "the prize" in a way that is damaging as well)- but all of that starts with the assumption that sex or resentment over sex or insecurities about identities are at the core of the issue here rather than just being the scapegoats of real grievances- isolation, alienation, lack of community, hyper-individualism, lack of opportunities, etc. And finally, ESPECIALLY when we go back to the incels/volcels and the Pepes, there's a huge strain of nihilism- a lot of them are motivated entirely by the transgression of shocking and an inability to think of anyone else as real people or their actions as having real consequences. It's a lack of engagement in real life, real community, real people- it's not about sex, and if having sex would help them with anything other than an immediate release, it would be because of the requirement to engage with another person and the potential for intimacy. A sex worker would not bring them that, and would likely just feed into their resentments- and yes I mean even if we go back to before they were radicalized and prevented them from becoming incels- they'd just be some other version of this alt-right resentment and lulz movement. If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, start reading about NRX and silicon valley- which also has crossover with these people.

These are just various expressions of rising fascism, in a modern form, and I think Americans grew up on WW2 stories and so they don't realize that fascism is always pretty stupid so they can't see something as dumb as incels or Pepes in that light. But they are killing people, they are electing presidents. It's real shit. And it's borne of the same resentments and grievances that fascism has always been borne from- and they are scapegoating whoever: immigrants, black people, women. It's not actually about sex, though it is partially about isolation and alienation and toxic masculinity. Anyway, that's what I mean by Dan not seeming to realize that having a more sexually liberated world would help. His article clearly demonstrates that he doesn't understand this as his description included discussing even MORE commodification of human relationships- describing his marriage as a transaction, etc. This is exactly the sort of thing that is at the core of all of these resentments- the commodification and individualization (requiring competition) in every aspect of our lives is alienating to people- creates nihilism and resentments and makes people for whom the system does not work (unlike Dan and his husband) ripe for radicalization.

26

We used to just call these dudes "losers." A moniker heavily represented on SLOG every god damned day, fifty times a day.

Calling them a "movement" is giving them way too much credit. Unless you mean like a bowel movement.

27

@26

I enjoy your comments in general, but you seem to have forgotten one important fact.
We are having this discussion because one of these losers decided to become a terrorist.
He decided to become a terrorist because another loser that became a terrorist inspired him (and others).

It doesn't matter what we call them.
They're killing innocent people, and they want to kill more.

28

I have no ears or sympathy for anyone who fails at the basic biological task of getting laid. If you are failing at that, what words of wisdom do have to offer anyone? Why should anyone listen to the words falling out of your mouth if you are incapable of fulfilling the only biological mission you are programmed to complete? People who fail here are the ones who barely figure out that they are supposed to breathe. If you identify as an 'incel', there is no conversation. You are an admitted failure - it says so in your name.

29

Dr Z and Adam,

Not just one. Several. And they kill people in others' names, then others celebrate them. Also people affiliated with this group do gather in public, form organizations, have media platforms, express political opinions. Some of them are even famous. "Incels" themselves are one part of a larger group. I don't what else you can call this but a "movement".

30

@12 did you see Douthat's new thread on yesterday's article?

I don't know if I agree with him at all in his original piece (which I didn't read but had an immediate aversion to the headline) but he connects some interesting ideas today: essentially, the position of sex workers, the value of sex in our culture, and the rise of 'incels' is all related. Given how greatly our society has come to value sex as a social good; it's not just that incels are angry at social rejection (although that's a necessary component); they feel like sexual acceptance is a key to achieving an "average" American life. Thus their anger comes from a very similar place as that of "economic anxiety" Trump voters (ie, not only am I not gaining, I'm falling behind, relative to everyone else). Given the direction of our culture over the past... ~40 years in relationship to sex, a successful but relatively sexless life is an Oxymoron: Most of us would rather die sexually satisfied than rich. So the same sexless, socially rejected person from 50 years ago might have been able to find self-worth in their career accomplishments or possessions or other things (and not taken their anger out on society/women), but that math doesn't work out today.

31

@28 So what you are saying is that it's totally reasonable for incel people to kill? And that you're OK with it?

32

Sporty, I don't know who Douthat is. Is that a real name? Do That? I googled him and appears yes, but I don't know what article you are referring to. I agree with your summary that it's much bigger than just about sex but I think it has more to do with alienation and hyperindividualism in a declining economy (or rather the opportunities for average folks are declining) and generations of fragmentation of any community- people aren't born into a place but have to create it for themselves, and this is increasingly more difficult for increasing groups of people for all sorts of reasons. Structural analysis or self-reflection is hard, so most of us turn to distraction- and our culture offers an abundance of it. Others are ripe for radicalization- it's easy to tell a person that nothing is wrong with THEM, they instantly get a place in an in-group- you are a natural king, you should be on top, you are among the smart people who know the truth (about feminists, about zionists, about skull and bones, whatever) In this case, they turn this into resentments aimed at women because it's an easy scapegoat and misogyny & the linkage of male worth to getting laid is a thing (Dan is right about this) and it is depressing to be lonely yet sex is stigmatized (Dan is right about this too). But this isn't anything new. What's new is the context which I think the article I linked to above explains pretty well- the new man for 4 chan one- these people are so far removed from any real world community that they become nihilists and do a lot just for the transgressive shock value- gives them a sense of being strong or of purpose or just of transgression- they carry this sometimes into the real world.

What is scary is when you start looking at the larger groups- not just incels alone- and though it gets less immediately violent and juvenile, it's still pretty stupid and some of these people have platforms. It's not so far from a lot of the stuff you'll hear in neoreactionary movements in Silicon Valley for example or white supremacist movements. There's a lot of crossover with these groups and the Pepes - the younger Trump supporters. We have to stop thinking inside that old dichotomy of liberals vs conservatives- and I think some people like Dan are stuck still inside that and out of touch about what is going on. They are trying to understand current left and right movements within the context of a lib v con dichotomy that's really been irrelevant since the years after the crash. I think a lot of simplificaitons of Trump voters being economically dissatisfied (while true for some folks) are suffering from this same problem. The vote was split about half and half between Trump and Clinton in ALL economic groups, with support for Trump increasing as income increased so that explanation doesn't hold up to even the most cursory glance, and I imagine its simplistic here too. As for Douthat, I'll read the article if you tell me which one you mean, but I think NYT op-eds are usually trash.

33

Sporty- the monster could be a troll

34

OK I think I read the article you mean- the redistribution of sex? I am not opposed to sexbots or sex workers, but I'm trying to say that it's not actually about the sex- and so providing alternatives to access it will actually not solve the problem since it does nothing in response to the alienation here. IN fact it just further commodifies human interactions.

The reason I'm making this distinction between what I'm saying and what your summary of Douthat is saying is that we have to start thinking of this bigger picture. It's not just incels. RoK and redpill people are often in relationships, getting plenty of sex, have decent jobs. White supremacists are following the same play book- just swap out women for POC or immigrants. They are often family-oriented. Likewise, the fact that many in these resentment movements (either against women or POC) are gay- see Milo or Peter Thiel- and getting plenty of sex, have no need for women at all, yet are deeply misogynistic. There's a libertarian streak here (and I mean that in its nasty John Galt way, not it's classical usage)- and it's from the same reason. It's people who believe they should have X if not for all these others that are preventing them, all these others who are dragging them down. And the reason there are more and more of these people (mostly men, mostly white) is because the opportunities for people really are shrinking. Communities and families don't really exist anymore- and urban liberals with money who are hip and cool can talk about going out and finding your own tribe- but a system has to work for average people. Most people don't have a place, and when they have real grievances (health care, endless war, failing schools, violent neighborhoods, or else sterile isolated suburbs with nothing to offer anyone, just go to work come home, consume media) they don't even have a community to share those real grievances with. Everyone is expected to constantly keep their skills up to date, move around for jobs, always try to make improvements. This sort of hyperindividualization alienates and isolates people- there is nothing for most people. They are average people in a competitive environment, even human relations are something you have to work at or buy (then Dan describes them as transactions)- it's turning every aspect of our lives into commodities, and nothing else matters, nothing is stable. And the political and business class wants it this way- it's profitable. The left should've been responding with a real message, a real analysis to talk about why things are this way and how we can organize against it and how the religion of meritocracy is bullshit, but instead, they've been sidetracked with individual liberation politics- in-fighting about what pronouns to use and whether or not you should open up your marriage. I want to have those conversations too, I think sex is fun and interesting, but this doesn't offer most people anything to engage with, especially if you are already isolated. So then you get fundamentalist responses- no, it's not you. You are perfectly fine. The reason your life is shit, the reason you are lonely, the reason you can't seem to get ahead is because feminists control the culture and have taught you that men are shit. Or there's a conspiracy of Jews. Or immigrants and welfare queens are keeping you down, sucking away our country's wealth. Or some such bullshit. It's the same thing ISIS and the like use- you need to fight the infidel, you actually are entitled to be on top, to be the king, to have all the pussy, to have all the wealth, to have power, etc. And that's going to resonate with all sorts of people which is why there is a diverse group on the alt right, but it's going to resonate most with people who've never really faced oppression or who are historically seeing their own group decline (so straight white working and middle class dudes) though it's obviously not just them.

Then on top of all this, it's not the fact that sex is more central or celebrated today than it was 40 years ago. It's the fact that there is now an Internet. 40 years ago, these specific people (as I said, this is a broader group and you'll go insane and have to come up with a million theories if you try to explain them all individually the way Dan and Douthat appear to be doing, but for the lulz, I'll engage here) - 40 years ago these incel types would have either forced themselves to go out in the real world and meet others- and those encounters would have led to them growing into different people or else they would have found others that did not challenge them and they would've been assholes OR they would've just stayed home, lonely and sad and resentful by themselves their whole lives. But these days, they can go online and find others like them, and their resentments grow and the world becomes less and less real- they are more engaged online than in the real world. And online is full of porn (I'm not blaming porn here, but it's stupid to act like these people don't engage more with women in porn than they do in real life) and also full of conspiracy theories that flatter them. It gives them a community and a world view that explains their grievances- the main things lacking in their real lives. The internet is also full of nilihists doing nazism for the lulz and really pedestrian philosophies like the dark enlightenment, and we could shrug this stuff off as lone horny losers (and 40 years ago they probably would've been) except that some of the people on the fringes of this movement actually elected a president and briefly occupied the White House. So I think we should be paying attention when a disaffected group of young men start flirting with fascism- for whatever reason. Does that make sense?

35

Thanks, EmmaLiz, for your posts in this thread -- very helpful for seeing the bigger picture.

36

Here's a shorter way to explain...

If some neonazi group were to kill people and then claim that it was because Jews controlled the media and the banks, we would not respond by trying to think up ways to prevent people from becoming neonazis by giving those who feel powerless internships at banks and in the media. We would instead recognize right away that their own stated reasons for feeling such violent resentment are not accurate- they are operating from within a worldview. We would not take at face value that Jews control the media and the banks.

Apply this to incels and redpillers. They say the issue is feminism and their lack of access to sex, and lots of people who are just hearing from them for the first time are just running with this rather than looking beneath it to see what's really going on.

That's not to say that people don't really suffer from feelings of loneliness, depression, alienation, isolation, lack of intimacy, etc. Just like the neonazis are correct that the power/wealth that makes the world go round is concentrated in a small number of hands. But to make the leap from here that the resentment is due to lack of sex is to take their own worldview at face value- similar to making the leap that nazis feel powerless in their life because Jews run the world. See?

And this is before you learn the details, which include the fact- as many people have pointed out here- that not all of these men are celibate, some are that way by choice, and some do have sexual relationships and encounters. It doesn't actually make rational sense because it's fundamentalism, and you can't understand fundamentalism by using the logic of fundamentalists.

37

@ EmmaLiz
Appreciating your comments on here, interesting context.
I think Sportlandia may have been referring to this article, I assume the thread referred to is on Ross Douthat's twitter feed where he discusses his points.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/opinion/incels-sex-robots-redistribution.html

38

@16: Yes, Google is what told me she works for the Globe and Mail, which Google also tells me is a newspaper located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. That was how I surmised that she was a Canadian journalist. But thank you for making sure I know of Google.

39

@37 thanks NZBee - I included an inline link but maybe those are filtered out nowadays. And yes, I was referring to this thread: https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status/992047486318579712

@33 Could be. He's been around for a while and is not exclusively a troll, so I'll give benefit of the doubt - if he's shaming-by-parody he's doing a good job; because I suspect that attitude is shared by many.

@EmmaLiz I'm in 100% agreement that it's not really about sex; I guess what I'm trying to say is that more and more, sex is a proxy for the rest of social acceptance; and sex is the "ultimate" form of acceptance. It's definitely NOT about orgasms and orifices.

I'm less into your Rise of the Internet theory (it's not wrong, I just feel you give it too much importance) but do agree that having a place - a community, really - that does listen to and nurture ones complaints and anger does raised the peak to some degree.

40

Well Sporty, they aren't my ideas. One of the writers of the article I linked to above has been researching and writing about this for a few years now and she published a book on the topic a year or two ago that gives a pretty compelling case that most of this came out of 4chan & reddit then merged with some existing real world political groups (including white supremacists & other people in the far right).

41

"then merged" being during gamergate btw according to her. I think she's spot on.

43

@EmmaLiz, I just wanted to chime in to let you know that I smell what you're cookin'. Thank you for the great comments.

44

@42:
the sex trade does not exist without angry+disaffected misogynists and their deterministic hierarchies

Yes it does, and you've put yourself in the unenviable position of proving a negative, which is impossible. I need only a single example to refute your position; here are literal thousands of women hiring men and men hiring men - http://lmgtfy.com/?q=male+sex+workers

(Yes, technically misogynists and their hierarchies still exist in these cases, but they have no discernable causal relationship to sex work not in the form of men hiring women.)

Stop.

45

EmmaLiz, you're wrong, in a possibly dangerous way. You're spot-on with all of the connections you're drawing between Right-wing movements, but you're wrong when you say, "But to make the leap from here that the resentment is due to lack of sex is to take their own worldview at face value- similar to making the leap that nazis feel powerless in their life because Jews run the world."

Nope: a LOT of "incels" - possibly a majority - do indeed enter that 'movement' because of a lack of partnered sex. If you spend any amount of time monitoring these people (as I do), you will see how many of them are sad and lonely and latching onto a community - ANY community - that gives them some recognition and validation. Because, unlike Jews running the world (which they not do in reality), these men actually aren't having partnered sex for years, even decades, and that really will make most humans feel awful. You're equating resentment over something that isn't real to resentment over something that is real. The ENTITLEMENT that prompts the resentment isn't good in either case, and we need to craft a society that doesn't inculcate that entitlement; at the same time, a lack of physical intimacy is INHERENTLY harmful to nearly all humans, irrespective of social context.

46

Yes John, I agree about some of those incels- probably even most. But not all of them, and if you re-read (I know it's a lot) you'll see that I'm talking about that movement more generally. Incels are all over the red pill community, along with volcels and MGTOW and others (which I'm sure you know) who could have sex but choose not to, as well as people who went through long periods of lack of sex and though they then started to have it, still have resentment over it, and other beta rising up movements, some of whom do have gfs.

And I said repeatedly that the lack of intimacy and sex and all the problems that creates are part of the problem- though providing them with sex (sex workers or sexbots) would not prevent that radicalization since it still does not solve the problem of lack of intimacy and gfs, etc. Getting laid isn't the solution to prevent radicalization. Learning how to engage with other human beings is. And I don't think we've created a society that facilitates that- instead we've created one that is alienated from it, hence again why solutions that provide a manual release (fucking a sex worker, fucking a robot) are not going to prevent radicalization. It might help with some other things, including just the physical release, building confidence, and Dan's larger point about detaching masculinity from sex as a prize (see Popelick's attitude above) would be helpful, destigmatizing sex and sex work is part of this, both are components of toxic masculinity, etc. so I'm not opposed to any of those things- but they are not the situations radicalizing people towards these movements- hence the fact that there men in these movements having sex and hence also that plenty of men who are lonely and celebrate and having trouble getting laid are not also murderous assholes. But I'm repeating myself now and about to catch a plane so I can't say anything more than perhaps some of you should read the article I posted which does a much better job than I'm doing.

47

celibate not celebrate ha ha, though what a typo

48

Mizz Liz could be right, but much depends on who gets to set the rules of engagement.

50

I hope you twittered (?) her the truth Dan.
How can society deal with these sad and violent men upstream? Drowning is not allowed, so what's the plan.

51

@45 John, no you're wrong. Social isolation and lack of emotional intimacy is what does people's heads in. Lots of people lead meaningful lives and have no physical intimacy.
These men have a sense of privilege from the culture and damaged psyches. Something has gone wrong in the rearing of some of our male children. They have no intimacy skills, no way to be close to others. Thru their rage their pain and isolation they join up on the internet with other young men who are similar. Our culture tells males that intimacy comes with sex, hence the twisted rage when they can't attract a woman.
Yet intimacy is what friends and family give us also. These young men haven't learnt how to access that intimacy.
The sites should be shut down, just like other sites are. Stop them feeding each other's damage.

52

Anyone want to take bets on how much advice @28 has taken from people who s/he didn't know were virgins? I'm gonna guess 2 major decisions worth.

53

@2 You clicked on an article by Dan Savage with a title that clearly indicated what it was about ... you didn't HAVE to do that. You chose to, so clearly you like whining about what Dan writes more than you dislike reading it (well, let's be honest, you didn't read it, you clicked the link and then went straight to the comments). It's the comment equivalent of going to Viking Metal show and then bitching about how noisy and ridiculous everything is. If you didn't want to see adult men playing dress up while grunting into a microphone, you should have stayed home.

Yes, it's an obscure analogy.
*No, I am not personally a fan of viking metal.

54

I hate the 21st century so much. Can we just... Abort it and start over?

57

Dr. Nerdlove did an article about this that I think hits the nail on the head.

http://www.doctornerdlove.com/incel-phenomenon/

It's not about women, or sex. It's about hatred. These men are full of hate for themselves, that winds up leaking into the world around them.

Getting laid wouldn't fix anything because they HATE women. Any woman who slept with them would be found lacking in some way because they HATE themselves just as much.

There's a deep-set misery that I don't even know how to fix.

Douthat is a man who thinks cuckoldry should be viewed as a crime and punished with torture and that 'gentle rape' is a think that can happen.

In other words don't listen to him.

58

I was watching Dan last night on (19 May 2018) “Real Time with Bill Maher.” I agree with is comments on the “Incel” movement and sex work. I have been lightly following the “Incel” movement for few years now. These men are mentally ill and need treatment. No one is entitled to sex, let alone entitled to sex with a super model.

Dan is right to point out a lack of social skills as a cause of Incel madness. The thing that I do not see anyone pointing out is that there has been a change in social norms in the last 50 years that have impacted our mating habits. Many millennials think that it is always sexual harassment to compliment a woman on her looks or even to buy a woman a drink. How can a relationship even get off the ground when men are inhibited from saying or doing these things even places such as a singles bar? A place where such behavior should be acceptable. So, I think that feminism can be blamed to a degree. Because it has changed the rules of the game to the point where some men do not know what the right move is anymore.

When it comes to sex work. I believe Dan is right. One thing that I do not think anyone has mentioned yet is this. Virgins have no idea what sex is like. Watching porn really tells you nothing about the experience. “Incels” have no idea what sex is like from lack of experience. When something is mysterious. A person often gives that thing more reverence than it deserves. I remember after my first time, climbing out of my girlfriends window, thinking that’s all it is? It’s not that I did not like the experience. I did. It’s just that everything leading up to that moment, the movies I watched, the words of my experienced friends, all made me think that sex was more incredible that it really was. But, I only knew this because sex was demystified for me.

“Incels” are naïve about sex. The attractiveness of a partner does not necessarily mean the sex will be good. “Incels” do not know this because they are virgins. That’s why I think that sex workers would be a good outlet and a way to demystify sex. I suspect that if we were to look at the demographics of Incels that the occurrence of Incel would be lower in countries with legal sex work. Sex workers are more of an answer to this problem that re-socializing. Because Incel is obviously a consequence of unrealistic expectations and naivete. Nearly anyone (not extremely physically disabled) can get laid by just lowering their standards. The non-psychotic Incels will quickly find out, after losing their virginity, that there is more to good sex than physical attraction.


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