Warning: This post contains references to intimate partner violence, gender violence, gun violence, mass shootings, and terrible human beings for general purposes on the Internet. I’m sorry I exposed you beforehand.
Memory eliot rodger. I remember it fondly.
In 2014, Rodger, a 22-year-old man who considered himself a “match,” a “good guy,” and a “supreme gentleman,” who also resented the fact that he was still a “virgin,” stabbed three men to death. total. 134 times before going on a shooting rampage, driving to a sorority house and killing three more people and wounding 13 others, before committing suicide.
Rodger wrote an extensive 138-page manifesto explaining the “justification” for his crimes, leaving a YouTube video where he said:
For the last eight years of my life, since I hit puberty, I have been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires. Girls gave their affection, sex and love to other men, but never to me. I’m 22 years old and I’m still a virgin. I haven’t even kissed a girl. I’ve been to college for two and a half years, longer than that actually, and I’m still a virgin. It has been very tortuous. […] All because girls have never been attracted to me. In those years I have had to rot in solitude. “I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it.”
Rodger is not the first nor the only man who believes that the cause of his loneliness is that women are too “cocky” to see the “value” in him. He, and many like him, are “incels.” Saint Elliot, as his most fervent followers call him, It has inspired imitators who have also claimed lives.
Abbreviation for “involuntary celibate” a incel They started out as just people (non-exclusively gendered) who wanted romantic relationships but couldn’t get them.. Unfortunately, today it is very different: We now use the term to define a man who openly and openly resents the most desirable female members of society.and the refusal of those women to sleep with them.
Wander through your social media playgrounds and you’ll see phrases like “Society has become a place of worship for women and it’s so fucking wrong that they’re not gods, they’re just a fucking dumpster.,” either “All our lives we have had to endure the pain of being so physically repulsive to women that they wouldn’t even consider giving us a chance. In reality we are so genetically inferior that they HATE us. they need to suffer […] Your hypocrisy is a crime. [punishable by] torture for the rest of their fucking lives,” or even the very common one that sounds on corners every day: “bitch.”
For yearsSelf-identified incels and members of the “movement of men going their own way” (MGTOW for short) attacked my comments section, berating me and the women who commented here (before I closed the comments section), calling us all kinds of abuse. and insults.
A screenshot of a comment left on my blog several years ago, by a man who really wanted us to know how little we were worth.
But it is more than wanting to remind us that “we are nothing, we have nothing and we contribute nothing.” Is also “…then how dare you think that you can deny me anything Desire?”
As Jia Tolentino said, “Incels tend to direct hate toward the things they think they want; They are obsessed with feminine beauty but despise makeup as a form of fraud. Incel culture advises men to “looksmaxx” or “statusmaxx” (improve your appearance, make more money) in a way that presupposes that women are not potential partners or objects worthy of possible affection, but rather uncomfortably sensitive bodies that must be claimed. through the cold. strategy. […] When these tactics fail, as they surely will, anger intensifies.”
What does it mean to be a woman surrounded by men who say and do these kinds of things? What kind of sense of identity do you build when formed in close proximity to men who hide these kinds of thoughts and feelings underneath? Who do you become when you are raised around this, around a man who denies a woman to the point of manipulating her into believing she could never be or do better? Could you even recognize him for how harmful he is?
Weight loss has always been associated with beauty, whether you agree with it or not, and we’ve acknowledged here before that, unfortunately, beauty is associated with women’s social stature. Successfully losing weight and feeling good about yourself is what makes a woman “cocky,” newly prepared to reject men who would have previously been given a chance. The more “attractive” you are, the easier it will be for you to gain access to the most sought-after promotions, positions, and, frankly, relationships—and the less likely she is to get it. need a man. If more women are realizing as to become more “traditionally attractive”, that is, more women than not have put up with the kind of men who might hide these kinds of thoughts and feelings behind a “nice guy” approach. They now have better options, including the ultimate option to simply be happy and single.
I think of the woman who, after rejecting a man’s advances, was hit in the head with a skateboard. Or the woman who, after rejecting a man’s advances, was followed to a parking lot and sexually assaulted, then murdered. I think of men who, like Rodger, often pursued women; men who, like Rodger, could never convince a woman to take them seriously; men who, like Rodger, believed that the only real answer to this is violence. This is something we see all too often in our community, and we all know the prices paid for that right. This coincides perfectly with incel behavior.
Last week, it was reported that Megan Thee Stallion, a rapper known for her dancing and…Ahem—titanium on his knees, he was shot by another rapper after a disagreement between the two. The man allegedly shot him in the feet. He shot a dancer. In the feet.
“On Sunday morning I suffered gunshot wounds, as a result of a crime that was committed against me and done with the intention of physically harming me” she wrote in an IG post. Page six had a little more information:
“Tory fired shots from inside the vehicle while Megan was outside trying to leave,” a source told Us exclusively on Thursday. “There is video and the police are investigating. “This is a case of a man physically harming and abusing a woman.” [source]
Now, this isn’t about Megan. It’s not even about the loser who possibly shot him. This is about these losers:
Being a “hot girl” and having a “hot girl summer” was always understood to be about feeling like yourself, feeling good about yourself, a sense of self-determination centered around body image. In these screenshots, we see black men assume that Megan was shot because she was being “a hot girl,” something necessary to put her in her place. That’s where we are.
Regardless of what it is In fact It happened, the inner incel just leap outside of these men.
The archetypal incel is white and male, with a predictable lean towards white supremacy. However, I have a theory: maybe this image, this description, is incomplete. What was once simply a collective of people trying to come to terms with their late bloomer status has morphed into more than just angry male virgins, but men who resent women’s self-determination and agency, and believe they should be defeated for it. .
And those men are not always white.
I think our understanding of an “incel” is too limited. Maybe it’s not just white men who are “angry virgins.” Perhaps we should consider that “incel,” when viewed through a lens that doesn’t simply look at white men, is a term that includes many of the behaviors we see displayed in our community every day. Maybe “incel” is now the catch-all phrase for any men who want to commit violence against women, for very disturbing reasons expressed by Rodger: “If I can’t have it, I will do everything I can to DESTROY IT.“
Maybe we should take it seriously in our community. Call them. See it as it is. And keep your distance.
