Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Well yes, this is misogyny. It's not an "inability", otherwise it would extend to men as well.

There is a pretty frustrating thing happening here, which is that some pf us are trying to explain what 'incels' are saying, and why it doesn't make sense, and then people like soref are pointing out what we say does not make sense, but blaming us. It's so facile to conclude that something is 'ignored by incels and incel-haters alike.' Let me assure you, it's not. But these misogynist women-killers ARE A PART of the patriarchy, so we don't see them as victims.

― Frederik B, Sunday, 29 April 2018 08:51 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah fred, fred, fred

dont blame me the next time you get 5h1tcanned out of here, have a good long hard look at the stinking attitude towards other ppl on the board that you so often toss out for absolutely no reason in posts like this.

i feel like a lot of people just ... stop growing at a certain point. there's only so much energy an outsider can spare to try to kickstart new growth in a person when that person has decided they're done.

― you bet, nancy (map)

you can't kickstart them but kicking them is always an option

x-post: Well, speaking of posts with no reason to exist, you can quite honestly take your concern trolling and fuck right off, deems. I know what I'm doing, mate.

toxic masculinity and femininity itt, oh dear

Something Just1ne said is being mostly overlooked here I think re her brother in law, and a thing is happening that happens a lot here which is that ppl are identifying with negative stereotypes and trying to have compassion for them bc we feel we are or were or might have been similarly afflicted

Nah. This shit is not that complicated. Self professed incels think they’re entitled to sex with whichever women they find attractive, without, as Just1ne said, bringing anything to the table themselves. These men may not even be UNattractive, at least physically. Elliot Roger was objectively quite pretty. This guy in Toronto has a great face, looks nice. They’re not genetic victims with resting sad face, whatever the f that means. People much, much less “attractive” than them find partners every day.

Ime guys with an incel-shaped axe to grind don’t want a partner who wants them back. They want a conquest—the hottest, most socially desirable woman they know or can imagine, to be sexually available to them as a sign of their value and worthiness. A woman from their circles who likes the same stuff, is hypothetically nerdy or w/e but not a “10,” isn’t good enough because sexually conquering her isn’t a sign of their supreme unrecognized inner awesomeness. Incel members don’t care that women are people. They don’t want people, they want game counters.

in orbit OTM. The distinguishing trait of these dudes isn't loneliness; it's sadism.

you guys made me google incel. thanks? reminded me of this mad flexi i had as a kid. i always felt weird playing it. first song about male sexual frustration to have a star wars reference in it. for the record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GSxbW89tQ8

in orbit super otm

jesus christ that song is long

in orbit!! thank you for writing that

i agree with io, with a few caveats. i don't think all incels are fully conscious of their own motivations - it feels like a scene where there's a lot of sulky, unreflective blame to go around and i doubt many of them could articulate that what they want is for their choice of sexual partner. i'm not sure it's always consciously about alpha point-scoring either, i feel like other factors might be their unrealistic perception of romantic relationships and the opposite sex thru a steady diet of one-dimensional culture (including porn obv) and a culture that's never encouraged them to cultivate friendly, equal relationships with the opposite sex. also they belong to a consumer culture that has taught them a sense of entitlement to gratification.

that's not really different to what you're saying io, just pulling some more threads out of it i think. in the end these dolts choose the company they keep and choose the attitudes they adopt. i don't believe anybody accidentally gets tricked into hating indiscriminate swathes of strangers because of who they are or what they believe they represent. if people feel personal responsibility for somebody they know irl who's like this then good for you but i don't think they have serious demands that need to be addressed by society any more than a toddler throwing a tantrum in a toyshop does.

in orbit you are consistently a great poster thank you

in orbit (& upper miss re: in orbit) otm. the mgtow view of how sex works, especially, is an explicit confirmation of how these bros think about sex0r

http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/03/23/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-woman-good-at-sex-part-1-in-a-new-series-mgtows-explain-sex/

WHTM is a very good resource on this horrible shit

Thanks in orbit for articulating that. I was trying to formulate a response to just1ne's post but instead became exasperated by recalling all the men I have encountered on that type of spectrum.

Reading some stuff on incels.me, there was one dude saying that having frizzy hair was a good game never getting laid ever predicament. In my experience, lots of people love frizzy hair.

Let’s all think more about these guys

Great posts from Camaraderie at Arms Length and soref in here.

I think in orbit is absolutely right about what makes some of us want to understand these guys--certainly in my case I think "I've had my share of prolonged loneliness and sexual frustration, and I spend too much time online, so why didn't I ever go this way?" It's tempting to think that the answer is just that I'm a better, less misogynistic person. But I don't think it's that simple.

So I'm reluctant to say that the incel subculture is JUST garden-variety woman-hating, though of course it is substantially that. If that's all it was, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. They take it to a distinctively poisonous and intractable place, and I can't help but wonder how they get there.

And when I examine it, I recognize that underneath the mile-thick layer of bile, there's some quite understandable frustration at the way that success in sex and love can be affected by things like conventional physical attractiveness, adherence to gender roles, race, social class, ability, and mental health. Incels seize on this unfairness, and use it as the basis for their conspiratorial misogynist worldview. A lot of what I suspect is their most psychologically effective rhetoric comes from presenting themselves as the only people who are willing to acknowledge it.

But so often people respond to them not (or not only) by pointing out the absurdity and repulsiveness of the overall worldview, but by ignoring, downplaying, or outright denying that this fundamental unfairness exists at all. This plays right into their hands, because it does exist, and when we're not talking about incels, we all know it. I take soref and CAAL to be cautioning against this tendency.

Then again, I can't blame anyone for not caring at all what self-described incels think about anything. It's a little disturbing to me that I care as much as I do.

Once we fully engage with incels and understand the sources and nature of their grievances against women and against society in general, surely we shall obtain the key to arguing them out of their unreasonable position and healing the rift between them and the rest of us, right?

I don't think I or anyone else is arguing that we need to engage with or compromise with these people.

But so often people respond to them not (or not only) by pointing out the absurdity and repulsiveness of the overall worldview, but by ignoring, downplaying, or outright denying that this fundamental unfairness exists at all.

Horseshit.

It happens all the time. It's happened in this thread.

in orbit’s contributions very appreciated

I think what I meant by the term having a vagueness is that while some of these dudes have hate directed toward specific women, that’s not the way they speak.

It’s seldom a story about a particular woman who has rejected them, it’s this blaming of a society. It’s why the violent acts seem like (or are) terrorism: it’s violence against people they don’t even know. Having a personal interaction with an individual is something you could break down and actually exercise a sense of introspection. Painting their personal situations as a result of societal forces divorces their views from a sense of personal agency

I don't think I or anyone else is arguing that we need to engage with or compromise with these people.

Until they begin to organize militias and make organized attacks on society, as opposed to these unpredictable, and therefore unpreventable, random attacks, I don't see much point in making a deep dive into how they think or dissecting their rhetoric, as if that will lead to anything other than transforming our ignorance and confusion into knowledge and contempt. But, don't let me stop those who find this conversation worth spinning out. I came. I read. I commented. I'm leaving the rest to others.

it’s dumb and ironic that a lot of these people overlap with racist communities, or those that hate people needing economic support, because those are groups that actually are at a disadvantage because of societal forces

again, not universal because some incel types latch on to that connection, but the majority are white males

these acts are only unpredictable if no one monitors these communities, because the recent attackers not only engaged in online dialogue at an increasing intensity, they tend to upload videos or leave manifestos before their attacks. and people in the communities encourage them

Until they begin to organize militias and make organized attacks on society, as opposed to these unpredictable, and therefore unpreventable, random attacks, I don't see much point in making a deep dive into how they think or dissecting their rhetoric, as if that will lead to anything other than transforming our ignorance and confusion into knowledge and contempt. But, don't let me stop those who find this conversation worth spinning out. I came. I read. I commented. I'm leaving the rest to others.

― A is for (Aimless)

i think it's more likely that we'll see a convergence of this mindset into the existing militia mindset, particularly as militia types start having to face up to the lysistrata effect. right now the nra is at war with gamers, to the general advantage of humanity, but i have a hard time seeing this war as an eternal one.

"So I'm reluctant to say that the incel subculture is JUST garden-variety woman-hating, though of course it is substantially that. If that's all it was, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. They take it to a distinctively poisonous and intractable place, and I can't help but wonder how they get there."

thousands of hours of online porn?

if internet porn made one intractably misogynist there would be a lot more misogyny about right now.

boy I'll say

then the problem becomes explain the existence of misogyny prior to 1990

Surely the type of misogyny that the incels present barely existed before 1990. I can't dissociate their hatred from the vision of women porn has thoroughly cultivated and internet forums.

come on this is "MARIJUANA IS A DANGEROUS GATEWAY DRUG" logic here. if this were true the /r/nofap people would be the only men who _didn't_ hate women.

In the late 90s there was a Channel 4 series on the subject of evil, and in the final episode they had an interview with the son of British serial killer (or something even worse than a serial killer) Fred West. The son started by talking about his own abuse at the hands of Fred, but then went on to talking about how Fred himself had been abused as a child, and how he'd suffered brain damage in a motorbike crash, after which his personality completely changed. This really struck me at the time because throughout all of the coverage of the horrors of the case, not once had I seen anyone bothering with trying to find out or explain what it was that drove him to do these terrible things. Often I'm sure this was because people didn't want to be seen to be sympathetic to such a universally hated person, but mostly I fear that it was just too complicated and didn't make for a good narrative. The people who do investigate these things seriously have an academic approach which is completely incompatible with TV and tabloid news.

The standard reaction in the world to any of the many bad things people do seems to be just a mix of voyeurism, fury and weary shrugging, and I just don't see how any of these are really productive. I could not care less about the incels stupid fucking philosophy, they are just yet another example of fucked-up people with bad ideas doing bad things. Don't we all know that they are fucked up? Don't we all know why their ideas are bad? Do these things even need discussing?

I am pretty sure that ILX is not going to solve the problem of how to make there less fucked-up losers doing bad things in the world, but at least discussing *that* seems like it has a point to it. That starts with attempting to understand, not out of sympathy, but because that's the only way to start. And I can't understand why that's a controversial POV.

xps: I actually do suspect that porn is a contributing factor, but that's another argument (that I've also had on this board at some point).

it's silly to deny that mass pornography has changed the conditions of male (and female) sexuality IMO. I don't mean it in the "porn is rape," or "porn causes rape," classical radfem way, but its mass availability and anonymity was definitely a sort of revolution that can be perceived in negative or positive ways.

I think about the fact that millennials and gen Z have less sex across the board than previous generations, and I cant help but link that to the fact that porn is a click away, and so a lot of young people can just jack off the lust away in the safety of their rooms instead of pursuing partners to have sex with IRL.

Not saying that pornography has the potential to turn an innocent regular male into an incel, but that incels' unrealistic worldview are clearly validated by the parameters of porn storytelling.

re: Fred West's brain damage, from what I gather many of the most notorious serial killers experienced traumatic brain injuries at some point.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-can-the-radicalization-of-incels-be-stopped/

reading about fred west now. god i'm sick to my stomach. it looks like one of the reasons fred west's being abused as a child isn't often brought up because it's not corroborated, and as for his brain damage, even _before_ then he was apparently raping his sister, so making the culprit brain damage doesn't seem to pan out either.

Yeah, don't read about Fred West, it was just an example.

and I do think contemporary porn can take the mindset of some people into a dark place, especially if you're a teen without critical thinking skills. mainstream porn is now often super rough, toss-her-around-like-a-ragdoll stuff. and the fantasy/scenario of porn scenes often draws from a deeply conservative worldview, usually variations on the "alpha male/sub slut" theme.

I'm not saying those things should be forbidden and that people are "wrong" for finding it sexy, but I def think its prevalence is troubling. porn has informed the sexual acts we practice, the ways our bodies look etc, so I dont think it's crazy to think it might make some young men (and women) take on a more patriarchal mindset, since that is the ideological content of so much porn.

I hope no one here is suggesting that incels are brain-damaged or that is any kind of fruitful lens through which to view them.

Yeah, don't read about Fred West, it was just an example.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

yeah too late i'm having nightmares tonight that's for sure

question: could fred and his wife whose name i've already blocked out of my mind have committed the crimes they did over the length of time they did in today's world? i don't know. it seems it would be more difficult. i also think the theory mentioned in the article that the wests stopped killing people because they were engaging in consensual torture to be a challenging one.

i don't think it's really possible to deny that giving the human race access to every possible sexual fantasy at their fingertips is going to reshape sexuality as a social construct. having said that i've been living with the internet for a quarter century and the topic is little-discussed and less-understood.

There is the whole Butterfly Effect podcast that looks at the ripple effects of the vast availability of free internet porn, so those who are interested should listen.

I hope no one here is suggesting that incels are brain-damaged or that is any kind of fruitful lens through which to view them.

I am in no way suggesting this

these "dark places" existed well before the internet, though. ever read a "men's magazine"? not like playboy, i mean the stuff with cover stories like "weasels ripped my flesh". they're vile, utterly, utterly vile.

CAAL how dare u

incels arent human weve established that

ok so as someone who

1. is a straight cis white man
2. has been single and almost completely sexually inactive for a little over a decade

I feel pretty qualified to chime in w/r/t incel culture and what might be powering it

I agree with everyone who's been saying that this notion that incels are, as a rule, "unattractive" or don't line up with societal notions of what constitutes attractiveness - at least to the degree that finding partners would be impossible or inhibitively difficult - is horseshit, is otm. There may be a layer that believe this is the case but I do not believe that it's the main driver.

I also agree with everyone who's argued that job #1 should absolutely *NOT* be for anyone - women, least of all, for the love of christ - to be charged with engaging incels to try to figure out what makes them tick or to feel more at home in society or whatever. If for no better reason that I'm not convinced it would be particularly effective.

imho, incel culture is mostly a combined byproduct of:

1. access to every possible sexual fantasy at their fingertips to quote rushomancy, more specifically, unfettered access to said content from the very beginning of sexual development, helping to reinforce very specific and harmful ideas about sexual hierarchy and expression
2. that increase in access to hyperspecific, detached-from-reality fantasies being accompanied by a decrease in perceived (and, tbh, real) future upward economic mobility
3. a lack of healthy, communal outputs to help collectively or individually process both or either stimuli
4. readily available internet echo chambers that reward the most resonant expressions of the simplest, crudest explanations for why their lives suck

not that I don't have my own work to do, but I think I was able to dodge the worst of toxic male thinking mainly due to a) being born a little too late to feel the effects of internet culture in quite the same way, b) having near-lifelong, close female friends who really helped to shape my perceptions and c) joining IRL activist orgs (lol) and learning the value of collective struggle and physical, palpable community and solidarity. I'm not arguing for the same exact strategy for everyone, only saying that until we witness significant reordering of society as a whole, this is going to continue to get worse.