Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

IME relatively few people under 60 or so use their household mailbox for outgoing mail. But still the mail carrier comes. Almost every day. Almost every house. For something like 200 years. It's a work of quiet incremental beauty.

For most USians, 98% of the time you're just getting junk advertising and credit offers and bills. Unless your social circle is made up of stubborn luddites who write a lot of physical letters, your mailbox is mostly useful for few holiday cards and something from yr mom on your birthday. Maybe.

Of course, it would be way more efficient and sensible for everything to switch the the UPS/FedEx model, where the mail carrier comes to your house only when you've received something that you yourself actually want. But that's not the world we inhabit. There's this whole infrastructure in place, and whole industries built around using/exploiting it.

More stories collected by the BBC about living without sex:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-44143003

The regularity or arrival of sex is overrated. It’s not like if there’s a dry spell or lack you’re worthless

Too much valued placed on sex imo

It’s kind of important if you want a relationship/family/kids.

Well, yeah

No disagreement there, just saying it’s sad how it makes some people feel shitty

Yes, agree there.

It’s quite an interesting collection of short accounts (male and female) and brings out a near consensus about feelings of shame of having no dating experience.

It sneaks in a sad and guilty lol as well:

There was an instance when a friend of mine kept attempting to put a move on me and in order to keep that separation I, knowing that she was allergic to peanuts, began carrying around Snickers bars and making a great show of snacking on them.

If you think of sex as something much broader than just having an orgasm then I think it's easier to understand why the absence of physical intimacy makes people feel sad in ways that masturbation isn't an adequate substitute for.

Lol xpost to Luna

Also nv otm

Also something that prostitutes won't be a sub for, to address something way upthread.

Also something that prostitutes won't be a sub for, to address something way upthread.

― nickn

this really confused me until i realized you meant "substitute" and not "submissive"

Self-defined 'incels' aren't looking for intimacy, though.

course not but I was talking about the BBC article upthread. got no interest in angry internet dorks of any stripe at the moment tbh.

Self-defined 'incels' aren't looking for intimacy, though.

aren't they, though?

aren't they

Many certainly claim to be. I can understand not believing them, but they do say it.

I'd have thought there would be a spectrum across self-defined 'incels'. In the same way, not all are going to be angry internet dorks.

I think you do need to be an angry internet dork to know what an incel is. If you mean there's plenty of ppl out there miserable over not having intimacy in their lives who aren't that, yeah, sure.

Yeah, I put 'self-defined' in there for a reason.

See I don't even think sex is primarily why they want a hot girlfriend. They want validation of themselves as date-able; they want to not have the virgin unfuckable dork stigma. A hot girlfriend is a status symbol, an arm-trophy. You can get intimacy and sex and companionship from a non-hottie - a fattie or whatever. But you'd be ashamed to introduce her to your parents and you can't show her off to your three friends.

Maybe the term 'incel' covers more than just a single type?

Maybe the term 'incel' covers more than just a single type?

― pomenitul

i can't fathom why anybody who _didn't_ hate women would want to identify as an "incel" given its cultural associations.

OTM. People may have come to those incel boards through different patterns but really what keeps them together as a community is hatred of women and the feeling they're owed something. Taking the term incel to characterize other folks who might be struggling w/ relationship issues in a variety of ways feels distasteful to me - it's accepting the premises of their ideology.

when I've see ppl using the term 'incel' on social media over the last few weeks, a lot of the time it's as a synonym for 'loser male who can't get laid and is unhappy about it' rather than specifically to refer to ppl who adhere to a specific ideology or whatever? to an extent I feel like it doesn't really matter what I 'identify' as, these ppl are still talking about me when they talk about 'incels'

Just because not everyone understands the term and how it's used by adherents doesn't invalidate that the "incel" uh phenomenon? is something that its members CHOOSE to associate with. They self-define and self-select into this group either because they already share the core misogyny or because they gravitate toward it once they learn about it from online communities.

If you don't want to be a member of that community, then you're not one. Don't morosely lump yourself in.

Utter shocker: incels (but who are they?) don't have a semantic monopoly on the word 'incel'.

come on guys, there was no knowledge of the word incel before that dumb reddit community sprung up and while yeah language evolves blah blah blah wanting to challenge their monopoly seems like a singularly weird battle to want to fight

For those who wish to witness the semantic tug of war in action: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=incel

Date at which the entry was added seems relevant here.

A litmus test for incel status: If you can't play videogames, express interest in a polygamy, or ignore your partner while having sex, you're an incel.

The only two routes to exit this fate are death and the volcel path, which keeps untold power.

Get a incel mug for your brother Trump.

Been thinking about that top definition from urbandictionary -

incel

aka "involuntarily celibate", a person (usually male) who has a horrible personality and treats women like sexual objects and thinks his lack of a sex life comes from being "ugly" when its really just his blatant sexism and terrible attitude. incels have little to no self awareness; even when they see other "ugly" men with girlfriends, they consider these men to be tricksters who have somehow beat the system and can get women despite being cursed with unattractiveness (in other words, theyre respectful to women and women are attracted to their personalities, but incels cant comprehend such a phenomenon). they believe that women owe them sex, and many of the more extreme incels like to spend time in incel communities on the internet coming up with ways to make women have sex with them (often involving genocide of people of color, genocide of "Chads" (men who have sex), taking rights away from women, raping them, having sex with women's dead bodies, and other horrid, disgusting things. they cant understand that that is PRECISELY why women want nothing to do with them).

I'm pretty sure Ryan is an incel. Yesterday he made a facebook post about how all women are shallow and exist to torture men by "denying" them sex, as if sex is something people "deserve", and not a privilege given by potential sexual partners that should be respected.

And it seems pretty telling in terms of a debate on the internet ending up as a badly drawn cartoon version of itself. The description of sex as "a privilege given by potential sexual partners" is really very odd indeed, it's using the same bizarre language of sex being a reward to be dished out by women to the most deserving. These incels are bad because they have poisonous attitudes to women - however these attitudes are by no means confined entirely to the incel community - the same misogyny can be found throughout society at large, and the fact someone is having sex regularly is in no way evidence that they are a sensitive, well-balanced person with a healthy respect for women, it's possibly because they are just the same as an incel but better looking / more confident, the existence of the MRA / redpill community online is surely ample evidence of this.

the existence of the MRA / redpill community online is surely ample evidence of this.

I agree with your larger point but I wouldn't assume everyone in the MRA/redpill community is in a relationship either, to say the least.

fwiw wikipedia has a defintion too:

Incels (a portmanteau of "involuntary" and "celibacy") are members of an online subculture[1][2] who define themselves as being unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as inceldom.[3] Self-identified incels are almost exclusively male and mostly heterosexual.[4][5] Discussions in incel forums are often characterized by resentment, misanthropy,[1] misogyny, racism, entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men.[4][6][7][8][9] The Southern Poverty Law Center has described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem",[10] and self-described incels have committed at least four mass murders in North America.

I agree with your larger point but I wouldn't assume everyone in the MRA/redpill community is in a relationship either, to say the least.

Yeah, of course. But I think there's a tendency to sideline the fact that there really are men out there who are "successfully" using emotional manipulation to have sex with women.

The wikipedia definition is much better, of course.

hi5 for us

no

I may be completely wrong, but what I was thinking when I said there’s a spectrum is that there’s probably some less hardcore membership among the self-described incel “community” who may be reachable and potentially persuaded to change their views.

Sounds cool. You should go do that, then.

brb - I’m going to sleep with each and everyone of them.

each one smash one

smash it forward

Starting to feel like the term "toxic masculinity" is not helpful. If you have to explain over and over again that it doesn't mean masculinity is toxic, maybe it's because the phrase carries the underlying message that masculinity is toxic? Feel free to talk me out of this position.

If you hear the term "spoiled milk" do you think it carries the underlying message that all milk is spoiled?

If you hear the term "venomous snake" do you think it carries the underlying message that all snakes are venomous?

If you hear the term "sinking ship" do you think it carries the underlying message that all ships are sinking?

Everybody knows what a "poisonous mushroom" is and people still eat mushrooms. It's not that complicated.

one bad implication of all that style of phrase is that once it's spoiled, it's spoiled; the venomous snake is always venomous; the sunk ship's sunk. so even if you perceive the other meaning re OTHER men, the specimen before you is being written off for good, which is usually n.a.g.l. for human beings.

once a man's ruined by toxic masculinity it's like you're saying you gotta erect a sign

THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR

do not enter for 10,000 years etc

idk I always read "toxic masculinity" as referring to the toxic pursuit of that toxic thing, masculinity

No, j., it's not the person who's being regarded as toxic, but rather the particular manifestation of masculinity in question. The person could rethink and/or abandon the specific attitude under discussion, and be back in the camp of the angels.

"Toxic male" would fit your description, not "toxic masculinity" or "toxic machismo."

I'm pretty sure I've exhibited attitudes that are toxic. Recognizing that, and moving forward while trying to be better, is still within reach for me. So it is for anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcfIGok1mMI

If you hear the term "spoiled milk" do you think it carries the underlying message that all milk is spoiled?

If you hear the term "venomous snake" do you think it carries the underlying message that all snakes are venomous?

If you hear the term "sinking ship" do you think it carries the underlying message that all ships are sinking?

― markle's potion (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, May 22, 2018 12:12 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

milk, ship and snake are things, not qualities

If I said "delicate femininity" it would carry the implication that femininity is delicate.