Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I loved Her Body &c and should reread some of it probably.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/cooperation-is-cultural/

Ugh: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/7xqw3g/this-is-what-the-life-of-an-incel-looks-like

I have no idea what can be done about this.

damn, these folks have some hardcore gender dysphoria

This whole article...it's a lot.

yeuch

I mean, I think this part is right

“I’ve literally been to some of the best psychologists in the country, and not one of them hinted that my problem may be societal,”

But the diagnosis of the problem veers so far off course from there.

I mean so much of it has to be societal because this generally doesn't happen to women.

At the same time though, I would be completely happy if these guys were all sent to live in a remote location with a monitored version of the internet to play on all day. I think this is what some of them want anyway, no pressures of having to live outside of their screen.

i wisely stopped reading as soon as the one guy shit his pants and then died :(
it's too much

some of this doesn't seem far off the reasons why I take a break from, or at least have attempted to attenuate, my engagement with social media.

that instant engagement and constant blast of different ideas, with a bunch of people instantly weighing in on (what is in the incel communities) batshit theories, gives you no space to separate your sense of self from whatever you're engaging with. at least give yourself a ten minute break to walk around the block and realize whatever you just read is bullshit and you don't need to comment on it!

tbh this dude chain smoking is uh not helping either. he's just wired his brain to be completely into compulsively commenting and refreshing

his mom is also enabling him by paying for his entire life

i really just couldn't keep reading, it's too depressing

I mean, there is a point at which when a group of people very insistently wants to wallow in their own misery, there is only so much intervention you can do. And I can relate to it to an extent, because I know the addictive, cruel comfort of online commiseration. But that's why I generally stay away from the parts of the internet where that goes on.

I'm not going to spend much of my mental energy trying to figure out how to help incels. But I do think there is something about contemporary society that leads to this -- a combination of capitalist hyper-individualization and something male-specific that I have trouble articulating, but maybe I would say it's that we haven't developed strong enough positive narratives for men's roles in a more feminist world. The dying of the old entitlement combined with a hole in terms of what to replace it with.

Also LL totally OTM about the mom enabling it.

yes

there's definitely a part of me that just screams "take away his goddamn computer and kick him out of the house" but I don't think any of these situations start with the guy who never leaves his room

Women are raised and are pressured to be conciliatory. I hate socializing but it's ingrained in me to be a host and to make sure all other people are comfortable. I was never allowed to hide out in my room.

I keep thinking of two people I know where, as far as I know, they never got into this rhetoric but definitely have a bit of the shut-in w/a computer mentality

one is my cousin who is a bright guy, but socially awkward and probably on the autism spectrum. we'd get along great when I saw him a few times a year as a kid, talking about all kinds of computer and video game stuff. he was a great student, went to college and graduated with near a 4.0 in computer science, and then moved back to his parents' basement and... that's it. he's nearly 35 now, and maybe helps out at his family's store. I have no idea wtf he does other than that

the other is a good friend of mine who was a college roommate. also a computer science guy, one of the most talented programmers I've known. while he'd be in his apartment alone in front of a computer, he'd be working remotely with a team -- he was always a good collaborator and went to grad school and later got a few pretty cool jobs. he got married this year! his wife is almost hyper-social and just as motivated as he is. as far as I know his online socialization was always about *finding projects to do* and that's a key difference

there's something to the insularity of these incel dudes being about a lack of focus beyond their own situation

some of this doesn't seem far off the reasons why I take a break from, or at least have attempted to attenuate, my engagement with social media.

I was thinking the same. In some respects, this looks somewhat similar to my own dysfunctionality. I'm not sure that the amount of time I spend absorbed in my laptop screen would look much less creepy to an outside observer. And I've certainly had the experience of becoming financially dependent on a parent and not knowing how to break out of it. I don't think this is uncommon in our generation.

I would just say, yes I know ilx loves to find commonalities and I'm not trying to discourage self-reflection, but I also think there's a significant difference between "parents helped me for a while in between jobs/during illness/etc" and what's in that article.

this really is like an analogue to anorexia isn't it? it's a modern mental illness and it self-perpetuates and abets itself as with those pro-ana websites

Right. They have a distorted worldview because they’re depressed and have convinced themselves they are repulsive. (That’s what this is ultimately about—it takes an aggrieved misogynistic form but ultimately what they believe is they are not just unfuckable but unlovable). They find a community that reinforces that worldview. They withdraw into it and become a prisoner of their illness.

It sounds like a living hell.

I often think about the sheer wrongness of Charles Olson's 'What does not change / is the will to change' of late.

Cults and hate groups (that’s what these are) are now able to recruit people rifjt from their living rooms or, with smartphones, from a machine that may as well be fused to their eyeballs. These are fucked up times.

Have been reading *Her Body and Other Parties* and *Throw Like A Girl* just arrived in the mail -- excited to start it.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, October 26, 2018 3:49 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yo Throw Like A Girl is one of the most important single books I think I've read on feminism -- it's unfortunately absent any explicit thoughts on trans people but does acknowledge it has a limited focus in the interest of clarity, and gosh the clarity. i feel like i have new clear language to articulate some of the specific problems of women's objectification and concomitant denial of subjectivity, and how that's borne out in everyday inner and outer life experience. recommended despite the kinda academic-philosophy density.

multi-xp I think my fear is that the difference is, in some cases, literally "parents helped me for a while and I fell into a rabbit hole of these self-destructive forums and stopped trying"

there are definitely people more predisposed to this line of thought but it's reminding me of a recent article about how iceland diminished their youth smoking/drinking/drug use rates by funding a bunch of recreational and educational programs. people literally have no outlet for their energy so they end up whiling it away

not that I'm saying taking up football is any better than having a beer down at the pub, but a lot of habits that bleed away energy that are easier/more accessible are self-destructive just by their nature

Playing football (soccer) is definitely a better use of time than drinking alcohol

I wonder how Japan deals with its hikikomori (if it does at all).

imo alcohol is fine because you can drink it in moderation and read books at the same time

alcohol helps you meet and talk to members of the opposite sex too, I mean, it's true

and sometimes the same sex

yes ofc, but I'm not sure but most of these dudes are complaining about women making their lives a misery

Being an incel online seems quite a lot like spending all day at the pub tbh, same sort of false sense of community based on misery.

The difference is they’ve built an ideology around their misery.

discussion about the philosophical aspect of the self-identified "incel" is beyond my capacity, so i will not comment on that.

however, i keep coming back to the thought that this guy needs treatment -- preferably inpatient. the smoking for days on end in the sunless studio apartment that his mom pays for is prolonging his misery. he needs to have his brain retrained, like someone with any other profoundly self-destructive habit. it's sad but i can't get lost in the details of what he does and doesn't believe -- all i can see is a person who needs competent professional help.

I agree totally.

For sure, it's just that he appears to have seen quite a few shrinks already.

I haven't read it yet but there's another Vice piece that approaches the issue from a therapeutical angle:

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/435g9p/how-to-help-an-incel-sex-therapist

They seem to have just thrown medication at him. I think LL is right that he needs inpatient treatment like an addict or someone with a life threatening eating disorder. This cycle Of behavior just needs to be broken before any other steps can be taken.

How to help an incel sex therapist

"seeing a shrink" is not inpatient treatment

Sorry, missed that part.

“He understands being this meme guy is totally shameful and he hates himself for that, but he also loves it because it is all he has or cares about.”

i feel like this cuts to it

I remember reading some research about certain kinds of disorders that just don't respond well to individual therapy and really require groups. And I think that would make a lot of sense here -- he needs a positive support group to replace the kind of negative support group he has created. That and some kind of productive activity to occupy himself, a job to go to, the gym, etc. That's sort of the problem with the "treatment" model of dealing with these kinds of things, the disease model of disorder. Many disorders have strong societal and social aspects and require actual life changes to "treat" them. It's not something you can fix in a couple hours a week with a therapist and a pill.

A job would be a good idea for this guy.

Certain disorders don't respond especially well to any therapy btw. (xp)

My brother in law totally got "kidnapped" into one of those months long wilderness rehab camps when he was a teenager because he was having similar issues.

Just read the second article. Sounds frighteningly similar to a friend of mine, down to the line about how 'nobody likes Asian men according to statistics from Match.com, so no one will ever date him'.

i can only hope that the person who develops an inpatient treatment program for incels is not a money-grubbing charlatan and actually cares about helping them function in society.

And aside from what would "treat" these particular men, I think there is a larger problem of a lack of positive social outlets for men.