Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

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.

The wilderness camp that my bil stayed at for several months (like years and years ago) ended up being good for him. No internet or gaming, forced to talk with everyone in the group, make meals together, learn functional skills, exercise. He's super into fitness now (he had stopped going to school because of body image issues).

I think they shouldn’t be thought of as “incels.” They’re people with social avoidance symptoms who fell into a trap of an online hate community. There are people with similar issues —social withdrawal via online interaction—who aren’t part of these communities and need similar treatment. Being unlucky in love doesn’t make them special it makes them like almost everyone else

They think thats their core problem but it isn’t

Community is the key word in all of this. These are people who feel fundamentally alone. I'd bet that at some point some of these people have tried self help. But, there's a bootstrappy attitude to a lot of self-help literature (I read a lot of self-help literature) that is offputting because it downplays or ignores the social factor. Like, if you're depressed, it's all on you to save yourself. That's pretty alienating when what you're really looking for is support. And if your choice is between support and no support, you choose support, even if your support is a toxic cult of misogyny and self-loathing.

I mean, a lot of slightly less hopeless versions of these guys wind up in groups like the Proud Boys. So my thought is always "can't we just come up with a version of the Proud Boys that doesn't also include racism, homophobia and misogyny?"

I mean, I'm basically the equivalent of a functional posting addict. I have a job and a family and work out and generally live a normal life but there's def something missing that I am using posting as a quick fix for. And I think community is probably one word for it, and male community in particular.

I have no idea where this idea that having a romantic partner is going to be the fix to your personal problems and make you do constructive things with your life originated but it's horrible bullshit. You're not a charming old house someone's buying to fix up!

I mean, there is a small kernel to truth that people do end up creating life structures when they're trying to align their schedule, priorities, shared living space with someone else. But if you can't do any of that shit on your own semi-functionally, you're not going to do so with someone else.

Part of me wonders if it's some patriarchal shit where they lack the self esteem to do things for themselves and think being in some provider/husband/father role is going to suddenly give their lives meaning.

I think it started because being in love makes you feel good about yourself and like you can do things maybe you couldn't before. It is a fallacy, though.

being a husband, provider and father does give your life meaning. it's not the only thing that can do that, but it definitely does that.

I am really struck by how widespread the cluelessness abt incels is, almost everyone talking abt it doesn't get it at all and comes up with absurdly stupid advice which ofc they can feed on.

"I just told him to buy a pair of jeans—he had only ever worn slacks. Jeans are important in this age."

the incel worldview is way more thorough & robust than most ppl's, and in the face of that ppl just throw their hands in the air and cry 'therapy!'/'medicate!'/'round em up!'

What do you propose instead?

No snark, I'm genuinely curious.

there's something to be said for not having a thorough and robust world view, especially if you're cultivating it based on online reading and never leaving the house, or having a job with minimal interaction and not socializing irl beyond that. exactly how robust is that?

a bunch of the ideas that are being put forth in these online incel spaces are very much in favor of prescribed social roles, and limiting or at least decrying the choices others have in order to better serve their own perceived emotional and social needs!

it's not far from more heavy-handed religious views

Wtf are you talking about ogmor?

I mean, a lot of slightly less hopeless versions of these guys wind up in groups like the Proud Boys. So my thought is always "can't we just come up with a version of the Proud Boys that doesn't also include racism, homophobia and misogyny?"

I mean this is basically the DSA lol

the democratic socialists of america?

Shitting your pants on camera as a shock schtick and then killing yourself after isn't that robust. It's sad.

I think Simon just nailed what I find offputting about the DSA

I mean, they provide structure, community, and a set of explanations for some, if not all, societal ills. Plus they're well over half dudes, probably. xxp

I was kind of joking; I don't actually know that many people in DSA, but the ones I do know are all kinda bros

The broness quotient seems to vary a fair bit from chapter to chapter, to be fair.

Considering all the ones I know are women, I can't relate.

Thread is going a direction that reminds me of a prev discussion about approaches to dystopian apocalypse: in prepping for the collapse of civilization as we know it, do you go for the handgun or the hotdish? Ie individual violence or community building?

Maybe I'm over-simplifying but in trying to find a way to give life meaning and be part of something, have incels chosen the handgun? And perhaps you could say something like DSA chooses the hotdish--learning to be in community w people even if awkwardly?

I've already seen plenty of posts from former or recovering incels on lefty subreddits, so it's not completely hopeless out there. e.g.:

https://np.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/a0j8iq/how_do_i_escape_the_blackpill/

I think there's a point where the mentality transitions from "here's what I need to do to be a functioning person in the world" to "here are all the reasons why I'm justified in analyzing all these issues endlessly -- the world doesn't want me to be out there"

the colloquial phrase that comes to mind is "it's time to shit or get off the pot"

I do think the left needs to do a better job of recognizing the need for and positively channeling the "bro" impulse rather than dismissing or deriding it? I mean this is something I wrestle with a lot myself, because maybe it's hard to separate "positive" broiness from the negative aspects, but I think it's why stuff like Chapo exists and why the phenomenon of the DSA bro exists (even though as pointed out this varies and there are a lot of women getting very active in DSA right now).

I mean, there's something to disconnecting the idea of "bro" mentality (banter, jokeyness, etc) from the more harmful behaviors or attitudes (put downs, sexism, acting like a chive reader or sarcastic 90s stereotype) because the former can be irritating and sometimes sexist in action, but the latter is more about shaping a certain mentality

maybe the two can't be divorced? I can't say

chapo being termed "bro'y" shows the very wide net that term casts. they're a gaggle of brooklyn nerds.

Yeah I think we need an alternative, non-gender-essentialist model for male friendship. Post-bro (jk, please never use this term). FWIW, I'm speaking from the perspective of a straight guy who is kind of uncomfortable around groups of other straight guys.

what makes you uncomfortable around groups of straight guys as opposed to groups of non-straight guys or straight non-guys?

or non-straight non-guys obv