Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

sorry if that came off harsh or personal, I recognise the self-perpetuating hate spiral that drives this and am frustrated by the awareness that disgust, however well-founded, won't make anything any better

i think this has to be addressed probably primarily by men who are able to offer some way of being/recognition outside of the suffocatingly reductive dangerous&doomed framework they've constructed for themselves

LL these people do not deserve your pity and wouldn't accept it anyway.

A lot of shitty people are lost causes, some aren't. By extending a helping hand to the latter we ensure that the former are fewer in number. Still, I sympathise with the impossibility of empathising in this one instance.

i used to live w a no fap guy, people knew bc he was really evangelist about it. think he thought it preserved his kundalini energy or something. which tbf isn't that far off from some genine spiritual practices of worldly detachment.

but this dude was not worldly detached. he drank, smoked, had sociopathic tendencies. he used to explain with glee how he loved fucked with customers at his day job cashiering at a restaurant. during the 2008 elections we were discussing politics and he was incredulous that i was critical Mitt Romney. i asked him if he was joking and he maintained that he wasn't but at that point i was pretty sure he went through the day trying to get thrills from manipulating people w the pettiest bs.

self betterment ideologies are not that detached from 70s self help or snake oil salesman of yore. if people don't have a spiritual outlet they seek out some form of self help, there will always be that market, and people on all sides ready to take advantage.

The only way back for these men is serious psychological counseling. But since mentally ill ppl who actually ask for help can’t even get it in this country, that’s not going to happen.

Yeah, I actually do think that there is a legitimate social need for some kind of supportive online community for people who are lonely and involuntarily celibate, in the way that Alana Davis originally conceived of the concept. The way that idea has been co-opted by entitled and entirely male sociopaths might be one of the most infuriating aspects of the whole contemporary incel thing. (Second to the part where they are killing people.)

i am v sceptical of the ability of any sort of talking therapy to get ppl out of really destructive negative-thinking

these fuckers need to do community service

Yeah, I actually do think that there is a legitimate social need for some kind of supportive online community for people who are lonely

yeah you can stop there? "involuntarily celibate" as a concept contains the seeds of its own problems.

I was reading some posts from women who follow some of these incel groups and she posted one from a man who followed a 14 year old girl who was walking alone so he could be important to her and to basically freak her out. He was encouraging other incels to do this type of "low level" terrorizing to other women.

the fetishizing of any attention from women isn’t a foreign thing for “male culture” but it’s taken to an extreme

that is to say, tt’s always bad, but not nearly this hostile or toxic

Oh, it was the first comment on this jezebel article. I did a bad job of summarizing. https://jezebel.com/saint-elliot-rodger-and-the-incels-who-canonize-him-1825567815

"harmless psychological fun"

christ

This tweet is part of a whole thread that's worth reading, but this gets to the core of "relating to" or "dealing with" these worthless (non)fuckers:

"So how do we discuss this phenomenon then?" Easy -- don't discuss the dehumanizing beliefs. "Bob was spouting some horrifying incel nonsense. Did you know he actually believes -- ""I don't need to know what he believes. Bob is now persona non grata. Let's go."

— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) April 28, 2018

damn if only someone had ignored that bus attacker sooner this could all have been avoided

bus? van. whatever, i'm out

Hey, you wanna be their friend, give 'em a shoulder to cry on, that's your business. Not me.

I get the impression that a big part of the appeal of the 'incel community' is that it lets these people acknowledge the basic truth (as they see it), that there is no hope for them, that no-one could ever find them desirable in any way ; in pretty much any other community or setting there is a lot of pushback against anyone who describes themselves in those terms, both from ppl trying to be 'nice', and from ppl offended by their defeatism - you can see this from all the responses over the past few days where ppl say that incels could form sexual/romantic relationships if the put in more effort, or got a better attitude etc.

I tend to think that a lot of ppl who post to incel forums are correct to believe that there is no hope for them, that they are mostly unattractive, awkward nerds (a lot of them on the autism spectrum) who inspire a vague revulsion in other ppl, and they'll never be anything other than that regardless of what they believe or how much effort they put into bettering themselves. imo it is not helpful for their critics to deny this as it means that the only ppl who will allow them to acknowledge what they know to be the truth about themselves, will acknowledge that they are not to blame for something that is largely beyond their control, are the misogynists and murder-advocates. especially as a lot of the ppl who will rebuke these guys for describing themselves as beyond hope would agree if anyone other than the incel himself described the incel as incurably undesirable.

Yeah, I actually do think that there is a legitimate social need for some kind of supportive online community for people who are lonely and involuntarily celibate

yeah. the sex positive movement is good and empowering but it can sometimes come across "look at all the sex we are having and aren't we great for it". there is such an emphasis on this being good that it can make the opposite seem bad. imo there needs to be more asexual/non-sexual awareness, something positive to ascribe to for people that either genuinely don't care or do care and can't get laid.

Try as I might to avoid this shit, it's really everywhere right now. Apologies if this bonkers commentary has already been posted.

i just. i can't. these are human beings but they live on a different planet i think pic.twitter.com/1Y0PMi2fe5

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) April 28, 2018

I think in a lot of cases it's not exactly lack of access to sexual intercourse that these guys are angry about - if that was all it was they could hire a sex worker, or in some cases could probably eventually find a woman who would tolerate having sex with them, if unenthusiastically - but they want women not to be disgusted by them and realise that there is little to no chance of this? I think about that Cat People story and I think a lot of them realise that if they ever did find a woman willing to sleep with them it would go pretty much like that, she would be revolted and horrified and hurt by them even if she agreed to sleep with them -

obviosuly the stuff they post on forums, or actual crimes and harrassment they carry out in real life disgust women even more than just being an unattractive loser, but I think they kind of intentionally 'lean in' to horrifying women, because it's more comforting to of make it a choice that they themselves have made - when they identify as 'involuntarily celibate' they are also silently identifying themselves as 'voluntarily disgusting' and so regaining some agency, as they think (correctly imo) that they'll disgust women anyway? I don't know what you do to stop these guys hurting women though, besides trying to shut down forums where justification for misogyny and retribution against women proliferate

they are mostly unattractive, awkward nerds (a lot of them on the autism spectrum)

But a lot of people fit this description and still end up being able to find a partner.

Thing is, there is an equal amount of women and men in the world, and there's also female 'unattractive, awkward nerds'. Aaaaand there's prostitutes. There's quite honestly no such thing as being 'involuntarily celibate'.

What is the Cat People story?

the self-awareness of treating people low-level cruelty and reveling in one's own lack of empathy seems to be a relatively new socially acceptable method of going at people, as opposed to being something people do more anonymously and in a solitary way. well they still do, ultimately, but it feels different now. it's coalescing more. i see it with people i know especially red pill types, one of them being a cartoonist (whose work was actually posted on the right wing cartoon thread) who has completely flown off the rails and now explicitly states he loves being hated. it feels similar to what adam was just talking about with his ex roommate.

Cat person, a New Yorker fiction that went viral

Xp obv

xpost agree. Before that behaviour was more solitary or I guess more isolated (stalking, beating/killing women who one had some sort of relationship with). Now it's a game. You get points.

soref this is full of lazy thinking bullshit

tend to think that a lot of ppl who post to incel forums are correct to believe that there is no hope for them, that they are mostly unattractive, awkward nerds (a lot of them on the autism spectrum) who inspire a vague revulsion in other ppl

This is total garbage. I know from my basement dwelling zit popping nerrrrrrrrrds and they know how to get laid and even find happy LTRs and breed despite being "unattractive, awkward" and probably living on some point of the spectrum. The incel movement is about hating women, hating other men who get along with women, and from there it's on to hating everybody regardless. IMO this has nothing to do with what these people look like or their perceived awkwardness.

are "incels" broken? sure. lots of people are broken. lots of people are, specifically, broken in such a way that drives them to believe that they're right and everybody else is wrong. if you've found a way to fix people like that that actually works, you'd be the first.

I think they kind of intentionally 'lean in' to horrifying women, because it's more comforting to of make it a choice that they themselves have made - when they identify as 'involuntarily celibate' they are also silently identifying themselves as 'voluntarily disgusting' and so regaining some agency, as they think (correctly imo) that they'll disgust women anyway? I don't know what you do to stop these guys hurting women though, besides trying to shut down forums where justification for misogyny and retribution against women proliferate

― soref

god, everybody says, believes, does, disgusting things every once in a while. everybody hurts people they love. functional people learn, eventually, to take appropriate responsibility for that shit.

Cat person, a New Yorker fiction that went viral

This was worth reading.

Yeah, nothing about feelings of inadequacy, unattractiveness, disgust or any developmental disorders are unique to just men. But I guess if you don't consider women autonomous, complicated individuals then this doesn't really matter.

I am very glad there was so much backlash to that Walk Up and Not Out bullshit. The onus should never be on girls or victims to make sure a peer doesn't murder them.

My husband’s cousin is a piece of shit garbage person who I would not be surprised to find out is an incel.

He has learning disabilities, is on the spectrum and also has some delusional thinking. His family consistently cites these things as the reason why he’s a dick. But it’s not - he’s just an asshole with zero redeeming qualities. He had a doormat girlfriend for years but when she was finally able to leave him and he started trying to date - Jesus Christ the shit he would tell us.

- he would list all this stuff he wanted in a gf - basically a super model who would bend to his every whim - and when I tried to delicately ask what he would be bringing to the table he just looked at me like I was the idiot
- he eventually got a second gf but that ended when he got mad at her for putting her dying sister ahead of him

He thinks the world revolves around him and that he should have his pick of any woman he wants and she should only be interested in things he likes, he shouldn’t have to learn new things, and he is free to do what he wants whenever he wants but she should be prioritizing his every need.

Whenever anyone has tried to intervene in this fucked up thinking he just gets mad and stops the conversation. My husband cut off contact with him a few years ago and I couldn’t have been more relieved.

I would not be shocked if he committed a hate crime against women.

xp

I'm not just talking about feelings of inadequacy, unattractiveness etc though, I'm talking about actual inadequacy, unattractiveness etc (and 'inadequacy' specifically in terms of meeting the criteria for what is considered attractive for your gender) I'm not trying to suggest that women feel inadequacy or unattractive any less than men do, or that the latter are any more 'complicated'?

I think wrt developmental disorders, there is something 'un-masculine' about them that means someone with those issues is less likely to conform to society's ideas of what is attractive in a man? i.e women would be more likely to consider developmental disorders and the traits associated with them as off-putting in a potential male sexual partner than men would consider developmental disorders and the traits associated with them as off-putting in a potential female sexual partner.

Oh sorry, that second statement of mine was directed towards actual incels who consider women inanimate status symbols.

That Gary Younge article is good. Adding it to all the other articles calling for men to start taking responsibility for how the patriarchy and old ideas of masculinity is only hurting them as well.

There are people in my life who consider themselves well outside the range of conventional physical attractiveness and have constructed these personal narratives around various mythological attributes that they use to guide affirmations, personal style, etc, and it gives them quite a bit of glamor and authority that they might otherwise lack. All of these people are either biological women and/or queer but that could just be the company I keep. Are these people “actually” unattractive or inadequate? I don’t think that’s a good approach. The stories we tell ourselves matter and incels seem intent on telling themselves they were robbed of their glorious patriarchal heritage. So I disagree with soref’s approach here.

Well + Minassian and Rodger both didn't even really fall "well outside the range of conventional physical attractiveness", nor were they in e.g. particularly dire financial straits.

xp wrt whether a particular person is “actually” unattractive, I'd say that's determined by whether people are (sexually/romantically) attracted to them or not? that's the sense in which I was talking about attractiveness

Soref I’m saying that there are people in this world who’ve done the work to not give others perceptions so much power over them and their sense of self worth. Why just accept the measure of desirability as if it were external, static and unchanging, determined solely by others? Or why accept the most limited and brutal standard of desirability and internalize it?

There's quite honestly no such thing as being 'involuntarily celibate'.

eh this is bullshit. you can be dealt a bad hand in so many ways by being born into bad circumstances or not lucking out in the gene pool.

i mean let's say you are born with perpetual sadface and parents are abusive towards each other, you might have some problems connecting to others when you grow up

sciatica otm, there are lots of "jolie laide" examples out there (the reason we don't have a masculine term for that quality is probably because that is like half of all dudes) - the truly unattractive quality in all the incel types is their egocentric view of the world and complete disinterest in everybody else.

Adam's also right though but these self-appointed "incel" cats are on a different tip

add to that inheriting depression, if you have low self esteem it's far more difficult, or addictive tendencies, alcholism, etc. these can be things beyond our control that drastically effect our lives.

uh no resting sad face and mean parents and a tendency towards addicition is not what I meant. I thought you were talking about, like, certain types of dysplasia and such.

Soref I’m saying that there are people in this world who’ve done the work to not give others perceptions so much power over them and their sense of self worth. Why just accept the measure of desirability as if it were external, static and unchanging, determined solely by others? Or why accept the most limited and brutal standard of desirability and internalize it?

I mean, I guess a person can declare that by their own subjective standards they are most desirable person in the world, even if no one actually desires them, but this seems like it would be fairly meaningless? and even demonstrate the 'egocentric view of the world and complete disinterest in everybody else' that Tombot sees in incels?

I think you have completely misunderstood what sciatica and I are getting at. there are ways to live in your own skin and project attractiveness without being a narcissist.