The real reason incels are celibate.

Hubris1998 · 2023-12-01T22:56:45+00:00

while looks play a very significant role, I'd say for most people it's basically a combination of not having enough chances to interact with women and other factors, most of which are related to your childhood (e.g. having a helicopter mother)

jacobspartan1992 · 2023-12-01T23:13:38+00:00

I'll have to put up my own post on this matter some time. It's certainly not because they are naturally hateful, demonic people. They are very frustrated and I think have been missold a promised ideal. Also the rise of mass communication, the internet and shifts in culture have had unforseen effects on our social environment.

HedgeRunner · 2023-12-02T04:39:49+00:00

I don’t know any incels and I guess even if I have met one no one is gonna declare out loud they are one. So take all this with a grain of salt.

I think most of them just hate the game. There is research showing a large number of incels are minorities who are not white. What does that tell us ? /s

I also don’t think either job nor confidence matters that much. I think looks and faking confidence on date matters way more. It’s not that hard to fake confidence, it’s actually extremely easy with practice. Consistent confidence is hard but you don’t need that in modern dating.

Lastly, Chads are way more misogynistic than incels. Recent research has shown this but it’s pretty fucking obvious, who is gonna manipulate women more the person who plays them daily or the person who puts them on pedestals. Like lmao.

Last lastly, I think in reality there are very very few incels there’s a lot of MGTOW. Its kinda like MAGA in that sure it’s a problem but it’s extremely limited and we shouldn’t put all our attention there. The much bigger cohort is MGTOW and basically men who has checked out the market. They can actually come back at any time if the dating market conditions are right .

awkward-egghead · 2023-12-02T05:46:29+00:00

It’s my view that masculinity is policed primarily by women.

Feminism denounces masculinity, but individual women, even most feminists, reward masculine behavior, and prefer masculine men as partners.

Meanwhile, men who grew up rejecting manliness, perhaps partly due to internalizing the (valid) feminist critique of historical male oppression, and perhaps partly due to being oppressed themselves by male bullies, are rejected by women as unmanly.

It is surely a bewildering time to be a young man, given the contradictory messages.

Second point is the sharp decline of in-person socialization. Young men are not getting enough practice interacting with others, and are coming into their 20s without well developed social skills. This goes double for autistic men, like myself, who would struggle with social interactions even with plenty of practice.

Also, seemingly hyper-realistic online games have offered young men a seductive alternative to trying to interact with real people. I never went down that path, but as an autist myself, I get the attraction of a world with an actual manual or rule book!

Our failure at finding intimacy or a relationship with women, while seeing a minority of men being effortlessly successful, leads men to misinterpret the most widely quoted statistic about women’s attraction to men: for the average woman, 80% of men are unattractive.

We’re part of the unattractive 80%, we reason, so therefore there is no hope for us.

We misunderstand this in part because, to heterosexual men, there is rough consensus on who specifically the most attractive 20% of women. Given a set of 100 women our age, we will almost completely agree which are the top 20 of that group.

But women are not like men, because they do not have that kind of consensus at all. A woman’s view of male attractiveness is highly idiosyncratic.

This has been demonstrated in speed dating studies, where the #1 top woman is desired by almost all the men, while the #1 top man is desired by maybe 40% of the women.

There is a lot more to say about this, but this comment is too long already.

PM_ME_IM_SO_ALONE_ · 2023-12-02T07:48:18+00:00

Nah it's extreme isolation and relational trauma. These people probably feel incredibly terrible about themselves because they have been made to feel that way in their formative relationships and have had subsequent relationships during development that reinforce that belief.

webernicke · 2023-12-02T01:44:21+00:00

One reason is lack of professional qualifications

There are a lot of unemployed underemployed fuccbois that women complain about. This isn't the answer.

The second reason is demonizing of masculinity (misandry). Men hear phrases like toxic masculinity and that affects their mind. It lowers their confidence and self-esteem.

While this can be a factor, I doubt it applies in a blanket way to all incels, since shyness and a lack of confidence is a common problem in dating.

Let me offer an alternative theory for the existence of incels.

Attraction between the genders is not even close to being equal, with women being far, far more selective than men are, while men are far more opportunistic and polygamous than women are.

This means that given complete freedom to choose partners, women will naturally exclude some men from their dating pool, while the men that they are most attracted to will take on as many partners as possible. The result is that a number of men are left completely without mating opportunities. These are the incels.

In other words, there is not "someone for everyone." Human mating is a game of musical chairs, and incels are the men that weren't able to get a seat before the music stopped.

The reason why inceldom is a recent phenomenon is because historically, the above situation was mitigated by traditions (that have now been dismantled) such as socially enforced monogamy and arranged couplings which deliberately limited the "musical chairs" kind of behavior. Also, modern technology has increased the effective range of this competitive mating environment and allowed disaffected men to congregate and voice their frustrations.

Peptocoptr · 2023-12-01T23:26:35+00:00

Men hear phrases like toxic masculinity and that affects their mind. It lowers their confidence and self-esteem. Women don't want to date men who lack confidence. Many men are afraid of being (falsely) accused of harassment. Some men don't give a shit and they will approach women anyway.

This one can't be said enough.

DrewYetti · 2023-12-02T11:32:45+00:00

Interesting points as demonising men can play a hand in inceldom because it makes men feel they are not good enough to meet the gynocentric/feminist standards of a "real man." Men not enrolling in colleges due to high prices can reflect how some incels come from poor backgrounds.

SvitlanaLeo · 2023-12-01T23:47:18+00:00

Demonizing of male masculinity.

They don't demonize the same traits in women. On the countrary, they want all female superheroes have them.

Karmaze · 2023-12-02T03:29:54+00:00

The second reason is demonizing of masculinity (misandry). Men hear phrases like toxic masculinity and that affects their mind. It lowers their confidence and self-esteem. Women don't want to date men who lack confidence. Many men are afraid of being (falsely) accused of harassment. Some men don't give a shit and they will approach women anyway.

So let me explain my own position up-front. I'm happily married, however, I believe that I was absurdly lucky for that to have happen, and I think if that didn't happen, I'd essentially be in that incel camp right now. Basically my wife made all the moves.

I think this is part of it, but the way I'd put it is that it's an active rejection of masculinity and the masculine gender role in relationship formation especially, but also more broadly as well, either consciously or subconsciously. Largely for the those reasons and factors.

It's why I think we should call it instead a maladaptive masculinity. The thinking was, if you get men to change, and men control society, ergo, men will change society.

But that never happened. First, because men don't really control society. I'm not saying that women do either....I'm saying it's much more organic and reactionary than anything. But there's no interest in it. It's too useful, frankly.

This mostly applies to average men. Most incels are probably average men. There are, of course, men who have autism and mental illnesses. Their reasons for being celibate might be different.

I would argue that autistics and other neurodivergent people are more likely to internalize and actualize these ideas. Which is why I'd argue that people in that boat are largely in that camp.

One final thing. Where it gets toxic, I maintain, is when people start demanding that society "follows through" on these changes, and actually starts prioritizing this sort of maladaptive masculinity. I call it a "Dark Progressivism" or even a "Dark Feminism" for that reason. I don't agree with this, to be clear, first, because it's not going to happen, second, I don't think it'll be healthy for anybody. But you can't fix what you don't understand.

I don't think people understand this stuff at all.

Cunari · 2023-12-02T15:32:52+00:00

There are tons of people who are very social who do not get the sexual relationships they desire. Asexual Social interactions do not lead to sexual social interactions as a rule.

The reason is sexual economics. Women just don’t like men as much as men like women.

runnerman2 · 2023-12-04T07:18:33+00:00

one of the reasons of inceldom is porn - many men engaging in PMO are doing it because porn won't reject them, and consequently cockblock themselves out of the dating market while also numbing their lives due to constantly flooding dopamine receptors

smugpeanut · 2023-12-06T13:31:21+00:00

Late to the party, but here's what I think: A lot of the "bitterness" that's stereotypically associated with incels is largely due to societal rejection and hurt for factors that other commenters mentioned, i.e. being unattractive, whether in appearance (being ugly) or speech or mannerisms (being awkward, or autistic/otherwise neurodivergent). The dissonance of the obvious reality behind their societal rejection clashing with the cultural pretense of "Just be yourself, women love what's on the inside" inevitably leads to resentment, much like how any other oppressed minority would resent the powers at be for not giving them the same treatment and privileges others have. It's a hilarious cringe-worthy statement that no doubt most feminists would laugh at; "Incels are oppressed", but the fucked part is that it's true. The "lashing out" is ultimately their sign of resistance against a system that belittles them for things beyond their control. It's the same bitterness radfems exhibit when they say shit like #killallmen; it stems from resentment towards a system they perceive as unfair or oppressive.

Awesometjgreen · 2023-12-04T09:15:30+00:00

I'm late to the party but on that education bit, my degrees haven't helped me one bit with dating. Take my anecdotal evidence with a grain of salt but women have reacted negatively to my education. My 2nd ex (that cheated on me) made multiple remarks doubting my ability to finish and suggesting that I drop out (this was when I was working on my associates degree). I went on my 2nd date this year about 2x months ago and the woman seemed to be into me until I mentioned my going to grad school...her whole demeanor changed.

So yeah, grass ain't greener over here for all my male comrades that haven't gone to college, but again, take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. Definitely go to college if you get the chance, and if you don't want to that's ok as well.

Sensitive_Housing_85 · 2023-12-08T09:24:22+00:00

False the main reason is lack of charisma for some hygiene and some looks , misogyny can play a role in you not getting , but you can be misogynisitic , openingly and get women , there are several examples of this online and in real life , being broke or not having a degree also doesnt prevent you from getting , also the demonization of masculinity doesnt play a role , there are men who are very feminine and get a lot of women , charisma and unique ness is the main issue , being a good person also doesnt really play a role , you can be a good person ans be a terrible partner but then i guess it depends on what you mean by good

BKEnjoyerV2 · 2023-12-18T02:41:39+00:00

I think the biggest thing from my own experience is just low self-confidence, poor social skills/lack of experiences, and low self-esteem, that’s the main root of it all. And that’s exacerbated by being on the spectrum or having mental health issues

FlexMissile99 · 2024-01-28T21:35:36+00:00

I'd say it's 50 pc looks and/or other forms of physical deformity and disability and 50 pc poor social skills and/or not being neurotypical. The precise breakdown varies per person.

Calm-Season-9018 · 2023-12-02T07:43:00+00:00

Literally almost everything you said is wrong. Sorry but imagine thinking men need “professional qualifications” to get laid😂 that is the nerdiest shit ever. I know guys that are homeless and get laid with models. Women don’t care about that.

The truth is any man can get laid including incels. The main problem is we incels have high expectations for women’s looks, we won’t settle for women that are ugly. But sadly we incels are ugly too, so some incels become hateful towards women and the world because they’re hypocrites. And others like me accept it and move on.

Title	The real reason incels are celibate.
Author	hotpotato128
Upvotes	76
Comments	56
Date	December 1, 2023 3:47 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/188f1se/the_real_reason_incels_are_celibate/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/the-real-reason-incels-are-celibate.1239809 https://theredarchive.com/post/1239809

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