To not understand why 'incels' attract such a lack of empathy on here?!

[TheSilentLamb]

Let's start with defining an incel

• A man or woman who has trouble forming a romantic or sexual relationship with another person for any reason.
  
  What it doesn't necessarily mean is that they use prostitutes, are creepy or socially awkward.
  
  Many are just shy people who lack self esteem.
  
  Some are highly successful, outgoing and friendly people who just freeze up when it comes to expressing themselves or their feelings to others in a romantic context.
  
  I know of many many and women who this applies to - lovely people and to see the comments on here directed towards them is outrageous in some threads.
  
  Why can't people understand that some people just aren't lucky when it comes to relationships?

[InspectorIkmen]

What comments? What threads?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Um ... because that's not what 'incel' means, or how it is used?

'Incel' is the term men use to explain why they have a right to women's bodies. It's creepy as fuck.

HTH.

[PermanentlyFrizzyHairBall]

The word incel isn't usually used to describe someone who hasn't managed to find a romantic partner. People tend to have sympathy for these people. When people say "Incel" they usually mean someone who usually has poor social skills (not their fault of course) can't form romantic relationships and as a reaction to his feeling of rejection decide to blame the opposite sex, and spend lots of time on the internet with other similar people in an echo chamber all blaming the opposite sex for their romantic issues.

[Greensleeves]

I understood the term "incel" to refer to a particular group of men who blame the ungenerosity of women for their lack of sexual success, believing that women owe them sex as some sort of warped evolutionary imperative...."involuntary celibate" being a passive-aggressive statement of wounded entitlement.

[Dottysmum18]

Because of the common sexist and often violent views againt womenthat meny in the movement have . And if u support a movment that has those dangerous and disgusting views i have no time to feel sorry for the fact that u cant form lasting and meaningful relationships

[UpstartCrow]

Thats an interesting definition of incel, but it ignores the fact that so many incels are openly hostile to women.
I don't think the mass murders of women by infamous incels have helped their cause. Or the comments by Jordan Peterson that they need to have women allocated to them to curb their violence.

[TheSilentLamb]

Oh. The term has clearly been subverted then by a bunch of strange people.

I just thought it was short for involuntarily celibate - which seemed like a reasonable way to describe people who couldn't form physically romantic relationships.

Apologies!

[Namechangeforthiscancershit]

If that was what incel meant then no one would have the slightest problem. It’s just that it’s not.

I’ve not actually seen any incel threads but I wouldn’t expect anyone being horrendously mysoginistic to get a lot of approval on MN tbh

[Namechangeforthiscancershit]

Oh. The term has clearly been subverted then by a bunch of strange people

Very strange. Also, sadly, in some cases violent and abusive. I blame reddit.

[minipie]

I believe the comments are not about all people who struggle with relationships, not at all. They are about a particular subset who call themselves “incel” and join “incel” chat forums. Some of the comments on those forums are very unpleasant and bitter towards women (and also towards sexually successful men) and amount to blaming women for their lack of romantic or sex life, or believing that they are somehow owed sex and entitled to it.

[minipie]

Ah cross posted x lots.

[HamiltonCork]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel

Quite a good description of what incels are.

[HestiaParthenos]

I'm haven't had much success with relationships myself. Am eternally single and often feel lonely.

I still can't stand incels. As others have said, the word itself implies an entitlement to sex.
(Note how they complain not about being lonely, but about not getting to stick their dicks into a woman? )

There's plenty nice women and men who can't find a romantic relationship and just deal with it.

And then there's males who complain on the internet that women won't let them stick their dicks into them.

[Namechangeforthiscancershit]

Wikipedia has some good links if you want to read about this. It’s a rabbit hole though that you might not want to get into because you can read forever and never get anywhere plus it’s pretty grim. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel

[InspectorIkmen]

What’s your interest here OP? I’m still waiting for links to all the abuse and nasty threads too.
And you know women ‘incels’. How does that work then?

[HestiaParthenos]

I just thought it was short for involuntarily celibate - which seemed like a reasonable way to describe people who couldn't form physically romantic relationships.

I actually don't think it is a word any woman would invent.

My problem isn't that I am "celibate" (that reminds me of catholic priests), my problem is that I am single. Alone. Lonely.


And I fuzzily remember there being a phrasing like "complete beginners" or something the like for people with no relationship experience, which does sound much more like a phrasing reasonable people would use on a self-help forum.

[TheSilentLamb]

No, I hold my hands up and say I got it wrong. I didn't realise it was a loaded term. I thought it was just people who couldn't form relationships - honest! I was reading various threads recently which mentioned incels and had been told by someone it meant what I said in the original post.

So it's a Stupid thread - sorry!

[TheApeOfDeath]

Incel or ‘involuntarily celebate’ was coined by a woman online some years ago to describe her loneliness within the Queer community.

However, the word and it’s meaning has been well and truly co-opted by a bunch of hideous fuck pigs who endorse state-sanctioned rape, et al. It was most famously used in the manifesto of that guy who murdered women because he was still a virgin and couldn’t handle the fact that all these sluts were giving it away to ‘Chads’ when he (rich, did well in school, drove a nice car, Dad was a director in LA) couldn’t have sex for love nor money.
I forget his name I’m pleased to say.
So I’m not surprised people are saying Incel is a creepy word. It has some very dark connotations that can’t be ignored.
Checkout reddit and 4chan if you don’t believe me.

[TheSilentLamb]

Incel or ‘involuntarily celebate’ was coined by a woman online some years ago to describe her loneliness within the Queer community.

I thought so! I had heard the term many years ago before it had been hijacked.

[Namechangeforthiscancershit]

I think OP does believe us!

I find it all morbidly fascinating. It’s a really interesting phenomenon I think.

[ReanimatedSGB]

Actually, Hestia, the term was invented by a woman. Her intention was to provide a peer support site for people who were lonely and struggled to find partners - it's now been hijacked by woman-hating scumbags, unfortunately.

[Namechangeforthiscancershit]

I feel so bad for her. She described it as like creating some science stuff that went on to be used in weapons, or some similar analogy.

[ReanimatedSGB]

And there are still people who struggle to find romantic/sexual partners, are miserable about this, but are not horrible entitled dangerous creeps.

I have also heard of the term being used by another unlovely group of people: obnoxious sexist married men who are unhappy that their wives have lost interest in having sex with them. Though, again, there are also people in long-term 'monogamous' relationships with partners who have unilaterally decided there will be no more sexual activity, but that the partner who still has an active libido is not allowed to seek sex elsewhere and, in very abusive cases, not allowed to end the relationship or there will be serious punishment.

[Butchyrestingface]

Have you been reading the other current thread, @TheSilentLamb? If so, it's only two posters who appear to have been on the gin. The rest are are all reasonably normal.

If not, forget I said anything.

[TheSilentLamb]

Wow - thanks for the article! I kind of feel a bit like she does now . I genuinely thought it was her definition was correct and couldn't understand when people were using it in such a negative context on here - saying that all 'incels' were awful people, which wasn't the case by the old use of the term.