“Incel”

[Scribblegirl]

Just come across this horrific phrase in the context of the Canadian attacks. I’ve always thought I was relatively aware but this completely passed me by.

Does anyone have any background resources they can share on the phrase/“movement”? Not sure I can face some of the murkier sites my first searches found.

Heres a relevant article by Julie Bindel
www.independent.co.uk/voices/kim-wall-peter-madsen-snuff-porn-submarine-inventor-submarine-swedish-journalist-a8322076.html

Sara Pascoe is writing a book about porn at the moment- I’m looking forward to reading it. I liked Animal a lot- despite a rather desperate attempt to be populist that grated a bit.

nd if you are over the age of 30 at the moment- unless you're a bit of an internet nerd

Known about them for a very long time, well over the age of 30 and I doubt I'm an internet nerd. I am a feminist and have been actively feminist since the age of 14 - these men are a threat and indicative of a pervasive misogyny. Yes, they are the extreme end but i suspect some of the attitudes (entitlement to sex) are held far more widely than most would imagine and have been since I was young and going clubbing etc. I have long seen porn as a problem, I've never been 'ok' with it, it has ALWAYS had wider implications than just those who use it or who participate in it. It is inevitable that attitudes to porn affect attitudes to women en masse and as porn has become more mainstream and far more violent we end up with 'incels' and widespread low and high level sexual harassment; rapes in crowds in Cairo, Grooming in Rotherham etc. the rise of revenge porn, sexual harrassment in work environments, websites dedicated to upskirt photos or photographs of womens bodies taken without permission and so on and so forth. Now, unsurprisingly we have unprecedented numbers of young women transitioning to male gender - I wonder why? Surely they are happy to be women in such a sexualised, pornified, culture? Who wouldn't want to be the beneficiary of all this violence? Incels are almost a logical conclusion at the extreme end. My concern is that actually barring actions like these a lot of the incel point of view isn't nearly as extreme as we would hope.

I have long said (and been ridiculed) that porn affects culture adversely and that it isn't ok; it isn't ok for the women involved in making it, it isn't ok for the women in relationships who are affected by it and it isn't ok for all the women in society at large who are affected by the attitudes it breeds. I think we can see it isn't ok as even pornographers have said they are having to create ever more violent and darker versions of porn to keep up the increased demand for more brutal, savage images. How in the world of fuck can that ever be ok?

It is an old book but everyone should read Dworkin's 'Pornography: Men Possessing Women' - its not an easy read but well worth it. Free on the net too.

You can access it free here

Jesus. I'm keeping my kids off the Internet wherever possible. I managed to get to 10 or so before I ever went online. At this stage I think the risks are starting to outweigh the benefits. If they want to find stuff out they can have the encyclopaedia britannica.

18 or so!

interesting discussion about Incel and the power of the internet currently on R4 Women's Hour.

I can't even click on the links on this thread, I know enough already and can't cope with being even more depressed and terrified by reality. And I've done over 20 years working in child protection so hardly faint hearted.

I can't click on them either. I want to take my boy and move to..there is nowhere is there?
I was thinking about this all night, how in a few short years, we have gone from a situation where you had to go to a dodgy part of town and walk into a sex shop to buy porn vids ( and in the UK hardcore porn was illegal so I don't think it was easy to get) to a situation where 11 year olds can click twice and see hardcore God knows what. It's SUCH A huge change.
Even 10 years ago you couldn't get porn on a phone. 25 years ago you couldn't get it on a pc.
Now, somehow, men watching porn has become just..a given. They all do it. Those women who come on here and say how their hubby would never disrespect women like that? Everytime he's alone-yeah, he watches porn on his phone.
And I'm getting less and less ok with it.
I was looking at DP's Internet history last night while he was asleep to see what he looks at. ( No I don't feel guilty, he stays in my house where my kid lives).
I found that he looks when he's at his own place, and that it's only "Lesbian" porn, which is pretty much what he told me, but I still hate it.
Thing is, if I said "you know what, I don't want you to do that anymore" most people would think I was being utterly controlling and awful. Like it's his human right to view Susie fingers Clare! Why is it ok for me to use my imagination when I wank but men need to see strange women contort themselves, and yes, have painful things done to them?? ( He didn't watch anything violent thank Christ-I would have to sack him)
Why IS violent porn the most popular?
I feel really depressed about the whole thing. I wish I was a Lesbian. A real one, not like Susie and Clare.

link to Woman's Hour discussion:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qlvb/broadcasts/2018/04

"This week Alek Minassian was arrested and accused of killing 10 people in Toronto when he drove his van into them. Just before the attack, he posted praise on social media for the 'incel rebellion' - an online community of men united by their inability to convince women to have sex with them. The incel rebellion is just one of a number of men's rights groups that have been accused of vulgar sexism, under the umbrella collective of the 'manosphere'. We hear from Mike Wendling an assistant editor at BBC Trending, and Ruby Lott-Lavigna an online journalist who's spent time undercover exploring the manosphere and the people behind it."

-Really important points discussed in this segment.

Yes very good enjoy WH though the conclusion seemed to be "shit this is scary" and no one knows what to do about it.

There are three sorts of blokes on reddit: Incels (Never got laid) MGTOW (Got laid once) and Redpill (Got married and she ran away screaming)
I weep for my chromosome.
Source: aGCguy(Reddit)

Incel/PUA/porn/TRA are all just different forms of misogyny. The common thread is that they think women owe them, and any women who disagree deserve to be harmed.

Nailed it, Indominus.

Janice Turner in the Times today writing about incels.
Some of the comments !!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/self-hating-incel-men-are-the-new-jihadis-5rz37h9s9?shareToken=b2703d3c1044481d1c4eb8231451d036

Comment from Adam Miller is THE one:

It's a rare article that is as hateful as this. Reading it produced a queasy feeling; nausea turned into sadness and anger.

In my anger, I wish that her sons will grow to resent her and that she will age in isolation from men. I hate what she's written, with a passion, and I wonder whether this might be why she wrote it.

This is no longer 'victims of misogyny seeking justice', it has become a dark, contemptuous, subtle destruction.

It's a low point for men and women both, and a low point for this newspaper.

I thought that was a very balanced and fair article. Thank you for sharing.

Wow. At the comment from Adam Miller. Article very compassionate towards these incels or zeta men.

His comment that he hopes she grows older in isolation from men, delivered like a curse, is so telling.
On the one hand, it seems to acknowledge that older women are often in this same boat. Ie Single without power. But there is no acknowledgement that this is something women experience too. Ie not getting what you want.

There is only hatred. He wants janice to age in isolation from men. Older women arent really women to incels. And the same for ugly women fat women disabled women. The incels only view young slim attractive females as Women.

Adam is a bit oversensitive, isn't he?

If "men" is to be taken to mean "men like Adam" then growing old away from them is what I hope for for all women.

Oh Adam. You’re not actually a very nice man at all are you?

I stand by my assertion that no man who proclaims that they're ‘a Nice Guy™️‘ is actually a nice guy.

It seems to be code for ‘I think I’m great. Women won’t fuck me, but I’m not going to do anything as wet as self reflection to see if my personality is the reason why. It must be those frigid slutty feminazis who hate men and are raging whores throwing themselves at alpha males. I’ll just keep on as I am.’

If what you've done so far hasn't worked, keep doing the same thing but with added whinging.

@IfNot

"Why IS violent porn the most popular?
I feel really depressed about the whole thing."

To coin a phrase, me too.

I am sure there are reasons for this aside from men 's hatred of women.

Maybe if, as a man, you feel entitled to female attention and that woman on the bus won't even look at you, let alone talk to you (and why the fuck should she,, you go home and watch some other poor woman be violently raped and you think whatever sick thoughts you think and feel superior.

Not until society acknowledged that male violence and violently porn potentially affects us all, damages us all, will society collectively seek to do something.

I think we need academic research on male violence and incels, evidence of how porn in general, and especially violent porn, affects males and therefore society.

Who will do this research? Who will pay for this research? Will politicians listen?

The IT industry needs to get savy. To track it and stop it.

The law needs to get savy, to ban porn which violates and dehumanizes anyone.

Law needs to catch up to the crime that porn is and creates.

Things that give me hope are that China banned foot binding in a single generation because it realized it was wrong (they recognized it reflected badly on the nation, I think).

And as a society in the UK drink driving we t from being no biggie and socially acceptable by many to being widely recognise legitimately as a crime, in my generation.

IMHO. I think it would be helpful to link to any blogs talking about solutions. What we can do.

Does school teach about porn and its harm?

When we stop thinking about personal freedom to watch others be abused and start looking at the common good we might get somewhere.

However, it will mean making 'moral judgements' and I think those will not be popular in our current 'do what makes you feel good culture'. IMHO.

I thought the article was very good

I certainly didnt feel offended on behalf of my beautiful boys

She wasnt NICE seems to be the general comment about the article

Wheres thebewilderness ive forgotten the misogyny rules....isnt it number 10 ??something about making men look bad

Bugger, im going to have to try and find it now

Again, thank you all for an interesting thread.

To carry on with the "do what makes you feel good" culture touched on by Greyhound and others - the more I learn about feminism and toxic masculinity the more I am convinced that capitalism is at the root of a lot of it.

Being very honest here, I have tried for a baby three times. The anger and indignation and injustice I felt when someone else got pregnant was real. Of course I knew there was no "right" for me to have a child but I said on several occasions (in jest and to friends going through the same thing) that I wish you could just order on Amazon. Obviously I know that there would be enormous moral arguments against this and if push came to shove I would fight to prevent such a service becoming available, but that "I am a good person so I deserve what I want when I want it and it's desperately unfair to make me wait" gut feeling was there, and it was ugly. Because of this, I can see how men would feel the same about a girlfriend, and that the culture of commoditising women combined with access to porn could reinforce those feelings and manifest as jealousy and anger.

To be clear, I'm not at all saying those dealing with the heartbreak of infertility are anything like these foul men; the way they other and dehumanise women is abhorrent. I just speak from my own, personal experience - feeling very enraged and hard done by that I couldn't just have what I wanted, and more to the point, when I wanted it. I'm really sorry if what I wrote was insensitive.