The Warped World of Incel Extremists

[RDKirk]

The incel phenom reminds me somewhat of ISIS males. But no one seems to want to understand them..... and I understand why, even as I think understanding is always beneficial.

Too many differences to compare. It is true that in some situations Islamic polygamy leaves some young men without bride prospects, even that is not at all the same psychology at work within incels. Moreover, most of the ISIS fighters were young men who lost homes and families as children and became child warriors...again, a very different situation from incels.

Incels don't have such genuine impediments that literally remove women from their physical surroundings.

I see pretty homely guys walking with women on their arms every day.

 

[RDKirk]

Bella

"How do you explain successful mating for unattractive men or those lacking wealth? Many find companions. That suggests there's other factors at work being overlooked for external reasons"

These are exceptions, because men are rich and famous or they are still school loves. Hypergamy is a fact, I can see it on the streets in my country, but there are exceptions. You will find exceptions in every aspect.

Being born an unattractive man is a real suffering, you will never even feel like this.

Yes, hypergamy is a real thing. But that also points a man in the direction he should be looking to find a woman for whom he can represent "leveling up."

 

[RDKirk]

Well increasingly, they aren't finding partners. What is the divorce rate these days?

From the article I last linked....

A recent study of Tinder found that “the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men”.

Think about that...it's a situation that stinks for men now, but 80% of women can't end up with 20% of men. I think within 10 years or so there's going to be a significant number of women who will die alone.

Sure, some are going to "settle" and some men are going to be lonely enough to accept that....but I don't see those marriages lasting and divorce is increasingly unaffordable for the modern man. A lot of guys will just take advantage of that situation.

The problem with that Tinder study is that it's confined to Tinder statistics. Yes, in the online world of "flick left/flick right," those are the "flick" statistics.

People who want to break out of those statistics have to break out of the online world of "flick left/flick right."

 

[Ana the Ist]

The problem with that Tinder study is that it's confined to Tinder statistics. Yes, in the online world of "flick left/flick right," those are the "flick" statistics.

People who want to break out of those statistics have to break out of the online world of "flick left/flick right."

I think that's a big part of the problem.

 

[ThisIsMe123]

I think that's a big part of the problem.

Right, men aren't willing to approach women in real life, and most women aren't wanting to be approached in real life either as they are buried in their phones...on Tinder. lol

 

[Ana the Ist]

Right, men aren't willing to approach women in real life, and most women aren't wanting to be approached in real life either as they are buried in their phones...on Tinder. lol

Yeah I mean....40% of people use the internet for dating? I don't remember if that was the exact number...but it's a lot of people. It's clearly beneficial for women's dating options....and for a minority of men.

It's not going to be a pretty picture in the future.

 

[RDKirk]

Yeah I mean....40% of people use the internet for dating? I don't remember if that was the exact number...but it's a lot of people. It's clearly beneficial for women's dating options....and for a minority of men.

It's not going to be a pretty picture in the future.

It's not beneficial to women's options either...it just makes most of the women using online services unrealistically hopeful.

I think Facebook's "People you may know" feature might even be a better matchmaking tool than Tinder.

 

[bèlla]

Yes, hypergamy is a real thing. But that also points a man in the direction he should be looking to find a woman for whom he can represent "leveling up."

I think the majority on the sidelines have impediments that diminish their appeal. They're not in possession of the counterbalance, willing to obtain it, or consciously aware of the benefit of acquiring it.

~bella

 

[durangodawood]

Too many differences to compare. It is true that in some situations Islamic polygamy leaves some young men without bride prospects, even that is not at all the same psychology at work within incels. Moreover, most of the ISIS fighters were young men who lost homes and families as children and became child warriors...again, a very different situation from incels.

Incels don't have such genuine impediments that literally remove women from their physical surroundings.

I see pretty homely guys walking with women on their arms every day.

I'm probably overrating the number of young men drawn into the movement from intact families and from immigrant families in the west.

 

[bèlla]

Right, men aren't willing to approach women in real life, and most women aren't wanting to be approached in real life either as they are buried in their phones...on Tinder. lol

Most of the men on dating sites and apps are people who go unnoticed. There's a sliver who'd get the same attention and response on the street they receive on the Internet. That's why they act so thirsty.

I'm on a site with no pics, no insight on what I'm seeking from the opposite sex, and a statement that says I'm not looking. That position is filled.

I look at the messages I receive, attempts to garner attention through my comments, and disconnect in reading the opposite sex and shake my head. They're clueless.

I would never consider someone who humiliates themselves or compromises their dignity to be noticed. Or one who throws himself at my feet or pursues me relentlessly because I'm the one, they're passionate, etc. I'm not fooled by faux peacocking either.

They would never be on my radar. If that's what it takes to get someone you need to go back to the drawing board. I like my men erect, secure in their manhood, and comfortable in their own skin. Respect is a two-way street. You don't disrespect yourself trying to win a man or woman.

People are conflating proximity—being near the opposite sex—with arrival—having what it takes to win them. That's why they're overreaching and getting turned down. If you can't approach them on the street with good results, why would you assume the Internet increases your luck when it rewards superficiality?

As @RDKirk stated, you have to concentrate on prospects who see your reality as ideal, leveling up, and so on.

Christians need to recognize there's no such thing as sympathy dating. Just because you love Jesus doesn't mean they want to be your husband or wife. They're not going to set aside your humanity because you know the bible. That's who they're living with. They must see your potential as a husband or wife to agree. Focus on the ones who do.

 

[Sketcher]

Every woman can't make that statement. She's not coming to the table with qualities that will attract better suitors. She has to adjust her expectations as does he. But he doesn't want her. He wants someone above his pay grade. The likelihood of her saying yes is next to none.

Maybe he does, but when the genders are flipped the issue is more pronounced. There's an oft-quoted OKCupid study which found that female users found 80% of the male users on it as below-average in attractiveness, but males users gave a much more balanced appraisal of female users. This has been used to confirm an 80/20 rule in dating, which says that about 80% of the women are chiefly interested in the top 20% of most attractive guys. Whether this is true or accurate isn't important when discussing these men you are criticizing if you want to understand them - when you get rejected all the time, you're not in a position to challenge it and it seems that facts and statistics validate you as a person for once, so you have every reason to believe that. If you've been rejected, left, or cheated on, this is a ready explanation which seems to have merit. While there are guys who do act like absolute toads that this happens to, that doesn't account for the guys who did things right and this still happened to them, and this can explain both circumstances. This belief is not limited to incels; incels are just the least functional haters at the very bottom who may believe this.

I've had men approach me who were utterly deluded. There's no way they imagined I'd say yes. Christian and secular. All they saw is what I could do for them. They were fantasizing.

And after a while, some will give up. Some of those may become incels, some may not.

But as Bella said, they share some of the same rhetoric, particularly about the nature of women.

Because that would be their experience or at least observation of women. Where there's smoke, there's going to be some fire. The real problem isn't so much in the appraisal of women, but in their reaction toward it. Living with hate in your heart or doing acts of violence is obviously the wrong reaction. Aspiring to be a wannabe player is another wrong reaction. These guys need to be guided by Christian truth. The most Christian response to all of this, if you are absolutely convinced that women will not love you for whatever reason is voluntary celibacy, perhaps to become a monk. Much less destructive than the aforementioned worldly alternatives, right?

 

[Sketcher]

Too many differences to compare. It is true that in some situations Islamic polygamy leaves some young men without bride prospects, even that is not at all the same psychology at work within incels. Moreover, most of the ISIS fighters were young men who lost homes and families as children and became child warriors...again, a very different situation from incels.

Incels don't have such genuine impediments that literally remove women from their physical surroundings.

I see pretty homely guys walking with women on their arms every day.

I'm not going to dispute that was also a thing, but there was an article I can no longer remember the source of that reported what captured ISIS fighters said when they were caught. More than a few of them had to stay inside and not do regular "teenage guy" things that Iraqis had done prior to the 2003 invasion. When they got to come out, there was an Islamist militia waiting to indoctrinate them and hand them rifles, so according to the rules of that group, they went out and made up for lost time.

 

[rturner76]

Just jumping in on page 10 but I have a feeling that computers have a great deal to do with these people's warped view of reality.

First there is an overabundance of internet porn in many of these incels lives. Much of it focused on domination and humiliation. It reinforces that notion of the man being "in charge" with the woman only belonging in the kitchen and the bedroom.

When they get in the real world and see not only is their expectation are hopeless, they have spent so much time online Facebooking, blogging, chatting Instagramming that they haven't learned how to relate to another human being face to face. Low self-esteem but intelligent, online and through fantasy, they can construct a completely different world than ours to inhabit.

It is more comfortable in the fantasy world than the real world and when they realize they can't bend this world to be like their fantasy, they lose it at a certain point. The fantasy becomes something they CAN accomplish.....revenge. Revenge on women, good-looking guys, and the world for accepting them and not him.

I'm sure books have been written about this phenomenon.

 

[RDKirk]

More than a few of them had to stay inside and not do regular "teenage guy" things that Iraqis had done prior to the 2003 invasion. When they got to come out, there was an Islamist militia waiting to indoctrinate them and hand them rifles, so according to the rules of that group, they went out and made up for lost time.

I don't understand what you said there.

 

[RDKirk]

Just jumping in on page 10 but I have a feeling that computers have a great deal to do with these people's warped view of reality.

First there is an overabundance of internet porn in many of these incels lives. Much of it focused on domination and humiliation. It reinforces that notion of the man being "in charge" with the woman only belonging in the kitchen and the bedroom.

When they get in the real world and see not only is their expectation are hopeless, they have spent so much time online Facebooking, blogging, chatting Instagramming that they haven't learned how to relate to another human being face to face. Low self-esteem but intelligent, online and through fantasy, they can construct a completely different world than ours to inhabit.

It is more comfortable in the fantasy world than the real world and when they realize they can't bend this world to be like their fantasy, they lose it at a certain point. The fantasy becomes something they CAN accomplish.....revenge. Revenge on women, good-looking guys, and the world for accepting them and not him.

I'm sure books have been written about this phenomenon.

But women do the same thing.

There is a concept that still exists among men: "Dude, you're out of her league." This is a concept that is enforced among men. That is to say, men school other men on the limits of their real opportunities with women: "Ken gets Barbie, Fred gets Ethyl. You're not a 'Ken,' dude, you're a 'Fred.' Barbie is out of your league." Incels don't have foundational intra-gender relationships to know what kind of women they should expect.

This had also existed among women, but I'm not going to claim to know precisely how that intra-gender mechanism worked. I do realize, though, that back in the days of debutante balls and "coming out" parties, it was the women of the community who chose which young women and which young men would attend which parties...and that was how that worked at the time.

But it appears young women of today are all taught that Ethyl deserves Ken as much as Barbie does, and should not "settle" for Fred.

There is a YouTuber, a black woman, who used to be a professional matchmaker. She says that she gave up that job because the women who employed her had completely unrealistic expectations. They would typically give her a list of a dozen or more "absolute requirements" that had disqualified 90% of all men by the second or third "requirement." And that was from women who had already acknowledged that they needed a matchmaker.

Women must face the fact: If they are going online to find a mate, they have already acknowledged a need to "settle." Women who don't have to settle don't need to go online. They already have the right guys waiting at the door.

 

[Sketcher]

I'm not going to dispute that was also a thing, but there was an article I can no longer remember the source of that reported what captured ISIS fighters said when they were caught. More than a few of them had to stay inside and not do regular "teenage guy" things that Iraqis had done prior to the 2003 invasion. When they got to come out, there was an Islamist militia waiting to indoctrinate them and hand them rifles, so according to the rules of that group, they went out and made up for lost time.

I don't understand what you said there.

What I'm talking about is the backgrounds of the low-level fighters that they shared after they were captured and interrogated.
Let's set the clock back to 2013 when ISIS was all over the news. If you're a 20-year old ISIS recruit from Iraq, you were 10 when the US toppled Sadaam and removed the security that the Baathists provided.
What were those 10 years like for you? How did they affect your development as a person?
A good number of them had to stay inside when they were younger because there was fighting going on. Your house might have been raided. You or your family likely knew people that died.
You didn't get to go out and do what Iraqi teenagers got to do between 1992 and 2002, part of you was stunted.
Eventually, you got old enough to fight, and there were militias around for you to join. If you're Sunni, you knew about Sunni-majority cities getting shelled by the majority Shiite government, and ISIS rising as a response to them. They become an increasingly attractive group to join as they win.
So young guys with stunted social development joined an Islamist militia which offered training, or at least an opportunity to sacrifice their lives in a holy war. They were offered an opportunity to become men, or at least go straight to Heaven, such a deal.
Those that were totally unskilled would be the suicide bombers. Those who had more potential were given other jobs, some of them were the "infantry."
If you take a socially stunted "infantry" guy, give him the religious conviction that he has the right to capture or purchase a bride for himself if he helps capture a village, and his unit captures the village, what do you think he's going to do? If most of the guys in his unit are also like that, what do you think they're all going to do?

 

[MehGuy]

Maybe he does, but when the genders are flipped the issue is more pronounced. There's an oft-quoted OKCupid study which found that female users found 80% of the male users on it as below-average in attractiveness, but males users gave a much more balanced appraisal of female users. This has been used to confirm an 80/20 rule in dating, which says that about 80% of the women are chiefly interested in the top 20% of most attractive guys. Whether this is true or accurate isn't important when discussing these men you are criticizing if you want to understand them - when you get rejected all the time, you're not in a position to challenge it and it seems that facts and statistics validate you as a person for once, so you have every reason to believe that. If you've been rejected, left, or cheated on, this is a ready explanation which seems to have merit. While there are guys who do act like absolute toads that this happens to, that doesn't account for the guys who did things right and this still happened to them, and this can explain both circumstances. This belief is not limited to incels; incels are just the least functional haters at the very bottom who may believe this.

Unfortunately this is just the reality of human biology. Women are vastly more reproductively valuable compared to men. Men fight for women's attention and this gives women the ability to be more choosy on average. The flip side is that women's attractiveness plummets as they age. In the grand scheme of things.. nature is not a misandrist (as some incels claim) nor is it misogynistic. You're just dealing with two genders who on average experience vastly different dating dynamics.

I do believe part of this anger comes from society's attempt at socially engineering men and women to be interchangeable. When a kid grows up being told that everyone is the same and end up believing it only to realize later that reality is quite different.. this can potentially manifest into some psychological distress.

From what I have observed in these communities there does seem to be a lot of minorities in the movement. There is a noticeable amount of racial tension. With some members even lamenting and laughing at the idea of white "incels". I have also noticed some racial politics between black men and black women going on. While I do not have the stats, I sometimes do wonder if black women on average care more about their partner's physical looks compared to women of many other races. I do like some black media, and I've noticed a lot more openness from black artists to complain about height and being too short for women. When I go on Twitter and whatnot to look up heightism, a lot of women making fun of short men are black. I actually do have some special sympathy for short black men. From what I've seen a lot of them are treated like garbage and emasculated more compared to other races.

I have noticed a degree of masochism in the incel community. For some people it can actually feel really good to be rejected. There are fetishes where men get off on being humiliated and emasculated. Recently I listened to a podcast of feminist women.. making fun of male body issues. They actually wanted to hurt men's feelings.. but I couldn't help but laugh at the idea that this is probably just fetish material for a lot of men. I do suspect that the incel population is more feminine brained compared to the overall male population. Many incels probably grew up being told that men and women are the same and that is if appropriate for them to cry and be just as emotional as women. A feel good thought that is disingenuous in reality. This might have been somewhat true when they were young and still had childlike cues to elicit sympathy. The problem is men grow older and lose these traits at a much more significant degree than women. There comes a time when a man needs to learn that he doesn't look cute anymore but instead is viewed as a potential rapist. Especially if he's ugly.. lol. A few men can get a way with it.. but the vast majority cannot.

 

[bèlla]

Maybe he does, but when the genders are flipped the issue is more pronounced.

Lessons in human relationships begin at home and early connections. You learn two in grammar school that prepare you for future interactions.

Not everyone likes you
Not everyone wants to be your friend

Sometimes the lessons are painful. But it's true nonetheless. You can't make anyone like you who doesn't feel the same. Most children are advised to direct their attention to others who reciprocate.

Simple teaching. Lifelong truth.

There's an oft-quoted OKCupid study which found that female users found 80% of the male users on it as below-average in attractiveness, but males users gave a much more balanced appraisal of female users.

It doesn't matter what that study said. Men and women who learned the relating lesson in their youth are focused on the demographic that reciprocates. Not the one that doesn't. People who didn't and those who rely on relationships to compensate for insecurity and fragile egos opt for the other path.

They're trying to prove themselves to the world through their choice. That's why they're swimming upstream.

Whether this is true or accurate isn't important when discussing these men you are criticizing if you want to understand them - when you get rejected all the time, you're not in a position to challenge it and it seems that facts and statistics validate you as a person for once, so you have every reason to believe that.

This isn't a question of deservedness. It's how the opposite sex perceives you. You may believe your circumstances elicit a certain type. But if the fish ain't biting then it isn't true. The market has spoken.

You have four choices:

Adjust your expectations
Sit it out
Wait
Focus on betterment

Whatever you do don't complain. You've decided.

If you've been rejected, left, or cheated on, this is a ready explanation which seems to have merit.

If you choose the wrong person you'll have bad experiences. That's another lesson learned in childhood. Better selections yield better results.

While there are guys who do act like absolute toads that this happens to, that doesn't account for the guys who did things right and this still happened to them, and this can explain both circumstances. This belief is not limited to incels; incels are just the least functional haters at the very bottom who may believe this.

Doing things right doesn't equal appealing. Just because you have a good job doesn't mean I should overlook your crappy attitude, emotional instability, or inability to communicate. That's equally important. More so in most cases.

And after a while, some will give up. Some of those may become incels, some may not.

Stop citing statistics and look in the mirror. That's what they're denying. The majority have clear reasons for doing so. Things they don't want to put up with. And everybody's putting up with something. It's the flaw they can't swallow. That's it in the nutshell.

Because that would be their experience or at least observation of women. Where there's smoke, there's going to be some fire. The real problem isn't so much in the appraisal of women, but in their reaction toward it.

They need to work on themselves. No one wants an angry, disenfranchised, pessimistic partner. That isn't a happy ending.

This is how I address the women I take under my wing and why they're settled. I don't deal in stats, pity pots, or coddle them. We tackle the impediments to companionship. And that always starts at home.

You can't change the world's behavior or perceptions. But you can change yourself. When you're ready to face the music and get to work the process is faster. I've helped women from different backgrounds, appearances, and abilities. Including disabled ones.

They have someone because they stopped making excuses.

 

[That Guy 11200]

So many pages of replies looking for some ultimate philosophy or coherent worldview behind the 'incel' thing, and here it really is, in the above post. Women have choices, and if they don't choose you, that's just how it goes. Improve yourself and try again with someone else. Or don't and wallow in your being a big loser because some awful woman somewhere had the temerity to say no to you because you are a creepy weirdo, not the supreme gentleman that your twisted ego has convinced you that you are.

And I don't buy this whole "Oooo, life is soooo hard for ugly men!" thing. Lyle Lovett was married to Julia Roberts, remember? And Lyle Lovett looks like the love child of David Lynch and Ryan Stiles. This is hardly very unusual, since women will marry below them in the looks department for all kinds of mystifying reasons, like money, security, social status, or (shockingly, if you believe this incel garbage) the fact that they might just actually love the guy.

As an ex once put it to me during one of our more conciliatory moments (I had been lamenting stress and age-induced hair thinning), "I don't think that's really a problem in itself, for most women; I not only dated but married a short guy with a large and growing bald spot, and we were together for years!" (It's true; except for her infrequent outbreaks of dating me , they had been together for about 15 years total before they finally called it quits for good.)

I think it's the same thing for all of this stuff that makes these incel dorks so mad: you get the idea that because you're X, Y, and Z, and women have consistently expressed preferences for A, B, and C instead, that you're forever alone and women are all heartless ice queens unwilling or biologically unable to look past all that and see the 'real' you (and of course then choose you, because you're just so undeniably awesome). That narrative is incredibly stupid and self-defeating because it basically enslaves you to considering first and foremost your least desirable qualities, rather than amplifying your good qualities and working on what can be worked on (and I'm aware the number of things in this category is not likely to be as many as you'd hope, but it's also not going to be zero). So it becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that you get rejected because 'women only want Chads' or whatever, when in reality you were probably projecting a very off-putting sullenness that 99.999% of women (and men, and children, and puppies, etc.) wouldn't want in their orbit for anything, because it's so caustic and awful.

And so you too have a choice: feel ugly and as a result be ugly, or feel like you can at least try and maybe something good may come of it, if not romantically at least in your own conception of yourself. And that's much better, because romantic partners may come and go, but you'll always have you, so not being filled with self-hatred (that is a fertile breeding ground for hating others, and hence remaining alone) is pretty important.

If a person has struggled with low self-esteem and depression most of their life, then there may not be any choice.

 

[Sparagmos]

So why the difficulty with connecting Hefner with incels? I mean, with all of that knowledge I would think you'd make a cogent argument. Unless it really was all about social manipulation, which is basically the basis of my arguments about a culture bent toward consuming its own.

Incels learn about women from porn. Hefner is a key figure in shaping that world. His derogatory ideas about women and incels’ ideas are similar.