The Problem With Incel Ideology

The move towards authoritative government regimes in the early 21^st century is a godsend to sub-communities that were once in danger of being marginalized. These sub-communities are dangerous, for sure, as they exist solely for the purpose of expressing power over other people, though ‘people’ may be stretching definitions a bit since these sub-communities undoubtedly view non-members as less than human. Such is the case with the Incel community, a white-male dominated group hellbent on securing unfettered access to any woman of their choosing.

To say Incels (involuntary celibates) are misogynist is an understatement. They have very particular notions of how the relationship between men and women should be based on the supposed fact that men are superior to women. This is allegedly evidenced by the domination of men over women throughout history. But their ideology is a little more nuanced than that: They despise the idea of ‘whores,’ women who have had too many sex partners/experience or are sex-workers. Young and preferably virgin women must make themselves attractive so as to make themselves worthy of an Incel’s attention. After all, women are shallow, cruel creatures who only give their attention to the most attractive men and therefore must be punished for this behavior. Incels blame the changes in Western culture that have granted women rights and allowed them to pick their own sexual partners, inevitably leading to women picking more attractive men.

Incels are typically described – by themselves – as physically unattractive and this is their major obstacle to securing sex. Since this isn’t their own fault however, they should still be allowed to secure sex by any other means. It is their belief that it is their biological right to have sex at will with the chosen object of their desire, despite any examination of the idea that their biology is what made them ‘unattractive’ in the first place. Incel ideology quickly falls apart upon even the most cursory of examinations.

For instance, Incels are adverse to the idea of being chivalrous (‘white-knighting’) which they see as a façade in order to obtain a woman’s attention. Of course, holding a door for someone – anyone – is just the polite thing to do. Instead, Incels are more likely to go out of their way to dress better or make money, presumably because these are the only things women are attracted to which again makes women unworthy of being so much as equal to a man. As I said, subhuman. By logical extension of the Incel ideology, a man who makes less money than a woman is unworthy of being with her. But the fact that the woman is even allowed to make more money when for centuries this has basically been forbidden is what roils Incels. They can’t stand the idea of a level playing field and people getting by on their merits. To be fair, much lip service is given to the value of meritocracies but very few people dare practice it. This is due largely in part to the laziness of human beings who’d much rather be given what they want than work for it. Laughably, the alt-right despises such ideas from the alt-left, like free college tuition, despite benefiting from their own ‘hand-outs’ for so long, such as unfettered access to women. Again, in being hypocrites, Incels are in good company at least.

The overriding principle of Incel ideology is that women are inferior to men, citing pretty much all of history in which men have physically dominated women. This raises the question that if by some quirk of evolutionary fate women became stronger than men, men should then be subjugated? If we continue this line of reasoning, no one should be upset if we’re hiking in the woods and we get mauled by a bear because the bear is physically superior? But this rarely happens. Mankind has subjugated the animal kingdom through brains, not brawn, so it seems difficult to justify the general physical prowess of men over women as the reason women should be classified as less than human. This, especially given more and more evidence that many women are just as or even more physically capable than men in many instances. (I would rather enjoy watching the average Incel compete against any female American Ninja Warrior.) If women have come to their current state of being able to choose their own sexual partners through cunning, then Incels should be doubly kicking themselves for having never seen it coming. Leave it to blinded-by-frustration-and-rage Incels to not understand that the current state of women in the West is due to, among other things, the long-reach of a precious few Renaissance philosophers who happened to mostly be white. I’m sure white Incels would label them as race traitors.

Fortunately, few Incels have the strength of their convictions to go about casually raping women who refuse them or, as they’ve done in recent years, go on shooting sprees. Unfortunately, they also don’t have the strength to get out from behind their gaming computers and phones to learn skills that might make them a valuable member of society and therefore more attractive. To reiterate, though, Incels are lazy and simply want what they want handed to them on a silver platter, having done nothing to earn their station – which is a large part of what has placed them in their predicament. If an Incel isn’t intelligent enough to see this, what makes them think they’re worthy of being allowed to have their genes spread?

Solutions have been proposed to combat Incel ideology and these solutions mostly revolve around ways to avoid alienating members of society so that they are not prone to radicalization. My proposals are more practical; there’s masturbation for one. No, it’s not quite the same but at least no one gets hurt and one can fantasize however brutally to their heart’s content. They can take masturbation further by purchasing one of the many high-end sex dolls that are currently one the market, such as RealDoll ™. Yes, the dolls are only that, but one can do with them as they please and they will stay young and beautiful forever. Or, Incels can swallow the pill they would like to women to take and stop refusing to do the things that make themselves more physically attractive. If that demand is placed on women, there is no objective reason it should not be placed on a man. (Incels see this demand they place on women as the right of the ‘superior’ sex but as I’ve easily shown, this idea is nonsense.)

As I’ve alluded to earlier this is less about sex than it is about power, where the powerless simple want power placed in their hands by virtue of some arbitrary fact/accident of birth. (Again, despite that accident of birth contributing to their undesired state.) While I certainly understand the burden of feeling powerless, the solution is not to rush headlong in the exact opposite direction. The solution, in this case, is not to utilize violence as a means to an end because this means that violence is okay as a means to any end. Surely an Incel would be opposed to being sodomized by a physically superior gay man. But that is perfectly okay given the particulars of their ideology. When one is forced to think about the consequences of their ideology, it is only then the flaws of that ideology became apparent.

The Case Against Women's Rights?

With recent elections in the U.S. once again pulling out the rug from underneath abortion rights, with the low priority given to teaching young women math and science, with Hollywood actresses and musicians only as in-demand as their youth or hacked iPhones permit, with Gamergate exposing details of a female gamer’s private life, with pornography a multibillion dollar industry in the U.S. alone, with catcalls par-for-the-course on city streets, with monotheism’s long-standing tradition that treats woman across the globe like cattle, it seems as though being a woman is as tough as ever. Certainly one might be inclined to think that given the right to vote in democratic countries such as the U.S. that women would vote for candidates who espouse women’s rights, but many women – indoctrinated into a male worldview – can’t seem to stand the idea of too much freedom. The consequence is that they get dominated for it.

I’ve long tried to understand mankind’s continued attempts to subjugate or otherwise dominate women. For every person who thinks we are an evolving species – where ‘evolving’ means the species is growing smarter, wiser or more fair – there is every evidence to the contrary, especially if you are a woman. Could it be just a matter of perspective as news agencies are now more often reporting that which has always been taking place? Or, is the world really getting worse for women despite all the progress made in the arena of women’s rights since the turn of the century? Sure, everyone is running for the cure these days, but as everyone knows, if testicular cancer were as common as breast cancer, testicular cancer would have been cured by now. Why is being a woman such a curse? [Yes, I do say ‘curse’ being a male, though I do think I am more of an impartial observer than the next guy. There is also the fact that at least half of all the women I have ever known have said at some point in their lives that they would rather be a man.]

I’ve thought about this at less than great length, I admit. Nonetheless, I imagine what I am about to say is going to yank some chains. (Sorry, poor choice of words there.) Why does the worldwide male population (generally) treat the worldwide female population so poorly? I could think of only one single answer – it’s good for the species. Before I continue with that thought, let me say that I personally have little at stake in the human species; I have no children and have no plans to have children primarily due to my misanthropic tendencies. So when I say the subjugation or dominance of women is good for the species, that doesn’t mean I like it or that I think this is the way it should be. However, there is a reality to be faced here. From an evolutionary standpoint, I’m inclined to wonder if it makes sense for one gender to be under the thumb of the other gender. In this case, among Homo sapiens, it happens to be the case that men dominate women. Why? Reproductive advantage.

Men have taken an ‘is’ and turned it into an ‘ought.’ What I mean is that due to the physical differences between men and women (men have more muscle mass and invest less energy in creating a child) that men have become the dominate gender, and gladly so. Because men can overpower women, both figuratively and literally, they do. Because men can spread their genes farther and faster than women, they do. And what is the effect? More children, which is exactly what our genes want, to be passed on into the next generation. Remember, our genes don’t care how. It is biologically advantageous (in terms of reproduction) that men subjugate women. What would happen if the situation were reversed? Existing societies may clue us in.

If you think about societies in which woman are on more equal ground as men in terms of rights, women tend to have children later in life and fewer of them, or even not at all. The most industrial countries, which as a consequence tend to be more socially liberal, generally have lower birth rates than those that are not industrialized. (At the same time, many Third World nations have higher infant mortality rates but their higher birth rates see more children survive per mother than not.) Women understandably express an interest in freedom as the biological cost of having a child is high, especially in a world where it seems there is less and less involvement from fathers in raising children. The continued and focused degradation of women across the globe is a stand against women’s rights, as women’s rights infringe upon the rights supposed by males who believe they should have easy access to women for sex, that is, for reproductive purposes. But there is a mistake made by the global community of men; it’s their unconscious belief that their genes are any more important than a woman’s.

This belief is usually reinforced by religion but it is there even without it. I could be wrong, but I lean towards thinking men hold their belief due to the fact that they are more physically imposing than women; the differences between the physiques of the two genders is hard to ignore. That and recent experiments aside that are ready to combine the DNA of three people, the fact remains that traditionally, it takes a set of genes from both a male and female to make a child. Granted, if there isn’t anything biologically special about either parent, the offspring stands to be unremarkable as well. This is where the belief held by men that women should be subjugated falls apart.

If biology has taught us anything, it’s that life is the rule on Earth, not the exception. As this rule relates to human beings, realize that all the people on Earth – now almost 9 billion – are the offspring of whomever the first Homo sapiens were. Interestingly, for all the shaming of sex that societies around the world have engaged in over the past few thousand years, there’s still a whole lotta sex going around which is producing a whole lotta unremarkable people. (This is why I find it annoying when parents talk about the miracle of birth; I don’t think that which is common constitutes a miracle.) If you’ll notice, the only people who bat an eyelash when a passenger jet crashes, for instance, are the family and friends of the victims. This is mainly because the rest of us recognize that there really are enough people on the planet. Granted, recognizing this fact, whether consciously or unconsciously, doesn’t turn off our sex drive and for a good reason: If some catastrophe were to befall the entirety of the human race, there would no doubt be survivors and those survivors would need to procreate (or be driven to by our genes). It’s right about now you’re wondering what this has to do with the subjugation of women…

In order to survive catastrophes, it is not merely the drive to reproduce that can save the human population; the ingenuity of people is required as well. While men like to think of themselves as the leaders of the world, think for a moment if women had never been allowed to contribute to our understanding of the world:

·                  American molecular biologist Carol M. Greider. On Christmas Day 1984, she discovered an enzyme -- telomerase -- that maintains and builds up telomeres.

·                  Mary-Claire King, a geneticist at the University of Washington, discovered the gene that predisposes women to breast cancer.

·                  Marie Curie wins the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for her theory of radioactivity and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for finding the elements.

·                  Curie’s daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating man-made radioactive particles.

·                  Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, a French virologist, performed much of the fundamental work that led the discovery of HIV. Barre-Sinoussi’s work won her the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

·                  Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring drew from government reports and scientific studies to describe the destruction that pesticides were wreaking on our environment and our health. Carson was a trained marine biologist and zoologist.

·                  Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees was groundbreaking and offered a glimpse into our own evolutionary roots.

·                  Circa 370 CE, Hypatia of Alexandria was an early scientist who wrote on the physical world and astronomy. Naturally, she was murdered by a gang of Christians.

·                  For more important women of science, click here.

This really is the tip of the iceberg and we haven’t even begun to mention the contribution of women to the various arts. Men, in their collective assholishness, might argue that men would have made these discoveries anyway. Of course, women could just as easily argue that given the chance, women would have all of the discoveries that men have.

The need for women’s rights is important insofar as people of various perspectives are needed to solve problems and/or contribute to problem solving. Women should not be regulated to mere breeding stock because they have more to contribute to societies than their genes. Women’s rights, their equality under the law, is for the sake of humanity’s long-term survival and for the flourishing of culture (if we’re to care about that as well). We can already see where the shortsightedness of a male-ruled world has led us and where male-dominated societies such as the one ISIS has in mind would lead us. How much longer will we accept teetering on the edge just so men can have their orgasms?