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 Key to Being A Real Man

The hashtag #metoo trended across social media this past week in an attempt to make men understand how disgusting and rampant their sexual abuse of women is. This sparked an online conversation between a friend of mine and a male associate that went like this:

“Do you know how to hold these?”

Every female reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about. Someone who shall remain nameless IM’d me yesterday, asking what is “me too”. I explained to him that women were posting that to their FB pages if they had been sexually harassed or assaulted. He was skeptical that many women had “something like that” happen to them.

I asked: When you are walking around town by yourself, how do you hold your keys?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: Not a trick question. When you are walking around by yourself, how do you hold your keys?
Him: They are usually in my pocket.
Me: The next five women you see, ask them that question. They will know exactly what I’m talking about.

[I clarified that he needed to ask the next five women * he actually knows *, not just random women. Didn’t want him to creep anyone out. ]

Me: After they show you how to properly hold your keys, ask if they have ever been sexually harassed or assaulted.
Him: I’m NOT asking anyone that!
Me: Why not?
Him: Seems awfully personal.
Me: How do you expect to learn anything if you are not willing to have an uncomfortable conversation or two? Explain that you are trying to educate yourself on what women face in their lives. Explain that you don’t need details, you are just trying to understand the scope of how many women you know personally who have gone through something like that. It will be an uncomfortable conversation. And, yes, you’re right - maybe save that question only for women you REALLY know well. But if you don’t even believe that many women on FB have experienced these things, then you, sadly, are part of the problem. As women, we have all at some point in our lives experienced not being believed or listened to. That is specifically why some women don’t/won’t discuss it/come forward for YEARS. Some won’t ever talk about it. Every woman I have EVER met has experienced sexual harassment at the least. A staggering number of women I have ever met have experienced worse. It doesn’t matter what a woman looks like, her education, her economic status, her… anything. I have yet to meet a single woman who hasn’t experienced a moment of concern for her safety at some point in her life.
Him: I can’t even imagine.
Me: You’ve never had to.
Him: Well, men get harassed too.
Me [Oh for fuck’s sake. heeeere we go ]: And this is where we end the conversation because… No shit. No one is saying that. While it’s equally wrong, and should also be stopped, it happens in far less frequency than it happens to women. Hell, you don’t even need to know how to properly hold your keys.

Still Me: I’ve given you all the education I can stomach for now. Go educate yourself and get back to me. Go talk to your mom, your sister, your wife. Get back to me.

Men have enjoyed – and I use that word literally – a position of power over women for well over two thousand years now. While this statement doesn’t apply to every society on the face of the planet that ever was or exists now, it applies to enough societies to demonstrate the Patriarchy is real, that so many men have benefited from it and continue to do so (particularly religious zealots) that anyone who denies it is utterly clueless, like the man in the conversation above. The Patriarchy, as a societal concept, has even swept into U.S. government offices a score of men hellbent on controlling women, from denying them key elements of healthcare coverage especially as it relates to reproduction to ad hominin attacks against women like Senator Kamala Harris as being ‘hysterical’ when questioning a Trump cabinet appointee (men are never spoken of like this, not even Al Franken who clearly hates almost every Republicans) to ways of talking about women in a demeaning manner which has no bearing whatsoever on whether a man should be U.S. president or not. The whole point of the #metoo hashtag was to bring attention to this fact, that virtually every woman a man knows has experienced at least some sexual harassment, and that these same men – in being oblivious to it – are complicit to it. And this made me think; have I ever sexually harassed a women or treated a women as less than human because they were a woman?

The answer is, I don’t think so, at least not intentionally. I may have catcalled a woman in my youth, I’m not sure. If I did, I was wrong. Have I ever objectified a woman? Yes, and hopefully she was okay being objectified as I assume most Playboy centerfolds hopefully have. What I’ve certainly never done is badger a woman to date me or kowtow to my sexual advances. (Frankly, whenever a woman said ‘no’ from the start, I never pursued it further; I guess I’m either missing the ‘asshole’ gene or understand that a woman who isn’t interested at the moment isn’t likely to be interested later and I don’t have any right to assert my personal agenda on them – which I guess is what an asshole does.) I’ve certainly never approved of any legislation telling women what they can do with their bodies, and definitely not after what I may have done to their body, if you catch my drift. Jesus, can you imagine men being denied access to erectile dysfunction medicine? How fast do you think Congress would act? Faster than they would on gun control after 59 people were murdered and hundreds were injured in a mass shooting, that’s for sure.

Men, again like the one in the conversation above, have had the luxury of ignoring the problem because they are typically not the victim. Most men are so blind to the problem they don’t even think any form of sexual harassment has happened to any women they know. Well, men, imagine another man viewing and treating your mother, wife, sister or daughter as being less than human simply because they lack male genitalia, because that’s exactly what’s happening. Human beings love to exert power over each other and the Patriarchy makes it so easy for men. Why shouldn’t men be oblivious to the plight of women when they benefit so greatly from it? Because that’s what monsters do. Wait, what? Don’t like being characterized as something less than human, guys? Interesting.

To be clear, the power men have over women is not based on respect, it is based on fear. Power based on fear takes no mental effort. It takes no improvement of the self. It is weak power. This kind of power is not long-lasting; the oppressed will almost certainly seek a way out of their predicament if they are able. But to be respected – that lasts a long time. A gun in the face only lasts as long as the gun – or Bible or Koran or whatever – is around.

Certainly, there are women who do not mind being oppressed (maybe not raped, but repressed, sure). These are people who share a very human trait to not think too hard, to want to get by without having to do too much in life, who are content to let the whims of fate control them presumably because being the master of your own destiny takes effort. Far be it from me to insist any slave rise up and rebel, but it takes a certain simplemindedness not to see how accepting the role laid out for you by other people reinforces the system that enslaved them in the first place. Oh well, let the men deal with it; everything seems fine after all. Yes, a woman – if that’s their thing – is free to pursue this avenue of thinking. But they are not free to foist it on others and that is what their complicity in the Patriarchy is doing.

If it isn’t clear yet, it goes like this: Women do not exist for the sexual gratification of men*; they are not toys. They do not exist solely to bear men children; they are not property. They are conscious living beings who have rich experiences just like men. To say anything to the contrary begs for the man to justify his righteousness and SORRY, a book of mythical spouting isn’t going to cut it. ‘Cause if that’s the excuse, I’m sure I can find some sacred scripture that allows me to violate another man with a plunger and be totally justified.

[*Scores of men love to use women for this. I gather, though, that they do not like it when a women uses them for pleasure – men generally hate the idea of a woman having pleasure on their own terms – and then moves along. I’ve been there but there was the fact that the woman and I had an understanding before our ‘involvement.’ That aside, it’s also fun to imagine here what a world in which men forced themselves on each other and then claimed the victim was asking for it would look like. Okay, maybe not, but that’s the world women live in.]

It’s time for men to take responsibility for the power they wield. It is less then human to treat women as less than human. There’s no more being oblivious to what women deal with on a daily basis, not in the Information Age. Men need to start treating sexism as terrorism; if you see something, say something. You can’t take a backseat to this anymore. Own what is happening, what HAS been happening – that’s what a real man does. If you can’t handle the responsibility, well, what are you, a girl?

Me? I personally do not care about anyone’s gender or gender identity as it relates to daily life. I don’t care about anyone’s skin color. When it comes to people, all I care about are two things: That they are not an asshole and if a job is place in front of them, can they get the job done. I hesitate to call myself a Feminist not because I’m for the equal treatment of women but because I’m a human being with no special status in the cosmos* – in other words, mostly like everyone else – and this makes me understand that everyone deserves a fair chance. We, as humans, all on equal footing, should be lifting each other up, not preying on each other. Preying on each other – not some imaginary breakdown in a subjective, divine moral code – is to blame for the world such as it is. So enough already. Enough.

[* Don’t even think it, guys. Your god does not favor you. It’s a lie you tell yourselves to justify your actions.]

I Watched It So You Don't Have To: 50 Shades of Grey

Okay, I lied. I haven’t seen the movie. But do I really need to in order to review it? If you’ve read the book, you know that this movie will be the one single movie in all of cinematic history to be better than its source material. That said, I think it a timely matter to revisit my original assessment of the book…

I once heard someone say of this book, "Either you love it or hate it." But the fact is that such a statement requires clarification. You either love it or hate it based upon two things: If you've never read anything BDSM-related before, you might find it entertaining or perhaps provocative. However, if you've ever read any great work of literature, you may want to find the nearest fireplace. The sex scenes – which is the real reason anyone would pick this book up – aren’t particularly tantalizing, much less erotic, if you're at all familiar with Jackie Collins. The real crime in this book comes not from adults consenting to BDSM or even the female wish-fulfillment of changing a man, but the manner in which the book is written, stylistically speaking. Though we may be reading 50 Shades of Grey for the sex, it is very difficult not to laugh or even want to cry at the author's sophomoric writing skills. The word count for the word 'murmur' alone is astronomical: 5 times on one page even! Furthermore, besides protagonist Anastasia's character, there isn't a single remotely interesting, much less believable, character. Christian Grey's character, for example, is so unbelievable – a handsome billionaire with a huge penis yet psychologically damaged enough that he requires changing – that no suspension of disbelief is possible. It is also clear that the author did no research whatsoever beyond the sex, and I’m not even talking about the finer points of bondage. Perfectly clear Seattle skylines in May? LOL! There is no plot either unless you consider scenes of sex-breaking up-make up sex-breaking up-make up sex etc. a plot. But wait, there’s a second book! And it’s worse than the first. In the second book 50 Shades Darker you'd think by this point in a trilogy in which the first book was slammed for its incompetent writing style and witless dialogue, EL James would care to rectify the many criticisms she received of her freshman effort. But, I guess when you're laughing all the way to the bank and given that most Americans do not read above a sixth-grade level, why bother? EL James somehow manages to take her ineptitude to the next level by not only dispensing with the BDSM for most of the sex scenes this go-round, but by fumbling an attempt at a plot, and ultimately switching between first and second person points of view with a level of incompetence that hasn't been seen since the Titanic was built. All the while people are still murmuring, muttering, putting his hand in his hair, wowing, and pressing their lips into a hard line. And EL James has the nerve to say her editor rocks in the Acknowledgements? What editor?? If you don't wish to read the books but still want to know what happens, here's the entire series in a nutshell: Boy meets girl. They fall in lust. They quickly get back together after being apart for an eternity, that is, five days. They're happy. Information is revealed. They fight, make-up, and have sex. Repeat ad nauseum. Near the end of the second book, switch to another character's point of view for no reason what-so-ever, or, laziness. After finishing the second book, consider that your life will flash before your eyes before you die – do you really want to read the final book? Well, I suppose there are those instances when one need to kill time in the restroom.

[On a side, side-note, I find it interesting that while today’s women want to be accepted for who they are and what they look like, none of the women who are fans of this trilogy admit to reveling in the fantasy that is Christian Grey. Admit it, ladies, if you met someone like Christian Grey and he wasn’t a billionaire or at least very handsome, you would never allow yourselves to be coerced into BDSM. Just sayin’.]