I know. I broke the “person-first” rule. I was supposed to say, “men who get rejected,” not “rejects”—a term that unfairly defines these men by how others treat them. Nor am I to call involuntarily celibate men “incels” for the same reason. Do I use these terms to shock. In part, but there is more to the story. “Incel” is how these men refer to themselves. So the person-first rule collides head-on with the self-designation rule: call people what they call themselves. Furthermore, in that the terms “incels” and “rejects” capture the essence of th lives of these men, those terms won out.
Incels wear the term, surprisingly, as a badge of honor. They identify as victims handed a life sentence with no chance of parole simply for being who they are—or, more precisely, who they aren’t: men capable of attracting women. These circumstances fill them with a toxic mix of self-pity, righteous indignation, and a virulent hatred of women.
Incels see themselves as victims of a rigged system: they lack what it takes to be the sort of top-tier man women are after. They cite the “80/20 rule”: eighty percent of women, they claim, will only consider the top twenty percent of men—those whose physique, fame, fortune, or winning traits make them desirable in ways incels are not and will never be.
Unfairly condemned to live out their lives as loveless virgins, these men seek out other men who are suffering the same horrific fate. The manosphere is where they congregate—a virtual lodge where incels compare notes, commiserate, and vent. It’s also where you hear cringe-worthy, misogynistic rhetoric—women referred to as “shallow,” “daft,” “conniving,” “devious,” “vapid,” “money-chasing,” “whores,” and “bitches.”
Internet forums are known for their echo-chamber effect. These men’s personal experiences get replayed, validated, and amplified on incel-serving sites. The feedback is clear: you are not alone; others have suffered comparably at the hands of women—a collective conclusion that goes unquestioned. Generalization does the rest, rendering women identical and interchangeable. Objectifying women—robbing them of their humanity—is one way that incels fight back. Their own contribution to the problem goes unexamined. Women, simply put, are to blame.
The previous post—about the movie Obsession—featured Bear, a man who can’t bring himself to ask a woman out. This time we’re talking about a different dating difficulty: men who ask and get shut down time and again. Despite the difference, Bear and the incels share certain features: a deranged belief that women exist to serve men and the conviction that the problem lies entirely with women—so the man never holds himself accountable, never feels he needs to change.
Rarely, if ever, does it occur to incels, for example, that something might be amiss in how they approach women. These socially awkward men lack people-reading skills—that sort that other men rely on when making a move. Incels are far more likely than other men to identify as autistic—as many as three in four consider themselves “on the spectrum.” So it’s entirely possible that the women they approach may find them a tad creepy.
The Mind of the Incel
What do we know about the psychology of self-identified incels? For starters, over 70% report having been bullied as children, raising the question of whether their behavior set them apart, making them sitting ducks. I’m not victim-blaming, I am suggesting the possibility that those who get bullied are targeted by dint of being different and their disinclination to fight back—which explains but doesn’t excuse such bullying practices.
Incels are also exquisitely sensitive to rejection. When rebuffed, they don’t bounce back; they take it to heart—the sting lingers—contaminating their subsequent dealings with women.
Nor are they particularly successful, personally or professionally. One in four neither works nor attends school; many still live with their parents. Their self-esteem is in the toilet—they describe themselves as “subhuman” or “outcasts.” One lamented: “Society hates us.”
Finally, there’s the matter of social isolation. Only one in three incels reports having a single friend. Internet forums provide a sense of community and belonging—a substitute for the ordinary social world most of us take for granted. Identifying as an incel is one’s ticket in. But once inside, some feel the need to talk the talk—to trash women—to secure their position.
A few go a step further by shitposting”—the practice of posting provocative, offensive, or exaggerated content to get a rise rather than spark discussion. His status rises, but the extremity of his speech threatens to mischaracterize the whole community, which then gets seen as a powder keg ready to blow. Only about ten percent of incels active on these sites engage in overtly misogynistic hostility, and most disavow the killings committed in their name.
The Radicalized Incel
Still, the manosphere’s incendiary rhetoric can radicalize. It has incited a small handful of men to commit violence in the name of the “cause”—to right a wrong done to incels far and wide. The term “incel,” ironically enough, was coined in the 1990s by a Canadian woman who created an online support group to help people of all genders who were struggling with loneliness, social awkwardness, and shyness in dating. Hardly anyone had heard that term before May 2014, when twenty-two-year-old Elliot Rodger went on a now-infamous killing spree in Isla Vista, California, that left six dead and fourteen injured before Rodger ended his own life.
Rodger left behind a 137-page manifesto, “My Twisted World,” which offers a glimpse into the minds of such men: “All of my suffering on this world has been at the hands of humanity, particularly women . . . All I ever wanted was to fit in and live a happy life . . .but I was cast out and rejected, forced to endure an existence of loneliness and insignificance, all because the females of the human species were incapable of seeing the value in me . . . If I cannot have it, I will do everything I can to DESTROY IT.”
Notably, Rodger never referred to himself as an “incel”—rather, he called himself a “lonely virgin.” The label incel was bestowed posthumously by the community that claimed him. Rodger went on to be lionized—some venerate him as “Saint Elliot.” Since his infamous attack, there have been roughly eight to fifteen copycat plots and attacks committed by self-described incels, some committed explicitly in Saint Elliot’s name. Watchdog organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, branded the incel community a transnational terror network, which is its own kind of defamation—damning an entire subpopulation of lonely men for the actions of a few who’d gone off the rail.
My Own Experience
Decades ago, before anyone had heard of incels, I had occasion to treat such a man. I didn’t quite know how to categorize his “type”; only after learning about incels did I retrospectively understand his suffering. I’ll speak of him sketchily to protect his identity.
Bobby was in his mid-thirties. Bright, the son of successful professionals, he had nonetheless failed to launch. He couldn’t hold a job and relied financially on his parents. He was nearly friendless, and while he ached to be involved with a woman, he had a way of making himself thoroughly unappealing—unkempt, overweight, easily mistaken for a homeless man. He harbored an intense hatred of the women who’d refused him—women who, as he saw it, wouldn’t look past his surface to appreciate his inner worth.
Two years into treatment, Bobby made contact online with a woman who seemed genuinely interested. They’d never met or exchanged photos, but she was warm and responsive. Online, his intelligence and wit shined through. Suddenly Bobby was transformed—more hopeful than I’d ever seen him. For a few weeks it looked as if he might finally get what he’d always wished for. I was cheering him on from the sidelines. Then, without warning, she ghosted him. Bobby was devastated.
His rage at her curdled instantly into a self-hatred with no bottom. Within days he told me he couldn’t go on. Despite everything I tried, he tragically took his own life, leaving a note—posted publicly to the site where they’d met—naming her as responsible for his death.
Never once, in all the time we met, did Bobby consider the effect his social awkwardness might have on others. He wanted and expected to be accepted for who he was, which meant he didn’t need to attend to the matter of how he impacted others. He was plainly on the spectrum, which most likely contributed heavily to his romantic failures. But his firm belief—that women were to blame—seemed, as far as he was concerned, the more bearable point of view.
To think of oneself as an incel means never having to be held accountable: the fault lies with others. It frames the issue so completely that it forecloses any remedy. A man convinced his romantic life is entirely out of his hands has found the one sure way to keep it there.
This post is the second in a trilogy on dating. Bear, the man in Obsession, couldn’t work up the courage to ask a woman out. Incels try and fail at that very task. The next post is all about pickup artists—men who manipulate women with a bag of tricks that proves a surefire way to entice women to become ensnared in the pickup artists carefully crafted web. Stay tuned.