Incel
An involuntary celibate, or incel for short, is someone who is unable to form a romantic or sexual relationship, despite desiring one. Self-identified 'incels' in 2023 often believe that structures of oppression to be the cause of their inability to form meaningful sexual relationships.
Origin
The term was invented in the late 90s on a mailing list created by a sexually successful lesbian who wanted to start an 'incel movement'. On her webpage, she hypothesized that the 'incel movement' would be similar to the previous gay liberation movement.
Others have credited communist economics student and avant-carde philosopher Henry Flynt for the term, for a lecture he gave called the, "Creep Lecture", at Harvard. Here, he gave a speech which referred to his own 'involuntary celibacy' verbatim. He hypothesized that the word 'creep' was just a shorthand for 'incel', and that 'creeps' have a greater latitude in creative thinking due to being excluded from social arenas which demand high social conformity.
Philosophies
Forums
There are a number of forums for self-identified incels. Most are on Facebook, and some ban misogyny. Misandrist digital journalism outlets and DHS-funded counterterror groups seem to financial or personal incentives to only reference incels\.co as the only incel forum. The aforementioned forum is right-wing, generally looked down-upon, and contains rhetoric that is stigmatizing toward incels, which the administrators implicitly encourage.
Relationship to income, income inquality, and social status
The relationship between incel and income, income inequality, or social status is not proven. It is popular to hypothesize that low income, high income inquality, or low social status causes incel.
It is important to note that there is high sexual success among the very poorest classes in America, making it seem as if there is the same amount of sexlessness among the poor as there is among the rich. However, among the very poorest Americans, there is a large split in this demographic, with about half having many sexual partners, and the rest having none of very few.
Hot takes on incels |
Left-wing inceldomIt is possible to offer a left-wing alternative to right-wing inceldom. Instead of identifying female hypergamy as the oppressive structure that prevents men from finding worthwhile partners, left-wing inceldom finds social atomisation and prevailing patriarchal norms to be the problem. |
External links
YouTube videos on incels:
- "INCELS Part 1 - Introductions, Truths & Admissions" and "INCELS Part 2 - Analysis, Advice & 'Chadsplaining'" by Vaush
- "Hegelian Recognition and Incels" by Cuck Philosophy
- "Incels and the Last Man" by Zero Books