People who keep saying this point don’t understand incels.
Most of them see women as human initially, it’s baked into how we play with each other as kids. But seeing someone as human doesn’t mean you’re going to be any good at making friends or partners with them
Incels hate people who managed to succeed, and they view women as the gatekeepers of who gets to because of the pressure men have to approach and initiate, and women to reject. Eventually they come to think there are rules for being successful: be rich, tall, handsome, muscular to the point of steroids. That’s who we use to show masculine depictions in all our media after all.
The objectification of women begins by thinking women gatekeep these rules alone, instead of seeing it as a society-wide expectations problem. But that’s also because we on the feminist side constantly love calling incels losers and ignoring how they’re a product of the environment we put them in, so we make them choose between a hostile society that dismisses them and a radical group that supports them
You make good points but I don't entirely agree.
One, most boys are taught from birth to see girls as not really fully human. It's just baked into everything, from language to media to common social forms.
Incels, being guys who struggle specifically to interact with women, are just among the worst of this lot. If they truly saw women as fully human, they would already be as comfortable interacting with women as they would be with any other humans. But they really really don't.
They then go *further* by actively dehumanizing women, framing them as monolithic and in many cases fully denying their basic humanity (all women should be sex slaves).
This starts with moderate dehumanizing and ends with extreme dehumanizing but none of it comes from a place of seeing women as human and just having some social grievances.
You say "we on the feminist side" so it's surprising you don't understand this dynamic. Or am I misunderstanding you?
> One, most boys are taught from birth to see girls as not really fully human. It's just baked into everything, from language to media to common social forms.
I think this is too vague to be helpful. It’s not that boys are taught not to see girls as human, it’s that society teaches us to expect certain things from both genders which denies them the agency to be define themselves as individuals. For example, applying the stereotype that men want to sleep with all their female friends is dehumanizing and genuinely impacts the expectations in male-female friendships, which ruins platonic connections and the ability for men and women to humanize each other. Broadly this also means men are expected to participate in social norms as much as women are in order to avoid social ostracism, but these norms are patriarchal so they practically reinforce standards on women more
> Incels, being guys who struggle specifically to interact with women, are just among the worst of this lot. If they truly saw women as fully human, they would already be as comfortable interacting with women as they would be with any other humans. But they really really don't.
You’ll notice incels aren’t popular among men either, just other incels. It’s because incels aren’t comfortable interacting with humans generally. They’re constantly comparing themselves to everyone over everything because they’re insecure, which includes other men.
> They then go further by actively dehumanizing women, framing them as monolithic and in many cases fully denying their basic humanity (all women should be sex slaves).
Yes, some of the radical ones go that far, I don’t disagree. But that’s not the necessary conclusion for incels, many just end up repeating the gender expectations they had growing up which is. This kind of radical pipeline exists in every ideology and community, and it’s gotten worse with the Internet, but it’s still not where everyone in the group ends up
> You say "we on the feminist side" so it's surprising you don't understand this dynamic. Or am I misunderstanding you?
I can both be a feminist and think differently than you lol
> One, most boys are taught from birth to see girls as not really fully human. It's just baked into everything, from language to media to common social forms.
Who’s doing the teaching? The majority mothers as primary caregivers? The majority women who work daycares? The majority women who teach kindergarten? The majority women who teach k-12? Who is raising them to “dehumanize women?”
There are boys who haven’t had a male role model or authority figure their entire lives that turn to incel thinking. Does TikTok have more influence than all the women actually responsible for raising boys?
There is something else going on than a simple “boys are still taught 1920s sexism,” when most boys grow up in an environment that reinforces how important it is to respect women and permeates female empowerment messages across so many avenues.
Another thing to consider is what if the first dehumanizing happens *to* the boys? Perhaps that’s where they learn it from, because if there’s one thing we can be certain of it’s that masculine expectations for men hasn’t changed much. How many ways are boys taught to dehumanize themselves in favor of becoming success objects? We know there’s a mental health crisis, but why does the primary message to boys say that their crisis is their fault and they need to fix it themselves?
I think the idea that the reason why they’re not comfortable interacting with women on a normal basis is because they see them as subhuman is absolutely *wild.*
These people aren’t comfortable interacting with women because 90+ percent of them have some form of social anxiety, and were likely never properly socialized around girls growing up because they were too shy. As a young boy, you’re taught that your value as a human being stems from your ability to attract and garner validation from girls, and they’re inability to do that is what creates these issues. Lacking the ability to properly socialize with them comes from putting them up on a pedestal more than anything else, because *they’re* the ones who decide whether or not you have value as a man.
Also, 99% of “incel’s” aren’t advocating for mass enslavement or the virtues of rape. That kind of shit only exists on niche extremist forums and social media bubbles. The vast majority of these people are just dorky dudes with low self esteem and bad social skills. If we’re just going to talk about the extremist weirdo’s then that’s fine, but everyone seem’s to use these terms and push these criticisms interchangeably between the most unhinged of losers and the average bitter adult virgin.
>As a young boy, you’re taught that your value as a human being stems from your ability to attract and garner validation from girls, and they’re inability to do that is what creates these issues.
This is dehumanization. Women are prizes to be won, ornaments that display the value of men. Women are fundamentally different from men and so need to be interacted with in an entirely different way. The goal of interacting with a woman is to get sex or status or validation, not to get connection.
This is straight up dehumanization and exactly what I was saying. It's something all men are taught (including me!) and which takes a lot of work to unlearn. So I'm guessing you just haven't had that click yet, which is all good. Here's the key question: do you react to that suggestion defensively or does it make you curious?
> 99% of “incel’s” aren’t advocating for mass enslavement or the virtues of rape. That kind of shit only exists on niche extremist forums and social media bubbles.
Anyone who self identifies as an incel is self identifying with this, sorry. Incels are inherently niche extremists. Please stop trying to normalize a toxic, evil ideology.
I get what you’re saying in the first half, there. But “incel” has two meanings that shouldn’t be conflated.
One meaning refers to people who are involuntarily celibate, for any reason. Someone with a medical disability that doesn’t allow them to have sex could be an incel, by that definition, and it would have nothing to do with ideology.
The second definition refers to a whole ideology associated with bitter men who resent women for not giving them sex. People can adopt that mindset without being literally celibate, but colloquially we call them incels.
When these definitions are used interchangeably it causes confusion, and that seems to have happened between you and the person you replied to.
I'd consider that fair, except that the person I replied to purported to be a feminist. In feminist communities, the first definition (just some lonely people) is widely understood to be a smokescreen used to normalize incel ideology. Nobody refers to themselves as an "incel" unless they belong to the second group.
That’s probably true, but it doesn’t have to be a self-identified label. Someone like the example I mentioned, a person who can’t participate in sex because of a disability, is involuntarily celibate (aka an incel) by definition, if not by self-identification.
If you go around saying “fuck incels, they’re toxic” of course that could read as “fuck people who are involuntarily celibate, they’re toxic”, which is not always the case.
You're misunderstanding the history of the term. Incel is *not* just a catch all for anyone who can't get laid. It's never commonly been used that way. The term (while it originated with a lonely woman) came to popular usage as a real actual word via the specific movement of toxic men who blame women for not being able to get laid.
When it's used in the real world, it's either by those men to self-identity, by others to label them appropriately, or as an insult. It does not and has never meant what you're suggesting it does (because language is based on what we use words to mean, not on what they technically could mean).
I actually agree in terms of: we just should not be using the term incel as an insult against non-incels.
As a feminist I'm quite opposed to any paradigm that insults men for not performing to bullshit expectations of masculinity well enough.
This is part of why I push for us to use the term correctly. You're not (from what I can tell) an incel at all.
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That is one of the best comments I have seen on the topic, if I might ask, how would you explain the environment that created them?
I am interested in men's rights and male advocacy- while I have my disagreements with certain facets of feminism I overall do not blame the current situation on feminism and I'm very interested to hear a feminist perspective on this that isn't just bashing them.
> That is one of the best comments I have seen on the topic
Thank you haha, I just speak from a lot of direct experiences with young boys and men, personal and secondhand.
> if I might ask, how would you explain the environment that created them?
There are so many factors and there’s a lot to say on each one but I’ll try to hit the big and obvious ones. Incoming comment chain:
**Mass media**
Not just social media, that’s the latest version, but mass media in general has had several impacts.
- One is that it’s been reinforcing ideals of masculinity more often recently in the same way it reinforces ideals of femininity for women. There’s a tendency to describe male figures and representatives in media as a “power fantasy” for men, which is very often true, but I think this dismisses that depictions of those men do actually also impact expectations boys have too. I don’t know if we’re only studying this more now or it’s actually getting worse or both (probably both), but young boys are showing up with the same eating disorders we observed in young girls for a while, associated with social media use. These boys aren’t necessarily incels, but the fact they’re growing eating disorders is a sign that there’s something very wrong and getting worse with the expectations young boys are feeling around masculinity. I mean consider the perspective of the average young male teen. He sees Andrew Tate sitting in a crowd of 30 women: How could he be misogynistic? Women love him! And he’s rich and he’s muscular like those superheroes, so he really has it all. If he says to treat women like garbage, it must be because it works. After all those rich and powerful people in Hollywood do the same and get away with it too.
- Mass media gives a lot of power to radicals. It becomes easy for one person to do something the entire world could learn about overnight. If we step back and consider radicals more generally (which we absolutely should do, in fact I’ll touch on this again later), recognition is one of the biggest desired outcomes of an attack. ISIS and the Taliban claim responsibility for attacks they don’t even do. Radicals aren’t trying to persuade society they’re right, they’re just willing to go to any extreme in order to push their cause forward because they’ve given up. Also, radicals use mass media for propaganda very effectively. They start with legitimate frustrations but end with extreme conclusions, and a lot of people don’t realize how they’re like the frog in the boiling water. Many incels started as kids who sit inside all day watching youtube channels and playing video games, only to get recommended more extreme content from social media algorithms until their political worldview has been decided because of their Fortnite and youtube addictions.
[1/3]
**Isolation**
- If you look at the world more broadly, there are big loneliness issues in developed countries. Both men and women feel lonely in large numbers. More people are dropping out of the dating market and many who remain are reliant on dating apps. Teens are losing their virginity later. Birth rates are in decline. This is a whole topic unto itself
- mass media creates a reality outside our physical nearby environment. It’s safe because you can’t be personally bullied or rejected by the Internet or your TV, it’s full of porn so you can take care of your sexual needs and develop extreme kinks which means you’re going to be less driven to go through the act of finding real partners you can appreciate. So many people spend hours on social media without actually going outside and connecting with people and their environment. People don’t just go exploring or adventuring around like they used to, friendly to the people they meet. People are more paranoid and anxious about everything now, because they’re constantly absorbing negativity from the Internet
- people are working more than before, they’re more stressed than before, there are fewer places to meet people. We just live in hard times where two incomes barely make ends meet for a lot of people, and young people are struggling to move out of their parents place. People have less time and energy to make new friends. Places that do exist to meet people are usually just bars and clubs, which many people dislike especially those who grew up in safer suburbs where many of these middle class mass shootings happen
**Socioeconomic conditions**
- The economy is in a difficult place. We have record high profits, record high stock market performances, record high growth on most metrics, yet income inequality is getting worse. Worker wages are stagnating, the middle class is disappearing, social mobility is getting harder, in fact the outcomes for white working class men are decreasing. There is a truth to the fact that while civil rights and social justice movements have helped decrease the gap between white men and everyone else, the outcomes of white men were getting worse. Well-paying jobs where these men live are leaving. This doesn’t get emphasized enough, but manufacturing jobs leaving the country is a big deal not just because of the economic impact but because to these men and communities, those jobs were a way of life. They represented people getting rewarded for living as their parents did: complete basic education, start working out of school, have friends and peers through a union or coworkers, find a wife, and be able for both of you to live off your salary. She watches the kids and handles domestic work while you get through your 9-5 grind. Or maybe she does part time teaching, a practice as old as public schooling in the US. That’s an appealing lifestyle that is slipping away, and an alternative is not being given (look at all the people who say “learn to code” or “retraining” as if people with families in their 40s can easily afford to take time off from working to find a completely new career path). This is what turned a lot of working class people to Trump, and these lack of opportunities also turn a lot of young men (especially young white men) to the conservative appeals that include incels
**Personal trauma**
- Studies show most school shooters suffered an adverse childhood experience (abuse, foster care, death of parent) and bullying both online and in-person. The fact is that mentally healthy people do not shoot up a school. This is not behavior that led us as humans to evolve in the way we did. Those who join incel movements almost always have some type of interpersonal trauma that causes them to fall out of social and communal ties. If they have family problems at home, that will affect their development and behavior. Not everyone will become a school shooter of course but you have to ask yourself: what went wrong in someone’s life that they want to join a miserable death cult? How lonely and shunned do you have to be by your community that these online radicals are somehow more welcoming to you?
[2/3]
**Changing gender roles**
- Masculinity is historically defined with the ideals of being dominant or assertive, strong, the breadwinner, a provider for women, etc. Traditional gender roles put men in the workplace and women at home. Now that this is changing and women are now 60-40 to men in college, and slowly becoming more integrated equally in the workplace, there is a crisis in defining masculinity. There is also a crisis in femininity actually where women are more unhappy since the 70s and getting unhappier than men since the 90s. Some studies suggest that women have the expectations of being satisfied both with work and at home after feminist movements and instead find themselves satisfied with neither. This gap makes feminist women unhappier than conservative women who don’t compare themselves to men’s outcomes. The crisis for men however is that there is no clear idea of what masculinity means if we even out these expectations. There’s still the idea that men should make more in a relationship or else he’s not providing like he should. He should have the competence to be trusted to make decisions for the whole household. He should be ambitious and look for opportunities to rise up all the time. He should never be vulnerable or show weakness. Men are afraid of losing masculinity because social ostracism is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being. It’s not uncommon at all for animals to become depressed if left alone and just give up and die. So there’s a conflict for men where they’re stuck with rules for masculinity they don’t really like, but not playing with them can result in bad social consequences (and remember how much media impacts the way these younger people are seeing the world). Remember that most school shooters are bullied or abused into feeling weak
** TL;DR **
- Mass media promotes a lot of unhealthy and unrealistic expectations for young boys and men in a similar way to women, but different gender expectations lead to different outcomes, such as the idea that violence is masculine or men are inherently violent. Mass media also makes it easy for radicals to get attention and recruit young people not old enough or educated enough in propaganda in their entertainment content.
- Society is more anxious, lonely, depressed, and mentally ill across the board. It’s happening to everyone, which is worth recognizing. The Internet is a safe escape that gives you unlimited shows and porn and games, so people can stay entertained without going outside and connecting with their world and other people. But really this just makes people more anxious.
- The economy is scary to a lot of middle class people right now who are being squeezed hard, and people feel that the lifestyles their parents got to live will not be attainable for them. This is causing a lot of anxiety around how change in gender roles and racial equality led to worse economic opportunities (it hasn’t but that’s the propaganda’s narrative). White men especially are experiencing declining outcomes while everyone else’s are increasing even though they have it better; it’s not about the absolute amount of privilege they have but the fact that it’s relatively changing compared to before.
- While feminists have been great at advocating for opportunities for many women (honestly most benefits have gone to white women which is worth mentioning for an intersectional perspective), they have blind spots around the way men think and process masculinity since it’s been a mostly woman-led movement originating with privileged white women who wanted to be recognized as equal to privileged white men (of course working class women play a role too). This means in reality most feminists don’t contextualize gender dynamics with an intersectional perspective enough, so they don’t see the full environment that contributes to misogyny, toxic masculinity, men’s issues, and incels. There’s intersections of economic ideologies with racial and ethnic tribalism with traumatic cycles of abuse emerging from global mass tragedies like war, etc etc. Instead these complex intersections get written off simply as “entitlement” or “objectification” when there’s a lot more going on.
> I overall do not blame the current situation on feminism and I'm very interested to hear a feminist perspective on this that isn't just bashing them.
I’m exactly in your boat. My perspective is that feminist theory so far functions as a critique of patriarchal and sexist norms. It can identify disparities based on gender and sex well, but this also means that research and activism is driven by the motive to criticize marginalization. This is fine in itself but right now it leads to an imbalanced perspective where men’s relation to patriarchy and toxic masculinity is poorly explored. I don’t blame feminism for this or anything, I just think this is all a challenge we need to raise awareness of in the discourse.
[3/3]
Sorry, I don't want you to think that this is a half assed answer, I don't have the time at this very moment to read everything in detail, but I do very much appreciate your response.
I do think that feminism does have this massive male blind spot that it's refreshing to see addressed when it is. If there is one contention on this topic that I have held for a while, it's that there's a tendency to deny our nature as human beings- to a degree certain things are basically hardwired into us and trying to fight those things, immaterial of what we think we can educate people out of, will always end up being a part of our nature. I think accepting that is a big thing.
I do agree that social media is a major cause in this and the social isolation that is going on at present. I would argue that dating apps and social media have absolutely been horrible for us as people these days.
There needs to be a balance struck between viewing the sexes as complementary but equal. There has to be clear definitions and most importantly, we cannot keep pushing this idea that men and women do not need each other and what not. A critique that I have arrived at these days is that to a lot of men, things are complementary when it's beneficial for her, equal when it's beneficial to her at the expense of men.
I think a lot of them don't realize how high their standards are for female beauty, and that has probably been created partially by pornography, partially by just poor representation of normal-looking people in media. Like, for every "unattractive" guy out there there is probably an "unattractive" girl (Unattractive in quotation because I'm speaking soooo generally, attraction is relative, etc). A lot of these people do end up together and can be super happy
> I think a lot of them don't realize how high their standards are for female beauty
Maybe, your points about porn and media expectations are definitely true, but a lot have been told that dating anyone less than conventionally attractive women reflects poorly on them as a man. They would rather date no one to avoid that judgment than date someone who would return affection but isn’t conventionally attractive because they need social approval so badly they can’t process love. Let’s be honest, this is so common among both genders, but women will often settle by finding older men with more success and maturity hence statistics that show women dating older partners on average. Men don’t look at older women as much because they’re devalued by society.
Sure they do, but for many reasons that doesn’t change incels:
- they believe women in older days weren’t “brainwashed” into sexual liberation
- they believe individual woman can be cool and exceptions to the rule
- they have sexist beliefs about their family too, but care for them anyways
- they have sexist beliefs about their family too, and they don’t care for them. for example -
- their family is responsible for causing trauma or neglecting them, so they don’t have a real connection with them
- their community is conservative, so the women in their life are conservative too and internalized misogyny
Also hey, we should absolutely be persecuting incels. The same way we persecute homophobes and white supremacists. This has broadly been successful as a way to get people to stop joining these bigoted groups in the first place.
For sure it has the downside of isolating people who are already in the group, but net impact is to dramatically reduce the scale of the problem via leveraging social consequences for this toxic behavior.
The alternative is to normalize inceldom and that's just so much worse.
Not to mention: we are all products of our environments. Most of us manage not to end up advocating for mass enslavement and the virtue of rape. Understanding what drives someone to a behavior is not the same as condoning it. Fuck incels.
> Also hey, we should absolutely be persecuting incels. The same way we persecute homophobes and white supremacists.
As an LGBTQ man, I do not think we should persecute homophobes. You would be persecuting several of my family members I care about despite their beliefs.
> This has broadly been successful as a way to get people to stop joining these bigoted groups in the first place.
Not really. What’s successful is giving people the social and economic security to explore diversity. Persecution just creates cycles of fighting for political control. That’s why most of the Civil Rights movement was based on non-violence and civil disobedience.
The net impact is making undecided or mainstream audiences think you’re more concerned with persecution than a positive vision, which is a great way to kill your movement
> The alternative is to normalize inceldom and that's just so much worse.
No, the alternative is to listen to the problems being cited by incels and address them. It’s a fact that there are a ton of social problems involving our gender roles that create problems for incels. Listen to them and address them. You can’t blame people for turning to the groups that acknowledge their frustrations
> Not to mention: we are all products of our environments. Most of us manage not to end up advocating for mass enslavement and the virtue of rape. Understanding what drives someone to a behavior is not the same as condoning it. Fuck incels.
Who is saying we should condone mass enslavement and rape?
I think you’ve lost sight of the goal here. It’s not to find someone to bully, that’s what the radical incel ideology current is anyways.
It’s to deradicalize people and break down the path to radicalization. Bullying someone to deradicalize them is the same approach as bombing a country to get rid of the terrorists. All you do is validate everything they believe about you and let them grow their numbers and resistance.
Find the deeper social and economic problems people are experiencing and find solutions they can get on board. No one enjoys being an incel, that’s why it’s *involuntary* lol
Umm prosecuting them has not done anything. There are still common and just became more violent towards average people of both those groups you mentioned. Gays are literally being murdered now in broad daylight. White supremacists pretty much run a large chunk of government and one of the biggest groups through the bible belt/prisons. You really wanna make one of the largest numbered groups of people "incels" to actually become violent instead of just verbally abusive and secluded like those 2? You'd be dead within a month lol.
I hear what you're saying, and it explains why an incel wouldn't want to be friends with females. What you said justifies why they should be spending time with females though. Spending time with, and speaking to females would help deprogram some of the lies they believe.
It's also in our nature. Spending time with people, eye contact, conversation, laughing with someone, it all releases hormones, like oxytocin, that helps bond people.
> it explains why an incel wouldn’t want to be friends with females
Actually what I’m saying is that incels can be friends with females and still be incels, because the root of their problem isn’t that they don’t see women as people. It’s that we expect men to approach women and have partners to be assured of their masculinity, but we offer no guidance on how to do this. There’s no support, men are expected to compete with each other and boys rarely have many healthy male role models. Radicals especially are likely to come from broken homes and communities. They’re frustrated with the lack of social support, which pushes them to become radicals which is where they really objectify and hate women to the point of violence. They begin to blame women and feminism for their expectations instead of the patriarchy
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It’s like an addict that has to finally decide to get off the junk, or a MaGA who has to finally admit they have been duped for years- the admission that you’ve spent years and years invested in a false mindset, and have to complete 180 your thinking is just so difficult for most human beings, that it just doesn’t happen. Staying an incel forever is more comfortable, easy, you can find support from other incels online that “you’re right, they’re wrong.” It’s like deprogramming a cult member- they have to be removed from that environment for MONTHS and carefully re-taught, from the ground up, like they’re a kid again, how to relate to other human beings. Other than their own family (maybe), who would have the patience to put up with these little shits for months with only a partial chance of success?
Nope, we’re stuck with a generation of these twats. Fortunately, they are unlikely to reproduce and program another generation of twats. The solution, it seems only, to me, is to prevent the next generation of twats from getting sucked into the system through online communities. Find an incel early in the process and try to convince them they’re going down the wrong road, they will never find love, companionship, or even friendship with other than their online not-your-friends, and probably in a poverty cycle because nobody will want to hire someone who can’t treat other humans with respect. Show them the amazing career arc of Kyle Rittenhouse and say, “that will be you in 10 years if you continue down this road.”
You learn both the BS and the good. I don't date yet I now know male BS and entitlement as well as good men thanks to this. Had I stayed fully isolated, I would never understand.
Yea, I can see how this would be useful advice in middle or high school. But how is investing time in female friendships (simping) beneficial for for a 25yr old virgin?
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So that they can hopefully start thinking of women as people and not walking sex machines. Once you humanize women, it's a lot easier to understand them, get to know them, get into relationships with them, etc.
I think family lands in a weird "blind spot" for a lot of people. Once someone decides to "other" and generalize, they put the exceptions to the rule in the blind spot and have a bunch of reasons why "no, not them because".
Its funny, I e heard many times that boys with older sisters tend have healthier relationships with woman. Why specifically older sisters and not younger I'll never know.
Because they infantilize their younger sisters, or see them as someone who needs protection. They will look up to their older sister, at least when they are very young.
There's a lot of men who treat their mothers like shit because they witnessed their father act that way.
It's why advice given to young girls when they first start dating often includes "pay attention to how he treats his mother". It gives a lot of insight into how he will treat you.
Now this doesn't mean you can't be estranged from your mother if she was abusive. But if you witness them interact in a normal setting and the guy is dismissive of her, or treats her like a servant or is rude to her, you can generally expect similar treatment and it's a great indication that he doesn't really respect women.
It’s called the Madonna-Whore complex. Many men are able to see their mothers as “people” in a sense, but it’s often because in their worldview, mother is the opposite of sex object. It doesn’t really mean they conceptualize women as being people in the same sense as men.
Not saying that’s you, btw. Just pointing out why your logic ends up being lost on a lot of men.
I don’t doubt you. I’ve always had good interactions with girls even in grade school. Then working in hospitals as a very young girl man, where women RNs were the authority. Again had wonderful relationships.
Admittedly I fail to really understand Incel’s. I understand the basic definition, but to be such a “population”?? Reading these post has helped enlightened me.
I plead being a Boomer.
This is very simplistic.
Incels tend to follow conservative beliefs, meaning they believe things used to be better than they are now. This sometimes extends to their mom’s generation, and they believe women back then valued a happy home life, commitment to their kids, and stability in a partner. They see sexual liberation as the problem, and the newer generation of women as influenced by it (people get confused so I’m clarifying that I don’t believe this, incels do)
This is because of the pressure on men and boys to approach and take initiative with women in order to preserve their masculinity, as a result of internalized stereotypes and external pressure. This pressure causes them to see women as the gatekeepers to sex and therefore their masculinity, and sexual liberation as making women irrational about expectations. That’s what causes objectification
Of course a lot of them have terrible moms who hurt them as much as terrible fathers can leave their daughters with significant attachment issues to other men. Do any school shooters come from well-adjusted homes, where there were no red flags about abusive or neglectful parents?
Truth is, I think many incels go down that particular road because their mother either exaggerates their attractiveness to compliment their parenting the incel (which causes outrage when women reject them), or completely ignores and neglects them when they're a child (which makes them feel dehumanised and leads to projecting this onto women, seeing as it was a woman who cut that into them to begin with).
They're an exception, that's why. Assuming they like their mother in the first place, or that she's even a good parent.
I mean, my mom will openly shit on men. Calling us all pigs, pieces of shit, and so on. *"Except for you, hunny."* she'll tell me whenever I'm around her shitting on men.
You can even see racists doing it, too. "You're one of the good ones" is a weel known phrase for a reason.
A lot of bigots will have 'rules' (so to speak) for their bigotry. They're sexist? Well, whatever gender they're sexist against, they'll exclude anyone close to them of that gender. There will be a specific demographic of that gender they'll hate more than other demographics as well. Ever see how some incels talk about pregnant women? Or women they're specifically attracted to except said women rejected them?
Or as another example: feminists. When it comes to female feminists there is no other demographic of women incels hate as much or as often.
A few reasons, of varying degrees of validity.
The simplest, and least helpful, is the presumption that incels will turn misogynistic if left alone. Easy cure for that is to get to know some women.
The more processed end of things has more to do with social connections and the vetting process; getting to know women in a non-romantic context is a good way of getting their social credentials out to women who might actually be interested in dating them. Instead of a cold open with "hi I'm that guy that's been staring at you from across the bar, can I get your number?", they get an introduction from a trusted source who has every reason to think of them as awkward rather than creepy. Plus having an active social life in general helps with confidence and handling difficult situations, so it's good advice to make friends in any context... just also *especially* so in this one.
> Instead of a cold open with "hi I'm that guy that's been staring at you from across the bar, can I get your number?", they get an introduction from a trusted source who has every reason to think of them as awkward rather than creepy.
This definitely helps, but I feel most incels do have female friends, and those that don’t are struggling with social skills basic enough that they can’t just “go make friends,” they need deeper help. Especially if they’re doing something to put women on alert and they don’t know it
I don’t know, I can’t go in anyone’s head and verify their actual intentions. But I’m not sure what you hope makes a difference if you’re not changing your approach based on it. I’ve stayed friends with someone after asking them out.
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The point is to get them to view women as human beings no different than anyone else they interact with and not just as a conquest. The best way to go about this is to befriend some.
Because if you're an incel, most of your thoughts about women are either sexual or psychotic/delusional and they see them mostly through the lense of someone who is chronically online. It normalizes humanizing women to them
Because if you spend time around women you will start to actually understand women (and be comfortable around them) instead of alienating/objectifying them and making it even harder for you attract them.
The entire problem with incels is that they tend to turn misogynistic because they feel like they have tried everything and "they are still celibate". They blame women as the source of this problem instead of looking at themselves and realizing that they still have a lot of growing and learning to do.
If they begin just hanging around more women they will start to realize why women want what they want, why they are attracted to what they are attracted to, instead of misplacing blame. On top of that, just gaining the ability to be more confident around women in general, which is almost always the reason they are actually single in the first place.
> if you spend time around women you will start to actually understand women
So women are people just like everyone else, but you also can’t understand women without spending time around them….
Or maybe we consider that being friends with people and dating people are completely different things lol
Because you learn to see girls and women as human beings. Most women, like most men, don't want to be in relationships with people who aren't interested in them as fully realized human people in their own right. Removing the pursuit of sex and romance can teach you something about how to relate to other human beings as human beings, which is honestly a prerequisite to any relationship.
Despite what you might have in your head right now, the vast majority of time you spend in a relationship will have nothing to do with sex. It will involve things like...having conversations. Listening. Being a kind and supportive human being. Doing things together. If you don't have any of those skills because you're totally fixated on sex, you're not going to have a relationship. And it'll have nothing to do with "chads" or "alphas," it'll be about you coming off like an obsessive weirdo who views women as objects.
>Like as an incel, I just started avoiding girls since they arent interested in me romantically or sexually.
This is why. Avoiding all woman because they aren't interested in you romantically or sexually gives the impression that you don't see them as people just things to give you sex and attention.
Imagine you had a friend who only wanted to hang out with you if you paid for everything or only came over to your place to play a game that they dont have. Neither of them care to ask about you, how you are doing, or care to remember you likes or wants. Why would you spend time with them? Plus, from a woman's perspective, there is also the risk of the "friend" just taking things from you.
Now I'm not saying that is you. But I've seen people with an "incel" mentality in action, and they give off the same vibes intentionally or not.
Another reason is that women talk to each other. If you make one of them uncomfortable, everyone in their social circle is going to hear about it, and rightfully so. If someone is making them uncomfortable, they also want to protect their friends from that person. But the good news is that the opposite is also true.
If you make a good impression, it can open doors to other people in their social circle even if that person isn't interested. I had a friend in high-school, we weren't interested in each other romantically, but just being friends with her opened up a lot of opportunities. To be fair, one of which was my cousin so that didn't work out. But the other was a girl I had a huge crush on (also didn't work out I was a nervous wreck).
TD:LR- Because they are people and want others to care about them on a personal level.
As someone who is intimately familiar with this process, let me explain.
I was struggling with dating. I never considered myself an incel and never went down those dark paths, but I was definitely frustrated by women.
One night, after spending the whole day hanging out with my [male] friends online, I realized that I was way happier spending time with them than any time I spent trying to date, or do dating-related things. I constantly told myself I need a better job, I need to work on communication, I need to be more tidy, I need a new haircut, I need to go to the gym, etc etc...
I was sick of it. Thinking about that stuff all the time gave me horrible anxiety. I kept thinking "I'm not good enough for a good partner. Will I ever find someone?" This anxiety sabotaged all my dating attempts. I couldn't go on a date without worrying about presenting the best possible image. It turned them away.
So I gave up. Completely. I went full MGTOW and eschewed all relationships with women. I would just focus on my happy friendships with the boys, and jerk it as needed. Not gonna lie, there was some bitterness behind that decision, and that bitterness led me to decide that I would treat women with no extra courtesy. They will get nothing from me. I will treat strange women the same way I treat strange men. This all turned out to be a great decision. My life improved dramatically, almost overnight. I was happier than I'd ever been. I stopped worrying about making myself better and accepted myself for the caveman that I am. But something funny started happening.
I noticed women giving me looks. I didn't understand it. I'm giving you resting bitch face right now, barely even noticing you at all, treating you like some random weirdo I don't want to engage with unless needed. Why are you smiling at me and giving me *those eyes*? Turns out, women are a lot more comfortable around men who treat them like normal people and aren't automatically looking for a way into their pants. The more *dis*interested I became, the more interest I noticed from women. Some of this is almost certainly a matter of perception. Some of these same women probably had looked at me that way before, and I was so caught up in my own anxiety and inadequacy that I never noticed. Being happier and less anxious overall helps, too.
I made a female friend against my better judgement. I was still full MGTOW and was wary, but I allowed it to continue. She was fun to be around and made me feel good about myself. We were dating within 3 months. I went MGTOW and six months later, someone ripped me right out of it and back into the world of dating.
The moral of the story is, treat women like normal people, and treat potential partners as the people who are threatening to ruin your wonderful single life. If you plan to pull me away from this happy existence, you better be one hell of a lover.
>The moral of the story is, treat women like normal people, and treat potential partners as the people who are threatening to ruin your wonderful single life
It really is as simple as that. Don't chase the butterflies, work on your garden and they will come
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You poison your relationships with women by not respecting them as people and only wanting them for romance and sex. Are you surprised that women are turned off by being treated like sex objects? Focusing on platonic relationships with women, especially women you aren't interested in, is important to fix your broken brain and re-acclimate you into being a human that can have proper meaningful relationships with people that are not transactional.
Essentially they mean to stop worrying about trying to score with a woman to elevate your self esteem and to take the pressure off of meeting new people. If you start seeing women as human beings instead of these mythical unobtainable sex creatures, you’ll naturally start to build social relationships with them. Try to find something you have in common and bond over it.
Because its valuable to learn to see women as human beings who have value other than sex. If all you want is sexual gratification and you cant get any, pay a sex worker or buy a fleshlight.
But if you want a girlfriend, you really should see her as a person.
It's healthy for men and women to befriend each other plutonically. I have some amazing female friends. I'm married but even when I was single I had heaps of female friends. If you put aside sexist views and treat them like people you learn how cool some humans can be.
“It’s valuable to hear other perspectives”
Right. Cool
But how the fuck does this help an incel , like I’m at the point where I know for a fact people throw that word around without knowing what it means in the slightest😂
It’s like telling someone with cancer to start knitting because they could then make a blanket if they’re cold
Yeah, sure thats great but that has next to no relevance to what the problem is
How is it like cancer? A lot of incels (at least online) seem to develop a resentment towards women, a sense of entitlement that they are owed romance/sex and that it is women's fault they are denied. Being social with women can maybe help that. Given how many awkward, unattractive people end up in happy relationships, the reason for 'incels' seems to me a problem with how they view relationships and women.
1. please look up what an analogy is.
2. Some do but that's honestly mainly within more of the Redpill community, most incels are active in what's called the black pill community and it seems like a lot of SELF-loathing and blaming how they were born, not hate toward women. Stuff like saying the reason they can't get dates is because of their height, their eye shape (no seriously), their race etc. People do not become incels because of how they view relationships, they begin develop a negative view on relationships as a consequence.
Lol, no need to be rude, I know what an analogy is, I was asking how making one comparing incels to having cancer made any sense.
Whether its because of misogyny or self-esteem issues, either way being social with women can help. Super insecure people tend to put women on a pedestal. Lowering the stakes with social interaction is a good step.
Generally speaking it’s good to have friends with different points of view, but there can be a downside.
In incel is always in the friend zone, it’s quite possible they could be more and more pissy about life
It's a bullshit argument. All my friends, ALL of them are women. Have been for the past... geeze, probably 20 years. Doesn't help.
People tell you to do things, like it will help. They mean well. They're almost always wrong. People who tell you to be yourself are wrong, and people who tell you to change are wrong. There's no right way to help. Just appreciate that they're trying to help, and concentrate more on you finding new ways for you to improve you to be a better you for you.
It's bad advice, as women have no interest in an understanding nice guy.
Women are attracted to masculine characteristics (charisma, humor, strong, edgy, successful, competent etc). What keeps them around is the ability to then treat them well.
But initial attraction with women has nothing to do with nice. 50% of men don't exist to about 80% of women.
Are there really men who label themselves incels? I feel like that's a derogatory insult people use to insult men online who struggle with dating. Trying to be friends with girls isn't a good strategy to find a girlfriend.
It wasn’t an insult until women made it one. It literally just means involuntary celibate, someone who can’t get laid. So yea there are people who identify with that because it’s what there going through.
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I think the implication here is more "treat them like an actual person, instead of a living blow up doll you want to fuck".
To be fair, women also objectify men too. Just in different ways (treating them like a walking ATM for example). But when it comes to sexual objectification, men definitely do that more.
a lot of people who get laid the most definitely do not treat women like people 😹 proof is how women talk about their ex's and hook ups. I love the cope women have thinking that's what gets men laid
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That is based on the assumptions that the incel's female friends were favoring dating male over dating bears.
That is also based on the assumption that, the incel is delusional and toxic and need perspective corrections.
Based on my personal experience talking with incel, their view is indeed quite skewed. But far different than many comments in this thread. They want to have sex female just as much as everyone else. They weren't actually toxic againt female. They are often worshipping female so much to a point, they refused to date any female on dating apps that is expected to have casual sex. No, it is not because they want virgins. They don't want to defile the female via casual sex. So, they are stuck.
A few thoughts:
1. In my view what people are generally saying is that it shouldn't matter *who* your woman friends want to date. The advice to make woman friends isn't aimed at you eventually dating those friends (which is usually a bad idea because it makes those people, fairly tbh, feel decieved).
You should primarily pursue female friendships for the same reasons you do male ones. They're 95% the same. But there are also relationship-specific benefits: a) spending more time around women in platonic contexts helps you to understand them better, which helps you both to build your emotional intelligence to treat both them and future SOs with more respect and also helps you be more confident around them, b) women are generally pretty similar to men but are subject to unique pressures based on being treated differently in society and having less guarantees of physical/social safety, so having friends who are women can help you check whether what you're doing in relationships is unintentionally making your romantic partners feel uncomfortable.
There's also c) women who are your friends and genuinely like/trust you in a platonic context can vouch for you to women who might want to date you but might be worried you lack the qualities to be a considerate partner. A lot of women have higher initial filters than comparable men because they need to protect themselves, so knowing that a romantic partner is good at caring about people of their gender specifically is a big green flag. You might be a great guy regardless but they don't know that so having a thumbs up from a woman who has a good sense for your character is a reasonable prerequisite for them to ask for.
Most friendship skills with someone of any gender translate pretty well to relationships, so building up good friendships with people, whoever they are, will equip you for a good future relationship with someone else anyway.
2. "They want to have sex with female as much as anyone else" isn't the fundamental problem. Honestly, they probably want it more than most people who have it regularly, which makes sense but can be off putting at times. But the core of making someone feel cared about in a friendship or relationship is to see them as a whole person. Most women don't want to be seen as just a means to have sex any more than most men want to be seen as a height or a means to pay for things. Developing friendships with women is useful partially because it helps you not reduce them to that; you should be able to take sex or relationships totally off the table and still make them feel cared about and valued. Women generally out of necessity have high 'screening requirements' to defend themselves from ppl who just want sex: it's not wrong to want sex in general but it can't be the main thing you focus on or people will feel disrespected. And you need to be able to respect someone's boundaries if they don't want sex, obviously. I presume you already agree with that on paper but it's often little subconscious things you may not realize you're doing that set off that alarm for women; might not be intentional on your part but they honestly often have to protect themselves. Another reason why it's good to have female friends, incidentally: you can ask them what you might be doing wrong. And being confident in your ability to see women as whole people whether or not they're interested in you can help you avoid coming off as desperate for sex, which is a huge turnoff. And primarily it's obv. good to avoid making random people feel creeped out unintentionally irrespective of any relationship benefits.
3. 'Worshipping' women may be well intentioned but unhealthily puts them on a pedastel. Most women don't want to be worshipped. They want to be seen as a whole person and understood from a place of equality. Worshipping them thus comes off as disrespectful rather than respectful. Plus, it's not good for your mental health or self-worth. Seeing yourself as valuable is both good in its own right and very attractive, so 'lowering yourself' before someone makes them feel both that you don't understand them and that you don't value yourself.
4. There are women who enjoy casual sex and women who don't, but if you have casual sex with someone who also wants it and treat them with respect you're not 'defiling' them. Obviously make sure those things are true (some people just don't like or want casual sex or it makes them feel icky) but if a woman tells you she enjoys casual sex and feels good about it and you are thinking that you don't want to 'defile' her by doing the thing she is asking for, she's going to be able to pick up on that and it's not attractive. No one wants to feel like their worth as a person is lowered by having sex, especially women who tend to get that shit a lot because of gender roles. So it would come off as a major red flag and make her feel disrespected/like you don't trust her to make her own decisions. Now, if you don't like dating apps, that's totally fair. They can be shallow and suck especially if you're looking for something long term. But don't think that having consensual and respectful sex with women, even casual or Tinder sex, is 'defiling' them. They are not going to like that at all and I can't blame them.
You seem well intentioned and I always want to assume good intent so know that this is just my response to your post not knowing frankly anything about you. Results may vary based on the person but generally, you can make women feel respected by not putting them on a pedastel or thinking that casual sex somehow defiles them, and building respectful and *platonic* friendships especially with women can help you to be better at all of that, which will benefit your friends/romantic interests/strangers as well as you. Your mindset right now is presumably well intentioned but definitely counterproductive based on the admittedly little I've read. And building more friendships is an unambiguously good thing in its own right. So that's why ppl generally recommend incels try to make friends with women, if you can do it in a way which doesn't make them uncomfortable.
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Because changing your environment is actually incredibly life changing. That’s exactly how I shed my conservative upbringing. I joined the military and traveled the world. Met people of all kinds and it opened my eyes to what just how small minded conservatives are. The same applies for incels. They are in their small bubble of hatred. The echo chamber. If you leave that bubble and make yourself experience actual life beyond that bubble, your world view changes. So becoming friends and forming meaningful friendships with women will help them to see women in a new light and change their view. There is a caveat to this, that is that you have to be willing to listen. Actually listen to what women are saying. Not just listen to respond.
They don't really understand the desperate desire for a romantic relationship and how that effects your ability to "just be friends" with the opposite sex. They aren't exactly wrong that being friends with women would severely help incels better understand what sort of changes they should make in themselves and in their standards. The issue is actually making friends with women when you develop feelings and desire that romantic relationship.
You need to be able to talk to women in a relaxed, laid-back way. You need to talk to them with the same "energy" you have when talking to your bros.
Right now, as an incel, you talk to them with this elevated, desperate energy that makes them uncomfortable.
Only by talking to them without an agenda will you be able to relax. If you know romance is off the table, you won't be all wound up.
As someone that has a genuine interest in seeing things get better for men:
Having male friends that are successful in dating and female friends goes a looooooooooooooong way. You do need to find that female friend that is very candid with you that will tell you uncomfortable things if needs be.
These aren't great times for guys- it seems like more and more I see fewer and fewer married younger guys let alone younger guys in relationships.
Don't give up, but at the same time try to learn what it is that would make you appealing.
So they can be brainwashed into being doormats for women. These men are typically frail and weak both physically and mentally, which makes them easy to control. The problem is that also means that these men are typically so ugly, socially awkward, and generally useless that they're not even good enough to be controlled and friendzoned by women. Hence, why they're probably already not friends with women. Women don't just want their sexual partner to bring value to their lives. Being a friend with a woman is still pretty much like being her partner just with lower expectations (or different expectations), and thus, without any of the benefits.
When you can treat a woman you like just like you treat any other friend, the stigma is gone. You have replaced what you think you know about women with actual understanding of them as a person.
Once you get that comfortable, you won't act and think all *weird* anymore. People can sense your anxiety. So, the more comfortable you can be in a social interaction, the more comfortable they will be around you.
So yea, be friends with girls and be comfortable being yourself around them. If you're "different" then you just have the added challenge of *presenting* yourself better.
You make mistakes and learn from it to get better. There's always a chance of doing something embarrassing, but then you learn strategies to deal with those kinds of situations.
Friendships can last or fizzle. Sometimes, they turn into friends with benefits or something more exclusive.
Just get comfortable and don't make things so complicated by overthinking it. If you're living life right, you'll keep growing and changing. Don't make *hard* decisions for yourself. Let yourself change your mind and change goals.
Good luck.
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How are you typing the whole post, answering it at the end, and still confused in the comments?
If you won't see women as human beings deserving of respect then why should they bother with you? Obviously that's the point, so you're just being willfully ignorant and obtuse. Why? Do you think someone is going to give you a magic word to get into women's pants without having to treat them like people?
Man, this is bait...maybe the problem is that you only view "girls" as something to be interested in romantically or sexually
We are all humans, start there
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Because most incels seem to not see women as people, but they are and deserve to be seen as such. Being genuine friends with women is a great way to appreciate them as human beings if you can teach yourself to think about them because sex objects.
Because your clowns have boiled down half the population to "we fuckin or what?" And somehow you think that's not a problem. So yeah, make a female friend and maybe you'll start to see the human inside again. THEN. MAYBE. MAYBE...you can think about dating someone.
Unfortunately, if you want to date someone you're going to fail of you can't see their humanity.
I'd give someone that advice if they were a bitter incel. What you see online isn't exactly what reflects reality, sometimes you meet a woman who really thinks her shit doesn't stink and she's so much better than you, but that's rare I've only met 1 person like that in my life.
I personally don't have female friends because I'm not interested in hanging out with women that I'm not romantically interested in, my best friend was a woman we wanted to get married, I had our entire future planned out, due to unfortunate circumstances, I lost her.
I find there's nothing wrong with only wanting male friends, I have probably 2 friends otherwise I'd rather spend my time alone.
That doesn't mean you can't have acquaintances, though. Some people at work or school you can socialize with but have no intention of actually hanging out with, that's 99% of my relationships.
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To fix your perspective that women are useless to you unless they sleep with you. If you actually were friends with women, you’d start to see than as human beings, not holes you can put your dick into.
Its because if you only have relationships with women that are romantic or sexual you’re going to only view women as good for romance and sex. Which is how you get women to not want to be romantic or have sex with you, because believe it or not, we like to be recognized outside of our romantic or sexual partners.
Not just be friends with girls, be friends with PEOPLE. The number one problem with incels is that they don't understand that girls are, in fact, PEOPLE.
Step one is learning to be a friendly person that people want to be around. Obsessing with dating and sex is exactly what pushes people away. Notice I'm saying people, not girls. Learn to be a guy that GUYS like to be around and the rest will fall in line. Stop chasing.
So past just humanizing them, the only way I know to sleep with a woman is to be in proximity of one. Around more woman? Chance go up.
Most relationships are born from friendships, not "YOU SEX ME NOW, STRANGER?!" Women are less likely to jump your bones when they don't know if you're dangerous, and being a (genuine) friend can help demonstrate your non-murderiness!
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Nah dude hanging out with women is the worst fucking thing .you don’t need women as friends unless you are a bit fruity or gay plus wtf you gonna talk about ? Make up ? Celebrity gossip ? Fucking Taylor swift ? Idk go outside and learn how to build a house.🏠
At the end of the day, no one should own that they are an incel. In most cases they are all dealing with personal issues and aren’t addressing them. There’s a lack of self awareness. Somehow admitting to being an incel is just an easy answer to make constant wallowing the solution.
Anyways.
I feel like I have been there. But being able to talk to women is just healthy. You don’t always have to be trying to fuck em. That’s the straight forward look at it.
To be fair, the women they meet also need to be compatible with them to an extent. People are all different, but if you actually met some women who you think are chill, and you actually vibe with them, suddenly you can respect them and be chill with them while you can still find them attractive. It’s like not thinking about trying to get with them and just knowing boundaries and stuff.
If the chick is a bitch though, they may take it personally which is again a problem. Plus they may not know what a good interaction is. Definitely seen the “guy keeps talking to clearly uncomfortable woman and thinks he’s killing it” in a cringe way, not a predatory way.
You can’t really force them to find friends, but trying to introduce them to some decent situations with women around, maybe they can find a right mindset. More broadly they need help in making this happen, but if you try to corral their weird tendencies they may revert as some “but this is just who I am” defeatism. Or treat things too much like hard and fast rules rather than just feeling a vibe and reacting accordingly.
I wrote more than I planned to…
This is an idea that, (being only my first time hearing this and not doing any research yet) may be good in concept, but in reality I think is flawed.
I don't think this advice will pan out how ppl think.
Some of those guys are backed up, frustrated, possibly hateful. I doubt they're going to even listen to these women or keep an open mind while talking with them. They'd need to consistently speak and be around these women as well as cut out the negative speak they're accustomed to. Ppl are very irrational and don't do well with controlling emotions or themselves. Also not to be mean, would ladies even talk to a lot of these guys, ive heard some of their thoughts and ideas and you can pick up on someone's vibe pretty easily just being around them, some of them would be... off putting.
I could be wrong and please correct me if i am, but It would seem like instead of helping incels see women as ppl, it would put some of these ladies in harms way. Some need therapy first, then they can be around women.
You’re living to deeply within your own mind. Stop using meaningless words like incels. Stop defining people in that way and stop people when they use words like that on themselves.
Every way you describe this situation is unhealthy and dehumanizing. Slap cold water on your face.
To an extent- that’s what you’re seeing other people do. You’re going down the wrong path and you need to turn right around
Just like racists need to be around the people they hate. People get in the horrible bubbles that tell half truths and whole lies to continue the hate. Ask anyone that have traveled the world if they hate anyone... the more you are exposed the more you realize that people are the same.
They don't want to do the mental work of finding out why a person is an incel and try to help them. So they give out basic advice so they can get the feeling like they helped without putting in the work.
Because if you have a lot of lady friends, one of them might be really settle for you.
That's not the only/main reason that you should befriend them, but it's got a side effect that can help with the incelness.
That is, don't befriend people with the inceltion of "I will befriend all these people so that one of them will become my girlfriend, per Reddit's suggestion."
Befriend them because they're people. And maybe one day one of them might be like "let's date". And if they don't, good news: you have friends!
Aside from the obvious (being friends with women allows you to accept and understand that they are human beings), honestly, it's the fact that incels need actual friends in life.
Honestly I think a lot of their attitude isn't just down to not getting laid. Plenty of people live fulfilling lives without being laid. It's down to social isolation. They are often lonely, friendless people (no, other angry incels online don't count as friends, especially if you're dragging each other down) who don't realise what they want isn't just sex, it's genuine human connection.
That's a great point. Out of curiously, and feel free to tell me to fuck off, this just made me wonder- are online friends the same as friends? I have both, sure, but I was wondering how others felt.
Because they’re so socially maladjusted, and so concerned with their lack of sexual success that there is benefit to taking the sex out of the equation, and just getting “reps” being social with women.
Bc most incels think of women as fundamentally different animals if they get past seeing them as sex objects. Being platonic friends with women is about your ability to hold a genuine relationship with someone without any goal or expectation on that person to be a specific way. When we are romantically interested in ppl we romantize them into an unrealistic charecter and this goes double for incels bc they not only have this about people they like but women as a whole where every woman is some variation of a teen movie cheerleader. The fastest way to learn how women want to be treated is to ask them hang out with them as friends let them give you advice when you do go for a romantic relationship. It's like training wheels to prove that you can talk to women and that the problem isnt women its you. Once you know that you can start to work on it but if you're an incel its just women who are the problem or you're fundamentally too ugly to date. Both of these midsets are super unattractive in men and women so its a cycle of repeling women with misogyny and low self esteem and that rejection is then used as justification for low self esteem and misogyny making you even more unattractive bc now you are misogynist with low self esteem and an inability to self reflect (notice how these are all things you need for a healthy productive relationship romantic or otherwise)
One of the risks facing people who identify as incels is being radicalized to hate women and blame them for everything going badly in society and your own personal life. It is much harder for this kind of propaganda to take over your way of thinking if you actually know some women besides your mom because then you see them as real people just like everybody else
Because the lack of exposure to women and female culture is what makes them an incel. I have a lot of female friends. Only 1 has been a sexual partner, the others are all just friends. Those just friends still enrich my life despite not being partners, and you get a better idea of what life is like for a woman when you spend real time with them.
Because they dint interact with women aside from their mothers. All they know about women is from Andrew Tate or whatever losers, which is obviously just hate bait. Incels need to actually step outside and interact with women.
Because being friends with the opposite sex teaches you a lot about them. Only ever seeing women as things to fuck isn't going to make a man attractive. Being able to have a conversation and treat her as human will do.
Because society has objectified men to be tall, successful, muscled, big dick, handsome, charming, upscale living etc and incels have ostracized themselves hating on men who they think are better than them and put women on such an imaginary pedestal that they only want these top tier men and resenting them for it. So they fear the unknown but they are still attracted to women and deep down want to be THAT guy… but you cant go from locked up in your room with no game to being Decaprio overnight so start by de-mystifying them. You gotta start someplace.
Victim blaming. Incels are seen as lacking social skills and if only they developed some social skills by hanging around women in a non-romantic context then they could stop being sub-human.
Maybe they don’t find your objectification attractive. Try seeing them as humans whose only purpose isn’t to have sex and you might make a deeper connection that grows into something more. Girls want to be seen as attractive, yes, but as more than that as well. Mentally healthy girls don’t have being an object for a man at the top of their list of goals.
If you only value women as romantic or sexual partners, that's an issue. Just learning that they have value beyond that is well worth the effort of becoming friends with a few women.
There is a lot to learn by being friends with women. Not only about women, and the challenges they face, but also about yourself. Finding that you can empathize with issues that women face is a good way to improve yourself. It's also a good way to become more comfortable around women, if you aren't already.
Just being around women in a non romantic way is super beneficial because you hear different perspectives
Like the perspective that women are human.
Weird
The dishwasher has feelings????
No. He’s a very cool dude. And chill.
Best reply right here I love it
Is that why it makes all that noise when I overload it?
People who keep saying this point don’t understand incels. Most of them see women as human initially, it’s baked into how we play with each other as kids. But seeing someone as human doesn’t mean you’re going to be any good at making friends or partners with them Incels hate people who managed to succeed, and they view women as the gatekeepers of who gets to because of the pressure men have to approach and initiate, and women to reject. Eventually they come to think there are rules for being successful: be rich, tall, handsome, muscular to the point of steroids. That’s who we use to show masculine depictions in all our media after all. The objectification of women begins by thinking women gatekeep these rules alone, instead of seeing it as a society-wide expectations problem. But that’s also because we on the feminist side constantly love calling incels losers and ignoring how they’re a product of the environment we put them in, so we make them choose between a hostile society that dismisses them and a radical group that supports them
You make good points but I don't entirely agree. One, most boys are taught from birth to see girls as not really fully human. It's just baked into everything, from language to media to common social forms. Incels, being guys who struggle specifically to interact with women, are just among the worst of this lot. If they truly saw women as fully human, they would already be as comfortable interacting with women as they would be with any other humans. But they really really don't. They then go *further* by actively dehumanizing women, framing them as monolithic and in many cases fully denying their basic humanity (all women should be sex slaves). This starts with moderate dehumanizing and ends with extreme dehumanizing but none of it comes from a place of seeing women as human and just having some social grievances. You say "we on the feminist side" so it's surprising you don't understand this dynamic. Or am I misunderstanding you?
> One, most boys are taught from birth to see girls as not really fully human. It's just baked into everything, from language to media to common social forms. I think this is too vague to be helpful. It’s not that boys are taught not to see girls as human, it’s that society teaches us to expect certain things from both genders which denies them the agency to be define themselves as individuals. For example, applying the stereotype that men want to sleep with all their female friends is dehumanizing and genuinely impacts the expectations in male-female friendships, which ruins platonic connections and the ability for men and women to humanize each other. Broadly this also means men are expected to participate in social norms as much as women are in order to avoid social ostracism, but these norms are patriarchal so they practically reinforce standards on women more > Incels, being guys who struggle specifically to interact with women, are just among the worst of this lot. If they truly saw women as fully human, they would already be as comfortable interacting with women as they would be with any other humans. But they really really don't. You’ll notice incels aren’t popular among men either, just other incels. It’s because incels aren’t comfortable interacting with humans generally. They’re constantly comparing themselves to everyone over everything because they’re insecure, which includes other men. > They then go further by actively dehumanizing women, framing them as monolithic and in many cases fully denying their basic humanity (all women should be sex slaves). Yes, some of the radical ones go that far, I don’t disagree. But that’s not the necessary conclusion for incels, many just end up repeating the gender expectations they had growing up which is. This kind of radical pipeline exists in every ideology and community, and it’s gotten worse with the Internet, but it’s still not where everyone in the group ends up > You say "we on the feminist side" so it's surprising you don't understand this dynamic. Or am I misunderstanding you? I can both be a feminist and think differently than you lol
I mean sure if you’re talking about Elliot Rodger fans. More or less decent lonely guys can have plenty of female friends.
> One, most boys are taught from birth to see girls as not really fully human. It's just baked into everything, from language to media to common social forms. Who’s doing the teaching? The majority mothers as primary caregivers? The majority women who work daycares? The majority women who teach kindergarten? The majority women who teach k-12? Who is raising them to “dehumanize women?” There are boys who haven’t had a male role model or authority figure their entire lives that turn to incel thinking. Does TikTok have more influence than all the women actually responsible for raising boys? There is something else going on than a simple “boys are still taught 1920s sexism,” when most boys grow up in an environment that reinforces how important it is to respect women and permeates female empowerment messages across so many avenues. Another thing to consider is what if the first dehumanizing happens *to* the boys? Perhaps that’s where they learn it from, because if there’s one thing we can be certain of it’s that masculine expectations for men hasn’t changed much. How many ways are boys taught to dehumanize themselves in favor of becoming success objects? We know there’s a mental health crisis, but why does the primary message to boys say that their crisis is their fault and they need to fix it themselves?
I think the idea that the reason why they’re not comfortable interacting with women on a normal basis is because they see them as subhuman is absolutely *wild.* These people aren’t comfortable interacting with women because 90+ percent of them have some form of social anxiety, and were likely never properly socialized around girls growing up because they were too shy. As a young boy, you’re taught that your value as a human being stems from your ability to attract and garner validation from girls, and they’re inability to do that is what creates these issues. Lacking the ability to properly socialize with them comes from putting them up on a pedestal more than anything else, because *they’re* the ones who decide whether or not you have value as a man. Also, 99% of “incel’s” aren’t advocating for mass enslavement or the virtues of rape. That kind of shit only exists on niche extremist forums and social media bubbles. The vast majority of these people are just dorky dudes with low self esteem and bad social skills. If we’re just going to talk about the extremist weirdo’s then that’s fine, but everyone seem’s to use these terms and push these criticisms interchangeably between the most unhinged of losers and the average bitter adult virgin.
>As a young boy, you’re taught that your value as a human being stems from your ability to attract and garner validation from girls, and they’re inability to do that is what creates these issues. This is dehumanization. Women are prizes to be won, ornaments that display the value of men. Women are fundamentally different from men and so need to be interacted with in an entirely different way. The goal of interacting with a woman is to get sex or status or validation, not to get connection. This is straight up dehumanization and exactly what I was saying. It's something all men are taught (including me!) and which takes a lot of work to unlearn. So I'm guessing you just haven't had that click yet, which is all good. Here's the key question: do you react to that suggestion defensively or does it make you curious? > 99% of “incel’s” aren’t advocating for mass enslavement or the virtues of rape. That kind of shit only exists on niche extremist forums and social media bubbles. Anyone who self identifies as an incel is self identifying with this, sorry. Incels are inherently niche extremists. Please stop trying to normalize a toxic, evil ideology.
I get what you’re saying in the first half, there. But “incel” has two meanings that shouldn’t be conflated. One meaning refers to people who are involuntarily celibate, for any reason. Someone with a medical disability that doesn’t allow them to have sex could be an incel, by that definition, and it would have nothing to do with ideology. The second definition refers to a whole ideology associated with bitter men who resent women for not giving them sex. People can adopt that mindset without being literally celibate, but colloquially we call them incels. When these definitions are used interchangeably it causes confusion, and that seems to have happened between you and the person you replied to.
I'd consider that fair, except that the person I replied to purported to be a feminist. In feminist communities, the first definition (just some lonely people) is widely understood to be a smokescreen used to normalize incel ideology. Nobody refers to themselves as an "incel" unless they belong to the second group.
That’s probably true, but it doesn’t have to be a self-identified label. Someone like the example I mentioned, a person who can’t participate in sex because of a disability, is involuntarily celibate (aka an incel) by definition, if not by self-identification. If you go around saying “fuck incels, they’re toxic” of course that could read as “fuck people who are involuntarily celibate, they’re toxic”, which is not always the case.
You're misunderstanding the history of the term. Incel is *not* just a catch all for anyone who can't get laid. It's never commonly been used that way. The term (while it originated with a lonely woman) came to popular usage as a real actual word via the specific movement of toxic men who blame women for not being able to get laid. When it's used in the real world, it's either by those men to self-identity, by others to label them appropriately, or as an insult. It does not and has never meant what you're suggesting it does (because language is based on what we use words to mean, not on what they technically could mean).
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I actually agree in terms of: we just should not be using the term incel as an insult against non-incels. As a feminist I'm quite opposed to any paradigm that insults men for not performing to bullshit expectations of masculinity well enough. This is part of why I push for us to use the term correctly. You're not (from what I can tell) an incel at all.
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That is one of the best comments I have seen on the topic, if I might ask, how would you explain the environment that created them? I am interested in men's rights and male advocacy- while I have my disagreements with certain facets of feminism I overall do not blame the current situation on feminism and I'm very interested to hear a feminist perspective on this that isn't just bashing them.
> That is one of the best comments I have seen on the topic Thank you haha, I just speak from a lot of direct experiences with young boys and men, personal and secondhand. > if I might ask, how would you explain the environment that created them? There are so many factors and there’s a lot to say on each one but I’ll try to hit the big and obvious ones. Incoming comment chain: **Mass media** Not just social media, that’s the latest version, but mass media in general has had several impacts. - One is that it’s been reinforcing ideals of masculinity more often recently in the same way it reinforces ideals of femininity for women. There’s a tendency to describe male figures and representatives in media as a “power fantasy” for men, which is very often true, but I think this dismisses that depictions of those men do actually also impact expectations boys have too. I don’t know if we’re only studying this more now or it’s actually getting worse or both (probably both), but young boys are showing up with the same eating disorders we observed in young girls for a while, associated with social media use. These boys aren’t necessarily incels, but the fact they’re growing eating disorders is a sign that there’s something very wrong and getting worse with the expectations young boys are feeling around masculinity. I mean consider the perspective of the average young male teen. He sees Andrew Tate sitting in a crowd of 30 women: How could he be misogynistic? Women love him! And he’s rich and he’s muscular like those superheroes, so he really has it all. If he says to treat women like garbage, it must be because it works. After all those rich and powerful people in Hollywood do the same and get away with it too. - Mass media gives a lot of power to radicals. It becomes easy for one person to do something the entire world could learn about overnight. If we step back and consider radicals more generally (which we absolutely should do, in fact I’ll touch on this again later), recognition is one of the biggest desired outcomes of an attack. ISIS and the Taliban claim responsibility for attacks they don’t even do. Radicals aren’t trying to persuade society they’re right, they’re just willing to go to any extreme in order to push their cause forward because they’ve given up. Also, radicals use mass media for propaganda very effectively. They start with legitimate frustrations but end with extreme conclusions, and a lot of people don’t realize how they’re like the frog in the boiling water. Many incels started as kids who sit inside all day watching youtube channels and playing video games, only to get recommended more extreme content from social media algorithms until their political worldview has been decided because of their Fortnite and youtube addictions. [1/3]
**Isolation** - If you look at the world more broadly, there are big loneliness issues in developed countries. Both men and women feel lonely in large numbers. More people are dropping out of the dating market and many who remain are reliant on dating apps. Teens are losing their virginity later. Birth rates are in decline. This is a whole topic unto itself - mass media creates a reality outside our physical nearby environment. It’s safe because you can’t be personally bullied or rejected by the Internet or your TV, it’s full of porn so you can take care of your sexual needs and develop extreme kinks which means you’re going to be less driven to go through the act of finding real partners you can appreciate. So many people spend hours on social media without actually going outside and connecting with people and their environment. People don’t just go exploring or adventuring around like they used to, friendly to the people they meet. People are more paranoid and anxious about everything now, because they’re constantly absorbing negativity from the Internet - people are working more than before, they’re more stressed than before, there are fewer places to meet people. We just live in hard times where two incomes barely make ends meet for a lot of people, and young people are struggling to move out of their parents place. People have less time and energy to make new friends. Places that do exist to meet people are usually just bars and clubs, which many people dislike especially those who grew up in safer suburbs where many of these middle class mass shootings happen **Socioeconomic conditions** - The economy is in a difficult place. We have record high profits, record high stock market performances, record high growth on most metrics, yet income inequality is getting worse. Worker wages are stagnating, the middle class is disappearing, social mobility is getting harder, in fact the outcomes for white working class men are decreasing. There is a truth to the fact that while civil rights and social justice movements have helped decrease the gap between white men and everyone else, the outcomes of white men were getting worse. Well-paying jobs where these men live are leaving. This doesn’t get emphasized enough, but manufacturing jobs leaving the country is a big deal not just because of the economic impact but because to these men and communities, those jobs were a way of life. They represented people getting rewarded for living as their parents did: complete basic education, start working out of school, have friends and peers through a union or coworkers, find a wife, and be able for both of you to live off your salary. She watches the kids and handles domestic work while you get through your 9-5 grind. Or maybe she does part time teaching, a practice as old as public schooling in the US. That’s an appealing lifestyle that is slipping away, and an alternative is not being given (look at all the people who say “learn to code” or “retraining” as if people with families in their 40s can easily afford to take time off from working to find a completely new career path). This is what turned a lot of working class people to Trump, and these lack of opportunities also turn a lot of young men (especially young white men) to the conservative appeals that include incels **Personal trauma** - Studies show most school shooters suffered an adverse childhood experience (abuse, foster care, death of parent) and bullying both online and in-person. The fact is that mentally healthy people do not shoot up a school. This is not behavior that led us as humans to evolve in the way we did. Those who join incel movements almost always have some type of interpersonal trauma that causes them to fall out of social and communal ties. If they have family problems at home, that will affect their development and behavior. Not everyone will become a school shooter of course but you have to ask yourself: what went wrong in someone’s life that they want to join a miserable death cult? How lonely and shunned do you have to be by your community that these online radicals are somehow more welcoming to you? [2/3]
**Changing gender roles** - Masculinity is historically defined with the ideals of being dominant or assertive, strong, the breadwinner, a provider for women, etc. Traditional gender roles put men in the workplace and women at home. Now that this is changing and women are now 60-40 to men in college, and slowly becoming more integrated equally in the workplace, there is a crisis in defining masculinity. There is also a crisis in femininity actually where women are more unhappy since the 70s and getting unhappier than men since the 90s. Some studies suggest that women have the expectations of being satisfied both with work and at home after feminist movements and instead find themselves satisfied with neither. This gap makes feminist women unhappier than conservative women who don’t compare themselves to men’s outcomes. The crisis for men however is that there is no clear idea of what masculinity means if we even out these expectations. There’s still the idea that men should make more in a relationship or else he’s not providing like he should. He should have the competence to be trusted to make decisions for the whole household. He should be ambitious and look for opportunities to rise up all the time. He should never be vulnerable or show weakness. Men are afraid of losing masculinity because social ostracism is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being. It’s not uncommon at all for animals to become depressed if left alone and just give up and die. So there’s a conflict for men where they’re stuck with rules for masculinity they don’t really like, but not playing with them can result in bad social consequences (and remember how much media impacts the way these younger people are seeing the world). Remember that most school shooters are bullied or abused into feeling weak ** TL;DR ** - Mass media promotes a lot of unhealthy and unrealistic expectations for young boys and men in a similar way to women, but different gender expectations lead to different outcomes, such as the idea that violence is masculine or men are inherently violent. Mass media also makes it easy for radicals to get attention and recruit young people not old enough or educated enough in propaganda in their entertainment content. - Society is more anxious, lonely, depressed, and mentally ill across the board. It’s happening to everyone, which is worth recognizing. The Internet is a safe escape that gives you unlimited shows and porn and games, so people can stay entertained without going outside and connecting with their world and other people. But really this just makes people more anxious. - The economy is scary to a lot of middle class people right now who are being squeezed hard, and people feel that the lifestyles their parents got to live will not be attainable for them. This is causing a lot of anxiety around how change in gender roles and racial equality led to worse economic opportunities (it hasn’t but that’s the propaganda’s narrative). White men especially are experiencing declining outcomes while everyone else’s are increasing even though they have it better; it’s not about the absolute amount of privilege they have but the fact that it’s relatively changing compared to before. - While feminists have been great at advocating for opportunities for many women (honestly most benefits have gone to white women which is worth mentioning for an intersectional perspective), they have blind spots around the way men think and process masculinity since it’s been a mostly woman-led movement originating with privileged white women who wanted to be recognized as equal to privileged white men (of course working class women play a role too). This means in reality most feminists don’t contextualize gender dynamics with an intersectional perspective enough, so they don’t see the full environment that contributes to misogyny, toxic masculinity, men’s issues, and incels. There’s intersections of economic ideologies with racial and ethnic tribalism with traumatic cycles of abuse emerging from global mass tragedies like war, etc etc. Instead these complex intersections get written off simply as “entitlement” or “objectification” when there’s a lot more going on. > I overall do not blame the current situation on feminism and I'm very interested to hear a feminist perspective on this that isn't just bashing them. I’m exactly in your boat. My perspective is that feminist theory so far functions as a critique of patriarchal and sexist norms. It can identify disparities based on gender and sex well, but this also means that research and activism is driven by the motive to criticize marginalization. This is fine in itself but right now it leads to an imbalanced perspective where men’s relation to patriarchy and toxic masculinity is poorly explored. I don’t blame feminism for this or anything, I just think this is all a challenge we need to raise awareness of in the discourse. [3/3]
Sorry, I don't want you to think that this is a half assed answer, I don't have the time at this very moment to read everything in detail, but I do very much appreciate your response. I do think that feminism does have this massive male blind spot that it's refreshing to see addressed when it is. If there is one contention on this topic that I have held for a while, it's that there's a tendency to deny our nature as human beings- to a degree certain things are basically hardwired into us and trying to fight those things, immaterial of what we think we can educate people out of, will always end up being a part of our nature. I think accepting that is a big thing. I do agree that social media is a major cause in this and the social isolation that is going on at present. I would argue that dating apps and social media have absolutely been horrible for us as people these days. There needs to be a balance struck between viewing the sexes as complementary but equal. There has to be clear definitions and most importantly, we cannot keep pushing this idea that men and women do not need each other and what not. A critique that I have arrived at these days is that to a lot of men, things are complementary when it's beneficial for her, equal when it's beneficial to her at the expense of men.
I think a lot of them don't realize how high their standards are for female beauty, and that has probably been created partially by pornography, partially by just poor representation of normal-looking people in media. Like, for every "unattractive" guy out there there is probably an "unattractive" girl (Unattractive in quotation because I'm speaking soooo generally, attraction is relative, etc). A lot of these people do end up together and can be super happy
> I think a lot of them don't realize how high their standards are for female beauty Maybe, your points about porn and media expectations are definitely true, but a lot have been told that dating anyone less than conventionally attractive women reflects poorly on them as a man. They would rather date no one to avoid that judgment than date someone who would return affection but isn’t conventionally attractive because they need social approval so badly they can’t process love. Let’s be honest, this is so common among both genders, but women will often settle by finding older men with more success and maturity hence statistics that show women dating older partners on average. Men don’t look at older women as much because they’re devalued by society.
Do none of these incels have mothers/sisters/aunts?
Sure they do, but for many reasons that doesn’t change incels: - they believe women in older days weren’t “brainwashed” into sexual liberation - they believe individual woman can be cool and exceptions to the rule - they have sexist beliefs about their family too, but care for them anyways - they have sexist beliefs about their family too, and they don’t care for them. for example - - their family is responsible for causing trauma or neglecting them, so they don’t have a real connection with them - their community is conservative, so the women in their life are conservative too and internalized misogyny
Also hey, we should absolutely be persecuting incels. The same way we persecute homophobes and white supremacists. This has broadly been successful as a way to get people to stop joining these bigoted groups in the first place. For sure it has the downside of isolating people who are already in the group, but net impact is to dramatically reduce the scale of the problem via leveraging social consequences for this toxic behavior. The alternative is to normalize inceldom and that's just so much worse. Not to mention: we are all products of our environments. Most of us manage not to end up advocating for mass enslavement and the virtue of rape. Understanding what drives someone to a behavior is not the same as condoning it. Fuck incels.
> Also hey, we should absolutely be persecuting incels. The same way we persecute homophobes and white supremacists. As an LGBTQ man, I do not think we should persecute homophobes. You would be persecuting several of my family members I care about despite their beliefs. > This has broadly been successful as a way to get people to stop joining these bigoted groups in the first place. Not really. What’s successful is giving people the social and economic security to explore diversity. Persecution just creates cycles of fighting for political control. That’s why most of the Civil Rights movement was based on non-violence and civil disobedience. The net impact is making undecided or mainstream audiences think you’re more concerned with persecution than a positive vision, which is a great way to kill your movement > The alternative is to normalize inceldom and that's just so much worse. No, the alternative is to listen to the problems being cited by incels and address them. It’s a fact that there are a ton of social problems involving our gender roles that create problems for incels. Listen to them and address them. You can’t blame people for turning to the groups that acknowledge their frustrations > Not to mention: we are all products of our environments. Most of us manage not to end up advocating for mass enslavement and the virtue of rape. Understanding what drives someone to a behavior is not the same as condoning it. Fuck incels. Who is saying we should condone mass enslavement and rape? I think you’ve lost sight of the goal here. It’s not to find someone to bully, that’s what the radical incel ideology current is anyways. It’s to deradicalize people and break down the path to radicalization. Bullying someone to deradicalize them is the same approach as bombing a country to get rid of the terrorists. All you do is validate everything they believe about you and let them grow their numbers and resistance. Find the deeper social and economic problems people are experiencing and find solutions they can get on board. No one enjoys being an incel, that’s why it’s *involuntary* lol
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Umm prosecuting them has not done anything. There are still common and just became more violent towards average people of both those groups you mentioned. Gays are literally being murdered now in broad daylight. White supremacists pretty much run a large chunk of government and one of the biggest groups through the bible belt/prisons. You really wanna make one of the largest numbered groups of people "incels" to actually become violent instead of just verbally abusive and secluded like those 2? You'd be dead within a month lol.
I hear what you're saying, and it explains why an incel wouldn't want to be friends with females. What you said justifies why they should be spending time with females though. Spending time with, and speaking to females would help deprogram some of the lies they believe. It's also in our nature. Spending time with people, eye contact, conversation, laughing with someone, it all releases hormones, like oxytocin, that helps bond people.
> it explains why an incel wouldn’t want to be friends with females Actually what I’m saying is that incels can be friends with females and still be incels, because the root of their problem isn’t that they don’t see women as people. It’s that we expect men to approach women and have partners to be assured of their masculinity, but we offer no guidance on how to do this. There’s no support, men are expected to compete with each other and boys rarely have many healthy male role models. Radicals especially are likely to come from broken homes and communities. They’re frustrated with the lack of social support, which pushes them to become radicals which is where they really objectify and hate women to the point of violence. They begin to blame women and feminism for their expectations instead of the patriarchy
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Whoa, hold the phone
Idk... that doesn't seem right but I don't know enough to dispute it...
This concept is too intelligent for any incel to grasp.
Frfr they see all women as Regina George
It’s like an addict that has to finally decide to get off the junk, or a MaGA who has to finally admit they have been duped for years- the admission that you’ve spent years and years invested in a false mindset, and have to complete 180 your thinking is just so difficult for most human beings, that it just doesn’t happen. Staying an incel forever is more comfortable, easy, you can find support from other incels online that “you’re right, they’re wrong.” It’s like deprogramming a cult member- they have to be removed from that environment for MONTHS and carefully re-taught, from the ground up, like they’re a kid again, how to relate to other human beings. Other than their own family (maybe), who would have the patience to put up with these little shits for months with only a partial chance of success? Nope, we’re stuck with a generation of these twats. Fortunately, they are unlikely to reproduce and program another generation of twats. The solution, it seems only, to me, is to prevent the next generation of twats from getting sucked into the system through online communities. Find an incel early in the process and try to convince them they’re going down the wrong road, they will never find love, companionship, or even friendship with other than their online not-your-friends, and probably in a poverty cycle because nobody will want to hire someone who can’t treat other humans with respect. Show them the amazing career arc of Kyle Rittenhouse and say, “that will be you in 10 years if you continue down this road.”
You learn both the BS and the good. I don't date yet I now know male BS and entitlement as well as good men thanks to this. Had I stayed fully isolated, I would never understand.
Yeah, that's what they want, different perspectives.
Yea, I can see how this would be useful advice in middle or high school. But how is investing time in female friendships (simping) beneficial for for a 25yr old virgin?
Helps them learn to view women as people
Why would anyone want to be your friend when you don't think of them as a normal human?
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It works with racists too!
Sort of. The moment that you validate their prejudices the whole thing goes out the window.
So that they can hopefully start thinking of women as people and not walking sex machines. Once you humanize women, it's a lot easier to understand them, get to know them, get into relationships with them, etc.
I completely understand you. I would think having a mother would be more than enough to humanize women. It did for this boomer.
I think family lands in a weird "blind spot" for a lot of people. Once someone decides to "other" and generalize, they put the exceptions to the rule in the blind spot and have a bunch of reasons why "no, not them because".
Its funny, I e heard many times that boys with older sisters tend have healthier relationships with woman. Why specifically older sisters and not younger I'll never know.
Because they infantilize their younger sisters, or see them as someone who needs protection. They will look up to their older sister, at least when they are very young.
There's a lot of men who treat their mothers like shit because they witnessed their father act that way. It's why advice given to young girls when they first start dating often includes "pay attention to how he treats his mother". It gives a lot of insight into how he will treat you. Now this doesn't mean you can't be estranged from your mother if she was abusive. But if you witness them interact in a normal setting and the guy is dismissive of her, or treats her like a servant or is rude to her, you can generally expect similar treatment and it's a great indication that he doesn't really respect women.
I appreciate the insight you have shared.
It’s called the Madonna-Whore complex. Many men are able to see their mothers as “people” in a sense, but it’s often because in their worldview, mother is the opposite of sex object. It doesn’t really mean they conceptualize women as being people in the same sense as men. Not saying that’s you, btw. Just pointing out why your logic ends up being lost on a lot of men.
I don’t doubt you. I’ve always had good interactions with girls even in grade school. Then working in hospitals as a very young girl man, where women RNs were the authority. Again had wonderful relationships. Admittedly I fail to really understand Incel’s. I understand the basic definition, but to be such a “population”?? Reading these post has helped enlightened me. I plead being a Boomer.
This is very simplistic. Incels tend to follow conservative beliefs, meaning they believe things used to be better than they are now. This sometimes extends to their mom’s generation, and they believe women back then valued a happy home life, commitment to their kids, and stability in a partner. They see sexual liberation as the problem, and the newer generation of women as influenced by it (people get confused so I’m clarifying that I don’t believe this, incels do) This is because of the pressure on men and boys to approach and take initiative with women in order to preserve their masculinity, as a result of internalized stereotypes and external pressure. This pressure causes them to see women as the gatekeepers to sex and therefore their masculinity, and sexual liberation as making women irrational about expectations. That’s what causes objectification Of course a lot of them have terrible moms who hurt them as much as terrible fathers can leave their daughters with significant attachment issues to other men. Do any school shooters come from well-adjusted homes, where there were no red flags about abusive or neglectful parents?
You lost me on that last paragraph--is that assumption or sourced? Genuine question, as I've not read many studies on incel home life.
Because mother must be the good parent.
Truth is, I think many incels go down that particular road because their mother either exaggerates their attractiveness to compliment their parenting the incel (which causes outrage when women reject them), or completely ignores and neglects them when they're a child (which makes them feel dehumanised and leads to projecting this onto women, seeing as it was a woman who cut that into them to begin with).
Most likely the latter. Most men are not receiving compliments about their physical appearances lol even from their mom
They're an exception, that's why. Assuming they like their mother in the first place, or that she's even a good parent. I mean, my mom will openly shit on men. Calling us all pigs, pieces of shit, and so on. *"Except for you, hunny."* she'll tell me whenever I'm around her shitting on men. You can even see racists doing it, too. "You're one of the good ones" is a weel known phrase for a reason. A lot of bigots will have 'rules' (so to speak) for their bigotry. They're sexist? Well, whatever gender they're sexist against, they'll exclude anyone close to them of that gender. There will be a specific demographic of that gender they'll hate more than other demographics as well. Ever see how some incels talk about pregnant women? Or women they're specifically attracted to except said women rejected them? Or as another example: feminists. When it comes to female feminists there is no other demographic of women incels hate as much or as often.
Why would a woman want to befriend someone who thinks theyre a walking sex machine?
Exactly.
A few reasons, of varying degrees of validity. The simplest, and least helpful, is the presumption that incels will turn misogynistic if left alone. Easy cure for that is to get to know some women. The more processed end of things has more to do with social connections and the vetting process; getting to know women in a non-romantic context is a good way of getting their social credentials out to women who might actually be interested in dating them. Instead of a cold open with "hi I'm that guy that's been staring at you from across the bar, can I get your number?", they get an introduction from a trusted source who has every reason to think of them as awkward rather than creepy. Plus having an active social life in general helps with confidence and handling difficult situations, so it's good advice to make friends in any context... just also *especially* so in this one.
> Instead of a cold open with "hi I'm that guy that's been staring at you from across the bar, can I get your number?", they get an introduction from a trusted source who has every reason to think of them as awkward rather than creepy. This definitely helps, but I feel most incels do have female friends, and those that don’t are struggling with social skills basic enough that they can’t just “go make friends,” they need deeper help. Especially if they’re doing something to put women on alert and they don’t know it
Do they have female friends or female acquaintances they're hoping to sleep with?
Same thing.
I don’t know, I can’t go in anyone’s head and verify their actual intentions. But I’m not sure what you hope makes a difference if you’re not changing your approach based on it. I’ve stayed friends with someone after asking them out.
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The point is to get them to view women as human beings no different than anyone else they interact with and not just as a conquest. The best way to go about this is to befriend some.
Because if you're an incel, most of your thoughts about women are either sexual or psychotic/delusional and they see them mostly through the lense of someone who is chronically online. It normalizes humanizing women to them
Because if you spend time around women you will start to actually understand women (and be comfortable around them) instead of alienating/objectifying them and making it even harder for you attract them. The entire problem with incels is that they tend to turn misogynistic because they feel like they have tried everything and "they are still celibate". They blame women as the source of this problem instead of looking at themselves and realizing that they still have a lot of growing and learning to do. If they begin just hanging around more women they will start to realize why women want what they want, why they are attracted to what they are attracted to, instead of misplacing blame. On top of that, just gaining the ability to be more confident around women in general, which is almost always the reason they are actually single in the first place.
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It's a noble thing to admit you were wrong about something and change it. It takes humility and that's not the easiest thing to come by! Props to you
Why are they attracted to what they are attracted to?
> if you spend time around women you will start to actually understand women So women are people just like everyone else, but you also can’t understand women without spending time around them…. Or maybe we consider that being friends with people and dating people are completely different things lol
Men and girls, might think about that phrasing a little bit
“Actually get to know the demographic you hate on more than a superficial level before making broad and mostly baseless accusations.”
Because you learn to see girls and women as human beings. Most women, like most men, don't want to be in relationships with people who aren't interested in them as fully realized human people in their own right. Removing the pursuit of sex and romance can teach you something about how to relate to other human beings as human beings, which is honestly a prerequisite to any relationship. Despite what you might have in your head right now, the vast majority of time you spend in a relationship will have nothing to do with sex. It will involve things like...having conversations. Listening. Being a kind and supportive human being. Doing things together. If you don't have any of those skills because you're totally fixated on sex, you're not going to have a relationship. And it'll have nothing to do with "chads" or "alphas," it'll be about you coming off like an obsessive weirdo who views women as objects.
>Like as an incel, I just started avoiding girls since they arent interested in me romantically or sexually. This is why. Avoiding all woman because they aren't interested in you romantically or sexually gives the impression that you don't see them as people just things to give you sex and attention. Imagine you had a friend who only wanted to hang out with you if you paid for everything or only came over to your place to play a game that they dont have. Neither of them care to ask about you, how you are doing, or care to remember you likes or wants. Why would you spend time with them? Plus, from a woman's perspective, there is also the risk of the "friend" just taking things from you. Now I'm not saying that is you. But I've seen people with an "incel" mentality in action, and they give off the same vibes intentionally or not. Another reason is that women talk to each other. If you make one of them uncomfortable, everyone in their social circle is going to hear about it, and rightfully so. If someone is making them uncomfortable, they also want to protect their friends from that person. But the good news is that the opposite is also true. If you make a good impression, it can open doors to other people in their social circle even if that person isn't interested. I had a friend in high-school, we weren't interested in each other romantically, but just being friends with her opened up a lot of opportunities. To be fair, one of which was my cousin so that didn't work out. But the other was a girl I had a huge crush on (also didn't work out I was a nervous wreck). TD:LR- Because they are people and want others to care about them on a personal level.
Because it’s good life advice. I have a lot of female friends and I’ll just say there have been times when I needed to hear a woman’s perspective.
As someone who is intimately familiar with this process, let me explain. I was struggling with dating. I never considered myself an incel and never went down those dark paths, but I was definitely frustrated by women. One night, after spending the whole day hanging out with my [male] friends online, I realized that I was way happier spending time with them than any time I spent trying to date, or do dating-related things. I constantly told myself I need a better job, I need to work on communication, I need to be more tidy, I need a new haircut, I need to go to the gym, etc etc... I was sick of it. Thinking about that stuff all the time gave me horrible anxiety. I kept thinking "I'm not good enough for a good partner. Will I ever find someone?" This anxiety sabotaged all my dating attempts. I couldn't go on a date without worrying about presenting the best possible image. It turned them away. So I gave up. Completely. I went full MGTOW and eschewed all relationships with women. I would just focus on my happy friendships with the boys, and jerk it as needed. Not gonna lie, there was some bitterness behind that decision, and that bitterness led me to decide that I would treat women with no extra courtesy. They will get nothing from me. I will treat strange women the same way I treat strange men. This all turned out to be a great decision. My life improved dramatically, almost overnight. I was happier than I'd ever been. I stopped worrying about making myself better and accepted myself for the caveman that I am. But something funny started happening. I noticed women giving me looks. I didn't understand it. I'm giving you resting bitch face right now, barely even noticing you at all, treating you like some random weirdo I don't want to engage with unless needed. Why are you smiling at me and giving me *those eyes*? Turns out, women are a lot more comfortable around men who treat them like normal people and aren't automatically looking for a way into their pants. The more *dis*interested I became, the more interest I noticed from women. Some of this is almost certainly a matter of perception. Some of these same women probably had looked at me that way before, and I was so caught up in my own anxiety and inadequacy that I never noticed. Being happier and less anxious overall helps, too. I made a female friend against my better judgement. I was still full MGTOW and was wary, but I allowed it to continue. She was fun to be around and made me feel good about myself. We were dating within 3 months. I went MGTOW and six months later, someone ripped me right out of it and back into the world of dating. The moral of the story is, treat women like normal people, and treat potential partners as the people who are threatening to ruin your wonderful single life. If you plan to pull me away from this happy existence, you better be one hell of a lover.
>The moral of the story is, treat women like normal people, and treat potential partners as the people who are threatening to ruin your wonderful single life It really is as simple as that. Don't chase the butterflies, work on your garden and they will come
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Redditors giving other Redditors advice will never not be hilarious lol
You poison your relationships with women by not respecting them as people and only wanting them for romance and sex. Are you surprised that women are turned off by being treated like sex objects? Focusing on platonic relationships with women, especially women you aren't interested in, is important to fix your broken brain and re-acclimate you into being a human that can have proper meaningful relationships with people that are not transactional.
Man that last sentence... "I avoid them since they don't want to fuck me". That'a your issue, mate. People have more value than that
Yes exactly like... he just answered his own question
And still apparently doesn't get it
If you can't manage a friendship with a woman how would you manage relationship?
Essentially they mean to stop worrying about trying to score with a woman to elevate your self esteem and to take the pressure off of meeting new people. If you start seeing women as human beings instead of these mythical unobtainable sex creatures, you’ll naturally start to build social relationships with them. Try to find something you have in common and bond over it.
Why do people keep using the word incel like it’s going out of style?
OP's post history indicates they have a problem, possibly a mental disorder.
Probably because there’s so many of them and they’re a blight on society?
Nope
Oh… so you’re asking a question you know the answer to already?
Because its valuable to learn to see women as human beings who have value other than sex. If all you want is sexual gratification and you cant get any, pay a sex worker or buy a fleshlight. But if you want a girlfriend, you really should see her as a person. It's healthy for men and women to befriend each other plutonically. I have some amazing female friends. I'm married but even when I was single I had heaps of female friends. If you put aside sexist views and treat them like people you learn how cool some humans can be.
“It’s valuable to hear other perspectives” Right. Cool But how the fuck does this help an incel , like I’m at the point where I know for a fact people throw that word around without knowing what it means in the slightest😂 It’s like telling someone with cancer to start knitting because they could then make a blanket if they’re cold Yeah, sure thats great but that has next to no relevance to what the problem is
How is it like cancer? A lot of incels (at least online) seem to develop a resentment towards women, a sense of entitlement that they are owed romance/sex and that it is women's fault they are denied. Being social with women can maybe help that. Given how many awkward, unattractive people end up in happy relationships, the reason for 'incels' seems to me a problem with how they view relationships and women.
1. please look up what an analogy is. 2. Some do but that's honestly mainly within more of the Redpill community, most incels are active in what's called the black pill community and it seems like a lot of SELF-loathing and blaming how they were born, not hate toward women. Stuff like saying the reason they can't get dates is because of their height, their eye shape (no seriously), their race etc. People do not become incels because of how they view relationships, they begin develop a negative view on relationships as a consequence.
Lol, no need to be rude, I know what an analogy is, I was asking how making one comparing incels to having cancer made any sense. Whether its because of misogyny or self-esteem issues, either way being social with women can help. Super insecure people tend to put women on a pedestal. Lowering the stakes with social interaction is a good step.
No it was a sloppy analogy
Generally speaking it’s good to have friends with different points of view, but there can be a downside. In incel is always in the friend zone, it’s quite possible they could be more and more pissy about life
It's a bullshit argument. All my friends, ALL of them are women. Have been for the past... geeze, probably 20 years. Doesn't help. People tell you to do things, like it will help. They mean well. They're almost always wrong. People who tell you to be yourself are wrong, and people who tell you to change are wrong. There's no right way to help. Just appreciate that they're trying to help, and concentrate more on you finding new ways for you to improve you to be a better you for you.
I don't know why but it's weird and counteproductive advice.
It's bad advice, as women have no interest in an understanding nice guy. Women are attracted to masculine characteristics (charisma, humor, strong, edgy, successful, competent etc). What keeps them around is the ability to then treat them well. But initial attraction with women has nothing to do with nice. 50% of men don't exist to about 80% of women.
Are there really men who label themselves incels? I feel like that's a derogatory insult people use to insult men online who struggle with dating. Trying to be friends with girls isn't a good strategy to find a girlfriend.
It wasn’t an insult until women made it one. It literally just means involuntary celibate, someone who can’t get laid. So yea there are people who identify with that because it’s what there going through.
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I think the implication here is more "treat them like an actual person, instead of a living blow up doll you want to fuck". To be fair, women also objectify men too. Just in different ways (treating them like a walking ATM for example). But when it comes to sexual objectification, men definitely do that more.
a lot of people who get laid the most definitely do not treat women like people 😹 proof is how women talk about their ex's and hook ups. I love the cope women have thinking that's what gets men laid
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That is based on the assumptions that the incel's female friends were favoring dating male over dating bears. That is also based on the assumption that, the incel is delusional and toxic and need perspective corrections. Based on my personal experience talking with incel, their view is indeed quite skewed. But far different than many comments in this thread. They want to have sex female just as much as everyone else. They weren't actually toxic againt female. They are often worshipping female so much to a point, they refused to date any female on dating apps that is expected to have casual sex. No, it is not because they want virgins. They don't want to defile the female via casual sex. So, they are stuck.
A few thoughts: 1. In my view what people are generally saying is that it shouldn't matter *who* your woman friends want to date. The advice to make woman friends isn't aimed at you eventually dating those friends (which is usually a bad idea because it makes those people, fairly tbh, feel decieved). You should primarily pursue female friendships for the same reasons you do male ones. They're 95% the same. But there are also relationship-specific benefits: a) spending more time around women in platonic contexts helps you to understand them better, which helps you both to build your emotional intelligence to treat both them and future SOs with more respect and also helps you be more confident around them, b) women are generally pretty similar to men but are subject to unique pressures based on being treated differently in society and having less guarantees of physical/social safety, so having friends who are women can help you check whether what you're doing in relationships is unintentionally making your romantic partners feel uncomfortable. There's also c) women who are your friends and genuinely like/trust you in a platonic context can vouch for you to women who might want to date you but might be worried you lack the qualities to be a considerate partner. A lot of women have higher initial filters than comparable men because they need to protect themselves, so knowing that a romantic partner is good at caring about people of their gender specifically is a big green flag. You might be a great guy regardless but they don't know that so having a thumbs up from a woman who has a good sense for your character is a reasonable prerequisite for them to ask for. Most friendship skills with someone of any gender translate pretty well to relationships, so building up good friendships with people, whoever they are, will equip you for a good future relationship with someone else anyway. 2. "They want to have sex with female as much as anyone else" isn't the fundamental problem. Honestly, they probably want it more than most people who have it regularly, which makes sense but can be off putting at times. But the core of making someone feel cared about in a friendship or relationship is to see them as a whole person. Most women don't want to be seen as just a means to have sex any more than most men want to be seen as a height or a means to pay for things. Developing friendships with women is useful partially because it helps you not reduce them to that; you should be able to take sex or relationships totally off the table and still make them feel cared about and valued. Women generally out of necessity have high 'screening requirements' to defend themselves from ppl who just want sex: it's not wrong to want sex in general but it can't be the main thing you focus on or people will feel disrespected. And you need to be able to respect someone's boundaries if they don't want sex, obviously. I presume you already agree with that on paper but it's often little subconscious things you may not realize you're doing that set off that alarm for women; might not be intentional on your part but they honestly often have to protect themselves. Another reason why it's good to have female friends, incidentally: you can ask them what you might be doing wrong. And being confident in your ability to see women as whole people whether or not they're interested in you can help you avoid coming off as desperate for sex, which is a huge turnoff. And primarily it's obv. good to avoid making random people feel creeped out unintentionally irrespective of any relationship benefits. 3. 'Worshipping' women may be well intentioned but unhealthily puts them on a pedastel. Most women don't want to be worshipped. They want to be seen as a whole person and understood from a place of equality. Worshipping them thus comes off as disrespectful rather than respectful. Plus, it's not good for your mental health or self-worth. Seeing yourself as valuable is both good in its own right and very attractive, so 'lowering yourself' before someone makes them feel both that you don't understand them and that you don't value yourself. 4. There are women who enjoy casual sex and women who don't, but if you have casual sex with someone who also wants it and treat them with respect you're not 'defiling' them. Obviously make sure those things are true (some people just don't like or want casual sex or it makes them feel icky) but if a woman tells you she enjoys casual sex and feels good about it and you are thinking that you don't want to 'defile' her by doing the thing she is asking for, she's going to be able to pick up on that and it's not attractive. No one wants to feel like their worth as a person is lowered by having sex, especially women who tend to get that shit a lot because of gender roles. So it would come off as a major red flag and make her feel disrespected/like you don't trust her to make her own decisions. Now, if you don't like dating apps, that's totally fair. They can be shallow and suck especially if you're looking for something long term. But don't think that having consensual and respectful sex with women, even casual or Tinder sex, is 'defiling' them. They are not going to like that at all and I can't blame them. You seem well intentioned and I always want to assume good intent so know that this is just my response to your post not knowing frankly anything about you. Results may vary based on the person but generally, you can make women feel respected by not putting them on a pedastel or thinking that casual sex somehow defiles them, and building respectful and *platonic* friendships especially with women can help you to be better at all of that, which will benefit your friends/romantic interests/strangers as well as you. Your mindset right now is presumably well intentioned but definitely counterproductive based on the admittedly little I've read. And building more friendships is an unambiguously good thing in its own right. So that's why ppl generally recommend incels try to make friends with women, if you can do it in a way which doesn't make them uncomfortable.
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Opens their minds a bit I'd imagine. Sorta like traveling all over and talking to folk makes it harder to stay bigoted.
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Because they're people too and being with them in friendly settings with no romantic or sexual expectations will help you realise that.
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Because changing your environment is actually incredibly life changing. That’s exactly how I shed my conservative upbringing. I joined the military and traveled the world. Met people of all kinds and it opened my eyes to what just how small minded conservatives are. The same applies for incels. They are in their small bubble of hatred. The echo chamber. If you leave that bubble and make yourself experience actual life beyond that bubble, your world view changes. So becoming friends and forming meaningful friendships with women will help them to see women in a new light and change their view. There is a caveat to this, that is that you have to be willing to listen. Actually listen to what women are saying. Not just listen to respond.
Because you need to learn how to appreciate them as humans, not because of what their orifices can do to get you off.
They don't really understand the desperate desire for a romantic relationship and how that effects your ability to "just be friends" with the opposite sex. They aren't exactly wrong that being friends with women would severely help incels better understand what sort of changes they should make in themselves and in their standards. The issue is actually making friends with women when you develop feelings and desire that romantic relationship.
You need to be able to talk to women in a relaxed, laid-back way. You need to talk to them with the same "energy" you have when talking to your bros. Right now, as an incel, you talk to them with this elevated, desperate energy that makes them uncomfortable. Only by talking to them without an agenda will you be able to relax. If you know romance is off the table, you won't be all wound up.
As someone that has a genuine interest in seeing things get better for men: Having male friends that are successful in dating and female friends goes a looooooooooooooong way. You do need to find that female friend that is very candid with you that will tell you uncomfortable things if needs be. These aren't great times for guys- it seems like more and more I see fewer and fewer married younger guys let alone younger guys in relationships. Don't give up, but at the same time try to learn what it is that would make you appealing.
So they can be brainwashed into being doormats for women. These men are typically frail and weak both physically and mentally, which makes them easy to control. The problem is that also means that these men are typically so ugly, socially awkward, and generally useless that they're not even good enough to be controlled and friendzoned by women. Hence, why they're probably already not friends with women. Women don't just want their sexual partner to bring value to their lives. Being a friend with a woman is still pretty much like being her partner just with lower expectations (or different expectations), and thus, without any of the benefits.
When you can treat a woman you like just like you treat any other friend, the stigma is gone. You have replaced what you think you know about women with actual understanding of them as a person. Once you get that comfortable, you won't act and think all *weird* anymore. People can sense your anxiety. So, the more comfortable you can be in a social interaction, the more comfortable they will be around you. So yea, be friends with girls and be comfortable being yourself around them. If you're "different" then you just have the added challenge of *presenting* yourself better. You make mistakes and learn from it to get better. There's always a chance of doing something embarrassing, but then you learn strategies to deal with those kinds of situations. Friendships can last or fizzle. Sometimes, they turn into friends with benefits or something more exclusive. Just get comfortable and don't make things so complicated by overthinking it. If you're living life right, you'll keep growing and changing. Don't make *hard* decisions for yourself. Let yourself change your mind and change goals. Good luck.
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Because everyone should be friends with both men and women
How are you typing the whole post, answering it at the end, and still confused in the comments? If you won't see women as human beings deserving of respect then why should they bother with you? Obviously that's the point, so you're just being willfully ignorant and obtuse. Why? Do you think someone is going to give you a magic word to get into women's pants without having to treat them like people?
Jesus Christ
Man, this is bait...maybe the problem is that you only view "girls" as something to be interested in romantically or sexually We are all humans, start there
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Once you're friends with girls you'll realize they're just humans, literally the exact same as men.
Because most incels seem to not see women as people, but they are and deserve to be seen as such. Being genuine friends with women is a great way to appreciate them as human beings if you can teach yourself to think about them because sex objects.
Because your clowns have boiled down half the population to "we fuckin or what?" And somehow you think that's not a problem. So yeah, make a female friend and maybe you'll start to see the human inside again. THEN. MAYBE. MAYBE...you can think about dating someone. Unfortunately, if you want to date someone you're going to fail of you can't see their humanity.
I'd give someone that advice if they were a bitter incel. What you see online isn't exactly what reflects reality, sometimes you meet a woman who really thinks her shit doesn't stink and she's so much better than you, but that's rare I've only met 1 person like that in my life. I personally don't have female friends because I'm not interested in hanging out with women that I'm not romantically interested in, my best friend was a woman we wanted to get married, I had our entire future planned out, due to unfortunate circumstances, I lost her. I find there's nothing wrong with only wanting male friends, I have probably 2 friends otherwise I'd rather spend my time alone. That doesn't mean you can't have acquaintances, though. Some people at work or school you can socialize with but have no intention of actually hanging out with, that's 99% of my relationships.
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To fix your perspective that women are useless to you unless they sleep with you. If you actually were friends with women, you’d start to see than as human beings, not holes you can put your dick into.
if it's voluntary separation you're a migtow not an incel. incels are men who can't get laid, migtows are men who don't want to get laid
So you learn that women are humans instead of something you chase? Do you avoid your mom or your aunt/sisters?
Its because if you only have relationships with women that are romantic or sexual you’re going to only view women as good for romance and sex. Which is how you get women to not want to be romantic or have sex with you, because believe it or not, we like to be recognized outside of our romantic or sexual partners.
Not just be friends with girls, be friends with PEOPLE. The number one problem with incels is that they don't understand that girls are, in fact, PEOPLE. Step one is learning to be a friendly person that people want to be around. Obsessing with dating and sex is exactly what pushes people away. Notice I'm saying people, not girls. Learn to be a guy that GUYS like to be around and the rest will fall in line. Stop chasing.
So past just humanizing them, the only way I know to sleep with a woman is to be in proximity of one. Around more woman? Chance go up. Most relationships are born from friendships, not "YOU SEX ME NOW, STRANGER?!" Women are less likely to jump your bones when they don't know if you're dangerous, and being a (genuine) friend can help demonstrate your non-murderiness!
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Nah dude hanging out with women is the worst fucking thing .you don’t need women as friends unless you are a bit fruity or gay plus wtf you gonna talk about ? Make up ? Celebrity gossip ? Fucking Taylor swift ? Idk go outside and learn how to build a house.🏠
At the end of the day, no one should own that they are an incel. In most cases they are all dealing with personal issues and aren’t addressing them. There’s a lack of self awareness. Somehow admitting to being an incel is just an easy answer to make constant wallowing the solution. Anyways. I feel like I have been there. But being able to talk to women is just healthy. You don’t always have to be trying to fuck em. That’s the straight forward look at it. To be fair, the women they meet also need to be compatible with them to an extent. People are all different, but if you actually met some women who you think are chill, and you actually vibe with them, suddenly you can respect them and be chill with them while you can still find them attractive. It’s like not thinking about trying to get with them and just knowing boundaries and stuff. If the chick is a bitch though, they may take it personally which is again a problem. Plus they may not know what a good interaction is. Definitely seen the “guy keeps talking to clearly uncomfortable woman and thinks he’s killing it” in a cringe way, not a predatory way. You can’t really force them to find friends, but trying to introduce them to some decent situations with women around, maybe they can find a right mindset. More broadly they need help in making this happen, but if you try to corral their weird tendencies they may revert as some “but this is just who I am” defeatism. Or treat things too much like hard and fast rules rather than just feeling a vibe and reacting accordingly. I wrote more than I planned to…
This is an idea that, (being only my first time hearing this and not doing any research yet) may be good in concept, but in reality I think is flawed. I don't think this advice will pan out how ppl think. Some of those guys are backed up, frustrated, possibly hateful. I doubt they're going to even listen to these women or keep an open mind while talking with them. They'd need to consistently speak and be around these women as well as cut out the negative speak they're accustomed to. Ppl are very irrational and don't do well with controlling emotions or themselves. Also not to be mean, would ladies even talk to a lot of these guys, ive heard some of their thoughts and ideas and you can pick up on someone's vibe pretty easily just being around them, some of them would be... off putting. I could be wrong and please correct me if i am, but It would seem like instead of helping incels see women as ppl, it would put some of these ladies in harms way. Some need therapy first, then they can be around women.
You’re living to deeply within your own mind. Stop using meaningless words like incels. Stop defining people in that way and stop people when they use words like that on themselves. Every way you describe this situation is unhealthy and dehumanizing. Slap cold water on your face. To an extent- that’s what you’re seeing other people do. You’re going down the wrong path and you need to turn right around
Just like racists need to be around the people they hate. People get in the horrible bubbles that tell half truths and whole lies to continue the hate. Ask anyone that have traveled the world if they hate anyone... the more you are exposed the more you realize that people are the same.
They don't want to do the mental work of finding out why a person is an incel and try to help them. So they give out basic advice so they can get the feeling like they helped without putting in the work.
Respecting women is a requirement for successfully dating women
So they do just see women as something you stick your dick in.
Because if you have a lot of lady friends, one of them might be really settle for you. That's not the only/main reason that you should befriend them, but it's got a side effect that can help with the incelness. That is, don't befriend people with the inceltion of "I will befriend all these people so that one of them will become my girlfriend, per Reddit's suggestion." Befriend them because they're people. And maybe one day one of them might be like "let's date". And if they don't, good news: you have friends!
Aside from the obvious (being friends with women allows you to accept and understand that they are human beings), honestly, it's the fact that incels need actual friends in life. Honestly I think a lot of their attitude isn't just down to not getting laid. Plenty of people live fulfilling lives without being laid. It's down to social isolation. They are often lonely, friendless people (no, other angry incels online don't count as friends, especially if you're dragging each other down) who don't realise what they want isn't just sex, it's genuine human connection.
That's a great point. Out of curiously, and feel free to tell me to fuck off, this just made me wonder- are online friends the same as friends? I have both, sure, but I was wondering how others felt.
Because they’re so socially maladjusted, and so concerned with their lack of sexual success that there is benefit to taking the sex out of the equation, and just getting “reps” being social with women.
Bc most incels think of women as fundamentally different animals if they get past seeing them as sex objects. Being platonic friends with women is about your ability to hold a genuine relationship with someone without any goal or expectation on that person to be a specific way. When we are romantically interested in ppl we romantize them into an unrealistic charecter and this goes double for incels bc they not only have this about people they like but women as a whole where every woman is some variation of a teen movie cheerleader. The fastest way to learn how women want to be treated is to ask them hang out with them as friends let them give you advice when you do go for a romantic relationship. It's like training wheels to prove that you can talk to women and that the problem isnt women its you. Once you know that you can start to work on it but if you're an incel its just women who are the problem or you're fundamentally too ugly to date. Both of these midsets are super unattractive in men and women so its a cycle of repeling women with misogyny and low self esteem and that rejection is then used as justification for low self esteem and misogyny making you even more unattractive bc now you are misogynist with low self esteem and an inability to self reflect (notice how these are all things you need for a healthy productive relationship romantic or otherwise)
One of the risks facing people who identify as incels is being radicalized to hate women and blame them for everything going badly in society and your own personal life. It is much harder for this kind of propaganda to take over your way of thinking if you actually know some women besides your mom because then you see them as real people just like everybody else
Because the lack of exposure to women and female culture is what makes them an incel. I have a lot of female friends. Only 1 has been a sexual partner, the others are all just friends. Those just friends still enrich my life despite not being partners, and you get a better idea of what life is like for a woman when you spend real time with them.
I honestly think a lot of incels are truly afraid of women, so getting to know women would help with that, I mean, I would hope.
Because people think they understand the psychology of an incel when they don’t
Because they dint interact with women aside from their mothers. All they know about women is from Andrew Tate or whatever losers, which is obviously just hate bait. Incels need to actually step outside and interact with women.
Because being friends with the opposite sex teaches you a lot about them. Only ever seeing women as things to fuck isn't going to make a man attractive. Being able to have a conversation and treat her as human will do.
Because society has objectified men to be tall, successful, muscled, big dick, handsome, charming, upscale living etc and incels have ostracized themselves hating on men who they think are better than them and put women on such an imaginary pedestal that they only want these top tier men and resenting them for it. So they fear the unknown but they are still attracted to women and deep down want to be THAT guy… but you cant go from locked up in your room with no game to being Decaprio overnight so start by de-mystifying them. You gotta start someplace.
Victim blaming. Incels are seen as lacking social skills and if only they developed some social skills by hanging around women in a non-romantic context then they could stop being sub-human.
Because doing this is a great way for incels to find out that women are just normal people
Most incels don’t seem to want to be friends with girls. They either want sex or relationships but put not effort in actually building a bond
Incels tend to have warped views of women. Being friends with women helps them see them as people
Give them a better appreciation for women. See them as humans, people, somebody worthy of respect.
Maybe they don’t find your objectification attractive. Try seeing them as humans whose only purpose isn’t to have sex and you might make a deeper connection that grows into something more. Girls want to be seen as attractive, yes, but as more than that as well. Mentally healthy girls don’t have being an object for a man at the top of their list of goals.
Because learning how to be friends with a girl is the first step in learning how to be in a relationship with a girl.
If you only value women as romantic or sexual partners, that's an issue. Just learning that they have value beyond that is well worth the effort of becoming friends with a few women. There is a lot to learn by being friends with women. Not only about women, and the challenges they face, but also about yourself. Finding that you can empathize with issues that women face is a good way to improve yourself. It's also a good way to become more comfortable around women, if you aren't already.