Some questions for Incels after the Toronto van attack

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Great, so now governments will have yet another excuse to meddle with the Internet, restricting freedoms.

^ Wow.

Have you been reading their forums or something? I haven't even clicked on one to see what the user numbers are or what thread titles are about, never mind details like that.

Somehow I think these kind of people won't be able to get away with that sort of behaviour for very long.. because they'll be identified and then either caught and jailed, or dealt with via vigilante justice.

I became aware of this in the wake of the 2014 Isla Vista murders carried out by Elliot Rodger - who murdered six people and wounded fourteen others by stabbing and shooting them before killing himself. Incel groups idolize this waste of protoplasm, calling him the 'Supreme Gentleman' and talking about his courageous martyrdom.

Yes, I maintain an awareness of these groups. I track them on reddit and other even more loathsome sites, to which I will not link here because I don't care to make their rancid s**t any more widely available than it already is.

I'm a woman. Groups of men planning and carrying out hate-based terror attacks specifically targeting women? That's something I choose to be aware of.

Pretending it's not real won't protect me.

Hmm, but one copycat killer in 4 years doesn't a pandemic make..

Sounds like these websites are much like other hate groups, whether white supremacists or homophobes, and they'll cater to their vile community but very very few will ever follow through with committing any sort of violent act.

edit: But then again, there are a lot of racial & sexual orientation hate crimes.. which means it's possible for their to be an increasing number of angry incel hate crimes. I guess only time will tell.

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Goldfish, I said I first became aware of it after the 2014 incident, not that that was the first such incident. I also didn't say the Toronto attack was the only such incident following Isla Vista.

It's getting more attention now because the Toronto s**thead referenced the Isla Vista s**thead just before getting his murderous s**thead groove on, which requires the media to cover it in more detail.

Men have been beating, maiming, raping, and murdering women for centuries because they feel entitled to power and sex, and women who deny them power and sex are therefore to be punished and destroyed.

Before you reply with anything on the "Not all men!!" line of response, hush up. Women are vividly aware that not all men do this - but that response is pointless. If your immediate response to the idea of women being slaughtered by men who feel entitled to sex is to leap to the defense of men, you've entirely missed the point.

You didn't say anything about all men, so I wasn't going to say anything of the sort. The other posts were suggesting that all men should be treated like potential rapists & that's about as reasonable as treating all women as potential murderers just because some of them are.

My reaction was to the bolded bit. So, seeing as this behaviour has been going on for centuries.. maybe the internet forums are simply an online outlet for it? Maybe there won't be any increase in any actual violence. Maybe we'll just hear about it in the media more because sensational headlines sell ads.

We're actually in the most peaceful time that humanity has ever had. Fewer people die of violence, including war, than ever before. We're just so hyper-connected with news/media/internet that every single terrible thing that happens gets spread around the world with lightening speed and people get all worked up, anxious, and fearful. Then the ruling class can keep people controlled. The powers that be don't want happy people who aren't worried about everything.

If you have one lonely guy sitting in his apartment jerking off and fuming about how women won't give him the time of day, you have just that - one lonely guy. Maybe he'll decide to kill someone, or rape someone, or beat someone. Maybe he won't.

If you have a group of lonely guys sitting in their apartments jerking off and fuming about how women won't give them the time of day and congregating on internet fora encouraging one another to commit horrible acts of violence as a way of punishing women for being the cause of all their problems, the chance that one of them will do so increases.

Guys do all kinds of stupid s**t when they rile each other up. It's more or less the source of all those memes and jokes based on "hold my beer and watch this!" Women can fall prey to this as well, though it's less common. In most cases it results in some harmless jackassery. Sometimes people wind up in the ER needing stitches.

But the incel movement is a distillery for the worst impulses of toxic masculinity. I'm glad you're not threatened by it, but your opinion of the severity of the threat is based on, as you've said yourself, a little bit of surface Google research. I've been studying it for some years now, coming from a law enforcement background including an emphasis on domestic violence. Your recently-formed opinion doesn't carry an awful lot of weight in this matter.

I can't address this "movement" as a whole. I never heard of it until today.

My only response to learning what an Incel is, is the thought - it's just your insistence that women are awful, evil, and unfair, that keeps me from finding you attractive, you idiot!

There are two or three people I've observed here, that I'm silently addressing. I choose not to personally engage with them, because, well, I find them repulsive!

No goldfish, You suggested that a poster should assume men always wanted sex, and I pointed out that by that logic, women would have to also assume that all men were rapists, and that both were impractical assumptions.

The only one who was advocating anyone make assumptions about all men was you as far as I could discern.

As the poster to whom it was suggested I should assume men always wanted sex...realistically, I do assume that. Sometimes I'm wrong, but nowhere near as often as I'm wrong if I assume they don't.

I don't have a problem with men wanting sex. Never did. This was what I felt Goldfish was not understanding - I don't care if men want to have sex. What I care about, and what any woman who wants to be able to date safely needs to care about, is whether sex is all the guy wants from me.

A guy who wants to get to know me as an individual human being, with thoughts and interests outside of getting naked, is far less likely to be a rapist than a guy who's only interest in me is whether he's going to get some.

Mind you, Chronos, I'm not disagreeing with you in any particular detail - I think we're arriving at very similar conclusions via slightly different paths.

I think we both understand and more or less agree with each other but I think goldfish has some misunderstandings if he thinks anyone is advocating that women should assume all men are rapists.

Involuntary single? They are watching you....


RUUUUUuuuuuuunnnnn!

No, not unless you're the kind of toxic as*hole who thinks the government should be supplying girlfriends so you don't feel compelled to murder women.

But it’s better to be safe than sorry! no? We never know what could be there in our male minds.

I have a hard time differentiating between serious discussion and sarcasm.

You seem to be basing this on the idea that the government will now be monitoring the private communication of all unmarried men. Are you serious about that?

The government already listens in to far too much of its citizens' private communication, IMO, but suggesting that they will now target unmarried men, specifically because of threats to murder women, is disingenuous.

I believe it isolates a so-called "incel" more if you fear them. It also makes people be bitchy to them.

People were bitchy to me when I was an "incel." I didn't react too well in my mind---but I realized I had to do something about my "incel" status on my own, rather than blame "society," or blame "women," or whatever. Encouraging this (true) line of thought is the solution, I believe, rather than adopting an ideology of fear. Being feared leans to more isolation, more discontent, more courage to "act."

When a person who already feels alienated----is made to feel even more alienated by whatever agent---this creates a vicious cycle which could lead to Elliot Rodger/Toronto killer type of actions (though I do believe there was more pathology than mere "incel-ness" in Elliot Rodger, and in the Toronto killer.

Like I said, be wary----but don't react to them overtly. Instead, encourage them to think (it's true!) that by encouraging people to emphasize the positive in themselves. Being a virgin, or never having a girlfriend does not mean, in the vast majority of cases, that there is enough pathology and hopelessness in a person for this person to perpetuate these murderous acts.

Work on changing the "incel" situation, rather than putting the "incel" in a category which serves to isolate the person from what's real.