Some questions for Incels after the Toronto van attack

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Thank you for sharing, Kraftiekortie, but I don't feel it's my obligation to teach the incel anything. They have to wise up on their own.

Kraftie, I'd like to ask you to pretty please not refer to yourself as an "incel". I realize you're using it as a purely descriptive term for someone who was celibate and would rather not have been - but when you're talking about this movement, and these groups, the word itself has extremely ugly and violent connotations.

The "incels" are a self-named group. They have their own terminology for a lot of unpleasant things, including themselves. Using that terminology can brand you as being a part of that movement.

As an example of what I mean, originally the "Aryans" were a people speaking an Indo-European language who invaded northern India in the 2nd millennium BC, displacing the Dravidian and other aboriginal peoples. However, an extremely unpleasant group of people decided to take that word and use it to describe a whole lot of really ugly ideals, and nowadays if you refer to yourself as an "Aryan" people are going to take you for a white supremacist or some other flavor of Nazi.

You're a great person. Can we find a different word to describe the wonderful people who, while they're not getting any action and dearly want to change that, would never in a thousand lifetimes willingly associate themselves with this hate group?

That's why I put "incel" in quotes. I hate the term myself.

Don't call "them" anything.

But do emphasize that they have to work on themselves, rather than play the Blame Game.

Be able to take rejection--because rejection is inevitable--even for the most handsomest fellow.

I'm not talking about the people on that website, by the way; I've never been in one of those websites. I'm talking about people, in general, who have difficulty in maintaining relationships.

I think what could ultimately have stopped these men from carrying out the horrible acts they did, is not female attention, but rather having actually close and healthy friendships with other males.

I've noticed a pattern for a while now, which is: When men don't have any strong bonds with other males, they believe the only things that are worthwile in life is getting laid or being in relationships. They become hyper focused on this, and then the bitterness and anger grows.

I think you are right. Plus once they get to the point of labelling themselves "incel" and joining one of those forums they are so hateful to women that I don't think attention from women would make any difference anyway, because their hearts have been turned against women and any attention from women would just be viewed with suspicion and they would sabotage it. And we can't help them with their misogyny either because they won't listen to us. They can only find value in the perspectives of other men, so other men will have to be the ones to help them. They wouldn't accept help from us. They need examples in their lives of how to be men and be happy in themselves, and they can't learn that from us. They can only really get that through friendships with other men.

A lot of good posts in this thread for sure, but this one stood out. At first I thought yeah, makes sense.. I mean, during times in my life where I was celibate, I didn’t really dwell on it ‘cause I had a few really good friends to hang out with regularly and go do things. The whole “idle hands,” get put to work by the devil kind of situation, but with friends and things to do there isn’t so much time to dwell on incel thoughts.

Buuuut, on the flip side, even people with a job and friends in their life still have time to indulge in crazy online forum crap and they might even be upset by their friends’ past or present relationships.. so, even with male friends ppl could still radicalize.

Hmmm, but probably a lot fewer would.. because, truly, if you had strong male bonds then you wouldn’t want to disappoint or upset your friend(s) and maybe that might keep some unhinged incel from acting on any wild and crazy rape or murderous thoughts. No one wants to let their best friend(s) down by doing something like that.

Makes me wonder how many of these incels don’t have close male friends in their lives, or a best friend, or any friends at all.

I think one of the root causes of this mentality is when guys grow up without their fathers.
They had no bond with their father growing up, and later in life they fail to establish these bonds with other males later in life because of it.

All they ever got was love/validation from their mother, and thus they now only value validation from women, resulting in the fixation on getting laid & into relationships, undervalueing bonds with other males.

Not saying this is how it is, this is just my personal hypothesis. It's been a known statistical fact for a while now, that boys who grow up without fathers are vastly overrepresented in crime statistics.

Men together talk about getting laid and how if you haven’t your a loser and they make fun of you for it. Sorry I disagree. Close male friends would just make it worse. I’d never share my issues with relationships and sex with men again, they just laugh and tease you for it.

Yes, but they can also learn it from a book. I’m sure there must be others, but I once read a book that’s basically a “how to be a real man,” guidebook. While the cover art looks violent, it’s not violent at all.

The book is called “The Way Of Men,” by Jack Donovan. It basically preaches health and fitness, work ethic, honour/trust, competence, skills, mastery of tasks, athleticism, defence/offence/protective, team work, reciprocation, discipline, chivalry, being a good man in general so that you’re not just not the last pick as a friend or teammate, but rather the first choice of other men - and in turn, probably also then chosen by at least some women.

I think a lot of guys on those forums, and some guys here on wrong planet, would benefit from reading a book like that and then focusing on self improvement, which in turn would lead to them being able to forge much stronger friendships with other men in their lives and then they’d likely be a lot less likely to ever snap even if they remain single & celibate.

It’s a straight forward simple read and while there isn’t a lot of earth shattering information in it, it might just be new knowledge for a guy who can’t quite figure out how to make friends with other guys and thus worth a read for anyone who needs to learn its content.

Here’s the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Way-Men-Jack-Don ... /ref=nodl_

We are, in many ways, the company we keep.

Just as hanging around with violent, hateful people can exacerbate those tendencies, spending time with kind, honest folks can help us want to better ourselves.

This does happen, but in general it’s good natured teasing between men vs those making fun of guys not getting laid intending to be deeply hurtful & drive someone over the edge to be violent. Guys do talk about sex and they do make fun of other guys in the social circle who don’t ever seem to have dates or get laid. I know, I’m involved in these conversations with friends at the beach. Many of the people here are rather hypersexual, too, so I probably hear somewhat extreme examples.. I mean some of these people host sex-positive parties and are into kink scene stuff. Mind you, those ones are too busy enjoying their own lives and sex lives to bother boasting about it. I hear a lot more from other guys - and while they do get laid, they probably lie about how often. And not every guy talks about their sex life. With some of my friends I might say something very surface level, but in general I don’t say much about my sex life to other people especially since almost all of them are straight and don’t want to hear about my sexual life lol.

Anyways, yes, guys talk about sex. And they sometimes talk about the guys who aren’t getting any. But no guy ever is saying those things trying to push someone’s buttons until they snap and go rape or kill someone. That is never ever ever the intent of any man. I know sometimes people do feel very hurt by that sort of teasing, but those guys need to learn how to take teasing like that in stride and realize that the men who are teasing them are doing so as it’s a cultural kind of norm for them to talk about their sexual status like it’s social currency while making fun of those who can’t/don’t get laid. It’s just a part of life between haves and have nots. Sure, you’d likely feel embarrassed and angry at their teasing, that’s normal and expected, but I hope you and others realize that it’s just teasing between men and never ever intended to incite a violent reaction. Ideally those who get teased have a bit of a thick skin about it and decide for themselves that they’re never ever going to commit a violent act in the name of it.

It’s also entirely possible to have close male friends and simply not talk about sex. For most of my adult life I had only once in a blue moon ever mentioned anything about my sex life to just one friend, so almost zero discussion of my sex life (or lack of at times) because I wasn’t out as gay and was a lot more anxious etc etc but my point is that I still had a lot of very strong friendship bonds with other men, I just never spoke a word about my sex life with them. Talking about one’s sex life isn’t mandatory, and if asked you’re not obligated to tell the truth anyways. Or you could just conceal it and say “I don’t kiss and tell,” or “You can talk about whatever you want, but I like to keep my private life private.” While it’s common for men to talk about their sex lives once in a while, it’s not necessary to ever tell anyone anything about that part of your life. You’re under no obligation to do so in order to be close friends with someone.

You didn’t watch this movie, no?

Ok so I've seen the reddit group and while I am an "incel" myself, I couldn't be part of a vitriolic community like that. They seem to blame women, society, etc for their problem whereas I don't think any particular person is to blame the same way no one is to blame if you create a product and nobody's interested in buying it.

I understand the intense negative emotions that come with never appealing to anyone romantically or sexually and feeling alienated as a result. In my opinion past a certain point, it really messes up your self-esteem, self-perception and I guess by extension it can make you feel intense anger towards the people you believe to be the cause for this, if you don't have a critical enough thought-process to realise that people are just acting on their own desires and they're not intentionally trying to single you out or make you feel unlovable.

I think people in this situation need help and support from others to propel themselves past this point so their romantic or sexual desires can be realised, because otherwise the emotional toll taken will cause these people to be destructive, apathetic or in many cases suicidal. If these people can't have their romantic and sexual desires realised, they will continue to feel alienated from society, depressed and apathetic, so really the three options we as a society have are to help them regain their confidence via helping them achieve what they crave, allow them to continue their immense suffering until they can sort their desires out on their own somehow, or put them down like animals. People with this much vitriol only exist because they're struggling with intense emotions that they can't see themselves escaping from.

I do feel for people in similar situations to mine, because I know how tough it is, and I think it's very unfortunate that some devolve in the way that they do. I'd like to see people overcoming their own struggles and realising that society isn't against them, and that the generalisations they throw around often have little or no merit to them, but the only way that can happen for these people is by learning through experience that they are worthy of the romantic or sexual love of a person of the opposite sex.

Even in my very worst days, I wouldn’t hang out with idiots such as those “incels.”

Instead, I’d sing opera in the subways.

I’m a married man now with quite a bit of experience....but I know how it felt to be insulted because I couldn’t get dates. I was sad—but nobody knew that I was sad.

I kicked soda cans in the subways, I played drums on the seats. In my 20s, I even wrote poems to pretty ladies on the trains. I was lauded for that by one woman...who rejected me, but provided me with valuable wisdom.

I knew I had to take positive action on myself. I had to take a different approach than previously. Nobody else would do it for me.

The concept of “blame women, blame society” would have struck me as being ridiculous.

Completely agree. This kind of banter is natural between men, and usually has nothing but good intent behind it.
If I haven't gotten sex in a while, one of my friends might tease me and say, "it's been a while huh? And I'll laugh and say "yeah yeah..no need to rub salt in the wound". I don't take that as someone being rude, I take that as someone who is my friend, we're able to laugh at eachother mistakes together, because we both know that we mean eachother well.
If I've made a huge mistake, there's actually nothing more healing than being with a friend who make me laugh about it.

One needs to be able to not take everything so seriously or personally. Women will tease you too you know, sometimes very harshly, even if she actually likes you. And you need to be able to laugh it off, or even better throw the ball back at her and make her laugh. And most women(That I've met anyways), actually enjoy this game of back and forth teasing. But the ability to do so, is usually something that is developed through your bonds with other men, your bonds with other males are extremely important, even in regards to women.
I fail to see how you can make women find you interesting, if you are not even able to banter with other men.