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The ] was first used in 1993. It gained notoriety in the 2010s when it became associated with multiple perpetrators of ], and the website ] banned the controversial ] forum. The ] was first used in 1993. It gained notoriety in the 2010s when it became associated with multiple perpetrators of ], and the website ] banned the controversial ] forum.

Involuntary celibacy is sometimes attributed to social factors, such as an imbalance in the ] or financial constraints,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UZvyqqJSbOAC |title=A History of Celibacy |last=Abbott |first=Elizabeth |date=2000 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=9780684849430 |pages=303 |language=en}}</ref> or genetic factors, such as inherited ].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.yourtango.com/2018312428/what-is-an-incel-why-involuntarily-celibate-men-banned-from-reddit-what-they-do-now-4chan-discord|title=What It Means To Be An 'Incel', Why Men Using This Label Were Banned From Reddit & Where They're Lurking Now|last=Stokes|first=Rebecca Jane|date=2018-04-25|work=YourTango|access-date=2018-04-25|language=en}}</ref>


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Revision as of 00:58, 26 April 2018

A request that this article title be changed to Incel is under discussion. Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed.
the state of being unable to find a romantic or sexual partner, around which there exists a controversial online subculture

Involuntary celibacy is how the online subculture of incels (an abbreviation for "involuntary celibates") describe their state of wishing but being unable to find a romantic or sexual partner. Incels are almost exclusively male and sometimes characterized by misogyny and the endorsement of violence.

The neologism was first used in 1993. It gained notoriety in the 2010s when it became associated with multiple perpetrators of spree killings, and the website Reddit banned the controversial /r/incels forum.

Terminology

The terms incel and involuntary celibate are reported to have been coined by an anonymous college student with the alias Alana from Toronto, Ontario in 1993, when she created a website in order to discuss her sexual inactivity with others. The website, titled "Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project", was used by men and women to to share posts about the topic. During her college career and after, she realized she was queer, and became more comfortable with her identity. She later gave the site to a stranger. After reading about the 2014 Isla Vista killings, she wrote, "Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it."

In online communities, the term "involuntary celibate" or "incel" is used alongside other terms, such as "love-shy" (social anxiety or excessive shyness preventing romantic success). German anthropologists use the English-language term "Absolute Beginner" to describe individuals who are celibate, but not through personal choice. Some online communities use more specific terms to quantify specific kinds of incels, such as "truecel", someone who has never had any form of physical intimacy, "mentalcel", someone whose involuntary celibacy is caused by a mental health issue, or "fakecel", someone who pretends to be incel.

Definition

A 2001 paper in The Journal of Sex Research defined the term involuntary celibate as someone who wishes to have sex, but has not been able to find a willing partner in the past six months. Many other definitions do not include a time frame. The term also encompasses people who are in sexless marriages or relationships but wish to be having sex.

Involuntary celibacy is distinct from asexuality and from voluntary sexual abstinence.

In popular usage, the term primarily refers to the topic of online communities and forums for people who self-identify as involuntarily celibate. These communities are characterized by misogyny, the glorification of violence, and racism. In recent years, the term has become more widely discussed with regards to the creation and then banning of the /r/incels subreddit, and a series of spree killings committed by people who self-identified as involuntarily celibate or who shared similar ideologies.

According to The New York Times, involuntary celibacy is an adaptation of the idea of “male supremacy,” an ideology the Southern Poverty Law Center has begun including in their list of hate groups.

Spree killings

There have been a number of spree killings by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with "incel" ideologies.

The 2014 Isla Vista killings drew considerable attention to the concept of involuntary celibacy, and particularly the misogyny and glorification of violence that is a mainstay of many incel communities. The perpetrator, Elliot Rodger, self-identified as an incel and left behind a 137-page manifesto and YouTube videos discussing how he wanted revenge for being rejected by women. He had been an active member of an involuntary celibacy community called PUAHate (short for "pickup artist hate"), and referenced it several times in his manifesto.

The perpetrator of the 2009 Collier Township shooting, George Sodini, has been embraced by some of the involuntary celibacy communities. Although the involuntary celibacy forum where Elliot Rodger had been active, PUAHate, shut down soon after his attack, Rodger became something of a martyr to some communities that remained, and to some of those that began later. After the October 2017 Las Vegas shooting by a man with unclear motive, some of the involuntarily celibate community celebrated the shooter, who they felt was a hero who was targeting "normies" ("normal" people who are able to have sex if they wish). The trend has since continued—Alek Minassian, the suspect in the April 2018 Toronto van attack, posted on Facebook shortly before the attack, "The Incel Rebellion has already begun! ... All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!" After the attack, a poster on a website created to supersede /r/incels wrote about Minassian, "I hope this guy wrote a manifesto because he could be our next new saint."

List
Date Location Country Description Main article
May 23, 2014 Isla Vista, California United States 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed 6 people and injured 14 others near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara before killing himself. He left a lengthy manifesto and YouTube videos detailing his hatred for women and his involuntary celibacy. 2014 Isla Vista killings
October 1, 2015 Roseburg, Oregon United States 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer shot and killed 9 people and injured 8 others at the Umpqua Community College campus before killing himself. He left a manifesto at the scene, outlining his interest in other spree killings, anger at not having a girlfriend, and animus towards the world. Before the attack, when someone on an online message board had speculated he was "saving himself for someone special," Harper-Mercer had replied, "Involuntarily so." Umpqua Community College shooting
April 23, 2018 North York City Centre, North York, Toronto, Ontario Canada A van driver, suspected to be 25-year-old Alek Minassian, killed 10 people and injured 14 others. Minassian was arrested soon after the attack. Shortly before the attack, Minassian had posted on Facebook that "the Incel Rebellion has already begun" and applauded Elliot Rodger, the self-identified incel attacker in the 2014 Isla Vista killings. Toronto van attack

Online communities

The misogynistic and violent rhetoric of Incel communities has lead to numerous bans from websites and webhosts. /r/incels was a Reddit community (known as a subreddit) that offered a forum for people who identified as involuntarily celibate. The subreddit was known as a place where men blamed women for their involuntary celibacy, sometimes advocated for rape or other violence, and were generally misogynistic and often racist. Members of the group described women as "femoids" or "stacys" and described men who were able to have sex with these women as "chads". One post titled "general question about how rapists get caught," was asked by a member pretending to be a woman, saying they wanted to know how a woman who was drugged and raped would begin finding their rapist. Others glorified Elliot Rodger, the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings. On October 25, 2017, Reddit announced a new policy that would ban "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people." On November 7, 2017, the /r/incels subreddit was banned for violating this policy. At the time of the ban, the community had around 40,000 members. Incel.life, was created in December 2017 in response to the Reddit ban. In February 2018, journalists at Babe, a subcategory of the news site The Tab, informed the web host and domain registrar about rape apologism and advocacy of violence on the website. Within two hours, the website was taken down.

Incel communities continue to exist on platforms more lenient of their content, such as Voat, and the message board /r9k/ on 4chan. Such communities frequently overlap with topics such as pickup artistry and men's rights activism.

Psychology

Further information: Sexual frustration

Involuntary celibacy is not a medical or psychological condition, but those who identify as involuntarily celibate sometimes suffer from physical disabilities or psychological disorders. A 2001 Georgia State University study found that, regardless of why someone felt they were involuntarily celibate, they tended to feel frustrated, depressed, and angry. These researchers found that involuntary celibacy was often correlated with depression, neuroticism, anxiety, and autistic disorders.

References

  1. Wilson, Jason (25 April 2018). "Toronto van attack: Facebook post may link suspect to misogynist 'incel' subculture". the Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  2. Schallhorn, Kaitlyn (2018-04-24). "'Incel' sexual frustration 'rebellion' at center of Toronto attack". Fox News. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
  3. Ling, Justin; Mahoney, Jill; McGuire, Patrick; Freeze, Colin (April 24, 2018). "The 'incel' community and the dark side of the internet". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
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