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Incels (a portmanteau of "involuntary" and "celibacy") are members of an online subculture who define themselves as being unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as inceldom. Self-identified incels are almost exclusively male and heterosexual. Discussions in incel forums are often characterized by resentment, misanthropy, misogyny, racism, entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem", and self-described incels have committed several mass murders in North America.

History

The first incel community was started by a Canadian college student known only by her first name, Alana, in 1993 or 1997, 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 people of all genders to share their thoughts and experiences. In 1997, she started a mailing list on the topic that used the abbreviation INVCEL, which was later shortened to incel. 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.

The /r/incels subreddit, a forum on the website Reddit, became a particularly active incel community. 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. 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 her rapist.

When Alana read about the 2014 Isla Vista killings, and the way parts of the incel subculture glorified the perpetrator, Elliott Rodger, 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." Alana expressed regret at the change in usage, with her original intention being to create an "inclusive community" for men and women who were sexually deprived due to social awkwardness, marginalization or mental illness.

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.

Incels came to wider public notice with the banning of the subreddit and when a series of mass murderers either self-identified as involuntarily celibate or shared similar ideologies.

The misogynistic and occasionally violent rhetoric of some members of incel communities has led to numerous bans from websites and webhosts. Incel communities continue to exist on more lenient platforms, such as Voat and the message board /r9k/ on 4chan. There are also incel forums that disapprove of the kind of hatred the subculture has become associated with, such as r/IncelsWithoutHate.

Within these communities, the term "involuntary celibate" or "incel" is sometimes used alongside other terms, such as "love-shy" (describing those with social anxiety or excessive shyness preventing romantic success) or FA (short for Forever Alone).

Ideology

Many incel communities are characterized by resentment, misogyny, misanthropy, and racism. Discussions often revolve around the belief that men are owed sex, and endorse violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men. Some members of incel communities believe in the idea of "forced 'sexual redistribution'", where governments would require women to engage in certain sexual relationships. In some communities, it is common for posts to glorify violence by self-identified incels such as Elliot Rodger (2014 Isla Vista killings) and Alek Minassian (2018 Toronto van attack, suspected), as well as by those they feel share the ideology such as Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech shooting) and George Sodini (2009 Collier Township shooting). According to The New York Times, involuntary celibacy is an adaptation of the idea of "male supremacy", an ideology the Southern Poverty Law Center began including in their list of hate groups in 2018. The New York Times wrote that "the group has evolved into a male supremacist movement made up of people — some celibate, some not — who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights."

Members of the incel communities describe women as "femoids", "stacys" (attractive sexually active women), or "beckys" (less attractive sexually active women) and describe sexually active men as "chads". Such communities frequently overlap with topics such as pickup artistry and men's rights activism, and are a part of the broader manosphere.

Black pill

Beliefs that are common in incel communities, such as fatalism and defeatism for unattractive people, are collectively referred to as the black pill.

The concept of the black pill distinguishes incels from the men's rights movement and their popular reference to the red pill, an allusion to the dilemma in the movie The Matrix where the protagonist must choose to remain in a world of illusion (taking the blue pill) or to see the world as it really is (taking the red pill). In the context of men's rights activism, "taking the red pill" means seeing a world where women hold power over men.

The term black pill was coined on the blog Omega Virgin Revolt, where the term commended despondency in order to distinguish incels from the pickup artist communities. On the incel subreddit /r/braincels, "blackpills" are memes (usually images) that users share to describe, advocate for, or defend the incel ideology. Many of them criticize women as egocentric, cruel, and shallow. Although the tone of the subreddit is similar, moderators of the forum say that they do not endorse, support, or glorify violence or violent people, a distinction they make from the subject matter of its /r/incels predecessor that resulted in it being banned from Reddit.

Members

Self-identified incels are primarily white and almost exclusively heterosexual and male, although there are some mixed-gender forums such as Reddit's /r/ForeverAlone. Incels are often described as young. Situated mostly in America, incels have been estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands.

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

The incel subculture includes people who are in sexless marriages (or other sexless relationships) but who wish to be sexually active. It is considered to be distinct from asexuality and from voluntary sexual abstinence.

Mass murders

Some mass murders in North America have been committed by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with "incel" ideologies.

The 2014 Isla Vista killings drew 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". 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." The term "Incel Rebellion" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "Beta Uprising", which refers to a violent response to incels' perceived sexual deprivation.

List of mass murders by self-identified incels

See also

• Human mating strategies
• List of subcultures
• Mate value in humans
• Men Going Their Own Way
• Sexual capital
• Sexual tension
• Toxic masculinity

Articles

"Alphas, Betas, and Incels. Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere" by Debbie Ging - Men and Masculinities, 2017

References

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External links

• The dictionary definition of incel at Wiktionary
• The thesaurus entry for incel at Wiktionary

• Celibacy
• Gender-related violence
• Human sexuality
• Misogyny
• Non-sexuality
• Sexology
• Social issues
• Social psychology
• Subcultures
• Words coined in the 1990s