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Description

An emerging social problem: The involuntary celibacy

As the name suggests, “involuntary celibates” refers to a loose collection of individuals who are experiencing sexlessness despite their desire to be active.
The case of Alana
The term dates back to 1997 when a sexually frustrated university student named Alana created a website to document her struggles in the dating sphere.
Alana soon discovered that she was not alone in her frustration and Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project became a hub for individuals with similar experiences. The site became an informal support group of sorts that featured discussion forums, article sharing, and a mailing list, which served a diverse community of people across the age span, genders, and sexual orientations
Alana was ultimately successful in her dating (and mating) ambitions and left the website in the hands of other members. This rise of second wave incels has coincided with a decline in sexual activity among American youth in general, suggesting that modern-day youth are experiencing rates of sexlessness that is not in accordance with their predecessors or sociocultural tropes of hypersexual teens.
Incel groups and violence
Incels (involuntary celibates) have gained media attention for seemingly random attacks of violence. Much attention has centered around the misogynistic and violent discourse that has taken place in online incel forums as well as manifestos written by incels who have perpetrated deadly attacks. Such work overlooks the experiences and issues faced by incels themselves, the majority of which have not engaged in any violent behaviour.
Incels have been responsible for a number of high-profile attacks that have resulted in the deaths of many individuals.
This includes what has been dubbed the Toronto Van Attack where 25-year-old Alek Minassian mowed down pedestrians on a busy Toronto street with his rental vehicle, becoming one of Canada’s most deadly attacks.
In the evening hours of August 12, 2021, a media firestorm took place in Plymouth, England, when news emerged that a young man had shot and killed six individuals, including himself. The attack was newsworthy for multiple reasons: it was the first deadly mass shooting in the UK in over a decade, the act was carried out by the owner of a legally owned firearm in a country with strict gun control regulations; and the killer, Jake Davison, first shot his mother before shooting people at random in the street — including a 6-year-old girl. Left without a clear motive, much attention circulated around the fact that Davison was a self-proclaimed incel, a portmanteau of involuntary celibate.
What is the ideology of the incel groups?
Incel ideology centres around the notion that incels are denied sexual and romantic relationships, and that women are to blame for this. Women and girls are stereotyped, objectified and dehumanised within incel culture — they are seen as genetically inferior.
One of the fundamental tenets of incel ideology is the belief that society is organized along a looks-based hierarchy that dictates much of social (and sexual) relations.
At the top of the structure are the most highly attractive men and women, referred to as “Chads” and “Stacys,” respectively, in incel parlance. The “Alpha” status that is ascribed to these individuals is much sought after among individuals both for themselves and the people they date.
Stacys, are the objects of incels’ sexual desires, but are repeatedly dehumanized in incel forums as being superficial, daft, selfish, and manipulative. The discourse surrounding females (and Stacys in particular) is the main driver in incels being viewed as misogynistic.
Incels appear to be fixated on a notion of female “hypergamy” wherein women are chastised for being sexually selective to the exclusion of incels (and most “normie” men). Perceived as evil from incels’ perspective women are to blame for the looks-based societal hierarchy that has, in effect, created incels in the first place.
This is predicated on two beliefs: the first is that women are only interested in their own advancement and thus exclusively seek out men of higher social standing (i.e., Chads) to date. If such a male is not available, women will settle for a lesser-attractive person (i.e., a normie) who has material wealth that they can exploit to get ahead. Forever in search of the “holy trinity” of money, sex, and power, women are also seen as generally untrustworthy and prone to infidelity, willing to take any chance they can to ascend the social ladder and abandon normie men in pursuit of greener pastures. This view of women’s actions as being the result of a prescriptive algorithm operating on a narrow set of criteria contributes to the second derogatory belief that women are shallow and unable to appreciate some of the qualities (e.g., humor, intelligence) that may be found among the men who occupy the lower ranks of the social hierarchy.
The incel “solution” to the “hypergamy” problem
In the incel community, the red pill metaphor is used. This is a metaphorical reference to the movie The Matrix in which the protagonist, Neo, is given the option between taking a blue pill or a red one. If Neo takes the former, he will experience an artificial state of blissful ignorance. In taking the red pill, he would be exposed to the cruel realities that are inherent in life, but he would be able to live an authentic life.
Incels considered their unique insights into the dating world as a product of being “RedPilled.” Such wisdom is lost on Normies and Alphas, who are seen as subscribers to the “BluePill” ideology. In adopting a so-called RedPill ideology, incels are also put in a position to game the system to be seen as a more desirable mate, since they believe themselves to hold the (short) playbook that women abide by. This has led to self-enhancement practices referred to as looksmaxxing and gymmaxxing where individuals undergo plastic surgery or rigorous exercise routines in order to improve their appearance. This is viewed as the only solution (aside from a return to enforced monogamy) available to incels to achieve Alpha or Chad status.
Incels and mental health problems
Incels report being more sensitive to rejection than their male counterparts, and experience a greater fear of being single, and that their self-esteem (which is also much lower) is more heavily influenced by their relationship status.
Their lack of popularity on dating apps has also been associated with higher levels of depression and dating anxiety and lower levels of self-esteem and secure attachment, all of which incels report higher and more problematic levels of than non-incel males.
Three rhyming domains have been identified based on incel slang: hope, cope, and rope In the latter, rope references suicide by hanging, but is shorthand for suicide by any means.
Posts on Incel sites tend to be characterized by feelings of despair and hopelessness. Incels report feeling incompetent and failing in their endeavors to improve themselves or their situation.
Incels cope with their sexless status by engaging in either solitary (reading, watching TV, lifting weights) or concerning (using drugs, consuming pornography) practices.
In lacking friends, incels are deprived of a natural outlet to express their frustrations and receive emotional support, which could help buffer against the pains of romantic rejection.
Incel and the sexual frustration theory of agression
To date, there is no conclusive account or explanation for why select incels decide to engage in acts of violence.
Lankford proposed a sexual frustration theory of aggression that is based on traditional frustration-aggression models. It is comprised of three forms of sexual frustration: (i) unfulfilled sexual desires, (ii) partner unavailability, and (iii) unsatisfied sexual activities.
Sexual frustration is not only a problem for those who are “involuntarily celibate”; it also affects many people who are sexually active. Frustration arising from unfulfilled desires to have sex, unavailable partners, and unsatisfying sexual activities appears to increase the risks of aggression, violence, and crime associated with relief-seeking, power-seeking, revenge-seeking, and displaced frustration.
Although sexual frustration does not provide a sufficient explanation for aggression, violence, or crime on its own, understanding its influence on behavior is important. It is possible that all three may be relevant for understanding incel aggression.
Lankford notes that aggression may be amplified when sexual unfulfillment is viewed as unjust, damaging to one’s self-efficacy, or the fault of another person.
Incel groups and terrorism
Due to the nature of the attacks, there has been debate over whether incels should be considered a terrorist group. In 2020, Canada became the first country to lay terrorism charges against an incel when authorities discovered that the 17-year-old who stabbed two women (one fatally) subscribed to incel ideologies.
Bottomline
Incels represent a high-need group with respect to clinical symptoms and overall well-being. They experience considerable duress on account of their singlehood, report that their (low) self-esteem is contingent on their relationship status, and are both sensitive to rejection and experience a large degree of it. They cope with this rejection by engaging in both inward and outward practices, reporting higher levels of self-critical rumination and externalization of blame, while also engaging in fewer healthy coping mechanisms.
Almost 1,000 references to dehumanising misogyny or violent action are recorded each day in the “incelosphere” as the toxicity of male supremacist content continues to intensify.
Incels have been linked to violent extremism and are classified by UK government’s anti-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, as having a “mixed, unstable or unclear” ideology.

Description

An emerging social problem: The involuntary celibacy

As the name suggests, “involuntary celibates” refers to a loose collection of individuals who are experiencing sexlessness despite their desire to be active.
The case of Alana
The term dates back to 1997 when a sexually frustrated university student named Alana created a website to document her struggles in the dating sphere.
Alana soon discovered that she was not alone in her frustration and Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project became a hub for individuals with similar experiences. The site became an informal support group of sorts that featured discussion forums, article sharing, and a mailing list, which served a diverse community of people across the age span, genders, and sexual orientations
Alana was ultimately successful in her dating (and mating) ambitions and left the website in the hands of other members. This rise of second wave incels has coincided with a decline in sexual activity among American youth in general, suggesting that modern-day youth are experiencing rates of sexlessness that is not in accordance with their predecessors or sociocultural tropes of hypersexual teens.
Incel groups and violence
Incels (involuntary celibates) have gained media attention for seemingly random attacks of violence. Much attention has centered around the misogynistic and violent discourse that has taken place in online incel forums as well as manifestos written by incels who have perpetrated deadly attacks. Such work overlooks the experiences and issues faced by incels themselves, the majority of which have not engaged in any violent behaviour.
Incels have been responsible for a number of high-profile attacks that have resulted in the deaths of many individuals.
This includes what has been dubbed the Toronto Van Attack where 25-year-old Alek Minassian mowed down pedestrians on a busy Toronto street with his rental vehicle, becoming one of Canada’s most deadly attacks.
In the evening hours of August 12, 2021, a media firestorm took place in Plymouth, England, when news emerged that a young man had shot and killed six individuals, including himself. The attack was newsworthy for multiple reasons: it was the first deadly mass shooting in the UK in over a decade, the act was carried out by the owner of a legally owned firearm in a country with strict gun control regulations; and the killer, Jake Davison, first shot his mother before shooting people at random in the street — including a 6-year-old girl. Left without a clear motive, much attention circulated around the fact that Davison was a self-proclaimed incel, a portmanteau of involuntary celibate.
What is the ideology of the incel groups?
Incel ideology centres around the notion that incels are denied sexual and romantic relationships, and that women are to blame for this. Women and girls are stereotyped, objectified and dehumanised within incel culture — they are seen as genetically inferior.
One of the fundamental tenets of incel ideology is the belief that society is organized along a looks-based hierarchy that dictates much of social (and sexual) relations.
At the top of the structure are the most highly attractive men and women, referred to as “Chads” and “Stacys,” respectively, in incel parlance. The “Alpha” status that is ascribed to these individuals is much sought after among individuals both for themselves and the people they date.
Stacys, are the objects of incels’ sexual desires, but are repeatedly dehumanized in incel forums as being superficial, daft, selfish, and manipulative. The discourse surrounding females (and Stacys in particular) is the main driver in incels being viewed as misogynistic.
Incels appear to be fixated on a notion of female “hypergamy” wherein women are chastised for being sexually selective to the exclusion of incels (and most “normie” men). Perceived as evil from incels’ perspective women are to blame for the looks-based societal hierarchy that has, in effect, created incels in the first place.
This is predicated on two beliefs: the first is that women are only interested in their own advancement and thus exclusively seek out men of higher social standing (i.e., Chads) to date. If such a male is not available, women will settle for a lesser-attractive person (i.e., a normie) who has material wealth that they can exploit to get ahead. Forever in search of the “holy trinity” of money, sex, and power, women are also seen as generally untrustworthy and prone to infidelity, willing to take any chance they can to ascend the social ladder and abandon normie men in pursuit of greener pastures. This view of women’s actions as being the result of a prescriptive algorithm operating on a narrow set of criteria contributes to the second derogatory belief that women are shallow and unable to appreciate some of the qualities (e.g., humor, intelligence) that may be found among the men who occupy the lower ranks of the social hierarchy.
The incel “solution” to the “hypergamy” problem
In the incel community, the red pill metaphor is used. This is a metaphorical reference to the movie The Matrix in which the protagonist, Neo, is given the option between taking a blue pill or a red one. If Neo takes the former, he will experience an artificial state of blissful ignorance. In taking the red pill, he would be exposed to the cruel realities that are inherent in life, but he would be able to live an authentic life.
Incels considered their unique insights into the dating world as a product of being “RedPilled.” Such wisdom is lost on Normies and Alphas, who are seen as subscribers to the “BluePill” ideology. In adopting a so-called RedPill ideology, incels are also put in a position to game the system to be seen as a more desirable mate, since they believe themselves to hold the (short) playbook that women abide by. This has led to self-enhancement practices referred to as looksmaxxing and gymmaxxing where individuals undergo plastic surgery or rigorous exercise routines in order to improve their appearance. This is viewed as the only solution (aside from a return to enforced monogamy) available to incels to achieve Alpha or Chad status.
Incels and mental health problems
Incels report being more sensitive to rejection than their male counterparts, and experience a greater fear of being single, and that their self-esteem (which is also much lower) is more heavily influenced by their relationship status.
Their lack of popularity on dating apps has also been associated with higher levels of depression and dating anxiety and lower levels of self-esteem and secure attachment, all of which incels report higher and more problematic levels of than non-incel males.
Three rhyming domains have been identified based on incel slang: hope, cope, and rope In the latter, rope references suicide by hanging, but is shorthand for suicide by any means.
Posts on Incel sites tend to be characterized by feelings of despair and hopelessness. Incels report feeling incompetent and failing in their endeavors to improve themselves or their situation.
Incels cope with their sexless status by engaging in either solitary (reading, watching TV, lifting weights) or concerning (using drugs, consuming pornography) practices.
In lacking friends, incels are deprived of a natural outlet to express their frustrations and receive emotional support, which could help buffer against the pains of romantic rejection.
Incel and the sexual frustration theory of agression
To date, there is no conclusive account or explanation for why select incels decide to engage in acts of violence.
Lankford proposed a sexual frustration theory of aggression that is based on traditional frustration-aggression models. It is comprised of three forms of sexual frustration: (i) unfulfilled sexual desires, (ii) partner unavailability, and (iii) unsatisfied sexual activities.
Sexual frustration is not only a problem for those who are “involuntarily celibate”; it also affects many people who are sexually active. Frustration arising from unfulfilled desires to have sex, unavailable partners, and unsatisfying sexual activities appears to increase the risks of aggression, violence, and crime associated with relief-seeking, power-seeking, revenge-seeking, and displaced frustration.
Although sexual frustration does not provide a sufficient explanation for aggression, violence, or crime on its own, understanding its influence on behavior is important. It is possible that all three may be relevant for understanding incel aggression.
Lankford notes that aggression may be amplified when sexual unfulfillment is viewed as unjust, damaging to one’s self-efficacy, or the fault of another person.
Incel groups and terrorism
Due to the nature of the attacks, there has been debate over whether incels should be considered a terrorist group. In 2020, Canada became the first country to lay terrorism charges against an incel when authorities discovered that the 17-year-old who stabbed two women (one fatally) subscribed to incel ideologies.
Bottomline
Incels represent a high-need group with respect to clinical symptoms and overall well-being. They experience considerable duress on account of their singlehood, report that their (low) self-esteem is contingent on their relationship status, and are both sensitive to rejection and experience a large degree of it. They cope with this rejection by engaging in both inward and outward practices, reporting higher levels of self-critical rumination and externalization of blame, while also engaging in fewer healthy coping mechanisms.
Almost 1,000 references to dehumanising misogyny or violent action are recorded each day in the “incelosphere” as the toxicity of male supremacist content continues to intensify.
Incels have been linked to violent extremism and are classified by UK government’s anti-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, as having a “mixed, unstable or unclear” ideology.