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By David Futrelle
The “Involuntarily Celibate” Redditor who calls himself Insale thinks that all he and his fellow incels need is for the media to pay a little attention to the lack of a party in their collective pants. Once the women of the world see their sad plight, Insale thinks, they will presumably line up for the opportunity to cure incels of their perpetual celibacy.
If not, well, maybe Insale will go on a hunger strike until the government steps in to issue him a girlfriend.
Insale’s colleagues on the Incels subreddit have not exactly been impressed by his plan.
“You’ll just be a male anorexic,” declared one commenter. “Maybe they can send you to a treatment facility and you can get rejected by the anorexic Stacies.”
“They would just laugh at you,” added another.
On the exceedingly unlikely chance that Insale actually goes through with his plan and women are indeed inspired to sign up for his offer of love and intimacy, I would strongly suggest they take a look at his comment history first. Even a cursory examination suggests that Insale’s ongoing celibacy is not the result of a lack of media exposure. It might have a bit more to do with the fact that he likes to openly fantasize about bashing women’s heads in.
Here he is offering his opinion on a YouTube video in which a woman discusses her depression.
He had a similar response to a YouTube video of a different woman discussing her social anxiety.
Then again, he thinks all women with mental illness are faking it.
He’s also a strong believer in “discipline” for women.
![insale[S] 9 points 2 days ago Women need to be disciplined by a proper man.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/insale3-e1499451215317.png?ssl=1)
He’s also not a big fan of “femoids,” by which I think he means “feminists.”
![insale[S] 0 points 22 hours ago Femoids deserve to be punched and beat at any chance. They are not humans. Objects don't have emotions.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/insale8.png?ssl=1)
Naturally, he manages to see himself as the real victim.
![nsale[S] 5 points 2 days ago Society doesnt want me to be happy. I'm not good enough to be smiling. Society treats me like a subhuman.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/insale7.png?ssl=1)
Indeed, he thinks the government should step in on his behalf, hunger strike or no, by forcing women to have sex with him and other incels.
Nonetheless, he insists — at least when he is posting outside of the incel subreddit — that he is actually quite the gentleman.
![insale[S] -4 points 2 days ago Why don't I get partners? I respect women believe me. No one respects women more than I do.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/insale9.png?ssl=1)
Insale, like most of his fellow incels, vehemently rejects the idea of seeking professional help for his problems, dismissing therapy as a “scam” and defending his vile comments online as a form of therapeutic “venting.” In fact, even by his own admission, his exposure to the incel community online is making him angrier, more hateful, and less hopeful about the possibility of improving his life.
Indeed, several days ago he declared that the subreddit had “ruined” him.
![insale[S] 9 points 2 days ago I dont know man. The nature of female behavior that I've read on this sub has completely polluted my innocence. I used to believe girls were innocent, sensitive, lovable human beings until i stumbled upon this sub and started getting influenced. permalinksavecontextfull comments (107)reportgive gold I fucking hate this sub but I can't stop coming back to read more. It has ruined me. by insale in Incels [–]insale[S] 5 points 2 days ago I would do anything to suffer from amnesia and forget everything I've learned about female nature. I'd rather live a false reality of a blue pilled cuck than be miserable black pilled incel without any hope.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/insale10-e1499452861751.png?ssl=1)
The incel ideology pretty much poisons everything it touches. Media attention isn’t going to solve your problems, guys; the only way you can move forward is to free yourself of the incel community and its noxious, hateful, and self-destructive ideas.
FYI: Despite the references above to r/incels being banned by Reddit, it hasn’t been. Periodically the mods of the subreddit set it to “private.”
Yeah, that’s true of incels. But the reason men who don’t identify as incel always rush into these kind of threads to express sympathy for them or explain to us that it’s painful for men to not have the romance or sex life they desire is because the idea that women just sit there doing nothing and suitors drop into her lap permeates our whole culture. It mixes with another widespread misogynistic idea in our culture, that men’s pain is serious, even epic and women’s pain is trivial and silly. It’s a toxic brew and it enables incel thinking every bit as much as incel sites themselves do. They’re just taking common cultural narratives about sex, dating, and each gender’s roles in them to the logical extreme.
It pretty much never fails. Men spew violent misogyny complete with incredibly disturbing fantasies about beating, raping and subjugating women and it’s a guarantee someone will see it and feel bad for the misogynist instead of the targets of the virulent misogyny.
It’s not just that men are afraid women are going to laugh at them and women are afraid men are going to kill them that’s the problem. It’s that men being laughed at is seen as a more serious issue than women being killed. That’s what pisses me off even more.
Ack. I know I rant about this stuff way too much
Aside from the fifty other reasons why this is stupidly wrong – howsabout how damaging your insecurities can be for the women you fuckpatrols rape and murder and somehow worse in misplaced response? We’re aware of how figuratively damaging your insecurities are to you, but are you aware of how literally damaging they are to us?
[insert one of those dude-staring-while-maths-equations-fly-around .GIFs with Quantum’s avatar pasted on top here]
You are 100% correct in all of that <3 If anything, I'd correct myself to say that it isn't just incels that don't see women as actual people; it's all of society.
Rant if it makes you feel better! Just make sure you try to put down the frustration when you're done ranting, or it'll just make it worse.
http://orig05.deviantart.net/fb95/f/2015/305/9/9/rainy_day_animated_illustration_by_fluttershythekind-d9f8dls.gif
@ scildfreja
That’s a very sweet cartoon; but why would a duck need an umbrella?! They’re literally famous for not being bothered about getting wet.
(Not original, TTO: Stars and Stripes Forever, which does have other more “official” lyrics that are more nationalistic than these)
Be kind to your web-footed friends.
For a duck may be somebody’s mother.
They live all alone in the swamp,
Where the weather is cold and damp.
Well, you may think that this is the end.
Yes, it is, but to prove that you are wrong,
We’re going to sing it once again,
Oh, yes we will, but it will be just a bit louder!
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes and weirwoodtreehugger I just wanted to thank you both for your last few comments–a lot of that was insightful and beautifully put, especially this: ‘It’s that men being laughed at is seen as a more serious issue than women being killed.’ That really does seem to be the case, now that you’ve put it so plainly.
And also @weirwoodtreehugger GoT next week!!
@History Nerd: That was the closing song of the Mitch Miller Sing Along program in the early 60s, except that after “you may think this is the end”, then next line was “Well it is” and the program ended abruptly.
Mitch Miller was the head of A&R at Columbia Records, and is best known for having declined to sign the Beatles because he thought they were nothing but a passing fad. (He generally hated rock & roll, and basically refused to sign R&R performers.)
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/dink.gif
@JS the version I remember is
Well you may think that this is the end
But it ain’t and to prove that I’m no liar
We’ll sing it straight through once again,
But only this time it will be a little higher!
[then you do it again a key higher]
@Alan, self-damaging self-sacrifice beyond all need or reason is sort of my character flaw, and also Fluttershy’s. It seemed appropriate! Also, just look at his little ducky face he’s so happy
<3 @Hippielady and @guest
This is something I’ve noticed people doing (including myself). Once I started trying to stop doing it myself, I started noticing it everywhere.
I notice that there’s a racial aspect to it: people seem to be more likely to sympathise with a white who says something abhorrent, but feel angry at a man of colour who says the same thing. I’m not knowledgeable enough to understand whether this is a privilege thing or just a bigotry thing. I’d be interested in hearing the view of people who know more than I do.
@Grumpy
You mean JS, I believe 🙂
@ scildfreja
I’m very hesitant to call that a flaw. Compassion is a wonderful thing; and the world would be a much nicer place if everyone was like you.
It is something though I really notice with a number of my friends that their surfeit of kindness (if such a thing is possible) really takes its toll. That complete lack of selflessness sometimes means they don’t consider their own needs and that can be harmful. I’m sure I don’t need to explain it to you of all people. But it’s that thing that so long as there’s any injustice or suffering in the world they feel they can’t take any time to prioritise their own needs without a crushing guilt cutting in.
It’s weird but I do find myself giving ‘permission’ to some friends that it’s ok to take some time out for their own needs, or even just a break or a bit of fun. You can’t save the whole world, but you’re doing more than most in just helping some; and that’s something you are allowed to feel good about rather than beating yourself up because you can’t help everyone or operate 24/7/365.
ETA: He does look very happy. I like to think that’s because, although he’d be perfectly content in the rain, he knows it makes Fluttershy happy to help, so he’s going along with it.
WWTH, you are brilliant. This is the best summation I have ever seen.
“Horrible slime-coated benthic net of anger, hate, and fear”?!
Scildfreja, that is a wonderfully vivid metaphor for the phenomenon.
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Red Pill.” Lavish apologies to George Lucas.
EJ: I myself am more likely to tolerate questionable remarks on the part of non-white people, on the grounds that they have much better reasons for being angry and making intemperate remarks than white people. Now, some people might say that that’s racism of lower expectations, but I don’t think so.
Thanks all for your kind words. *blushes*
EJ,
It’s definitely a function of male, straight and white or at least perceived white* privilege that they can say the horrible things they do and still get sympathy. Their words also don’t do splash damage to non-incel straight white men. It’s not assumed that incels represent them all.
Can you imagine a feminist subreddit in which women said the exact same things incels say, only gender flipped? Schrodinger’s rapist, Feminist Frequency videos and Rebecca Watson’s video about not wanting to be hit on in an elevator at 4 in the morning after just having given a talk about women not wanting to be creeped on at atheist conventions all caused gigantic tantrums over the misandry of it all and they aren’t even actually man hating. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that a gender reversed incel forum would cause manospherians to commit mass murder.
@wwth – an example that supports this is the staggering number of times I’ve seen manospherians on Twitter scream about Valerie Solanas (SCUM, etc.), when attacking feminism. A book published in 1967 utterly enrages them.
So, yeah. Good call – again 🙂
Mish: Yes, almost every time I’ve heard manospherians rave about the violence of feminists, The SCUM Manifesto is what they bring up as Exhibit A. And I may well be wrong, but whenever I’ve read it, it seems like mostly snark to me.
WWTH: well, a gender-reversed incel forum isn’t really credible, because women in general don’t do malice very well. But, yes, the dudes are AWFULLY snowflaky — the Toxic Masculinity Syndrome makes dudes terribly fragile. As they say, straight men are afraid of gay men because they’re afraid the gays will think of them the way they think of women.
And your point is…?
If a man has insecurities, it’s up to him to deal with them. As many commentators have already pointed out, feminism seeks to dismantle toxic ideas of gender identity and masculinity. It’s not us who are insisting that a man’s worth lies in how many women he’s slept with.
Alan
And the guilt rolls on. Mrmagnificent and I were both union reps and we also, for a couple of years had our home number as the contact number for a legal service. (He was secretary of the society.) Most of those calls were simply a matter of looking up who was that day’s duty solicitor and giving it to the person whose door the cops were knocking down. But a few were extraordinarily distressing – rather than ringing in an emergency, these were people at the end of a years long tether. And some of them rang repeatedly and got threatening into the bargain. The cops were helpful in those cases but, this is where the guilt comes in, we never considered not doing it.
Same thing goes for the union rep stuff. I occasionally gave my home number to members who were having a really hard time. Sometimes this resulted in a gift of a potplant or a concert ticket. Other times it could mean weeks on end of almost nightly phone calls that went for hours. Talk about union-rep-as-therapist! (I’ll admit there was also a fair dose of office gossip mixed in, but hey ho.) When the phone rang and husband realised who it was this time he’d just bring me a cup of coffee to get me through it. Once again, I rarely interrupted and said that I had to do something with/for the kids or husband.
Now when I look back, I feel a bit guilty about putting so much home time into non-home, non-family people when my children were, most of the time, right there in the house with me. Still, one of them is a union rep herself now – but I very much doubt she’d let anyone intrude on her private life the way I/we did.
@Grumpy:
That’s very interesting, thank you.
I find myself doing what you do on a conscious, intellectual level; but if I examine my intuitive responses that come from how I was socialised, then I find it’s the other way around. You may be different, or you may have confronted your socialisation more effectively.
From a South African perspective, I observe that white people are likely to make excuses for white men, Zulu people for Zulu men, and so on (generalising hugely here). It seems to be less about racial privilege than it is about one’s intuition being trained to stand in solidarity with “your own kind.” I don’t know enough social theory to understand how to approach this.
@WWTH:
To add to the congratulatory voices: You’re awesome and one of the reasons this community is as great as it is.
It’s difficult for me to imagine a female forum that’s as hateful and violent as incel forums are. Incel – and redpill more generally – feels like a very male response to feelings of white entitled frustration. They’ve been raised on stories in which white male heroes respond to perceived injustice by visiting violence upon others until the problem goes away, and have been taught to believe that compromise is a sign of weakness. When they combine this socialisation with their complaint that they don’t own all things by default, it results in redpillishness and inceldom. I’m not going to say that white women can’t also be entitled, but in my experience they handle it differently.
I suspect that if such a forum were to suddenly spring into existence, then we’d see redpillers first laugh and then panic. Their whole model of women seems to be based on the assumption that women are helpless targets upon whom violence can be visited but who will not strike back. If they’re faced with the threat of massive violent resistance then they’d probably scoff at it at first, then get more alarmed, and finally forget their personal heroic fantasies in order to demand that the government handle it.
These are people who’re happy to threaten personal violence upon Rebecca Watson or Emma Watson, but are mysteriously silent when it comes to Christina Hammer or Alejandra Jiménez Ayala. They’re eager to hold up Valerie Solanas as a model of a “violent radical feminist”, but somehow haven’t noticed the Peshmerga.
Redpillers do their violence in a very white way, thinking about it.
I wonder if he’s the same chap who used to go around various boards threatening to do a mass shooting if the government didn’t get him a girlfriend.
Spoiler, that didn’t work either.
I have read it (30+ years ago) and I wasn’t sure. But whatever it was it was nearly 50 years ago, and Solanas was an embarrassment to feminism because of her apparent extremism – she deteriorated in her mental health and died in obscurity in a women’s hostel in the 80s.