New Yorker article - "The Rage of the Incels"

[Janeway]

15 hours ago, goldberry said:

 

So a discussion about incels who despise women yet simultaneously feel entitled to their bodies... turns into a "look how mean women are to white men"?  How in the heck does that happen???   😳

Incels are not just men. The group was started by a woman. That woman has continued the group but in a more monitored forum, away from reddit. The writer of the article, however, had you believing Incels were just white men who were out to get women and have power and control over them. But when you look beyond the article, you find out that is not true. And the only example she gave of an "incel" committing a crime was a mentally ill young man who was biracial. Leaving out the facts and history in order to slant the article to garner up hate toward one particular group is wrong. This article wreaked of it. This article was no worse than one that would talk about the violent crime issues in the US and then would say these crimes are mostly committed by black  men and went on about that. Statistics would show that this fact is true, but it would really be trying slant things to try to garner up hate against black men. The writer of the article did not even have that much in facts.  Not that wikipedia is the best place for information, it is often quite good and is better than the article in the first post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel  The "incels" the writer described are little more than common internet trolls on a place for message boards known for being particularly nasty. The first "incel" who started the group was a woman who I have read was nice and just wanted a meeting place for others like her who had trouble finding love and were lonely.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Janeway

[goldberry]

26 minutes ago, Janeway said:

Incels are not just men. The group was started by a woman. That woman has continued the group but in a more monitored forum, away from reddit. The writer of the article, however, had you believing Incels were just white men who were out to get women and have power and control over them. But when you look beyond the article, you find out that is not true. And the only example she gave of an "incel" committing a crime was a mentally ill young man who was biracial. Leaving out the facts and history in order to slant the article to garner up hate toward one particular group is wrong. This article wreaked of it. This article was no worse than one that would talk about the violent crime issues in the US and then would say these crimes are mostly committed by black  men and went on about that. Statistics would show that this fact is true, but it would really be trying slant things to try to garner up hate against black men. The writer of the article did not even have that much in facts.  Not that wikipedia is the best place for information, it is often quite good and is better than the article in the first post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel  The "incels" the writer described are little more than common internet trolls on a place for message boards known for being particularly nasty. The first "incel" who started the group was a woman who I have read was nice and just wanted a meeting place for others like her who had trouble finding love and were lonely.

You are very wrong about this.  Take some time to educate yourself.  The article quoted in this topic is not the first about this in recent years.  Incels are SELF-IDENTIFIED as men who believe women owe them and are depriving them of what they rightfully deserve.   I don't need this article to convince me of that, the group themselves don't hide it at all and are quite open about it.  The only bad feelings being generated are for the men who hold those values.  OBVIOUSLY not all white men are incels or misogynists....?  No one is implying that, not the author or anyone else that I have heard.  Are you suggesting that by talking about incels the author is inciting hate against all white men?    Incels do actually deserve their bad reputation and disgust for their philosophy.  

[goldberry]

For those interested, I found this article an interesting exploration of how white supremacy and misogyny overlap in many case and why they do so.

https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/when-women-are-the-enemy-the-intersection-of-misogyny-and-white-supremacy#introduction

 

[LucyStoner]

It seems like a lot of incels have clinical depression and some sort of body dysmorphia in the mix.  They have this notion that in order to have sex they have to look a certain way.  There are many happily partnered men who are of average or even below average appearance.   Most seem to be basically average looking guys but they perceive themselves as being hideous.  Their perceptions don't match reality.  

[Bluegoat]

On 3/26/2019 at 1:06 AM, chiguirre said:

I think marriage has always been considered a contract. Dowries or bride prices (depending on each societies view of who wins/who loses economically when a woman marries) are recorded in the earliest literate societies. That's a whole lot of history of considering marriage an economic contract between two families. Our ideal of a marriage based on romantic love is a new concept in the sweep of human history. It only became our societal norm in the past two centuries.

Religion (or at least Roman Catholic tradition in Hispanic countries) also emphasizes the economic element of marriage. There's a whole part of the wedding ceremony where the groom gives the bride 13 coins and promises to share his worldly goods with her. She takes them and promises to be a good administrator of the family's resources. Here's a link to an explanation of this since I know most people may not have seen this ceremony before:

http://www.bodamaestra.com/wedding_arras/

The basis for the argument for gay marriage is that it is the only institution in our society that allows previously unrelated adults to be considered family members and share resources.

These are just three examples that I came up with in short order. I'm sure there's vastly more support for viewing marriage as a primarily contractual and economic relationship even in eras that were more steeped in religious belief than contemporary society.

 

I don't think this contradicts what I've said at all.

Would you say, for example, that because parenthood inevitably is also economic, economics is that basis of being a parent, what is most fundamental about it?  I would say that is absolutely not true, even in places where the economics of having a child are a big part of why people have them.

If you dig down into the theology of marriage, the basis is a kind of total self-giving that creates a kind of new organism, the closest metaphor is biological -  where acting against the other is like cutting off one's own arm, fundamentally disordered.  The only inevitable requirement historically is the actual act of giving itself - things like dowries or legal papers or ceremonies vary over time considerably, and are practical or cultural expressions, not necessities. People stuck alone on a desert island with nothing can be married, without any of those trappings.

Now - even in a desert, the marriage relation will be deeply economic, because they are physical beings. There is also a sense in which you probably would only have marriage among creatures that were physical and therefore economical.  So yes, it's very closely tied.  But economics is a model for looking at things, and the thing it's looking at, that movement of goods and energy, is simply the shared life of human beings.  

There is a way in which shared physicality, ecology, spiritual ecology, economics, are all manifestations of the same thing, which is a kind of living in the other or interdependence.  

[Bluegoat]

On 3/26/2019 at 1:20 AM, Farrar said:

I guess where this line of thinking loses me is that they're not actually oppressed in the way they conceive. I think a lot of these guys are bitter because a few generations ago or more they would have been living in smaller communities and followed more proscribed paths that, yes, might have included marriage and sex. Instead, they're stuck in our weird, overpopulated, internet driven, communities disintegrating, picky dating world. But they're still (mostly white) men who have not lost all their privileges in the world. They're just bitter about the ones they have lost. Losing that previously more straightforward path to sex is not the same as oppression.

Realistically, most of these guys are not hideous. Most of them are awkward guys and maybe are not financially in a good place, sure. But if they would make an effort and respect women they'd probably have a shot. But they're choosing instead to complain and hate women. It's easier for them to do that than to go out and get shot down. And that's not the same as oppression. I think it's easy for people to sit back and look at someone in poverty or who is actually oppressed in some way and dismiss the barriers they have to change. But this is different to me. The barriers genuinely are of their own making. Or they're really things that we all face now - like the aforementioned changes in social mores around sex and relationships.

 

I think most of that is pretty textbook displacement etc though. The question of oppression - I don't know.  Is everything really about oppression and privilege, is that really the only axis we can use to talk about unfairness or bad social movements?  

What I think is odd in a way is these guys have bought what is clearly an untrue narrative, that adults get to have sex, the sex they want, more or less, and that it is almost a justice issue.  At the same time - if you spend a week or so reading sex advice columns, you see there are a heck of a lot of adults, across the political spectrum, who seem to believe all adults do have access to a sex life, if they want one, and it's unreasonable to expect them to go without for any length of time.  Heck, there are countries where the disabled are eligible for sexual services, on that same basis, and that is not some kind of right-wing policy, it comes from the left.  

So, it seems like lots of people actually believe that stuff - the incels just seem to hang on to that idea as true even when it's clearly not for them and some others.  That seems to be the kind of contradiction that gives rise to a lot of conspiracy theory, and maybe that is an element of their thinking.  I would be interested to know what kinds of examples they have had, or what their backgrounds are.  I mostly seem to be New Atheist types, and I can see if they came out of protestant patriarchal religious backgrounds that might be a factor - they would have very little in the way of other examples to consider.

[Bluegoat]

4 hours ago, goldberry said:

You are very wrong about this.  Take some time to educate yourself.  The article quoted in this topic is not the first about this in recent years.  Incels are SELF-IDENTIFIED as men who believe women owe them and are depriving them of what they rightfully deserve.   I don't need this article to convince me of that, the group themselves don't hide it at all and are quite open about it.  The only bad feelings being generated are for the men who hold those values.  OBVIOUSLY not all white men are incels or misogynists....?  No one is implying that, not the author or anyone else that I have heard.  Are you suggesting that by talking about incels the author is inciting hate against all white men?    Incels do actually deserve their bad reputation and disgust for their philosophy.  

 

It's true the original online group and the term incel came from a woman, who now runs some other sort of website about involuntary celibacy.

[Bluegoat]

6 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

The  kids aren't getting paid to spend time with seniors, though the credit incentivizes them, so it's not strictly a volunteer program.  But not commercial. 

Rent a mom (You can rent grannies, girlfriends/boyfriends etc also) is a business transaction - 'mom' charges per hour.

It's not terrible, but it doesn't give me the joy of life feelings either.

It's buying a relationship, which is different to buying organization advice (a skill, plus labor) or paying a therapist (a skill, labor). 

I suppose we could say that 'mom' is a skilled, labor intensive job, too.  Is that gonna be the new advice to moms who need cash ? Single moms, maybe ? Rent yourself out! Hmm...think they've heard that one before; this one is more palatable, though, I'll give you that.

 

 

It seems to be the direction everything is going though.  

One thing that strikes me is that with these kinds of arrangements, if a real relationship develops, the monetary aspect can sometimes become quite awkward.  I half way think it is better when there is something more like a taking on of a featly relationship responsibility - it's true it leaves less room for people to bak out, but once the bond is formed, it's stable and creates real community.

[Heathermomster]

 

[Bluegoat]

12 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

The Guardian run these weird relationship columns (weird, 'cos I don't think the columnist has any particular expertise) and the most common problem is lack of sex, and the most common suggestion is yeah, talk about it, but if your partner won't get with the program, then end the marriage, because you are entitled to a sexual relationship throughout your entire adult life time.

So yes, although incels are extreme, they are on a spectrum along which which perfectly naice Guardian readers can be found, oh, somewhere down the other end. 

~

If it's perfectly acceptable and lovely to pay for relationships, as opposed to paying to utilize someone's skills, then the only thing incels are doing wrong is not being prepared to pay. They're just cheap.  I mean, most of them don't go out and kill women, afterall, they just sit on Reddit and moan, so the best advice would be to normalize paying for human relationships, including sex, and convince these guys that shelling out is totally normal. Even the hot guys do it. Ugh. 

 

 

 

Holy heck yes!  And I am always shocked by the number who say that they have a right to an affair if it comes to that. Dan Savage is even worse, I had to stop reading the local progressive free paper because he made me so depressed.

 But I know growing up, I had the distinct impression from what I learned at school and tv that it was somehow unhealthy not to have sex when you were an adult, and if the social taboos said you couldn't, it would lead to repression and all kinds of weird stuff.  My parents didn't think that, but they also didn't really say anything that made me question it.

[KidsHappen]

45 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

It's true the original online group and the term incel came from a woman, who now runs some other sort of website about involuntary celibacy.

Yes, but the current group kind of co-opted the term and used it to mean something entirely different than her original meaning.

[Pam in CT]

re monetized relationships

33 minutes ago, StellaM said:

The  kids aren't getting paid to spend time with seniors, though the credit incentivizes them, so it's not strictly a volunteer program.  But not commercial. 

Rent a mom (You can rent grannies, girlfriends/boyfriends etc also) is a business transaction - 'mom' charges per hour.

It's not terrible, but it doesn't give me the joy of life feelings either.

It's buying a relationship, which is different to buying organization advice (a skill, plus labor) or paying a therapist (a skill, labor). 

I suppose we could say that 'mom' is a skilled, labor intensive job, too.  Is that gonna be the new advice to moms who need cash ? Single moms, maybe ? Rent yourself out! Hmm...think they've heard that one before; this one is more palatable, though, I'll give you that.

 

Yeah, of the ones in Ausmum's article...

9 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/japans-rent-a-family-industry

here was the article.  Obviously we are a millions miles off topic sorry

... that struck me as potentially healing and constructive, the compensated actors were doing a sort of extended role-playing, acting in a therapeutic kind of context to the people who knowingly were hiring their services (helping the widowed father make small steps toward reconciliation with his estranged only daughter; helping the locked-up criers get to a kind of catharsis, etc).  And of course role-playing IS used as a technique in (compensated) therapeutic contexts, as well as (uncompensated) support groups and classrooms etc, to help folks get through particular transitions.  When therapists or life coaches use role-playing technique for payment, I guess that counts as a "skill" (?)... but ordinary teachers, parents, support group facilitators use the technique uncompensated as well.

For me, the differentiating ingredient is not payment vs uncompensated; but rather open vs deceptive.  The examples that involved actual deception to people who did not KNOW that actors were playing a role, like the poor kid in maize's link

8 hours ago, maize said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-46261699

... that sits quite differently for me.

 

 

(None of the examples come within shouting distance of the incel demands, though, to my mind.  Willingly paying for relationship is the exact opposite of furiously demanding sex for free... )

 

[Bluegoat]

13 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

Yes, but the current group kind of co-opted the term and used it to mean something entirely different than her original meaning.

 

Oh, yes, although I think to some degree some did start out as part of her group and it morphed into something different over time - they didn't just steal her idea.  But I think it's worth knowing that it wasn't really some sort of evil plan thought up by a mastermind, it was people who met online to talk about a problem they saw themselves as having, and it seems to have begun in a much less extreme way.  Which raises the question if part of what happened was the kind of situation where a group becomes more and more extreme because they kind of play off of each other, and then the more moderate people end up leaving and it really ramps up.

[Bluegoat]

3 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

 

(None of the examples come within shouting distance of the incel demands, though, to my mind.  Willingly paying for relationship is the exact opposite of furiously demanding sex for free... )

 

 

I think they are actually surprisingly close.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Bluegoat

[Sneezyone]

45 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

The Guardian run these weird relationship columns (weird, 'cos I don't think the columnist has any particular expertise) and the most common problem is lack of sex, and the most common suggestion is yeah, talk about it, but if your partner won't get with the program, then end the marriage, because you are entitled to a sexual relationship throughout your entire adult life time.

So yes, although incels are extreme, they are on a spectrum along which which perfectly naice Guardian readers can be found, oh, somewhere down the other end. 

~

If it's perfectly acceptable and lovely to pay for relationships, as opposed to paying to utilize someone's skills, then the only thing incels are doing wrong is not being prepared to pay. They're just cheap.  I mean, most of them don't go out and kill women, afterall, they just sit on Reddit and moan, so the best advice would be to normalize paying for human relationships, including sex, and convince these guys that shelling out is totally normal. Even the hot guys do it. Ugh. 

 

 

Those advice columns sound horrific. Also why I think the entitlement mentality, in general, is a scourge. We are owed nothing in life but death.

[goldberry]

1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

It's true the original online group and the term incel came from a woman, who now runs some other sort of website about involuntary celibacy.

I'm aware of that.  It does not have that application now, as others have noted.  Janeway was saying the author meant for us to think it was only men but that wasn't true.  In the current sense of the word, and in relation to the discussion about the dangers of that thinking, the author was not misleading anyone.  

 

[KidsHappen]

4 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Oh, yes, although I think to some degree some did start out as part of her group and it morphed into something different over time - they didn't just steal her idea.  But I think it's worth knowing that it wasn't really some sort of evil plan thought up by a mastermind, it was people who met online to talk about a problem they saw themselves as having, and it seems to have begun in a much less extreme way.  Which raises the question if part of what happened was the kind of situation where a group becomes more and more extreme because they kind of play off of each other, and then the more moderate people end up leaving and it really ramps up.

Yes, I agree that that could have been what happened.

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

I think they are actually surprisingly close.

 

You really see no distinction between walking into a bakery and asking the baker to make you a cake, purchasing his/her services, and storming in demanding hi/her labor in return for zero compensation?

[KidsHappen]

5 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

I think they are actually surprisingly close.

How so?

[Bluegoat]

4 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

How so?

 

More or less what I said before - they both seem to see relationship, and sex, as something transactional, or - you can have the effect of relationship without really having it.  The former group are sort of capitalists about it, and the later state socialists of the more extreme sort.  Two sides of the same coin either way.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Bluegoat

[Bluegoat]

6 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

 

You really see no distinction between walking into a bakery and asking the baker to make you a cake, purchasing his/her services, and storming in demanding hi/her labor in return for zero compensation?

 

The whole point is that relationships are not cakes, nor anything else you can buy and sell.

[Sneezyone]

Just now, Bluegoat said:

 

The whole point is that relationships are not cakes, nor anything else you can buy and sell.

And yet they have been treated that way for millennia. Do you deny that?

[EmseB]

31 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

The Guardian run these weird relationship columns (weird, 'cos I don't think the columnist has any particular expertise) and the most common problem is lack of sex, and the most common suggestion is yeah, talk about it, but if your partner won't get with the program, then end the marriage, because you are entitled to a sexual relationship throughout your entire adult life time.

So yes, although incels are extreme, they are on a spectrum along which which perfectly naice Guardian readers can be found, oh, somewhere down the other end. 

 

Here's me with the unpopular thoughts:

I don't know how we get around the idea that much of the sexual revolution and then the changing norms of the last, say, 20 years have been based on the idea that who you want to have sex with and how you want to do it are something that people are entitled to and not just that, but culturally celebrated.

Sexual identity is portrayed a huge deal, a main component of someone's core being, deserving of validation and recognition. I think you might say incels have latched on to a twisted version of these ideas. Or they're just taking the ideas a step further into quantity of sex and not just who/how.

Also, celibacy in general is viewed as negative I think.

[Sneezyone]

6 minutes ago, EmseB said:

Here's me with the unpopular thoughts:

I don't know how we get around the idea that much of the sexual revolution and then the changing norms of the last, say, 20 years have been based on the idea that who you want to have sex with and how you want to do it are something that people are entitled to and not just that, but culturally celebrated.

Sexual identity is portrayed a huge deal, a main component of someone's core being, deserving of validation and recognition. I think you might say incels have latched on to a twisted version of these ideas. Or they're just taking the ideas a step further into quantity of sex and not just who/how.

Also, celibacy in general is viewed as negative I think.

 

What you left out of your description of changing morals is voluntarism. Compelling sexual activity on unwilling participants was never a tenet of the sexual revolution.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

6 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Relationships/bodies aren't cakes. 

So this analogy is odd to me. 

 

 

Relations are transactional. I get that people feel that’s soulless and faithless but it has ever been thus. I give this and, in exchange or in addition, you give that. When parties cease to be able to meet each others’ needs or wants, in a civil society (and even some religious traditions), they are free to divorce and find a partner who can. Relationships and economics have never been separate. The same principles undergird bride price and dowry.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[EmseB]

4 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

 

What you left out of your description of changing morals is voluntarism. Compelling sexual activity on unwilling participants was never a tenet of the sexual revolution.

No, but I think more sex however one prefers it was kind of the expectation, coupled with the idea that sexual orientation is part and parcel to who one is as a person. And those ideas, if you watch TV for more than an hour, permeates at least US cultures. So if you're not getting the amount and kind of sex you want and you're immersed in consuming a lot of media, I think you could end up feeling like something's gone wrong with your life.

[EmseB]

5 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Celibacy is a natural part of the life cycle.  We're not designed to be sexual machines. Our cycles of interest, disinterest, connection, separateness, are more naturalistic than that. 

I feel like there's an anti-gay thing lurking about in the rest of the post ? 

I don't conflate the sexual revolution - a change in sexual mores - with anti discrimination law protecting gay and lesbian people. 

I will happily critique the one, but looking back at the 'good old days' of men ending up with criminal records for the crime of having sex with men, and gay bashings, isn't my thing.

 

Certainly that's not where I was going with that, but not sure how to explain further.

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, EmseB said:

No, but I think more sex however one prefers it was kind of the expectation, coupled with the idea that sexual orientation is part and parcel to who one is as a person. And those ideas, if you watch TV for more than an hour, permeates at least US cultures. So if you're not getting the amount and kind of sex you want and you're immersed in consuming a lot of media, I think you could end up feeling like something's gone wrong with your life.

Sure, maybe they do see something wrong with themselves and their lives but the leap to ‘sex however one prefers it with a willing partner’ is no different from ‘sex however one prefers it with an unwilling partner’ pretty much nullifies the very concept of rape which, by definition is not consensual.

[Sneezyone]

8 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Oh, I know that. 

I think that it would be nice if humanity evolved culturally beyond a transactional view, or at the very least, became consistent about it - I mean, why are mothers not compensated for their time and labor, if all relationships are transactional ? Maybe children should be held responsible for their parents' elder care - it's all about exchange, after all ? 18 years of care at end of life as payment for 18 years at the start ?

But in that case, we shouldn't be twittering on about incels. We should just call them cheap. They're not prepared to pay the transactional price others are for sex. That is their single moral failing - cheapness.

So we should feel no moral disgust at their entitlement to sex, other than that they're not prepared to pay (either in cash terms, as in buying a prostituted woman's body) or in emotional and financial labor terms (as in having a relationship with a girlfriend or wife).

 

Well, if you take the biblical view, mothers are compensated by being cared for (emotionally) and and treasured (economically) within marriage. I think that’s the gist of many of the arguments here. That should be enough. In some countries, children are held responsible for elder care. I suppose I find InCels most reprehensible for their cheapness and entitlement, yes. Everything has a cost, monetarily or emotionally and they simply believe they should be above paying it.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

Just now, StellaM said:

 

In a transactional view, rape is just theft - sex you didn't pay for, one way or the other.  Your moral failing is that you did not pay to obtain willingness. Because there's nothing beyond the transaction. 

 

It is a type of theft. It robs the victim of personal autonomy and security. It can rob people of their self worth and confidence. It is a type of theft.

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

If the secular world isn't going to do things differently, then mothers need a secular version of being cared for and treasured.

I'd like back pay 🙂

I think the most reprehensible thing about incels is that they don't consider women fully human. 

 

Well, in most of the world, motherhood is explicitly compensated in the form of paid time off/maternity leave.  ETA: lots of people think me subhuman and less than so that’s not a hang up for me. The idea that because they think that it should be so and they will make it so, well, that begins to approach my nose.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

In feminism, it's the 'men on the right see women as private property, men on the left see women as public property' thing. 

The sexual revolution was a public property movement.

I have never seen the sexual revolution as implying that women were public property, rather that they were their OWN property.

[Sneezyone]

Just now, StellaM said:

 

Which makes the remedy the paying of the purchase price.

I heard an interview with this woman who's interviewed rapists in India - she only interviewed one who felt any remorse, and his remedy was that when he finished his sentence, he would marry the girl. 

It makes sense in this view of rape as theft. He can compensate for his theft by providing economic and social security to the one he stole from.

 

 

Except theft is not just a matter of compensation through restitution. Theft is taking without permission, whether or not a price was ever agreed upon. The seller may not want monetary compensation but the right to negotiate terms for him/herself. No solely monetary restitution can right that wrong. What was taken was agency, not just a good or service.

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, StellaM said:

 

Yeah, so instead of sleeping with one man, they could sleep with lots of men. Yay.

 

If that floats their boat.

[EmseB]

1 minute ago, StellaM said:

 

I heard 'well, if everyone says that gay people are entitled to a legal sex life, that is just one more step down the road to incels thinking they are entitled to a sex life, and if we'd just continued to normalise gay people being involuntarily celibate, due to the illegality or immorality of their sex lives, it wouldn't be such a big thing for incels.'

 

I don't think anyone (adults, consenting, etc.) should have their sex lives criminalized or targeted for violence.

If one's sex life is a key/large part of someone's identity as society views them and that person not fulfilled there (for whatever reason, but discussing incels' here) then it seems like one's ideas about themselves and sexuality could get quite messed up re: what one might be deserving of in that department.

Maybe we are turning a corner where sex isn't going to be quite a marker for identity as it has been, but I think there is a large group of people (not just incels) who do think that you can't be celibate and be a fully developed, normal, fulfilled human.

[EmseB]

20 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Sure, maybe they do see something wrong with themselves and their lives but the leap to ‘sex however one prefers it with a willing partner’ is no different from ‘sex however one prefers it with an unwilling partner’ pretty much nullifies the very concept of rape which, by definition is not consensual.

But isn't part of the point that they think the women should be willing and that's what burns them up?

[Sneezyone]

6 minutes ago, EmseB said:

But isn't part of the point that they think the women should be willing and that's what burns them up?

 

Well yeah, their think twists nd conflates a lot of different ideas and ideologies.

[Farrar]

It's hard for me to relate to the idea that the sexual revolution or the subsequent freeing of sexual mores was a net negative for women. The ability to pick and choose as many or as few partners as you like, the ability to choose partners of any gender, the ability to choose poly relationships, the ability to choose long term relationships without marriage, the ability to self identify, in addition to the ability to enter a "traditional" het marriage (which has always been there) - these things are all good in my view. One of the things that I see as well is the massive increase in people identifying as ace or aro or demisexual or graysexual or any of the various things along the asexuality scale. So it's hard for me to think of the end result of the "sexual revolution" as having been to say we all must have tons of sex whenever we want it.

But let's be real here. That's not really the attitude of a large number of Americans. We've loosened up sexually, but we still have a Puritanical streak. And LGBTQ people still get discriminated against. And tons of people still think of a lot of what I wrote there as "sin." So.

The one place that has hurt women as we've loosened up about sex has been media images and the insane availability of p*rn. Can you have one without the other? It would sure be nice.

I think, ideally, that if a relationship isn't providing a key thing that one partner needs, it's absolutely legitimate to consider ending or changing the relationship. Turning that into blanket "if your partner doesn't have the same sex drive as you, ditch them" advice is crass and terrible and ultimately a recipe for aging alone for most people, I suspect. No relationship can provide everything for someone. No two people will ever be perfectly matched, especially not over their entire potential lifetime together. Everyone has to recognize that drives wax and wane - especially wane for people as they age. But on the other hand, I do think people should consider leaving relationships where they aren't sexually satisfied, especially if they're young and if it's one element among many. I've known women who have left marriages for that reason as well. But this takes us back to the fundamental transactional nature of all relationships. I love the idea that we could somehow get beyond that... but, I have zero clue what that would look like. In the end, we all get and give in every relationship.

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, OKBud said:

Nope. It's assault, not stealing. 

Because women and male rape victims are human beings, not sexual pleasure dispensers.

Gross. 

 

Thats your view. I’ve seen lots of assault victims describe the ‘taking’ and violation of their personal autonomy in those terms. As I said, it’s not just a good or service that’s been stolen but personal agency.

[Sneezyone]

Just now, OKBud said:

"The right to negotiate terms for oneself" is bodily autonomy. ITS NOT SOMETHING SOMEONE GIVES YOU IN RETURN FOR A BLOW JOB. It's an inalienable right. 

Check that. It's *supposed* to be an inalienable right.

 

Look, you can be all up in arms by the clinical description or you can see that I said the exact same thing in different terms. Personal agency=bodily autonomy.

[Frances]

15 minutes ago, EmseB said:

 

Maybe we are turning a corner where sex isn't going to be quite a marker for identity as it has been, but I think there is a large group of people (not just incels) who do think that you can't be celibate and be a fully developed, normal, fulfilled human.

I think there is a difference between freely chosen celibacy and celibacy forced upon someone in order to conform to religious or societal expectations, as some would like to do with gays. Also, there are varying degrees and lengths of celibacy. People often seem to lump all of it together.

[Bluegoat]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

And yet they have been treated that way for millennia. Do you deny that?

 

What?  First I am wrong to not see that people are like cakes, and now I'm awful because I don't?

Women's place in society has varied a fair bit historically, and it's not been a straightforward improvement over the years - sometimes it gets worse rather than better.  But I am really not sure what you are trying to say here.

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

What?  First I am wrong to not see that people are like cakes, and now I'm awful because I don't?

Women's place in society has varied a fair bit historically, and it's not been a straightforward improvement over the years - sometimes it gets worse rather than better.  But I am really not sure what you are trying to say here.

 

Huh? You just said the same thing, twice. You said relationships are not transactional, that stealing baking services are unlike stealing sex. Emotions aside, I’m asking how so? Both are taking without permission. I asked whether you deny the existence of transactional personal relationships since the beginning of time.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, OKBud said:

Because people are human beings not cake and not sexual pleasure dispensers. 

Why would this question be "emotions aside"?

 

I said emotions aside because I largely see universal principles at work that make InCel conduct problematic regardless of emotion or religious principles. IOW, Don’t take stuff that isn’t yours. Don’t demand stuff that isn’t yours. Don’t whine when someone exercises their right to say no.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Farrar]

I don't know how I feel about treating rape as theft. I also want to emotionally recoil from it. But this is what I meant about seeing everything as transactional is sort of a lens that we can't just magically make go away. It reduces a parent's love and a stranger's assault to nothing but commodities. But because we can analyze things this way, on some level, someone always will. I don't know.

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, StellaM said:

Incel conduct isn't problematic because it involves theft. 

It's problematic because it dehumanises women.

 

 

Thats your view. I’ve been dehumanized on too many fronts (including religious) to care about anything but conduct.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[KidsHappen]

58 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

I heard 'well, if everyone says that gay people are entitled to a legal sex life, that is just one more step down the road to incels thinking they are entitled to a sex life, and if we'd just continued to normalise gay people being involuntarily celibate, due to the illegality or immorality of their sex lives, it wouldn't be such a big thing for incels.'

 

Gently, that is not how I heard this.

[Bluegoat]

1 hour ago, StellaM said:

 

Celibacy is a natural part of the life cycle.  We're not designed to be sexual machines. Our cycles of interest, disinterest, connection, separateness, are more naturalistic than that. 

I feel like there's an anti-gay thing lurking about in the rest of the post ? 

I don't conflate the sexual revolution - a change in sexual mores - with anti discrimination law protecting gay and lesbian people. 

I will happily critique the one, but looking back at the 'good old days' of men ending up with criminal records for the crime of having sex with men, and gay bashings, isn't my thing.

 

 

There has a widely accepted perspective in the argument for gay rights that says that the reason taboos against homosexuality are wrong is that it means some people can never have a satisfying sex life, or a sex life at all.  And while it seems like that would be pretty easily shown to be silly, a lot of people seem to believe it and it's more recently been extended to a lot of kink identities..  

I think it's very likely there is a link between these things - these guys think "Well, if it is cruel to tell people who are unlucky enough to be gay that they just have to manage involuntary celibacy, it's cruel to to people like me who are unlucky enough to be unattractive."

[Sneezyone]

9 minutes ago, OKBud said:

Because people are human beings not cake and not sexual pleasure dispensers. 

Why would this question be "emotions aside"?

Also, rape isn’t about pleasure but power. Same as other kinds of taking.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Sneezyone

[KidsHappen]

49 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Yeah, so instead of sleeping with one man, they could sleep with lots of men. Yay.

I see the sarcasm here but it leads me to wonder what kind of movement do we need to have so that women are free to sleep with no one at all?