People who never had sex even though they want to is definitely not a new thing, but the term and especially its current usage that isn’t even exclusive to virgins (e.g. people call Andrew Tate an incel, even though he’s more accurately described as a rapist and slaver) is newer.
They’re not new, what’s new is their ability to organize as a sub-culture. Before the internet an isolated loser was just an isolated loser. They could be harmful to their neighbors, relatives, and adjacent women but they couldn’t create large scale social harm or promote their weird ideology. Now they’re an identity group. That’s what’s new. The weird thing is that because they are an identity group continuing to be an incel is validating to them, which make them much less likely to stop incel behavior. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s much harder to leave an identity behind than it is to abandon a bunch of foolish behaviors that don’t benefit your life. You can stop being an isolated loser by becoming motivated and ceasing isolating. You can’t easily stop being an incel when your entire social identity is based on being an incel.
New terminology, same insufferable twats they’ve always been.
Yes, we used to be called “Ugly”, “Loaner” or “Nerd”. There’s nothing new to wanting sex but not getting any. It just seems to be a culture where being able to have sex with someone you’re attracted to is a right rather than a privilege.
Incel (insel?)
The first time I heard the term it was from a medium article where the author claimed to have infiltrated an incel forum. My immediate thought was, how the hell does this person have any clue who the hell is behind the screens in these “incel forums”??
Now I see the term thrown around all over reddit, especially when discussing straight men issues. I also see it showing up in TV shows. Always used to demonize and degrade straight men.
To me, the whole “incel movement” is more likely to something created and perpetrated by “feminists” and or the LGBT movement. Especially after watching a SWAT episode about the very subject. In the episode, they find out that the “incel forum” in question was created and managed by a WOMAN.
Not to mention this guy Thomas R. Insel! This dude is a former NIHM guy and did major studies involving vasopressin and oxytocin, two chemicals released in mammals during sex. He also volunteered to revamp California’s mental health system under Gavin Newsom and worked on a Google X technology that allows someone to detect someone’s emotional state remotely through devices (they’ve since changed the wording on his Wikipedia page).
Again his last name is Insel. It couldn’t be anymore obvious to me. Plus why would a bunch of straight men spend their free time in a forum getting angry about women when the Internet is flooded with an endless amount of straight pornography! It just doesn’t make any sense to me and it’s always a major red flag when it’s a single word or term that is used to derail or deter conversations so easily. Antisemitism is another example of this.
