This is one of those stories I've been reading between my fingers; there is a group of men who basically think they're entitled to sex with beautiful women despite the fact that they're too awful to attract any woman. That's okay, though: all they have to do is revert the Western world to the Middle Ages and that won't be an issue any more, or something. Laugh if you will but have you noticed the way the laws in America are changing to do exactly that? Not so funny now, is it? But where does all this come from? I'm going to examine the history, the politics, and the way forward.
The history
The term "involuntary celibacy" was first used in 1993 by a student using the alias "Alana" in Toronto, Canada, in 1993 when she created a (now defunct) website to discuss her sexual inactivity. The idea was to create a support forum for people in the same situation. However, this has since been taken over by radical elements who display the terrifying misogyny that has a lot of reporters in a lather. I'm not even joking:
At the time of publication, the site frequently named as the "leading incel forum" — which we don't know if Minassian ever visited [emphasis mine] — had more than 2,200 guests viewing its pages, and only 111 members; its total membership is listed as about 5,000. The mainstream attention is being welcomed on some incel forums, with posters embracing the chance to spread their ideas and "sway normies".
On that same incel forum, one supporter angrily criticises moderators for failing to write and promote a post explaining the arguments against women to the top of the discussion board, so the influx of guests visiting the site after the Toronto massacre could potentially be convinced to join in.
...María Rún Bjarnadóttir, doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex, warns against merely descriptive coverage. ..."It must be challenged… the mainstream media should be aware of what they are implying by reporting this without any critique."
By now, we should know better. And it's not as though this is the first time a young, disaffected man turned to mass violence after imbibing extremist content online — that's the route taken by Boston bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev... The only time most of us would share a link to the sites that helped radicalise such terrorists would be to demand that authorities take it down.
...If these extremist websites are to be blamed for inciting Minassian or Rodgers, they should be banned just like Isis propaganda. "Isis is obviously a terrorist organisation, and women represent half the world,” says Sandhu. “Why wouldn't we ban this too?" - After the Toronto attack don't explain Incel ideology, ban it, by Nicole Kobie for Wired
That's right, folks, she's calling them terrorists and calling for their material to be banned. Before we dog-pile on her for violating the free speech rights of the vile, let's take a closer look at what she's talking about:
[On 23/04/2018] Alek Minassian, ...killed 10 people by driving a van down a busy street in Toronto. ...Facebook confirmed the authenticity of a post in his name, in which he pledged allegiance to something called the “Incel Rebellion.”
...Minassian is not the first to turn these violent fantasies into reality. In 2014, a sexually frustrated man named Elliot Rodger killed six and wounded 14 in a shooting spree in Santa Barbara, California. He justified his actions in a lengthy and creepy manifesto sent to acquaintances and then widely shared online as retaliation against women as a group for refusing to provide him with the sex he is owed. - Incel, the misogynist ideology that inspired the deadly Toronto attack, explained, by Zack Beauchamp for Vox
So basically what amounts to a lonely hearts club was taken over by alt-right weirdos who can't get a girlfriend and morphed into what is basically a whiny hate movement that inspires some of its members to commit atrocities. That may be where the current Incel movement comes from but I'd argue it goes further back than that.
The role of the patriarchy
One of those things the Right needs to take responsibility for is its arrant dismissal of anyone who fails to achieve success. In a patriarchal society this means if you fail to find a partner, prepare to be virgin-shamed. The emphasis on sexual prowess in the media isn't new; it goes back to the Bible and beyond:
Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.
So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.
In other words, David’s impotence demonstrated that his kingdom was weak, and the inability of a young virgin to arouse him was a sign that his throne was ripe for the taking. David’s son Adonijah, aware of his father’s loss of potency, began plotting a usurpation, but Bathsheba convinced an ailing David that he had already promised the crown to Solomon.
1 Kings uses David’s loss of sexual vigor as metaphor in chronicling the attempted usurpation of his throne by those who recognize his advanced age makes him too weak to rule effectively... First Knight, A discussion of the droit du seigneur, or the 'right of the lord.' - Snopes
European royalty wore codpieces for the same reason; the basic idea was that masculinity was defined by sexual prowess and the appearance thereof. Any idea that the king couldn't perform was quickly crushed as enemies would see this as a weakness to exploit. Fast forward to today and you can see why virgin-shaming is a thing. The reasons for it haven't changed. What I'm saying here is that if sex wasn't portrayed in our society as a measure of personal worth, the incel movement wouldn't exist. Think about it.
The politics
Discussion of the incel movement is along two paths, terrorism and/or a social deficit problem. Let's take a closer look at the arguments.
Terrorism
The incel movement is being characterised as terrorist because of the calls for violence (and actual violence) from its members. It's hardly surprising that people are calling for discussion of incel ideology by incels be banned because it's how we treat the likes of ISIS and Al Qaeda. However, banning stuff has never worked in terms of reducing radicalisation and merely reading articles and watching videos doesn't radicalise people — it's a conscious choice to respond thus to the material presented. I should know, I've had any number of numbnuts try to turn me against Muslims, Jews, and Black people. I've been exposed to all sorts of propaganda and I'm still not a mad racist. This might be because I think for myself. In any case the Montreal Polytechnic massacre occurred before there was an internet, so what are we going to blame for that?
A culture of violence
People want to be violent because they are angry. They see violence as a solution. Is this because they are being presented with violence as a solution in pop culture and in the media? Think about it: "Kick Ass" heroes wade in and beat up the bad guys, then fly away or ride off into the sunset. Okay, that's fiction. Now think about how the death of Bin Laden (a daring raid) was portrayed in the media. The death of Saddam Hussein (for crimes against humanity). The bombing of Syria (targeting chemical weapons facilities). There's a "job done, problem solved" attitude in the reports I picked out. Basically, violence is presented as "what the bad guys deserve and what good guys mete out." Got it? Good. Okay, do you realise that incels see themselves as a put-upon minority deserving of vengeance against the Chads and Staceys of this world? Where, O where did they learn this attitude from, I wonder? Could it be that our own abandonment of the rule of law for a quick fix of violent retribution has anything to do with such attitudes being so prevalent among them? Hmmm? So maybe, just maybe, before you go haring off to Ban All The Things you might want to take that into consideration. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Social deficit
The idea of incels suffering a socio-sexual deficit is not new:
Elliot Rodger, who was responsible for killing six people and injuring 14 others before killing himself in a mass shooting in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014, is largely (albeit some argue ironically) hailed as an incel hero. In written notes he left behind, Rodger said he wanted to “punish all females for the crime of depriving me of sex” and referred to himself as a “supreme gentleman.” - What is incel? Examining the ‘rebellion’ praised by Toronto van attack suspect, by Marilisa Racco for Global News.
This has given rise to some rather horrible responses to the Toronto Attack. See this from Andy Martin in the Independent:
We are living in an age of sexual capitalism. We need a Thomas Piketty of carnal knowledge to analyse the intricacies and logic of sexual inequality. But the broad outlines were already laid down in the theory of historical materialism. Because the underlying reality of sex is that it is not an experience but a commodity. We do not speak (alas) of “doing” sex (much less “feeling”), we speak of “having” it. Even French speaks of “possessing” and “possession”.
And as soon as it is possible to have it, it is also possible to not have it. And the divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is historically determined to get greater. More and more sex will be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people, leaving a potential army of the sexually destitute. A whole proletariat of lonely losers, hunting for crumbs from the table. - The incel rebellion — how involuntary celibates are dangerous in their desires, by Andy Martin for The Independent
Okay... but poor people get it on. That's why we have an ever-growing number of malnourished children. They didn't just spring out of the ground, Andy. So... who are the sexual proletariat? Why, the self-pitying whiners who can't just try to get along with other human beings, and make themselves too hateful for any woman to be interested in them, that's who. Commentator Ross Douthat doesn't help matters:
...as offensive or utopian the redistribution of sex might sound, the idea is entirely responsive to the logic of late-modern sexual life, and its pursuit would be entirely characteristic of a recurring pattern in liberal societies.
First, because like other forms of neoliberal deregulation the sexual revolution created new winners and losers ...privileging the beautiful and rich and socially adept in new ways and relegating others to new forms of loneliness and frustration.Second, because in this new landscape ...the sexes seem to be struggling generally to relate to one another, with social and political chasms opening between them and not only marriage and family but also sexual activity itself in recent decline.Third, because the culture’s dominant message about sex is still essentially Hefnerian, despite certain revisions attempted by feminists since the heyday of the Playboy philosophy ...that the greatest possible diversity in sexual desires and tastes and identities should be not only accepted but cultivated, and that virginity and celibacy are at best strange and at worst pitiable states. And this master narrative, inevitably, makes both the new inequalities and the decline of actual relationships that much more difficult to bear …… which in turn encourages people, as ever under modernity, to place their hope for escape from the costs of one revolution in a further one yet to come, be it political, social or technological, which will supply if not the promised utopia at least some form of redress for the many people that progress has obviously left behind. - The Redistribution of Sex, by Ross Douthat for the New York Times
Are you kidding me? He's basically saying that the Sexual Revolution has made sex more available to rich pretty people while the not-so-rich-and-pretty people are being left behind. Wrong. Even poor(er), not-so-pretty people have sex; they manage it by being socially attractive — or sexually available. He has also forgotten that the "Sex = power" trope pre-dates the Bible and is not the product of the Sexual Revolution, which was basically about addressing the prevalent double standards in our society. That crack about Hefnerian attitudes is correct, though; we do treat virginity as being weird. Douthat's final comment is worth remembering:
Whether sex workers and sex robots can actually deliver real fulfillment is another matter. But that they will eventually be asked to do it, in service to a redistributive goal that for now still seems creepy or misogynist or radical, feels pretty much inevitable.
What he doesn't realise is that "the Left" is not a monolithic whole. In fact, many feminists oppose prostitution on the grounds that it's degrading.
The way forward
We can't work out what the way forward is until we have correctly identified the problem. The National Review's David French says:
The men of the incel movement are pursuing a god they can’t have. They’re in fact pursuing a god that will disappoint them even if they obtain what they want the most. And so they do what sinful men have done throughout all of human history. They lash out at the objects of their desire. - The Sexless Life When Sex Is God, by David French for the National Review
The homily that follows is preaching to the choir; while he's right that making an idol out of sex is the problem, I don't believe that "moar rilijin" is the answer as such.
Our attitude to sex must change
We have to address harmful attitudes whether people want to convert to Christianity or not. Dr. Nerdlove has the answer for atheists:
Don’t spend your time focused on getting laid for the first time, spend your time on becoming a better person. Cultivate an amazing life. Learn to connect with people, to build relationships. Don’t throw your hands in the air and just assume you’re uniquely cursed, work to fix things. Practice your social skills – getting good with women, getting good with people, is a skill that you can learn. Yes, you may have problems. You may have circumstances in your life that make things harder for you. But harder isn’t impossible, no matter how daunting it may seem.
Focus less on being a virgin and focus more on being a person. The sex will come.
And when you focus on building an amazing life… you’ll be that much better prepared when you do lose your virginity. - The “Problem” with Male Virginity, by Dr. Nerdlove
I can't see either French or Douthat disagreeing with the points made above as they apply to everyone. My own views haven't changed since I wrote this post:
If we're going to change the wrong attitudes to sex, gender, and societal expectations of men and women it will have to start with individuals and groups learning how to set, enforce, and respect healthy boundaries. People have a right to do whatever they want with their own bodies, whether we approve of their choices or not.
...We've got to stop pressurising people into having sex as a rite of passage or as a social expectation. It doesn't prove your masculinity; the weediest wimp can get his end away. What does that prove? Adulthood is reached when you take responsibility for your actions, when the buck stops here. - Rape Culture: Our Attitude To Sex Must Change, by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
If this implies that I believe the incel movement is the product of rape culture, which is the product of the Patriarchy, you're right. I do. And until we address the shortcomings of the Patriarchy and the problems they create the best we'll be able to do is slap a band-aid on the problem instead of cleaning it out and stitching it up. A thin veneer of religious faith slapped over an implicit belief that the Patriarchy is God-ordained and Must Not Be Questioned can't and won't achieve that, so stop slagging off the feminists and pay attention to what they say. Sometimes they're right. And the thing they're right about is that the unwarranted sense of entitlement that fuels both rape culture and the incel movement stems from the belief that men, because they are men and for no other reason, are superior to women. They're not, and they need to get over themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment