Incels: Masculinity, Misogyny, and Murder
“Your body, my choice.” Call it a meme, a way to own the libs, or a threat. What it’s not is harmless. In the dark online underground of deeply dysfunctional men, this rallying cry well serves to focus their impotent rage. "Incels¹” are losers who call themselves “involuntary celibate” because the sex from beautiful women to which they feel entitled isn’t coming their way. Of course, most do not go on to murder. However, they do idolize several high-profile femicide heroes: Marc Lépine, 25, killed fourteen women at a Montreal university in 1989; Elliot Rodger, 23, killed six people near Santa Barbara in 2014; Alex Minassian, 25, killed ten people in Toronto in 2018; Scott Beierle, 40, killed two women in Tallahassee in 2018; Jake Davison, 22, killed five people in Plymouth, UK in 2021. There have been thirteen recorded incidents of incel murders in the last ten years².
Incels and Terroristic Threats
A white male supremacist form of domestic terrorism has flourished in recent years, fed by hate-based communities. People of color and political liberals are the targets of general domestic terrorists³˒⁴, and women are the specific target of incel disgust³. Incels engage in stochastic terrorism, inciting violence through inflammatory rhetoric without direct involvement in violence.
Incels discharge verbal bullets while hiding behind a screen and eschewing responsibility for their acts; their relentless scattershot nevertheless endangers all women. Stochastic terrorism is not “just a joke,” which is their typical response to getting called out. Future “lone wolfs” who take their lead from these prior lone wolf heroes are gestating their own mass murder as I write this.
The Costs of Stunted Growth
Their femicide celebrities, with Lépine and Rodger most admired, counteract the incel’s inability to feel like a man. When a person’s concept of his self is eroded—one he claimed as his birthright—he often lashes out. Stunted masculine identity is the root of the incel phenomena (notice the pertinent developmental ages of four of the five killers noted). I have no need to defend this as the cause, because it fairly blasts us in the face. Feminist scholars have long highlighted the effects of toxic masculinity and the need for a healthier, modern male identity. As well, much is being written today by those accusing women of victimizing men with their demands for equality, describing it as an emasculating dominion over hapless males. I find it hard to have a response to this which is not pejorative.
Regardless of perspective, there is broad agreement that masculinity is in turmoil, and incels are one result. The traditional gender roles aren’t as prominent or rewarded as they have always been; yet, there is no clear and effective alternative picture coming into view. This is quite challenging to particular men who already have mental health and/or personality issues. But really, what would I know about how it feels to be a man in such a changing society? I feel my way around in the dark because my only knowledge of myself is as a woman; I am restricted to viewing how conventional masculinity affects me. So, while I confess that I cannot be objective, neither can any man opining on what is “healthy.” We are, indeed, both blindfolded describers of the elephant we surround.
What’s Going On with Incels?
Scholars agree on three basic elements of incel phenomena: 1) dispossessed masculine identity is the brand; 2) hatred is an animating force; 3) mental health disorders and personality disorders are the engine. First, we start with the underlying dysfunction that draws him into a search for relief from psychological pain:
Depression and anxiety
Narcissism
Insecure attachment
Fear of being single
Loneliness
External locus of control, i.e. tendency to always blame others
I refer to incels as losers because of this tendency to blame others for their basic inability to function in life. These forums are nothing if not cesspools of empowerment through victim mentality, which translates to a frank exploitation of vulnerable men. Psychotherapy, on the other hand, offers the opposite to such a man.
Research has turned up specific pathways and risk factors⁵ for incel identification:
Social isolation
Lack of familial engagement or concern
History of mental illness and use of psychiatric medications
Previous or current suicidal intent
Narcissism
Being bullied
Legally-purchased firearms
Involvement with law enforcement
Alt-right, conservative views
Significant online presence
These combinations are not safe. The group's beliefs are similar with more general extremist ones, except that incels are obsessed with their heterosexual losses.
Turning the Pain of Status Loss and Dysfunction into Personal Meaning
Unlike women’s complaints of physical victimization—i.e., domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape, and intimate partner murder—incel victimization revolves around loss of status. They sense the loss of assumed, unearned privilege in a system of male supremacy that has (modestly) been weakened. Yet to be honest—and I am not being sarcastic here—when any of us loses a privileged status (race, gender, sexuality, class) that we erred in believing we earned by our own merit, it hurts. Incel identification takes the place of personal growth and the development of healthy self-esteem; so, unfortunately for all of us, that hurt isn’t likely to be resolved.
This community welcomes all male refugees from modernity, and it provides five beliefs⁶ that supports their aggrieved entitlement:
The sexual market unfairly excludes them [only “Chads” (good-looking men) and “Staceys” (beautiful women) have the kind of sex these feckless men deserve]
Women are evil by nature (well, sure!)
Masculinity equates to righteous power
Men are oppressed by women, who also use sex as power over men
Violence may be the only solution
The British-American organization, the Center for Countering Digital Hate records that 33% of incel posts center on rage and despair⁷. In this way, their culture enables the hurting man to fuse his tortured identity with misogynist extremism. Any practice of extremism—even violent words tapped out on a keyboard—provides a mighty elixir, the balm that keeps him feeling alive. Indulging anger gives coveted energy to the personality of the seriously depressed person—not a good psychiatric medication, but it works much better than worthlessness, unmitigated depression, and loneliness. It is also clear-cut rape mentality.
The Dark World of Incel Forums
What is unavoidable—and unforgiveable—is the abject reveling in descriptions of torturing and violating the female body. The posts I have read in journalistic articles leave me bereft, and I wouldn’t begin to transmit them here. In fact, I wish I could unread them. The Center for Countering Digital Hate⁷, holds perhaps the largest database of this online community, and American men account for 44% of users. These findings should anguish us.
Sexual Violence: Rape is a frequent topic, with 89% of users expressing support, and posts about rape occurring every 26 minutes, often followed by the claim, “it's only a joke,” a tactic to avoid legal jeopardy
Pedophilia: Half of the users support the sexualization of girls from age 13-16, before “Chads can get to them and ruin them”
Racial Hatred: White supremacy is threaded throughout the sites, with vitriol for white women who date outside their race
Misogynistic Nostalgia: Incels yearn for a “Golden Age” with women seen as inferior to men, having no autonomy, no right to divorce, no say in who they could have sex with, no right to vote, no abortion, a time when they were obliged to “perform their gender-specific duties” (I didn’t notice mention of wearing the burka.)
Online Platforms’ Role: Sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Cloudfare allow such content to proliferate
When Online Venting Converts into Violence
The question of whether incel forums mitigate or escalate violence is complex. Ranting may be little more than venting of one’s despair-fueled rage for some. Others may find that forums amplify their negative feelings and serve as a rehearsal in crossing the line between fantasy and the greater relief provided by taking action. I liken the incel forums to how dangerous the notorious book, The Protocols of the Elders, is for Jewish people.
Of course, clinicians can’t forecast which man will stand down and which will be compelled to take action to quell the rising pain. This is where professional threat assessment is needed, a topic I covered in a previous post. Overall exposure to noxious expressions, level of mental illness or personality pathology, and triggering life events are the soup that leads one to mass murder. In this manner, incels are no different than other would-be mass murderers—only in the case of the incel, women are the obsessive target. That makes my blood run cold.
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In my Substack newsletter, I sometimes connect themes from week to week, but at other times, I mix it up. In a change of pace, next week’s post addresses the reasons parents kill their children. It’s a most unpleasant topic, and it is but another facet of the human condition.
Citations
¹ In a quirk of history, a 25-year-old woman named Alana started the Involuntary Celibacy Project in 1997 as a place where lonely young men and women struggling to find love could obtain support as dating late-bloomers trying to press forward. After three years, Alana had created a normal dating life for herself and moved on. Not until she accidentally ran across the story of Rodger Elliot’s mass murder in 2014 did she learn what had become of her anodyne project.
² “The Incelosphere,” Report from The Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, CEO, 2022.
³ "What NIJ Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism," by Chermak, et al, National Institute for Justice Journal, #285, 1-04-24; "The Rise of Political Violence in the United States," by Rachel Kleinfeld, Journal of Democracy, October, 2021.
⁴ FBI and DHS: Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism, October, 2022.
⁵ “Incel Perpetrated Violence: Distal and Proximate Risk Factors and Pathways,” by Christopher Collins, et al, in Deviant Behavior, October 29, 2024, online.
⁶ “An Exploration of the Involuntary Celibate (Incel) Culture Online,” by Roberta O’Malley, et al, in Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol. 37, Issue 7-8, September 24, 2020.
⁷ “The Incelosphere,” Report from The Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, CEO, 2022.