Is it simply: involuntarily celibate, or does it come with a package?
To me, “incel” has always meant someone who’s simply just celibate against their will, but it feels like the term now also implies a specific worldview or even a subculture. Does identifying as an incel automatically come with those negative beliefs around gender and society, or should those two have separate terms? Has the definition changed?"
It started off as people who are involuntarily celibate due to unfortunate circumstances. It ended up being co-opted by individuals incapable of self-reflection and self-improvement to understand that their celibacy is entirely based on their lack of hygiene and attitude towards women. They would rather blame the world for their problems instead of owning up to them and making positive changes in their lives.
Does identifying as an incel automatically come with those negative beliefs around gender and society, or should those two have separate terms?
Absolutely, yes. Incel culture is one of misogyny and sexism. People identifying as incels are typically the ones who blame women for not wanting to have sex with them while doing nothing to make women actually want to have sex with them.
My advice to you OP is stay far away from individuals and communities identifying as incel or pro-incel.
That makes sense. In my mind the definition never really evolved as I tend to take words literally and think of it more as a category, like “red heads” rather than as an ideological group. I guess that would technically make them a subgroup of incels.
I see where you’re coming from. Just keep in mind that the original intent of the group has been stolen a long time ago, something like 10 years ago at this point. At this point these people aren’t a sub-group of incels. They’ve completely co-opted the term and rebranded the incel term. Anyone who was originally incel for the right reasons has run off so far away from this term they might as well be in another planet. And I don’t blame them, who wants to be lumped into misogynistic assholes who fantasize about killing and raping women as well as underage girls simply because they think they’re entitled to sex?
My motivation here is only to probe on what other people really think of when using that word, so that I know what they really mean by it
There was likely a time when “incel” just meant “involuntarily celibate,” without all of the baggage, but then two things happened together.
First, a significant number of “incels,” most notably on 4chan, fell into a specific set of essentially misogynistic coping behaviors - primarily blaming the supposed hypocrisy and shallowness of women for their own problems.
And second, a significant number of smugly self-righteous bigots saw an opportunity to hurl self-affirming hatred at an undifferentiated mass of people without suffering the backlash they’d get if it was directed at a group that essentially enjoys protected status, and leaped at the opportunity.
So now the popular conception is that all involuntarily celibate men are “incels,” with all that that implies - that they’re not just involuntarily celibate, but shallow, hateful, misogynistic losers and assholes.
It could potentially help if involuntarily celibate men who don’t share the misogyny of the “incels” had their own label, but honestly I don’t think it would make much of a difference in the long run, because there are now enough asshole bigots reveling in their hatred of “incels” that they’d refuse to let anyone get away. Just like all other more traditional bigots, they’d cling to their self-affirming conception that the mere fact that an individual is of a specific race gender sexual orientation relationship status means that they’re necessarily foul and loathsome, so their hatred of them is justified.
We already have the term “virgin” for people who haven’t had sex. The reason they made a new term is so the “involuntarily” part makes them a victim. See, it’s not just that they aren’t having sex (which they TOTALLY deserve, btw), but they’re being actively denied it.
It’s a term born in anger and a need to blame someone else. If you don’t feel that need, you don’t use the term.
The definition as “involuntary celibate” is mostly used by the community whence the word comes… 4channers. Everywhere else, it has come to refer to the ideology of those who came up with it. Basically, misogynists who blame society, and particularly feminism for allegedly creating a world where it’s harder for them to get laid, and harder still to get a subservient housewife.
So, I accept the premise that something that started as an abbreviation can take on a different meaning than just what it stands for.
And I do feel it’s most reasonable to consider the term “incel” to include an attitude of entitlement to sex without consideration for the bodily autonomy of whoever they feel should be providing it.
But I think that attitude is already baked into the un-abbreviated form. The term “involuntarily celibate” implies bigoted entitlement. It implies a worldview in which someone (typically women) owe the person who identifies as “involuntarily celibate” sex.
If someone wants to murder people and nobody will let themselves be murdered to satisfy the wannabe murderer’s impulse, well, the wannabe murderer clearly has some issues to work through anyway, but calling themselves “involuntarily murderless” or whatever is highly fucked. The wannabe murderer has to already be thinking in terms of entitlement to kill people to adopt or identify with that term.
If someone is “celibate” and would prefer to be in a relationship, don’t call them “incel” or “involuntarily celibate” unless they’re entitled bigoted assholes about it, in which case just call them “incels”.
If they’re “celibate” and would prefer to be in a relationship but isn’t bigoted about it… probably prefer whatever term they would prefer you use, but maybe something like “single and looking” would be a reasonable term.
If they’re “celibate” and don’t want to be in a relationship and are bigoted, “volcel” or “MGTOW” (with a derisive dip in tone) is probably a reasonably good term.
If they’re “celibate” and don’t want to be in a relationship and aren’t bigoted, again, whatever they prefer, but “asexual” and/or “aromantic” might be reasonable.
