There really needs to be some solid communist dating advice for these young men, other than "just be yourself" and "be a good person" kind of stuff. Like real, concrete steps on how a guy can be diverted from the incel/pua/tate path. Tbh a lot of the pua advice is common sense stuff (try to groom yourself well, don't be afraid to put yourself out there, etc.).
I remember there were some good comments in a thread somewhere here (I'm pretty sure it was on c/menby but I can't seem to find it)
The problem with this crowd is not that they can't get laid, the problem is that they build their identity around their sex life (and not just them tbh) and then become depressed when they don't succeed. Grooming yourself won't save you from entitlement and if you are trying to come at it from that way, you're not gonna succeed.
All the people i know who were saved from these people (and i know this for a fact because it was me who tried to save them) were saved by making them understand that their misery comes from within because they are chasing a vision of masculinity that is toxic as fuck to begin with and they are acting on instincts that they should recognize and do something against (I'm not talking about sexual urges, i'm talking about dwelling on rejection and centering your life around your sexual achievements). Literally all their lives turned around when they came to the realization, regardless of their successes in dating (but that part got better as well).
When this topic comes up i always think of that article about incels a few years ago with BBC where they were telling about this tendency to senior virgins (like 70-90 years olds, not religious shit) and they were all shocked because they were never that distressed about not getting laid since it wasn't a status symbol in their time.
My identity is based around the fact that basically everyone that I knew of in my early childhood resented me, and the mannerisms that I held as a consequence of my autism. So I got the shit beaten out of me by my teachers, while my parents descended into self-loathing & alcoholism, and I was alternately shunned or antagonized by my "peers" around me. Very little of that ever actually changed as I grew up, and I'm still dealing with the physical consequences of that upbringing today, tbh.
So, even before we get to the idea of sex, at a fundamental level I don't really conceive of myself as being a legitimate member of society. I don't belong around real people, is what I mean by that. Or the way I remember articulating the matter to my grandmother when she asked me why I didn't want to "make friends", is that "I don't want to try to be friends with anybody, because everyone already hates me no matter what I do". That's something I said nearly two decades ago now, and it still feels mostly true.
And so I guess the thing that you could say about it, that informs my basic perspective on a lot of things, is that I don't really have any actually-existing basis on which to believe in much of anything about mutual solidarity, or like, the inherent goodness or value of people. Like there is nothing there, it is all as the wind, intangible & ungraspable. And like, I guess that effects the way that I think these issues, both at a personal & social level.
Okay, your case might be different but you are here and not on incel forums.
IDK, do you have anything to say about my weird takes before I delete them?
Sorry, i just didn't know what to say.
The problem with what you devised is - at least as far as i can remember - that it depends on the individual what they constitute as a meaningful relationship. For some it's sex. For some it's friendship. It's too uhh liquid (?) a concept imo to be considered as human rights unlike housing or food. But i guess "for everyone whatever they need" would comprise of these problems as well.
The thing is i don't believe in "rights" as a formal concept anyway so again i don't know if i am the right person to talk to about this.
The thing is i don’t believe in “rights” as a formal concept anyway so again i don’t know if i am the right person to talk to about this.
Your previous statements are fair, but with regards to this, I feel like I have to, because if I completely discard the idea of rights then there's no basis on which I can say that anything bad that anyone does to me is unjustified.
You're right, there has to be a standard to that and maybe i wasn't clear but i am only against it's formal use, as in, since i am an anarchist, my conception of rights isn't a set of moral baselines coded in law but as an unwritten bare minimum i adhere myself to.
That is fair.
I appreciate that you were willing to continue speaking with me for at least a little bit longer. TY. I hope your weekend has been good; mine is okay.
Yeah, it's cool for me. Heading out to see some friends i haven't seen in ages tomorrow.
I just don’t understand why, if we all agree that people need meaningful & positive social lives within a definite community to be healthy in body & mind; I don’t understand why those things can’t be articulated as rights.
We can't secure the outcomes as rights, but we can secure reasonable opportunities and support as rights.
I don't think you have the thought process of an incel. Incels reify gender essentialism and actively blame other people. It is human to have a desire for other human beings, and to feel frustrated when there is no outlet for this and the desires go nowhere. Although I have dated a few people starting in my 20s, I have been in your shoes. And I agree that we should be building a society where people are free to associate with each other, discover each other, trust in each other, fall in love with each other. We can't guarantee that it happens, but we can tip the scales in that direction.
I was shocked at how people here called you "incel" for expressing your frustrations constructively and thoughtfully. It was a stark difference between the sentiment in the post yesterday with the "[how to go about] Fucking Trans Women" zine.
Again, I'd be happy to chat privately, or even play some vidya with you - that was a form of socialization that kept me sane when I was a hermit. :meow-hug:
It was a stark difference between the sentiment in the post yesterday with the “[how to go about] Fucking Trans Women” zine.
The what now?
:jesse-wtf:
Again, I’d be happy to chat privately, or even play some vidya with you - that was a form of socialization that kept me sane when I was a hermit.
Okay, so you've made this offer to me a couple times in dms & elsewhere. I'm not exactly upset by it, and I do appreciate you going out of your way to engage positively with me here, but I'm not 100% interested right now. I am actually moving forward with some of my own independent life-plans rn; and things may not get strictly "better", but they're changing & I want to try to continue pursuing things on my own rn. I hope you understand, y'know.
The what now?
https://hexbear.net/post/230108
Not that high-profile but still fresh in my mind. "I hope every other progressive-minded person finds fulfilment too" is a good take.
And I just wanted to make sure there was something going for you. I don't want anyone to be alone -- besides the committed, lifelong reactionaries who are too far gone.
So I have to bring up some material considerations that aren't so easy to solve with counter-rhetoric:
We have a lot more people living with their parents or other family than we have in a while: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/
That's two years old now, but the part that stands out most to me is that even before the pandemic hit, 47% of people 18-29 lived with their parents. That would be one thing in a society where living with your family into adulthood was considered socially acceptable, but in the US and other western countries it's stigmatized. And culture aside, living with family in shitty-ass US homes with thin walls is not a good intimate setting for romance and relationships.
I've also spoken several times on this site about a growing lack of non-transactional spaces for people to socialize freely, particularly post-school life. This partly ties in with the way public spaces are destroyed for the sake of antagonizing the homeless, as in my hometown where the biggest park has been ruined with hostile architecture and the trees all cut down just because we refuse to fucking house people.
Nobody takes these men or their problems seriously. They just get abused and ridiculed. Is it any wonder they're turning to the only ones who tell them that they're not imagining their problems and treat them with fellowship and respect?
Imagine an org that gave dating advice, how to make friends, how to behave in social situations so that other people would like you, etc. It would remove the fury from these men and prevent a great deal of harm. But come on, that would never happen. "Your org finds girlfriends for incels? Gross! No one is entitled to a girl's romantic feelings and certainly not their bodies!"
I've made comments about this before, but when internet discourse immediately turned "incel" into another way to call people virgins on the internet, there was this shift in the characterization of all lonely or sexless people as therefore incels, and therefore not just losers, but bad people who hate women and might flip out and kill people.
It was basically a doubling-down in the association of male sexual activity with personal worth, which is basically the last shit society needed (that's literally where the incel shit comes from dummies), and gave misogynist black-pill assholes a huge W for no good reason. God damnit I hate the internet.
But your idea is still decent in theory. Some of these dudes already succeed everywhere else but are clueless when it comes to socializing. I saw someone suggest leftist organizations hosting more leisurely activities such as team sports.
I wonder how the USSR handled stuff like this (if it was also an issue in their society, which I presume it was). I'm curious what places like China/Cuba/Vietnam are doing with respect to this too (altho with places in Asia you have to contend with the white fetishization as well).
We had that a few years ago as well, you can imagine how that turns out if it's organized by a conservative government.
I know that many young women in the USSR had trouble finding partners after WWII because so many young men had been killed in the war. I don't know how or if society dealt with that situation.
One handy trick that big monogamous doesn't want you to know!
I feel like the last thing these people need is a girlfriend lol.
i dunno i chilled out a lot when i got to college and got laid. I was already reading the progessive atheist bloggers instead of the reactionary ones so that might've inoculated me against the worst of the toxic masculinity stuff but more years of constant rejection and failure, maybe i would've been hijacked by attacks on buzzfeed white feminism?
of course you can't really ask or expect women to want to be around these actual shitty guys so I don't know what to do with that.
I would say you chilled out because socially, you had expanded and felt self-sufficient.
And their fking toxic lol
They literally think asian women who date outside of their race are "race traitors"
Yeah the line "we are the only ones who care about you" is damn persuasive propaganda. When you hear reductive lib ideas of privilege that boil down to "umm sweaty your problems and insecurities aren't real because you are a white male" and are only shown that from chud media, fascists claiming that they and only they are on your side does work. I would know because that used to be me listening and believing that shit. Turns out that the reason I was in mental clusterfuck over masculinity and gender and sexuality was because I am trans not because society is against men. And also learning that privilege doesn't mean you don't suffer, only that you don't suffer from that reason.
Patriarchy and toxic masculinity. A Real Alpha Man™ fucks and if you don't then you're a loser and fair game for ridicule.
A lot of these young men holds some disgusting ideas that prevents them from finding willing partners. Did they get those ideas because they can't find partners or are they unable to find partners because they have such ideas? It might vary and it is possibly very much a chicken and egg type of situation, either way the two reinforces eachother in a vicious cycle of hatred and rejection.
Other people are perfectly nice and sane but still fail to find sexual and romantic partners for non-incel reasons like disability, neurodiversity or stressful material conditions.
Don't forget how current pop culture within media distorts reality into some weird perception on how a "true man" must act, a lot of shit from the incel crowd is merely just the gestated fulfillment of ironically nerdy directors creating movie/show genres in which (smart/nerd = undesirable/disgusting and that only the physically fit and trim are to be desired) or that said "nerd/geek/etc" must be domineering in their attitude to get what they want (i.e. the red pill multiple plates shit). There's a reason lots of "main characters" in media act demeaning or abusive towards others such as modern Sherlock Holmes being an asshat. This all is done to obfuscate the fact that dating and getting to know people is just talking to fellow human beings and seeing if you click or enjoy each others company. If such encounters don't immediately lead to sexual dominance or relational ownership means failure on the part of the male in "capturing" the attention of the woman. This then leads to incels finding a coping ideology to explain this "failure" (i.e. I am a genetic dead or end or other "black pill" shit which eventually culminates in a shooting that ends with innocents killed/harmed and the shooter getting suicide by self or cop).
tldr: Incels are the thanaton drive byproduct of a male dominated society that has created a clusterfuck when it comes to dating by designing a fictitious fantasy that only particular men are entitled to relationships and that intimacy via sex is the ultimate "reward" of said relationships.
Knew someone who was a dick to girls who rejected them who later admitted that was because that's what he saw on adam sandler movies.
Dae entertainment has no effect on its consumers touch grass touch grass :so-true:
Patriarchy and toxic masculinity. A Real Alpha Man™ fucks and if you don’t then you’re a loser and fair game for ridicule.
well i meant from the other direction
we dunk on them because they say awful shit
"Nobody takes these men seriously" is an apologist talking point. This is the same thing that Jordan Peterson has said and many other alt right figures. This is the same thing that media says about school shooters. Frankly, it's a dangerous thing to say. It is a diversion from the truth, which is that these are men who have willingly chosen to be far-right out of malice towards women.
The altright, pua, redpill, etc is not solving their problems either. Grifters have told men that they can be and should be the oppressors of women, and these men want to agree to those terms. These are men who have chosen chauvinism.
Some of these men may have problems that they are facing. That does not excuse being a reactionary. Having problems in your life is not an excuse to have malice towards women. Men are not owed the attention or affection of women.
Most men have difficulties interacting women and most men don't resort to becoming incels. This is because men do not become incels simply from lack of social skills. They become incels because they have chosen to have malice toward women.
Dating advice might help some men. Dating advice is not going to help men who think that "women are property", as fans of Andrew Tate and Sneako believe.
They just get abused and ridiculed
good. they're pieces of shit and deserve abuse and ridicule
Death to America
“Your org finds girlfriends for incels? Gross! No one is entitled to a girl’s romantic feelings and certainly not their bodies!”
that is correct, yes.
He didn't do the wording very well, but I like Hank Green's take in advising sexually frustrated geek guys and geek girls to pursue each other, and remember how much of the opposite gender is commonly written off.
I agree with you, and frankly, if you could keep a good gender balance in an organization that sought out lonely people, all you'd need to do is provide opportunities to socialize, and help them break down the cross-gender hostility; 90% of them would be able to find each other just fine.
There's almost no one at all on this green earth that is non-dateable.
There is no shortcut or cheatcode to romance. The people selling them are all grifters. You need to touch grass, you need to take care of yourself, and you need to touch even more grass.
All that corny shit about self-confidence is basically true. We live in a world where everyone is being stretched to their limit. You are looking for a companion, not a therapist. (If you need therapy, seek it! If someone you know needs it, offer it! But that is not the basis of a healthy romantic relationship.)
A good companion is somebody who makes the shithole world we live in a little bit more bearable. This isn't something which can be accomplished through the transactional mindset of a penis-brained pick up artist. There really is no answer aside from breaking the routine, meeting new people, treating them with respect, and hoping you get recognized for it. You can either resort to manipulating people, or uplifting them.
I agree, but also think that close relationships where you can rely on each other to help through mental health issues are very important. I mean, your friends and lovers and families aren't going to be able to find whole solutions for OCD or depression, but there's a lot of subclinical stuff that they will be well equipped to help with. But you can't put all that on one person! Networks of support are important, so that everyone can help take care of each other in difficult times and distribute that load. Still, people should be able to be honest with their partners and involved in their mental health.
I dunno, it's a balance that's really hurt by alienation where people only really know a handful of other people they trust.
Yeah, 100%. A good partner will provide as much support as they can, but in cases like this, the support is coming from a peer. It is a different situation from expecting not only psychological support but romance to fall out of the ether in the same package, or coming across someone who needs some serious help and saying "I can fix her."
At the end of the day, this kind of support must be born out of compassion for the person in need, not self-interest.
When it comes to meeting people and leaving a good impression, you want to make sure you have your expectations calibrated. We all have our demons, and opening up about them is a part of the growth of any relationship, but you don't want to just dump this on people and make them pity you like you're some poor bird with broken wings (especially if you think the fact that you haven't gotten laid in a while makes you some poor bird with broken wings). You don't particularly even want to make the discussion about yourself at all. Talk about hobbies (get some hobbies, typically there are organizations of people who do hobbies and you can go to them). Talk about shit that's going on (you may not be aware, but there's some wild shit going on). Play some games. Do some trivia or karaoke. It's not a job interview. You have better odds stumbling across the opportunity to say something interesting about things other people care about than you do dictating your autobiography and hoping other people find it interesting. Then at the very least you end up being that guy/gal/nonbinary pal with the interesting and memorable takes and/or daring, heterodox choices in karaoke performances. People remember you, and not as a buzzkill. You might even become the subject of conversation when you're not even around.
Like, in previous relationships, I know that I've been an important part of working through my partner's problems. And my friends have been critical for mine. But in one relationship I basically bore the full weight of their illness, which led to resentment on my part and, maybe even more importantly, an inability for me to be open with them about my own illness, creating distance and barriers. In contrast, I've been able to use my whole network, in concert often with therapy, to get a little bit of help here and there from all of them and it's worked much better without burning people out so much.
Second, you need to get rid of neoliberal capitalism
You son of a bitch, I'm in
Just to be clear, "wizard" is not a metaphor in this clip. Andrew Tate is actually friends with a person who thinks he's a wizard. Andrew Tate made a secret club he calls "The War Room", it costs $5000 to join and the wizard guy is in almost all the meetup photos.
edit - The wizard calls himself "Iggy Semmelweis" on twitter and his bio says "Priest Master of Wudan Monastery, The Greatest Hypnotist the World Has Ever Known."
God damn it, becoming some weirdo wizard who grifts people was supposed to be my life path.
the only correct insight of PUA shit is that rejection happens and if you want to meet other people you simply have to learn to get over it and try again with someone else. then the rest of their advice is designed to make people as unfuckable as possible.
Plenty of their other advice -- take care of yourself, learn how to dress a little better, get in shape, find something to do that's interesting to you and others -- is mostly solid once you strip away all the garbage and extremes (e.g., you have to become a bodybuilder). They also (inconsistently) put the onus for improving the situation on the guy, which would translate well to "human affection and intimacy are very important to you, but you are not owed it from anyone." Their recognition of the systemic problems that make dating harder these days (someone else pointed out how more people are living with their parents into adulthood) can be replaced with a similar, but more correct, analysis of the bigger picture.
There really needs to be some solid communist dating advice for these young men, other than “just be yourself” and “be a good person” kind of stuff. Like real, concrete steps
Bathe
You'd have to get em while they're still salvageable. There's a threshold where they're gonna pop off with some "I'm not dying for the state so my children can make sure Chad's harem is well preserved with state betabux" where there's not much you can do. Mix in some racism and then I couldn't imagine getting them to sit down and read Capital.
Every foothold you'd try to get where you'd try to divert traffic away from PUA and the flavor of the month (e.g. Tate) would be red meat for people telling you that you're already attractive the same way you'd be ready and defensive whenever somebody whose parents helped them escape student debt tells you how to budget. My knee jerk is to take the piss and make content that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, but sprinkles in some Marxism so that they have to have a Zuko moment before they go full :frothingfash: and there's a chance they get righteous fury instead of punching down.
It's hard though. I think you need a left party before you get to reach out and have a big tent. It's so much easier to have a community center to invite people to, get them to go to a social event that's not a meat market with loud techno, get buddy buddy with them, and invite them to a menby club where they can talk. If we're their favorite place to be outside the internet, then they'll soften up real quickly. "Yeah, I thought all women were this way, but anonette at the hexbear memorial community center always laughs at the same memes as me." But then you have to think, for every cent you could be spending helping these people with things that make them feel bad, why aren't you helping people in other countries fight back against... whatever random country is violently oppressing them? How well is your community center going to rehabilitate incels alongside helping LGBT/BIPOC with their material deficiencies? For every bit loneliness hurts the feefees, hunger hurts others a hell of a lot worse. And for every time you recognize that and tell a fence-sitting would-be Tate fan to go help themselves, Tate is right there ready to tell them how they can help themselves.
You'd need infrastructure. I don't feel like leftist dating advice tik toks are ever going to outcompete the well-established, piss and vinegar soaked right wing complex ready to predate on lonely men at a cost effective basis. If you don't show them 1080p footage of a how to get pussy AND THEN explain how to do it more effectively because you're a leftist, they probably won't care. They didn't search for the video because they wanted their perspective changed.
It’s pivoting the anger.
You can’t get to any kind of left wing view until you have a basic “fuckin rich people” then they can start into not hating women and minorities.
It will also help with getting into what they don’t like about their life.
I don't really think there is anything we can do about it, I'm afraid. Most of those monsters get girls just fine. EVERYONE loves them.
