I don't know, but this comment from @Hermes@hexbear.net has given me some stuff to think about.
People should not think less of you on the base of the amount of sex you have, and you shouldn't either.
This is a nice thought, but insults based on amount of sex are absurdly common. I have seen quite a few people on this site who still do these insults, and it doesn't get removed when I report it. The incel article from a while go was about how we should critique incels for their misogyny rather than them failing to have sex, I see this as pretty similar to the arguments about not body-shaming fascists in that most of the people who will get hit by the insult are not the actual target. From what I remember, that article good job explaining why these insults are harmful and how they hurt a lot of people who they really shouldn't, unfortunately the discussion on that post was very off topic. In my experience, most people who have sex fail to recognize that not everyone who is celibate is an incel ("If so many terrible people have sex and you can't, that must mean you are worse than they are!").
I would say that insults based on amount of sex a person has should not be allowed, but I am very pessimistic about this actually leading to a change in site culture.
Once again, please assume good faith, even if you disagree with the take. If you think I mean something weirdly reactionairy by this post, ask me wether that is what I mean, instead of just saying that's what I mean please.
I don't want this to become a strugglesession, I just feel like this would be a good discussion to have. If this does become hostile, then please lock/remove it mods.
The problem is that they call themselves incels. It has become is term to describe misogynists because the reason they can't get sex is because they're misogynists.
In a similar way that we can't stop calling Nazis Nazis just because it includes the German word for socialist and being a socialist isn't a bad thing. The fact is that they've claimed the word and they're a specific brand of misogynist that can only be identified by that word now because of that.
Nazi doesn't include the German word for socialist. The German word for socialist is Sozialist, that's obviously not included in Nazi. What is included in Nazi is only the "National" prefix the nazis used in their self descriptor Nationalsozialist, and that's specifically because German antifascists didn't want to refer to them as any kind of Sozialisten and stuck with a shorter word that centers the Hitlerists' nationalism while leaving out the bogus claims to be socialist or a workers' party. Terms like NS or Third Reich are parlance made up and used by the Hitlerists themselves, but Nazi and Hitlerist aren't, these are leftist inventions (with Hitlerist specifically being ML jargon).
Incels, otoh, adopted the term incel on their own after it was coined as a self descriptor by an involuntarily celibate woman on her blog. It became widely known only because ultra-misogynist online communities used it for themselves, and the adoption of that term meant they largely phased out terms like foreveralone, permavirgin etc.
Tons of groups use slurs to describe themselves. Especially reactionaries who will call themselves "autistic" or the r-word or the like. That a group uses a word as a descriptor does not mean it becomes acceptable. We could easily just call them misogynists or the like.
I don't think it's a 1:1 comparison and I don't want to say I don't see your point either, I get what you mean. I lean towards your view as well, or did until I read that comment.
There's also the question of how many incels we interact with here compared to how many comrades who get hurt by us using "not having sex" as a derogatory.
How is the word incel a slur?
It can be a derogatory as explained in the body text.
Uhh, just because something is derogatory doesn't mean it's a slur. For example: cracker is not a slur.
I guess I haven’t ever seen the word used to insult someone for not having sex.
100% happens though.
Yes. But their will be other people that are decent people, but people not having sex but not through choice, who will get called incels. It’s not fair to them.
I don't think I've ever seen the term 'incel' be used that out of context, and especially not on this website. It's a very specific term, circumscribed to communities of people who are driven by a misanthropic, most often mysoginistic world view. I have just never seen anyone say 'incel' to refer to someone who is currently unable or have never had sex. At the end of the day we have to discuss language as it is actually used.
It's used IRL all the time, and also on places other than hexbear, lemmygrad, etc. I've personally seen it.
It's not that I don't believe what you're saying, its just that it hasn't been my experience. Far from it. Almost always what I see is people calling out incels for what they are. The closest that I remember has been people lashing out against what they incorrectly perceive to be an incel - not in the sense that being a virgin or unable to have sex is derogatory, but that the derogatory part is the massive, insane mysoginy that is tied to inceldom as a subculture.
That's the key point where this thread misses me. Incels are a subculture. They recognize themselves as such and are recognized by virtually everybody else as a group apart. Nobody can 'be caught in the crossfire' unless they act or at least appear to act like an incel. You're not an incel because you're a virgin (incels aren't, necessarily) and you aren't an incel because you aren't having sex as of late (incels do engage with sex workers they claim to hate). You're an incel because you buy into an entire worldview that reduces people to things, human relations to a marketplace and turns the sum of humanity into a phrenology experiment to deflect from one's faults and mistakes.
I think in an attempt to critique the toxic ppl online, innocent bystanders do get hit with the crossfire. There are definitely actual involuntary celibates that get hurt when someone says "man fuck those stupid incels they're so toxic." I 100% believe this.