Senate Problems with perceptions of masculinity

No. I have noticed this about a lot of incels. If someone says women won't date me because I'm ugly and I want to die and I'm entitled to sex with women, that is both psychologically unhealthy and misogynistic. The overall incel position is one of personal insecurity and inferiority.

 

Stop. Making. Assumptions. Based. On, Your. Perceptions.

It's not a good way to be.

 

Stop telling other people what to do? Like what is your problem? You could argue my points instead of doing this. I would love it if you would address the actual points and actually back up your statements and explain WHY. Instead you are ordering me about. So look to the massive log in your own eye.

You are not helping me be less the way you don't want me to be because you will not discuss this but instead will give orders. I highly disagree with this approach.

 

My problem is, you are further stigmatizing mental illness by assuming a whole group is mentally ill.

 

Here, will this help? There are a lot of psychologically unhealthy people in the incel community. The community overall is toxic and psychogically unhealthy. It's not uncommon for individuals in "the community" to talk about killing themselves. That doesn't mean all people with psychological health problems are incels - please do not draw this absolutely ridiculous conclusion! It's okay to admit this isn't overall a very healthy group of people and yes I have to generalize "incels" to consider it as a group category.

 

Nice Strawman. I never said anything even remotely close to that. I don't believe in blanket statements.

 

then no need to worry about stigmatizing based on the overlap between category "bad people" and "psychologically unhealthy" as there is always going to be some overlap without it meaning all "psychologically unhealthy" people are "bad people." Stigmatizing IMO involves creating the logical fallacy that because some of group X is bad, all of group X is bad, therefore "bad" is the overall nature/character of group X => marginalize group X!

Although the group "psychologically unhealthy" is not bad or good in my book, the group "incel" is largely bad. So I have definitely generalized incels as largely bad. I have also generalized them as crying in dark corners on the internet angry about why women won't have sex with them, completely missing how most people don't want to have sex with someone who thinks they are entitled to it (that's a huge turn off unless the entitled person is a chad! *attends pick-up artist training*) (Blanket statement alert!)

By this I don't mean to say they cannot improve or are all forever bad. I don't really like the distinctions bad/good people, but I feel I have to use them.

 

You are hopeless. I'm walking away.

****

 

I agree. I completely understand nothing about your position BTW because you didn't really explain anything. This makes this result all but inevitable.

 

Yeah, sorry, no. I considered just letting this slide, but I can't. You've completely avoided the argument I was making by selectively quoting what I said and made me out to be defending the incel mindset, when I repeatedly stated in my first paragraph exactly what you have to say here. I can't let that fly.

I wasn't saying we should accept the incel movement, and at no point did I imply that men are entitled to an intimate relationship. What I said was that a lot of men aren't entirely at fault for being lonely, and it's that loneliness that drives them to extremism. If they aren't given the empathy needed to heal and grow as people, they will latch to the closest thing to empathy and understanding that they can find. Which in this case is a hateful mindset set within self loathing, and anger at a society that judges them for their flaws more than it does help them.

Unless we accept the fact that toxic masculinity within society is driving social outcasts to extreme fringes, the incel problem isn't going to go away. No matter how much you scream at them for the deficiencies that they're all too aware that they have.

Isn't there an unwritten rule about quoting Star Wars, especially the prequels, within a serious discussion in the Senate threads? I think it involves some kind of punishment involving a rather large, pointy stick.

Although I could just be dreaming it up.

 

It's like you answered what you wanted my post to argue instead of what I actually argued. Please reread what I wrote.

 

Again, this is not to excuse the violence they carry out or the hate even the non-violent ones spew, but a ton of Incels have severe mental and emotional disorders. The responsibility does fall on them to seek help for these things, but the fact that they "can't get laid" is not their fault. At the beginning, at least, before they fell under the sway of the Incel talking points, they couldn't get laid because they were born with or developed mental and/or emotional problems. When I was clinically depressed, I wasn't "getting laid" a whole lot. And that wasn't my fault. I was sick. I needed, and was trying to get, professional help. Yes, even if you have problems like the ones I'm talking about, there is still responsibility on some level to try to get help and it certainly doesn't give you a blank check to do or say bad things. But telling people who are mentally ill or emotionally disturbed that it's their own fault they can't get a girlfriend is really not the way to go.

EDIT: Somehow I missed the whole argument about stigmatizing mental illness above when I made this post. I stand by it, but I will say that I'm speaking out of my personal experiences and I am certainly not saying that all Incels have mental problems. Some of them are just predators who enjoy spreading hate; others have been radicalized by the online community; some of them have mental problems; some of them are just jerks. Blanket statements are never true, really.

 

I agree with all of this.

It's like what is the appropriate way to note that a community has a ton of mental health issues without stigmatizing mental health issues. Although all of this is a dark place psychologically: being radicalized isn't psychologically healthy, believing everything is out of one's control and one can never better their lives isn't psychologically healthy, soaking in hate 24-7 isn't psychologically healthy, hating 24-7 isn't psychologically healthy.

 

Except that one.

 

The stigmatization of mental illness prevents many from getting help, as does the fact that there are several unqualified mental heal professionals out there.

Also, certain segments of society have some weird expectations. Prior to my transition, I didn't have a lot of sex with the exception of two years in my life, primarily because I did not desire it. However, as soon as I transitioned and legally corrected my gender to female, a lot more people started hitting on me online and in person, as though I were expected to now become a sexual object. I have noticed that, in some places more than others, a sexually active male is more accepted than a sexually active female, although a woman rejecting a man will just drive certain certain men crazy. Many men have, unfortunately, been conditioned to believe their value is tied to virility. A woman's intelligence is not always valued, especially by sophomoric fools. Therefore, I believe these are false notions that need to be rejected and challenged through education.

 

I don't think this just applies to women. I'm a bi guy and I have the same experience when it comes to men.

Take my tinder profile for example. I know I'm a relatively attractive guy. Sure, I'm no Chris Hemsworth, but when acting as straight I got about 100 swipes right from women over the course of a month. Last night, I switched the app to show me both men and women before I went to sleep, only to wake up and find that number had doubled by this morning. It's the same story whenever I visit a gay club, I get hit on all the time. I've also had my share of "nice guys" who loudly lament why nobody wants to date them, and really want to stress how nice they are.

The desperation for an intimate relationship and the inability to accept rejection is not exclusive to straight men, so I'm not inclined to believe that this is down to men not valuing the intelligence of women. I feel it's more down to the culture of toxic masculinity that is prevalent in society, as I talked about before.

 

Oh, yes. Bisexual men where I came from received less acceptance than bisexual women. While I have read several articles about how bisexual women face more abuse than straight women, I believe biphobia is an issue that is not sufficiently discussed in our society. For this reason, I depicted one of my novel's two primary antagonists as a biphobic, transphobic, misogynistic, misandrist terrorist who is probably the most deplorable character in the entire legendarium. While almost every woman I have met has admitted to being bisexual or not completely straight, bisexual men still face persecution in ways that are not discussed enough.

 

Here's an interesting article touching on where sexuality - and celibacy - are headed in an aging society (not unlike ours, but at the "next stage") that is Japan - and how celibacy seems to affect men more there. Obviously, quite a bit is context-sensitive, but quite a bit more applies to all western societies.

 

I don't see how noticing a lot of mental health problems in a community of people who define their community identity off of these really unhealthy ideas - that Contrapoints video covered it all pretty darn well - is stigmatizing mental illness.

The only ones I'm stigmatizing are incels by overall sees them as a group with certain attributes - and that general characterization will not precisely match every individual who identifies as an incel or does the incel thing.

I think it's part of the stigma to make the topic untouchable as though you can only bring it up if you have examples of people who are less socially bad and are mentally ill. I don't take any one mentally ill person as somehow representing "the mentally ill" which is a highly diverse group of people. And if people are quick to read my statements that way, I feel like part of the burden is on the reader and choosing the worst interpretation because everyone is so obsessed with policing each other about everything.

Like, what is the problem? Is the problem having some sympathy for incels or not having any? Because it's this case where it's both - it's like I am sympathetic to people's problems with loneliness and mental health issues; I am not sensitive to the entitled attitude that women are supposed to "put out" and guys are entitled to this. It's just so blind. And that attitude I don't see as the product of mental illness generally (it's an attitude that pervades many spheres).

After all, the most heroic dudes (the ones who have the most sex ) also may share the attitude that they are entitled to sex from any woman - however, you do have to do something to bring this result about (see the pick-up culture talking points).

 

Why do you say that the dudes who have the most sex are heroic? As for mental illness, every individual on this planet has some burden or some problem. Everyone has some insecurity to overcome. Or at least they should. We should strive to undo the damages of entitlement culture.

Don't vomit on my spaceship.

 

Sarcasm. In this alpha/beta/whatever male ideology idea, the alpha male has lots of sex and gets all the women. He is the realization of entitled feelings, the hero of "the incels." He shares the entitled attitude but without the suffering and despair since getting laid is the cure to everything.

I don't feel I am vomiting on your spaceship. I just noticed there are a lot of mental health issues in the incel community. This is apparently criminal to make such an observation. I think a lot of "incels" are depressed and lonely and that this may well be for many, the main issue. So shoot me. This doesn't mean that it alone explains anything. It never does.

 

Is the prevalence of mental illness among incels something you have data on or based on attitudes they hold you may disagree with?

 

It's that this "community" defines itself based upon its inadequacy (is this false?). It's a sort of learned helplessness ideology, that despite how there are men out there who are shorter than the average man in their society, are skinnier than the average man in their society, are more "nerdy" (however that is defined) than the average man in their society, don't have the perfect body in general and come off as "nice," who are very happily married (they don't fulfill this alpha/beta male ideology checklist and are happy and with a romantic partner who loves them for them)... Despite this evidence that debunks the idea that one is being doomed to a lonely miserable life is out there if they can't be this "alpha male" idea, the "community" persists with this very depressed worldview (which isn't to say that it's just all in their heads either - I do think it's more difficult for some people to form relationships of all kinds just so many factors create that and it's not all under the control of the individual).

You are either born with a wealth of these special "alpha guy" characteristics or you are the loser beta or omega male or whatever and so no one will ever want you and you might as well die. It's a depressed loop of thinking. I've done it over and over in my own depression, just not over this topic, which is absolutely also related to "perceptions of masculinity in society." If one stays in this kind of thinking they end up really depressed and cognitive behavioral therapy is partially about examining this level of assumption and trying to use logic to break it down to realize, you know, maybe I'm not quite as ugly and unlikeable and as much of a loser as I think I am. Maybe there are some good qualities about me (and ones I really believe in - not where I reinforce my worldview about how I just will never be happy because I was born wrong and so all I can do is self-pity over what I feel I deserve but can never have). In order to break down these core assumptions one often has to go back into their childhood and past and learn how they were formed to begin with and also how one's thinking pattern was formed. (Admittedly CBT isn't something I'm certain actually works, but it is one approach that says something about depression and the thinking patterns involved - if nothing else, when I'm really depressed, the depressive thinking seems to come out and override all rational thought.)

Basically I see depressive thinking mixed with entitlement, and I don't believe you can have the incel community without both of these characteristics. It's not one or the other, but both. That doesn't mean this defines every individual in the community. I'm sure there are some who just hate women. Or some who are just trolls. All sorts. Though overall they must be okay enough with the entitled seeming ideas, so those ideas remain the primary characteristic of the community - but without enough depression and pain, the ideas I think fall apart.

However, as I don't enjoy reading "incel stuff" I haven't read a lot of it. So I am guilty of being intellectually lazy and making assumptions about incels in this sense. I do not have the on-the-pulse deeply nuanced understanding of incels that I would have if I immersed myself in the communities for months, which I would never do because I dislike the views overall and I wouldn't want to interact with it because I do see a lot of self-hatred in the incel views and I feel like professional help is needed.

 

Sarcasm. It’s in the Endgame trailer. Hence the wink emoji.