What I found out as a woman on incel sites
Five years ago, when I secretly joined the incel Reddit forum, I thought I knew what I was getting into: men and boys angry with women for refusing to date them
What I found out as a woman on incel sites
When Katherine Denkinson joined a forum for lonely, misogynist men, she was shocked by the sheer hatred
Incel forum members tend to blame everyone but themselves for their lack of a relationship
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Five years ago, when I secretly joined the incel Reddit forum, I thought I knew what I was getting into: men and boys angry with women for refusing to date them and venting their frustrations online. As it turned out, this was the least of my concerns and the group quickly proved itself to be the single most toxic platform on the site.
Alongside posts asking whether there was any hope for a short man to find a girlfriend, or a man with a “sub-par chin” to be considered attractive, spilt the kind of hatred I have not encountered since I stopped doing outreach work with sex offenders nine years ago. Last week’s shootings in Plymouth have shone a spotlight on the world of incels, as the gunman, Jake Davison, 22, who killed five people, then shot himself dead, had used incel forums and posted videos including references to the misogynistic movement.
Jake Davison, who killed five people, then shot himself dead in Plymouth last week, used incel forums
JAKE DAVISON/PA
Men who have committed crimes against women rarely take responsibility for their actions. Whether it was their mother, their partner or the random woman in the street who “rejected” them, the men I worked with always had an excuse for their horrific crimes. One man, Mike (not his real name), was a prime example; in his fifties and originally arrested for rape after he posed as a taxi driver, took a woman to a secluded spot and attacked her, he liked to tell us that things would have been different if women had ever paid attention to him. He was, by his own estimations, a “good guy” corrupted by years of female rejection and the fact that he was only convicted because his victim beat the odds and survived, a mere coincidence.
This determination to blame everyone but themselves for their lack of a relationship was a key feature of almost everyone who posted on the Incel forum. A prolific user who called himself HateIsTheOnlyTruth regularly went on rants in which he cursed the entire world, claiming that he was “the only one blameless in all of this”. He was, he believed, “cursed by my own DNA” and “everyone else deserves my wrath”. Desperate for an explanation that absolved them of any responsibility for their actions, the majority of Reddit incels clung to the belief that society was rigged against them and women should suffer for the pain they experienced.
Most of my time on the incel forum was spent as a silent observer. Having chosen a gender-neutral username (being obviously female would have led to an instant ban), I waited and watched to see if the memes I had seen bore any resemblance to the truth. Angry at a world that had sold them a promise of alpha males and perfect relationships, only to grow up and realise they were completely unattainable, incels had come together to discuss ways to exact revenge. Women were the enemy, their parents were the enemy and everyone who ever suggested they seek therapy or work on their personal mental health struggles was summarily banned from the group. They did not want a cure and they did not want to take responsibility. All they wanted was a target.
Over time I edged my way into the community and sent out private messages to the group’s more prolific users questioning their more extreme views. One user, calling himself IAmWhatYouMadeMe, responded to let me know his views were (apparently) not extreme and that “females have achieved none of the higher faculties that make humanity a . . . distinct species [and] are akin to animals and should be treated as such”.
When I asked him how he came by such opinions, he told me that everybody would reach the same conclusions “if they are sufficiently rational . . . and honest”. Before finding the group he had “sat in his apartment and cried”; now he could vent on the forum and it was “good to know he was not alone”. For him traditional values were key and he had extremely strong views on what constituted a good person.
To IAWYMM the world was full of “degenerate” people who were abhorrent to him for their sins of drinking, smoking, having casual sex and listening to pop, rap, R&B and other modern music. Ostensibly an atheist, he maintained that he only wanted a woman who was a virgin, his definition of which meant that she could never have “kissed, hugged or held hands” with another man before. When other users pointed out the unlikelihood of this given his age (27), he responded with rage and claimed they were no better.
Adam Lanza shot his mother before enacting the Sandy Hook massacre
AP
Desperately lonely, he eventually admitted that his dream girl would be “[his] own twin” and that they would “grow up together . . . go to school together . . . everything”. At the age of 11, he stated, they would “enter into a consensual relationship that will last our whole lives”. This relationship would never involve other men or women and thus would never be “degenerate”. Clearly suffering from extremely poor mental health, this was one of his last posts before he left the forum after posting a question asking why the rape of a “non-virgin” was regarded as a bad thing.
The purity angle, while by no means universal, was a feature among the more extreme members of the group. Despite most claiming to be atheists, a vast majority of the group subscribed to the hard-right ideas of purity and societal values expounded by groups such as the Proud Boys. Known as Caamib (Co-Alpha Anti-Modern Incel Blogger), the group’s founder was also its most extreme proponent of this.
Advocating for a system whereby women would be taken from their parents at the age of 12 and placed into a lottery, to be randomly assigned to men in their twenties, Caamib believed women over 20 to be past their prime. For him it was all about SMV (sexual market value), something incels lacked by default and which varied in women according to their looks and lifestyles. Younger women were less likely to have dated extensively or have a solid idea of what they wanted from a man, so could be manipulated into accepting whatever men like Caamib wanted. Needless to say, when I later found him frequenting a WordPress community advocating for paedophilia I was horrified but unsurprised.
As with many sex offenders I have encountered, punishment is at the core of their beliefs. “I’m considering getting a degree in psychology so I can prey on femaloids with a history of sexual abuse. Maybe I could even hypnotise them to have sex with me . . .” stated one user, to the joy of others, who quickly suggested other ways they could hurt women for the sin of not finding them attractive. “Unless you hate your parents for giving you a subhuman face, you’re not incel!” yelled another, enraged that someone had suggested they take responsibility for their shortcomings.
Mothers were often the target of their rage, along with every woman who had ever rejected them. Racism was rife, with each race given their own (equally offensive) epithet. JBW (Just Be White) was often ironically added to posts by users who suggested their race made them undateable, claiming that racism did not exist because they were white and still found themselves ignored by women.
After a year the Reddit forum was permanently closed down. Users had begun advocating rape as a valid punishment for women who rejected them and the complaints of women on the site could no longer be ignored. Losing their main meeting space has pushed them to start individual websites and many of the most extreme voices remain active. Randomly monitoring them over the past couple of years I see that little has changed.
Nathan Larson, once an active member of several incel communities, now runs a pro-rape website where users discuss their violent fantasies amid a community characterised by extreme antisemitism and white supremacy. Larson, who once ran for Congress in Virginia and advocated for incest to be made legal, appears to have no contact with people outside his dark little group and has only become more extreme as the years have progressed.
Others, removed from the gaze of Reddit, have been free to create an echo chamber of horrors and continue their crusade to punish women for their lack of ability to find love. Men such as the Isla Vista killer, Elliot Rodger, and Adam Lanza, who shot his own mother before continuing to enact the Sandy Hook massacre, are eulogised and their faces used in memes as they vent rage and frustration into the void, which dutifully echoes it back unchallenged.
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She's also got another A&N article here, "Tracking Chris Chan started Kiwi Farms. Will her arrest be its end?" same day, similar online 'community investigation.' Since I know you have an account and are reading this, I did not start a free trial with The Times dot co dot uk, and did not subscribe for the low price of £10/month, thereby denying you clicks, views & revenue you cheeky slag.
