The Making of Incels

“These guys didn’t become desirable because only women admire social status and wealth. It’s also men that make those things so important.”

November 28, 2022 by RileyA 


I’ve come across a few incels in real life. Previously I wrote about Themcels, because I really don’t think it’s as gendered as people make out.

But here, I’m going to talk about incels. The cis males who are involuntarily celibate and have formed an ideology about why that might be.

In the Beginning

I’ve known a few incels in my time. Most I’ve known of before we even had a word for it. “Nerds”, or “geeks” if they were smart. The others were just “Losers”. None of these were positive terms.

But at some point, it became clear that the nerdier, geekier guys were actually likely to be a pretty good catch in the grand scale of things. So just being brainy rather than brawny became sexy simply because those guys were ending up pretty powerful in some way.

They were making money, gaining social status, and of course, there was some guarantee that their lack of social skills and frequent experiences of bullying will make him more empathetic (and/or docile). A genuinely nice, successful guy who won’t stray far from home.


Artist Credit: Ben Griffith on Unsplash

So “nerds” and “geeks” became a valid dating choice as it became “hot” to be bookish. But only because these guys started to won the game of capitalism in ways that gave them social power and clout. It gave them something that people wanted.

That’s often why these guys would start to be rewarded with sexual and romantic interest later in life. Their peers needed time to truly appreciate their accolades as they earned them. It’s only when they’re at the top of their field after 40 or 50, they become an aspirational figure to all. Men want to be them and women want to marry them.

To be perfectly clear here, these guys didn’t become desirable because only women admire social status and wealth. It’s also men that make those things so important.

If men respected each other regardless of their social and financial standing, then we wouldn’t have been instrumental in creating the standards so many of us struggle to fulfill. Those of us who can achieve those standards, wouldn’t be so frightened of not being able to sustain their success.

Incel vs Nerd/Geek


Artist Credit: MD Mahdi on Unsplash

As a “nerd” or a “geek”, you still have to have some traits which incels (and Themcels for that matter), lack. For one, you sort of have to be brilliant. You can’t be mediocre and expect to be socially desirable despite your nerd/geek status.

The other thing is that you need the ability to interact with people in a way that promotes attachment and bonding. “Nerds”, “geeks” and, of course, incels, are more likely to lack these skills. Some of that is due to conditions like Autism or ADHD. Some of it is environmental. Sometimes it’s a mixture of both.

The people who are able to overcome these odds and succeed by societal standards, despite being one of these guys, are now the only nerds and geeks. It’s a positive label. It shows you’re not a shallow guy. It shows you’re interesting. It showcases your earning potential.

Those who can’t overcome those odds are now “incels”, characterized by their inability to secure a mate. As much as people like to say it’s only incels that focus on their lack of sexual intimacy, the truth is that lack of sex is commonly used as an presumptive insult against men to emasculate them by everyone.

Society greatly values partnered people and therefore insinuating someone cannot get a partner implies they lack value. Other people find the incel’s lack of sex as pathetic as he does, despite their protests that it’s his personality they find repulsive. We are all conditioned to feel that way about single people.

Family Life


Artist Credit: Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash

All the incels I’ve known have genuinely had unhealthy home lives. Sure, maybe from the outside it may appear like they come from a well-to-do middle-classed white family with two parents in a long term marriage. But people who know them know differently.

They know the father is emotionally if not physically abusive, or that the parents set unrealistic expectations for the children, or otherwise stunt their emotional development. They might be privy to the generational cycle of inequality and the resulting trauma which has led them to where they are now.

A lot of people rebuke when you speak about the mothers’ of incels. Often, the mother becomes the abuse victim of their incel son, in place of the partner they yearn for, but would have no idea how to love. I understand the urge to not focus on the mother. It’s part of incel ideology to blame women for all suffering.

However, most incels I know personally were raised by a single mother. And while incels may think I’m saying that makes it her fault, I’m actually pointing to the absence of a co-parent (usually the father, a cis man) as a reason why the emotional and developmental needs of the that child were not met. The deadbeat dad.

“Their father was never a positive or supportive presence for his children or co-parent”

His absence contributes to the mother’s likelihood of being poor, sick, stressed and abused. It says whether she will have access to the resources in time to steer her son away from Inceldom. They may have their own history of trauma from their younger lives. They may still be experiencing trauma now.

The ones who weren’t raised by single mothers may as well have been. Purely because their father was never a positive or supportive presence for his children or co-parent. So again, the incel was raised in an environment that was not conducive with healthy emotional or social development. It was their father’s presence, rather than absence, that damaged them.


Artist Credit: Jack Sharp on Unsplash

The incels Ive known have had a fairly stable upbringing, in that, nothing sudden and traumatic impacted their lives, in addition to their crappy homelife. They had at least one parent they could rely on for food, shelter and basic safety.

Not all incels are that lucky. Their ability to trust others has been damaged by the people that were meant to care for them. They’ve experienced systemic discrimination. Consequently, they’re even less able to engage with interventions designed to overcome their barriers than the average guy.

Something like trusting a therapist enough to meaningfully engage is an almost impossible feat. Throwing it out there to the incels I know would be futile. It’s essentially goading them about their inability to help themselves. That sits wrong with me.

We don’t approve of mocking people who are compelled to harm themselves, unless they are men and are unable to secure relationships.

The Partnered Incel

One of my friends says that in her country, the incels are married men. It’s never totally clear what she means about anything, but I think she is referring to how culture dictates whether the incel actually gets access to a relationship (read: sex) or not.

Marriage, or at least long term partnership, is a cultural norm where she is from. Thus more of the incels, if not most of them, are indeed partnered.

We don’t have this norm all over the West any more. In small pockets, yes — it’s still normal to settle down with your childhood sweetheart, even outside of religious obligation. So like in her country, the incels in these pockets are often partnered.

They’re incels because still hold the same ideology, just without the yearning for sex. We call them Red Pill Types, MRAs, and sometimes just “local men”. That’s what they are in some places: the majority of men in that area. Usually because one of those factors that create such men is prevalent in that region. Poverty is a common culprit.

Divorce will make them the same as their single incel peers.

Are You Excusing Incels?

No, I just think we should extend our empathy and understanding to everyone. That doesn’t mean condoning harm, but I can see what leads to other groups of people into harmful behavior. I empathize with their plight.

We have compassion for those people, even when we condemn their actions. We show some understanding, on the progressive Left, at least, of why they feel marginalized. We see that their (often extreme) deviance is motivated by survival and fear.

We’re trying to stop seeing them as “thugs”, “criminals” or “vagrants”. We try and see them as people suffering the perils of poverty, racism, ableism and other forms of discrimination. We understand how aspects of their identity leave them vulnerable to exploitation.

It doesn’t mean we allow them to shirk accountability for the harm they cause, but we don’t pretend that their actions occured in a vacuum. Sometimes it feels like men are expected to be more resilient to abuse, mental illness, trauma and exploitation than anyone else. We need to remember that little boys, even little white boys, aren’t more powerful than the adults around them.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.