Male Sexlessness Is Rising, but Not for the Reasons Incels Claim

The authors of this article admit that involuntary celibacy is rising among young men. They admit that 20% of the men are having 60% of the sex while incels claim it's 80%--not that much of a difference. Marriage is declining--and that's their coup de grâce? Gimme a break. The decline in marriage could be due to all the factors that incels claim: that people, including women, are more promiscuous outside of marriage and that social media and online dating make women more shallow and appearance-oriented.

While there are some problematic, misogynist aspects to the incel and MGTOW (men going their own way) movement, this article does nothing to shed light on the existing problem of young men feeling increasingly isolated, anti-social and cut off from the sexual marketplace. Incels are consistently written off as simply misogynist while the numbers clearly point to a more endemic problem that no one will address because young men are not considered an oppressed group.

While a lot of it, including the very name, revolves around sex, I think it is important to consider the lack of emotional intimacy such relationships provide and if there is any correlation between lack of any romantic partner ships and lack of close friendships. Completely lacking both would indicate a very isolated individual, which isn't good for mental health.

Also, most the data used looked at no sex within the last year which is quite different from never having had sex. At least in the part of society I'm familiar with, there is a massive difference in social status between a guy who just has bad luck dating, and someone with the label of virgin (especially once you leave young adulthood).

not a great article in general based on the lack of statistics, the failure to address the influence of non-hetero relationships, and the lack of a disclaimer on the reliability of survey data. but the kicker is the author ignoring the inherent connection between the ability to find sex partners and the ability to find marriage partners

and instead blaming the knowledge economy with nothing to back it up

one interesting tidbit from the article: the slow steady increase in celibate married men that doesn't appear to be matched in women

Throughout our evolutionary history males have been terribly unsuccessful at procreating compared to females.

Which is why many societies essentially enforced rules of one woman for one men and made promiscuity a sin even more so for women.

Societies who didn’t tended to be much less stable and productive in the long run as they had a very large population of males that essentially had nothing to work for and no future.

This was also enforced by biology as sexual activity was very risky for women as the likelyhood of them getting pregnant was very high.

And a pregnant woman even today would find it quite difficult to manage on her own and most men do not want to raise someone else’s child.

Now in a very short period of time we have had 2 major social changes in regards to women.

Birth control which allowed women to have sex without the fear of getting pregnant and women entering the workforce in droves an for the most part as equals which meant that they were no longer dependent on men to provide for them and more importantly that a career became a socially acceptable life development path for women.

This essentially means that today women don’t need to settle for “lesser” men any more and can actively compete for the top percentage of men as they no longer compete for long term relationships and child caring support.

This inevitably would result in much larger percentage of men being left out of the game.

What makes this worse is that today society at least as far as the west goes essentially stepped out of its role as a matchmaker.

People don’t set people up anymore, even grandmothers don’t try to marry off their grandchildren anymore. And while that may sound archaic it was a pretty big deal in the past.

Events like debutante balls and high school dances all of these were essentially there to allow the sexes to mingle in a manner that would increase the chances of coupling and this is something that goes out do fashion by the day.

Despite not growing up in the US my teens were filled with events that essentially “forced” people to ask each other out and that was a pretty good way of teaching people how to actually well date or at least approach a member of the opposite (or same) sex.

I’ve used to dismiss the whole “incel” phenomenon but I’ve learned that many people that I interact with on a daily basis suffer from this to some extent, I’ve worked with more than a few “30 year old virgins” all of them were while not perfect couldn’t be further from some hate spewing troll on the internet.

Those who aren’t and do still manage date also struggle a lot especially if the only dating they have time for is online dating / tinder and especially if they have a limited social circle that can’t help them out.

I only hope is that we find a solution and strike a good balance before alternatives come into play or worse before socities would amass a critical mass of “incels” because when you have a lot of angry men who can’t get laid civil unrest is quite likely to follow.

Im sure I have tons of issues. If im being defensive I’d say it’a juat bad luck. There’s been plently of women that have been interested in me and some I’ve been interested in but none where we were interested in each other. It doesn’t help that I’m a geek engineer so there are no women at work and most geek meetups are 90-95% men. Sure I go to a few non geek meetups but of course I almost never meet someone there I think I have anything in common with.

I also have this hang up that if I know the woman is not going to be long term I won’t sleep with her. The reason is in my experience, at least for my type of girl, they are always hoping for LTR even if they say short term is ok so if I already know I’m not really interested then it feels deceitful. And Im also not looking for short term.

so, I’m always hopeful I’ll meet someone but that hope is now at 15yrs.

Have had 6 LTR before I was 35 including one short marriage

> The rise of young male sexlessness isn’t about Chads and Stacies; it isn’t primarily about Tinder or Bumble; it’s not mostly about attitudinal shifts in what women want from relationships; and it’s not mainly about some new war between the sexes. It’s mostly about people spending more years in school and spending more years living at home. But that’s not actually a story about some change in sexual politics; instead, it’s a story about the modern knowledge economy, and to some extent exorbitant housing costs. As such, it’s no surprise that rising sexlessness is being observed in many countries.

My experience doesn't tell me that living at home has that significant of an impact on whether a person gets to have sex. Perhaps once one gets to a certain age; past 26, it's kind of pathetic IMO. But if people are living at home longer across the board, I would expect more of those people would find each other. My experience in knowing people who have taken a while to get married tells me they do so in order to save up for the wedding. I don't think it has very much to do with causing involuntary celibacy.

Maybe there's some aspect of the article I'm missing. What I'm not missing is the author's snotty attitude, which should make anyone suspicious of their motives:

> Many incels quote a rule of thumb that 20% of men have 80% of the sex. Is this true? It turns out, the answer is no. And of course, it isn’t!

Of course it isn't, silly reader!

Outspoken incels might be wrong about some of their claims, but that doesn't meant that there isn't something to what they're saying. Just as I wouldn't claim that a person who claims to have seen heaven while almost dying on a hospital table, I wouldn't claim that incels aren't experiencing alienation from the opposite sex. Instead of concluding that incels in general are "woman hating terrorists", it's a better idea to keep a level head and try to figure out exactly what's going on here with a modicum of compassion.

Are incels "woman haters"? I don't buy it. As online communities for incels are essentially support groups for frustrated people, yes, of course you're going to read a lot of nasty things about women written by incels. Does that mean that an incel isn't immediately going to turn the other cheek as soon as a woman shows them genuine affection? I don't think so. I think these are men who genuinely want the affection and companionship of women.

If incels are terrorists because of a very, very small minority, then I guess all Catholics are pedophiles. Right? Riiiiight?

You might be thinking that I am indeed an incel. No, not by a long shot. But I can see where a lot of them are coming from. Years ago, online dating really wasn't all that difficult, and I'm not particularly good-looking either. I do think that there's an amalgam of societal changes that have been affecting all sides, and it can't be reduced to a lack of marriage.

Let me be clear, these are my opinions based on my experience. Your results may vary.

By 2016, online dating had become much less fun in general and a lot more work. I don't think a lot of people, especially people who found partners early on, just how much effort it takes for a guy to date women online. The effort is monumental, especially when you don't have much in the looks department. Not only that, but you've got to fight off the hundreds or thousands of other penises that slither towards women as soon as they log in to these platforms. 99% of your messages will ever be read or replied to. It takes hours out of your life and is demoralizing. If this lasts for months or years, it's damaging to how you view yourself. I personally gave up on that game because women really demand a lot from men but return very little, in my opinion. It does work out for some people, but I know I'm not the only person who realized that eventually you've got better things to do than to prove yourself to people who have no interest in your approval of them. I harbor no hatred of women, it's just that I increasingly don't seem to be a good mate for them and vise versa.

It seems to me that attitudes have changed quite a bit between the sexes. Men of my generation, in my experience, grew up being told lots of fanciful things about women, possibly much more so than previous generations(but I can't be sure). Sugar and spice was just the beginning of that; I recall many times in my life when authority figures told me that the world would be a better place if only women were in charge of anything. Disney movies made men look fallible, while the women were misunderstood sweethearts who are the prize at the end of the tunnel after you fight off the dragon, the monster, or the bad guys. A lot of boys grow up to subliminally believe that women are their salvation and that, if only they could just meet that one girl, their lives can finally get on track. Of course this isn't true as a rule since women are mere human beings. In contrast, women get different messages about what a man should be, and they are just as unrealistic as the messages told to men about women.

Of course, those things aren't necessarily new, but I think they're heightened. What's different is women's roles in society have changed drastically, and that's going to effect their preferences. In my experience, women simply don't need men(they'll even attest to this) more than ever, and there's a lot of media telling them that "they're worth it" even if they don't change who they are, so they quite logically try to shoot the moon and only settle with the man that they are most attracted to that they can get. Men of utility simply need not apply. Ugly men of the past could more easily pass on their genes because of their utility. Again, I am not blaming women. I would likely do the same thing if I were a woman.

Moreover, a woman can get support and validation from so many more avenues than they used to. Validation regularly comes in through social media reactions(let's be honest, most women can get validation every day by posting innocuous photos and men ultimately enable this), and support can easily asked for, bought, or begged from by the government. As I said, the man who is a mere utility need not apply.

What I've observed of the people in my generation who are getting married is that women are often marrying what I would refer to as the "adorkable dude-bro" who really isn't a bad guy by any means, but he has essentially taken on the gender role once held by women, albeit in a more bumbling way. He probably doesn't work, or if he does his work makes him peanuts. He's good looking, charming, has excellent social skills, funny, etc. The fact that he only works 4 hours a day at most means she's never going to think he's "working too much". It doesn't matter that he can't do a single useful thing beyond making grilled cheese, because is wife or girlfriend loves him entirely for the things he is rather than the things he does.

Need I repeat that this is my experience and not necessarily reflective of everyone's reality? Everybody got that? Good!

Clearly, not all guys can be that adorkable dude-bro. I'll never be that guy because I'm not charismatic, not particularly attractive, I'm highly analytical, and I spend a lot of my time writing software and not much of it in leisure. The reality is that I am not the preference of the vast majority of women in my generation, and even though I can and do have sex, spending inordinate amounts of time trying to build relationships with women has become tiresome and unrealistic. I certainly don't want to play the adorkable dude-bro to please women.

A some men who are not as good looking as I am(and trust me, I'm on the low-end) are basically screwed. Worse yet, there are hundreds of companies preying on their insecurities, telling them that if they learn some behavioral techniques, the ladies will "drop their panties." Once they figure out that "game" is a giant scam, or they figure out that sex-alone is dissatisfying, they rightfully get pissed off. Wouldn't you be extremely upset if what you most wanted out of life seemed unobtainable no matter what you did? You'd probably think the system was rigged against you, too. Hell, you'd be even more enraged if your lack of something put you on the lowest rung of society; both men and women will cackle at you for not getting laid.

So no, I'm not absolving incels of any specific wrongdoings. But being dismissive is not a solution, and blaming the marriage rate doesn't seem realistic. The fact that any modestly-sized group of people are perceiving the modern world as being unfair to them should be alarming for a multitude of reasons.

TL;DR My experience makes me distrust the author's conclusion, and my experience is not necessarily reflective of reality. Thus, my opinion is something to be taken with a big chunk of rock salt.