The term “incel,” short for “involuntary celibate,” refers to a subculture, largely consisting of heterosexual men, who perceive themselves as unable to secure romantic or sexual partners. Incel communities are characterized by misogynistic beliefs, hostility toward women, and narratives of sexual entitlement.
Have readers heard of the “black pill”? This is a belief that certain negative aspects of life—especially things like attractiveness, social status, or success—are fixed and unchangeable. It represents a deeply pessimistic, even fatalistic outlook, often concluding that effort won’t meaningfully improve outcomes.
The term is most commonly associated with parts of the “manosphere” and incel communities. It can also appear more broadly to describe any worldview that things are hopeless and cannot be improved. The manosphere and the broader mass sentiment of hopelessness and inevitability are part of the same social problem.
In sociology, a social problem is a behavior, condition, or situation that a significant number of people view as harmful or otherwise undesirable, and in need of change because it negatively affects individuals, groups, or society as a whole. Central to the change piece is explaining and understanding (in Max Weber’s sense of Verstehen) what lies behind the problem.
Social problems are not simply personal troubles. A man may be involuntarily celibate without joining a subculture that amplifies his grievance. Beneath a social problem are broader social causes, the consequences of which are at scale. Thus, sociologists study how cultural norms, inequalities, institutions, and social structures contribute to these problems.
Crucially, an explanation is not a justification. However, many perceive attempts to explain and understand a social problem as a defense of, and even support for, a problematic standpoint. Yet, in sociology, a standpoint is a person’s social position and lived experiences, which shape how they understand and interpret the world, which can be grasped without endorsement. How is one to address a social problem if one is deterred from explaining situations that underpin a given standpoint?
In this essay, I sketch the situation that gives rise to the incel subculture. I suggest an explanation that aids in understanding why young men are attracted to misogynistic beliefs, hostility toward women, and narratives of sexual entitlement. One may condemn the subculture, but without an explanation, it is difficult to address the problem. Understanding a worldview aids in explaining it. Worldviews are emergent from the intersection of natural and social history.
It is well understood that across culture and history, women prefer men with higher status, resources, or social standing. This creates competition among men for a smaller pool of desirable partners. This preference is an evolved tendency to seek partners who can provide access to resources, security, and stability. Status is not limited to social class or wealth; it also includes age, influence, prestige, and talent. Men may achieve attractiveness through a variety of pathways, not just good looks. Indeed, good looks don’t guarantee mate attainment. High income and prestige can make the average-looking man attractive to women.
In modern societies, women have greater access to economic and educational opportunities than in the past, allowing many to achieve high economic and social status independently. This complicates matters. It does not change the underlying tendency. Modern women prefer partners who are at least their equals in education, income, or occupational prestige. This creates challenges when highly educated or successful women seek partners who meet or exceed their own status level, particularly as traditional pathways for men to attain stable employment and social standing have weakened in some sectors of the economy.
Offshoring, mass immigration, and other developments have severely hampered men’s ability to achieve the status necessary to attract desirable mates. The declines in manufacturing jobs, reduced participation in civic institutions, and growing economic inequality converge to diminish opportunities for males to acquire the kinds of status valued in the mating market.
For this reason, the concept of hypergamy—the tendency to marry or partner up in status—is receiving renewed attention in the social media space. A decade ago, I would have been inclined to disregard the matter, but my politics have evolved, and it is becoming painfully clear that there is a problem. Women can marry upward, while fewer men can achieve high status. As a result, an increasing number of men are crowded out of the mating pool. This is the situation from which the manosphere arises.
Complicating this situation for young men is technological development. Social geographers have noted the phenomenon of time-space compression—the process by which advances in communication, information, and technology make interactions instantaneous and shrink distances. As technology advances, goods, money, and people move easily across time and space, including and especially virtually, making the world feel more interconnected and smaller. The number of potential interpersonal connections grows. In the past, women would settle for men in their community. The Internet has given them access to men beyond those confines, complicating the competition dynamic. Mate selection has thus shifted from local to regional and even global.
Reducing the worldview to essentialist notions reimagined by feminist politics, progressives not only mock those identified as incels, but also focus on this subculture to signal male threat. But the situation of young men is real, however odious the culture that has emerged from it. The internet allows men to find other men in their situation. The economic situation creates idle time to dwell on grievances that develop in an alienated state; technology allows those affected by macrosociological conditions to dwell on their situation together. This builds solidarity around a lay theory.
What is the evidence that the situation is real? Online dating data indicate that the female gaze is concentrated on a relatively small group of highly desirable men. No one reading this essay is oblivious to the fact that our lives are becoming ever more virtual. It is no longer the case that, for the most part, men meet women at clubs or house parties. Young men are abandoning social spaces where face-to-face interactions occur. Their economic situation makes it hard to have a social life. And social life itself has become less local. Thus, young men confront avenues that sharply restrict their opportunities to find suitable mates.
Given the situation, Jordan Peterson’s advice to young men to focus on improving aspects of their lives within their control before trying to change society or blaming external forces for their problems has limited utility. A man’s social situation matters, and achieving high status has become difficult amid globalization, the changing social structure, and new technologies. These facts have alienated many young men. Again, this is not an excuse but an explanation, and the situation is not entirely addressed by instructing young men to clear their rooms. (which they should, of course).
The natural history piece mustn’t be ignored. Gender roles are irreducible to culture. They are not social constructs. For men, sexual intimacy is less rooted in the transactional than it is for women. Males are driven by passion. In the past, humans built worlds around their essential nature. This provided social relations conducive to successful familial and communal life. Today, a world is being made that denies human essentialism. To be sure, social history matters. However, just as it is naïve to deny the relevance of social history, it is just as naïve to deny the relevance of the species-being. A world has emerged that is incompatible with male thriving.
Giving up on dating and marriage is associated with giving up in other areas of life. The situation strikes at the heart of self-actualization. We risk losing a generation of young men. Rebuilding the local community lies at the heart of the solution, but the obstacles to communal restoration presented by the social forces disrupting communities seem insurmountable. We know what is required: restoring pathways to status elevation by creating meaningful work and purpose; however, without a program of economic nationalism that blunts globalization, it’s hard to see how society restores these pathways.
Whatever the macrosociological challenges, understanding the dynamic helps us understand why we see so much frustration among young men in the West. This does not mean excusing misogynistic beliefs, hostility toward women, and narratives of sexual entitlement, but rather understanding the source of the standpoint to consider potential solutions to the problem. Established worldviews rooted in real conditions are resistant to ridicule, since the experiences associated with those conditions are acutely felt. Indeed, ridiculing such black pill subcultures risks confirming suspicions and hardening standpoints. Understanding worldviews does not mean validating them. It means specifying what underpins them and, if we can, changing those conditions. If we cannot change those conditions, it should not be from a lack of trying.
freedom and reason 