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Terminology

As a matter of fact, when one uses as search criteria the words "absolute beginners", then the English-language Wikipedia page directs one into the "Incels" page. This is insofar wrong, as the term "Absolute Beginners" does exist as a separate term apart from the term "Incel" or the plural form "Incels" - and that with a very different meaning. This is not noticed, however, because it seems to exist only outside of the English language sphere. I mean with that that there is only one Wikipedia page titled "Absolute Beginners" : A German-language one. Nowhere else to be found (as I'm writing this).

Similar to the phenomenon of the apparently English language word "handy" meaning a cellular phone in German language, there is the term "Absolute Beginners" as an apparingly English language term in existence in the German language as well - with the meaning of what it says (What You Read Is What You Get). I write "apparingly", because the words "Beginn" and "absolut" do exist in German language, and although the word "Beginner" with the meaning of "someone who begins [to do / doing] something" (this is my explanation, not that of any dictionary) is not often to be found in German language, it is in fact a completely useable word. So, the meaning of this term is like : "Someone who is an absolute starter" or "someone who is at the absolute beginning of something to do / of doing something" [formulated by me as a time vector].

The difference from "Incel" is very strong : First, the "Absolute Beginner" group does contain all sexes (as far as I can tell). As a result, misogyny is absent there - agai : as far as I can tell so far. Second, there have been scientific studies on that matter, at least the German-language Wikipedia article cites a few. Third, since all sexes are within this group, it encompasses a broader view of the matter. It is not about sexual intercourse. It is about love relationships, as far as I can tell. Not finding a love relationship is a problem that encompasses all sexes. Sexual intercourse is, seen from this broader view, merely one of many facets of the problem of finding a love relationship (the emphasis is on "love relationship"). Whereas the emphasis of Incels appears to be - at least that's what the English-language Wikipedia article tells me - almost only on sexual intercourse, the rather strong difference is that the emphasis of the "Absolute Beginners" group is very clearly on love relationships.

So, all in all, this appears to be a cultural difference, I guess. The one group has nothing to do with the other one. Either both themes or/and groups drifted far away from one another - too far, so that there will never be any "meeting point" between both. Or the one group had a very different theme from the start on.

However, both themes and/or groups are very different from one another these days, and are unable to get on the same line again. In biology, one could view both as two separate species with a far and distant ancestor.

I really doubt that the theme of the "Absolute Beginners" will ever be able to become known or acknowledged in English-language cultures - simply because the difference to the already quite well known theme of the "Incels" is just too big. This is a phenomenon not unlike the word "Handy" : In English language it does not have the same meaning as in German language, depite the fact that it is known in both languages. No English-language person would ever call his or her cell phone a handy. Alrik Fassbauer (talk) 22:34, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

So... I searched the term Absolute Beginners and wound up on a disambiguation page that does not appear to link to this article at all. So I'm a little lost as to what the point is here. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:45, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Alrik Fassbauer: Is there some change on the English Wikipedia that you're hoping will be made? I'm also having trouble understanding your comment, and what it has to do with the English Wikipedia. If the term is a German-language phenomenon, it would seem more appropriate to mention over at dewiki. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:23, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Good day Alrik , if you were talking about the Absolute Beginners "disambiguation page", then I removed the misleading line for you.

Otherwise, it doesnt seem the case that "the English-language Wikipedia page directs one into the "Incels" page." when one searches for "absolute beginners".

If you disagree, then I suggest it might be much quicker to show us with a pic. (If you use a free image host like postimages is should take less than 2 mins to save a screen shot of how the regretable search appears on your browser as an image file like .jpg, then upload it, and then post us the link. Consider being careful not to have any tabs open on your browser that reveal any personal information. ) Let me know if you need more detail of how to do that. I'd strongly agree it's desirable to reduce the risk of the anglosphere approach further infecting the rational & compassionate way you folks address the AB topic over in Deutschland. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I think a bit about "femcels" the female equivalent, should be added. Rmoostet (talk) 13:29, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Rmoostet: There's an entire subsection at Incel#Female incels. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:09, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Toronto Incel Terrorist Attack

"A deadly attack at a Toronto erotic massage parlour three months ago is now being treated as an act of terrorism after police allegedly uncovered evidence it was inspired by misogynist incel ideology:" - From here - is a source that may be useful.--Jorm (talk) 15:41, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

"Violent" in the Lede

I added the word "violent" in front of "online subculture" in the lede because it seems clear that most of the coverage of incels revolves around incidence of violence. I am perfectly aware that this may be controversial, and will not argue its removal if folk overly disagree.--Jorm (talk) 02:59, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense. "Incel" is primarily an identity. Unless you can show me that violence is an integral part of the movement (which I don't think it is), the statement is prejudicial and biased. What the coverage says is irrelevant. News article won't cover what some random guy says on 4chan. Extremism always gets the attention so that argument is moot. Garirry (talk) 04:49, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Oop, probably should've checked this talk page before making my edit. But I removed "violent"—while it's true that incel communities have widely been criticized for endorsing violence, I think the word implied that individual incels are broadly violent individually, which isn't supported by sourcing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:09, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Category?

Should there be a category linking violent incidents asccoiated with the Incel sub-culture together? And if so what should that category be called? I was thinking along the lines of Category:Terrorist incidents attribuuted to the Incel movement or something along those lines. Inter&anthro (talk) 04:54, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

No objection from me to creating a category, but I would go with "subculture" rather than "movement". GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:10, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Incel/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Aven13 (talk · contribs) 15:52, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

This'll be a fun one. I can review it. Aven13 15:52, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

From a first read, it looks like a solid article, only in need of minor improvements.

• There are a lot of inline citations in the middle of sentences. Although that's fine for lists and in a few other cases, sentences such as "She stopped participating in her online project around 2000[33] and gave the site to a stranger.[30]" can just have both citations at the end. Having citations in the middle of a sentence makes the article harder to read.

• "On November 2, 2018, Scott Beierle killed two women and injured four women and a man before killing himself in a shooting at the Hot Yoga Tallahassee studio in Tallahassee, Florida. He had been a follower of incel ideologies for a long time,[18] and also had a history of arrests for grabbing women's buttocks." The citations are placed somewhat oddly in this sentence. One should be at the end about the arrest record, and one should be after the first sentence.

Also, I think that "for grabbing women's buttocks" should be replaced with something such as "sexual assault", but that's just a personal thing. You can decide.

• The lead says "estimates of the overall size of the community vary greatly". You should probably mention some numbers in the lead.

• Can you get a reference for the word "subhuman"? (Neither of the cited articles mention the word.)

• The article has no pictures. Though there aren't that many opportunities, sections like the section on incel memes would be well illustrated by some images.

• Is it possible to add a comprehensive section on just the overall toxicity of the incel community to each other? There are snippets throughout the article about how incels tell each other to kill themselves, but it's never really given its own spotlight. Where it should be put, you decide, but I feel like that's an important point that needs to be addressed. They aren't like some band of brothers; they constantly encourage suicide and anorexia. This is up to you, but I personally feel like it would improve the article.

• Shouldn't "bi-sexual" not have a hyphen (and be linked)?

• Space out citations in "Tens of thousands of self-identifying female incels are reported to populate the internet. Their most popular site is r/TruFemcels on Reddit, with over 22,000 members. Journalists have written that outside of the female incels' own communities, few believe women can genuinely experience involuntary celibacy. Some female incels believe they could have casual sex, but fear it would only be from men who would abuse or disrespect them.[111][112][113]"

That's all I have for now, but good work on a difficult and long article. More to come. Aven13 15:52, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@Aven13: Thanks for this review! Responding in order/seeking clarification:

1. Done.
2. I've moved the citations as you suggest. Regarding the wording, Beierle was arrested for battery on two occasions, as well as trespassing ([1]). He was never charged with sexual assault. I chose to be specific about the actions that led to the arrests because I think saying he was arrested for battery might mislead people into thinking he physically attacked someone (at least that's what comes to mind for me when I think of battery charges).
3. Done.
4. "subhuman" is from the first citation after that sentence (Baele et al.): It also appears, however, that the Incel ingroup acknowledges its "subhuman" nature, with frequent reminders to the group of how ugly they are. This feature somewhat challenges the view of extremist worldviews as made of a positive ingroup facing negative outgroups: both in- and outgroups are here negatively depicted. However, in line with the literature on dehumanization, Incels present themselves as having positive psychological traits and prosocial values that outgroups, especially women, don’t have. I've also added two more cites to support that they regularly refer to themselves with this term.
5. I've looked around for usable photographs and illustrations but there isn't much. The occasional photos that crop up tend to have personality rights issues—who wants to be used as visual identification on the "incel" article? There is/was File:Incel Specimen.jpg which I nominated for deletion for that reason, particularly given we don't know if the uploader is the person in the photo. Regarding memes, there's not much I've found that's freely licensed. There are a few illustrations in commons:Category:Inceldom, but they're pretty low-quality and IMO don't add much to the article. The "incel flag" has been added to this article at least once but I've yet to see a reliable source supporting that it is actually a flag adopted by any incel groups.
6. Incels do sometimes encourage other incels to kill themselves but I'm not sure I've seen RSes discuss incels encouraging other incels to develop anorexia. Are you thinking of the reference to eating disorders in the criticism section? If so, that's a researcher comparing incels to pro-ana groups in terms of how they radicalize each other: Another researcher at the ISD, Jacob Davey, compared the radicalization of incels in incel forums to teenagers being urged to go to extreme measures on online forums that promote anorexia and other eating disorders, and to online campaigns convincing people to join ISIL. I'm not sure there's enough material for a section on incels being toxic towards one another; aside from the discouragement of psychiatric help and encouragement of suicide (both mentioned in the mental health section) I haven't seen a ton of coverage here.
7. Done.
8. Done.

GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:43, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm aware that this is somewhat of a shorter review, but the article meets the GA criteria like this. So, for the final review...

Conclusion

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   C. It contains no original research:

   As best I can tell.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   I don't have earwig's tool because my computer is garbage, but no copyright violations as best as I can tell.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   A tad wordy, but I really can't fault it for that.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   It's true that the article doesn't hve any images, but, as you said, they're sort of hard to come by.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Same as above.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Congratulations on getting an important article up to GA! I believe you'll win some form of million award.

Thank you! GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:50, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect information on what the Red and Black Pill are

I have personally spent a lot of time talking to incels, RedPillers, MGTOW, MRAs, etc, and the article is misrepresenting some very crucial info on the subject: "Taking the red pill means seeing a world where feminism has given women too much power over men, and male privilege does not exist." This is objectively incorrect. The cited opinion pieces are simply misinformed.

The Red Pill is about manipulating the patriarchal system to one's benefit. To put it simply, the patriarchal masculine ideal is for men to be manly, stoic, never show emotion or weakness, be providers, physically strong, dominant, confident, etc, so Red-Pillers strive to achieve all that in order to gain the favour of women. For example, one core belief of Red-Pill ideology is that if your wife ever cheats on you, it's your own fault, because you failed to be man enough for her and fulfill her needs. They are NOT men's rights activists, because they do not want to change the status quo, nor are they activists; all they want is to adapt to what they believe society expects of them in order to get laid. This means that they support the patriarchy, they don't oppose it. Red-Pillers believe that the patriarchal structure is a natural law. They apply the naturalistic fallacy of the evolutionary belief that prehistoric women had sex with men in exchange for protection and food, so they claim that this is how it should still be. The "awakening" alluding to The Matrix involves the idea of "realising" that this is what women truly want. Their argument is that the "bluepilled" man, who is sensitive, kind, doesn't conform to traditional gender roles, is not perceived as sexy by women, even if that's what they claim. The Red-Pill ideology argues that while women claim they want a "civilized" man, deep down they want the "bad boy", and that's what Red-Pillers strive to be.

The Black Pill, on the other hand, is the perceived realisation that if you can't become this ideal man as described by the Red Pill, then you will be forever alone or exploited by a woman who doesn't love you and only wants you for your money (the "alpha fux, beta bux" mentality), which leads to depression, despair, and suicide ideation. The part about biological determinism is correct. They refer to it as "losing the genetic lottery", which leads to fatalism. I don't have any official source on this, and I don't even know if any exists, but these are the real definitions, not the ones mentioned in the article. You can easily verify this info by either asking the incels or Red-Pillers themselves or visiting their forums, but I assume you don't consider those notable sources. YouTuber ContraPoints made a very accurate video essay on this, I don't know if she passes the bar. It should also be noted that the drive behind the Black Pill is not misogyny, but depression. The misogyny (and misandry, because they also hate themselves) is the outcome, not the cause. A simplified example of incelhood reasoning would be: "I am alone because I'm ugly. I know I am ugly because women reject me. Therefore women are shallow." It starts from self-loathing and ends in resentment towards women. It should also be noted that this ideology is also shared by some female incels and the so-called Red-Pill-Women. For female incels, the Black Pill is that any woman who doesn't conform to mainstream ideals of beauty will never be loved (I say "loved" because they believe they can get sex, but only casual sex where men treat them as masturbatory aids). Red-Pill-Women believe that it is a man's duty to adhere to the masculine ideal, and that any woman who fails to get such a man has failed as a woman, because they believe a woman also has to conform with patriarchal ideals of femininity. Thus, both Red Pill and Black Pill ideologies mainly revolve around self-loathing. An apt way to describe the Black Pill ideology is as a death cult, because it's a convoluted rationalization aimed at validating their own self-loathing and actively promoting suicide as an escape from it. Noxteryn (talk) 15:08, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Not sure red & black pill have such neat definitions; otherwise this is excellent analyses. I'd say about 90% correct. Sadly one of the points you're spot on about is that round here, youtubers & the manosphere forums themselves are not generally considered reliable sources. As you admit you don't have more authoritive sources, for now, you're probably wasting your time here.

That said, in a sense, time is on your side. About a week back this article was over hauled in a way that raised the apparent threat posed by incels. The possibly slightly exaggerated threat profile for incels (as a result of the media in general I mean, not just this article) has drawn the attention of the global CVE community. These are serious people. Colonels, Generals, tenured professors... Many of them can tell a non neutral framing at a glance, they're not going to look at one of the world's most marginalised demographics and not notice their intense suffering, nor are they bothered if mid ranking journalists and academics accuse them of defending the indefensible.

Literally a couple of days after the article was overhauled, a plethora of new sources were released from said more serious sources, providing more realistic coverage. For example, preventviolence.ca released a set of guidelines for therapists and other practitioners trying to help incels, suggesting they should do things like "Work to understand the person’s anxiety, depression or other mental health issues, and acknowledge the way in which their grievances and frustrations compound these problems" There were several partly sympathetic articles from Foreign Policy Magazine. Or from Moonshot CVE working in partnership with the Canadian government, there was this excellent graphical guide. While it doesn't explain the pills quite as well as yourself, it's far more accurate than this article or most of the sources it draws from. The new sources published in the last few days are just the first wave.

It's interesting you mentioned the apparent paradox of incels being both misogynist and misandrist. I tried to improve this article a couple of months back, and the parts of my edits which were allowed to remain are likely to have a misogynist and misandrist effect. Which was a little demoralising and why I haven't yet tried to integrate these new sources into the article. But Wikipedia articles generally bend towards accuracy & NPOV in the end, even if it sometimes takes more time than is ideal. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:19, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm honestly delighted that my commentary is seen so positively. I'll admit that I was somewhat concerned that I would be seen as an "enabler" or a "sympathiser", because it has happened to me in the past. Anyway, you certainly seem more qualified and knowledgeable than I am to make whatever changes are necessary. Also, thank you for those sources, I wasn't aware of them. Noxteryn (talk) 16:26, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. As you're interested in these sorts of source, I thought I'd pop back to show you another one just out from the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. We now have leading CVE institutions on both sides of the Atlantic talking repeatedly about the importance of doing the same as what yourself and the gorgeous ContraPoints have been doing - "actively listening" to incels about their problems. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:33, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

AP Story Today

AP ran a story today - Man’s hand blown off; note references violence against women - that may be of use as a source.--Jorm (talk) 19:03, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Ouch, that's awful. I've added the info from the source, thanks. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Should we really cover every possible incel who may have planned an attack? This person only harmed himself and currently he's only been charged with lying to investigators. The incel movement appears to be growing significantly and 6 months into the 2020s we already have 4 possibly incel related incidents listed. At a certain point we need to consider not providing breathless coverage of every potential incel who has been charged with a crime. Plus WP:BLPCRIME needs to be taken into consideration here as this person is relatively unknown. Additionally we should consider the spirit of WP:BLPPRIMARY as about the only evidence that this person is an incel is an affidavit by an FBI agent claiming that the agent found a partially burned piece of paper written in the third person saying that someone would make a statement "like Elliot Rodgers" and complaints about "hot cheerleaders". [2] It looks like the secondary sources are simply repeating what was in this affidavit, and sometimes police officers aren't the most reliable sources. I don't think we should include this case in all honesty. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 19:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Chess: Yeah, I went back and forth on it but eventually decided to because we've included other instances where no attack was committed (namely, Cleary). However given there were terrorism charges in that case I can see the argument for including that but excluding this. I could really go either way. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:49, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The article is eventually going to need some trimming of content from tabloid type sources, to make room to reflect what's being said by academics, notable commentators, CVE & government sources. I'd suggest mention of Tobias Rathjen should be among the first to go. As discussed earlier, there seems to be no credible evidence that he was incel, even in the older broad sense. What he said in his manifest was "I have not had a wife or girlfriend in my entire life. I have spent the last 18 years by choice alone."

On the subject of non incels being labelled incel, I'm going to remove what's left of my addition about this. Now the original commentary about why that's bad has been removed, it's likely to do more harm than good. (I.e. further encourage the practice, per social proof.)FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:54, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

There are no tabloid sources being used in this article. I'm a little concerned with your approach to this article, which appears to be based more on what is "good" or "bad" for incels, and focused on presenting them in a positive light, and less on what is covered in reliable sources. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I, too, share GW's concerns about FeydHuxtable's edit pattern.--Jorm (talk) 15:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

That's doesn't seem accurate GW. For example, Raw story is described in the first line of its article as "an American online tabloid" and the article has many more sources of similar quality.

There's been little about my approach that's been good for incels (except maybe female incels.) If you had a slightly more accurate understanding of how the world works, you'd see you're the one that's approached this article in a way that's good for male incels. (If you want to understand this, read my reply to Noxteryn above & maybe look into how mainstream CVE has changed since Colonel McMaster's tour of duty in Iraq.). For now, I'm taking this article off my watchlist as it's probably more time efficient to park the needed NPOV & accuracy improvements until we have a few more high tier sources on the subject. When I return, hopefully any more discussion can be more WP:FOC. (Just to be clear I'm not trying to imply that any lack of WP:FOC is down to you, I admittedly came in a little hot when I first arrived here back in Feb.) FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I stand corrected. But I will maintain that there ought to be no tabloid sources used in this article, and we need not wait for academic publishing to catch up in order to remove them. I've just replaced the Raw Story source with a Newsweek source supporting the same claims (where needed—it was mostly supporting claims already sourced to multiple other RSes). As for FOC, perhaps you could start by not patronizing other editors by telling them they have an inaccurate understanding of how the world works. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:22, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@FeydHuxtable: Our coverage shouldn't be based on what's "good" or "bad" for incels and I'm appalled by your admission that your edit was done with the intention of influencing behaviour rather than providing neutral and unbiased coverage of the topic at hand. Whether or not it's appropriate to label all virgin males as incels or to use the term as an insult, that's a choice our readers should be allowed to make themselves and it's inappropriate for us to hide an insult just because we don't want people using it. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 18:51, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

{{ping|Chess}} I agree we should leave readers to make up their own minds, which is exactly why it can be better to say noting on a side point like this, rather than provide one sided information. It was me who originally added the bit about "incel" being used as an insult for non subculture virgins, though I'd also included some wording to gently show how dimly socially accomplished people view virgin shaming. (See this source for a slightly blunter example.) I'll go ahead and add back a truncated version with just one line summarising the view of the progressive journalist James Bloodworth on the matter.

If you don't agree the more rounded treatment of the insult thing is an improvement, there's no need to ping me again, & it's not edit warring if you revert the improvment. As indicated I've took this article off my watchlist for now & am only back as pinged. PS, @GW, that's a fair comment, & btw congrats on getting the article to GA. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:35, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks btw for the complement about my understanding of this issue. On further thoughts though, I'm now thinking I may not be returning to integrate the more accurate sources into this article. It's the senior CVE folks, not SJWs, who get to sit down with the executive branch of governments around the world, and they'll be the ones who policy makers listen to. While nothings certain, I expect incels will be much better cared for by the end of this decade. Poor old SJWs - even as they desperately try to persecute the most marginalised minorities, my boss effortlessly turns their work for the good. It will be a shame if nothing gets done about this articles poor compliance with our editing policy, especially NPOV, but to be fair there are at least hundreds of other articles that are just as bad. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:53, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Subculture vs. Life circumstances

This article misses a clear distinction between the violent subculture with radical views and people in certain life circumstances.

The definitions and demographics tend to the second, the warnings and belief systems to the first group.

Either the article should clearly distinguish and give a balanced view, or be splitted into two articles.

Sebastian --88.134.70.66 (talk) 10:25, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• The "life circumstance" if you will, the "existential incel" doesn't seem to actually be "a thing" broadly recognized and well studied outside of the online subculture. If or when it is, then it may be an appropriate topic for a stand-alone article. GMG^talk 11:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sebastian - you raise a good point. Sadly, despite apparently agreeing on this talk page to allow the article to clarify that subculture characteristics don't apply to "life circumstance" celibates, editors here went ahead & removed almost all mention a few days later.

They left a single line, which stripped of the context I'd added, can be expected to actually encourage the use of the 'incel' insult towards the non-subculture romantically unsuccessful. Despite that fact that data suggests such folk tend to lean progressive, editors wouldn't even let me correct this.

@ GreenMeansGo (& @Sebastian). No that's not true at all. "Life circumstance" celibates have been a matter of main stream concern for millennia. Until the last few decades though, the matter was rarely discussed, as efforts to address the problem had largely been successful, and as until recently few had tried to deny the problem or mock those afflicted in this way.

Things have changed. Thanks in part to the incels, the matter is receiving sharply increased main stream attention. Only a few months back there was a systematic review on the importance of romantic relationships to mental health. Only yesterday a new study from Sweden's Peter Ueda + accademic commentary was releaed which talks about how the share of young American men not having sex has risen to ~30%, and in part gives similar reasons for this as do the incels. If it wasn't for the past hostile attention this topic has received, we could easily have a long & detailed article on it. As things stand, I'd advise waiting until the mainstream sources that treat the matter in a compassionate and accurate way are utterly overwhelming, which should only take a few more years, if that. For now, thanks in part to the way this topic is treated on Wikipedia, I'm focussing quite a bit of my energy on moving things along in the real world. A shame this means dropping some of my activism on economics & environmentalism, but one can't do everything. For example, next week is loneliness awareness week & I'm booked in for a zoom on this first thing Monday with Kier Starmer.

Anyhow, I thought I'd pop back here per the inaccurate suggestion above that I wanted to portray incels in a +ve light. Until today I'd have been opposed to more than a single line doing this, per WP:due weight. There's been hundreds of WP:RS that treat incels in a partly sympathetic way, but only a handful that say positive things about them, and even these have been quite equivocal about it. Well that's changed today. A spectator article has just dropped, which is almost entirely +ve about incels. It praises their "magnificent memes", their "deep sense of empathic suffering" and states that despite contrary claims, they don't "want to blame others for their distress". The article is one of many in response to TFW No GF, the world's first movie on incels (& related sub cultures) which was very sympathetic towards them. It even inspired strong feminists like Jessa Crispin to write a partly sympathetic article about incels.

In summary Sebastian, I'm sorry that it's difficult to address your valid concern, but at least you can hopefully see that the way incels & the vastly more numerous "life circumstance" cells are covered on platforms like Reddit & Wikipedia does not remotely reflect the (admittedly over due) concern that's starting to develop for them in mainstream society. (I'm talking about the anglosphere, much of the rest of the world is already more compassionate & rationale about this) FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:57, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Sexual frustration and celibacy are both absolutely legitimate concepts that are well-studied. But "involuntary celibacy" as a life circumstance is not. This has been discussed at length in past deletion discussions and in the talk page archives. Regarding the study you link, I don't see the same connection that you seem to be seeing between it and incels—it focuses on trends in how much sex the participants are having, but does not appear to measure anything about whether the participants wish to be having more sex than they're having, or whether they consider themselves to be incels. In fact the "Limitations" section addresses this explicitly: Fourth, we could not assess reasons for sexual inactivity and to what extent this was associated with satisfaction or dissatisfaction. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:42, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Saying that incels are associated with misogynism, male supremacy, entitlement to sex etc. is no different to saying that muslims are associated with terrorism and suicide attacks. This page does not offer an objective view of this phenomenon at all. Just because some selected few communities online express these views, does not mean you have to put them in the definition of incel in the first two lines of the page. Incel means 'involuntarily celibate', i.e. not being able to achieve romantic or sexual success. If you are an incel and identify yourself within a misogynist subculture, then that is a specific situation and should be addressed in a subsection of the page. I also wonder why this keeps being pointed out in the discussion page over and over, and certain specific users keep shutting down any discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.244.61.22 (talk) 13:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

It's actually very different. The vast majority (if not all) of the reliable sourcing defines incels as those things, whereas that is not the case for Muslims. The sourcing also does not support your claim that misogyny, male supremacy, and entitlement to sex are minority views held among a selected few communities. It also does not support describing involuntary celibacy as a life circumstance; there are plenty of people out there who would like to be having sex and aren't who do not consider themselves incels or subscribe to the ideology.

As for why it's being pointed out over and over, it's not uncommon on controversial pages for different people to repeatedly show up and try to have the page changed against what the sourcing says. No one is "shutting down discussion" (unless it is in blatant violation of WP:TPNO). I for one am happy to continue discussing, but for the most part people seem to stop POV-pushing when they realize it's completely unsupported by the RS. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:25, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

As a literal term?

I believe that because people do use the word to simply describe somebody who is Celibate but not because of personal choice. Article is about a "sub-culture" that some and not all of these people may have.

I propose the article be renamed "Incel Culture" and or a second page or subsection on "True Forced Loneliness" either as pert of the Celibacy or Incel article as this is one of the terms groups such as those described in the article use to describe people who do not have the capacity to attract a mate.

This "Incel Culture" can be distinguished from similar movements such as "MGTOW" who celebrate their celibacy and encourage others to join them whereas the people talked about in the article are generally upset about the way the world is and feel they have been dealt a bad hand.

The Celibacy article could use a segment on Volcels and Incels of contemporary western culture and influenced regions — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.241.71 (talk) 03:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

people do use the word to simply describe somebody who is Celibate but not because of personal choice. Until the term "incel" is discussed as something more general than the subculture in reliable sources, Wikipedia will not treat it as a subject separate from the subculture. See also the above section (titled "Subculture vs. Life circumstances"), and indeed most of the other sections in the talk page archives. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:37, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Like Writ Keeper said this has been discussed exhaustively on this talk page and in related discussions at AfD, etc. The vast majority of reliable sources do not treat incels as though it is a life circumstance and just discuss the subculture. As I have just said above, the reliable sourcing does not support describing involuntary celibacy as a life circumstance; there are plenty of people out there who would like to be having sex and aren't who do not consider themselves incels or subscribe to the ideology. We have an article on sexual frustration that discusses that situation, which is generally not described as "involuntary celibacy" by anyone except those who are part of the subculture. As for your suggestion that this article include a segment on "Volcels and Incels of contemporary western culture and influenced regions", I'm not really sure I understand exactly what you're suggesting. This article almost exclusively describes incels of contemporary western culture and influenced regions, since the subculture only emerged in the past few decades and is primarily a western phenomenon. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:56, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

We could make the distinction clearer and point our readers in the right direction for articles about involuntary celibacy. How about an "About" hatnote along the lines of This article is about the Incel subculture. For the broader concept of involuntary celibacy see Sexual frustration and Sexual abstinence.Sjö (talk) 09:19, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

From what I've read in the sourcing, "involuntary celibacy" is not a term that's used outside of the subculture. Sexual frustration is already linked from the "see also" section, as is celibacy, so I don't think that's necessary. It seems unlikely that people will wind up at this article when they're looking for information about sexual frustration. GorillaWarfare (talk) 13:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Source

Don't have the time or energy to do anything with it tonight, but this is a (new, I think?) piece from the ADL that could be really valuable: https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/incels-involuntary-celibates GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:50, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Worked in the new information in these edits: [3] GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:51, 1 August 2020 (UTC)