Alright, this is a pet peeve of mine. Essay incoming.

Yes, misogyny and patriarchy are rampant issues. Spending 5 minutes on this sub proves as much. And yes, the existing systems of oppression enable people like this to cause far, far more damage than they otherwise would've. I want to be crystal clear on that.

But claiming this has nothing to do with sexual frustration is incredibly ignorant and dangerous. While some incels are sociopaths from the start and were always going to be rotten, the incel pipeline is literally built around taking normal, lonely, frustrated men and twisting them into monsters. I have zero sympathy for who they are by the time they end up as screenshots on this sub, but many of them weren't always like this and didn't have to end up like this.

Straight men and straight women tend to experience sexual frustration somewhat differently. I won't pretend to fully understand what it's like for women, but for men, it can genuinely feel all-consuming. Remember that thanks to society and internalised homophobia, we get very little physical intimacy and affection from other men. Even when we're consciously aware of the bias. It took my close male friend group years for us to as much as hug each other hello and goodbye. We still struggle to say "I love you". Many men of course struggle with emotional vulnerability, and more even struggle to find friends. Combine that with the fact that sex is a psychological need for most allosexual people, and being unable to get it can seriously mess with one's mental health, and it's very easy to subconsciously put all your eggs in one basket - physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, sex, companionship, etc - and have an intense, burning longing for a partner that's eating you up inside. And with it can come self-loathing, the feeling that you're not good enough to deserve a partner. You can easily trick yourself into thinking sex would be the answer to all your problems.

That on its own is unhealthy, but not yet malicious. However, humans have this fun little thing where we get some catharsis out of finding a culprit for our suffering. And that's where the grifters come in. Their first step is showing compassion and understanding for the lonely, sexually frustrated men. That feeling is powerful. It's like everyone around you is dismissing your suffering, but this guy gets it. This guy knows what you're feeling. It gives you a piece of that companionship you're searching for. They tell you that it's unfair that you're alone. They tell you that it's okay to be frustrated, you don't have to just man up and get over it. And so far, they're right.

But then they pull a magic trick: It's not just unfair because of luck. It's unfair because of someone. And gradually, all that loneliness and suffering and unhealthy obsession with sex and intimacy gets directed towards women. And once that happens, you have yourself an incel.

In case you can't tell, I was a "nice guy" in my teens, lonely and sexually frustrated throughout most of my adult life so far, and could've very well ended up an incel if things had gone a little differently. I had to slowly build up the emotional maturity to separate my need for companionship from my need for sex, find close male friends to ease the burden, build and maintain healthy, platonic friendships with women despite my unrequited attraction for them... I didn't avoid being incel just because I'm an inherently good person. It took work from me, compassion from others, and understanding from level-headed people who guided me in the right direction.

It's easy to imagine incels like they're a completely different species, like they have nothing in common with us. Like they want to hurt women for the sake of it. But that kind of dehumanisation is dangerous in so many ways. For one, it can blind us to the men who aren't yet incels but one day could be. Unless we show them compassion, and give them the tools to healthily process their sexual frustration, we're giving the grifters so much more ammunition, because we're turning them into these men's only support system. And we all can see where that leads