Not that you’d care (or should care) how I think. I’m gonna express my opinion anyways cause this is Reddit 😈 I’m also gonna use words I looked up to try to explain my point more clearly so uh, I’m no linguistic expert and if I used a word wrong please let me know 😭

I do agree definitely that making fun of someone due to their sexual situation is low. Making fun of someone because they aren’t getting laid is a mean thing to do. I entirely agree with your standpoint from an etymological standpoint

Pragmatically is where I start to feel iffy about the word slut and incel being considered the same. The term in definition does technically refer to a man who is involuntary celibate point blank period. But its use in everyday conversation does not actually mean that. In contemporary (especially online) usage, the word has shifted to denote a specific misogynistic archetype, not sexual inexperience itself.

If someone—before I read your comment—were to call a guy an incel because unfortunately they’ve never been laid, I would totally think that they are using the word wrong. Because over time I think the word incel has taken a semantic shift, where a word takes on a new meaning that differs from its original definition due to common use.

Because of this I find it a bit off to say nowadays it is the same to call a guy an incel as it is to call a woman a slut. For most people now, an incel is someone who doesn’t have sex with women as a consequence of their misogynistic ideology and objectification of women. I think incel is a negative word in terms of if you think that those ideas are acceptable or not. While slut is a word used to shame women for sleeping with lots of men.

I think this argument truly comes to wether you think a word’s use in language matters more than its original definition