A look inside the group of men ‘addicted’ to hating women

IT’S a community that loathes women for not sleeping with them and encourages sickening misogynistic beliefs — but once you are in it can feel almost impossible to get out.

“I HATE women because they won’t date me. They should be forced to have sex with me because their rejection is detrimental to my wellbeing.”

This is a rough overview of the toxic beliefs held by a community of men who loathe women.

These groups call themselves “incels” — short for involuntary celibate — and have a number of online communities where the common topics of conversation include: self-loathing, blaming women for their lack of love lives, sharing violent rape fantasies and hating on “normies” (pretty much anyone who isn’t an incel).

They have special names for people they deem stereotypically attractive, known as “Stacys” for women and “Chads” for men, who are the targets for most of their hate.

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For those of us who are only viewing these communities from the outside, it might be hard to comprehend that people actually hold these misogynistic — and frankly frightening — views and why they defend them so vehemently.

But one man, who used to be a self-proclaimed incel, offers a rare perspective of someone who was deep within the toxic community and found a way out.

He said he felt women ‘owed’ him a chance. Picture: humansofny/Instagram

Humans of New York posted a photo of an unnamed man to their Instagram page, along with his story of how he found himself embroiled in a group that preaches hate and violence towards women.

The man, whose face is not shown in the picture, started off by saying how he felt “humiliated and suicidal” throughout his college years.

“I’m not all that attractive. I have a speech impediment. I’m not good socially. I saw other guys having romantic success and I felt a lot of envy,” he said.

“I concluded that women owed me something. They owed me a chance. And I was angry they weren’t giving it to me.”

During this time he admits to forming a lot of hateful opinions towards women and other men who he deemed more successful in their love lives. These views were only exacerbated when he joined a number of online incel groups.

Alek Minassian, the man accused of the Toronto van attack, made a reference to "Incel Rebellion" on Facebook.

“I found a lot of men there who felt just like me. The community provided this pseudoscientific justification for hating women. It let us feel like it wasn’t our fault,” he said.

“We stoked each other’s anger. And it felt good. Honestly, anger is just very addictive.”

He claims being given something to focus his anger on and people to blame for the disappointment he felt in certain areas of his life became a release for him.

He said it got to a point where he wanted to feel angry about it and these incel groups would encourage his rage.

“You want to feel angry when you’re suffering. It’s a substitute for what you’re missing,” he said.

The man said he was now ashamed of the opinions he used to have but added that when you were actually in the community, it was hard to find a way out of that cycle of hatred.

Incels have gained more attention over the years after a string of mass killers were linked to the community, with Isla Vista shooter Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 before turning the gun on himself, being worshipped by the incel crowd.

Incels worship Elliot Rodger as the ‘Supreme Gentleman’. Picture: Facebook

Other mass killers associated with the incel community include Quebec City mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette, Santa Fe school shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis and Toronto van massacre accused Alek Minassian.

Incels have gained so much notoriety that there is even a dating website that specifically caters to them.

#DateAnIncel.com encourages women to have sex with incels to “reduce risks that plague society”, such as the mass shootings so often associated with the subculture.

The website claims it is “changing the world, two people at a time” and is working to reduce the “negative effects of Involuntary Celibacy”.

“These ‘Incels’ often share the same common goals as the rest of the population — a desire for acceptance, love and community,” the website reads.

“We built #DateAnIncel to bring this minority group into the forefront of the online dating scene, providing them with a platform to be connected with regular partners.”

The pitch finishes by encouraging people to form romantic relationships with incels as a way to minimise the risk they pose to society.

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