THREAD: An open letter to INCELS
An incel tweeted that not getting sex creates anger, and since women generally control access to sex it creates general anger toward women. Given the wide proliferation of this narrative, I want to address the larger validation of male anger. /1
An incel tweeted that not getting sex creates anger, and since women generally control access to sex it creates general anger toward women. Given the wide proliferation of this narrative, I want to address the larger validation of male anger. /1
First and foremost, understand you have been raised in man box culture. Our bullying dominant culture of masculinity is hierarchical, domination based, and its number one rule is "don't show your emotions, except for anger." /2
From birth, whenever you showed emotions, you were bullied and shamed for it. Sadness, fear, pain, giddy joy, need for friendship, love, all of this was shamed. And it was shamed via the DENIGRATION OF THE FEMININE. IE: "what are you, a girl? What are you a sissy?" /3
Emotional expression is a key component for connecting in authentic relationships with others. Friends, co-workers, romantic partners, everyone. Because of the bullying enforcement of man box culture you were blocked from growing the capacity for emotional expression. /4
Instead of having the years of trial and error work required to grow our emotional self regulation/expression, boys are blocked from doing this work, me included. Instead, fundamental human capacities for relational connection are wrongly defined as female, shamed and blocked. /5
And BECAUSE our bullying man box culture polices boy's emotional expression by denigrating the feminine daily if not hourly, we get bombarded with messages that both strip us of crucial human capacities for connection and condition us to see women/the feminine as less. /6
The incel movement is an result of man box culture. It encourages anger as the only acceptable emotional response to the pain created by a lifetime of being bullied and blocked emotionally. Man box: "We're going to fuck you over and then we're going aim your anger at women." /7
Anger when we don't get sex is the same as anger when we don't get anything else we want. As human beings our job is to manage our baser emotions and evolve to the point where people don't feel they are spending time with someone who is unable to emotionally self regulate. /8
Because of how man box culture operates, most of us never got the opportunity to do the work to learn to emotionally self regulate, form relationships in authentic ways. The relational capacities all humans are born with are EXACTLY the capacities the man box stole from us. /9
So, if you want to be angry, be angry at every bullying, alpha male jerk that rode you and is still riding you to stay in the man box. But understand the trauma they are dishing out was dished out to them. They're just trying to get far enough up the pecking order to survive. /10
But that will just be more anger unless you use that anger to drive self reflection and change. /11
Anger when we don't get sex is the same as anger when we don't get anything else we want. As human beings our job is to manage our baser emotions and evolve to the point where people don't feel they are spending time with someone who is unable to emotionally self regulate. /12
Anger from no sex is tied to a LOT of other interpersonal emotional issues rooted in family of origin, other stuff from childhood. Trust me, we all had to deal with anger and family of origin shit. What we didn't have was an INCEL movement waying "it's right to be angry." /13
Incel/man box culture urges us to feed off anger/direct it at women. That is not going to heal our issues of family of origin nor create healthy relationships. We must use our anger to drive our emotional self work, not to validate and reinforce our root emotional trauma. /14
I have felt what you feel but I will not let man box culture encourage me to make those ugly emotions the root of my identity. Incel culture is the opposite of the authentic human connection boys and men need. It is doing to you what has always been done. Blocking you. /15
The good news is you can break out of man box/incel culture whenever you are finally sick and tired enough of being lonely that you are ready to do the work. Men are waiting to do the work with you. Try @mankindproject or another men's group. This anger and loneliness can end /16
@mankindproject The next time someone encourages you to hate on any group of people, to feed on your anger, ask yourself what's in it for them. There are many powerful influences in the world that benefit from validating and directing your rage and grief. But they don't give shit about you. /17
@mankindproject Your brothers @mankindproject and other men's groups do care about you. We care about creating a community of brothers, we care about healing our grief and trauma. We care about living rich, connected lives and we can help you do the same. I wish you peace, brothers. /18
@mankindproject If you want to read more about man box culture and all of the issues I talk about here, I wrote it all up in The Little #MeToo Book for Men. amazon.com/Little-MeToo-B… /19 
@mankindproject Post script: Understand, Incels are just the tip of the iceberg. The entire population of men have been bombarded with man box bullying and violence. Millions of men, maybe all of us, are stripped of our relational capacities for connection and some of us claw our way back.
@mankindproject For those who prefer, here's the thread in article form on Medium. medium.com/@remakingmanho…
