incels have it easy

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In theory, I should find the incel to be a warily sympathetic character. The complaints of the incel–that women pay no attention to them, that they pass up so-called nice guys in favor of more chiseled specimens of masculinity–were not unlike my own struggles in the romantic front, from adolescence, through college and throughout my twenties. 

I was in a serious slump there. I had no romantic relationships whatsoever in high school, but that’s no big deal. I was only half-present there, anyway, waiting till I could escape to college. 

College was not much better, though. I believe I went on two, maybe three, actual dates throughout my college career. First dates in all cases; there were no second dates. Most of my efforts at romance were decidedly one-sided, unrequited yearnings that were nursed for weeks, even months, at a time, until I tried to express them and was promptly, and politely, declined. 

The term “friendzone” did not exist in the early 2000s, when I was in college. And a good thing, too! I would have over-identified with the concept to an unhealthy extent and made myself even more miserable. 

Just the sort of failing batting average that would, one might think, endear me to the plight of the incels of today, the young men who struggle to hold and maintain the attentions of young women. Not a day goes by when their plight isn’t worried in venues high and low, from the most august op-eds to the most niche newsletters. Just the sort of struggle that I, now a luckily and happily married and parentified, might empathize with, no?

No, in fact. 

My contempt for the incels and their mewling is boundless. They have no idea how easy they have it. They play a game and lose at it, and think that makes them entitled to being a winner. But me? The way I was raised, simply playing the game would have been enough to condemn me, body and soul, to eternal damnation. 

What a privilege, to play and to lose! What a pity, that they don’t appreciate it!

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What is the incel’s complaint? That he can’t get lucky. That he can’t have sex. That the girls he desires to bed will not respond in kind. Y’know, the sort of modern complaint that Martin Amis wrote about in The Rachel Papers, more than 50 years ago. You want what you want, but you cannot get what you want. Thus: sadness, rage, comedic mishaps. 

But what was my complaint, you ask? Yes, I wanted to have sex as much as any other teenage male, as testified by the wadded-up kleenexes tucked behind my bed. But, unlike Martin Amis, I faced a dilemma. If I were to ever follow through on my bodily desires, I would encounter a significant setback. I would, you see, go straight to hell.

Do you think I’m kidding. Do you think I’m being hyperbolic here. Let me assure you I am not.

I was raised evangelical Christian, one of the many Families that was Focused on, and the expectation in that setting was very, very clear. Having sex before marriage–premarital sex, as the lingo went–was the absolute worst thing you could do. Worse than murder. Worse than treason. Worse, albeit just by a hair, than voting Democrat. 

This shame, this guilt, was everywhere. Language cannot fully convey it, which is a mercy. If I were able to put into words the depth of the shame I was inculcated in, I would never stop speaking. I honestly don’t think one can fully understand it if one weren’t raised in it, which is why I rarely talk about this issue, whether in writing or in person. I don’t like explaining myself. 

This shame about sex, rather than sex itself, was the burden I had to overcome. And—I’m sorry but it’s true—it was a much more burdensome burden than the one that afflicts that the incels of today, who worry only that a girl may say no to them, rather than that God might condemn them. 

You’re right, incels. You’re weak—weaker than me, at least. I may not look like much of a chad, but I emerged from a greater struggle than you could. You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum¹ where they raised me. 

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reading, watching, etc

• In Ascension by Martin MacInnes. Thinky-feely science fiction in the vein of Arrival. A scientist specializing in deep-sea algal life gets placed on a mission to explore a mysterious object at the edge of the solar system. I would have appreciated just a bit more, if not explanation, then lore, call it. Much remains hovering, as it were, throughout the story. But still, delivers some of those Space-Time-BIG-humanity-SMALL feels.

• The Penguin. It’s…fine? Pretty good, even? Really, though, the fact that a comic book franchise has managed to produce a perfectly watchable TV show, rather than a pile of worldbuilding dreck, feels like a miracle. Colin Farrell in the titular role, acting beneath a mountain of prosthetic, does wonders with his voice, his physicality, his darting eyes.

• Foxing, self-titled album. Look, screamo meets emo meets indie rock isn’t going to be for everyone. But boy howdy is it for me. Through the whisper-singing that evokes loneliness, to the scream-shouting meant to dispel that very loneliness, Foxing runs the gamut of all my favorite emotions.

1. Abundant Life Fellowship