I am an incel, 41, and this article feels very insulting to me. The fact that we don’t have success with women doesn’t mean we know nothing about romance or that we demean them. I respect every single woman around me and admire each of them as they pass me by on the street. Please feel free to celebrate this woman, whom I didn’t know about before reading this article—but there’s no need to insult us.
The unspoken truth here is women in their 20s and 30s are typically 5+ yrs older in maturity than males in that demo. Why should any woman go full-tilt w a bro who wants to “day trade and game from a sofa” [actual dialog].
I'm late to this party because holiday weekend. My oldest sister was born 275 days after my parents wedding. That is "getting married and becoming pregnant right away", and it wasn't that uncommon for twenty-something-year-old Catholic couples getting married in 1943. Getting pregnant after two years of marriage is not "right away". It could have been responsible planning, difficulty conceiving, or just what happened, but by definition it was not right away.
The whole "talk left, live right" business is a shallow fallacy anyway. The right doesn't own marriage and monogamy. What makes the difference between left and right is that the right believes in morally shaming and/or punishing people who don't live according to their precepts, and the left doesn't.
It has nothing to do with the actual life choices made. The problem is that many people on the right seem unable to distinguish promoting or recommending a personal preference from insisting that other people conform to that preference.
For example, here's something that might make some right wing people's heads spin. I'm a liberal, and I actually agree that "hookup culture" seems like a bad idea! To be clear, I'm not talking about dating, or extramarital sex. I'm talking about sleeping with someone you just met and then never calling them again. I just don't understand how people can do that. Doesn't appeal to me. I prefer to establish a relationship first and then let the sex follow.
Does that make me "conservative"? Hell no! Because I realize that's just my opinion! Lots of people disagree. That's cool, no judgement!
That doesn't mean I'm not willing to proselytize a bit. I suspect that many young people feel somewhat trapped by the expectations of hookup culture, and wouldn't mind something of a permission structure to reassure them that it's perfectly ok and reasonable to want to get to know someone—and perhaps even secure a commitment of monogamy—before jumping into bed, without having to date a manosphere misogynist or a MAGA mama.
Because, you see, that's what being liberal (or "left", if you prefer) is all about. It doesn't mean being pro or anti hookup culture or monogamy or marriage or what have you.
But it *does* mean that I can sympathize with people like me, and seek to reassure them that they aren't alone in the world, without insisting that they should *be* the world. I can help them understand that what they are is ok even if they aren't the norm, which means I need not engage in a futile pursuit to create a world and society where they never need encounter someone willing to admit they think or feel differently.
It *doesn't* mean—and this is what some lefties get wrong—that I can't advocate public policy that encourages or incentivizes one way over another if it seems there is considerable benefit to be had from that. But general statistics don't dictate moral judgements over individuals, whose circumstances are always unique in some way—and for that reason they generally prove to not have the power to affect people's social values.
For example, for many years there were "marriage penalties" in tax codes which, so far as I can tell, did nothing to socially stigmatize marriage. And even widespread messaging in the late 20th Century encouraging young people to wait on sex until at least adulthood, surprise surprise, did not result in teenagers considering pre-marital sex immoral.
So liberals who worry that government policy encouraging stable two-parent households would stigmatize unwed mothers are giving government's and various non-profit NGOs' potential cultural influence a bit too much credit.
Point being, "left" distinguishes individual choice from overall social norms and preferences. "Right" insists they be the same.
So, all women who choose not to devote the rest of their lives to the enormous sacrifices of raising children will have “nothing but heartache and regret?” Um, sure. Some, perhaps. But alas (or a lass?) fear not, concerned conservatives! Women in their 40’s can still have children other ways if they so choose, including adoption! Many beautiful families are assembled with some or all adopted kids. And professional/career women, or simply wiser, more patient and more prepared women, make great adoptive parent candidates!
Of course, many, many women choose to have no children and somehow escape heartache and regret. I’d be willing to wager there are far more young women who married poorly, too young, or too unprepared or immature for marriage and motherhood who live with heartache and regret. But there are all kinds of good and bad outcomes from marrying young. I haven’t listened to her podcast, but I’d also be willing to bet what she is really saying is enjoy your youth and young adulthood. Meet different people.
Figure out who you are and what makes you happy. Marriage and parenthood isn’t for everyone. And the truth is out, it’s being depicted in art. Movies are being made about toxic relationships, and the pain and trauma it can cause. It’s a post #metoo era where women are being more cautious than ever. No wonder that causes a certain category of men anxiety. It’s not that conservative men are hand-wringing about all the heartache and regret independent women will experience in the future, but how much they themselves will.
Fear not, anxious men, there are plenty of wonderful women who are still open to healthy relationships with kind men. I predict a new era soon - an epiphany: kindness. Generosity. Respect. Trust. Teamwork. I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work.
The most likely religious group to divorce and marry once or twice again are Christian evangelicals. Atheist me and my secular Jewish wife are going to be married for 35 years in November.
Ta, Robyn. I'm not the audience for any podcasts, so had you not written about this, I wouldn't know. I married for love, as did my sweetheart husband. Neither of us has kids, but he's helped raise zillions of them in 25 years as an English as a New Language teacher/reading specialist in the NYC public school system. And in six years of helping HIV positive adults live their lives, I always thought of them as my kids, even though some were older than I.
It may be comforting on some level for social conservatives to imagine there is such a thing as a Karma that will deliver material consequences to them
Consequences? For what? For...living a normal life and finding someone you love and having a kid? What the fuck? Why should there be karma for that?
Glad that I understood in my teens that I never wanted kids, and have passed many happy childless years. When I got married in my early 40s, the minister asked in a pre-ceremony meeting if we planned to have kids. My husband-to-be blurted out, "God, no!" The official story was that we were too old and tired to have kids (true!) but the real reason is that we were too selfish. Sorry if that hurts the fee-fees of the MAGATS.
I have a friend who used to tell people in a hushed voice when they asked her about having kids, "You know, Tom had a terrible croquet accident as a child."
How is it hypocritical telling her audience to do what they want even if that happens to be having unmarried sex in her twenties and then getting married and having a baby? It sounds as though she has been doing what she wants. You know, as in making her own choices regardless of whether men she doesn't even know disapprove.
Conservatives need to worry about their own lives and stop trying to run everybody else's lives. Too bad they've fucked up their lives, they made their choices. Now they need to stop trying to ruin the lives the rest of us are trying to live.
How are they supposed to pretend everything is ok in their lives if they can't manage everyone else's life. Telling their husband to stop flirting with the gardener/nanny/couches would be a start.
We have a culture where men can pretty much have consequence-free sex as long as they can talk a woman into it. And that is somehow not good enough for men. It's too hard, it takes too much time, can't my daddy just arrange a marriage for me? WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I am an incel, 41, and this article feels very insulting to me. The fact that we don’t have success with women doesn’t mean we know nothing about romance or that we demean them. I respect every single woman around me and admire each of them as they pass me by on the street. Please feel free to celebrate this woman, whom I didn’t know about before reading this article—but there’s no need to insult us.
The unspoken truth here is women in their 20s and 30s are typically 5+ yrs older in maturity than males in that demo. Why should any woman go full-tilt w a bro who wants to “day trade and game from a sofa” [actual dialog].
𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘺𝘯: 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬, 𝘈𝘭𝘦𝘹 𝘊𝘰𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘵, 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙪𝙨𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙙, 𝙛𝙞𝙡𝙢 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙈𝙖𝙩𝙩 𝙆𝙖𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣, 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨.
𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘍𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘚𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘱 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰: 𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙣𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙖𝙬𝙖𝙮.
I'm late to this party because holiday weekend. My oldest sister was born 275 days after my parents wedding. That is "getting married and becoming pregnant right away", and it wasn't that uncommon for twenty-something-year-old Catholic couples getting married in 1943. Getting pregnant after two years of marriage is not "right away". It could have been responsible planning, difficulty conceiving, or just what happened, but by definition it was not right away.
The whole "talk left, live right" business is a shallow fallacy anyway. The right doesn't own marriage and monogamy. What makes the difference between left and right is that the right believes in morally shaming and/or punishing people who don't live according to their precepts, and the left doesn't.
It has nothing to do with the actual life choices made. The problem is that many people on the right seem unable to distinguish promoting or recommending a personal preference from insisting that other people conform to that preference.
For example, here's something that might make some right wing people's heads spin. I'm a liberal, and I actually agree that "hookup culture" seems like a bad idea! To be clear, I'm not talking about dating, or extramarital sex. I'm talking about sleeping with someone you just met and then never calling them again. I just don't understand how people can do that. Doesn't appeal to me. I prefer to establish a relationship first and then let the sex follow.
Does that make me "conservative"? Hell no! Because I realize that's just my opinion! Lots of people disagree. That's cool, no judgement!
That doesn't mean I'm not willing to proselytize a bit. I suspect that many young people feel somewhat trapped by the expectations of hookup culture, and wouldn't mind something of a permission structure to reassure them that it's perfectly ok and reasonable to want to get to know someone—and perhaps even secure a commitment of monogamy—before jumping into bed, without having to date a manosphere misogynist or a MAGA mama.
Because, you see, that's what being liberal (or "left", if you prefer) is all about. It doesn't mean being pro or anti hookup culture or monogamy or marriage or what have you.
But it *does* mean that I can sympathize with people like me, and seek to reassure them that they aren't alone in the world, without insisting that they should *be* the world. I can help them understand that what they are is ok even if they aren't the norm, which means I need not engage in a futile pursuit to create a world and society where they never need encounter someone willing to admit they think or feel differently.
It *doesn't* mean—and this is what some lefties get wrong—that I can't advocate public policy that encourages or incentivizes one way over another if it seems there is considerable benefit to be had from that. But general statistics don't dictate moral judgements over individuals, whose circumstances are always unique in some way—and for that reason they generally prove to not have the power to affect people's social values.
For example, for many years there were "marriage penalties" in tax codes which, so far as I can tell, did nothing to socially stigmatize marriage. And even widespread messaging in the late 20th Century encouraging young people to wait on sex until at least adulthood, surprise surprise, did not result in teenagers considering pre-marital sex immoral.
So liberals who worry that government policy encouraging stable two-parent households would stigmatize unwed mothers are giving government's and various non-profit NGOs' potential cultural influence a bit too much credit.
Point being, "left" distinguishes individual choice from overall social norms and preferences. "Right" insists they be the same.
So, all women who choose not to devote the rest of their lives to the enormous sacrifices of raising children will have “nothing but heartache and regret?” Um, sure. Some, perhaps. But alas (or a lass?) fear not, concerned conservatives! Women in their 40’s can still have children other ways if they so choose, including adoption! Many beautiful families are assembled with some or all adopted kids. And professional/career women, or simply wiser, more patient and more prepared women, make great adoptive parent candidates!
Of course, many, many women choose to have no children and somehow escape heartache and regret. I’d be willing to wager there are far more young women who married poorly, too young, or too unprepared or immature for marriage and motherhood who live with heartache and regret. But there are all kinds of good and bad outcomes from marrying young. I haven’t listened to her podcast, but I’d also be willing to bet what she is really saying is enjoy your youth and young adulthood. Meet different people.
Figure out who you are and what makes you happy. Marriage and parenthood isn’t for everyone. And the truth is out, it’s being depicted in art. Movies are being made about toxic relationships, and the pain and trauma it can cause. It’s a post #metoo era where women are being more cautious than ever. No wonder that causes a certain category of men anxiety. It’s not that conservative men are hand-wringing about all the heartache and regret independent women will experience in the future, but how much they themselves will.
Fear not, anxious men, there are plenty of wonderful women who are still open to healthy relationships with kind men. I predict a new era soon - an epiphany: kindness. Generosity. Respect. Trust. Teamwork. I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work.
Once again, social conservatives freaking out because people are more complicated than the cliched personas they believe in.
The most likely religious group to divorce and marry once or twice again are Christian evangelicals. Atheist me and my secular Jewish wife are going to be married for 35 years in November.
Ta, Robyn. I'm not the audience for any podcasts, so had you not written about this, I wouldn't know. I married for love, as did my sweetheart husband. Neither of us has kids, but he's helped raise zillions of them in 25 years as an English as a New Language teacher/reading specialist in the NYC public school system. And in six years of helping HIV positive adults live their lives, I always thought of them as my kids, even though some were older than I.
It's simply inconceivable why there is a loneliness epidemic among young men. Makes no sense...
Her husband would have obviously preferred an evangelical homeschooled Gilead fuck maid from Arkansas but he just had to settle. /s
It may be comforting on some level for social conservatives to imagine there is such a thing as a Karma that will deliver material consequences to them
Consequences? For what? For...living a normal life and finding someone you love and having a kid? What the fuck? Why should there be karma for that?
Glad that I understood in my teens that I never wanted kids, and have passed many happy childless years. When I got married in my early 40s, the minister asked in a pre-ceremony meeting if we planned to have kids. My husband-to-be blurted out, "God, no!" The official story was that we were too old and tired to have kids (true!) but the real reason is that we were too selfish. Sorry if that hurts the fee-fees of the MAGATS.
I have a friend who used to tell people in a hushed voice when they asked her about having kids, "You know, Tom had a terrible croquet accident as a child."
How is it hypocritical telling her audience to do what they want even if that happens to be having unmarried sex in her twenties and then getting married and having a baby? It sounds as though she has been doing what she wants. You know, as in making her own choices regardless of whether men she doesn't even know disapprove.
Conservatives need to worry about their own lives and stop trying to run everybody else's lives. Too bad they've fucked up their lives, they made their choices. Now they need to stop trying to ruin the lives the rest of us are trying to live.
How are they supposed to pretend everything is ok in their lives if they can't manage everyone else's life. Telling their husband to stop flirting with the gardener/nanny/couches would be a start.
Wasn't she one of the Muppets in the Dr.Teeth's band?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-21882693851.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1&resize=681%2C383
We have a culture where men can pretty much have consequence-free sex as long as they can talk a woman into it. And that is somehow not good enough for men. It's too hard, it takes too much time, can't my daddy just arrange a marriage for me? WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Fucking crybabies.