This week blew open with Michelle Wolf excoriating the current administration in Washington from her podium at the WHCD. However that was quickly overtaken by something downright creepy:
In a 2009 post arguing that all children should be subject to a paternity test, he compared female infidelity to sexual assault, writing that, “Biologically, cuckoldry is a bigger reproductive harm than rape, so we should expect a similar intensity of inherited emotions about it.” When readers recoiled, and pointed out that “rape victims are more often diagnosed [with] ‘post traumatic stress’” and “rape victims they know seem more expressively upset,” than men who have been cheated on, he turned to casual misogyny. “We all know that women tend to be more expressive about their complaints—you can’t beat ’em for wailing and gnashing of teeth,” he wrote. “But the fact that men act more stoic and complain less doesn’t mean they hurt less.” Later, he updated the post to add: “I’d prefer to be raped rather than cuckolded; any other men have a preference?”LINK
That was a reference to things written by George Mason University economist Robin Hanson, who has again stepped on it. Evidently, he’s an internet thrill seeker who likes the spotlight.
What is an incel? The term “incel” stands for involuntary celibate. This is a group of men who are unhappy because they are lonely and have a hard time forming sexual relationships with women. So, of course, they hate women. The “of course” is ironic. Incels are a misogynistic hate group. Lonely men searching for a relationship are often the base of movies. The audience quite often cheers the lonely search and when the man on the screen finds a mate, we all go home happy. But that’s not the incel mythology. Theirs is a distorted fable, wherein their loneliness is expressed in hatred of women. Because in their corrupt fantasy, women alone are responsible for their oppression, their loneliness and their rage. In their version, being an alpha men — which is a personality characteristic which all incels strive to express on line — is to have sufficient disregard and contempt for women, as they rail against the alleged ‘feminization’ of society. They long for that dazzling past of their fevered imagination where “men built civilization and women built men.”
After the Toronto van massacre, there were tweets where people suggested that the state should implement a girlfriend program. Yes. Really. Incels, fulminating in those dank chat threads, don’t see women as human. That said, their desire that their sexual proclivities should be satisfied is an old one:
Fourier's scheme of things is sexual liberation: satisfaction of all sexual proclivities; fulfillment of erotic fantasies; abolition of sexual deprivation; erotic philanthropy that insures a sexual minimum for all, including the old, ugly, timid or infirm; a lot of jolly orgies, amorous and gastronomical. Even Fourier's cosmogony is sexual.
However, Fournier would never have sympathized with incel dehumanization of women. He believed in the emancipation of women.
You want to have a conversation about sexual agency for marginalized groups, I am there for it. Surrogacy, self-pleasure, community: awesome. We are all entitled to healthy, safe, consensual sexual expression. But (grudgingly hoists megaphone): YEAH, THESE GUYS DON'T WANT THAT.
And now, a libertarian economist from GMU — Robin Hanson — has decided that the way out for incels, and other lonely men, is indeed to think of a path whereby:
One might plausibly argue that those with much less access to sex suffer to a similar degree as those with low income, and might similarly hope to gain from organizing around this identity, to lobby for redistribution along this axis and to at least implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met. As with income inequality, most folks concerned about sex inequality might explicitly reject violence as a method, at least for now, and yet still be encouraged privately when the possibility of violence helps move others to support their policies. (Sex could be directly redistributed, or cash might be redistributed in compensation.)
However seemingly Hanson enjoys being a crank, perhaps he is considering the entirety of lonely men looking for a hookup. Nevertheless, if this is his way of saying incels can be happy if they could but only buy sex, he is wrong. Additionally, how does one directly redistribute sex? By more cash compensation, according to Hanson. Compensation based on what? Seriously, his claims that he is not arguing for rape gets buried by the argument that sex is a commodity, and women should accept their commodification. We women are not property or money! And yes, he does not say that in those exact words. But reading is an interrogative act. It is a relationship with a text. We can infer. It’s what we get from the whole piece.
Douthat took this up and iterated that sometimes the the extremist and the radical sees the world more clearly, which to him meant robots:
For those more curious than martial, one useful path through this thicket is to look at areas where extremists and eccentrics from very different worlds are talking about the same subject. Such overlap is no guarantee of wisdom, but it’s often a sign that there’s something interesting going on.
Which brings me to the sex robots.
Because Douthat is always like that. Despite Douthat thinking that sex robots are the endpoint, it still is a misogynistic trope in which women are reified as a commodity, gearing capitalism to be even more toxic. Incels don’t want to buy sex from a robot.They want to be given sex.There is a difference. Has there ever been a lonely woman who went out on a mass murderous spree?
Sex is not something bestowed by women and demanded by men.
I’m calling on Ms. Solnit to say it for me:
But if you assume that sex with a female body is a right that heterosexual men have, then women are just these crazy illegitimate gatekeepers always trying to get in between you and your rights. Which means you have failed to recognize that women are people, and perhaps that comes from the books and movies you have—and haven’t—been exposed to, as well as the direct inculcation of the people and systems around you.
And yes, sex is a political arena. It has always been so.
That said, women don’t owe anyone sex. Full stop.