A Couple of Editors asked me about what “incel” means, from the story about the 24-year-old college dropout who wants to be the governor of California.
Lets start with the story.
An Alternative to Mail-Order
Kyle Langford, 24, is running for Governor of California as a Republican, and he has an idea for handling undocumented immigrants. “It is an initiative that will encourage family formation in the State of California,” he said, “fostering healthy, stable young families is my #1 priority.” The initiative: deport all males without legal status, but give women a year to do something specific. “We know where you are. If you marry one of our Californian incels, then you can stay. But if you don’t, then, well, they’re getting sent back across,” Langford said. (MS/Newsweek) …Family first, compassion last.
“MS” is True contributor Mike Straw.
The essential bottom line: Langford is proposing that undocumented females would not be deported under his government if they merely chose to be sex slaves for “our California incels.”
What a deal.
Wikipedia says the word is “a portmanteau of ‘involuntary celibate’, associated with a mostly online subculture of people (racially diverse, male, and heterosexual), who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, and who may blame, objectify and denigrate women and girls as a result. The incel ideology is characterized by the hatred of women that is often expressed through hate speech or, in certain cases, violence against women. [The] term rose to prominence in the 2010s in the aftermath of the misogynistic terrorist acts of Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian.”
Women aren’t their real enemy, they are their own. A woman doesn’t want to deal with misogynistic, unmannered dirtbags who live in their mom’s basements? Huh, go figure.
Langford wants “healthy” families. That’s not the way to get one. A Catholic, he intends for the state to become “the most Catholic place in the world.” That means dethroning Timor-Leste (aka “East Timor”), which is around 97.5 percent Roman Catholic. That also means no contraception would be available for those sex slaves.
Almost all of us have had times in our lives where we didn’t have the romantic life we wanted. The solution is cleaning up your act (if needed), getting over yourself (if warranted), growing up to be a decent human being, and getting out there. The best place I can think of isn’t a singles bar, but rather volunteering for a cause you believe in. As someone who has been there, I sincerely wish you good luck.
But force women to adapt to the anti-social obliviots who have dug their own pits of despair? Huh uh. That’s not The American Way. Nor even, I would hope, the Timor-Leste Way.
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Looking at the flag lapel pin, it appears Langford’s photo is backward.
Appropriate: so is he.
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It’s the way I received it — and the way it is on BallotPedia. -rc
I will concede one thing to this guy: That is intentional, and within regulation. According to the US Flag Code, the union – the blue field with the white stars, also called a canton — must always be facing forward, because it represents the nation’s states; it must be in the highest position of honor, followed by the red and white stripes. The US Military uniforms have the patch backwards like this — it’s always worn on the right shoulder, so the canton has to be facing forward, otherwise the flag is in retreat. With regards to lapel pins, you’re actually supposed to wear them over your heart, but if it’s on the right side, the canton should be facing your heart. This is probably a pin specifically designed for where it’s put. (Dad was Navy, brother and I were in Scouting, Mom was my leader, and I grew up in the shadow of the biggest US Military base in the world, so I’ve kind of had this stuff drummed into my head most of my life.)
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All this is correct, but I still think the photo is reversed. -rc
There’s no debate. I have seen a lot of suits in my time, and never one with the jacket pocket on the right, as in this photo.
Probably not relevant to *this* particular photo, but a bespoke suit made for a left-handed person _would_ be most likely to have the pocket on the other side. Granted, as you say, you’ve never seen one, but there is a very real and valid reason to believe they exist.
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To be sure, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that either. -rc
Catholic? Excuse me?? Not in this, or any other, universe!! Jaysus…
That’s horrifying!
Please make this the story of the week so we can share the heck out of it.
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Already my plan. -rc
Spot on, Celia! And Randy!
Is there an similar term for “involuntarily unelected?”
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I think I would have a better chance of being elected governor of California …and I don’t even live there anymore! -rc
Go for it, Randy!
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At least I actually know I’m not right for the job. -rc
If we exclude everyone who knows they are not right for leadership, we will only get tyrants and obliviots running for office.
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Though many must be eliminated for not meeting the basic qualifications for the job, such as my not living in California since 1996. -rc
I think the saying goes: the best person for the top job is the one who doesn’t want it.
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Usually the qualifications for the jobs are quite reasonable, even if a very low bar. In the U.S. there’s a saying that “Anyone can grow up to be the president.” and we’ve proven that’s true. -rc
To paraphrase humorist Douglas Adams, ‘Those who want power over people are categorically unfit to have it.’
(My bad, Debbie, of course I meant ‘humourist’.
)
Obliviot is too kind a word for him.
Incel and Excel are similar in that neither has any idea what a Date is.
My eyebrow went up when I saw the subject line this week was “The Handmaid’s Tale”. When I got to this story, I understood why. Good grief! No doubt there’s a reason little Kyle understands the fantasies of the incel world.
Margaret Atwood warned us about all of this 40 years ago, but no one would listen.
And unfortunately, it is already reality in Afghanistan.
Clearly he himself is one of the dispossessed he hopes to rescue from involuntary celibacy by kidnapping and enslaving the women he hopes to isolate from their rightful families.
His agenda is the stuff of B-grade horror flicks.
It baffles me that folks like Mr. Langford are willing to say this out loud. He might as well tattoo “Pathetic” across his chest.
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There are a lot of things being said in the current environment that people weren’t saying out loud due to social norms. With anti-social becoming the norm, these people are more comfortable with revealing themselves …to the harm of society. We need to Make America Kind Again. -rc
As Robert Heinlein said somewhere once — or perhaps it was his protege Spider Robinson — “this is the first generation whose resignation from society can be made permanent. It will be interesting to see how that works out.”
He was talking about things like face tattoos and chrome-plated snot, but those aren’t the only ways one can resign from society.
Heinlein also said “…a reverence for life does not require a man to respect Nature’s obvious mistakes.”
From “Have Spacesuit – Will Travel”.
I certainly agree with the Make America Kind Again sentiment. On the other hand, with the lowering of the social barrier at least we have a better chance at seeing where the problem people are.
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Indeed, which will strengthen the resolve of the decent people, men and women both, to avoid them. -rc
Maybe, if they make themselves easier to spot, it would be easier to round them up and deport THEM to a remote island somewhere.
That would be a big step towards Making America Kind Again wouldn’t it?
The article on Kyle Langford says that he advocates marriage; your discussion says that he is advocating that undocumented females become sex slaves. Some people consider marriage to be a form of sex slavery, but I do not, I doubt that you (or Kit) do, and I think that most people don’t. Do you have additional information about Langford’s proposal, beyond what you and Newsweek have reported?
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I’m sorry to be blunt, but this is incredibly naive.
The topic, as defined by Langford, is “incels”: “involuntary celibates”. As defined, those are men who WANT romantic/sexual relationships, but are so loathsome that women want nothing to do with them. So this indecent proposal would force them into marriage to keep from being deported — as their existing husbands or partners would be — leaving them trapped in loveless marriages of desperation, to help “cure” these men of their sex starvation, and you actually don’t grasp what that means?
I’ll urge you to go through the comments on the page, which are mainly by (but not exclusively by) women. There are MANY more now than when you made this comment last night. Do you see any of them finding fault with this conclusion? Please think about the implications here, Richard. They’re absolutely horrifying. -rc
Richard, you say, you are not against marriage, neither am I. How do you feel about *forced* marriage? If you are terrified of being deported, how would you feel if your only option was to legally marry someone whose only qualification is that they are repugnant to your gender?
Dude’s street name is Iceberg Slim.
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Apt comparison. His birth name was Robert Lee Maupin, and later used the name Beck. He lived 1918-1992, and was an American pimp who later became a writer. His 1967 memoir, “Pimp: The Story of My Life”, sold around 2 million copies, and was translated into German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, and Greek. -rc
As Randy hinted at in the article, there’s nothing involuntary about their celibacy. They have chosen to live in a way that’s unattractive to normal people.
Bingo.
The big irony about the term “incel” is that it was originally coined by a woman, and the incel community was supposed to be a support group for people who found it difficult to form romantic relationships. The problem arose when the people who were capable of changing ended up in relationships and left the community with only the toxic people.
The entitlement is strong.
It’s a odd view for sure. It seems strange that this is a problem at all in the US. We have a good balance between M/F population numbers. Unlike a China or India that have massive imbalances due to “boy preference” that have created untannable situations. There it would make a lot of sense. You have hundreds of millions of men who will never be with a woman and not by choice.
It would seem we have a cultural problem where men and women are not aligned on core values. No not all men are perfect but females are not all super models no matter what they think. So there has to be some middle ground but that appears to be eroding.
The difference is that in the 1950s a great number of women were forced (out of economic necessity or social pressure) to settle for any available man, and forced to stay in abusive marriages, but at the beginning of the 21st century women had far more options available to them.
Your comment about women not being super models is reflective of another part of the problem — women being taught that their sole value is in their appearance, and in being able to leverage that into “catching” a man to take care of them.
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Not to disagree with you, but I put the turn a quarter-century earlier: Women in the United States gained the legal right to have credit in their own names with the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. Before this, it was common for banks and lenders to deny credit to women — especially unmarried women — or to require a husband’s signature for married women, even if the woman had her own income. That provided the financial ability to leave abusive marriages. All people must have their own identity and independence. Though I suppose some might come up with other turns, I think that one was huge. -rc
Not to disagree with your disagreement (much).
But I think Alexis is right, simply because while the capability existed in 1974, it usually takes a generation for utilisation of such things to become widespread.
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I don’t disagree with that at all. -rc
Absolutely true! We moved from a very progressive city to SW Louisiana in the in 1986 due to my employment. We went to the local bank to establish a joint checking account. The much younger female staff member assisting us incredulously asked me if I was absolutely certain I wanted my wife to have signatory access to the account, saying, “You know she’ll have access to your money.” I was able to maintain a calm demeanor when I responded but it was a near thing, as I was tempted to ask her what century we had moved to!
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Amazing. -rc
There is no way, even if I thought that up, that I would ever make that suggestion out loud.
Lemme guess – he still lives in his parents’ basement. And, being in California, I thought he’d be more open minded about the guys.
He has a very strange definition of “healthy, stable…families”.
There are approximately 101 women for every 100 men in California. There already is a woman for every incel. Maybe – just maybe – the problem isn’t migrant males.
How horrifyingly creepy. Hopefully this will end any chance he might have had.
I thought “green card marriages” were illegal?
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Well, don’t let practical considerations screw this deal up! -rc
Well, Kyle Langford certainly told the world he’s an INCEL.
I see no way in which this carefully thought out plan could go wrong.
-rc
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Ah yes, incels. Consistently failing to have a relationship without realizing that they’re the common factor in the failures. So let’s try to coerce women into marrying them rather than them learning how to treat a woman as a human being and an equal partner.
Yay?
RFK Jr should forget about that autistic registry, and instead set up an incel registry to facilitate this idea. Be the first on your block to publicly admit you’re repulsive to women!
The ‘ick factor’ in this is off the charts!
It’s individuals like Kyle Langford that keep me up nights trying to think of punishments that wouldn’t also be used against people who AREN’T garbage.
I know a few people here in Florida who could be his lieutenant guv running mate ….
That proposal is the antithesis of what Catholicism teaches. A marriage like that opposes all teaching on what marriage is, and would be considered an invalid marriage by the Church. In order to marry, both persons must come into the marriage with complete free will and desire to marry. Forced or coerced marriage is never valid. What this awful man is proposing is not only horrific, but also heresy.
Great point — or would be, if Langford and those of his ilk actually believed in Church teaching instead of cherry-picking the aspects that might facilitate their agenda.
For those who wish to learn more about the incels, I recommend past years’ postings on the blog We Hunted the Mammoth, which is dedicated to “mocking the manosphere.” (It’s broadened focus somewhat since the 2024 election.)
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It’s written by David Futrelle, “a freelance journalist who also blogs for Time and had previously covered the MRAs in various media,” says RationalWiki. MRA is “men’s rights activism”, “a fringe movement which espouses the view that social, legal, and economic discrimination against men is present in society to the extent that fighting it deserves an organized effort mirroring that of feminism, and crucially, that any and all variants of feminism do society and the individual far more harm than good.” (In other words, “Our side is correct, their way is a travesty that tramples on us.”) -rc
Hmmm, force women to marry repugnant men and have involuntary sex with them.
So what’s another word for that … oh yes, rape!
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“Certainly not!” Little Kyle would say. “They’ve consented!” Indeed so …at gunpoint. -rc