[edanm]

I'm not that aware of incel beliefs, I've only visited the forum a few times out of curiosity (partially borne of my own history with relationships).

But to be clear, I agree that there is a point at which you're basically unable to find sexual relationships - clearly there is such a point. But I'm willing to bet that no one, not one person on the incel Reddit, is unable to find a sexual relationship, at least not because of the so-called "immutable characteristics". There is no one there who is so physically unattractive (or who has whatever other traits are talked about) that they can't find a relationship.

I say this with having known many people who in their late teeanager/adult years, were unattractive, "undateable", etc, who believed that they wouldn't ever find a relationship, and who grew up to be in great relationships.

It's like those old commercials for closeted homosexual teenagers - "it gets better". That's a message that is really the same - it does get better, and it's super easy to confirm, because so many older people in happy relationships were once young incels.

[gridlockd]

So, you accept that there must be a set of individuals that are unable to find sexual partners, but at the same time you are willing to bet that somehow none of these individuals are also active on some incel subreddit.

Can I take the other side of that bet?

[edanm]

I was being somewhat metaphorical, as I can't imagine how we could possibly test such a hypothesis.

But were we able to test it (and feel free to suggest something), I would take that bet, yes. My position being roughly that anyone capable of posting to an incel forum, is capable enough to make the kinds of changes in their life that would "overcome" whatever other physical characteristics they have, and therefore be able to find a sexual partner. Although not necessarily quickly - it might only be later in their adulthood.

(And ok, to be more realistic, I'd only bet on 99.5% of people on incel forums - not 100%. Though I'd probably take the bet at 100% anyway.)

> [...] you are willing to bet that somehow none of these individuals are also active on some incel subreddit.

Yes. I believe the base rate of people who never find a sexual relationship in their entire lives (assuming they want it) is miniscule. Some quick searching puts it at around 0.5% by age 40. I believe that those are mostly unfortunate extreme cases. I believe that even some of these people could conceivably still make changes that would lead to them having a sexual relationship.

The odds of someone on an incel forum being one of the probably-less-than-0.5% of people who by age 40 have not had a sexual relationship is pretty small.

[privacy_bodger]

>I believe the base rate of people who never find a sexual relationship in their entire lives (assuming they want it) is miniscule. Some quick searching puts it at around 0.5% by age 40.

[1] puts it at 1.2%, which would be about two million American men.

[1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/3/government-s...

Edit: Arguably fairer to just divide by the number of over-40s in America, which would make it only about half a million.

[gridlockd]

I'm actually not so much interested in the incel identity, but in the biological reality of sexual reproduction and mate choice including (but not limited to) Homo Sapiens - as opposed to the fantasies that a given Homo Sapiens might harbor in favor of that reality.

To that end, I would count an incel not as "someone who can't have sex" but someone fertile who involuntarily fails to sexually reproduce.

Research suggests that historically, the ratio of females to males that reproduced is 1.1 (Asia) to 1.4 (West Africa)[1]. Of course that doesn't prove all of these male individuals were incels, but we're not a naturally monogamous species, so you would have to explain why a female would not choose only the best males for reproduction and ignore the rest.

Many (if not most) societies have historically suppressed female mate choice, likely as a measure for maintaining social order. This would suggest that as females are able to be more picky, the number of incels should rise.

I believe that's exactly what we can observe right now in affluent western societies: Women have been financially independent from males for decades, and now that online dating shows women the abundance of mate choices they never knew they had, less attractive males suddenly appear much less desirable. Consequently, the threshold for successful reproduction rises.

[1] https://www.cell.com/ajhg/pdf/S0002-9297(10)00033-9.pdf