The Kissless Ones: Incel Rebellions

“I am a male dateless, kissless, (involuntary celibate). Can we just call Feminism for what it is and start addressing (it) as a Women’s Supremacy Movement?  It’d be just so much easier for those of us who are confused on the whole topic”— Anonymous Opinion, Pirate Rants, UWIRE, East Carolina University, November 3, 2015.

In the 1960s, at a summer camp on the shores of East Lake Okoboji in northwest Iowa, a carnival raised funds for world-wide outreach. Precisely what happened is long lost, but campers played games at a makeshift fair.

The cost? Two pinto beans for a cup of “bug juice,” four pinto beans for the ring toss, and six at the more popular booths. The dunking booth, for example, where campers dunked counselors with a well-placed pitch; the shaving-a-balloon booth, and, of course, the kissing booth.  A pinto bean cost half a cent back in the day, probably. Thus a boy could get a kiss for around a nickel.

Corporate media outlets noted these details, but failed to mention the deep-seated racism and white supremacy central to Rodger's hatred.

In the kissing booth, which at the time fought world hunger, the girl’s staff gathered during a time where there was a place called “boy’s camp,” and the bolder boys, campers, and staff, brought their beans to the booth.

It wasn’t fancy, mostly pecks on the cheek, probably. But those were the good old days. At least one counselor kissed a girl at the kissing booth, perhaps the only one anywhere, ever, at a World Service Carnival. And probably an awkward, salivary kiss at that. The future program director seemed interested, and the counselor probably knew how to kiss. But some young men never kissed anyone; no problem, except today, unfortunately. These kissless men, according to multiple sources, are behind some of of the most heinous mass shootings in North America.

Many baby boomers and other old-timers will remember that it was a man’s responsibility to know what to do on a date, and especially the second and third dates. From asking her out to ordering at the restaurant; knowing what to do was his responsibility.

If the girl took the lead it made her look too forward, and made him look weak. She couldn’t share anything without the fear of bruising his male ego, and being called too “bossy.”  Being in charge was his responsibility.  He had to know what to do and how to do it.

“Hell, I am thrilled I escape before he expels his ink!”

Women’s liberation changed all that, and today this movement has morphed into questioning if there’s even a need for a guy to be around anymore.  E. Jean Carroll, for example, has said the whole female sex seems to agree that men are becoming a nuisance with their lying, cheating, robbing, perjuring, assaulting, murdering...and so on.

“Hell, I am thrilled I escape before he expels his ink!” she said.  And maybe it’s true: men are dirty, violent creatures. But one thing is certain, this kind of talk makes great copy for selling a book. The raw and real is often a fiction, but it filters down whether commercial or real.  Unfortunately, many young men have been left behind in the dust of change.

This is no excuse, of course.  Rania Khalek believed, for example, that Rodger’s killing spree had as much to do with racism as being forced into celibacy.  In “Missing a Killer’s Connections,” he said Rodger's 140-page screed detailed the evolution of his homicidal hatred for women, but more than that, his racism, which Khalek said the mainstream media failed to report.

Not only did Rodgers rail against women, but repeatedly held up blonde white girls as prized possessions that nonwhite men were unworthy of having and holding. Khalek pointed out that while corporate media outlets noted Rodger's hatred of women, they failed to mention the deep-seated racism and white supremacy central to his disgust.

Kerri Sackville, a female incel, agreed there's more to this problem than sexual frustration.  As a forced woman of celibacy, she asked, what should I do if my period of involuntary chastity continued? Rant against the injustice of a man I wanted for not giving me sex? Go on a murderous rampage in honor of all men who won’t have sex with me and the women they do have sex with, or think ‘Bugger’ and take myself off to bed?

“I suspect you know the answer,” she said.

Rodger did not think “Bugger” and take himself off to bed.

On the evening of May 23, 2014, in Isla Vista, California, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, before killing himself inside his vehicle.

There is a growing realization though, as the reporting suggests, that many of the male perpetrators of mass shootings have a history of hating women, assaulting wives and girlfriends, female family members, or sharing misogynistic views online.  In an article about mass killers and their avowed anger toward women, the New York Times outlines the correlation, leaving little doubt the problem is real.

What if Elliot Rodger had a kissing booth to test the limitations of his hate for women, the women he felt sure were ignoring him?

Others have reported this as well.  Peter Langman, a psychologist, and author of two books on school shootings, said that “damaged masculinity” was the problem. He believed this is often overlooked, not only in shootings like Columbine but in many other mass shootings as well.

According to Michael S. Rosenwald of The Washington Post, Rodger compared himself to other teenagers and became very angry they were able to experience all of the things he desired, but was left out of: “I never had the experience of going to a party with other teenagers, I never had my first kiss, I never held hands with a girl, I never lost my virginity,” Rodger said.

What Rodger did about this is shared in the video below, which is troubling to watch.  A more detailed video, “Inside Incel: Alek Minassian and online misogyny,” explores the Incel Movement (involuntary celibacy), where many see Rodger as the founder.



Kissing booths went out of favor in the 1970s, and they were pretty much gone by the mid-1980s when many believed HIV was spread by kissing an infected person.

Rock Hudson, for example, was accused of transmitting AIDS to actress Linda Evans during a love scene on “Dynasty,” said Howard Rosenberg, when a huffing-and-puffing KABC-TV Channel 7 news blew past all decency on a Wednesday night in 1985.  He accused the television station of fostering panic with its hysterical reporting on Hudson kissing Evans.

Catching AIDS by kissing has been proven untrue; kissing transmits germs, but it can also have valuable health benefits.  What if Elliot Rodger had a kissing booth to test the limitations of his hate for women, the women he felt sure were ignoring him?  Would he not have been accepted by the group?  Of course.  Perhaps cautiously, at first, but most likely, gently, as fellow staff members, or whomever, cheered him on.

Men, and women too, found support at the kissing booths; real understanding took place, or at least it used to take place in brick and mortar communities, not in the so-called men's rights movements found online in today's cultural wastelands.

What a horrific tragedy.  Unfortunately, indoctrinations in the Incel Movement exist in a vacuum, a world where there’s nothing else to lose. When these ideas are not challenged, believers develop a skewed worldview that keeps growing as other kissless young men find solace online in worlds where they learn about other incels and hate.

The problem is in Canada too. On April 23, 2018, in North Toronto, ten people died, eight injured when 25-year-old, Alek Minassian, a man with no criminal history, decided he’d had enough. Minassian posted “let the Incel Rebellion begin” on Facebook, and praised mass shooter Elliot Rodge. And he is not alone. Sadly, there are countless places to hook up with like-minded people.

 According to The Telegraph, Minassian had become a member of an online community of angry, celibate men who hated women.

In videos on BBC1WEST ( now inactive; current active link), description of  two men talked about involuntary celibacy, alone, in front of a computer and a cell phone. This is what the men, one white, and one black had to say:

“F**k, man. No matter what I do, no matter where I go, nobody values my contributions, nobody respects me. Nobody wants me around—I’m a f**king reject everywhere. I just...I don’t know what the f**k I have to do to change that.”

Then, from a man in his car: “It’s a living f**king nightmare that will never end. That’s how I can describe being a man that women are not attracted to. It’s a living f**king nightmare that will never f**king end.”

Some people have been luckier than others; all, however, including incels, need an inclusive community, a positive place to visit and share with others.

The basic principles of life—the importance of emotional experiences, and the discovery of the inappropriateness of interpersonal reactions through appropriate reality testing—matter. Incels need kissing booths, just like the rest of us.  Unfortunately, the clock keeps charging ahead. There is no turning back unless we're all forced back into the caves.  Where to then?  Hopefully, somewhere all of us will grow together.

“Reality testing”: Yalom, Irvin D (1975). The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.