WHOSE FAULT IS IT, ANYWAY?

You’ve got it backwards, Incels.

You hate women. You are proud of hating women. You say you hate women because you can’t get willing sex from a woman. You don’t seem to ask yourself if you have confused cause and effect—is it possible you can’t get willing sex from a woman because you hate women?

The elephant in your room. See if you can see it.

I got on a bus today behind a bent old man with a cane who was clearly needing attention. First he stood in the doorway blocking entry to everyone waiting, fiddling around for a long minute looking for money. In the end he boarded without paying, while throwing a curse at the driver. No one complained, no one reacted, no one even rolled their eyes. Then he pushed his way through the standees, past a couple of empty seats, and demanded that a seated man get up for him.

Fair enough, it was the area for the old and disabled, but another seat just across the aisle was empty, which I pointed out to him. Our Involuntary Standee (Insta?) began to shout obscenities and demanded to get off again just as the bus was starting. The seated man had stood up and people called to tell him so, but no, he was getting off. And it was Fuck You all the way.

We’ve all met people like this—the desperate need for attention has been thwarted for too long, and it has morphed into the deliberate seeking of negative attention. Bad food will keep you alive longer than starvation.

And I felt for him. He was dirty and ragged and clearly unhoused. Bids for positive attention exchange with ordinary strangers had probably been tricky to negotiate for at least a couple of years. But there were more than a few people on that bus who were prepared to be helpful and connected. If he’d taken the seat offered he could probably have had a bit of chat with those of us near him. But he was in the world of “Fuck you,” and couldn’t get out of it.

Is that where you’re at? You’ve tried and tried, and now you just prefer to hate?

Let’s have the gloves off here, since you don’t wear any yourself: there are plenty of unattached women out there who would like to be in a relationship with a man, and quite a few who’d be happy just to get laid, if they could be sure of not being murdered afterwards. Do you aim your sights at women reasonably within the reach of someone like you, or is it your conviction that the office Beyoncé should be spreading her legs for you? Do you offer the possibility of relationship, or is your approach more on the lines of, “I’d really like to hate-fuck you”?

Call it victim-blaming if you must, but I do think the solution to your plight may very possibly be in your own hands.

And there’s another factor that’s of interest here—your hatred is aimed at the wrong target. Up until two thousand and a bit years ago you could have just rolled up at the nearest Goddess temple or hill shrine and the priestesses or congregants there would have been happy to engage in ritual sex worship with you. But such sexual freedom has been the focus of male hatred for at least the past two thousand years. The Abrahamic religions, regardless of the intent of their original founders, have built their ethos on one thing—controlling women’s sexuality. Note the deliberate invention of the angel/ whore split, with those women falling into the ‘whore’ category stigmatized and ostracized, while the ‘angels’ were just comfortably taken into ownership…isn’t that ugliness a more logical target for your ire?

The Ten Commandments and the other six hundred plus rules listed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are just so much dust in the eyes: the patriarchy is founded on controlling and limiting women’s sexuality. It began with the demonizing and outright slaughter of the priestesses in the Goddess temples, and it hasn’t ended yet. That’s it, that’s the raison d’etre, that’s the lifeblood—“Message to women: You can fuck only me, I own you. Anything else, and you are a slut.” Signed, the Law and the Prophets.

After two thousand years, we’re sick of it. So when Incels roll up with a new slant on the same old theme—“You owe me sex because you are a woman and I want sex,” well, should you really be all that surprised when women tell you to fuck yourself?

Image of Asherah and Consort, tile, provenance uncertain, after a copy in Private Collection, Used by permission.