Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
Imagine you're having a hard time getting laid, for whatever reason. And you really really want to have sex, for whatever reason. But you don't want to pay for it, for whatever reason. Many people, women and men and every gender you can be, might go through a period like this, or even an entire lifetime like this, and it's sad. It's frustrating for them.
People come up with a variety of strategies to deal with the frustration. Some have sex with flashlights, some entice members of other species, some mope and wallow with the same enthusiasm which might propel others into non-sexual or subliminally sexual or quasi-sexual activities such as mixed martial arts or papier- mâché crafts or arson. But to some, nothing can take the place of having sex, even if they've never had it before.
Certain young men refuse to have sex with anyone but beautiful young women, to use their phrase. Well, it is best to have sex with someone you're sexually attracted to. But beautiful young women are a small part of the population. I mean, it depends on your definition of beautiful, I guess. But these young men seem to mean women who fit a particularly rigid definition of commercial hetero-normative female attractiveness. Being rigid during sex works, but being rigid about who you'll have sex with is a recipe for dissatisfaction. There are so many kinds of bodies and minds. But I'm probably preaching to the converted here.
Incels, or "involuntary celibates," are a group of men in their early twenties and perhaps older who blame their celibacy on rejection by the women they feel should rightfully be theirs to do with as they please. They want to go back to an imaginary time when they believe beautiful women had no choice but to pair with men like them. I'm not sure who these guys think they are that they would meet the criteria for mating in the situation they've convinced themselves once existed. They blame feminism and multiculturalism for ruining the good thing they would have had if only they'd been born in an imaginary past when women were so dependent that they would sign up to sleep with just about any white man for their entire lives just because that's what was done. These heterosexual males believe that, if they had a time machine, they could go back to a society in which they wouldn't be lonely and sexually frustrated, because women's opportunities for happiness were limited. And not all women, mind you. Beautiful young women. They believe they would have been feeding at a trough of the plentiful beautiful women who did what any man wanted them to, back in medieval times or maybe the 1950s.
I sympathize with their being lonely and sexually frustrated. Almost everyone is one or both of those things at some point in life. No one can fault them for their dissatisfaction at being in either condition. But when the answer they've come up with to address their dissatisfaction is not only blatantly, historically, psycho- sexually wrong, but disrespects, even in just the rhetorical realm, the rights and physical safety of others, a civil observer can only wish them to keep themselves to themselves until they grow out of it.
The cherry on this garbage sundae of bad theory is a personality named Jordan Peterson. This Peterson personality is kind of a cult leader for these intellectually and sexually impoverished gents, the way Leo Strauss was once the center of the lives of a lot of University of Chicago students, but Peterson has much less of value to offer.
The incel swamp of misogynist ideas has spawned a lot of violence. Incel chat groups valorize Elliot Rodger, 22, the U of C Santa Barbara student who went on a shooting spree out of vengeance for being sexually rejected by certain women, ending with him blowing his brains out, as a hero. Alek Minassian, 25, who plowed his car into a crowd in Toronto, killing nine people, was an incel zealot.
So what's the solution? Well, there's been talk lately of the redistribution of sex. You know, the way socialists would like to redistribute resources so no one suffers starvation or homelessness, these gentlemen would like to redistribute beautiful young women's bodies to themselves so they don't suffer from their own narrow view of attractiveness. It's like if socialists wanted all the fresh salads to be given only to public schoolteachers. If salad was a living human being. And if schoolteachers did nothing but complain and obsess about salad never letting them eat it. And sometimes violently assaulted or killed salad, or anyone standing near salad, out of revenge for sentient chicken Caesars refusing to be eaten by them.
There's no denying that these guys have toxic views of others and themselves. They have very toxic views about vaginas, which is a little ridiculous since by their own admission, and by definition, they don't have any hands-on experience with them.
I understand how sex can seem like a matter of life and death, especially if you subscribe to a Darwinian view of human sexual and social hierarchy. Sex is how we create more of our DNA. Not being able to replicate your DNA can feel like threat to your survival.
A moment's thought, though, could bring the realization that replicating your DNA is really not such a big deal. Who cares if your zygotic shplasm gets passed on to another generation? What's so great about you, snowflake?
Sexual need is real. However, if you're going to consider worthless every possible way of dealing with that need, aside from your fantasy ideal based on an infantile narrative about human society, you are only hurting yourself. Until you hurt others. And then you need to shape up intellectually and emotionally, or someone else is going to deal with you. I don't know what to do about Jordan Peterson, who is old enough to know better, but I don't think chemical castration is the answer. I know no one suggested it was, but it might be something we should think about it, now that you mention it. Also, does anyone have the recipe for Russian polonium soup?
A rite-of-passage service force of sexy female sex instructors who would initiate pubescent boys into sex, how to do it, where to put it, was something I fantasized about when I was fourteen. I really got off on that fantasy, often multiple times a day. But that's a fantasy, not like the fantasy of egalitarian socialism for all, but like the fantasy of being able to turn invisible and rob all the banks. Socialism is worth pursuing because all of our lives would be improved by its becoming reality. The contrasting fantasies are not, because they're selfish and treat women as soulless resources, and because, if you've read the literature and seen the movies, invisibility always leads to narcissistic mental breakdowns.
At the age of 22, Elliot Rodger really hadn't given himself a chance. Finding a compatible lover takes time and luck. That's why they call it "gettin' lucky." And, yes, here in the vile capitalist terror dome, wealthier, taller, slimmer, happier, healthier people can get lucky more often that those not blessed with a lot of sexual bartering capital. It's a jungle out there. A jungle! Full of animals. But if you're open to it, you can get eaten on the regular.
I'm not saying I've cracked the nut of sexual fulfillment. I definitely have not. But I'm prepared to use all the tools at my disposal, and, although I have a long way to go, I'm open to a variety of interactions with a variety of humans. It took me a long time to get this way. I'm not a people person. I have emotional and physical issues I need to address constantly. I get on people's nerves and they get on mine. But, y'know, you're stuck with yourself. That's all you've got to work with. You are your vessel on the seas of life. If you're feeling like life is hopeless, and you're upset enough to hurt others or yourself, please get help. Even people who get laid all they want sometimes need help. And you know what? No one gets laid all they want. No one gets all of anything they want. You don't have to be Buddha to learn to rise above that aspect of reality. To be Jordan Petersonesque, just, don't be a baby. Don't be a quitter. Clean your room. Stop blaming women for everything.
Now that Google's not using it, the motto "Don't be evil" is up for grabs, too. Try that. Try not being evil. It's not as hard as Google makes it look.
This has been the Moment of Truth. Good day!