“But because of the temptation to
sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own
husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2).
When I was
in my early twenties I was influenced by a preacher called Mark
Driscoll. This was 10 years ago now. Driscoll was quite a radical preacher in
some ways, and exhibited some unhealthy leadership styles, as a result his
ministry flamed out in a big way. I have not followed his ministry for many
years now, but there is one thing that he often said that has really stuck with
me: men are like a pickup truck, until you put a load on their back, they don’t
drive right, they are bumpy, their grip is lose in the back, but once you put a
reasonable load on their back, they drive safe and smooth. Whatever else you
can say about Driscoll, he was right about this, and he was right to be seeking
to influence young men to get married, work hard, and take on the
responsibility of leading their families. This is a basic necessity for most young
men to grow into Men.
One thing I
remember from those days is that the Young, Restless and Reformed movement was focused
on influencing young men to be strong for Jesus, strong for their wives, and
strong builders in their local communities. That movement was largely rocked by
bad leadership, and hence it has dissipated somewhat, but the need to be
steering young western men in the right direction is still there. This is true
in many ways, but a very dangerous issue which is now facing the West that
needs to be prioritized is that of the Incel, or Involuntary Celibate, male.
This is young men who would like to be in relationships and having sex, but
aren’t able to make it happen. This problem is going to cause all sorts of
issues for the West.
In fact, it
is a clearly growing danger, that till this point, appears to be only on the
radar of feminists and the fringe man-o-sphere of the internet. Occasionally a conservative
commentator will talk about it, usually in a mocking way, which to be honest is
understandable to some degree, but I want to take a different approach. I think
the problem of the Incel is the result of the unhealthy way we have structured
the modern western sexual market place, rather than just a problem of certain
individuals not being able to get a date. You can call these guys losers, you
can call these guys left behinds, you can call these guys a plethora of things
if you want. But that is not going to help us work towards solutions, and we
need to find solutions. This issue is going to increasingly become our issue, as
in all of society’s issue, and probably quite soon. History, and even societies
around the world, teaches us what the dangers of the numbers of such men
growing too high, is.
First, let’s
explore in more detail what an Incel is? As I said above this stands for
Involuntary Celibacy, and is a growing community of young men who are upset at
the world because of their inability to have sex. The Incel community actually
sprang up in the late 90’s:
…a lonely teenager on the West Coast fired up his dial-up
modem to find someone to talk to. He was a shy kid, too introverted to feel
fully comfortable in the real world, and he logged on to the early internet’s
bare-bones web forums for a sense of connection. There he found friends: other
people who were awkward in real life, particularly when it came to sex and
dating. The group eventually became a community, one that began using a phrase
to describe their romantic troubles — “involuntary celibacy.”[1]
So, the
Incel community began as an online support group for people who were having
troubles in the dating world. They were people who wanted to be in
relationships, to be having sex, enjoying human touch and connection, but found
it much harder to achieve than they expected. The reason they found it hard, is
because the sexual market place of the modern West has become hyper-efficient
and incredibly deregulated, and this often makes people feel incredibly
horrible, shunned, and rejected.[2]
While this
community is largely and correctly associated with sexless young men today and
often right-wing young men, the irony is that it was originally set up by a
woman, named Alanna, who is progressive, queer and an active artist.[3]
In other words, the precise opposite of any Incel stereotype. There is nothing
inherently right-wing or left-wing, progressive or conservative, about seeking support
and comfort in other people, it is a thoroughly human endeavour.
Hence we can
all understand why Incel’s would seek for, and long for human connection, and
would reach out for it, in any way that they could. Even though this movement
is now often associated with extremism and hate, it is important to understand
that it was not set up for that purpose. The genesis of the community was
really quite benign:
Incels in the late ’90s, ReformedIncel explains, didn’t see
themselves as victims of female cruelty in the way today’s incels do. Many of
them were in a rut, a sexual dry spell, and like current incels were seeking
support from others with similar experiences.[4]
This is
human, this is good. When you are struggling you should look to others for help
and support. But though this may have been the case originally, the movement
has changed, and it has taken a very dire turn. Rather than being just an
online community for support, it has become, at least in some areas of the
community, a place for hate, a place for demeaning women in ways that both
feminists and Christians can agree to be horrified about. “In the past few
years, a subset of straight men calling themselves “incels” have constructed a
violent political ideology around the injustice of young, beautiful women
refusing to have sex with them.”[5]
And, as is
the case in any context of escalating rhetoric, this took a turn for the worst.
In 2014, a self-identified Incel went on a killing spree in Isla Vista,
California.”[6]
His name was
Elliot Rodger. He,
began his attack by stabbing two male roommates and a
visiting friend: Cheng Yuan Hong, Weihan Wang, and George Chen. He then drove
to the Alpha Phi sorority at the UC Santa Barbara campus, opening fire outside
and in other nearby locations. He killed three more people — Katherine Cooper,
Christopher Michaels-Martinez, and Veronika Weiss — and wounded 14 more before
turning his gun on himself. All of the dead were UCSB students.[7]
In all of
the articles that I read about the Incel community, they all noted that this
action by Eliot Rodgers was a turning point. Long before this Incel young men
had encouraged each other to say and think and even do horrible things, but to
more moderate Incels like the aforementioned ReformedIncel, this was the moment
they knew that their more moderate side had lost, and parts of the community
were taking a very dark turn.
And Elliot
Rodgers has not been the only one to a lash out in violence,
The incel ideology has already inspired the murders of at
least sixteen people. Elliot Rodger, in 2014, in Isla Vista, California, killed
six and injured fourteen in an attempt to instigate a “War on Women” for
“depriving me of sex.” (He then killed himself.) Alek Minassian killed ten
people and injured sixteen, in Toronto, last month; prior to doing so, he
wrote, on Facebook, “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!” You might also
include Christopher Harper-Mercer, who killed nine people, in 2015, and left
behind a manifesto that praised Rodger and lamented his own virginity.[8]
Now, if you
would like to read more about these accounts of the darkening of the Incel
community, I refer you to this New Yorker article here, this Vox article here, and this much better Unherd
article here (the links are also in the
references). There is a heavy feminist bias in these articles, especially the
first two, but they all give a similar account of a growing social issue we
need to start thinking about how to address. For our purposes in this piece it
is important to note that there is a growing number of young men in the West
who are being given over to a violent political ideology around the injustices
of our modern deregulated sexual market place.[9]
Not all Incels would fit into category, as we have noted, but many do. This is
not only not surprising it is to be expected, there will never be equality in
this world, because it is impossible, but where inequities grow too large, this
has serious ramifications for the rest of society.
Effectively
what the feminist revolution and sexual revolution, the pill, and abortion have
done is caused our Western sexual marketplaces to become a free market zone,
where high sexual capital can buy you lots of sex and pleasure. The prettier
the woman, the more sexual capital she has. The better looking and more
successful a man is, the more he can corner the market on attractive women. This
has created a defacto polygamous culture, or more accurately polygynous,
society in the West. That is we have created a society where most of the women
are hoarded by a much smaller group of men. Since human beings are created for
relationship, and sex within a trusting, committed, and loving marriage, this
is leaving many young men frustrated.
This is the
natural effect of deregulation of sex. In a society where there is none, or very few,
sexual mores, the highest value men, will corner the market on many of the
highest value women, leaving a growing number of low value men out in the cold,
relationally and sexually. As women are the gatekeepers for sex, they will
largely drive this market. This is born out in the well known statistic that
close to 20% of men, get access to 80% of women on Tinder.[10]
Women largely determine who gets to have sex with them, and in today’s world it
is easier and easier for them to bypass the guys in their local communities who
may not quite cut the mustard, and hone in on the top 20% of men, through
dating apps and other means. Before feminists celebrate this seemingly
unstoppable power of feminine sexuality, we need to understand that this will
turn out very badly for women, and men, and hence society in general. This is
creating a ticking time bomb.
One of the
saddest tales of history, is how often you read of different civilisations
making the same mistakes as other civilisations prior to them, or around them.
Now you can forgive the Aztecs for making the same mistakes at the Sumerians,
or the Babylonians making some of the same mistakes at the Egyptians, or even
of the Romans making mistakes similar to the Persians. You can excuse much of
this to some degree because there was not as much historical knowledge that was
easy for all of the leaders of these societies to access, let alone the general
populace. Sure, it was there to some degree, but you had to really search it
out. Now the information about why past civilisations fell, and what makes society
unstable, is very easy to find, in fact it is all over the place, but still
largely ignored. But whether it was Augustus in the late first century BC and
early first century AD, or the Catholic Church in the early medieval era, or
even the regulations on marriage in the Hebrew Old Testament, you can see
various efforts of powerful leaders seeking to stabilize their societies by
regulating marriage, and making sure their society had a stable base to be
founded on.
One of the
founding principles of Western civilisation is the family unit, one man, one
wife, and their children. The Church was often at pains to stamp out polygamy,
and divorce and remarriage as much as it possibly could. The early Church, and
the Medieval Church were very strict on divorce and remarriage, and some of
this influence lasted until well into the modern era. Yes, the Romans and the
Greeks tended to frown on polygamy as well, but between allowing masters to
have sex with slaves and owning concubines they effectively allowed it. The
Church went much further in seeking to outlaw all of these practices, and was
really quite successful. Indeed, one of the reasons for the success of the West
can be credited to how well the Church regulated the sexual relationships of
its people. Of course, this is in no way to say that every westerner was a
chaste, upstanding, righteous person in this regard. But the Church recognized
that if sex was deregulated, all hell would break loose. The Bible is filled
with warnings about why this is so.
Now, I know
that most readers are aware that the Bible teaches that sex is a sacred gift to
be expressed and enjoyed in a loving marriage. But what you may not realize is
that history and even many cultures today, vindicate the Bible’s teaching on
marriage, and show why our society is in such danger right now. You see, this issue
is not unique to our modern culture, it is actually quite common. Having large
groups of sexually frustrated young men in our society is very dangerous, indeed
it is dangerous to any society. There are a plethora of examples that can be
given.
Perhaps the
most interesting example we can give of this, is the utter destruction and
restructuring of much of Europe by several centuries of Viking raids. A lot of
people are not aware of this, but an ancient, Scandinavian version of involuntary
celibacy was largely behind these raids. A French scholar, Dudo of St.
Quention, writing in the 11th century tells us:
Spread out within the huge space between the Danube and the
edge of the Sythian Sea, there dwell savage and barbarous peoples, which are
said to have sprung forth in various different ways from the island of Scanza,
hemmed in on both sides by the Ocean, like a swarm of bees from a hive, or like
a sword from a scabbard; as barbarians will…Now these people burn with too much
wanton lasciviousness, and with singular depravity debauch and mate with as
many women as they please; and so, by mingling together in illicit couplings
they generate innumerable children.” [11]
This is a
people who are incredibly sexually unrestrained compared to the contemporary
Christendom. But when it tells us that “…now these people burn with too much
wanton lasciviousness, and with singular depravity debauch and mate with as
many women as they please…”, we have to understand, that it was the powerful,
the successful, the desirable men who go to do this. Not every man. Many of the
younger, and poorer men, went without. Just as in the economy, so in the sexual
marketplace; when it is highly de-regulated you end up with the haves, have-nots,
and the have-a-lots.
Dudo goes on
to tell us:
When these have grown up, the clamour fiercely against their
fathers and their grandfathers, or more frequently against each other, for
shares of property; and as they are over-many, and the land they inhabit is not
large enough for them to live in, there is a very old custom by which a
multitude of youths is selected by lot and expelled into the realms of other
nations, to in kingdoms for themselves by fighting, where they can live in
uninterrupted peace.”[12]
The results
of these male raiders, which is what Viking means, are famous to all of us who
are aware of the Viking raids. But Dudo’s description of these men is quite
vivid:
For they are exiled by fathers, boldly to batter kings. They
are sent away without wealth from their own people, that they may enrich
themselves out of the plenty of foreigners. They are deprived of their own
lands, that they might be settled undisturbed on those of others. They are
expelled as exile, that they may be rewarded as warriors. They are thrust out
by their own people that they may share with aliens. They are separated from
their own nation, that they may rejoice in possessing others. They are
abandoned by their fathers, perhaps never again to be seen by their mothers.
The ferocity of the young men is aroused, and the nations are destroyed…“Wives
are repeatedly raped, and lamentable led off for the stranger. The whole virgin
sex is basely deflowered by those men.”[13]
A
seventeenth scholar, Camden makes the same point, and explains that “‘Wikings’
were selected by lot from among the young men of an overpopulated area and sent
abroad to avoid civil strife, after they had ‘multiply'd themselves to a
burdensom community’.”[14]
These young
men were unleashed on the world, with the blessing of their gods, their nation and their
fathers, and were sent to ravage foreign lands, and make for themselves wealth,
families and lineages. In other words, what we see here, is that young men were
driven to rape and pillage by the effect of the highly unregulated sexual
market place of their home cultures. The powerful men monopolized everything,
money, land, women and more and the young men were sent off to find it
elsewhere, which they did, with wanton destruction. The results are burned into
the cultural memories of most westerners.
Modern
scholars explain the cultural pressures in Scandinavia in the 8th to
11th centuries that drove the Vikings to murderous rampage, raping
and pillaging this way:
Because polygynous marriage increases male–male competition
by creating a pool of unmarried men, its occurrence within a society is
predicted to increase risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviours among
men, potentially leading to increased rates of murder, theft, rape, social
disruption, kidnapping (especially of women), sexual slavery, prostitution, and
– among high-status men – risky bids for political power.[15]
As I said, the
problem we are facing with Incels is not unique, these trends are based in
inherent human desires and needs. Young men are created to desire young women,
and to pursue them, if they don’t have healthy ways to achieve this, then this
turns bad for a nation, or surrounding nations. Despite what many of the
feminists are writing, this is not a phenomenon that exits just in the straight-white-men
they love to demonize and vociferously write against. All we have to do is look
at the African continent today, to see how destabilizing polygamous cultures
are.
Africa
serves as a stark warning to the West because polygamy is still a common
practice across the African continent, and is deeply engrained in many African
countries, and has incredibly harmful effects. For example, in Sudan,
Men in South Sudan typically marry as often as their
wealth—often measured in cattle—will allow. Perhaps 40% of marriages are
polygamous. “In [our] culture, the more family you have, the more people
respect you,” says William, a young IT specialist in search of his second wife
(his name, like some others in this article, has been changed). Having studied
in America and come back to his home village, he finds that he is wealthy by
local standards. So why be content with just one bride?[16]
In Sudan, if
you can afford more than one wife, then you will take more than one wife. But look
at the effect this has on such societies like Sudan:
Wherever it is widely practised, polygamy (specifically
polygyny, the taking of multiple wives) destabilises society, largely because
it is a form of inequality which creates an urgent distress in the hearts, and
loins, of young men. If a rich man has a Lamborghini, that does not mean that a
poor man has to walk, for the supply of cars is not fixed. By contrast, every
time a rich man takes an extra wife, another poor man must remain single. If
the richest and most powerful 10% of men have, say, four wives each, the bottom
30% of men cannot marry. Young men will take desperate measures to avoid this
state.[17]
The result
of this is not hard to imagine, because we just saw the result of it in the
Viking lands of Scandinavia. If you cannot find a wife in your community, or if
you cannot find one the honest way you have to find one the good old-fashioned
Viking way. So in Sudan, and similar countries, young men will form bands to
raid other communities to steal their cattle, to get the riches they need to
find a wife.[18]
Or they will go to even greater lengths as well:
This is one of the reasons why the Arab Spring erupted, why
the jihadists of Boko Haram and Islamic State were able to conquer swathes of
Nigeria, Iraq and Syria, and why the polygamous parts of Indonesia and Haiti
are so turbulent. Polygamous societies are bloodier, more likely to invade
their neighbours and more prone to collapse than others are. The taking of
multiple wives is a feature of life in all of the 20 most unstable countries on
the Fragile States Index compiled by the Fund for Peace, an NGO.[19]
How many men
have been spurred on to terrorism just to get the notoriety and wealth they
needed to start a family? This may seem foreign to us, but this is a reality in
many parts of our world, both present, and past. Precisely because they do not
adequately regulate the sexual market place, and caused too many young men to
turn to wicked means to get what their fathers and wealthier neighbours already
have.
So, while to
many men the idea of polygamy might sound good, hey if it was ok for King
David, why not for a modern business executive right? The truth is that it
undermines the ability for your society to function in a healthy way. It
creates vast quantities of young men, with nothing to lose, and lots to gain
from illicit and dangerous behaviour. It is not hard to see that the West has a
ticking time bomb sitting right within its borders, and this is a direct result
of the sexual revolution.
So as I said
women, your new found sexual power might seem liberating, but your daughters or
your granddaughters might suffer terribly from your loose feminist sexual
mores, because as we see in history, there is a massive snap back that comes as
a result of any social inequity that grows to large. Just as the lavish wealth
of the French nobility made the French revolution inevitable, so does the
hoarding of women by less and less men, make societal unrest inevitable. The
evidence is there, all around in the world today, and all through history.
Polygamous societies are dangerous, and the West is now effectively a
polygamous society in all but name.
If you read some
of the articles on Incels that I have mentioned above, or referenced below you
will see that there are some dangerous currents in the Incel movement, and the
people who wrote those articles are rightly concerned. But I could not help but
note that some of the feminists behind those articles were forgetting that some
early feminists could be just as dangerous as some Incels are appearing to be
today. Unbeknownst to many people is that the early suffragettes were given to
acts of terrorism as well
In the years leading up to the First World War, the
suffragettes conducted a ferocious and prolonged bombing campaign across the
whole of the United Kingdom; planting improvised explosive devices (or IEDs) in
places as varied as Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of
England, the National Gallery, railway stations and many other locations.[20]
Indeed, the
first terrorist bomb that that exploded in Ireland in the 20th
century was Planted by suffragettes, not the IRA.[21]
“They also invented the letter bomb.”[22]
Who says women cannot be pioneers hey? These were not just lone wolf attacks
either, they were being directed and supported by the feminist suffragette
leadership.[23]
The picture of suffragettes being only peaceful protestors and concerned
citizens is quite incomplete. There were deep connections between the feminist
movement and radical socialist movements, indeed, the feminist movement was a
wing of the radical socialists of the era.[24]
It still is today. Indeed most equalitarian movements are. And so if modern
Incels tend towards extreme right wing ideology today, it is important to
remember that many feminists tended towards extreme left wing ideology in the
past, as well.
None of this
is to excuse the excesses of these young men who are tending towards
radicalism. It is just to highlight that when people are desperate and become
radicalized they will be much more likely to engage in very dangerous behaviour
and take out their grievances on those whom they consider to be the cause of
their woes. This is what we don’t want to happen. What we want to see is young
men get married, get a wife, and build their societies for future generations.
However, if
our society continues to practice this highly deregulated sexual market, with
very few men monopolizing most of the women, then we are in a very high danger
of social instability reaching war like levels. One needs only need look across
the Indian Ocean to Africa, or even north to India and China to see the size of
the potential dangers:
India and China both have an extremely ‘burdensom community’
of spare males. The normal ratio of newborn boys to girls is around 105:100.
But as Mara Hvistendahl documents in Unnatural Selection, thanks to prenatal
ultrasound and sex-selective abortion the ratio in China is around 118:100, and
108:100 in India. In some regions of India, the ratio rises as high as 150
males to 100 females. Though sex-selective technology is now banned in India,
it’s still widespread, and the country now has some 37 million more men than
women. Studies estimate that China has around 30 million excess men.[25]
Historically,
in China, these men have been referred to as ‘bare branches’,[26]
and China, as well as other nations have redirected the energy of their bare
branches exactly as you would expect:
Historically a common solution to the problem of ‘bare
branches’ has been to divert them from domestic trouble-making to foreign
expansionist warfare. The Viking raids on Britain were one result of this; so
was the conquest of Ceuta. Joao I of Portugal, the illegitimate son of King
Peter I, came to power with the help of their own variety of ‘bare branches’ in
1385. But when he realised that their piracy and robbery posed risks to his own
rule, he sent them off to seek status and resources by invading North Africa
instead, kicking off a long and ugly history of European colonialism on that
continent, the repercussions of which still echo today.[27]
If the
effects of there not being enough wives in a small, poor and remote country
like Sudan are dangerous for that society, and those surrounding it, what is
the potential danger when two of the fastest rising powers find that they need
to deal with this issue? Add to this, the growing number of young men in the
West who are tending towards extreme views because of their involuntary celibacy,
and you can see that we have a real problem on our hands. I don’t even think it
is potential, I think it is guaranteed, something is going to give, if we don’t
find a way to solve it now.
Thankfully,
as with so many other issues, the Bible gives us the solution to our Incel issue:
…But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man
should have his own wife and each woman her own husband…8 To the unmarried and
the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. 9 But if
they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry
than to burn with passion.[28]
In other
words, we need to regulate the sexual market place, so as to give every young
man and young woman a reasonable chance of finding a spouse. Some level of
competition is inevitable, but there is productive competition, and destructive
competition. A free-for-all, causes most people to lose out in the long term.
This regulation should ensure
that that the competition for sexual partners is competition for who can get
the best bride or husband, not who can get the most women. It is clear to see
that the Bible’s morality is not theoretical, it is foundational to a healthy
and stable society. God knows best.
Now right away, I imagine people saying: wait a second, God permitted polygamy in the Old
Testament, surely then it is ok? But he commanded people not to take too many
wives,[29]
also the Old Testament gives us many examples of the pain that polygamy causes
(see the account of Jacob and his wives for example), and in Genesis 2 it shows
us God’s intention for the perfect creation was one man, and one wife: “24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his
wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both
naked and were not ashamed.”[30]
God clearly intended the marriage relationship to be a union between one man
and one woman, and he himself reiterated this when he walked the earth:
3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is
it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not
read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5
and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast
to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two
but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.[31]
This
teaching was then continued by Paul, in his household codes:
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and
gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by
the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to
himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might
be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their
wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one
ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does
the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 ‘Therefore a man shall
leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become
one flesh.’[32]
This has
been the consistent teaching in the Church since its inception. “Marriage was regarded
in the Church from the beginning as a sacred union of body and soul for the
propagation of civil society, and the kingdom of God, for the existence
of virtue and the promotion of happiness” (emphasis mine).[33]
Is this, frankly, not obvious? The early church saw one man and one woman as
the basis for a civil and virtuous society and they, as we have seen, were
absolutely right.
Some, like
Tertullian, were so against polygamy that they condemned both successive and
simultaneous polygamy.[34]
That is he condemned remarrying after divorce or after a wife dies, and having
more than one wife at once. I think condemning remarriage after a spouse passes
goes too far, and is beyond scripture which supports marrying after your spouse
has passed on, but it does highlight how dangerous polygamy has been viewed in
Church history, and therefore we should take note of this. The early Church was
at pains to make sure that sexual behaviour had a healthy outlet, and was
regulated. Sex is like a tiger, you let it roam free in a civilized area and it
will create much death and destruction. This is not theoretical at all.
Indeed, the
early Church was at pains to see that Christians who committed adultery were
punished, precisely because they took seriously the warnings about how
destructive sexually unregulated societies were:
[Marriage] was in its nature indissoluble except in the case
of adultery, and this crime was charged not only to the woman, but to the man
as even the more guilty party, and to every extra-connubial carnal connection.
Thus the wife was equally protected against the wrongs of the husband, and
chastity was made the general law of family life.[35]
This was a
big step ahead of Roman, and other pagan societies which allowed men to commit
adultery, but punished the women. The Church was determined that this “sacred
union of body and soul for the propagation of civil society, and the kingdom of
God, for the existence of virtue and the promotion of happiness” was the basis
of any society in which it had influence and power. Because it is the best
structure for a stable society, and it honours how God created humans to be.
Sex is an ever-pervasive
force in our society, and therefore as Paul says above “…because of the
temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each
woman her own husband.” We should again start to frown on things like wanton
divorce and remarriage, in fact adultery is so destabilizing for a culture, we
should seriously consider ways to legally disincentivize it. Sexual promiscuity
should be seen as the civilisation destroying force that it is, not just as a
lifestyle choice. You might find it abhorrent to even think of legally
regulating such behaviours, but look at Sudan, large swaths of North Africa and
the Middle East, the Vikings and more. The results of allowing our sexual
culture to progress, as it is progressing, will be much more abhorrent to those
who face the consequences of our inaction.
Not so long-ago
marriage was more prevalent in the community, more men had a reason to get up
in the morning to provide for their families, and Incels were a much rarer
phenomenon. But now it is a growing one:
The number of American men under 30 who have never had sex
tripled between 2008 and 2018 — but hasn’t risen nearly as rapidly for women.
The only plausible explanation is that women are still having sex, but they’re
competing for a smaller pool of desirable men and leaving the rest on the
shelf. So even with normal sex ratios, our culture is creating a sort of
flotsam of sexual no-hopers, composed of those males who simply aren’t
impressive enough to attract anyone even for a fling, let alone a committed
relationship. In case anyone is tempted to dismiss this as harmless losers
posting misogynistic memes, remember incels go on actual killing sprees.[36]
You don’t
have to be a rocket scientist to know what is going to happen if this problem
grows and escalates. You don’t even need to be a Christian. You just need to
open your eyes, observe many countries in the world today, and many in history,
and see what the effects of large numbers of dissatisfied, frustrated men can
do to society.
But this
problem can be mitigated by working towards the advice Paul the Apostle gives
us: “…but because of the
temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each
woman her own husband.” I know I am repeating myself here, but I think it is
necessary, and what is cool is you don’t even have to look to Christian
countries to see this advice being taken. A “Saudi Arabian deradicalisation
programme essentially involved getting extremists married, and has proved very
effective.”[37]
Of course it did, a married man has every reason to work for a stable society,
not an unstable one.
Put a load
on a ute and it drives straighter and better. Put a loving load on a young
man’s back, and it has the same effect. The occasional young man who doesn’t
have a wife is sad, a growing number of such men is a tragedy, if it grows to
large it is a danger to our whole way of life. It is time for the modern West
to stop playing with fire. The problem with modern society is really that it
has the collective wisdom of a 21-year-old. It thinks it knows everything, but
basically knows nothing. There is a solution to this growing issue, it’s time
to reject the modern sexular culture, and revive the morality of our ancestors,
the morality of the teachings of Jesus and Paul, and the morality, that helped
make the West great: each man with his own wife, and each woman with her own
husband.
List of
References (all scripture references are from the ESV, unless otherwise
stated).
[1]Beauchamp, Zach, 2019. “Our incel problem - How a support
group for the dateless became one of the internet’s most dangerous subcultures.”
Vox: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit, accessed 17/09/2020.
[2] Tolentino,
Jia, 2018. “The Rage of the Incels - Incels aren’t really looking for sex.
They’re looking for absolute male supremacy.” New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rage-of-the-incels,
accessed 17/09/2020.
[3]Beauchamp,
Zach, 2019. “Our incel problem - How a support group for the dateless became
one of the internet’s most dangerous subcultures.” Vox:
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit,
accessed 17/09/2020.
[4]
Ibid.
[5] Tolentino,
Jia, 2018. “The Rage of the Incels - Incels aren’t really looking for sex.
They’re looking for absolute male supremacy.” New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rage-of-the-incels,
accessed 17/09/2020.
[6] Beauchamp,
Zach, 2019. “Our incel problem - How a support group for the dateless became
one of the internet’s most dangerous subcultures.” Vox:
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit,
accessed 17/09/2020.
[7]
Ibid
[8] Tolentino,
Jia, 2018. “The Rage of the Incels - Incels aren’t really looking for sex.
They’re looking for absolute male supremacy.” New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rage-of-the-incels,
accessed 17/09/2020.
[9] Ibid
[10] Worst-online-dater,
2015. “Tinder Experiments II: Guys, unless you are really hot you are probably
better off not wasting your time on Tinder — a quantitative socio-economic
study.” Medium: https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-your-2ddf370a6e9a,
accessed 18/09/2020.
[11]Dudo,
Dean of St. Quentin, 1998. History of the Normans, translated by Eric
Christiansen, The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, p15.
[12]
Ibid, p15.
[13]
Ibid, p16-17.
[14] Collar,
Mark et. al, 2015. “Male-biased operational sex ratios and the Viking
phenomenon: an evolutionary anthropological perspective on Late Iron Age
Scandinavian raiding.” Evolution and Human Behaviour, issue 38, pp315-324.
p315.
[15] Ibid,
p318.
[16] Lahore
and Wau, 2017. “The perils of polygamy: The link between polygamy and war.” The
Economist: https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2017/12/19/the-link-between-polygamy-and-war,
accessed 18/09/2020.
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Ibid.
[19] Ibid
[20] Sky
News Opinion, 2018. “Letter bombs and IEDs: Were the suffragettes terrorists?” Sky
News: https://news.sky.com/story/women-would-have-got-the-vote-earlier-if-not-for-suffragette-terrorists-11227772,
accessed 19/09/2020.
[21]
Ibid.
[22]
Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24]
Faxneld, Per. 2017. “Romantic and Socialist Satanism” in Satanic Femisnism:
Lucifer as Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture, Oxford University
Press, New York: pp74-108.
[25] Harrington,
Mary, 2020. “Incels could become the new Vikings: Our culture is creating a
flotsam of sexual no-hopers — with disastrous consequences.” Unherd: https://unherd.com/2020/06/incels-could-become-the-new-vikings/,
accessed 19/09/2020.
[26]
Ibid
[27]
Ibid
[28] 1
Corinthians 7:2, 8-9
[29] Deuternomy
17:17
[30] Genesis
2:24-25
[31] Matthew
19:3-6
[32] Ephesians
5:25-31
[33]
Schaff, Philip, 1987. A History of the Christian Church. William B. Eerdmans:
Michigan. P363.
[34] Ibid,
p367.
[35] Ibid,
[36] Harrington,
Mary, 2020. “Incels could become the new Vikings: Our culture is creating a
flotsam of sexual no-hopers — with disastrous consequences.” Unherd: https://unherd.com/2020/06/incels-could-become-the-new-vikings/,
accessed 19/09/2020.
[37]
Ibid.
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