incel Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com

Incel, perhaps ironically, begins with a woman.

In 1997, a woman from Toronto thought to create an online community for singleswho had limited experience with romantic relationships and sex. First, she needed a name.Identifying as bisexual, Alana knew the power of labels. She wanted a neutral designation for people like her that was less judgmental thanterms likelonely virgin.

After considering late bloomer, perpetually single, and dating-shy, Alana landed on involuntary celibacypeople who arent having sex or intimate relations but not for lack of desire or effort.(Dating back to the 1600s, the wordcelibacyoriginally refers to the willing abstention from sex and marriage by priests, hence Alanas distinguishinginvoluntary.)

That May, Alana launched Alanas Involuntary Celibacy Project. By fall, she created an email list for members, shortening involuntary celibacy to INVCEL, which becameincel for easier pronunciation.

Her project starting growing, though male members outnumbered females. After a few years, she handed over the reins and moved on. She lost contact with the incel community until2014 when she was horrified to learn a self-proclaimed incel, Elliot Rodger, massacred six people and injured many more in Isla Vista, California.

The incel community had metastasized. In 2013,incelslaunched the subreddit r/incel, which eventually amassed over 40,000 members. On the message board, some took to calling all women sluts and embodying evil. Others accused women of denying them sex and blaming them for their perceived victimhood. Yet others advocated for rape and sexual violence against women, leading Reddit to ban the group in 2017.

Back in Toronto in April, 2018, a young man,Alek Minassian, plowed a van through a crowd, killing ten and injuring more. It was discovered that, prior to his attack, he posted a since-deleted message on Facebook pledging allegiance to the Incel Rebellion and its Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodgera second act of terror invoking incel.

Incelhad gone from an inclusive, sensitive term for people sharing their experiences and struggles with love, sex, and relationships to the moniker for a virulently and violently misogynistic group.

For her part, Alana has launched a new project. She is calling it Love Not Anger.

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incel Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com