@geoff1000 I'm glad you mentioned that connection to "addict". I think you are right about that. I'm one who has been among those self defined recovering addicts, since about 33 years ago. While I've been continually abstinent during that time my struggles have been about changing ideas to adapt to living in sobriety, a lifelong process. I imagine it as looking for rotted framing timbers in a house, and maintaining the structure by replacing them with solid new timbers. One marked difference in our analogies is that the romantic supply involves another consenting human, presumably. My take on the incel community is that it assumes that the supply is the problem. I see this as being fed by the traditional male dominance in society.
It seems to me that "incel shaming" is the same as "virgin shaming", only one is socially acceptable and the other is not. That being the one used against men being socially acceptable, and not the one used against women. It's a sexist double standard.
@BrianL I don't consider a virgin an incel in the least. I consider an incel to be associated with a pattern of behaviors and beliefs that are potentially dangerous and promote misogyny, violence , and rape. It is apples and oranges
Almost any woman who wants to have sex with a consenting man, just has to get drunk in the wrong time and place ; so they are not INvoluntarily celebate. Most of them who are celibate, are so by choice. In "Grease", Sandra Dee is mocked by her friends, for making that choice.
The "double standard" is based on the anatomy ; that it is much more difficult for a woman to have sex with a non-consenting man, than for a man to have sex with a non-consenting woman.
An Incel man may decide ( or be persuaded by an Internet forum ) to either ignore female consent, or to be violent towards non-consenting females without having sex. An "Incel" female by contrast, might engage in a one-night stand and then disappear, which is a criminal offence in only a few very strongly religious countries.
@geoff1000 you've taken this in a very weird direction. In particular your first sentence:
"Almost any woman who wants to have sex with a consenting man, just has to get drunk in the wrong time and place ; so they are not INvoluntarily celebate."
This is possibly the strangest and most offensive thing I've ever read on this forum, which is saying a lot. At first glance I interpreted it as "It's a lot easier for women to get laid." That's obviously true. But after a closer look, and in the context of the rest of your post, you seem to be saying, "Women can't be involuntarily celibate because they can get raped any time they want to." What in the world made you decide to make this discussion about rape or imply that rape would be a desirable way to lose one's virginity? Or imply that rape-ability is the cause of the different levels of stigmatization of male and female celibacy? Honestly your posts are often weird and divert the flow of conversation, but this one takes the cake.
@SanFranResident You reworded my post as, "they can get raped any time they want to."
"Wanting" means they are consenting, so by definition, it isn't rape. "Consesual rape" is an oxymoron.
I'm sure there are women who get drunk in the wrong place, who don't want to have sex ; and we properly punish men who exploit that.
I don't think that the ability of a woman to so easily have consensual sex, makes up for their continual risk of having non-consenual sex ; and "Incel" men who complain at this double standard, shouldn't be jealous.