r/bropill • u/ThePlayer3K • 2d ago
Asking the brosđȘ Autistic guys who escaped redpill/incel: what steered you away from it?
Autistic guys are way to easy to co-opt to these movements, so I want to know what led you to escape or leave them
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u/FarmerLeading5234 1d ago
Not autistic but I was steered away by Elliott Rodger and listening to his diary
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u/PeachFreezer1312 1d ago
The mass shooter? How did it change your mind?
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u/FarmerLeading5234 1d ago
I donât wanna be remembered as a monster is the main thing. Itâs okay to struggle a bit and itâs natural to have a bit of envy, but to have that level of delusion and entitlement can take you to a point where you become irredeemable. Itâs vital not to take out your frustration on others, especially those who have nothing to do with you and your life.
Iâm human and Iâve had violent thoughts, eventually I became a bit scared of myself and I wanted to end it all.
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u/PixelBushYT 1d ago edited 1d ago
I remembered who the real enemy is. Tech oligarchs shoving noxious content into our algorithms, billionaires and the politicians they've bought sowing discord to keep us fighting among each other, bickering about who has it worse, instead of understanding that nobody should have it worse, and the only people who stand to benefit from the many being divided are the few who exploit them.
No war but class war.
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u/Interminably-Bored 1d ago
This was also it for me, it gave me the lens I needed to understand that I was largely being manipulated and would continue to be, and keeping that in mind is a huge help for keeping new propaganda from piling up on your psyche too fast (I hope, you are not immune to propaganda).
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u/Severe_Driver3461 1d ago
This because all of the waters are muddied. There's usually something bigger, systematic going on when there is a problem with every move you make and there's no right move. An example that references the top comment from u/GrowBeyond
If a guy pays for the date, I can't tell if he is seriously interested or just trying to rush into bed (okay, 100% of the time it's been the 2nd one looking back, so maybe a guy paying is a red flag?). If a guy doesn't pay, that just means we are casually getting know each other at a comfortable pace, right? Wrong, they still try to rush into bed. So not paying has still always been a red flag in my experience. I don't know what else to do because I make it clear early on, in both situations, that I move slow so things still don't add up
Maybe the traditional way of dating can't keep up with human evolution. What if that was shaped by the upper class way back when, too? What if fertile pairs being the only "moral" and normal thing is yet another abstract way to control the masses and produce human capital (as they call it in business)? What if so many people cheating or just barely holding back from it means that most people aren't actually monogamous? What is our true nature and what purpose is it being constricted for??
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
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u/GrowBeyond 1d ago
Logic, tbh. I've always found it appealing, in the sense that there's a clear need being met, but in the WORST possible way. We DO need "PUA" advice. But can you imagine if we optimized for comfort, (and therefore consent?) Literally everyone would benefit so much.
There was this terrible incel creator, but he actually made one great point. Doing more and more to please someone who is putting in less and less effort, reduces your value in their eyes. And worst of all, it lowers your self worth. And the answer isn't "NEVER SPEND MONEY ON HOES," it's just... look for normal social signals of cooperation. We go out for coffee because it's a small, affordable way to signal cooperation. If a girl offers to pay, that's a green flag. If she indirectly makes you feel like you need to buy dinner, that's a red flag.
Somewhere along the line, it's like we gave up on self respect, and therefore respecting anyone else. It's a shame.
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u/AstronomicalStress she/her 1d ago
I think youâre (probably intentionally) hitting on a really important aside here: treating women as full people and individuals means recognizing that some of us are fucking dickheads, in a way that need not be ascribed to gender.
Dating sucks because people suck, not because women or men at large do. It just gets sticky when outdated gender roles try to convince us to bear poor treatment under the guise of âthatâs just what women/men doâ
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u/die_eating 19h ago
Thanks for saying this. Yay to anyone who resists the bigotry of judging people for their "group" rather than who they are as individuals.
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u/Wonderful-Wonder3104 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think itâs important to know that most girls are taught itâs a green flag when a man pays. And you should give him the opportunity because that will make him feel better and strong.
As a feminist, i donât buy into this, because Iâve find extorting someone to contribute monetarily, will bite you in the butt. But still, i think itâs important we both understand the reality of the situation
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u/Shadowchaos1010 1d ago
While I understand "green flag," I almost feel like the more accurate way to describe it is that the women and girls of today are being raised wrong.
The time their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers were from when it was more expected (required, really) and, more importantly, feasible, to expect the man to foot the bill, are long gone.
What worked for the older women in their lives increasingly cannot work for them because it is economically and socially unrealistic these days. But it's the only model they have, so they literally don't know any better. Probably doesn't help that they were indirectly propagandized by all of the "Happily Ever After, Prince saves the princess and gives her the world" stories of our youth.
If you were raised by a grandma who had grandpa buy everything, saw him and your dad bring home the bacon, and are surrounded by media where men are always the ones to save the day and give the girl the world from before your first memory forms, you could very easily just ignore the reality of the economy and job market getting to a point where a guy simply cannot afford to do that for you unless he was born into wealth, super lucky to not get fucked by the economy, or significantly older than you. The last one being its own can of worms.
I personally think of it (no matter the gender of the person holding the view) as them effectively acting like it's still the 1950s.
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u/KingAggressive1498 Brolosopher 1d ago
as far as terrible creators making great points goes, I feel like that's the kind of the case with the manosphere as a whole once you get past the straight up grifters.
Their complaints are always a wonky combination of entitlement, fearing predictable if negative consequences of their own exploitative habits (which are ofc socially encouraged), and things that roughly correlate with actual gender studies work on masculinity.
Their advice tends to be a blend of rigid patriarchal adherence and reaching somewhat blindly for a more genuine form of self-worth.
And its become challenging to just talk about the legitimate things that are there in general discussion spaces without getting labelled an incel or "masculinist" even though they wouldn't be out of place in a book focused on deconstructing masculinity. And it even happens in mens' spaces and support spaces to a lesser extent.
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u/GrowBeyond 17h ago
Sooo true. Written communication is supposed to allow us to judge the content regardless of the source, but even the words we use are identifiers.
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u/Wide-Affect-3837 1d ago
Hit the nail on the fucking head holy shit. The dating scene seems to be 2 ridiculous extremes of pay for nothing or provide for everything, and itâs gotten fucked because of it. Compromise and cooperation isnât dead yet, but itâs pretty dead adjacent rn
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u/die_eating 1d ago
It took a strange path for me to get there, but I realized sex was a byproduct of the resource I truly sought: connection.Â
This realization led me to de-program myself and start optimizing for  connection rather than sex, which decoupled me from the redpilled rat race mindset.Â
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u/plopliplopipol 1d ago
Very real, i could have the sex life of a monk and a lot of loving friends men and women and be happy forever, i would never be happy with sex and without friends (even if you add any amount of money and fame)... would anyone? Luckily sexual relationships also come from generaly creating loving relationships.
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u/NotacookbutEater 1d ago
Not autistic (at least no diagnosis). The red pillers (e.g.. Rollo Tomassi, Andrew Tate, Richard Cooper etc.) have a philosophy that a guy needs to get into 1% of men in terms of money, girls and physique. It takes a tremendous time and effort to be in top 1% in only one single category. Being in top 1% when it comes to girls would mean that you are constantly fucking different women. Maybe someone likes only pump and dump, but constant "spinning plates" does not sound pleasing if you seek for long stable monogamic relationship. Or just loving long-term relationship. Being in top 1% of finances would require owning a huge company, managing a company also takes a lot of time. Then being in a top 1% of physique requires a strict diet and regular and intense exercise. All this while you have only 24 hours in a day.
In a nutshell, the ideology seems unrealistic and some kind of teenage dream (emphasis on the word dream). In my opinion it is better to think what you need and want. Then you go for it. No book or philosophy can exactly tell how you should live.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/wheatgrass_feetgrass Brohemian Rhapsody 1d ago
This is a weird take. It's like you just forgot about lesbians. Lesbians don't crash out over dating apps even though gay women are just as picky as straight ones. The only difference is they are ALSO picky so they understand and accept that opportunities are going to be few and far between.
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u/BigDracula_ 1d ago
This is the real lesson behind the data that says how often men and women swipe right on average, I think. If you are thinking about who would be right for you then naturally you're going to say Yes to less people, and it is logical that it is going to take time to "find someone". You have to be realistic not about what you can achieve, but what you want. You're never going to be the guy every woman wants, but you can figure out how to best present yourself to attract the type of person you are attracted to specifically.
You'll see the argument that women on apps swipe on 5% of men as evidence that 95% are doomed, but that doesn't mean every woman swipes right on the same 5% of men.
Being picky is good for you, even if just as a psychological defense against rejection (but not only as that).
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u/GrowBeyond 1d ago
Ehhh. I've seen a lot, a lot of lesbians complain about the difficulties of dating women. Well, it's usually the bi women complaining, actually. And even then, it's a different dynamic when you have a male profile. It's ok to admit that different identities have different struggles.
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u/plopliplopipol 1d ago
Please provide your source of data to say that women who do create a fake male profile (why?) always become "upset and frustrated".
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u/orbital_actual 1d ago
Iâm diagnosed, but never came close to entertaining any of that ideology, and itâs really simple. Take a good look at what it produces. Do you want to be like those people? Or do you want something better for yourself and the people around you?
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u/m_carp 1d ago
I had (still have) a solid friend group who are also Autistic/adhd who were willing to let me know that the ideas I was hearing at the time didn't make any sense.
Dudes: show up for your bros and don't be afraid to tell them that they are being stupid.
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u/Sir_Nerdbird 1d ago
My experience isn't quite to do with the relationship aspect of red pill/incel ideology, but I'm going to put it here just in case it's helpful.
I was a teenager a little before the manosphere stuff really took off (I'm 22 now), but I think the thing that pushed me away from feminism for a long time was the feeling that I was only really just seen as a threat first and person second. I went to an all-boys high school where a lot of time and effort was put into telling us how everyone fundamentally has equal value and that we should strive to ensure everyone had a voice. That judging people on the basis of race or sexual orientation or cultural background was deplorable, and that one of the best things you could do was call it out.
So when some of the girls in my extended social sphere started talking about how men were fundamentally dangerous and threw around rape statistics to justify it, I was quite firm in saying that this wasn't ok. I wasn't expecting praise, but the number of people who suddenly jumped up to defend it scared me. I was very nearly socially ostracised from that group of friends.
The sex ed I got at school was basically just "here's how to put a condom on, now watch this series of 4 clips to show how sexually assaulting someone will ruin your life". It felt like the whole thing was trying to protect the world from us, rather than helping us go through life safely.
I'm autistic. A part of that is that I feel strongly about the "fairness" of how rules are applied. So when I'd been taught for so long that making generalisations about groups of people was unfair, and then people who claimed to care about equality started doing it to me, it made me assume they were demagogues just trying to get on top themselves.
Honestly, the way I got out of that was just realising that feminism isn't "man bad" (and anyone trying to tell you otherwise, regardless of who they are, is preaching hate). Learning about how the patriarchy forces men and women into boxes that demand "you must be this or you are a failure" made me a lot happier to engage with feminism more generally. I felt a lot more comfortable thinking about how the systems I was a part of were structurally designed to disadvantage women when the solution was about bringing women up rather than punching men down. I'm definitely not saying that patriarchy is just as bad for men as women, but I went from feeling like I was being held personally accountable for a system I had no responsibility for to feeling like I was helping make society better for everyone, with extra focus on those who are particularly marginalised.
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u/pres1033 1d ago
When I was 18-20 years old, I got super into the whole Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk circle, was coming home from work and binging content like that. Then I got into a group of friends, primarily women and LGBT people, who made me start seeing the cracks in that ideology. Now I can't even figure out why I was into them in the first place, I can clearly see they're full of hate.
There's 100% some guys who can't be brought out, but a lot of the guys in the red pill/incel group are just lonely and are there because they feel validated. Whenever I see people throwing hate on them, I try to point out that you're just dumping gasoline on the fires that people like Kirk and Tate are lighting.
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u/Dudewhocares3 1d ago edited 1d ago
I donât really know.
I remember in 2016, I came back from my summer job, stayed up late watching YouTube videos like Leafy is here, and dr wolfula (dr wolfula is cool by the way, leafy is a man child who refused to grow up) and then this guy, Dr Shayme made a vid about the buzz feed feminist video, and he introduced valid problems like male rape victims not being taken seriously, the deluth model, male rape being forced to pay child support for the woman that raped them and got pregnant from it, false accusations (which make up a small amount of the statistics) etc.
And then I got recommended vids by James allsup, no bullshit, and wild smile.
I donât know what got me out of it. I think itâs that I never really bought into the bullshit 100% but I did start arguments with people in 2018 theorizing that aunt may and the female doc ock in the spider-verse movie dated, and I was one of those anti SJW peopleâŠ
In 2018, I got a reddit account. And I got my ass kicked in a lot of conversations, and I realized I was being a dumbass.
I donât know what got me out. I think it was summer 2020 when the George Floyd shit happened, and I saw the way Trump handled it and how he handled Covid and I never supported him. I always thought he was not qualified, but when he won I thought âok, well letâs give him a chance, maybe he knows what heâs doingâ
He didnât. And I know the grab em by the pussy thing was public knowledge, but I guess it just didnât click for me.
I wasnât the worst person, but I was still an asshole.
I think itâs that I was willing to listen, that I read a lot of abuse threads about women and men suffering, andâŠIâm sorry this is a mess, Iâm kinda all over the place here.
All I know is that I got out. I canât pin what did it, but I know it came to a head in 2020.
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u/Rare_Improvement561 1d ago edited 1d ago
Idk if Iâm autistic but in early highschool I was a bit predisposed to the incel/right wing rhetoric. Blaming girls for my romantic ineptitude that sort of thing. Bad self esteem didnât help.
I was lucky enough to have a couple good friends who were girls I could confide in/ask for advice. They always set me straight and forced me to see things from the other side. Overtime I grew out of the right wing âSJW cringe compilationâ shit and realized what my values really were. I think I was quite lucky in that idk how I might have broken that line of thought on my own at the time. Iâm sure I always would have grown out of it but idk how long itâd have taken. Sadly a lot of guys that age arenât in positions to have that âangel on the shoulderâ girl best friend kind of friendship.
Eventually I learned from enough failures to be pretty good at the dating thing to have a couple long term relationships. My girlfriend of 2 years and I just yesterday adopted a kitten together. Lifeâs good.
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u/AkselTranquilo 1d ago
i was a virgin at 20 years old and i definitely had moments where i considered the sort of âblackpillâ thoughts of âoh this is never gonna happenâ and around the time i turned 18 i thought âomg itâs too late now what if i have sex and i have no idea what im doing itâll be so shamefulâ
and then reality happened. i met a nice girl, we were together for two years and we were both each otherâs first, she was the same age. we broke up in june and thoughts returned âoh no what if our sex was only good because she hadnât had sex with anyone else and iâm still just cluelessâ stupid stuff. i felt very empty and low on confidence. but i met a girl around september who was really nice and we hit it off. and then i figured it out, the only way to get girls, be the man i wanna be and have success by my standards is to stop judging myself so much.
the incel thought process ultimately stems from fear and âwhat ifâ scenarios. taking all information and stories about other people and saying âyeah but that doesnât apply to me because xyzâ. basically you expect way too much of yourself that no one else genuinely expects. and the only way to stop it is to chill tf out. stop judging yourself, get your shit together and have some trust, love and confidence in yourself.
anyways me and this girl go back to my place after our third date. i was nervous but it went really well. we end up having sex. not because i did some trick or because im the worlds most handsome man or because im jacked and have a huge dick, we just liked each other and i didnât resist it. itâs that simple. our expectations of ourselves to be something âbetterâ instead of being confident in who we are is the only thing that keeps us from living our lives.
the final answer: i grew as a person. i found an education i liked, and started making friends and once i found my place in the world, there was finally room for others in my world. i decided i like who i am. iâm doing well and no one can tell me otherwise. finally talking to women wasnât intimidating because i told myself im as much of a prize as she is. when you think the worst of yourself, the world will always prove you wrong if you let it.
be patient bro it will all happen, give it time. and trust me, all those things incels think women want that you donât have, you can easily make up for in other ways. trust yourself you deserve love.
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u/Bearwhale 1d ago
I hate bullies. Hate them with a passion. And that's what redpill/incels sound like. Bullies targeting women. I lost my virginity at 32 years old, but I was raised in a loving family with good role models, so I never blamed my lack of romance on anyone but myself.
I don't see why others fall for this so easily.
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u/ScienceGun 1d ago
I never fully got pulled in by the alt-right pipeline, but it was a near thing. I was on Tumblr a lot and saw tons of bullying and bad behavior from the "SJW" types, which bothered me. But the way I came to see it was that even if there were assholes on both sides, the left seemed to be the only ones that actually wanted to improve society. None of the right's positions held up to scrutiny.
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u/Wild-Way-3525 1d ago
best thing to do is be there for yourself especially when no one else is. idk how to move on from the resentment that comes from that though.
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u/Swimming-Rub-2850 1d ago
I guess I would have described myself as incel-adjacent in the past. I never hated women, but I was really hard on myself because I didn't understand why romantic and sexual connection - things which seemed to come easily to everyone else - were so difficult for me. Perhaps I still struggle with that a little sometimes...Â
But I'm definitely doing better now. I've had relationships for the first time, and by expanding my social circle/hobbies I'm actually friends with women which has to help. Maybe I was never that far down the rabbit-hole in the first place, but I don't think I'd have been able to escape without supportive friends.Â
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u/maxxim333 1d ago
Well, my ultimate ideal goal is to find a life partner, mary and have kids. Red pillers preach how to get it but never have it themselves? The majority of them are not married and childless. So there is a clear hipocrisy and I hate hipocrisy more than any particular ideology. I would rather ask some of my married acquaintances for advice. If my goal in life was to stick my penis in the biggest amount of holes no matter how I do it, the moral consequences of it and regardless of damage to my life and self esteem, maybe I would have gone all the way into red pill.
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u/Replicant28 1d ago
I had very loving and kindhearted friends who had some very hard conversations about my attitudes towards women and how toxic I was. It was incredibly hard to hear, but it was one of the best things that happened to me. It got me away from all of that, and it eventually led to me meeting my now-wife.
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u/SpeedySads247 14h ago
Not fully autistic, but not fully "free" of a lot of the incel/red pill ides either. I try to give folks the benefit of the doubt and assume that individuals can be exceptions to a lot of the perceived stereotypes. Was dating until recently, took a lot of trust and patience to find/accept a relationship though. Still of the opinion that any future relationships will be a long shot, but open to being surprised.
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u/qinqov 1d ago
it just doesn't make sense to me.
logically, if im not as successful as other men in dating then it's a personal issue. you can always make yourself better looking, make more money, work on your personality. whenever i did meet these incel types they were so awfully off-putting. there is something so unsafe being around these guys, and it makes no sense to be unsafe towards other people if what i want is connection. so it always seemed that it was a personality issue for people not being able to have relationships. ive always done well socially (i might be a bit weird to other people but im funny and you'd be surprised at how just being pleasant lets people give you a lot of grace for your weirdness).
i came to the conclusion is that if you just seem to take care of yourself and work a decent job, the rest is a personality issue. if you can't connect with people then you should work on yourself or your social skills. socializing is a skill, it might come naturally to NT people but it doesn't mean you can't learn enough to scrap by in our social world.
the incel ideology posits that you have to be the 1% of all categories to have a chance and that you are entitled to a relationship or to sex. but that doesnt really make sense. I know plenty of average or below average men with families. i know plenty of women who date men who are beneath them in certain categories.
you're not entitled to someone just because you think they are attractive. i can say i like margot robbie, and i can get mad that she only dates men who are at her level of wealth and attractiveness. but if i was margot robbie, wouldn't i also select a man that was from my immediate social circle? aka men who are also rich and famous because thats who makes up the bulk of her social world.
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u/BigDracula_ 1d ago
Just to go off your last point, as it made me think of something: you don't want to date Margot Robbie. You don't want to date the people in her social circles. You want to date an attractive person who has a relatable life you can fit into. Like, do you want to date a CEO? A model? A professional athlete? I don't, because odds are we have very different values. Let them date each other, who cares what they get up to. It sounds a bit like "you can't fire me, I quit", but you don't want that job.
Obviously if you're unemployed, any job seems preferable, but the analogy falls apart there because you don't get evicted due to not getting laid.
Point is, getting resentful of other people's "success" is easy to understand, but what happens when you consider what success means to you? I don't want the life of any rich person I've met, nor do I want to do any of the things that got them there. I certainly don't want the life of fucking Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson or Myron uh Manosphere, as they seem intensely unhappy.
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u/qinqov 1d ago
This is a good point too. I probably donât like the high pressure lifestyle of âhavingâ a 1% partner, and most people probably donât.
At the end of the day, coming from a place of resentment to âwomen you canât haveâ is on several fronts an issue of personality rather than society.
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u/Ambitious-Fly3201 1d ago
It doesn't make sense to me to believe that you aren't entitled to a date (which is valid reasoning to be clear) while simotaneously believing that the lack of dates is _inherently_ because of personal flaws. Sure, redpill mentality certainly doesn't help one's chances of having human connection, and lot of incels are alone specifically because of their self-isolationist behavior.
But we can also admit that the world is extremely unfair, no? _Especially_ in the dating world. We have no problem admitting that for women. This mentality where the lack of sex equates to a man doing something wrong is the very logical flaw redpill influincers exploit.
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u/qinqov 1d ago edited 1d ago
Most other people feel your entitlement and are put off of it. When you look at some of the most famous incels, theyâre relatively good looking and often financially well off enough that it isnât their problem. At the same time, people who arenât particularly good looking or rich and have relationships just fine.
Incels largely donât have relationships bc other people feel that they are unsafe to be around. Assuming the world is extremely unfair, and in a way that it is towards you specifically, is a mentality that people donât want to date.
When I say itâs a personal flaw, I say that itâs a personality issue above all else. And changing yourself to being a safer person to interact with is at no cost to you. That largely comes in the form of simply going outside and subjecting yourself to new social situations.
Whether or not you like it, for the majority of people, getting better connected is a choice. You can wake up tomorrow and join social groups, join a run club, drop in free events, join a mixed gaming group, get a retail job. Volunteer. Foster an animal. Join a soup kitchen. Clean up trash. Your social life should be more than a partner, and when you have created a better support system by giving yourself several different social experiences, youâll interact more healthily with romantic interests. You have to interact with people and fumble those interactions to make connections, then youâll learn to be a safer person for women to interact with.
Actually, the fact that itâs a personal flaw and not a societal one is good news for you, because that means itâs something you can change.
Women and other minorities report similar rates of loneliness and suicide ideation, but enter incel movements at much lower rates than their white cis male cohorts. Ultimately, incels are born out of entitlement rather than a world that targets them specifically, especially as they tend to be born into greater positions of privilege than the women and minorities they blame for their situation.
I donât mean to say youâre doing something wrong in terms of money or looks. But assuming youâre doomed and the world is unfair to you is defeatist, delusional and entitled. Everyone has to work to be where they are in their social lives. You may have to do the work later in life, but itâs never too late to start creating your support system.
When I say itâs a personality flaw, I mean itâs a flaw in the mindset that informs your off-putting behaviour that leads other to avoid interacting with you.
Edit to add: the idea that a beautiful woman will drop out of the sky, provide you her entire social life, be endlessly sexually available, accommodate your inability to socialize, accommodate your other personal flaws, while also likely working and homemaking is not realistic. And if you donât get that itâs because the world is unfair to you. Thatâs not a real woman. Something has to change. A relationship is a negotiation where you give and take on a personal level. Being an upstanding guy with integrity and kindness and the mental flexibility to learn and grow in our modern rape culture is someone you can become tomorrow.
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u/Ambitious-Fly3201 1d ago
the "most famous" incels are exceptions that don't represent the whole group, that is why they're popular in those spaces and they're not a good brush to paint the whole group with.
I should clarify, My issue isn't the overall argument, it's the framing. It's taking anecdotes to paint a narrative which is not logical at all. Obviously red pill culture has an entitlement issue and a lot of young men in those spaces would do well with solving that problem. That being said, "it's actually good to internalize external issues you can't control as inherently your fault and responsibility because that means you can change it!" Is one of the worst ways to go about that imo. That only embodens the entitlement and self-isolation. It's still instilling that men can have control over relationships and don't need help, but replacing force with "being a nice guy." We would do better to instill the idea that men can have important connections that don't involve powerful men or sexual relationships with women.
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u/qinqov 1d ago edited 1d ago
Iâm honestly unclear where I said anything that goes against that âmen can have relationships that arenât sexual relationship with women.â Large part of my replies and original post posits getting involved in your local community as a remedy for the incel mindset.
My point of bringing up successful incels is that I also brought regular men that âare inferiorâ by the rhetoric but more successful in their lives. I feel that my points arenât really being engaged in good faith as you have decided firmly that the issues men far are entirely societal and canât be remedied with self work.
The idea that society is being anymore unfair to cishet white men that make up the bulk of the incel culture over any women or minority that gets targetted by these movements is just delusional.
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u/Ambitious-Fly3201 1d ago edited 1d ago
Where did I ever go to that extreme? I'm saying that not _every single issue_ young men could face in relationships, platonic or otherwise, can be solved by bootstraps mentality or privilege, and pretending that is the case is toxic and based on survivorship bias.
If a relationship ends because one of them is constantly being angry and fighting, yes that is their fault and also something they can change. That's not the case though if the relationship never started because the two are simply incompatable, which happens _all the time._ Would that problem be solved if either partner just masked themselves and progressed the relationship that way? A lot of people, especially young men who've been taught that a female partner is a reward, grow resentment because of that. Not because the world is out to get them somehow, but because humans are finicky and complicated and not simple and comforting like how the patriarchy taught them. So the focus on self-improvement should start with accepting that not every misfortune is inherently the fault of something or someone, to deconstruct that worldview and thus distill the anger, or at least push it towards more important problems that are actually a product of "society."
This is where I take issue with your approach, because it puts the cart before the horse. Trying to force yourself to become a better person for the good of others before deconstructing those toxic worldviews that breed resentment (which can take years to fully deconstruct even with help) _especially_ when human connection is used as the carrot on a stick, means all of that anger and hatred (the same anger and hatred that leads to horrific violence towards women) will more than likely turn inward. I don't see that as a process for self-betterment in a day, but rather a process for further self-destruction, and that is what I find unfair. I apologize that I was not more clear previously.
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u/Sir_Nerdbird 1d ago edited 1d ago
As much as I feel like red pill ideology is "illogical" in that demanding connection from others is never going to lead to sustainable mutual connection, I feel like the answer being "make yourself better looking, make more money, work on your personality" isn't a very... empathetic alternative?
When you're autistic there's already the battle of how much of your nature you should mask to get by in society. It can feel like you're just built wrong in a way that's nobody's fault but you just have to live with. When I was in my teens I struggled a lot with making friends. The way I "improved my personality" to try and solve this issue turned out to be just masking until it was entirely unsustainable.
I think with autistic men specifically there's an additional layer of nuance to this conversation. When navigating society already is an uphill battle, advice that centers around a crux of "there's always more you can do. If you're not seeing results it's because you're doing enough" can be soul-destroying. It can pressure autistic men into constricting themselves into shapes they aren't because they feel like unless they do their suffering is self-inflicted and illegitimate.
I want to re-emphasise that this is not me saying "all autistic men should be given love without any introspection or self-improvement required". While everyone deserves the opportunity to find love, nobody is obliged to reciprocate someone else's advances. This is foundational to the concept of personal agency and bodily autonomy.
But I think the line of thinking in your comment has the possibility to drive autistic men (particularly those at risk of going into red-pill ideology) into spirals of shame. There needs to be more empathy and validation of the challenges for autistic men when this is talked about, otherwise the message will just fall on deaf ears.
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u/ratwithawig 1d ago
as an autistic guy i do want to make one point: making yourself better looking doesnât actually have to mean getting âfitâ, learning how to dress well is HUGE. I dress in a lot of different ways, and i get treated pretty differently depending how. women like put-together people, they donât have to be 10/10 hot.
working on your personality doesnât mean you have to change your interests or feelings every time, it can often mean learning how to communicate how you feel more accurately, etc.
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u/qinqov 1d ago edited 1d ago
I went on to say itâs usually a personality issue before anything else. Self work is actually very accessible and the cost to you is almost nothing. It is as simple as entering a new social situation and being okay with trying and failing.
I do not find incels a group of people I sympathize with. You can call it unempathetic but I donât empathize with people who feel entitled to the bodies of women and who rape, assault and abuse them because of their own failure to connect.
You should be ashamed of blaming all women for what boils down as a personality issue. If you are unsafe towards women, you should be ashamed. If you feel women are entitled to give you sex, you should be ashamed.
Many people have the same risk factors but do not fall into these pipelines. And predominately white, privileged men fall into this pipeline. If you are unable to introspect as to why you repeatedly fail interaction, then yes I donât sympathize.
Almost always, this is cured by men broadening their horizons and being willing to meet people with other walks of life, being willing to meet women without expectations of sex or relationships.
At some point we need to be honest about the types of men who fall into this pipeline far more than others, and almost always it is a man who is filled with hatred and seeks to impose his privilege over a womanâs body.
I believe we can have open and honest conversations about this without diminishing the abuse towards minorities and women that is inherent to this culture. Rape culture is the worst itâs ever been, and incels need to know this is a shameful culture to be part of that will only push them further away from women because they are unsafe to be around.
Edit: I want to be clear my opinion is that shame is a catalyst for change. Being able to acknowledge that something is a flaw in your thinking and not a flaw of society, especially when the solution comes at almost no cost to you, is the first step in unpacking your biases. These people may also feel they âneedâ to change when they are self-identifying with a socially outcast group thatâs only known for rape ideology.
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u/Sir_Nerdbird 1d ago
Shame as a catalyst for change can be good, but it's not something that's going to get people immediately on your side. We know that a lot of incels and red pill manosphere people went down the path they did because they felt like their perspective wasn't being valued. Sure, a lot of that perspective (particularly a feeling of ownership and entitlement around women's bodies) is unquestionably abhorrent. We're both united in wanting that mindset to be dismantled. We clearly disagree in how.
There are some people whose opinions we can't change. For those cases, working to mitigate and prevent them from hurting women is the most important thing we can do.
Those are not the people communication about this is targeting. When we're talking, we're trying to help those on the fence or at "risk" of fall in to that hole.Is deploying shame as a broad-spectrum tool going to help those on the fence realise where their issues are?
Understanding what motivates an incel's behaviour isn't about going "oh well they have a reason and they're sad. That means that all their actions are justified!" It's about trying to stop problems before they start. To help people who are afraid and angry make positive change and so help prevent any harmful actions they might do without that help. To do that we need to have an open rapport. To do that, we need to convince those people in the middle that we're acting in good faith.
If we make widespread generalisations about how incels are fundamentally unempathetic and shameful (regardless of whether this is true), then all the incels need to do to close off those people in the middle is convince them that we already hate them. If the world already thinks you're a monster, then why hold yourself back anymore?
Empathy can be pragmatic. Style of communication matters.
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u/qinqov 1d ago
I agree with you actually. Though, I figured this was a conversation mostly for people who arenât part of the culture. Naturally in the moment when interacting with people like this there are different ways to go about it.
I personally just want to make clear that I greatly disagree with normalizing the rape culture that has come out of incel culture. While those on the fence are out of feeling âisolatedâ this no different than this that fall into alt-right pipelines, but wouldnât we also denounce the ideology behind the alt-right?
I donât mean to say anything here is a tool to correct anyone. Actually largely what Iâve said (or tried to say) across a few points is that these people need to get involved in their local communities whatever that looks like and no matter how uncomfortable that is. When you interact with regular individuals on a regular basis, you quickly learn how a lot of your ideology is a delusion and that youâre no more isolated nor persecuted than anyone else on earth.
Whatever that looks like in the moment of dealing with such person is probably case-by-case. Though, Iâve admittedly struggled to spend a lot of time with such individuals as Iâve been victimized by them due to my minority status. So I donât have anything detailed to share in terms of case-by-case tools per individual.
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u/peterdbaker 1d ago
Iâm autistic but I never escaped it. I never got involved because the shit didnât make sense to me since the entirety of it is about maintaining and holding power over someone thereby limiting their autonomy. And that doesnât fly with me. Then there is the whole grift of it which also never sat right with me.
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u/samuraishogun1 1d ago edited 1d ago
I used to be "color blind" and dislike what I thought was unjust "favorable" treatment to people who had been oppressed in the past. I think I just started to see the systemic issues.
The obvious example is that we all know that POC were not treated the same as white people in the US less than a century ago, and now we expect their grandchildren to be on the same playing field?
Even if our systems were perfect right now, that's not enough time for things to balance out. You can't blame POC for distrusting the systems that work against their parents, grandparents, and themselves.
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u/ACBorgia 1d ago
Not sure if I'm autistic, maybe not, maybe traits of it? But yeah otherwise I used to hang out on a message board where this ideology was heavily favored as a teenager, especially anti-SJW and feminism and stuff. I always thought they were joking around and didn't actually believe in that stuff, or I saw them as wrong for taking such strong stances and using isolated extreme examples to generalize and stigmatize an entire group of people. Then as I grew up the other people on there did too, and they genuinely started acting racist and stuff, and that just made me feel sad. I started trying to convince people to not be so extreme in their views and got all of my accounts banned just for telling people to consider another point of view cause I was "inciting debate". Meanwhile they were allowed to say the most heinous stuff constantly without being challenged. So I just left that place. I was genuinely an asshole at the time and really lacked empathy in some ways though, did really bad stuff online especially from the influence of that message board, but over time and by discovering other places like Reddit as well as a lot of self-reflection I feel like I improved on that front
I did look at quite a bit of manosphere "dating advice" websites, I genuinely wondered if their advice worked but my friend saw me on there and mocked me for it so I stopped visiting. Probably a good thing, it still had a bad influence on me cause I took the advice very literally at times, for example all the advice about not looking needy and stuff made me just become super blank faced and unfortunately sometimes mean/cold towards girls instead of visibly nervous and embarrassed like I was before (I have some social anxiety). However there was other advice like to treat girls just like you treat your guy friends that helped me quite a lot. Actually probably the event that made me stop was when I gathered 2 other dudes in my class who also had no experience and we were ready to go as a group and ask girls out. I discussed a lot of the advice I had read and they seemed receptive, but the day we did it I just froze from anxiety right before talking to the group of girls, and just completely gave up on dating that day, I also never talked to the two guys again sadly cause I just felt too awkward about it.
Overall probably the main reasons I didn't fall to the red pill were:
- My left-wing education from my father that gave me a bias against racist ideologies
- My deep obsession with researching things and making proper logical conclusions with the least amount of bias possible. I'm not perfect on that front obviously but it probably helped
- My own low self esteem, I didn't consider myself any better than anyone else, and saw it as inconceivable that I could be allowed to criticize others
- Idk just empathy. I don't like hurting others, I believe you should always do what produces the least harm and highest good to the largest amount of people possible. Of course it's not always easy to do that, but if you have a choice in my opinion it is moral to consider that first.
- I see everyone as equally deserving of compassion, women, men, kids, adults, seniors, trans people, gay people, etc. I try to imagine myself in their position and what I would feel like if I was discriminated against. And I just see sad outcomes, so I try not to act that way. I'd even say I see people as equals, of course there are differences but in the end everyone's just human. It doesn't mean you gotta be tolerant of the intolerant, or of people who commit horrible things, it just means you gotta treat the situation in a logical manner, keep seeing them as a human, but which causes a risk to others. Anger isn't needed to handle this properly, utilitarian logic already can handle that (I mean utilitarianism as in the deeper version of it, not the shallow one with a lot of flaws often criticized in textbooks. Generally this is achieved through decisional heuristics that we often already use as a species imo thanks to some of our emotions, but it's also important to look at things logically to complement that)
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u/Ecalsneerg 1d ago
I mean, it's an incorrect ideology. My brain won't accept it, cos it's wrong.
The flipside is I do believe people going "oh just work on yourself" are as utterly deranged, wrong and incapable of seeing what's happening as incels, but hey, I don't need to listen to or have sympathy for those people either.
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u/Smnmnaswar 1d ago
Never really went down that road but I think political education and putting effort into my physical appearance are a pretty good protection
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u/Carloverguy20 1d ago
In 2017 I stumbed across the redpill, when I was in my early 20s, because my life went downhill somewhat, because of school issues, not having a job, significant other, and felt like I was running out of time, and I was not happy. Also this time was when the whole anti-SJW era occurred and I somewhat shifted right, from being a liberal to an "Independent Centrist", because I was upset about the election and how Bernie lost. I was getting lots of "redpill" content and started to agree with it a bit, and I stumbed across it online, and I began to agree with some of the things. I did disagree with the misogyny, sexism, homophobia and thought that they were a bit too extreme for me.
I started spouting stuff from the redpill, thinking that I was fully enlightened lol, looking back at it now, I was foolish and dumb. I found exredpill in 2019-2020 and I started to unlearn things.
I never got deep into it, because I'm not an angry pathetic hate-filled misogynistic loser, which a majority of redpillers/manospherians/incels are.
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u/redve-dev 1d ago edited 1d ago
I began looking on what I am doing wrong, rather than what others are doing wrong. I try to verify my knowledge of world (if I don't understand and verify it - I can't be sure it's true). It's not realistic than "modern women are bad" while people were getting into couples for thousands of years - there must exist some logical explanation to why I am not successful in dating.
I began lurking women subreddits and so on, got good at statistics and finally I came with a summary: Women are more similar to men than I thought, and they are more different than men than I thought - in many aspects.
That means - everyday life is pretty similar for both, but men like different things then women.
Things said by incels simply are not logical and possible to work the way they say they work. Just like MAGA's.
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u/SpiritNo6626 1d ago
Hovering on the edge of it but probably having female friends. Sometimes I almost feel like I agree then they'll say something about 'how women think' that is just so detached from reality based on genuine conversations with friends it's laughable, and then I can't really take them seriously.
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u/eternal42 1d ago
Stoicism. Like proper, original stoicism. Not broicism or lone wolf alpha male bullshit but actual philosophy.Â
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u/Shadowchaos1010 1d ago
I am not diagnosed, but I am also most definitely not neurotypical. Whether it is a form of autism or just something with someone traits is still up for debate, and will be for who knows how long.
I will admit, I am not entirely sure. Probably some combination of luck and aging.
I have two older sisters, mom is at home, and while I have a less than stellar relationship with Christianity, there is no shortage of wonderful ladies I grew up calling "Auntie."
I was more or less raised by YouTube during my teen years, including some of my favorite channels growing up being run by women wholly or in part.
I do vaguely remember a time in my later teens when I was sort of getting roped in by "women bad" because no girlfriend.
Then I think entering my 20s, accepting the possibility (and likelihood) of dying alone, and sort of going "Eh, if it happens, it happens," meant I had no reason to give a shit.
Female friends definitely help, as a more useful extension of the "Grew up seeing women as people who share my interests" from YouTube.
I also like learning random things about history and politics, which might also just naturally have led to me realizing how full of shit the red pill is.
I say "luck," because that's very much how it went for me. Won't work for everyone, because for all I know, take one of those things out of the equation and the end of my story is very different.
But, in a word, I guess "Exposure."
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u/occultbookstores 1d ago
Climbing out of a mental health hole was part of it; once I was on meds, hanging out with fellow guys marinating in self-hate didn't appeal so much.
Men's support groups. This was the intermediate step; found an open men's weekly Zoom group during the lockdown and that was a life line. Having a bunch of men who openly discuss feelings and shut down any kind of misogyny gets you in a better headspace. And then I joined a private men's group, and made some online friends. Having guys who parallel you is an essential part of culture, and I think we've lost this.
Finding a place IRL I felt belonging, in my case a zen organization, was the final step. (It helped that one of the priests was on the spectrum.) Having a quiet place to meet people where it's perfectly fine to be silent, and people are generally chill, and there's meditation to quiet the worst of the "I don't belong here" static. That is ultimately the only way to break out of maladaptive groups; no video or arguing, just time, right thought, and acceptance.
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u/Ambitious-Fly3201 1d ago
I was kind of pulled in through gamergate-adjacent stuff as a young one. While it wasn't nearly as bad as it apparently was for others, I was fed this idea that the mythical "SJW's" We're triggered and entitled, rocking the boat of a world that supposedly solved bigotry, and if anything were being bigoted themselves towards men. While I was never _hateful_ toward them, I think that helped make me deeply uncomfortable in feminist spaces, even to this day. I don't know how common that is.
Anyway, what snapped me out of it was realizing that many of the "Anti-SJW's" (blegh), were just as irrational and ridiculous as they claimed others to be. I was still primarily in nerdy spaces, so the catalyst for me was watching everyone lose their shit with Star Wars. It was the first sign to me that something wasn't right with the narrative they were painting. I became a doompill centrist for a while until I started to properly accept progressive ideas.
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u/KingAggressive1498 Brolosopher 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was never really at risk of falling into that thanks probably mostly to my upbringing but I can sympathize with a lot of what those guys are feeling anyways.
I think the most important thing for young autistic men to recognize is that they will never conform to the full standard of patriarchal masculinity no matter how long they try to fake it for, and that most of the advice that redpillers offer is basically that. The closest they'll accomplish is being useful enough to be used, which is already what's at the heart of their resentment of women for a lot of them, making it not a solution to their problem.
It's far better (probably even for neurotypical men) to be self-defined in their masculinity even if it means reducing their romantic and sexual opportunities, impairing their professional advancement, etc. You can't fully opt out of any of the social systems, and navigating life with your own script isn't always easy either. But it beats destroying yourself mentally and speedrunning to burnout for people that will never actually love you.
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u/TheKingofHearts 19h ago
It always felt a little too easy and quick to blame women for every problem.
Like, sure women are human and can choose to be harmful.
But literally everything?
It just kept becoming clearer and clear that the tactics they espoused: pick up lines, looksmazxing type stuff was just a perversion of real advice: have a good sense of humor, take care of yourself physically, and have some responsibility for yourself in the world to build confidence.
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u/TheZDude1 1d ago
I only got into it as a function of being interested in anti-theist content after living in suburban Missouri for several years. When pop feminism became a viable target for content it started to become their focus, and after feeling like they represented my experience in the past I didn't skip a beat.
I got distracted by something for a few years, don't remember what, and when I checked back with the YouTube channels I used to watch religiously I noticed the way they talked was almost exactly the same as my school bullies. It flipped a switch and I lost the ability to take anything they said seriously.
It's not an exciting answer, but it's the truth. Nobody pulled me out and I had no righteous fury. Just got lucky, I guess.
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u/babybullai 1d ago
I would really doubt they would be. Judging by the comments that may not be the case but then again, might be a situation where reddit has a disproportionate amount, but the propensity to rely on logic seems like any such ideals would be unappealing
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u/Elgato01 1d ago
I turned whatever hate I could have had inward and walled in self hate and misery, I became a complete recluse and started having extreme anhedonia and apathy.
Def not the best way to go about it and if by some definitions Iâm still an incel but whatever
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u/Capital-Foot-918 1d ago
What steered me away from inceldom wasâŠpositive validation about my place in this world and my struggles surrounding romance.
I was steered away from a lot of blue pilled circles because of the invalidation and focus on neurotypical men that I faced. I was then sucked in as a teenager into such negative stereotypes surrounding women while at the same time validated for my struggles with dating. Most neurodivergent spaces i was apart very rarely validated that part about myself and other autistic men.
I started going to surround myself with people who werenât misogynistic but at the same time explained to me that I had a communication disorder and that its the unfortunate quirks and reality of having one and its not really my fault as much as some say about my struggles with dating including childhood trauma.
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u/Animedingo 1d ago
I wasnt redpilled, but watching the documentary on EDP definitely reaffirms some beliefs
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u/ThatOneComrade 22h ago
Probably on spectrum but I realized all the folks the redpill/incel communities target are just people trying to enjoy life, same as me. So the "humor" of attacking them pretty much immediately started to leave a sour taste in my mouth and I stopped following those communities.
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u/JCDU 21h ago
I grew up before all this BS got going but a mate of mine taught me to see this sort of masculinity as amusingly tragic rather than actually manly or impressive.
All these dudes desperately flexing, shouting into the void about how manly they are using all these weird made-up things that supposedly define masculinity, showing off like desperate peacocks trying to convince themselves they're big manly men if they only say it enough times and put enough other guys down. It's just weird, man.
Once you see them as desperate sad insecure individuals it's impossible to take them seriously - hyping dietary supplements and beauty treatments on social media, grooming and preening, they are cringe as all fuck.
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u/ChuuuZero 19h ago
Currently no diagnosis for autism (my test will be Q2 next year) but in the beginning of the pandemic I fell into this rabbit hole from redpill content until I found the channel aba n preach. They opened my eyes with a lot of more "objective" perspectives where I started questioning my own viewpoints. I won't say I don't have any biases left but I can acknowledge them now and change according to some rules I established for myself.
Example for a rule:
"Does this change involve the denial of autonomy for a group? If so, what would be the consequences? Are these consequences humane and who would 'benefit' the most from it?"
I have the big issue that my brain accepts information as soon as I receive it. I never question it automatically or get interested enough to look further into it. This involves not only social topics but technological topics as well for example. I have to actively flip a switch to start researching for a topic which for someone who struggles with executive dysfunction is a huge struggle. So looking for people to watch who I know try to look at stuff from multiple perspectives helps understanding the issue better. I won't say that they are perfect.
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u/AutoSpeculator 19h ago
I'm diagnosed Audhd. Never really struggled with this kinda ideology, mostly because of having a lot of female friends. I did briefly struggle a lot with traditional gender stereotypes when I figured out I had autism, but that was because one of my former female friend was honestly lowkey kind of sexist and ableist.
I actually discovered I was autistic when I asked for them to be direct with me and they told me that they would only do that if I were autistic, which in their opinion I couldn't be.
Lo and behold, I get diagnosed and they double down on their behaviour.đ
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u/Shadowdragon409 1d ago
Not that I've "escaped", but my opinions have been tempered by empathy and introspection. Watching HealthyGamer(dot)gg really helped with this.
I better understand why I feel the way I do, and am able to recognize and identify when I feel that way. And because of that, I can better control those emotions so that they can't dictate my behaviors.
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u/roottootbangnshoot 14h ago
After my ex cheated on me and dumped me, I stumbled across incel stuff via IncelTears. I think seeing the extreme end of the ideology first helped to steer me away, but also showed me what I could be falling into. I could see the bottom of the slippery slope, so to speak. For about 6 months, I forced myself to stay away from any and all âgender warâ media, because I knew Iâd get drawn in. That, and regular interaction with women definitely saved me.
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u/Friendly_Zebra 1d ago
That is a massive and harmful generalisation. Youâre playing in to stereotypes that autistic people have no empathy and are naive little flowers that believe anything theyâre told. Itâs infantilising and offensive.
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u/Admrl_Awsm 8h ago
Well it doesnât take much to see Trump was a moron, so I never got pulled in that deeply, and never enough to be a maga conservative, more of an anti trump conservative. Then Ben Shapiro got annihilated in a debate against an actual adult on the news the one time he doesnât debate a teenager, and then some guy made a video responding to some of the prager u slop Iâd been consuming, and then the whole ideology pretty much fell apart for me.
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u/kymberts 1d ago
I am autistic and have always struggled with that line of thinking. I probably would have gone full red pill if it were a thing when I was a teen. What has helped the most is forming platonic relationships with women in various peer support groups. The most helpful has been a group for SA survivors. I was welcomed with compassion and support. These women cared about me and my story, they were not minimizing or denying my feelings. It was like a dark veil of hate and anger had been lifted and I could see clearly.
So my suggestion is honestly seeking a group where you can support others and be supported by them.