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Incel is a portmanteau for involuntarily celibate. That is, men/people who are (conceivably) biologically unable to find a sexual partner. The opposite of this

Incel is a portmanteau for involuntarily celibate. That is, men/people who are (conceivably) biologically unable to find a sexual partner. The opposite of this would be a slut - a woman or people who are biologically unable to stop themselves from rejecting potential sexual partners. Slut and incel are two sides of the same token. You can easily find women proud to call themselves sluts, both online and in reality. However, one would hope that a news organization would use more specific and less degrading terms to describe groups that they are (theoretically) neutral toward. I've certainly never seen an NPR headline use the word "slut". However, if you look at this NPR article[0], you can be sure that it would seem silly if it read "Police Foiled An Ohio Slut's Plot To Kill Women In A Mass Shooting, Prosecutors Say". One would hope that they would use a word closer to what they were meaning to say like "4chan-viewer" or "prostitute" or "shut-in". You've gotta figure that you'd only ever use a word like "incel" if you were a biased news organization...but, of course, NPR is above that. [0]https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019089834/police-foiled-an-ohio-incels-plot-to-kill-women-in-a-mass-shooting-prosecutors-s https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019089834/police-foiled-an-o...

smt88 5y ago
Read your own article. NPR is reporting that prosecutors describe him as an incel. Prosecutors say that he identifies himself as an incel and posts on incel websites. From your own source: > "According to the indictment reviewed by NPR, Genco maintained a profile on a popular incel website from at least July 2019 through mid-March 2020. He posted frequently on this site, it alleges." Other outlets repeat that he self-identifies[1] as an incel and even committed a crime that pays tribute to an incel "hero" that that specific community worships for murdering people. 1. https://www.fox19.com/2021/07/21/man-scouted-ohio-college-mass-shooting-plot-slaughter-women-feds-say/ https://www.fox19.com/2021/07/21/man-scouted-ohio-college-ma...
- jimbob45 5y ago
  Those other outlets didn't put "incel" in the headline though. It would have been one thing if NPR put it in quotes but they didn't - the way it's written, it sounds like they themselves are identifying the individual as an "incel" which is just as strange as if they were to identify a prostitute in a headline as a "slut". It sounds incredibly biased to use that sort of language and, at the very least, comes off as out-of-place slang.
  - smt88 5y ago
    I get what you're saying, but how is incel different from "hacker" (when Anonymous does something newsworthy) or "neo-Nazi" or "White supremacist" in situations where the subject of the article wants to be known as part of that community? The guy in your article doesn't seem to be ashamed of the word, and its original meaning wasn't pejorative to them. It was a way to find support without shame. Slut was always a negative word that has had to be reclaimed, and there still aren't online slut communities inspiring each other to murder innocent people. (I'm not the one downvoting you btw)

smt88 5y ago

Read your own article. NPR is reporting that prosecutors describe him as an incel. Prosecutors say that he identifies himself as an incel and posts on incel websites. From your own source: > "According to the indictment reviewed by NPR, Genco maintained a profile on a popular incel website from at least July 2019 through mid-March 2020. He posted frequently on this site, it alleges." Other outlets repeat that he self-identifies[1] as an incel and even committed a crime that pays tribute to an incel "hero" that that specific community worships for murdering people. 1. https://www.fox19.com/2021/07/21/man-scouted-ohio-college-mass-shooting-plot-slaughter-women-feds-say/ https://www.fox19.com/2021/07/21/man-scouted-ohio-college-ma...

jimbob45 5y ago
Those other outlets didn't put "incel" in the headline though. It would have been one thing if NPR put it in quotes but they didn't - the way it's written, it sounds like they themselves are identifying the individual as an "incel" which is just as strange as if they were to identify a prostitute in a headline as a "slut". It sounds incredibly biased to use that sort of language and, at the very least, comes off as out-of-place slang.
- smt88 5y ago
  I get what you're saying, but how is incel different from "hacker" (when Anonymous does something newsworthy) or "neo-Nazi" or "White supremacist" in situations where the subject of the article wants to be known as part of that community? The guy in your article doesn't seem to be ashamed of the word, and its original meaning wasn't pejorative to them. It was a way to find support without shame. Slut was always a negative word that has had to be reclaimed, and there still aren't online slut communities inspiring each other to murder innocent people. (I'm not the one downvoting you btw)