Causes of celibacy: Difference between revisions

There are diverse '''causes of inceldom''',<ref name="boislard2016">Boislard, M.-A., van de Bongardt, D., & Blais, M. (2016). Sexuality (and Lack Thereof) in Adolescence and Early Adulthood: A Review of the Literature. Behavioral Sciences, 6(1), 8. doi:10.3390/bs6010008</ref><ref name="apostolou2018"></ref> e.g. any flaw that negatively impacts [[SMV|sexual market value]] or any socio-cultural, economic or personal circumstance that hinders marriage or more generally pair formation. There currently is a trend toward [[demographics|''more'' incels]]. This article discusses both causes of inceldom and causes of the recent increase in inceldom (see [[demographics]] page for data on the increase in inceldom).

== Causes of sexlessness and inceldom ==

** [[mentalcel|Mental disorders]], [[neurodivergence]], [[autism]], schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa are some of the strongest predictors of sexlessness, especially in males.<ref>https://incels.wiki/w/Scientific_Blackpill#tocMental</ref> In one study, high functioning autistic men were 5 times more likely sexually inexperienced than their [[neurotypical]] counterparts.<ref>https://incels.wiki/w/Scientific_Blackpill#44.6.25_of_high_functioning_adult_autistic_men_remain_virgins.2C_despite_high_sex.2Frelationship_drive</ref> Lack of flirting skills has been identified as a main cause of inceldom.<ref name="apostolouArticle">https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/new-study-finds-not-knowing-how-to-flirt-is-the-main-reason-behind-involuntary-singlehood/</ref>

** Being bullied, ostracized and rejected by one's peers or being socially withdrawn during childhood are predictors of adulthood virginity.<ref>Boislard, M.A., Poulin, F. & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2011, March). Childhood predictors of adulthood virginity: A 10-year prospective study. Poster session presented at the Eastern & Midcontinent Joint Region Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Philadelphia, PA.</ref><ref>https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/sex-life-the-american-male/201104/involuntary-sexual-virgins-the-latest-research</ref> The vast majority of users on [[incels.co]] said they were bullied at some point in their lifetime, whether it was during childhood, adolescence or adulthood, and many regard themselves as autistic (see [[demographics]]).

** Premature birth<ref>https://www.newsweek.com/babies-premature-romantic-partners-sex-parents-adults-1448938</ref>

** [[medcel|Disease]], e.g. in a German sample, those with poor general health were only around 40% as likely to have had sex in the past four weeks compared to those in good health,<ref>https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/215850/Gesundheit-sexuelle-Aktivitaet-und-sexuelle-Zufriedenheit</ref> though in a student sample, immunocompetency was not linked to mating performance<ref>https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.160603</ref>

** Low social status or peer status,<ref>https://incels.wiki/w/Scientific_Blackpill#Men.27s_social_status_accounts_for_62.25_of_the_variance_of_copulation_opportunities</ref> with the socially excluded having very low status.

** For men (not women), low [[IQ]] predicts fewer offspring,<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence</ref> similar to the effect of mental disorders.

** Starting puberty late as a male or being physically immature compared to your peers as a teenager,<ref>Tucker Halpern, C., Waller, M.W., Spriggs, A., & Hallfors, D.D. (2006). Adolescent predictors of emerging adult sexual patterns [Electronic version]. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39(6), 926.e1 - 926.e10.</ref> with slow sexual maturation being a primary marker of slow life history genetics.

** [[Shyness]] or social anxiety, no flirting skills, [[approach anxiety]].<ref name="apostolou2018"></ref> Could be [[mutation]] or slow-life trait. Possibly an adaptation for [[arranged marriage]].<ref name="apostolou2018"></ref> Due to women's passive courtship style, introversion and social anxiety have been found to substantially reduce men's mating success more than women's.<ref>Nordsletten, AE, Larsson, H, Crowley, JJ, Almqvist, C, Lichtenstein, P, & Mataix-Cols, D. 2016. ''Patterns of Nonrandom Mating Within and Across 11 Major Psychiatric Disorders''. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(4), 354. [[https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.3192 Abstract]]</ref>

** Lower use of alcohol and drugs,<ref name="boislard2016"></ref><ref name="haydon2013"></ref> possibly causally at individual level.<ref name="lei2021"></ref>

** Living with both biological parents<ref name="boislard2016"></ref>

** Female race preferences (see [[ethnicel]]), with Asian-American males yielding the highest incel rates (see [[Demographics#Race|demographics]] and the [[Scientific Blackpill#tocRace|Scientific Blackpill]]), which could be partly explained by female [[hypergamy]] and by slow LH predisposition.

** A high degree of [[neoteny]] in males might give rise to the [[cutecel]] phenomenon. Neoteny is related to late maturation and slow life history, possibly evoking inceldom in neotenous adult and adolescent males due to envy toward faster LH-strategic peers who are already in relationships. In an informal survey by [[AB]]s (German incels), there may have been an overrepresentation of particularly neotenous males with nearly two thirds saying they are typically perceived as younger than they are.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20130904045515/http://ab-wiki.acc.de:80/wiki/index.php/Umfragen#Scheinen_AB.C2.B4s_j.C3.BCnger_als_in_Wahrheit_zu_sein_.3F</ref> Cute looking and relatively frail overall physic may loose out in dominance competitions,<ref>https://incels.wiki/w/Scientific_Blackpill#Among_male_university_students.2C_only_cues_of_physical_dominance_over_other_men_predicted_their_mating_success</ref> especially in the modern, potentially [[evolutionary mismatch|evolutionarily mismatch]]ing fast-life dating context.

** Good looks might matter more in fast LH, short-term context<ref>https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797615579273</ref>

** Fast life history races/immigrants living in slow LH host countries with increasingly strong norms against teen sexuality and casual sexuality (though also benefiting from laxer norms regarding out-of-wedlock births and sexuality).

* Ideology and religion can be either a positive or negative factor:

** Religious or strict environment predicts remaining virgin during early adulthood (significantly only for women, but no sex difference)<ref name="haydon2013">Haydon, A. A., Cheng, M. M., Herring, A. H., McRee, A.-L., & Halpern, C. T. (2013). Prevalence and Predictors of Sexual Inexperience in Adulthood. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43(2), 221–230. doi:10.1007/s10508-013-0164-3</ref>

** Parents who do not care about their children marrying/reproducing due to disinterest or ideology, [[evolutionary mismatch|mismatching]] the universal prevalence of [[marriage]] and [[arranged marriage]] across human societies.

** Weakly enforced monogamy and marriage likely causes unstable relationships which in turn causes [[dry spell]]s.   

** Only met fast [[life history]] [[BPD|BPD chicks]] who crave being humiliated by [[Chad]]

** No access to opposite sex partners e.g. due to [[locationcel|location]], life situation, low prevalence of same-aged people, skewed [[sex ratio]]s, etc.

==Incel and volcel categories==

One can broadly distinguish different demographic groups that experience mating difficulties or voluntarily abstain from sex:

*'''Late adult virgins, [[wizard|perma-virgins]] etc.:''' Virgins older than 30 are rare (1-2%)<ref>https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr036.pdf</ref> and they strongly differ from the overall population.

**By far the most distinguishing feature of adult virgins aged around 28 years, is that about 50% identify as [[asexual]]s ([[volcel]]s) while only 1% of the overall population identifies as asexual.<ref name="haydon2013"></ref><ref name="asexuals"></ref> In one national probability sample, there were 29.23% of males in the sample of asexuals (N = 195), but 43.17% among sexuals (N = 18,426, X² = 15.30, p < 0.001),<ref name="asexuals">https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=17133744500922136515&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5</ref> suggesting women are more likely [[volcel]]s, in accordance with their lower [[sex drive]]. But provided that male perma-virgins outnumber female perma-virgins in various countries, should suggest that voluntary femcels are somewhat overrepresented among perma-virgins.

**Fast life history incels may be the most sexually frustrated and may be facing an [[evolutionary mismatch]] due to a recent decline in casual sexual behavior and related risky behavior during adolescence and early adulthood, or fast life history minorities living in a host population with a slow life history (see the [[#Race|race section]]). However, despite sexual activity during youth having declined in the U.S., a minority of fast life history strategists appears to be having more sex than ever at the same time.<ref>https://incels.wiki/w/Scientific_Blackpill#The_top_5-20.25_of_men_.28ie._.22Chads.22.29_are_now_having_more_sex_than_ever_before</ref>

**Slow life history incels may also be facing an evolutionary mismatch, such as expecting [[arranged marriage|to be married]] as was common throughout history, but not getting married due to the recent decline in marriage norms,<ref>https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1474704919887706</ref> or women getting college degrees [[hypergamy|refusing to date down]].

==Potential causes of the recent increase in inceldom==

[[File:DMTYKZZVoAA8sb5.jpg|thumb|300px|right|[[Feminism|Feminist]] and related policies may increase male and female inceldom by decreasing marriage rates, or rather deferring them, especially for women (r = .5, p < .0001).]]

As summarized in the [[demographics]] article, there is a trend towards less sex that appears to have accelerated recently. The trend towards having less sex can be traced back to 1930-born cohorts, is ''not'' attributable to increased pornography use or working hours and is present in both the married and unmarried.<ref>http://link-springer-com-443.webvpn.fjmu.edu.cn/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10508-017-0953-1.pdf</ref>

There are a number of conceivable causes for these trends:

<ul><li>

'''[[Evolutionary mismatch]]''': Circumstances are so different from natural human nature that they adversely affect human sexuality, i.e. that our adaptation ''mismatch'' out environment.

*'''Gynoncentrism''': Apathy to male problems caused by a mixture of [[androphobia]] and [[gynocentrism]].

</li><li>

</li><li>'''Abusive and gynocentric teachers''': Public school teachers' unions in the US are notorious for preventing abusive teachers from being fired, and protecting teachers from being evaluated based on their temperament in the classroom. Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers asserts that boys are held up to feminine behavioral standards and are treated as 'defective girls', and that schools do not cultivate boys' self-esteem, and end up degrading them.<ref>https://books.google.com/books/about/The_War_Against_Boys.html?id=cnieFlrhxgoC</ref>

</li><li>

'''Developmental insults, [[Mutation|mutants]] & social epistasis amplification''': Increased mutational load mainly due to milder living conditions and modern medicine drastically reducing infant mortality,<ref>https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-017-0084-x</ref> as well as pollution (e.g. xenoestrogens), and/or changes in diet may have lead to a decline of masculine features, such as robust [[mandible]], [[compact midface]],<ref>https://incels.wiki/w/Scientific_Blackpill#Men_with_dominant.2C_aggressive_faces_.28high_fWHR.29_are_preferred_for_short_term_relationships</ref> and also reduced testosterone levels and hence reduced muscle mass, but also to a higher incident rate of all kinds of diseases (obesity, underweight) and mental conditions, e.g. autism. Likewise, sperm count has reduced as much as 50% in the past decades. Such changes should predict that more men now fall below what is objectively deemed as lowest bar for physical attractiveness by most women, and also more men fail to intimidate any other men in dominance contests, leading to increased incel rates. Others have proposed a feedback loop of mutants disrupting society and the thereby degraded society disrupting mutant's and other peoples' social lives, including sex lives (social epistasis amplification).<ref name="ref177"></ref><ref>https://www.amazon.com/Modernity-Cultural-Decline-Biobehavioral-Perspective/dp/3030329836</ref><ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn7VCTexGiU The social-epistasis amplification model in mice and men</ref> Counter evidence to mutational load being a major cause of inceldom is e.g. extremely inbred regions in the world, where people continue to mate regardless.

</li></ul>

==Evidence from LoveNotAnger==

In June 2019, as part of [[Alana]]'s LoveNotAnger project, a survey was conducted researching inceldom and singledom.<ref>https://www.lovenotanger.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/dating-difficulties-survey-results-2019-06-26.pdf</ref> Out of 713 respondents (64% male), only 8% had no dating experience.

The participants reported causes of their dating difficulties, however lumping together answers of both sexes even though it is known the sexual strategies of men and women are very different with women's strategy being much [[Sex drive#Female passivity|more passive]].

{| class="wikitable"

!Reason

|6%

|}

==Evidence from the [[Donnelly study]]==

In the Donnelly study, they asked 60 men and 22 women to take a survey on their past or present inceldom or singledom. The sample is very small.

{| class="wikitable"

|+Sexual status of participants

|22

|}

They asked the participants to report barriers explaining 'off time' in their sexual trajectories. The key answers are listed in the table below.

{| class="wikitable"

!Reason

|84%

|20%

|Inability to relate to others

|41%

|

|}

==Evidence from [[incels.co]] on male incels==

In October 2019, [[incels.co]] conducted a survey of their (overwhelmingly male) user base and received N = 546 responses. They asked "Select all factors that you believe are significantly preventing you from finding a partner". The results are presented in the table below. These results may not be representative of all incels. Some users of this forum may also suffer from [[body dysmorphia]] or otherwise overestimate the importance of looks or misattribute other flaws to it, e.g. [[autism]].

{| class="wikitable"

|+Responses

|7.5%

|}

Apostolou (2018) analyzed an AskReddit thread<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5aeh14/guys_why_are_you_single/</ref> for identified 6794 responses which were classified in 43 categories replicated in the table below.<ref name="apostolou2018">Apostolou M. 2018. ''Why Men Stay Single? Evidence from Reddit.'' Evolutionary Psychological Science. [[https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-018-0163-7 Abstract]]</ref> The answers suggest the reasons for singledom are diverse. One response could be classified in multiple categories at once. Notably, these responses do not only contain incels, but also transitory/temporary singles.

{| class="wikitable"

|+Classified responses

|I am not ready Just damn clingy.

|}

==See also==

*[[Adverse effects of inceldom]]

*[[Inceldom]]

*[[Incel]]

==References==

<references />

[[category:inceldom]]

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