Involuntary celibacy

**Involuntary celibacy** or **inceldom** means being unable to get sex or a romantic partner. An **incel** or **incelibate** is a person who is in this situation. Female incels are sometimes called *femcels*. Homosexual incels are sometimes called *gaycels*. Transgender people going through inceldom are called *transcels*.

## Overview
Discussions on the incelosphere (incel websites) are mostly by heterosexual men, but female incels and gay incels also exist. Incels are often accused of misogyny on the basis of having a "sense of entitlement to sex". Some women also made false accusations of rape over interpersonal conflict to take revenge on others, though the rate of occurrence is low. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem", alleging that self-described incels committed several cases of mass murder in North America.

## History
### 1990s
The word *incel* was invented in 1993 by a college student 'Alana' from Toronto, Ontario. She made a website to discuss her sexual inactivity with others.  The website, titled ''Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project'', was used by people of all genders to share posts about the topic. During her college career and after, she realized she was queer, and became more comfortable with her identity. 

### 2010s
She later gave the site to a stranger. After reading about the 2014 Isla Vista killings, she wrote, "Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it". Another notable incel was Christine Chubbuck. She committed suicide on live tv in 1974. /r/incels on Reddit was one of the biggest Incel forums. On November 7, 2017, Reddit decided to get rid of it because of their new site rules.

## Subgroups
There are many subgroups of incels. 

### Lesbocels
For instance, lesbocels are a subgroup of gaycels meaning lesbian involuntary celibates. Some femcelish lesbians call themselves *incelbians*. Or for example disabledcels and mentalcels are subsets of inceldom whose involuntary celibacy is caused by them being disabled. 

### Femcels
Femcels who believe that their inceldom condition is permanent call themselves *trufemcel* or *truefemcel*. They call the state of being unable to get romance or a partner as *femceldom*. The largest inceldom-related forum at the turn of the 2020s decade was the subreddit *trufemcels*, a platform for femcels.

### Beliefs
Many incels take views from fields like evolutionary psychology. Some incels believe that male incels have no chance against more attractive men, and women have things easier because of feminism and cosmetics. Incels may believe their lack of success is because of being shy, poor body image, penis size, or their appearance, and believe that having lots of money is the only chance to find an attractive partner.

## Words used by incels
## Reception
Incels are criticized by left-wing scholars due to their disagreement with incels' opposition to certain progressive values, while many of those accused of being incels oppose such classification as an overgeneralization that ignores the cause and effect of incels' existence.

While some scholars warn of the danger of incels, some critics dismissed their warnings as "alarmist, inaccurate, and misrepresenting" the problem. a British counter-extremism programme, were *incels* in the year ending March 2021. Among the small percentage of the referred, a small number of them were seen as potential terrorists, many of whom were neurodivergent,

## References