There’s a common refrain of “nice guys finish last” from men who have trouble attracting women, but is being nice the real problem? A study published in Personality and Individual Differences suggests that involuntarily celibate men show higher levels of misogyny and hostility toward women.
The term “incel” or involuntary celibate has come to popular use in recent years to describe men who feel they are unable to start romantic and/or sexual relationships, predominantly with women. It has been cited as a reason for violence against women and has given rise to online spaces where incels commiserate and share sexist and antifeminist views. Incels also tend to experience reduced psychological well-being and have a greater tendency for interpersonal victimhood.
Unwanted celibacy is an experience that occurs both in and outside of the incel community. This study sought to explore the relationship between unwanted celibacy and misogyny in both self-proclaimed incels and non-incels.
For their new study, Karolin Grunau and colleagues utilized a sample of 348 men recruited online through various sources, such as Incel forums and subreddits, a Dutch university, and Prolific. Of the participants, 156 were classified as incels, and 192 were categorized as non-incels. The sample was predominantly heterosexual and single. Participants completed measures on incel status, unwanted celibacy, big 5 personality traits, misogynistic attitudes, hostility towards women, sexual objectification, rape myths, and rape proclivity.
Results showed that unwanted celibacy had a positive relationship with hostility towards women, sexual objectification of women, and endorsing rape myths for both incels and non-incels. This effect was consistent when controlling for different personality traits.
In other words, men who agreed with statements such as “I want to date, but nobody wants to date me” were more likely to agree with statements such as “Generally, it is safer not to trust women,” “An attractive woman should expect sexual advances and should learn how to handle them,” and “It is a biological necessity for men to release sexual pressure from time to time.”
Unwanted celibacy was not correlated with rape proclivity, despite the correlation with other sexism scales. People high in neuroticism showed higher rates of unwanted celibacy, while participants who showed greater openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness showed lower rates of unwanted celibacy. These results have implications regarding unwanted celibacy as a risk factor for misogyny, whether or not the person experiencing it is part of the incel community.
“This novel finding has an important theoretical implication, as it suggests that failure to satisfy a fundamental motive of human existence, namely the motive to acquire a romantic or sexual partner, contributes to individuals’ support for multiple forms of sexist and misogynistic views,” the researchers said.
This study took important strides into better understanding the nuances of unwanted celibacy and its relationship to sexism. Despite this, there are limitations to note. One such limitation is that the sample was partially targeted to incels and partially a convenience sample. Future research could include a larger and more diverse population. Additionally, for this study, causation cannot be determined, therefore we cannot be sure if participants were celibate due to their sexism or sexist due to their celibacy. Future research could further explore this relationship.
The study, “Unwanted celibacy is associated with misogynistic attitudes even after controlling for personality“, was authored by Karolin Grunau, Helena E. Bieselt, Pelin Gul, and Tom R. Kupferd.