This is basically true, but those guys were mostly not “incels”; they had the sense to occasionally avail themselves of the services of the local widow who provided attention at rates they could afford (in my home town, she was known as “Rose Marie” and everyone including the cops left her in peace). This was done on their “night out” or when “going to town”. Modern “incels” foolishly reject such services because they’ve infected each other with stupid prohibitionist notions, as cult members are wont to do. Modern people are deeply in denial about how common sexwork has been throughout human history. In the 19th century, nearly all men paid at least occasionally; even in 1948 Kinsey reported 70% of men had paid at least once. The idea of sex work being a “crime”, pathology or abberation dates to the early 20th century, but didn’t become common in the general public until the ’80s; projecting these reality-denying modern notions back into history generates absurdities like the idea that men just voluntarily went without sex when it was available for a price they could at least occasionally afford.
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The Women’s Christian Temperance Union was very active in prohibition of sex work as well as alcohol. I doubt the overlap in “progressive reformers” ends there either.
I think the atrocious ideas and acting out of incels is not just because they are too foolish to pay for sex. I think they are the product of extreme christofascist abuse, leading these men to feel they have no hope for what they have been led to think of as a normal life. My hypothesis is that they never got affection, love, or friendship. And as adults they don’t have any sort of good relationships. The article I saw today indicates that as much as they espouse hateful thoughts about women, they also talk about taking their own lives. In fact, the, the Atlanta massage parlor killer was paying for sex, and it exasperated his mental illness.
https://www.rawstory.com/inside-the-warped-world-of-incel-extremists/
I would like to point out that both the original post and Ms. McNeill’s response quietly erase gay and asexual men, as well as any possibility of alternate relationship structures in the community.
It’s a silly point, but I think it needs to be made. The original post is stupid and erasing gay men is probably an additional goal. Ms. McNeill’s response is correct, the historian in me just wants to point out that not only was sex work more common than is widely thought, so are very quite alternative relationship structures. Sex workers were probably involved in them, in addition or alongside anything else.
It just gets to me how sloppy “social” history can be sometimes.