I also think it’s not great to equate incels with mental illness. I have CPTSD, depression and anxiety and none of those make me act like a fucking misogynistic twat. Inceldom isn’t mental illness, and equating it to or calling it mental illness does a whole lot of people a massive disservice.
Incellishness may not be in the DSM5, but personally I don’t think someone can be mentally healthy and an incel at the same time.
Being an incel is a choice; mental illness is not. You wouldn’t refer to incels as disabled and it’s similarly unfair to refer them as being mentally ill. Being an incel is just another form of bigotry. Racists, sexists, queerphobes etc. aren’t mentally ill. The most generous descriptors I could give them is that they’re either misguided, brainwashed, or both.
Being an incel is a choice
It’s short for “involuntarily celibate”, though.
Although I guess identifying with those words is the choice you’re talking about
aren’t mentally ill. The most generous descriptors I could give them is that they’re either misguided, brainwashed, or both.
I’d argue that their brains are at a state of did-order, be that due to someone having pushed propaganda on them or not.
Some people are less capable of being critical of their own thoughts. For example, young children are very impressionable. Lots of people grow out of it. Lots of people don’t.
If I harassed you with say, targeted ads and some videos I made on YouTube, it could definitely make you stressed out, thus me having affected your mental health.
Now being a racist because you grew up in a small racist/sexist/homophobic town or something might not be the exact same thing, but the point I’m trying to make is that their wrong choices — like “choosing” (I use quotations because it’s not exactly a conscious choice people make, although displaying those attitudes definitely is) to be racist or transphobic or whichever kind of bigot — are a symptom of the disorder they’re having.
That disorder usually being amathia, willfull ignorance.