Failed in Excess: The Incel Subject within Contemporary Sexual Identification

Abstract

Incels— involuntary celibates —are an online community of men who have formed an identity around being unwillingly condemned to a self-perceived inescapable state of sexlessness. Incels have become notorious in both scholarship and public discussion for their caustic misogyny deep sexual pessimism and destructive nihilism. These framings understand incels as dangerous figures situating them as prime targets for deradicalisation or securitisation. While this work is important it singles out the incel as an aberrant figure missing the fact that the incel subject emerges out of and in reaction to the dominant heteronormative and racial order that structure seemingly all subjectivities. Drawing on empirical data gathered from incel forums and internet spaces this thesis charts the formation of the incel subject in order to situate him within the current prevailing discourses of gender biology economics and race. These productive contortions lead to the coalescence of an incel subject that is defined by sexual failure and destined for annihilation. But this is also a figure that bears an enduring attachment to sex as a primary structuring principle of identity. This resonates strongly with Michel Foucault’s work on sexuality in so far as the ongoing negotiation of sexuality characterises the production of all subjects. As such this discussion of incels has implications for the construction of sexual subjectivities and thus will conclude by considering what the incel attachment to sex tells us about the broader mechanics that construct sexualised identifications in our current moment.