It’s an interesting look inside the mind of an incel (it’s all told from his perspective), but like I said, it is brutal. It doesn’t hold anything back. I think it’s worth it anyway, but I thought I would warn people now.
It’s an interesting look inside the mind of an incel (it’s all told from his perspective), but like I said, it is brutal. It doesn’t hold anything back. I think it’s worth it anyway, but I thought I would warn people now.
Well, I’m not sure I like it, but there’s definitely some good writing going on there. The character is internally consistent, and it’s believable within that context. That’s not as minor a compliment as it might seem.
Crafting a character that’s believable within a story is a fuck ton harder than it looks, even for short fiction.
And it matches with real life experiences I’ve had with incels, and with non incels that had bad patches.
It’s no fucking joke that regular human contact, physical contact, is a basic need. And having it come from a partner is a different kind of fulfillment for anyone that is sexual and/or romantic. There are people that don’t have those specific needs, but even they still have the need to be properly embraced for who they are, as they are.
Being touch starved is a horrible thing. I’ve experienced it to a limited degree while I was recovering from an injury, dumped by a partner, and with the handful of people I would normally hug and touch with affection being unavailable. With all of the crap going on, not having good physical contact was brutal. And I wasn’t even entirely without touch, it was just severely limited by the combination of my physical limits, and the availability of my support network at the time.
Skin hunger, touch starvation, it fucking eats at you, even as an adult with self awareness and a long history of having good people around you.
Someone stuck in it the way that character was? With nobody to help pull him out of it, I can totally believe that charges character. And there’s plenty of people that will either not recognize a helping hand, or will outright reject it.
Even with great friends, friends I can cuddle with, there’s still something more to cuddling with a partner. No sex involved, just being in contact, watching a movie and chilling, there is a different kind of fulfillment there that nothing else matches. I can very easily see a spiral into a homicidal state when someone is starved of that, of even the hope of it.
That’s why I think the comic is well written. It’s believable, and I’m just amazed it doesn’t happen often in the real world.
Also, just like in real life, I could see points in the story where one helping hand could have changed it all. Just like in real life, the chances of it being offered amd accepted aren’t high. Once a person starts spiraling, they become very difficult to be around. They’re less and less tolerable as it continues. If they can’t or won’t take the hand offered to them and use it to pull themselves out of the spiral, it won’t even work. So they’re getting worse, and you have to eventually decide if you can endure them when they simply don’t shift their perception.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that this was a great fucking post! Has me thinking, and thinking hard. Thanks for sharing it
I would disagree on this aspect; I am pretty touch averse myself and last I checked I am still human. Maybe some folks feel they require a certain degree of intimacy, but I don’t think we should count this as a universal truth and give any credence to the notion that incels are entitled to intimate contact as a basic need.
Removed by mod
Disagree all you want, but there’s some good research behind that, and I never, ever said anyone is entitled to intimate contact.
Normally, I’d go digging for enough links to make the point, but you seem to have misread what I wrote, so I’m not willing to put that kind of time into this for a stranger that’s putting words in my mouth.
Secondary to that, you being touch averse is irrelevant to the issue tbh. I’m touch averse outside of very close friends and some family. Even the autistic people I know well enough to talk to have the need for touch to some degree, even when they can only handle it in small doses infrequently, with an even smaller number of people they can take it from. There’s always outliers, and you could well be one of them.