It was an abusive exwife in my case, but yes. It's abuse all the same. It does the same thing.

It isolates, it breaks you down, it makes you forget who you were, and then when you least expect it, they are no longer dependable for anything and you have nothing left.

And they feel nothing.

Yup, that's why tate sold the worst dating advice in the world while being a sex trafficker, ensuring repeat business.

Study on men who are chronically single showed the common denominator: having extremely low confidence. Now that I think about it, this post corroborates the target profile of negging by abusers-- victims who have low self-esteem.

There are, for the lack of a better word, not so good looking men or short men having relationships, in one form or another, with ridiculously good looking women because these men have confidence without being too bragadacious. Of course, there are shallow women who go for looks alone (same as men), but there are just as many kind-hearted and less shallow women who prefer men with personality over looks and vice versa.

Low confidence and self-critical thoughts are what impedes chronically single men. Sometimes, it is indeed on the state of mind. And this vulnerability of lonely men is exploited by manosphere to create incels. I don't have a solution to address the problem but this is a general observation.

This is essentially cult tactics, yeah. As much as I loathe incels... Some of them genuinely need help.

The ones who are in too deep to literally start calling women "foids" tho? Throw them in the woodchipper. Dick first.

Isn't this basically what religion does, as well?

5'8" (1.73m) here. Married for 13 years.

Podcast episode #120 (Invicil) from Reply All should be required listening in this day and age.

Invicil: How a shy, queer Canadian woman accidentally invented one of the internet’s most toxic male communities.

this post brings up some good points, but I want to be clear that turning men into women hating incels who will die alone is the GOAL of all this rhetoric. it doesn't have to be that way.

if your reaction to this post is "women bad" you should take a step back and realize they've already gotten you to take the first step down the pipeline.

so many comments claiming this post blames or makes fun of men and incels that i went back and reread the whole thing... what the fuck are the lot of you even responding to‽ there's nothing like that in the post, and on the contrary it says men are victimized by this. Jesus, some of you are really willing to take anything as a slight. beats self reflection i guess.

What is "manosphere"?

Manosphere being a toxic shitshow of harmful beliefs and self-sabotag is nothing new.

But in 1 way, it is very different to an abusive boyfriend. The abusive bf doesn't necessarily start off being abusive or not as obviously so. The bf adapts to you and slowly undermines your confidence. The manosphere has it in their advertising material. The people fall for the manosphere are not slowly manipulated and abused by the manosphere. The manosphere is the new abusive boyfriend after the breakup with the last abuser. When the abuse already has been normalised and kinda wanted because at least it is "familiar".

So what is the first "abusive boyfriend"?

Eh, I agree and disagree with the image text. There are similarities, yes, but I wouldn't view it quite as closely connected as the post implies. Main reason being that there's a difference between using verbal abuse to control someone's actions -- like what it implies an abusive boyfriend would do to control his gf -- and using generally third party reference points to construct an admittedly grim world view for a broad demographic group. The manosphere approach is closer, I'd say, to the marketing done by the women's beauty industry in this regard.

Ie. there are certain trends / norms that women tend to cycle through, and certain beauty standards that people generally seem to expect from women (without digging in to that!). The beauty industry leverages that and puts out products re-enforcing those norms / helping ppl align to those norms. There are lots of people that find alternative body types attractive, and/or that have more realistic expectations. But if you're a woman who's obsessed with beauty trends, it can become an unhealthy obsession leading to potential issues like anorexia.

In that it's toxic when taken to an extreme, and in that its fundamentals are based in "reality", the beauty industry's similar to manosphere rhetoric. The manosphere's "short guys get no girls" mentality is backed by many short guys experiences with dating (especially online, where they're pre-filtered!); similarly, a fat girl with lopsided facial features will have difficulty, making the beauty industries products/message more enticing/convincing. They both leverage the generally negative real world experiences of their target audiences to 'ground' their message. Both movements also have equatable super stars -- "Supermodels"/OnlyFans girls/Twitch Streamers/Whatever who are deemed the most beautiful women, and "Tech bros" who are fathering armies of children and touting right wing eugenics-like ideals.

Mostly pointing this alternative comparison out, because I think there's a bit of grey on the manosphere stuff. An obsession with beauty standards/industry stuff is unhealthy, but in moderation its ok/beneficial; an obsession with "men's rights"/"men's issues" is unhealthy, but in moderation it's likely a good thing. More guys being more conscious about their health, and getting more exercise, isn't a bad thing after all -- and that's one of the themes in that manosphere clusterfuck.

Kinda reminds me of boot camp, using psychological attacks to break down men's will and have him disregulated and complient

be 5' 7"

not attractive to most women (aww)

every airplane seat feels like first class

live longer on average (aww)

workout once a week and look buff

no car is too small

sleep like a king in beds of any size

women generally trust you more easily cos your presence is non-threatening

You know it's not that bad of a trade. Y'all sixfooters have fun with the girls.

Contrapoints has a really great video about this.