ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some results from a study of the manosphere, and focuses on two related, yet different, communities: Incels and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). Both are analysed by drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis and Elizabeth Young-Bruehl’s Anatomy of Prejudice (1996).
While both communities are highly misogynistic and clear representations of toxic masculinity, I consider how the recent amplifications of toxic masculinity on social media and elsewhere can be related to broader cultural developments that concern the changing and contested nature of heterosexuality as such in relation to queer sexuality. Incels and MGTOWs are one particularly extreme example of wider developments that Asa Seresin (2019) has named heteropessimism, which are described as “performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality, usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness about straight experience” (ibid). Heteropessimism is a permanent articulation of disappointment with straight culture and heterosexuality while at the same time remaining deeply attached to them. As Seresin has argued, such discourses can be found within anti-/feminist circles and also in the LGBTQI community. Heteropessimism is thus a contemporary defence mechanism that is more widely apparent than in male communities. The chapter ends with some thoughts on how to move beyond heteropessimism.
