• WalrusDragonOnABike@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Women were under the opposite pressure: to stay a virgin. Also, some people don’t want to be in relationships. In middle/high school, a lot of dating was obviously performative and they were only “dating” because of social pressures to do so. I’m no longer a teen, so I have no clue what the pressures are now. It could be the pressures are still there and more people are failing to meet them (hence, the incel community). I know they’re not completely gone, because I still sometimes hear about things like people dating because they want to have someone for prom or whatever.

    Given how complex mental health is, trying to tie it to just one thing that correlates with it is not very convincing. Likewise, even if incel culture is on the rise, it seems much more reasonable to connect that to the growth of the internet and the niche communities it allows to fester and become visible.