WeHo May Declare an Incel Pride Day
The declaration would honor those gay men who can’t get laid
The West Hollywood City Council may soon consider a proposal to declare an annual Incel Pride Day to honor the involuntarily celibate.
The proposal to honor involuntarily celibate residents is expected to be on the Council’s agenda next month. If approved, it will be one of many Council declarations over the years intended to promote West Hollywood as a progressive city. They include declaring a Transgender Awareness Month; a Bisexual Pride Day, and a World Dog Day. Among other declarations are Cesar Chavez Day, in honor of the Latino labor organizer; Anna Nicole Smith Day, in honor of the notorious stripper and reality TV star, and Stormy Daniels Day, in honor of the porn performer who allegedly had an affair with former President Donald Trump.
Few of the City Council’s declarations actually have anything to do with the residents of West Hollywood. For example, only 3% of residents identified as bisexual in the city’s last official community survey, and none identified as transgender. But the incel population is thought to be large. Traditionally described as men who are unable to fulfill their desire for a sexual relationship with a woman, incels also include gay men who are unable to fulfill their desire for a sexual relationship with another man. Thirty-three percent of West Hollywood’s 37,000 residents identify as gay men. And most are said to be “bottoms,” which is a description of gay men who desire to be the recipients of penetrative sex. With few “tops” in West Hollywood (defined as men who penetrate another man’s anus with their penis), a large majority of the city’s bottoms are thought to be involuntarily celibate. That sexual gap is evident in searches of West Hollywood men on gay hookup sites like Grindr, where those who identify as “tops” are rare.
Former Mayor and City Councilmember John Duran seemed to allude to the lack of sexual activity in a controversial interview that he did in 2019. In a story from that interview posted on Splinter, the online news site, Duran responded to allegations of his sexually inappropriate behavior by claiming that he was the only sexually active member of the five-member Council, two of whose other members were gay men.
City Hall staffers who are drafting the proposed declaration say it’s not yet clear whether the two Council members bringing it forward want to have the city fund a public Incel Pride event. It also is not clear whether there will be an “Incel Parade,” like the Pride Parade and Bisexual Parade the city sponsors. Incels are said to engage in the “virgin walk,” which is a way to describe those whose insecurity in public is obvious. The City Hall staffers, who asked that their identities not be disclosed, also declined to identify the Council members who have proposed a declaration of Incel Pride Day before it appears on the agenda. However, there currently are only two gay men on the City Council — John Erickson and John Heilman — both of whom have been single for many years.
To date, the city has not done anything to address the needs of its incel residents. Advocates for incel men have suggested a number of steps the city could take, such as providing free subscriptions to gay hookup sites such as Grindr and Scruff for those who identify as tops, which likely would increase their presence in West Hollywood. Another idea is for the city to promote the “side” sexual identification. Those who identify as “sides” are not interested in giving or getting anal penetration but prefer to engage in other mutual sexual activity.
Heterosexual incels have been associated with several extremist communities and are thought to be misogynistic. “Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence,” a study by Bruce Hoffman, Jacob Ware, and Ezra Shapiro published in the Studies in Conflict & Terrorism journal, says “a particularly worrying trend is how effectively the militant incel community has become integrated into the fabric of the alt-right, with common grievances and intermingled memberships bringing both extremisms closer together.”
Incels express their rage on various online forums. One example is Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old straight incel, who in 2014 killed six people and injured 13 in Isla Vista, CA, before killing himself. Before the attack, Rodger uploaded a video titled “Retribution” on YouTube, in which he explains why he planned the murders. He said it was to punish women for rejecting him and punish sexually active men, whose lives were better than his.
However, some gay incels also vent online. Michael Hobbes, in a story published on Huffpost, interviews a 28-year-only gay incel who lives in the Midwest and has expressed his rage online. “ So are you like a real person or just another shallow empty fuckboy who works in an industry that props up unrealistic gay male beauty/sex standards and wouldn’t be caught dead with anyone below pornboy looks?” the gay incel said in a message to YouTube and Instagram gays.
He says he has been attracted to “slim, pretty-faced guys who looked like they had a lot of money, who lived that West Hollywood lifestyle, who could eat whatever they wanted and never gain a single pound.” But, Hobbes writes, he sees as “shallow, superficial, hoarding status and sex and power and denying it to him.”
