Incels

Cheeks/jaws: On fragile masculinity, fatal body ideals, homophobic homoeroticism and National Socialist aesthetics revisited

Bibliographic Data

ID21875286
AuthorsSarah Held (0000-0002-3775-0855, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume10
Issue1
Pages147-166
Publication date2023-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFashion Style & Popular Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2050-0726 • E-ISSN: 2050-0734
PublisherIntellect (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1386/fspc_00142_1
OpenAlexW4286209702
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited4

This article is concerned with fragile masculinity and its tendency towards authoritarianism and violence by focusing on the characteristics of a specific social group/online community of men called incels ( in voluntary cel ibates). Incels are men who have no sexual encounters, blame women for their exclusion from sexual contact and create toxic online communities to share their violent and deadly misogyny. This article will detail their typical characteristics, including a discussion of their idealized body appearances. These toxic body politics are sampled by National Socialist aesthetics and charged with homoerotic looks and body styles. Like other right-wing groups, incels are driven by homophobia and racism. In their world-view, they also understand their own non-beauty-compliant appearance according to the mainstream normative of beauty as a reason for their sexlessness. The article focuses on the strategy of the misogynistic online community to achieve ‘looksmaxxing’ through cosmetic surgery. Their idealized body images sampled from various set pieces, from pop culture to Nazi chic, display consistent body ideals which feed on ancient mythologies

Aesthetics · Art · Beauty · Literature · Mainstream · Masculinity · Mythology · Political science · Politics · Queer · Sociology · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law

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