Ethology: the study of animal behavior usually with a focus on behavior under natural conditions
My friend, Nick, is an avid naturalist spending much of his leisure time hiking, camping and practicing photography in nature. He recently invited me for a day trip to Ontario’s Algonquin Park. We packed a lunch, found a great hiking trail and had an enjoyable late winter outing. In order to get his most prized views and photos of nature, he related that he camps overnight in the most remote areas of the park.
As we hiked, he advised that we continue our conversation loudly enough to deter potential approaches by the larger species of animal inhabiting the park that could pose a threat. He shared a story of a camping trip where he was charged by a moose during mating season, only narrowly avoiding serious injury. On another occasion, a moose charged his vehicle, requiring split-second decision-making to avoid a head-on collision.
In our conversation, I recounted having spent part of my childhood in northern British Columbia. I recall my parents discussing having the family vehicle charged at and demolished by a moose during rutting season while traveling on Highway 37 between Terrace and Kitimat. My parents would eventually lose another vehicle to a collision with a deer near Rose Lake, B.C..
Our hike and visit took place around the time of the Alek Minassian trial. Minassian is an adult with autism spectrum disorder and member of online “incel” or involuntarily celibate communities. These communities of sexually frustrated men vent their anger together online at being shut out of sex. This anger is directed at women.
In a fit of incel rage, Minassian drove a van onto a Toronto sidewalk killing ten and gravely injuring sixteen. At his trial, he was found guilty of ten counts of first-degree murder and sixteen counts of attempted murder. While neither Nick nor I are scientists, our discussion reflected on the similarities between incels and the aggression of moose in mating season.
As civilization advances, it often does so in directions away from humankind’s animal nature. Society’s aversion to dealing with all things sexual has not produced workable solutions to sex-related problems and dilemmas. The vow of chastity in the priesthood is one such measure that has not only failed miserably but created distorted, unhealthy and harmful outcomes.
As anyone who has worked with developmentally delayed, special needs or autism spectrum disordered populations can tell you, managing adult sexuality with these groups is fraught with challenges. But avoidance of the unpleasant does not make those challenges go away.
Medium writer Mysterious Witt wrote an excellent article entitled “It’s Not Sex Workers Job to Cure Incels”. She raises sex workers’ rights to decline unsafe work in her discussion of incels. No human being, paid or not, should be obliged to put themselves in harm’s way to satisfy another’s sexual needs.
While incels and other autism spectrum disorder groups can be high functioning, they do not have the ability or social skills to navigate relationships of consent. While I am no scientist, I believe it is incumbent on society to be proactive in such matters. As they say in physics, “All that energy has to go somewhere”. With some ingenuity and creativity that “somewhere” can be a place of harm reduction, healthy release of pent up frustration or sex drive diversion into healthier ends than the more gruesome alternatives.
I believe some potential solutions to the incel problem lie in a combination of sex work as therapy, sex dolls or sex robots, and arranged relationships of consent with partners of similar populations. Groups as high functioning as incels can also be viable candidates for life skills training in interpersonal communication.
Human beings are part of the animal kingdom. Ignoring the baser aspects of our animal nature does neither the individual nor society any favors. Historical attempts at suppressing sexuality have resulted in distorted unintended side effects where human rights are abused or a major part of our humanity is cloaked in unhealthy shame. A proactive approach to the incel phenomenon could direct sexual energies in benign directions before they manifest into deadly, violent hatred.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Shivam Kumar on Unsplash