QC

I know too many men who straight-up have trauma around relating to other men - because their fathers abused them, because boys made fun of them growing up, all sorts of reasons.

One of the most eye-opening things I did in 2018 was befriend several sex workers, and what they all told me is that tons of their clients are looking for emotional connection, not sex. One of them had a session that was literally just crying the entire time.

These sex workers are de facto therapists, sometimes helping men who would never see a therapist (due to pride etc). They talk to their clients about their failing marriages, etc. They're sometimes the only people in their clients' lives they can open up to.

(They also get clients who are just looking to dominate a hot piece of meat, stuff like that. Those men aren't exactly happy either; they're even farther from understanding what it is they actually want. But at least they pay my friends' rent!)

I have learned a lot about the state of modern masculinity from sex workers, and it looks really bad. Even (especially?) rich, "successful" men are lonely and totally disconnected from themselves and the people in their lives. They're lost. How much worse must it be for incels?

I think sex workers can be an important part of the way forward. There is a societal role we mostly don't have and badly need, in the neighborhood of sex worker / therapist / priestess, cf. the Kushiel's Legacy series. Teachers of sacred sexuality.

Incels don't even have sex workers to open up to (apparently many of them hate sex workers, welp). Just each other. They may never have experienced someone fully welcoming them, but they can tell that something's missing, and they can tell that they hurt.

Emotional connection isn't the whole story. There's a part of you that dies without anybody to look at and touch you with eros. Cf. @The_Weed's haunting post about his mixed-orientation marriage (husband gay, wife straight) ending: http://joshweed.com/2018/01/turning-unicorn-bat-post-announce-end-marriage/ …

They tried so hard to love each other, because they thought God wanted it, and it destroyed them. Josh (husband): "The love I felt was real, but something in me wanted to die." "[W]hen we don’t have attachment—and have no hope of attachment–our brain tells us we need to die."

Lolly (wife): "He has never touched me with the sensitive touch of a lover." "Subconsciously, it was a constant message. You aren’t attractive. You aren’t wanted. You aren’t beautiful. You aren’t a good enough woman."

This despite the fact that their marriage was full of love and, for that matter, sex. But: "So much of that sexual activity was a belief that deep down, somewhere in me, I was actually straight..." "...more than that [sex] was an act that distanced me from the core of myself."

It's a heartbreaking story and it has much to teach. Romantic attachment is real and important, Josh and Lolly didn't have it, and despite having just about everything else including sex, it was killing them. Again, how much worse must it be for incels?