independent.co.uk
Incels should be placed into “date coaching” and “speed dating” to help reintegrate them into society, a leading expert has said.
Andrew Thomas, a senior lecturer at the University of Swansea, has done numerous studies on the incel movement.
Incel, short for involuntary celibate, is a long-running online subculture of men who want to have sex with women but are unable to find romantic partners.
Dr Thomas said that relationship coaching was “not about getting these guys laid”, but rather about helping them challenge their incel views and form healthy relationships with women.
He told The Times: “My perspective is that for a lot of these guys there’s a huge deficit in knowing how to have any sort of social relationship at all. And helping them with that puts them in a social position where it’s harder to hold the views that they have.
“It’s very easy to walk around hating 50 per cent of the population if you’re never subjected to that half of the population.”
His comments come after Netflix series Adolescence sparked a national conversation in the UK about the incel movement. Schoolchildren are also set to be given lessons in how to counter misogyny and toxic masculinity amid the rise of social media influencers such as Andrew Tate.
Sir Keir Starmer, hosting a meeting at Downing Street late last month to discuss the influence of toxic social media content, said the Netflix show had been a difficult watch with his teenage children.
The prime minister agreed the show should be shown in schools to help teach teenagers about healthy relationships, but he warned there was no “simple solution” to stop boys from being dragged into “a whirlpool of hatred and misogyny”.