Trad cons and reactionary feminists need to be a lot more realistic about what they’re up against. Specifically they really ought to offer up a realistic solution to The Incel Question.

Traditionally the incel rate was around 15%, and this was eugenic and good. But it’s recently risen to above 30% and keeps rising, and this is obviously unsustainable without the adoption of parallel polygynous structures like harems or mistress keeping. If you don’t want that to happen you need a good way of decreasing the incel rate, because nature abhors a vacuum.

Let’s approach this as an exercise in creative empathy. Your thirtieth percentile zoomer guy has been addicted to hardcore porn since he was nine years old. His attention span is in the toilet and he probably has moderate social anxiety. His female counterparts are better educated and make a lot more money than him. They also have a much lower sex drive than their mother’s generation while resenting/fearing men a lot more.

Meanwhile, it’s become socially problematic for him to go after girls 4-5 years younger than himself, and it’s also seen as unacceptable to ask out coworkers and strangers in day to day life. He’s not hot enough to get laid on Tinder, so in most cases finding love boils down to getting lucky through extended friend groups, which are of course much harder to come by in a world of increased atomization.

How do you recalibrate the incentive structure to get this guy a girlfriend? How do you make it worthwhile for him to actively try instead of falling deeper into the porn/weed/vidya rabbit hole? What are some realistic policy moves that would have a meaningful impact?

No, you’re not gonna ban Tinder or porn anytime soon. Nor are simple exhortations to go to church going to cut it. If that were the answer he wouldn’t be thirtieth percentile and an incel; he already would have willed his way into a higher caliber.

Let me also ask you this: If you’re approaching a young man who came up in this same ecology and grew successful with women by exploiting the many asymmetries of modernity, how on earth are you going to sell him on giving up his surplus when a huge number of women in his cohort openly or tacitly prefer sharing a higher status guy to securing commitment from an unagentic dopamine zombie?

I am asking these questions in entirely good faith. But thus far I haven’t heard any answers from trads or rxfems that seem satisfactory.