“Deadly beautiful”: why incels lie under the surgeon’s knife

User Truth4lie (literal translation – “truth for lies.” – Approx. ed.) turned 27. Behind him is a year in a psychiatric clinic after a suicide attempt. Together with a friend from the hostel, they studied the theory of a pickup truck and practiced their skills in practice – however, without much success – until one day a revelation descended on Truth4lie: it’s not at all what he says, but how he looks.

The insight did not happen on its own: Truth4lie was sitting in a thread of a men’s forum where pickup strategies were discussed, and the public unanimously agreed that if you were unlucky with your appearance, nothing could be done about it. Ugly people are doomed to live and die alone.

Truth4lie was incredibly inspiring. Doctors at the clinic said that the roots of his problems must be sought in childhood traumas, that consciousness determines emotions, which means that by changing the way of thinking, one can change behavior. But what if the problem is not inside, but outside? You can’t change your appearance by changing the train of thought, just as you won’t change our windy world, which puts beauty above all else. Realizing this was both painful and sweet: as if he had been wandering in the dark for years and finally found out the truth about himself.

The man spent the next night comparing his selfies with the reflection in the mirror, noting the asymmetry in his facial features. Friends and family say that Truth4lie suffers from body dysmorphic disorder, or body dysmorphic disorder, a condition that affects one in 50 people. Patients with this diagnosis are obsessed with flaws in their own appearance that others simply do not notice.

However, in this case, the “authoritative public” – visitors to the same forum – agreed: there are flaws – and the chin is weak-willed, and the nose is “female”, and the shoulders are narrow, and the hair began to thin too early. For Truth4lie, this explained a lot: why he had no luck with girls at school, why his ex-girlfriend did not love him, why women on the street never return his glances and smiles.

But, according to forum visitors, of course, not only appearance is to blame, but also women and their growing social power. There were times when women wanted only one thing – to get married as soon as possible in order to find stability. Today, they change men like gloves, when they are a little over 20, they are young and beautiful and ready to calm down, only “went into circulation”, at 30 and later. Yes, and then count on their loyalty is not particularly necessary.

Dating apps, divorce courts, the gender diversity policies that many companies adhere to – all this is on the side of women, all this has turned them into a privileged class. (There was, of course, no mention of the income gap, discrimination against pregnant women, and violence against women.)

The key of all doors

As the years went by, Truth4lie’s depression progressed. He worked from home, occasionally getting out into the street and keeping a record of all the girls who honored him with even a look. He rated each one on a ten-point scale. He was especially annoyed by women with baby carriages: the thought that the girl “mutilated” her body was unbearable to him. Users on the forums shared his disgust.

They called themselves incels, forced virgins (incel is short for “involuntarily celibate.” – Ed.). Truth4lie’s forum alone had 10 such men registered. It was not only women who were ranked and evaluated: alpha males – with impeccable genes, an unmeasured bank account, surrounded by universal adoration – were called Chads here.

Everyone in this online community hated the Chads, but they also believed that their own lives would instantly improve if they became a little more like this ideal. Everything was used: bodybuilding, steroids, skin care, exercises to increase the length of the penis, trying to chew the most solid food to pump up the muscles of the jaw.

Some were in the mood for more radical changes in their own appearance. It’s all about the bones, they thought. The wrong body structure and facial features – that’s what deprives them of the chance of relationships with women. And the only way to fix it is to lie down on the surgeon’s table.

Some incels have been collecting information about the necessary procedures for years. Almost all of them sooner or later came across the same name – Barry Eppley, a plastic surgeon from Indiana.

Truth4lie was no exception: for years he dreamed of meeting a surgeon, calling him Einstein in the field of aesthetic medicine, putting him on a par with Mandela, Shakespeare, Luther King, Descartes and Mother Teresa.

Epidemic of “beauty”

According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, from 1997 to 2015 in the United States alone, the number of men who turned to plastic surgeons increased by 325%. Eppley performs about 450 operations per year – 8-10 per week. He designs a jaw model for each client in CAD, a program commonly used by architects and engineers.

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The range of services that he provides is quite wide: expansion and narrowing of bones (impressive readers are better off not knowing how this is done), removal of ribs, implantation of implants in the quadriceps and deltoid muscle. According to the Q&A section on his website, his oldest patients were over 70, and he can also make a client look like another person if he wants.

Eppley designs all procedures based on the desires – sometimes the most bizarre – of patients. “Appearance is the only thing that some of them can control,” explains the doctor. “And if changing the shape of the tip of the nose will make them happy, why not?”

Eppley works not only with men: his most famous patient is a Swedish model and “live cartoon” Pixie Fox. The surgeon made her a “wasp waist” by removing half of three ribs.

Usually, the matter is not limited to one operation. So, 31-year-old Matthew, a patient of Dr. Eppley, has already undergone three operations on his chin and a rhinoplasty. The doctor also gave him temporal implants and made his mouth wider. Matthew does not consider himself an incel, and operations for him are the same way of working on himself as, say, a diet (except that it is much more painful and more expensive). And yes, what to hide, he would like to become a model with a million followers on Instagram. For the sake of such a goal, he is ready to endure temporary inconvenience. So far, his life has not had time to change: the man moved to his parents in order to save on rent and pay for operations.

Unlike Eppley, some surgeons do not operate on patients with overt signs of body dysmorphic disorder. “For me personally, 200 selfies on a client’s phone are already a wake-up call,” says Virginia-based plastic surgeon Joe Nyamtu. According to him, he refuses to operate many men who dream of a model appearance. “There is a great risk that this will not bring them the happiness they so hope for.”

Incels consider this approach to be discrimination – in their opinion, society and doctors are not so skeptical about the desire of women to correct minor flaws in their appearance.

In addition, shrinks make such a diagnosis simply because they themselves grew up in a different time and did not experience such problems in finding a second half.

New life?

However, back to Chad – the alpha male and the ideal man. On the forums, Incels classify chads by phenotypes (“severe Celt”, “graceful southerner”) and styles (jock, lumberjack, vampire, handsome), share links about how important symmetry and harmony are in world beauty standards.

The more Truth4lie read about Dr. Eppley, the more he believed that this magician and sorcerer could turn him into the perfect Chad. In 2016, when he turned 35, he finally got to the doctor for a video consultation. The doctor said that he was able to correct both the “limp” chin and asymmetry, and lengthen the face with the help of a jaw implant.

Surgery is always a risk: an infection may begin or a distortion may occur. In addition, it is impossible to accurately predict how the implant will look without implanting it, and the healing process can take one to two months. Truth4lie was aware of the risks. Together with the doctor, they set a date for an operation costing $18 (plus flight to the US and hotel). The doctor also had to correct the consequences of an unsuccessful nose operation, which Truth500lie underwent at the age of 4.

That same fall, Truth4lie flew to the US for the first time in its life. When he came to his senses after anesthesia, Dr. Eppley took off the bandages and gave him a mirror, the man looked at his new face for a long time – more brutal, “masculine”. Everything he wanted. His chin was swollen from the operation, his mouth was full of blood, but Truth4lie dreamed of a new life.

“Change awaits me, but where do I start? he wrote that evening. “I need women, lots of women, as a reward for the miserable life I lived before. I need a new social circle, a new personality, a new life. I will go to some hot country, become a playboy, I will bathe in the attention of girls. It’s time to leave the old life behind!”

“Are you asking too much from one chin operation?” — said one of the users in response.

Aggressive Loners

In 2014, 22-year-old incel Elliot Roger posted a seven-minute manifesto on YouTube – the video “Elliot Roger’s Revenge”, in which he spoke about the fact that the world did not give him the girl he deserves, and lamented that women prefer other people to him. . The next day, he went on a campus shooting in Isla Vista, California. Six people were killed and thirteen more were injured. Roger himself committed suicide. There have been at least six more such murders in the past decade.

Roger did not perform operations, but for those who go under the surgeon’s knife, this does not always help to get rid of disappointment, loneliness and aggression against women. User LegendOfBrickTamland says that while his nose, cheekbones and jaw surgery cost him $30, he ended up staying the same. His life, too, has not changed significantly.

That is why many perceive incels not as unfortunate loners, but as cruel and aggressive men prone to misogyny. This group reflects the sexist sentiments of our society, and it is quite difficult to empathize with such people – they definitely do not empathize with others, especially women. Sex for them is a game that you either win or not, and they strive for victory much more than for love or acceptance.

It is ironic that, while the Incels strive to reshape their own appearance and reach for model standards, the fashion industry itself is shifting the focus of attention: now it is increasingly getting imperfect models, beautiful in their naturalness. In a sense, the Incels are trying to jump on the last car of a long-gone train.

Doomed to be miserable

As for Truth4lie, when the swelling subsided after the first operation, he began to have doubts. There were days when he quite liked the new jaw; there were days when it seemed eerily huge. The face suddenly seemed to be too flat.

He was ready to fly back to the USA, but the doctor persuaded him to be patient. “My self-perception is constantly changing,” Truth4lie wrote on a forum in those days. “I dream of living in Eppley’s clinic!” I will look at myself in the mirror, and as soon as I find a flaw, the doctor and his assistants will immediately correct it.

During that year, he flew three more appointments with Dr. Eppley: in particular, to reduce his new jaw. After the second operation, he felt almost happy: he liked what he saw in the mirror, he began to establish old connections. Even passers-by on the street responded to his smile – or did he just think so?

However, soon the man began to find new shortcomings in himself. Sometimes it seemed to him that everything was getting better, and sometimes – that he was only falling deeper into an endless rabbit hole. He stopped hating women, but as soon as he saw an attractive girl on the street paying attention to someone else, the colors faded.

A few weeks after his third plastic surgery, Truth4lie tried to commit suicide. The swelling didn’t go down, looking at myself in the mirror was painful, and death suddenly seemed like an easier way out.

“Now, looking back, it’s easy to say that he never needed to be operated on,” Barry Eppley shrugs. “But it was impossible to say for sure that the operations would never make him happy. And, after all, digging into his head is not my job.” According to him, he does not have any special relationship with incels, neither positive nor negative: “They are just patients – like any others.” He also believes that there are three versions of each of us: who we really are, how others see us, and how we perceive ourselves. And it’s hard to disagree with that.

Self-denying

According to psychotherapist Sam Lu, almost all of us have been rejected by potential partners at least once in our lives, but incels experience such situations so acutely that they begin to consider themselves “doomed to loneliness” and experience real rage towards beautiful people who “without difficulty find a mate.

Incels blame others for their defeats, and the task of the psychotherapist is to help them realize that they themselves repel others, but not at all with their appearance, but with their behavior. And it is not the cheekbones and the shape of the nose that need to be changed, but, above all, the attitude towards oneself. Such people are really “outcasts”, only the whole point is that it is not the world that rejects them at all – they themselves repel themselves.

And until a person stops hating himself, his attitude towards others will not change. This means that there will be new reasons for aggression and, possibly, even human casualties.