DISCUSSION: Looksmaxxing & Sex

Not unlike second-wave feminists, online incel culture recognises beauty standards as oppressive, yet this superficial resemblance conceals diametrically opposed political goals and radically different accounts of what beauty is. What feminism understood as socially constructed and therefore open to dismantling, the blackpill presents as an immutable fact of nature, with women cast as both its beneficiaries and ruthless arbiters. From bonesmashing to the fear of being outmogged, what does looksmaxxing reveal about a generation learning to experience beauty as competition, both biological destiny and a project of relentless work? Young men are becoming subject to pressures long imposed on women, while reproducing them in the language of rankings, gaming and optimisation. The resulting performance of masculinity seems increasingly detached from heterosexual desire, eroticism and intimacy. But what happens when women begin to speak this language too?