@LimitedLight How do you know whether they had sex or not? Its fairly common that if 2 people are having sex there is a 3rd around feeling left out. Or what if guy A had been having sex with girl A, but then guy B comes along and she prefers guy B - doesn't that make guy A an incel? You can be an incel without being a virgin - incel = involuntarily celibate, not never having had sex even once.

@LimitedLight Basically anybody who can't get laid is an incel. That covers married people whose spouse doesn't want to do it with them, someone who has been quite promiscuous in their youth but now that they're older can't get any action, people who got dumped who can't find a new lover...many scenarios.

@LimitedLight On that thread they are using the most widely accepted urban definition of the term, and it does indeed seem to be a "thing" lately. In the past incels weren't organized into groups, encouraging and feeding one another's dysfunctional emotional issues - except perhaps in stereotypical "he-man woman hater's clubs", or neglected housewives going to male strip clubs on a girl's night out to blow off some steam. The fact that certain angry white young men have been able to and chosen to organize with the power of the internet, and have worked themselves into a revenge seeking violent frenzy against random imagined "foes" is unfortunate; but that genie and its terminology is out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. Since people have died due to these people's misplaced rage and entitlement, it is no surprise that people are alarmed when they hear someone expressing such sentiments on this site. I'm afraid that lately the term "incel" has been permanently hijacked as a descriptive term for that particular type of angry, violent incel. I guess we will have to coin other more specific (and less negatively tainted) terminology for other types of "incels" - such as volcels for the voluntarily celibate, mehcels for people who just aren't trying anymore, tempcels for people who are taking a break, marcels for marrieds who can't get any at home, etc. etc.

I have no wish to join an argument with anyone on that thread or this one - if you choose to, that's your prerogative. When I started talking about this I didn't know you were doing this one in response to that one. Is there more than one type of incel - yes. Do we need to specify other types we're talking about - probably, especially if we are discussing anything other than what is now considered the go-to meaning, which would be organized, angry, entitled, vengeful, violent young white men.