Should We Be Worried About Incel Violence? - Dr Andrew Thomas - #853

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dr. Andrew Thomas. He's a senior lecturer of psychology at Swansea University and a writer. The topic of involuntarily celibates is a spicy one. Half of the internet fears them and the other half pities them. Very few have researched about why these communities come together and who constitutes them. Andrew's new work looks at this in pretty fascinating detail. Expect to learn whether incels should be looked at from a mental health perspective, why there isn't more incel violence, what the word HMPATHY means, whether incels are all sexually entitled, what Andrew has learned about men's experiences with female therapists and much more. If you've ever tried to trim your gentleman's area in the shower using an old face shaver, it is a little bit like trying to juggle knives. Definitely a high-risk strategy. There are purpose-built tools for the job and the Manscaped Lawnmower 5 is the best in the business for below-the-waist grooming. It's got a cutting-edge ceramic blade to reduce grooming accidents, a 90-minute battery so that you can take a longer shave, waterproof technology which allows you to groom in the shower, and an LED light which illuminates grooming areas for a closer and more precise trim. Or if you just want to do it in the dark while everyone else is asleep, a nice surprise for them all to wake up to. You can get a 20% discount off everything site-wide plus free international shipping by going to the link in the description below or heading to manscaped.com/modernwisdom and using the code modern wisdom 20 a checkout. That's manscaped.com/modernwisdom and modern wisdom 20 a checkout. I've worn Whoop for over four years now since way before they were a partner on the show and it is the only wearable I've ever stuck with because it's the best. It's so innocuous you don't remember that you've got it on and yet it tracks absolutely everything 24 7 via your wrist. It tracks your heart rate, your sleep, your recovery, all of your workouts, your resting heart rate, heart rate variability, how much you're even breathing throughout the night, puts all of this into an app and spits out very simple, easy to understand and fantastically usable data. It's phenomenal. I'm a massive, massive fan of Whoop and that is why it's the only wearable that I've ever stuck with. And best of all, you can join for free, pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 4 strap. Plus you get your first month for free and there's a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it for free, try it for free. If you don't like it after 29 days, they'll give you your money back. Right now you can get all of that by heading to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. Trust really is everything when it comes to supplements. A lot of brands may say that they're top quality, but few can actually prove it, which is why I partnered with Momentus. They make the highest quality supplements on the planet. I've fallen in love with their Whey Isolate Protein Powder. It's grass-fed and each batch is exclusively sourced from EU dairy farmers whose cows are free of hormones, steroids and all other junk. What you read on the label is what's in the product and absolutely nothing else. And best of all, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it completely risk-free. And if you do not like it for any reason, you don't like the taste, you don't like the way it works, they will give you your money back. That's how confident they are that you'll love it. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get a 20% discount site-wide on everything by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's livemomentous.com/modernwisdom and modern wisdom at checkout. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Andrew Thomas.
You spoke at the Houses of Parliament, what was that like?

**Andrew Thomas** (4:05)
I did, yeah, that was daunting. And it was really hot, and I decided to wear my three piece, which was, no, no, no, no, no, no. But no, that was a really interesting experience, because we produced a piece of research that was funded by an arm's length body of the Home Office into incels. You very kindly shared that study when it was out to help us with recruitment, and that was one of the biggest incel studies to date. And the Women in Equality Select Committee, who were really interested in it. And so they called myself, Joe Whittaker and Will, to come and talk to them about the report a little bit more, which was a fantastic experience, all recorded and online. I didn't realize how they do these things these days, all sort of part of the public record. But hopefully, we'll kind of inform policy a little bit and dispel some of the myths around the incel phenomenon, I think, because the primary research is what we need to be doing, that there's a lot of theoretical stuff out there that's a little bit bad. There's a lot of secondary data analysis, scraping forums and stuff that gives a little bit of a misleading picture. But it was fantastic to be able to talk about that research on that forum, and I'd love to go back and do more of it.