Taboos as Drivers for Counterculture: Normalizing Misogyny in Incel Communities and Beyond

Abstract

Countercultures are defined in opposition to the mainstream. They permit the exploration, promotion, and adoption of ideas and practices placed outside the status quo. One way to do so is by exploiting taboo utterances that are prohibited in mainstream culture. We define taboo utterances as those that either constitute socially prohibited acts (e.g., slurs), express elements of a prohibited ideology (e.g., claims advocating the subjugation of women), or promote socially prohibited actions (e.g., violence against women). Such transgressive utterances help create, negotiate, and reproduce countercultural roles and ideologies. Adopting a countercultural role can function as an act of resistance that seeks to redefine the mainstream community's standards, values, and expectations. In this paper, we explain this process by building on a framework of social role revision put forth by Berškytė and Popa-Wyatt (2025). In their account, reclaimed slurs and self-derogatory terms are critical to revising in-group social roles. We expand on this proposal in two ways: (i) we show that taboo utterances can also be used to revise these roles; (ii) we extend the mechanism of role revision not only for the in-group but also for the out-group. Our contribution is to show how exploiting taboo utterances can help construct ideological roles both for in-groups and out-groups which, we argue, are key drivers to reproducing countercultural ideologies. These ideological roles enrich the landscape of social roles. We proceed as follows. Section 2 outlines how taboos affect countercultures. We describe the different functions of taboos and how they might be exploited to resist or challenge mainstream norms, values, and expectations. In Section 3, we outline social roles, highlighting mechanisms for reproducing or revising unjust social roles. In Section 4, we introduce our case study of the manosphere incel (involuntary celibate) counterculture. The manosphere is a collection of online spaces united by its misogynistic and anti-feminist rhetoric. One such space consists of forums hosting manosphere incels, that is, men who desire but are unable to obtain an intimate relationship and place the blame for their failure on women. Incels adopt a nihilistic ideology (known as the blackpill1), perpetuating the narrative that one's immutable features and women's shallow nature relegate incels to a permanent low social standing. We end with brief ethical implications by considering how these countercultural norms might extend and normalize beyond the incel counterculture (Section 5). We conclude in Section 6. Taboos are prohibitions on transgressive behavior: they function to delineate acceptable and unacceptable behaviors within a group, community, or society. They thus act as a boundary for what can be said or done, typically concerning issues that violate moral and social norms.2 Several ingredients make up the anatomy of a taboo. First, the tabooed language or behavior is transgressive. It goes against deep-seated beliefs; it can threaten moral codes; or it can violate prevailing social norms in a group, community, or society. Second, the violation of taboos can cause varying degrees of upset, unease, discomfort, offense, or harm. A more transgressive taboo is likely to cause more upset. Third, the social order is restored by imposing sanctions on the transgressor. Fourth, transgressions need to be policed to ensure compliance. Given these factors, we can understand taboo as a regulatory mechanism that seeks to maintain the status quo of a given social order. Taboos are also drivers for social change. Noncompliance through taboo-violation can be as important as compliance with taboos. Essentially, by breaking taboos one not only challenges prevailing norms but also seeks to explore, promote, and adopt ideas and practices placed outside the status quo. This opens up the door for new social arrangements—both for good and ill. For example, the continuous transg