The Rules of Attraction: An Empirical Critique of Pseudoscientific Theories about Sex in the Manosphere

Abstract

Academic research is dedicating growing attention to the phenomenon known as the manosphere, where genders and (hetero)sexual relations are explained according to the so-called Red Pill philosophy and LMS theory. In this article, we critically analyze these theories and their pseudoscientific assumptions using a Bourdieusian framework, and we analyze the empirical effects they have in the Incel and Red Pill Italian communities through the example of the “Aranzulla case”. By exploring the “Redpiller” blog and two Incel forums (“Forum of the uglies” and “Forum of the Incel”), we found that, on one hand, the Red Pill and LMS theories are strongly contradictory in themselves because, even if they combine socio-economic and biological theories to explain sexual relations, they assume a fixed vision of gender based on (supposedly) natural inclinations. On the other hand, our results show that these theories promote misogynistic content blaming women for men’s unsatisfaction, but they actually unveil intragender dynamics. Indeed, they produce tensions inside the manosphere, by creating hierarchies of masculinities, and around the possibility of escaping the biological destiny linked to the Incel condition.