Online communities like the “manosphere” — including redpill forums and involuntary celibate (incel) circles — have drawn attention for spreading misogyny, hostile views toward women, and in extreme cases, real-world violence.
Pornography plays a central role in these spaces. It’s not just entertainment: it shapes sexual expectations, reinforces dehumanizing messages about women, and provides rhetorical fuel for misogynistic ideologies.
New initial research gives us a glimpse into the link between pornography and incel attitudes, how these communities themselves use porn, and how this combination can contribute to sexual violence.
What Research Shows: Porn Use and Incel Identity
A recent exploratory study, “Pornography Consumption and Body Image Among Incel and Non-Incel Men,” released in June of 2025, investigated differences in porn consumption and sexual schemas between self-identified incel and non-incel men, and the research shows how much porn influences these toxic ideologies.
Within the Incel community, views regarding women aren’t great, yet they express a desire for sexual intimacy. It’s not surprising they turn to porn instead of an actual physical connection when they feel real-life interactions are unattainable.
The study also revealed that Incel men reported greater body dissatisfaction and a negative sexual blueprint: incels showed lower sexual self-efficacy, more genital and body dissatisfaction, and more negative beliefs about their own sexual desirability.
Incel participants were more likely to adopt the belief that sexual encounters are hierarchical and transactional. Sound familiar? Pornography often models this by emphasizing male gratification and objectifying women.
“[Incel men] believed [porn] to be more reflective of real-world sexual relations, anticipated that their future partners will expect them to look and perform like male pornographic actors, and conceded that pornography has worsened their view of women.”
Incel men are “involuntary celibate,” and while each individual may have their own reason for being so, the negative impacts of porn altering their views of women and sexual expectations aren’t helping.
Loneliness, which comes up a lot in incel conversations, makes porn’s effects even stronger—leading to more body insecurities, distorted views about sex, and a cycle of isolation and porn use that feeds itself.
This exploratory study really suggests that pornography may actually reinforce and strengthen harmful incel-related attitudes rather than simply coexisting with them.
How Incel and Manosphere Communities Use Porn
Online incel forums and Incel Reddit threads show just how much pornography is both consumed and discussed within these spaces:
From the Incel.is forum many users describe pornography as their main or only sexual outlet, reinforcing the belief that real women are too difficult to connect with or please, and Reddit users share similar frustrations.
“I need to jerk off and since women refuse to f**k me irl, I have to do this.” – Manse!
Incel users on Reddit often attribute their incel status or radicalized worldview to porn addiction. Some see quitting porn as a “red-pill awakening,” framing women as responsible for their sexual frustration and a justification for misogyny.
Incel forums also frequently borrow metaphors and terminology from pornography — for example, degrading terms and acts — to frame women as objects and sex as a tool for male gratification.
Analyses of incel forums reveal that most often users move from misogynistic complaints to fantasies or advocacy of sexualized violence, reflecting how porn-influenced ideas of dominance and entitlement can merge with extremist thought.
These examples illustrate that pornography is not just a background factor; it’s embedded in the language, metaphors, and worldview of incel and manosphere communities.
From Ideology to Action
So how can online fantasy turn into real-life harm? The link between porn and violence isn’t always direct, but it’s powerful. When pornography’s distorted messages about sex and gender mix with the resentment and anger common in incel or redpill spaces, it can create a dangerous cycle—one where objectification turns into justification, and fantasy becomes fuel for real-world aggression.
Much of mainstream porn depicts aggression, domination, or nonconsensual behavior as part of “normal” sex. Over time, repeated exposure to those scenes can blur the lines between fantasy and acceptable reality, especially for men already struggling with anger, rejection, or social isolation, coercion, and violence become normalized.
In incel spaces, rejection is often framed as a woman’s fault—something she “deserves” for overlooking certain men. This rhetoric can make entitlement and resentment feel justified, a mindset that researchers say is strongly linked to both hostility and distorted sexual beliefs.
Redpill language and porn-influenced narratives don’t stay tucked away in dark corners of the internet and live only on incel forums. They spill over into influencer content, and “alpha male” podcasts and videos that reach millions. These cultural echoes normalize harmful attitudes toward women in subtler, more shareable ways.
For many in the manosphere, porn isn’t just entertainment—it’s escape. But that escape often deepens feelings of loneliness and resentment. As researchers note, porn-fueled fantasies can reinforce a sense of failure and feed extremist communities where misogynistic ideas go unchallenged, and the cycle of isolation just repeats.
Spawning Extremist Thinking — and Real Violence
This isn’t just theory—it’s reality. We’ve already seen what happens when misogynistic ideology, sexual frustration, and online radicalization collide. Two of the most well-documented cases are the 2020 Toronto spa attack and the 2014 Isla Vista massacre carried out by Elliot Rodger.
In February 2020, a 17-year-old male entered a massage spa in Toronto armed with a machete. He killed a woman and injured another woman, along with the spa’s owner. Authorities later discovered that the attacker was identified as an involuntary celibate, or “incel,” and that his actions were driven by beliefs rooted in the incel subculture. Police found online searches and writings referencing other incel-linked attackers, and noted that the perpetrator had labeled himself a “proud incel.” In later hearings, the attacker admitted that resentment toward women and a sense of sexual rejection were core motivations for the violence, aligning with patterns seen in other extremist movements.
Elliot Rodger’s 2014 Isla Vista massacre remains one of the most infamous examples of this ideology turning deadly. On May 23, 2014, Rodger murdered six people and injured thirteen others near the University of California, Santa Barbara before taking his own life. In his 141-page manifesto, Rodger directly blamed women and society for his loneliness and frustration. “Tomorrow is the day of retribution,” he said. “For the last eight years, I have been forced to endure loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires … You girls have never been attracted to me … But I will punish you all for it”.
Both cases show the same dangerous pattern: porn-fueled sexual entitlement, digital echo chambers, and deep-seated misogyny can combine into something lethal. These aren’t isolated incidents—they’re warnings about what happens when a toxic online worldview meets unchecked anger and access to real-world weapons.
The Issue: Harmful Ideologies & Porn
Now it’s important to note that pornography alone does not cause incel identity or sexual violence. And every individual who identifies as Incel or participates in their groups or forums doesn’t necessarily watch porn. We came across plenty of threads within Incel conversations where users discuss how harmful porn is, and even others seeking help to quit.
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Research and real-world evidence show porn provides much of the scaffolding — sexual scripts, entitlement logic, and metaphorical language — that helps misogynistic ideologies make sense and persist, and its harmful impact is more than Incels and the Manosphere. When anyone is exposed to often violent and nonconsensual content, it will warp sexual expectations and impact real-world views of others.
Let’s flip the script and fuel a society built on love and healthy relationships, grounded in genuine connection. Relationships that exist outside of porn.
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
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