Radicalised Masculinity: The Holy Incel - How the Church Consecrated Male Celibacy, While Also Condemning It
8 min read
The Church has long treated celibacy as a paradox – sacred for clergy, suspect for laypeople – transforming sexual frustration into religious loyalty and moral superiority. This duality invites comparisons to the modern manosphere, particularly incel communities, which similarly reframe personal struggles as ideological identity. Historical figures like Saint Jerome and the Desert Fathers embodied radicalised masculinity, using celibacy to reject intimacy and elevate male spiritual authority. While not all celibates were incels in robes, many channelled their frustrations into rigid dogmas that upheld toxic masculinity. Today, as institutions no longer contain these struggles in religious structures, they resurface online, showing that the unmet desires of the past haven’t disappeared – they’ve just rebranded.
Celibacy inside the Church is a strange thing. If you’re a priest, monk, nun – or the denominational equivalent – your celibacy is a halo of holiness. If you’re a random single person of reproductive age just trying to get by without a partner, it is a problem to be solved, a burden to be lifted – preferably through marriage, and certainly not through personal liberation. You’re either a vessel of divine sacrifice – or someone who’s clearly doing life wrong. Celibacy is simultaneously sacred and suspicious, a virtue and a verdict, depending on whether your body is working for the institution. Because if your energy is not being used in the service of the faith, it must be used for marriage and procreation – in order to provide more servants for the faith.
So, thinking about the modern manosphere and its various factions, such as the incels, has led me to wonder if religious celibacy has been the Church’s original PR campaign for involuntary celibacy? And is religious celibacy, therefore, a form of ideological containment? Has the Church functioned as a moral pressure valve for the very same frustrations that fuel modern incel culture? Were monasteries and orders simply the ancient world’s internet forums, giving frustrated men robes and social capital?
If involuntary celibates today radicalise online, would many of them, in another time, have found themselves deep in ascetic devotion? And for the unmarried men and women who grew up in the Church – or even had any kind of prolonged spiritual encounter with it – are we simply sanctified incels instead of radicalised ones? Because when you drain away the holy oil and water, the pattern remains: sexually frustrated people being absorbed into ideological structures that reframe their struggles as some kind of superiority. The only difference is the Church has better branding and infrastructure.
Celibacy as Control: A Very Holy Management Strategy
The Church has a long history of directing, even weaponising, celibacy as a mechanism of control. Celibacy has been used to regulate sexual energy and sublimate it into service, ensuring that personal frustrations become diverted into religious devotion and institutional loyalty.
Monasticism gave disenfranchised men purpose, channelling their frustrations into prayer, self-denial, and unwavering religious observance. It also provided an outlet for those who might have struggled to fit into traditional marriage structures, offering them an alternative space for identity and social belonging. The priesthood turned forced abstinence into spiritual superiority. And instead of fuelling outward rage (as seen in today’s incel culture), sexual frustration was transformed into obedience, discipline, and a “higher calling”.
The Church as a Purified PR Machine
If we’re honest, the Church hasn’t just been a religion. It has long been clear that the Church has been a vehicle for empire, patriarchy, white supremacy, and cultural control. Christianity has served as a tool for “kingdom”-building and colonisation, often repackaging social and political strategies as divine mandates to consolidate power and extend influence.
Being known then to sell ideological control as divine instruction, it is not inconceivable that celibacy – when wielded by the Church – becomes another extension of that control. When convenient, celibacy is consecrated by the Church. When inconvenient, that same institutional power disparages it. Offering a route of either condemnation or exaltation, celibacy must always bend to the institution’s will.
So, before inceldom and the rest of it, the Church was already rebranding sexual “failure” as spiritual devotion. But men’s frustrations didn’t just disappear. The Church didn’t solve the problem. Instead, these frustrations were laundered through self-sacrifice for the institution, to the extent that if and when these frustrations manifested (as they inevitably did), the men were still considered “sanctified”.
Historical Case Studies: Radically Sanctified Masculinity
There are many men in the Church whose “holy glow” sometimes cannot quite mask their seething misogyny and deep interpersonal issues. But what’s perhaps more disturbing is the Church’s absorption of such men into its power structures. For not only did the Church institutionalise celibacy and formalise it as both virtue and weapon through such influential figures, but many shaped Christian doctrine with deeply misogynistic views.
1. Saint Jerome (c. 347–420) – Angry, Misogynistic Saint
Saint Jerome, best known for translating the Bible into Latin (Vulgate), can be seen as having serious incel energy. His writings are filled with hostility toward women and a fixation on celibacy as the only true path to holiness. If Jerome had access to Reddit, he might have been posting in r/RedPill rather than writing biblical commentaries.
He wrote venomous letters condemning women’s sexuality, calling marriage a lesser, tainted choice
He described women as temptations and saw female beauty as something to be feared and avoided.
His letters suggest a man deeply resentful of those who did not conform to his self-denial.
2. Tertullian (c. 155–220) – “Women Are the Gateway to Hell”
Tertullian, the early Christian theologian from Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia), is credited with coining the term ‘Trinity’, one of Christianity’s most central theological concepts. But while shaping Christian doctrine, he also promoted extreme misogyny and asceticism.
He wrote of women: “You are the devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree”.
He condemned marriage as a concession to human weakness and promoted strict abstinence.
He viewed women primarily as corrupting forces that distracted men from their divine calling.
3. The Desert Fathers (3rd–4th Century) – Self-Imposed Isolationists
The Desert Fathers were hermits who fled to the wilderness to live in extreme asceticism, often to escape worldly (and sexual) temptations. If these men lived today, would they have joined a monastery – or would they have locked themselves in their rooms, with an internet connection, blaming others for their solitude?
Some of them saw women as literal demons.
They would refuse to look at or speak to women at all.
Rather than integrating with others, they chose extreme self-denial and isolation.
4. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407) – “Marriage Is Just Government-Approved Lust”
John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), was known for his preaching, theological writings, and contributions to Christian liturgy. His name, Chrysostom, means “Golden-Mouthed” – a horror, considering how he railed against marriage, women, and Jews. He’s like the Church’s original Men Going Their Own Way advocate.
· He argued that men who married were weak and controlled by their desires.
· He saw virginity as the highest virtue, insisting that even married couples should avoid sex.
· He promoted the idea that the ideal man is one who conquers his lust through discipline.
5. Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) – Medieval Moral Puritan
Savonarola led the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, where he and his followers burned books, art, and anything they deemed “immoral”. If alive today, he might have raged against “degeneracy” in online forums.
He was obsessed with sexual purity and condemned women’s fashion.
He preached against indulgence, pleasure, and any expression of desire.
He envisioned a world purified of anything involving female beauty or sexuality.
6. The Shakers (18th–19th Century) – Celibacy as Community-Wide Inceldom
The Shakers were a Christian sect that took celibacy so seriously they eventually died out – because no one was having children. Their approach was like an extreme incel commune, minus the online rants.
They believed sex was inherently corrupting.
Men and women were strictly separated, even in worship.
Their celibacy removed men from the dating pool and contained them within a religious community.
Beyond the Archetypes: What Church Historians Haven’t Told Us
To be clear, not all celibate religious figures – then or now – are merely “rebranded incels”. Many were deeply devoted to their faith and theological pursuits. And their contributions are complex, blending sincere spiritual commitment with ideological rigidity. But while there are no historical records of monks, priests, or religious celibates self-identifying as ‘incels’ – it being a modern term for an online subculture – there are figures who fit aspects of the radicalised male profile. And, it is far from unrealistic to think that some might enter religious life due to struggles with relationships, social rejection, or resentment toward the opposite sex.
So, although this isn’t something that would typically be offered in Theological degrees, mentioned in Sunday School, or shouted about from a pulpit, the pattern still holds of people – especially men – struggling with or fearing intimacy, turning their frustrations into a form of ‘religious’ dogma.
Celibacy, presented as moral superiority, gave purpose and justification for any lack of and in relationships. The Church provided a home to hold and convey the same grievances that not only might have led to incel radicalisation in another era but certainly played a role in perpetuating toxic masculinity at every stage. It is therefore highly possible that the likes of Jerome, Tertullian, or the Desert Fathers would have been toxic internet posters today. And likely too that modern incels would have found refuge and canonisation in the monasticism of the past.
The Unholy Truth: Breaking the False Binary
So, where does this leave those who are involuntarily celibate but unwilling to turn to radical misogyny? Religion has historically provided a means of making celibacy not only socially acceptable but spiritually aspirational – a ‘calling’ even. But if one does not buy into these aspects of religion and also refuses to nurse resentment and descend into bitterness, what is left?
Perhaps the answer lies in breaking free from the false duality imposed by both the Church and the modern manosphere – the idea that one must either be radicalised online or ‘radical for Jesus’. Celibacy, voluntary or not, need not be a tool of oppression or a mark of shame. It does not have to be weaponised by institutions or ideologies and wielded by people to enforce control. It can simply be – like any aspect of sexuality, a personal state: permanent, temporary, or fluid. Free of baggage. Free from the need for external validation.
Because ultimately, this is a spotlight on how people and institutions are able to seize narrative control of personal states of being – whether we struggle with them or not – and peddle them back to us as ideological virtues. The Church is one such establishment that can be seen to have done this long before modern movements adopted similar strategies. And, while this piece, given my familiarity with it, focuses on the Church, I would find it wholly unsurprising if similar patterns can be found in other religious traditions too.
For though religious celibacy and involuntary celibacy may seem distinct (because they have been made to look that way), they still share structural similarities. Both involve those unable to engage in romantic relationships (for whatever reason), and both require ideological reframing to make such a situation comprehensible if not palatable to themselves and others.
Religious institutions, like the Church, and those that populate them – especially in positions of power and influence – have made celibacy appear noble and necessary. This is not so different from how modern incel communities “gas each other up” with ideological justifications for their own state of inceldom. The only real difference is that religious institutions do it better – packaging the same struggles as ‘spiritual trials’, complete with hierarchy, meaning, and status.
Legacy and Echoes: The Monasteries of the Modern World
Unlike today, where disaffected men can turn to online communities for validation, in past centuries, many disenfranchised men – particularly those who struggled to find partners – had few ideological alternatives beyond religious institutions. Institutions, like the Church, provided a place where celibacy became a virtue rather than a mark of “failure”, offering purpose and an identity that was respected rather than ridiculed. In today’s world – where institutional containment of celibacy is no longer as widespread – the same frustrations that were once written into divine doctrine emerge as threads in radicalised online communities, such as the incels. The monastery would have given these men robes. Today’s online platforms furnish them with usernames. But at the end of the day, the unmet sexual desires in church and in state remain the same. One is just called ‘holiness’, while the other…is not.
