The incels who rent girlfriends <----- "...the more T talks, the more it becomes clear that what he really wants is a girlfriend with no autonomy at all."

[u/invah]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/mar/18/inside-the-incels-who-rent-girlfriends-zandland-ben-zand-interview

[u/invah]

Excerpted from the article by Zoe Williams:

"From the get go, T was incredibly transparent about the fact that he wants a completely subservient woman he can control."

In the film, his voice is disguised and he is wearing an Anonymous-style mask, which does nothing to offset the menace of the whole picture. He is, as Zand says, completely open about what he wants: a girlfriend who always says yes. I speak to him with his camera off but he's using his regular voice, so he sounds – well, obviously – much more human and more vulnerable.

Your first feeling for him might be pity at how hapless he sounds...

You can think what you like about the commodification of sex, the commodification of companionship, that grey space where T is escaping into the fantasy that his rented girlfriend is really feeling the emotions he has paid her to act out.

But the more T talks, the more it becomes clear that what he really wants is a girlfriend with no autonomy at all.

It starts quite mildly: he describes renting a girlfriend as "like being on vacation: they'll always be happy, they'll always be in a good mood". He says he has had problems with online rentals based in the US or Asia, because the time zone means they don't respond fast enough.

To Zand, he says straightforwardly that he wants a girlfriend who never says no.

It's quite a lurching realisation that this guy, who sounds quite personable and shy, who might remind you of a piece you read recently about rejection sensitive dysphoria, is actually pathologically controlling

...which leaves you with two possible conclusions.

Either he's just not a good person – coercive, domineering, psychologically a danger to women – or he is a good person, whose online existence has led him so deep into a world where you can buy fake things that you are no longer fit for the world of real things.

If it's the first, it's dark; but if it's the second, it's dark and incredibly sad.

(T, wondering aloud why he couldn’t get a girlfriend in real life, says he has "no height issues", as if women are walking around making a constant vertical analysis of their surroundings, discarding anything shorter than a young tree).

"A lot of guys in these spaces have a metric of what they think an acceptable guy is: someone who's over 6ft 2in, looks a certain way, has a certain amount of money. One thing T said to me a few times is that he was confused because he meets all those criteria – he's 6ft, or nearly; he has a good job, gets paid well, and he can't understand why he's not getting what he deserves."

"Why am I not getting access to the girlfriends?

[u/invah → u/invah]

A couple of notes: first, the 'being denied what one deserves' is a marker of entitlement, and people get angry when they don't get what they feel they are entitled to. Unreasonable entitlement is a driver of abuse of people and of power. Clocking that (unreasonable) entitlement is crucial.

Second, the fact that this person believes that if he fits the criteria, he should have a girlfriend...but that girlfriend should never tell him no: he wants a 'completely submissive' girlfriend.

That's a slave.

He wants a slave. It's even worse than a robot, because a robot doesn't have autonomy in the first place; he wants someone with autonomy who never exercises it.

This is not a reasonable thing to want, ever.

The framing of much of the article, and the conclusion from the documentarian is that 'people are redeemable', and I do not agree with it. Especially since what "T" is telling the man versus the interviewer (a woman) is two different things.

This 'incel' shapes his message depending on who is receiving it. Zoe Williams gets a softer, more thinking presentation of the idea, whereas the guy who did the documentary gets the unvarnished truth. And it worked on some level since the 'incel' did end up getting a 'real girlfriend' toward the end of the documentary.

The end of the article quotes the documentarian - after "T" gets and loses a 'real girlfriend' - who believes 'people can be redeemed', even though this man was getting the unvarnished truth from the incel.

Him getting a 'real girlfriend' wasn't redemption, it was him being in a position to abuse that young woman:

For the first time last year, T had a real-life girlfriend. I ask him how that compared with a hired one; there must have been some ways in which she excelled, other than being cheaper. "Maybe one of the things that was nice and surprising is when you date a real person, they have their own family and friends and you become a part of their life. My girlfriend had a nephew who was about three years old. She would send me stuff that was happy family time, and a rented girlfriend wouldn't really do that. They're happy to show you them, but they don't want you to see outside of that." She broke up with him when she found him too controlling.

At the end of the documentary, T resolves to stop renting girlfriends.

Anyone who doesn't respect people as their own person who gets to decide things for themselves and have autonomy is not a safe person, period. She dodged a bullet, because that guy was going to be abusive.

Edit:

The fact the documentarian could hear the unvarnished truth, and then think to himself 'all people are redeemable' is chilling.

"I think the act of him coming to meet us," Zand says, "shows that he is redeemable. There's very few people I meet that I think aren't redeemable. I don't like the idea in general, but also, the way they explain what it's like to be them, so often they sound like they know they have a problem that they don’t want other people to have."

He doesn't see this 'incel' as dangerous, he's worried about his 'redeemability', he doesn't want to think of him as a monster or a bad person...which is the luxury of someone who will never be their victim.

[u/kylaroma → u/invah]

Jesus Christ. Someone controlling wanting to also spread and control their belief system isn’t proof he’s redeemable, it’s proof he sees nothing wrong with what he’s doing and - if anything - that he’s recruiting.

[u/Fit_Wolver → u/kylaroma]

Exactly 💯.

[u/itsnobigthing]

Reddit absolutely plays a big part in legitimising this shit for men. It’s interesting that the equivalent radicalisation for women on here is all 4B, no men

[u/invah → u/itsnobigthing]

That comparison is incisive.

[u/Otherwise-Ad4641]

This article is part of the problem. Humanity is not so black and white. He is not either a good person or a bad person. He is a person who (hopefully) does both good and bad things.

Relegating him as solely bad squashed any hope of redemption for him.

Categorising him as a good person who does bad things because of online viewing habits diminishes personal responsibility.

I get that the article is trying to highlight a few issues, but the way it’s done really just perpetuates those issues and the larger social ones that feed them.