Secret lives of incels

Deep delve into world of men who have given up hopes on love

- BY SUE LEE

A decade ago, few people even knew what incel means. Today, the subject of "involuntarily celibate" men sparks fierce debate, has inspired award-winning television and has even been raised in Parliament.

Now a bold new TV series, Lost Boys, Deadly Men, fronted by Ross Kemp, investigates the world of incels and the causes of violent misogyny.

Kemp says: "In the UK a woman is killed by a man every three days.

"In every tragic case I've looked at, the killers' states of mind were extremely complex - their actions can't just be attributed to what they watched on phones or TV.

"But they all had something in common: their violence was fuelled by resentment. Many young men are being left behind in a world that doesn't offer them the same status as previous generations, yet they're still being told that being men makes them privileged.

"As the father of two young girls growing up in a world of increasing violent misogyny and a dad to two boys living in a time where some young men are faced with a crisis of identity and some young men commit random acts of violence, it's hard not to worry about their future."

The show examines the case of Jake Davison, who held strong misogynistic views and murdered five people with a shotgun in Plymouth in 2021.

The case of Elianne Andam, stabbed to death by Hassan Sentamu in 2023, is also featured in the five-part series, which asks what fuels toxic masculinity, how it can be countered and how widespread incel culture has now become.

William Costello, who is studying evolutionary psychology at the University of Texas, conducted the largest ever study of incels and their ideology. The academic from Galway, Ireland, says: