ANOTHER so-called “incel” has been accused of carrying out a horrific act of violence – and it comes as no surprise.

Alek Minassian, accused of ploughing down pedestrians in Toronto, killing ten and injuring many more, is said to be the author of a brief Facebook message referring to an “incel rebellion” that would “overthrow all the Chads and Staceys”.

Incels are involuntary celibates who cannot have sex despite being desperate to. Chads and Staceys are those who are everything incels believe they are not – good looking men and women who never struggle to find sexual fulfilment.

Minassian is not the first subscriber to the ideology to be accused of murder. Self-identified incel Elliot Rodgers murdered six people in 2014 after saying in a video that he wanted to punish women for rejecting him and men for being sexually active.

In the immediate aftermath of the Toronto tragedy, incels have been quick to distance themselves from the deaths, to posit themselves as part of a supportive and empathetic community – one that, presumably, just so happens to hate women, too.

Overwhelmingly, though, their discourse is saturated with hostility and hatred – not only towards women but those who succeed in enjoying sexual encounters where these often sad, lonely individuals cannot.

One online group had 40,000 users a week ago and sported threads comparing women to Nazis and referring to rape as “just sex” and accusing women who turned sexual advances down of being “reverse rapists”.

It was closed down shortly after posters advised one subscriber to castrate his male roommate because he had a girlfriend.

This bitter, resentful movement is grounded in an obsession with sex that depersonalises all women, views them as conquests never to be attained and often, hates them accordingly.

It seethes with misogyny, resentment and entitlement. Women are the enemy.

Thriving in the dark corners of the internet, it exploits the vulnerabilities of anxious, depressed young men with low self-esteem and encourages the vitriol of the dangerously desperate, planting seeds of dissent that can grow twisted and bring the potential of tragedy, of self-destruction and wasted lives.

It goes without saying that every movement has its extremists and not every incel harbours violent thoughts.

HOWEVER, incels inhabit a world that disturbingly reduces women and their partners to the sum of their sexual availability and prowess. In a wider culture so sexualised, it is no surprise that many are fixated on their own experiences or lack thereof but to combat such degrading, damaging and ultimately threatening ideologies, the notion of sexual entitlement must be eradicated.

Young people should reach adulthood knowing that it is normal to have advances rejected, that it is acceptable to reject others.

That the hand of friendship is a blessing not a friendzone, that people aren’t vending machines you put “nice” into to get sex out of and that nobody owes you anything – no matter how much effort you’ve put in.