Inside the disturbing world of Femcels: British women reveal why they’ve joined dark online forums where they share fears about being alone forever and post shocking videos of themselves eating their own flesh

Women left traumatised by past experiences with men or who struggle to find partners are joining a disturbing online community of ‘Femcels’ – the female eqiuvalent of incels. but with hatred aimed towards men instead of women. 

Journalist Ellie Flynn, from London, delved into the darkest corners of the internet to investigate the hidden world of women who call themselves ‘Femcels’ for a Channel 4 documentary Radicalised: Are Femcels The New Incels?

Incels, are typically white and heterosexual men, associated with misogyny, racism and self-pity, who consider themselves ‘involuntarily celibate’.

The movement came to prominence in 2014, when 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others at the University of California, Santa Barbara after becoming radicalised by the incel movement. 

But Ellie’s investigation into Femcels revealed a more complicated picture than simply ‘women who hate men’.

One girl called Lauren spoke about how she’s never got beyond kissing and believes she’s ‘very unattractive’ and will be alone forever, while Ellie was left horrified by footage of women cutting and eating their own flesh in ‘gore’ videos. 

Ellie met up with a Femcel, who she met on an online forum, to try and get a better understanding. 

Al, who has been part of the Femcel community for four years, said: ‘A Femcel for me is someone who has garnered enough life experience with men to grow a disdain for them.

‘I don’t hate [men] really, I constantly feel frightened, especially in relationships, I don’t really show emotion to them, I don’t give them the time of day.

‘I’m not celibate or involuntary, I suppose a lot of people would consider me a fake, I just hold a lot of their views.’ 

Ellie pointed out that for incels it appears to be the ‘lack of sexual experiences that make them incels’, but for Femcels like Al, it is the ‘past experiences with men that make them consider themselves Femcels’. 

Elsewhere Ellie spoke to a popular Femcel YouTube content creator, known as Kidology, who explained the differences between incels and Femcels.

She said: ‘Incels very much see the world as the problem, particularly modern society – feminism and the ability for the woman to be picky about their sexual partners. Whereas most Femcels tend to see it as something that is wrong with them, like their looks and something that they need to work on to eventually find those relationships.’

Lauren, who doesn’t identify as a Femcel but has build a community of friends in the Femcel forums, revealed the forms make her less alone.

‘I have never had a relationship unfortunately, I have never experienced anything past a kiss and I do feel shame about it, I am 28 and I feel like I am going to be 70 and have lived my life alone.

‘It’s scary, depressing and isolating. The thing that is wrong with me is my facial appearance. I do have body dysmorphic disorder, but I have also never seen anyone attracted to me. I personally find myself very unattractive.

‘When I go to these communities you see a lot of people who have experienced the same thing, it’s nice in a way to show you are not crazy or wrong. It’s a place I go every day to read experiences and it makes me feel less alone.’

Ellie said the more woman she spoke to women involved in the Femcel communities the less worried she was about them committing any violence, and the more worried she was about their mental health. 

However even though the Femcel communities didn’t appear to be violent some of the forum have merged with the incel forums, meaning these vulnerable woman are exposed to a lot of graphic and gruesome content.

After meeting back up Al, Ellie asked to see some of these merged forums and she was horrified to see violent rape videos shared.

Al said: ‘I have been sent videoes of women being raped. I was around 14 years old.’

She said she’d been exposed to so-called ‘gore’ videos from the age of 11.

Al’s housemate, who remained anonymous and also explores these dangerous websites, said she met a man on one of them when she was 14 and he sexually assaulted her three times.

Al added: ‘I had a similar relationship actually when I was 14. I didn’t realise me saying no and him continuing to do it was wrong at all. It’s happened in multiple relationships.’

The women explained they use the forums because they feel lonely and isolated and the graphic content become strangely ‘addicting.’

They added that they get desensitised to the graphic content shared on them and learn ‘to cope’ with it. 

After asking how likely is it that a Femcel could end up committing a violent act, Al’s housemate said: ‘These people have been raped, molested, bullied, disowned by their own families and society does treat these women like it’s your fault these things happened to you and that makes the most radical Femcels.

‘Femcels and Incels have the similarity of anxiety, depression, bad lives, But how it’s self internalised for women is a huge difference.

‘I think there is potential for a real violent act. We will get there and the world will go ”How did she do that’?”. I would say: “You let incels do it, you let men get mentally ill, you didn’t let them get the mental health [help] they needed and then they shot a place up”.

‘Now woman are getting more mentally ill. I think something big will happen and the world will be shocked.’ 

Elsewhere Ellie was shown graphic content, known as ‘gore’ which was posted on the Incel and Femcel shared forum, which showed a woman cutting herself and eating her own flesh. 

The journalist appeared visibly shocked and disgusted by the content, looking away from the screen she said ‘I can’t watch that’. 

Al’s housemate said: ‘This is something that multiple people did in the server, I know, it’s hard to watch, but four or five people did this specifically.

Describing the graphic footage they said: ‘They are cutting out a square, that’s her eating it, they are bleeding, she is smiling like that is funny for her.’ 

Before it was hijacked by men, the term incel was coined in the 1990s by a woman known only as Alana, who used it to describe her own experience with being unable to find a romantic or sexual partner.

She created the website Involuntary Celibacy Project with the goal of it being an inclusive community for people who were experiencing the same things she was.

Alana eventually passed the site on to someone else and didn’t hear the term again until years later when she read about Elliot Rodger describing himself as an incel in online posts before going on a murder spree.

Elliot, a community college student, killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks near the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2014. 

‘It’s frustrating,’ she told the Guardian in April. ‘I feel like I did something important, for the good of the world — that then turned out to be a weapon as well.’

Radicalised: Are Femcels The New Incels? is available to stream on Channel 4