Anyone even passingly familiar with the geography of online political communities has probably heard of the ‘Red Pill’, a term which refers at once to a community, an ideology, and an epiphanous realization. To take the Red Pill (to be Redpilled) is to accept a particular world view, and that world view is this — that women are fundamentally unlike men, that they are weaker and stupider and more cowardly and more easily manipulated, and that society has been constructed in such a way as to mask these deficiencies and disadvantage men. Furthermore, the appropriate — the ‘Red Pilled’ — response to this state of affairs is to abandon the dogma of gender equality, accept that pursuing the validation of women, who cannot love, is a sign of weakness, and emotionally exploit women to maximize your personal satisfaction.

At least, that’s what the ‘Red Pill’ used to mean. Its original meaning has diluted with time; these days every demagogue with a YouTube account and a Patreon is selling you their own Red Pill.

The ‘Red Pill’ is a reference to the Matrix. It was the thing Neo had to consume before he could be taught the true nature of his broken world. Note that the following scenes — the ones in which Neo learns he is trapped in a computer simulation programmed by robots to enslave the human race (spoilers, I guess) — were not ones in which Neo adopted a new ideology. His values didn’t change. There wasn’t a debate. He was simply discovering the world’s true nature.

That’s how the Red Pill is packaged — not as an ideology, which can be challenged, picked apart, and (easily, here) dismissed — but as an acceptance of the world’s true nature. Therefore, criticizing the Red Pill is tantamount to admitting you live in a state of deliberate ignorance. They have a term for this, and it’s called taking the Blue Pill. That’s also a Matrix reference. The connotations are obvious — if you’re Bluepilled, you’re not *really* in disagreement, you’re just asleep. You chose comfortable ignorance. You’re not just wrong, you’re not even emotionally strong enough to understand the position you’re trying to argue against. “You can’t handle the truth”, essentially.

I know you’ve seen the Matrix before. I’m just trying to be diligent with my explanation.

It’s a wonderfully cultish way of insulating yourself and your ideological peers from having to challenge your own beliefs. It’s effective, too, which is why the ‘Pill’ terminology has grown so popular online. I’ve seen people claim they’re Redpilled because they don’t believe in climate change, because they believe Jews are working together to build a New World Order, because they voted for Donald Trump in 2016, because they don’t believe the official 9/11 narrative, because they don’t trust the Federal Reserve, because they don’t buy gluten-free products, and because they’re vegan. I’ve seen the term invoked by high schoolers and octogenarians. It’s usually conspiratorial and usually right-wing, but not always. Let’s not even speak of its bastard stepchildren — the Pink Pill, the Iron Pill, the White Pill, the Black Pill and so on. Go Google them if you want.

There is one ‘Pill’, though, and a rather obscure one at that, which I’ve seen gain some popularity in incel circles online. Incel is a portmanteau for “involuntarily celibate”, and the community purports to be an advocacy and support space for people who are unable to find a romantic or sexual partner. Plenty of wild stuff comes from the myriad incel communities, from near-comic levels of misogyny to suicidal ideation bordering on that of a death cult, but this might just take the cake.

The Dogpill.

Stay with me on this one. To take the Dogpill — to be “Dogpilled” — is to accept the immutable and inarguable fact that women are so lascivious they will often sleep with large dogs, in part because doing to is preferable to having sex with low-value men — the aforementioned incels. Women do this, it seems, because their debauched need to be dominated by strong males is so base that it extends across taxonomic lines. To take the Dogpill is to accept that at this very moment, the girl you like — the girl you would treat perfectly, if she’d only give you a chance — is right now with roughly equal likelihood being bedded by either a muscular frat boy or an equally muscular but somewhat less intelligent mutt. This is the Dogpill. That is what it means to take it.

It’s just a girl and her dog, don’t be weird

I know its tenets are extremely convincing, but control yourself and resist the temptation to take the Dogpill until you have at the very least finished reading this article.

Now, many people who claim to be Dogpilled make that claim ironically. It’s a deeply silly worldview; it’s not surprising many of its advocates would just be trying to get a rise out of people.

But not all of them are.

Irony doesn’t preclude sincere belief, after all. Nor does trying to get a rise out of people. Who among us has not at some point believed deeply in something we knew we would be judged for, and so only expressed our belief through a veil of irony? Don’t you lie to me.

Let us consider the Dogpill, then, with the sincerity many of its proponents must certainly speak with. It’s easy to imagine this worldview was conceived as a masturbatory fantasy first and a coherent ideology second — I’ve seen the incel forum threads, where the lonely and dispossessed moan they’ll never be able to receive the female affection your average dog would at a park or house party. The commenters type more fervently, posting pictures of women — usually young, white, and conventionally attractive — smiling near dogs. The vitriol elevates. They begin to describe in detail what they imagine those girls must be doing with their dogs when the cameras aren’t on — acts which are, at time of writing, illegal in 46 states. The eroticism and hatred reach a fever pitch as some enterprising commenters begin posting actual zoophilia, the photographic evidence of which only reinforces their belief these carnal acts must be something almost every — no, every single women — engages in, and frequently too. Eventually, the comedown kicks in. The eroticism dies. It’s just misogyny now, and the bemoaned musings of people desperately longing for the physical affection dogs get without even trying.

I mean, who hasn’t wanted to be a dog at some point?

I mean, everyone is affectionate with dogs. Not just girls. It’s normal.

Funny as this all is — and it really is hysterical — it does fundamentally stem from a deeply depressing state of affairs. There are people online so committed to telling stories of their own undesirability they will convince themselves they are less sexually desirable to women than dogs. And while I cannot deny there are some fabulously cute dogs out there — and some very amorous women — it remains my opinion that, if given the choice, most women would by far rather sleep with a sexually undesirable man than they would a dog. I am Bluepilled on the Dogpill, and I await with great eagerness the next absurd theory sad men on the internet develop to explain why they aren’t having as much sex as they would like to be having.