Maxxing – Increasing Male Romantic and Sexual Market Value

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The term “maxxing” — or alternatively “maxing” — as used in the context of self-improvement for men, is actually a suffix (as in -maxxing or -maxxed) that involves a broad range of activities aimed at improving some feature of one’s so-called “sexual market value.”

It consists of the practice of “maximizing” or “intensely optimizing” a specific aspect of one’s life. Therefore, maxxing doesn’t only involve improving/enhancing physical characteristics (such as in looksmaxxing), but any aspect in one’s life that can result in an “upgraded” sex life.

Apart from being a practice mostly associated with desiring an active sex life, it can also apply to the wish of finding a romantic partner, without “having sex” necessarily being the most important motive.

A person who has done or undergone maxxing activities receives the suffix -maxxed after the name of the activity performed. For instance, “this or that person is looksmaxxed” or “this or that person looksmaxxed himself.”

Over the years, the types of male maxxing activities have drastically increased. Besides the well-known looksmaxxing and its many subcategories, you’ll find many other maxxing domains, such as statusmaxxing, therapymaxxing, thugmaxxing, carreermaxxing, jestermaxxing, povertymaxxing, and uglymaxxing, just to give some examples.

It’s also important to note that maxxing isn’t only a practice performed by men; women can also “maximize.” Nevertheless, the practice originated in the so-called incel community (the word “incel” is a blend of the phrase “involuntary celibate”), which refers to male members of an online subculture who are unable to find romantic or sexual partners despite desiring them. By the way, in this context, involuntary female celibates are called femcels.

Most incels, at least those encountered in online communities, are heterosexual men (roughly between 18 and 30 years old), but the experience of involuntary celibacy affects people of various ages and genders, and the affected group actually spans a much broader age range.

With regard to the phrase “male maxxing” as used in this article, online incel discourse around maxxing practices began to emerge around 2015, based on the following questionable conceptions:

• Lookism: the belief that physical attractiveness is the only determinant of social, romantic, and sexual success;
• An incel version of Hypogamy: women always seek higher-status men in order to increase the social, economic, and genetic potential of their offspring;
• Sexual Market Value (SMV): to use maxxing as a strategy to raise one’s chances to attract women;
• Extremity and desperation: engaging in extreme, dangerous, and/or desperate practices to maximize or optimize one’s Sexual Market Value.

With regard to the above, one should also consider “bluepill,” “redpill,” and “blackpill” incel concepts, which represent different ideological stages:

• taking the bluepill is the mainstream belief in equality and dating optimism (e.g., “personality matters,” “everyone can find love”), which is seen as naïve and deluded among incels;
• taking the redpill is the belief that gender relations are shaped by hidden biological and social truths. In fact, the idea is that as women are hypergamous (seeking higher‑status men), men must “maxx” by improving looks, status, and money to compete. That is, changing one’s situation is possible through effort;
• taking the blackpill is the most extreme, fatalistic view that looks and genetics entirely determine success, leaving no hope for change. This pill is often linked to hopelessness, nihilism, and sometimes radicalization.

In the past couple of years, maxxing has also become a trend outside the boundaries of the incel community, one that often sparks conversation about body image, self-worth, and social pressures in our day and age, in addition to attitudes of racism, misogyny, and violence against women.

Nonetheless, the maxxing practice has gradually become more neutral and mainstream, being adopted by a much wider demographic than involuntary celibates alone. It often appears across social media and is moving into realms of less problematic or extreme connotations, often used or promoted in a more neutral or ironic context related to general self-improvement activities and healthy habits.

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