Jen Aside, Sue Aside, and Ana Chronistic are all commenting aliases of the same DoA fan, who is the person cameoing in the comic, and who is widely known for tending to be the first commenter on many many strips, to the point where we started to get annoying with “Where’s Jen?” comments when someone else got first. Possibly yet more aliases exist, but those are the ones that are ‘public’.
Oh, ok. I know who Jen Aside is, and I’d figured out she became Sue Aside and Ana Chronistic, but I hadn’t realized she was using all three accounts at the same time. I’d though she’d retired Jen for Ana, and someone else was now using Jen’s name. Thanks for clearing that up.
Honestly, more like termite, innocent ingrediense being mixed together that when ignited provides high heat with sparks flying everywhere that burns whoever is stupid enough to get close enogh to it:-P
Apparently, due to the size of Francium atoms and the binding energy of the electrons in its outer shel, Francium + water is basically the same as Caesium + water, in fact maybe a little less reactive. Also,
a) it’s radioactive, so hard to handle, and
b) it’s transuranic, so manmade. There’s usually only a few grammes of Francium in existence anywhere in the world at any time.
I… *looks at a periodic table again* …o yes, so it is. My bad. xD
But still, short half-life and slightly less reactive due to shell sizes. Also, while it is pre-uranic and therefore naturally occurring, it’s ridiculously difficult to find, owing to its short half-life (and possbily its naturally high reactivity too?).
According to Wikipedia, it is the second-most electronegative element after Caesium, as a consequence slightly less reactive than Cs too.
Say what you like about Joe being a horrible monster, I have high hopes for this pairing. I think Joe’s recent spate of machine-gun monogamy is starting to get a bit stale – he’s lonely, and seeking connection (of the non-physical kind). Once you get past the horn-dog facade, there’s a decent guy in there, and Joyce is just the person to bring him out.
How is this doing that, though (she’s not scared of all men or specifically of Joe (although she doesn’t like him), and I think her main crisis here has to do with faith/family more than her previous trauma), and is it really good if it’s not in a controlled/safe environment?
This. Her current crisis is with regards to crises of faith. Joe has little to nothing to offer on that score. And that’s not a slam on him though I do dislike the man. He’s a secular-leaning Jewish gentleman. He’s going to have very very little to offer Joyce with regards to her crises surrounding Pre-Millennial Dispensationalist Christian theology.
Well, she definitely has issues with Joe, she’s been treating him horribly when he did pretty much nothing wrong. Yes, he wanted to have sex with her, but there was never any attempt to force her, she was never in any danger, instead she had him assaulted repeatedly for showing any sign of sexuality at all and then acted like a victim afterward.
She has every right to dislike him and his attitude but she’s been going overboard and treating him like a monster for no reason.
He attempted to remove her chaperone. He was dishonest in his intentions with the date. He has since continued to make inappropriate comments including coming up behind her to make comments about her hiding exciting things in her pants in direct response to complaining about guys trying to get in her pants over the phone. And he keeps doing it over and over and over again despite how much she has communicated not only her no, her get the fuck away from me, but also that she in no uncertain terms does not feel safe around him.
And that pants one is important because it was him inserting himself into a conversation that wasn’t even relating to him to make a come-on statement and then when she went off on him about it (mostly due to triggers, admittedly), he started whining like he was a poor martyr who had been done wrong.
Yes, she had him punched repeatedly. Yes, she comes from a fucked up background that has historically viewed him as evil simply for being a sexual being and that’s neither of those things are even remotely okay, but she has very good reasons to view him as a pushy creep in addition to the terrible reasons she has to hate him.
But he also has good reasons to hate her, because well, aside from the fucked up shit Evangelicals believe about Jews, she punched him repeatedly, and paid someone to punch him.
Of COURSE he attempted to remove her chaperone. Mike threatened to strangle him from the word go. While that might have been in jest, it wasn’t, and it’s not a promising sign even if it weren’t true. Yeah, he’s harrassing her, but it’s not like this is a one way relationship and she just ‘hates him for terrible reasons too’.
Mike’s presence (and especially the “punch anyone who acts inappropriately” part) would be a perfectly good reason to walk away from the date at that point. Secretly bribing him to go away is inappropriate.
I’m definitely not saying he doesn’t have reasons to be aggrieved. He was straight up assaulted at their date and Mike not only threatened him from the get-go, but found an excuse in the conversation to punch him repeatedly and Joyce cared more about his language while he was being punched than the fact he was being punched and later on straight up ordered Mike to continue punching him over actions that were in no ways a call for anything other than an ended date.
But he tried to get rid of Mike as an isolation tactic so he could get his flirt for sex on, not because Mike is violent. I’m very much with thejeff that the right thing in that case would have been to walk away rather than trying to find a way to return to game plan one of getting her to agree to sex she did not want to have at the beginning of the night.
Yeah, I feel the same way about Joyce and Mike beating up Joe the same way I do Amazi-Girl beating up Beef and his friends at the party, or Mary vs. Carla from a while back. It was such a purely cartoony moment so divorced from reality that I can’t even consider it a legitimate moment with any weight to the characters.
I know, and that’s where the problem stems. It was too cartoony to take seriously, so consequently, I don’t care when Joe brings it up.
Like, remember when everyone went to the beach? I kind of doubt Sal was able to materialize a speedboat out of nowhere to water ski immediately at a point where it would be perfectly timed for Billie to gripe about how Sal wasn’t that cool.
Or that one time Mrs. Warner tried to hug Sal, and she pulled out her bat to repel her. Not only was the hammerspace silly, but she reacted violently over the top to someone who was super dedicated to hug her. It was too silly to take seriously.
Joe is the source of her issues? I thought the date-rapist at the party or maybe her fundamentalist upbringing was the source. Joe did literally nothing wrong.
I actually think they could be good for each other — even just as friends tho yes the ship is setting sail in my heart — because Joyce could help ground Joe a little bit, and Joe could maybe help Joyce break out of her shell a bit, and maybe recover some of her optimism.
Not really seeing that. While Joyce needs to reconnect with her sexuality at some point, Joe would probably be the worst person to do so with. But I respect that other people are seeing ship fodder in different places than I am.
Why would Joe be the worst person? He’s done trying to get her to sleep with him, the most that he’d give her is a series of questions she has no personal answers for. It’d be interesting to see her try and answer them in her current religious shaken state.
Also if you look back there’s been a few indications that they’d have fun platonicly together if Joyce wasn’t so repressed.
I see Joyce’s behavior towards Joe as a venting of her anger and frustration with the world at an appropriate target, rather than hate, which is a further repression of emotion. Joe’s rude horndoggieness is a means of attention-getting. Joe and Joyce are actually in similar situations right now – both seek real connection with others, but neither really knows how to make that connection happen. I’d like to see them fight more – it may seem negative, and triggery to some, but I think it’s a connection they both need.
Likewise Joyce could ask Joe a series of questions about his behaviour that might actually get through to him. Joyce isn’t as easy to blow off as Danny is.
There’s a lot of growth that needs to happen before they could even start to be a couple. Currently, Joe isn’t interested in a relationship with any girl who won’t put out.
He’s not even really interested in any relationship at all.
Why do think he wasn’t interested? He started by talking about “hot bangable chicks”. He tried to bribe Mike to get lost. He brought up sex at the table.
Seems to me that by that time he thought the chances were slim, but he was there, so he might as well keep trying.
He misjudged his target, because he didn’t know her at all.
I actually think that would have been a great team up. Why? Because Roz’s main block with regards to Joyce is that every time she has tried to reach out in a friendly way, Joyce has gone all super fundie on her either assuming a therapist card was an invitation to a coven or talking about how Roz giving her the riot act is like when God needed to murder a bunch of people to teach a lesson about arc care: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/nemeses/
And well… Joyce is not in the headspace to really go that route right now. So an attempt by Roz to reach out would have actually have chance to go in a positive direction without Roz bailing. Similarly, Roz is in a mindset where she is not going to read her the riot act because she recognizes how her conflict last time led to bad behavior on her part (sadly, this is also why she dodges to Jen/Anna, because she doesn’t want to risk another potential argument).
If they had gotten together here, they could have met without their respective armors and Roz would have had a chance to provide Joyce some help with her moral crisis and Joyce in turn would have given Roz a positive fundie encounter to make her less snap-trigger on those issues.
But that would be considerably less drama and potential for complete nuclear explosion than Joe/Joyce.
I saw Roz was refusing to pair with Joyce partly because of her conversation with Leslie. Even though Joyce has wound her up and slut-shamed her before; and Joyce has objectified* Roz multiple times, Roz was already primed to be wound-up against Joyce too. She also sees Joyce as less of a person, and more of a symbol of what shes fighting against. That Roz is roommates with Mary doesnt help out.
I read Roz’s actions passive-aggressively.
Shes refusing to pair with Joyce out of the self-knowledge that she would be liable to break her agreement with Leslie and be a monster in her own judgment. So compassionate. Yet she also gets the self-satisfaction that refraining from doing anything toward joyce that would be hostile, forces Joyce to pair with Joe , who just started an argument with Joyce.
Roz just Checkmated Joyce. Even though she knows Joyce is feeling vulnerable. Whats my evidence? Roz had another option, she could have paired with Joe.
Is Roz actively doing anything wrong, anything she can be personally blamed for? Nope. Not anything the entire class ( but Dorothy ) couldnt be blamed for. But she is knowingly choosing not to actively defuse a conflict she didnt cause, when she could.
In another comment you pointed out Joe may have alienated his classmates, and thats why he doesnt have a partner. Ditto for Joyce.
Maybe we will all get lucky and this well be a classroom lesson on personal boundaries! Which will be Hilarious for us and educational for them as they both lack any sense of normal healthy boundaries.
I can see that reading, though I still believe that Roz has been being earnest rather than passive-aggressive, but that would totally be how to read that response if she were being actively passive-aggressive.
I see it as a meeting-place between Roz’s best impulses , which is to actively restrain herself from antagonizing Joyce in any way ( which is good ) ,
— but not to be actively stick her neck out and be better to Joyce then the whole class is , including Dorothy.
Its Not Mary levels of passive-aggression.
Im not saying Roz is being poison or that she isnt also acting on good impulses too. I think she is. But I think shes acting on both simultaneously.
Like I dont think there is cognitive dissonance here. Its the inverse, her best self and worst -self shook their hands, made an even and fair compromise and said “We shall be this good, and no more”
I’m guilty of that, sometimes.
I think this because we have seen Roz internalize prior conflicts with Joyce and then suddenly begin them in a new context , to claim moral superiority.
Leslie has confronted this about her and her response is sort of passive-aggressive, there: ‘You dont seem very friendly to me’ is not how one usually talks to a professor. I kind of love it, but I also know its wrong.
Shes tone-policing leslie Back when Leslie rightly wants to keep order in her classroom.
Same for this page. I love how Roz has given herself an alibi.
She didnt ask for this opportunity, and she kind of has to refuse Joyce to do the right thing. Its basically “Ill remove the cause, but not …the symptoms”
But I dont think Roz is sincere about Gender studies class— she thinks shes already learned the material, and can teach the class.
I’m reading Roz as impulsive and at the limit of her self-awareness.
Joyce has never even apologized to her for slut-shaming her, and Roz reasons Joyce is too ignorant to understand what she did wrong. Shes right.
But I think Roz has probably actually restrained herself from taking Joyce down a few times. So in her mind Shes being nice and full of restraint. Which explains why she just responded to Leslie that way. I think she is being earnest as her self-image is based on NOT yelling at Joyce , most gender-studies classes.
In a way , this is a callback to Joyce’s party. I think Joyce Checkmated Roz there by highlighting how Joyce found a way to value Roz antagonism by seeing her as Judgmental Preacher! That had to painful, weird and creepy to Roz, and probably stuck in the back if her head. Its also a successful objectification of Roz as it substitutes her best self-image for one she despises, and then praises it. It was creepy as hell to read
That nullifies Roz’s subjectivity for a counter-narrative , one which is too close for comfort.
I also think Roz is probably enjoying the exchange between Joe and Joyce.
Roz is probably against sexual harassment —but is going to make an exception for her former lover making a dick Joke and the antisex fundie who slut-shamed her freaking out . Its Leslies class not hers.
At the same time, I am enjoying Joyce snark Joe back. If she keeps it up she may earn Rozs respect the way she earned Sals.
And then you started punching my face? And told me it shouldn’t hurt because I was a guy? But then you apologized and said I looked nice because you didn’t want the date to end on a bad note?
That was an interesting day.
Oh, and for the record, yes, I AM a big horndog, but I’m not an ass about it. I’d have taken no for an answer because, let’s be honest, negotiating a “no” into a “reluctant yes” is more work and less dignified than just heading elsewhere to find a “hell yeah” in at least three meanings of the phrase. I mean, have you SEEN how toned my body is? You could have just clearly communicated what you wanted the way I clearly communicate what I want, and we’d have recognized the mismatch and gone our way on our separate searches like mature adults. But no, instead of being up-front about your desires the way I’m up-front about mine, you had to get all preachy-punchy about it. … why do you look like you’re about to get punchy again?
It’s not like he actually clearly communicated what he wanted before or during that date anyway. He asked her on a date. He didn’t say “Want to hook up for casual sex?”
Hoo boy, this should be interesting. Maybe it will be a complete disaster, or maybe Joe will get some real character development. I’m very curious to see where this is going.
Oh great, instead of being a one-off annoyance Joe’s going to be a participant in this storyline. Is it too much to hope he finally gets metaphorically smacked down for constantly being a shallow one-note creep?
I guess the sticking point for me is, what am I supposed to think of Joe? What is his role as a character in DoA? Am I supposed to laugh? Should I find him as loathsome as I should?
Like, with the other characters I think I have an idea of what the story is trying to say about them, and my views of the character stem from that. I honestly don’t know where to begin with Joe.
I think he’s open to interpretation a bit. Some people find him loathsome, some find him entertaining. It’s that way with a lot of jokes/comedy – what is funny to one person another gets offended/bothered by.
Joe’s been more or less a walking gross-punchline, as in he either provides said punchlines himself or gives other characters good openings for them.
Hopefully this can be the start of him doing more than that, storywise. He’s really the only consistently-meant-for-laughs character left, in my view, which means he’s due for some three-dimensionality.
My guess is he serves a similar role as Mary in that he’s a representation of a certain flavor of masculinity (either for Danny to reject in search of one more along the lines of Ethan’s or for the girls in the cast to encounter as an example of that sort of creeper behind every corner deal) that the other characters interact off of.
It’s a potential that he could develop and grow, but I have a feeling that won’t happen, or at least won’t happen for awhile (my suspicion is that if he eventually ends up growing it will be in response to Danny completely giving up on reaching out to him once and for all).
Which is a shame because right now, he’s mostly serving as a foil to the very concept of the Gender Studies course and an illustration of a sort of gross masculinity and privilege wallowing.
I do. But that’s because I’m kind of done with that type of creeper being ancillary to my life (not that that actually makes them go away when I walk outside).
And I think his disruptions to the gender studies alone are frequently homophobic and sexist. And reminds me of a lot of disruptive assholes who wasted everyone’s times back in my similar classes in college.
Honestly? I think Joe has the same problem as Mike. In a more realistic world, their personalities have real-world analogues that make them frequently unpleasant and resonant in bad ways and thus their utility is diminished. And even if Joe was to grow up and become a better person who actually did respect consent and flirted in a way that was respectful of boundaries, we’ve already been through that storyline with Walkyverse Joe.
So we’re just sort of stuck with him as just this gross foil.
Joe doesn’t really seem that bad to me. What’s so bad about him? He wants to get laid?
He doesn’t really seem like a creep. He went on a date with Joyce and behaved pretty well. It was mostly Joyce and Mike that messed that up. Yeah, he was hoping for eventual sex but it’s not like he forced himself on her or pressured her in anyway.
Also, when he hit on Sarah he immediately backed off when she said she wasn’t interested. He didn’t creepily persist. He just respected her wishes and stopped.
I’d say he’s not a creep, because creeps are disengenuous and/or they ignore boundaries. Joe is completely straightforward and he immediately stops hitting on people when rebuffed or told to stop. Instead, he is a douchey dudebro. He obnoxiously derails conversations, and is a bad listener who refuses to consider anything deep or important. At the moment he’s mostly there as contrast, to crack jokes, and to be a foil for other characters. I find him novel in the cast, but I can see how he’d be really tiresome to people who are impacted by dudebros in real life.
He treats women like numbers, specifically a numbering system used most these days in the Pick-Up Artist community, a notorious group known for trading “seduction” techniques that are mostly working around consent: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/seven/
Speaking of that PUA lingo, he really does seem to be versed in it and his best friend from way back mostly knows him for misogyny. Not for being sexual or sexually aggressive. For being a misogynist and it’s hard to disagree with that assessment given his behavior in most Gender Studies classes: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/best-2/
He’s also extremely dishonest in his flirtation methods. And this matters. Because so many of his defenses argue that well, he’s just a horndog who likes sex. And cool, people like sex and early college is great for that sort of exploration. Except, he doesn’t approach encounters in a way that respectfully brings it up.
Even more ew in that this “breaking in” is based on a really f-ed up view of repressed women where they’re just itching to let loose and go wild (a view that’s usually seen in porn) rather than prone to a lot of self-hatred and self-doubt if they do so (I kinda started dating my it’s complicated in the recovery phase from her having been “broken in” by guys who thought a combination of social pressures and other less savory, more abusive tactics would get her to put out for lots of crazy sex… this had the result of giving her major triggers around most forms of sex, requiring years of work to overcome).
And this I want to highlight, because that is very much a PUA thing. Basically there’s a thing they like to call IOI or indicator of interest and what that means is that you are always looking for “secret” signals that women want your bod (based in assumptions that no woman is actually going to tell you when they are interested in sex… which yeahhhhhhh, apparently these people have not actually met many women they’re not targeting). And pretty much anything outside of screaming and running the other way is treated as this IOI thing.
How does that relate to Joe? Well, he treats literally every interaction outside of punching him or screaming at him as a sign that a woman wants him. Sarah simply walking up to him to talk to him is treated as proof that she wants a “threesome” because… well, she’s female and she willingly approached him.
And that’s a big problem with Joe. He doesn’t allow you to exist as a non-target around him. He doesn’t let women be people. Every woman is either a fetish object, a target, or a b-word who’s gone all nutso on him, because he doesn’t let women just exist in his general vicinity without bringing his creepy crap to bear.
She just read him the riot act and not three seconds later, he’s fetishizing her and assuming he’s “got an in”. That’s not a person who is going to accept anything other than screaming and yelling as a “no” and it’s not someone who is going to let women simply exist in their space un-Joed and that’s genuinely a social problem.
I’m ace. As such, I’ve got a lot of bad associations with the whole “fixing someone with sex” thing. Especially when what is being “fixed” is a lack of having sex. The reason I have these bad associations is that this whole “fixing with one’s penis” deal is a genuine threat that ace people regularly encounter. A number of ace people I know have had friends or partners after they come out try and insist on “helping out” and “showing them what they are missing” and “fix them”, because if they just get the right level of dickin’ then they’ll no longer be asexual.
As such, statements like that on his part? Really fucking scuzzy and would have him on my lifelong “fuck this guy” list regardless of anything else.
And the thing about that is that is yet again, a very common thing in the PUA community. A lot of PUA theory talks about women in terms of and content warning for dehumanizing language… “pussy supply”.
And that’s a common refrain for Joe. He’s often using this dehumanizing language to refer to women and sex as if sex is a material good he just needs to hound the organic unit known as girl for rather than a mutual dance of pleasure and connection. And this also fits in with all his boasts and brags about getting laid. Women matter most for him as a means of showing his “prowess” at having sex rather than human beings in their own right.
So let’s get to Joyce and Joe’s date. Yes, it ends bad for him and while comedic, Joyce and Mike do commit assault against him which is really not okay. But there’s stuff to mine from it with regards to Joe.
So there’s a lot here that may not be obvious on the surface. First, there’s the simple fact that Mike, while completely ancillary is nonetheless an important boundary for Joyce. She doesn’t feel comfortable going on a date without a chaperone. Is that weird, is that from a really poisonous religious ideology? Oh, hell yeah. But nonetheless it is here boundary.
So what does Joe do? Tries and navigate around it by trying to bribe Mike to get lost when it would no longer be possible for Joyce to get a replacement, thus eliminating one of her “barriers” to him getting what he wants: sex.
And that’s not the only PUAism on display here. There’s a tactic common in the PUA community which is isolation. Basically, a lot of PUA “tactics” are based around finding excuses to escape to one-on-one situations where the “target” doesn’t have their support network around “harshing” your “game”. As such, there’s a lot of writing in that community about how to maneuver women into such states.
And well… that’s exactly what he is doing here. She brought a friend, so he tries to separate her from said friend because he views him as an obstacle for his chosen method of “seduction”. Which, may I remind everyone is to basically get Joyce to throw away all of the culture of raising and do something she regards as a mortal sin. Again, is that a good thing for her? No. But it is nonetheless her position here and he is actively campaigning to “maneuver” around that to get what he wants.
And these “manipulations” around consent and boundaries, while common in PUA circles, are also kinda sorta super rapey and can often lead to really bad ends and even at their most innocuous encourage behaviors like Joe’s here where he shows little respect for boundaries and tacit noes.
Oh yeah, and then there’s “game”. We see Joe “dating” exactly once in comic. And during that we don’t see much of his technique for trying to create sexy times. And I suspect part of that is that Joe is kinda skeezy.
His “game” for “breaking through” Joyce’s religious upbringing is to give some gender essentialist garbage about how men just can’t help but be horndogs and move the topic as quickly as he can to encompass sex. And while this backfires in the worst way largely because Mike is a complete asshole, it does make one wonder what his supposed end-game was supposed to be.
Also, I want to take the moment here to note that Joyce’s actions at the end of this date were most definitely wrong. There’s ways to communicate noes and boundaries other than having someone beat him up and then joining in.
This is a no. This is an emphatic no. And yet, later on, Joe keeps on circling back and making all sorts of lecherous comments at her even though he knows it sends her into apoplectic rage. And then he acts shocked when that’s exactly what he gets (more on that later).
Making a creepy porn joke about someone else’s movie choice.
Which yeah. No. Just no. And also, look at Dorothy’s face in Panel 4. She’s not amused. No one who’s a girl has been shown on panel actually enjoying Joe’s brand of “inappropriateness”. Most commonly they are shown to be ignored and no duh. Joe’s a creep. And he’s a creep who doesn’t ever stop no matter how much body language you throw his way to say you’re not interested. I mean, Dorothy is giving him a full on glare here and yet he still acts aggrieved even though he knows he’s being rude and dismissive towards her. And this is a common pose for him. Wait until someone rounds on him for one of his statements and then act like the wounded party.
Oh, I’m going to try and “break in” Joyce? What, she beat me up? Everyone look how violent and crazy she is! What, did Dorothy glare at me for making a porn joke during class? Ugh, better adopt an arms crossed pose.
Lest he learn the slightest something about gender dynamics and how his actions fit in with that overall tapestry and it’s something he can get away with because of his immense privilege. And that annoys me.
Again, no one is laughing with him on these unbidden missives about and from his dick. Dorothy could not give a fuck about Joe’s penis size and insecurities surrounding it. But of course he’s sharing, because Joe is gross like that.
More unrequested sex jokes and again, in the midst of really ice cold body language.
Like, here, in the day to day world, would any of us be continuing saying shit like this to someone with this sort of body language? Would we continue to push it, going more and more elaborate in the description of our gonads when the person on the other end is hackles raised, death glare, halfway to punching us like this? I’d argue no. I’d argue that most of us would be able to recognize that sort of body language and lay off.
And here’s the thing. Joe’s got this reputation for “consent”, but he’s constantly been shown to completely ignore this level of “fuck this noise” body language.
So… how could he possibly actually respect consent? How can we trust him to actually lay off flirtation or lay off pressure when someone is receiving it like this, is giving all the signs of get away from me? And it’s not because he’s not noticing it. Joe is not emotionally impaired or neurodivergent. He understands the reception he is getting, but nonetheless he barrels over that body language because until someone straight up yells at him well… technically they hadn’t said no. And that’s well, kinda rapey as fuck.
And very much in keeping with his other PUA behaviors. A lot of the material in PUA circles is all about basically ignoring any signs that a woman is disinterested and basically continuing to add pressure and euphemisms and hit-ons until they either scream out their no and run away or “give in”.
Oh, hello belief that alcohol is a useful tool for acquiring consent that would not normally occur when sober.
Yeah, this is a biggie, because this is rapey as fuck and sadly not an uncommon belief among young men. This “alcohol” as lubricant or foreplay idea is a really toxic notion that often excuses and encourages rape by intoxication. Given Joe’s habit of only accepting noes when they are screamed at him or accompanied by violence, that belief becomes rather chilling to consider.
Like, if Joyce had gotten too drunk and too isolated to yell him off, would he just have presumed that she was into him and wanted him to take her home to his bed? Maybe not, but I’m not sure the answer is as automatically a no as we might want to believe given lines like this.
Here’s him straight up following her showing really angry body language talking about people trying to constantly get in her pants (people like him and at this point, more horribly Ryan) with a sex joke about her gonads.
Unbidden, unrequested, and to someone who couldn’t have more screamed “I’m not interested in this shit” if she had tattooed it on his forehead with her own blood as ink.
Admittedly he doesn’t know she’s triggered, but still, what the fuck did you expect dude?
And honestly, that’s not an unreasonable thing for her to say. She’s in a bad headspace, she’s all alone and a guy who has previously tried to “finesse” his way past her boundaries is coming up from behind and following up a “fuck these guys getting into my pants” by staring at her crotch and making a creepy joke. While he wasn’t actually grabbing her, telling him to not grab her is a reasonable thing for her to do.
And his response, trying to “defend his reputation”, demanding she interrupt her conversation further to tell the person on the other line that he, Joe, is a good consent man who doesn’t actually touch women without consent, is well…
Okay, you know when someone makes a big deal about how they have most definitely never stolen anything in their life. Goes out of their way to counter anyone who even so makes a vague comment in that direction. And how the more they emphatically deny it when no one has actually made an accusation, the more you start to wonder about things that have gone missing at their parties?
Yeah, Joe seems way more invested in women telling each other that he is good on consent than he seems to be actually living up to said consent. And it’s the sort of red flag that has my creepdar thoroughly pinged.
He also follows this up with one of his many instances of being gross about male sexuality, but I’ll save that because this is already going off the rails. And as this is getting long enough, lightning round:
Inappropriately grabbing people without consent including a person who has previously expressed their extreme disinterest in being a sexual target or a target for his sexual jokes. Fetishization of lesbianism. And also, note Sierra’s face in addition to Dorothy’s face. They are not particularly pleased to have been grabbed. From behind. All of a sudden. In a rather intimate way: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/no/
Oh, hey, for all those hoping that “alcohol is a great way to help sex happen” rapeyness was a one off, here’s him arguing not only that he used it for a threesome, but that he sees booze as a great way to facilitate and make threesomes happen in a way they would not if he was sober. Again, this is not okay and not the practices of someone who actually gives a single damn about consent: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/theplural/
That was him ditching someone actually showing interest to chase after someone who didn’t so much as look at him. Because again, being a woman in his general presence is something he considers to be a come-on.
Which occurs when the last encounter he had with Sarah was his dad going all creeper on her with her adopting extremely negative body language, directly threatening said dad with physical harm to his reproductive system, and straight up saying he was the exact same as him: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/persistent/
And again, this is really not neutral. Sarah has already communicated she does not like him. She has threatened someone she regards as just like him with physical harm. She is adopting body language literally anyone could read as “not interested” (I mean, for fuck’s sake, Dina for all her lack of knowledge about human body language would not see that as an inviting body language, so I don’t know what Joe thinks his excuse is other than he only takes shouted out noes as noes, which again, makes him rapey as fuck). And yet, he creeps on her nonetheless. Because she’s a woman and she’s existing near him.
And again, when called out he adopts false martyr pose, makes a big deal about his supposed “care for consent”, and yet STILL continues to try and make ins for himself with flirtations when she’s already made it more than clear she is not interested.
This is also a common PUA/MRA thing. Slagging women who won’t sleep with you as if they have a character flaw or personality defect. Because not wanting to sleep with a creeper means you’re broken in some way.
I don’t have enough fuck yous in the world to encompass this one (but fetishization of lesbians, mistreatment of the time and learning of others, derailment of class, homophobia, responding to the slightest amount of education that might make him aware of his privilege with bigoted creepy bullshit, and just, flames, flames on the side of my face…): http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/sweetlesbianfacts/
I really tried to put together a point by point discussion of each of your examples but it’s so long and so many of them are reliant on intense nipicking and reading super far into inappropriate but largely benign behaviour. There are a lot of good points here too but I’m not arguing Joe is a paragon of feminist masculinity just that he’s a just a fairly decent dude who still has a lot of learning to do. Maybe I just have a really low bar for what I expect from college age dudes but by and large Joe is a significantly better person than his real life equivalents usually are. Yes, he’s self-absorbed and immature and rude but he’s not some PUA piece of human garbage he’s a “manly” 18 year old college freshman with all the socializing and general lack of life experience that entails and looking at his dad I’d say he’s doing pretty well considering the environment he came from.
Also rating attractiveness on a numerical scale isn’t a PUA thing it’s a dude thing. Just because a man does it doesn’t mean he’s a borderline rapist.
Admittedly, I don’t know of a single non-PUA who does the numbering system, but maybe it’s more common in subcommunities that are not rife with toxic masculinity.
And I think I see where you’re coming from with regards to the bar-setting.
I tend to set bars of consent and behavior very high, partially because consent activism is very important to me (largely because I belong to about 3 different groups that are frequently targeted for corrective rape). Additionally, I often refuse to lower said expectations for men, because it used to greatly annoy me back when I thought I was a cisdude how much of a low bar had been set for me and how much unearned free cred I was earning from the women in my life at the time for doing things I thought were minimum standards of decent behavior.
And that might also be the major disconnect in how I see Joe versus how others see Joe. I look at Joe, I see his red flags. Others see a dumbass kid with a teenager’s understanding of consent and a lot of growing up to do.
And the irony is I also agree with that view as well. He is a dumbass kid with a lot of growing up to do. And it’s about damn time he actually uses this Gender Studies class to do so.
I meant “more common than I think” rather than “more common”. Though admittedly the idea rather grosses me out that it might be a rather common thing for people to treat other people like numbers.
Using numerical ratings to rank attractiveness is so pervasive in media that a lot of dudes just pick it up via cultural osmosis rather than because of any actual intent to devalue or objectify women.
And I definitely see where you’re coming from as both a gender and sexual minority when it comes to his “fix her with his penis” thing because yeah YIKES does that have terrifying implications but I just try to remind myself that he doesn’t have the same frame of reference and experiences that I have so the incredibly bad implications of that vis a vis corrective rape just isn’t on his radar at all. I didn’t like choose to lower my expectations of men so much as had them worn down over time as a result of interacting with them and having them consistently fail to meet them.
Hopefully, at some point in the comic Joe starts to be less of a complete clown in Gender Studies and actually learns him a thing or two because I do believe he has the potential to be a better person he just has to be mature enough to realize he isn’t already perfect.
“I didn’t like choose to lower my expectations of men so much as had them worn down over time as a result of interacting with them and having them consistently fail to meet them.”
*Sympathy through light physical contact*
But I can respect that and it’s a viewpoint straight women i have known have stated… unfortunately. But yeah, I can see the divergence of personal experience there.
“Hopefully, at some point in the comic Joe starts to be less of a complete clown in Gender Studies and actually learns him a thing or two”
Bob, yes. He desperately needs it. Hell, one of the interesting things with him and Joyce partnered together is that Joyce and Joe are probably the ones who most need this class and they are also illustrations of two divergent ways of responding to the material.
When the material challenged Joyce, she’s grappled with it, struggled with it, sometimes taken terrible lessons from it, but has been deeply affected by it and had it improve her way of interacting with others.
When the material challenged Joe, he retreated from it, started showing up hungover or late, and increased his active resistance to it.
And much like Walky is learning in Calculus, you can only fight against learning a subject matter for so long before it bites you in the butt.
It’s really just emblematic of my lifestyle in general: pessimistically low expectations of all things and people. Like Sarah except less filled with rage and more filled with mild exasperation. Of course a low bar also means that it’s a lot easier to justify writing off people who manage to squeeze their way under it. Plus you’re pleasantly surprised a lot.
Heh, I guess we’re both fitting into our avatars a bit then. 🙂
And I totally get the lowering expectations so others can’t disappoint you thing. I do that a lot with new shows or media that is supposed to have some good representation. Really helps blunt the edge if it’s only done semi-okay.
Yes, a lot of people, both men and women, will occasionally use numerical rankings to describe others. Very few of them, in my experience, keep notebooks where they have them all ranked.
There’s a slight difference.
Personally guys like this generally make me sigh in exasperation and roll my eyes. Of course that’s only cause in general people know better than to target me. Mostly because, as previously stated, guys who don’t understand “fuck off I’m taken and wouldn’t be interested in you even if I wasn’t” are gonna end up in some kind of pain.
I’m still reading your list, so this is just a short nitpick: I don’t think Joe is dishonest to approach Joyce in “charming” mode when he wants to have sex with her. He did not say “I would like to chastely compare notes on why Jesus is awesome and do nothing sexual”, he invited her on a date.
The purpose of dates if to find out if the other person is compatible either for future dates or sex. Joyce wants to find out the former and Joe wants to find out the latter.
I don’t think it’s necessary to tell a person you’re interested in a sexual relationship BEFORE a date, but it should be made known DURING the date.
Basically dates are interviews to see if you’re compatible with the other person.
This. He’s got a reputation for being awesome on consent, but we just don’t see it in comic. Instead we just get to see the grossness and the weaseliness and so on and so forth.
That is true that there’s nothing on its own wrong with putting one’s most charming self forward for a date and that people shouldn’t have to state what they’re interested in upfront.
I guess it just raises a lot of red flags for me, because it’s one of the instances where we really get to see his “game” in action, see how he interacts with women when he wants to sleep with them and it’s very… underhanded and indirect.
Roz is straight-forward. I want sex, if you’re interested, you know where I am. But Joe here is stated as only being interested in banging Joyce even though he knows that’s not where she wants the evening to go and spends a bit of time presenting this front of a man who would be totally interested in more traditional forms of dating and getting to know them, only to segue into sexual topics when he recovers back into his “comfort zone” at the pizza restaurant.
And it’s that part that feels like a “red flag”. Like, if he had gotten his way, if Mike had buggered off for a 50, what was his game plan, because at that trajectory, it didn’t look like it was going towards “hey, I don’t know if you’d be into this, but I find you really attractive and I feel we’ve got this mutual chemistry that’d be fun to explore together” so much as it was going in the direction of eeling around her (admittedly awful religious) defenses and boundaries, which she more than made clear at the start of the evening.
I don’t think Joe is trying to “isolate” Joyce as much as he’s trying to get away from Mike, who should I remind you KEEPS PUNCHING HIM IN THE FACE. I’d try to get rid of Mike too.
Yeah the line of “men think about sex all the time” IS gender essentialist garbage, but I don’t think Joe realizes it’s garbage, he really thinks this is a scientific fact. So he’s not lying to Joyce as far as he knows: he really thinks he’s teaching her correct stuff on human biology and sexuality.
Does Joe know Connie is 16? I don’t think we could fault him if he assumes she’s a student at the college, it IS a college town and they’re from walking distance of the campus, I’d also assume pretty much all the young people with minimum wage jobs are students. It’s more a general perv thing to stare at Connie, but not underage fetishization.
“He’s a liar when he’s called out on his dishonest flirtations”
Seriously, explain to me how Joe lied or was dishonest?? He asked Joyce out on a date. Dates are for determining if you want to keep going out with a person or not. They were incompatible, so they parted ways. When did he lie?
He did not pretend he wanted to study with her, he did not pretend to be interested in her favourite churchmouse show; he asked her out on a DATE and that’s exactly what Joyce got. Joyce was extremely disappointed with the date; but that’s because her expectations did not match Joe’s, not because he lied.
He’s not trying to educate Joyce, he’s trying to turn the conversation to sex.
16 is legal in Indiana, as I understand it. Beyond that, it’s only 2 years younger than Joe and not really out of his peer group. Especially when he’s been in college for a couple days at that point. His mindset hasn’t really adjusted from high school mode.
This one I can’t really ding Joe for. And that’s even assuming, as you said, that he had any reason to think she was younger and not a college student.
Dishonest and lying? Perhaps not, but hardly upfront about just looking for sex either. Which he was – “hot bangable chicks are just around the corner”. Joyce was far more upfront about her intentions – in a weird, creepy way with her questionnaire. Which would have been enough to send me running for the hills and I would have started out looking for a relationship, not just casual sex. Joe just continues, figuring he’s still got a chance of talking her into bed anyway.
Methinks you’re reading too much of Dorothy’s exasperation as “death glares” and cold body language. Dorothy has been friends with Joe since high school, perhaps even before that. Much like Danny, she glares at Joe because she’s heard his dick jokes a thousand times, not because she thinks her boundaries have been invaded.
Also I’m not sure what’s wrong with him openly saying in an interview that he has an open relationship with Roz and that he’s looking for more partners? Danny glares at him because it’s not the sort of thing people usually announce, but Joe is not at fault for talking about his sexual availability when the interview was about how he had sex with someone.
I don’t think Joe calls Joyce crazy because she rejected him, I think Joe calls Joyce crazy because she hired a guy to constantly assault Joe on their date AND she consistently goes full-fundie with speeches about purity. Joe is not the only person in this comic to call Joyce crazy…
this one is really eeeeehhhhhhh on the creepyness factor; Sierra is not leaning away from him (like Sarah was) so Joe is basically is trying to get the ball going on the sexual talk and seeing if Sierra responds positively. If she continues to keep a neutral stance he probably just walked away. Is Joe not allowed to initiate encounters now?
My tl;dr conclusion: yeah Joe is obnoxious and sexist you’re right to point that out. But I don’t think he subscribes to PUA or is as creepy as you make him out to be. Him being obnoxious and sexist is something we MIGHT see him grow out of, depending on how long DoA runs.
Basically, it’s this common method used by PUAs (and abusers, which is why it’s one of the spokes on the Duluth Control Wheel) to try and remove a person from the “barrier” of their friends who will try and “cockblock” you, putting them in a situation where they feel they have less protection, less means of easy escape, and thus in their viewpoints “more likely to be down” or rather to just give in and put up with the stranger being all creepy because they feel all on their own and a bit hit sideways.
In the comic in question, Joe knows Mike is an important boundary for Joyce to feel safe (he’s an awful boundary who threatens Joe with bodily harm and Joe would have been more than justified to run screaming the other way or demand she get a less violent guardian). And so he tries to arrange a situation where that boundary is removed and removed in such a way that would make it impossible for Joyce to get another one.
I mean, if he didn’t feel physically safe around Mike, he would have been, yeah, no, if that’s your “guardian” fuck this, we can do another night if you’ve got someone less violent or just nope, fuck this, I’m out. But instead, he tried to bribe Mike to “get lost along the way” when Joyce would have been unable to find a replacement “guardian” to feel fully safe.
And it’s why that felt more a “hey, you’re harshing my game” thing than a “you’re a violent asshole I want nothing to do with” thing for me, but YMMV.
On the gender essentialist stuff, I have no doubts he genuinely believes it, but it’s still gross and gender essentialist and clearly used as a means of advancing his argument that “sex is natural and we men can’t help it, so c’mon baby”, which is rather pushy.
And you’re right, I don’t think he knows she’s 16 and technically in Indiana 16 is legal, but I dunno, call it my own thing because I’m a high school teacher, but I find the notion of adults perving on high school kids to be all sorts of sketchy even if they are only very recently adults.
As far as the dishonest bit, it’s what “thejeff” says. His goal at the end of the evening is to bang her. He enters into targeting her as “hot bangable chicks are around the corner”, he tells Sarah his intention is to “fix her. With my penis.” And makes a lot of comments to Danny about how she’ll be powerless to his charms and will totally fuck him.
And well, Joyce has emphatically stated up front that that’s not something she is interested in from this encounter (though she has her own fucked up narratives about potential life-long commitment, but she lays those out really early on, because they are important to her at that time). But he plays at this being a super respectful date that could totally go in the direction she wants it to (it wouldn’t) even though his angle is he wants to fuck her despite the fact she says she’s not into that and he circles conversations in that direction when he gets the chance (he’s not at all prepared for the level of PMD type Christianity Joyce comes from).
And when she cottons on and flips out and calls him out on it the next day, he pretends that it wasn’t totally his plan all along to have a casual sex type of affair.
And that last part gets extra insulting to her intelligence when he’s been shown in all of his interactions with Danny to be completely dismissive of the notion of a longer term more interconnected relationship and 100% on team casual sex.
And maybe “lying” is the wrong word, but he’s definitely underhanded in his seduction technique and he seems to be rather fond of using tactics that obfuscate his intentions rather than just laying them out there and seeing if anyone is interested.
Eh, I don’t completely agree on how much Joe is hiding or pretending his intentions to have sex when he went on a date with Joyce.
Even someone who would consider having sex with a man she just met (let’s say Dorothy or Amber?) would probably be skeeved out if he came up to her and said “wanna bang??”. Even Roz doesn’t say it outright when she’s dropping big hints.
I dunno, the way I look at sex and dates is: it’s alright to go on a friendly date with the hopes it will end in sex; it only becomes creepy if the guy gets OFFENDED that he doesn’t get the sex he “deserves”. Joe was disappointed they didn’t have sex, but he was not offended because he didn’t get his “prize” (well he was offended at being punched in the face…). To me that would be the true mark of a PUA creeper.
I can see and respect that viewpoint and distinction and I can very much agree that he is doing good to not see sex as something he is owed from the world. He’s got the pieces he needs to do what he’s doing right, but he’s also got some bad habits he needs to shed.
That certainly is an exhaustive and comprehensive look at his behaviour, and I agree, taken in total it certainly is a lot worse than the way we usually see it, which is one or two stupid comments at a time. Mind you, as you point out, it seems to happen pretty much every time we see him, which in real life would be exhausting at best, I think.
Having read this, I agree that Joe’s behaviour seems way more problematic than I had first assumed.
I think the resistance you’re encountering to pointing out Joe’s behaviour is that he comes across (to me, anyways; I know some people find him grating) as a very likable character. He comes across as very good-natured. IRL I might find him unbelievably annoying, but reading about him, I like him. And we always want to give people we like the benefit of the doubt.
But yeah, taken in aggregate, his history of behaviour, despite what he says his behaviour actually is (and the dichotomy between them) does seem to raise some serious questions.
I think the divide comes from how many Joes a given commenter has met irl, and whether they’ve been on the receiving end of their “harmless” jokes or not. Me, for example: I am a young woman who is fairly open and, er, omnivorous when it comes to sexuality. And I’m in no way ashamed of that. However, it very much does open me up to the Joes of the world thinking that because I’m having sex with lots of people, that automatically means I need to have sex with them in particular–no matter how many times they have to make “harmless” jokes about me hopping on their dick. Totally joking. You know, unless I’m into it this time. Thirty-third time’s the charm, right?
I think you might be dead on here. As a homo-leaning panromantic asexual I unfortunately attract a lot of Joes. Either because they think they can “fix me… with their penis”, because they’re catcalling me or a femme-presenting partner of mine on the street, or because they’re being like the seagulls in Finding Nemo just asking for 3somes whenever I cuddle with a queer partner. And the “harmlessness” of the dick jokes tend to fit in uncomfortably with a lot of narratives of “correction” for people like me. Not to mention I have a lot of bad memories from back before I figured out I was trans of “fellow dudes” trying to “bond” with me by being really gross about women (in the talking about them like child-brained pieces of meat sense).
And so I tend to have a strongly viscerally negative impression of them, whereas to others, a Joe may just be that buddy, who might be a little inappropriate, but he’s an all-right dude nonetheless.
And so feel you on that last line. Ha ha your penis, yes, again, so droll, now can you please leave so I can get back to the date I was actually having? No, I’m really really sure I want nothing to do with your meat. No I don’t care how big it is. Why do you even think I would care how big it is to begin with?
I have encountered multiple Joes. One was almost exactly like him in attitude, only more creepy and way less successful. This Joe is a dude SO CREEPY that the women in the geek circles of my city have an unspoken rule where we do not allow him to be alone with any other woman. Full stop. Because he is that creepy. Literally, rape jokes every other minute, spends more time talking at womens’ butts and boobs than our faces, wandering hands, will not stop with the inappropriate comments even when he’s been told to f— off in so many words. Women in geek circles will literally boycott small events if he is not banned and will not take part in any tabletop RPG or competition he’s a part of (hey dudes, be aware that if you pull that pattern of behavior, you’re flagging yourself as at the very least a major creep to women in your circles). Again, because he’s that damn creepy. And it’s not one comment, it’s literally constant. As in, every second sentence out of the guy’s mouth is something sexual directed at the women in the room. Literally every second sentence, on average. I counted once. And even then, even with him pinching women in the ass and boobs, even with him making seriously creepy comments like telling a girl her shirt wasn’t low-cut enough and he likes her better when she wears V-necks (btw, I use “girl” because she was a high school kid and dude’s nearly 30), joking about date-rape, and so on, all but one dude I know just write off his crap as “just a joke” the way like 99% of the dudes in the city seem to think it is (seriously dudes, you have a major blind spot for seeing sexual harassment even when it’s happening right in front of you).
Fact is, a lot of the stuff Joe pulls is sexual harassment – repeated uninvited and unwanted sexual comments long after a woman has told him to drop it, objectification, dehumanization, touching women in intimate ways without their prior consent (see the strip Cerberus linked above where he basically bear hugs Dorothy and Sierra without their consent as just one example). Joe is the sort of creep who, if he had a French accent, would kiss every woman he met on the cheek knowing fully well that’s not North American mores, counting on his accent and dudes’ tendency to twist themselves into pretzels to give the benefit of the doubt to protect him from backlash (not the first guy I used as an example, another guy, also a creep, also someone who gets away with being a major creep up to and including low-level sexual assault – which is what groping and kissing people who don’t want you to kiss them even as they try to pull away IS – because dudes just plain suck at seeing sexual harassment when it’s happening right in front of them because in large part, they don’t want to see it and even if every single woman in the room is saying, “this guy is a creep and what he’s doing is not okay,” nobody will do anything until some cis dude lends his voice to it).
As a woman in a male-dominated field with a lot of male-dominated hobbies, I get this treatment a lot. Any guy with even a hint of creep almost seems to get bragging rights from his creep card in any room that has >75% men in it (and that’s a lot of rooms I’m in at work and at my hobbies). I am very used to it, and I have a thick skin, and I’m that kind of stubborn jerk who will refuse on principle to be scared out of the boys’ club. By virtue of spending most of my time in boys’ clubs, I’ve learned what separates genuine creep from sexist jerkoff. I will be around sexist jerkoffs because I have to, and I don’t mind being alone with them (beyond worrying I might strain an eye muscle from rolling them so hard) because sexist arse does not necessarily mean creep.
So keep all that in mind when I say that you could not pay me enough to be alone with Joe for an extended period of time. Because IME, dudes with that level of disregard for womens’ comfort and consent to their activities do not magically shape up when it comes to sex. If you have a pattern of disregarding womens’ consent and comfort, that pattern carries over to all parts of life. And, like many real-life rapists (see Jian Gomeshi scandal here in Canada for just one example), it’s not at all unreasonable that he’d put on this huge show of being super-duper consent happy, just to give himself plausible deniability.
Does that mean he’s definitely a rapist? No. But I also don’t think he’s even one tenth as good on the consent front as he makes himself out to be, and what I really hope a lot of people pick up from this line of discussion is that the difference between a Joe and the rapist who targeted Joyce is one of degrees in their attitude. By which I mean: Both of those dudes are super entitled and seem to think a woman’s consent is an after-thought that you should have plausible deniability over, and who seem to think that being nice is paying dues for sex. The major difference between Joe and the date rapist is that the date rapist was willing to use force if he couldn’t manipulate and drug Joyce into it. Joe was fine just with manipulation (and possibly drugging, though he’s never done it on camera – he’s joked about it often enough that I’m pretty sure he’s actually okay with getting someone too drunk to say no to him, if that’s what it takes for him to get sex).
I’m with Kryss as well. Cerb’s post put Joe’s actions all together and problematized Joe much more for me. (I mean, he was already problematic as being a douche, but now I have more suspicion as well.)
I’m bummed that the conversation was derailed at length in the middle. I suspect Willis would’ve normally deleted many of those comments if he had time.
Yeah, I don’t get the hate either. He is gross, and inappropriate, sure.
But people are making him out to be some sort of sexual harasser and I don’t see that in the writing.
I don’t even see any evidence that he is sexiest. He see’s woman as sexual objects? yes – he sees HIMSELF as just a sexual object too though. I dont remember reading anything, anywhere, that infers he sees the other gender as inferior in any way.
I would also point out part of the reason Joyce finds Joe so repellent is his open sexuality – in direct opposition to Joyces upbringing. You could say she is sexually repressed somewhat. This is a character conflict, and she is perfectly justified to feel that way, and Joe should take that into account when he is around here – but that doesn’t make Joes outward sexuality wrong. Thats the wrong thing to take away. He is inconsiderate – not creepy.
There is nothing wrong with casual sex, and there is nothing really wrong with Joe pursuing it as a main life-goal. (wrong to himself, maybe, but not others).
I would even go so far too say that there is things others in the class can learn from Joe – (mostly) but not ally by negative examples – but rather he can be a prop as too, yes, people can have lots of sex with different partners – and no there is nothing wrong with being a “slut” in that regard.
I’ve tried giving him the benefit of the doubt countless times, but it’s like watching someone else’s dirty dishes slowly pile up and having to clean them yourself because “maybe that person will take responsibility for them next time.” He’s yet to do so, and I’ve long since stopped covering for him. Until he confronts himself and his actions, I’ll be wait for that pile to start crashing down on him. It looks like that’s about to start soon, too.
As much as I’m disliking this, I am curious to see how Joe will react to the new Joyce, and how Joyce will react to him with her new worldview. Do you think she will care about Joe’s “jokes” as much as she did before? Joyce seemed to handle the last one just fine.
I hope that Joe will notice the change in Joyce and adjust his attitude a bit. And I hope that Joyce shares whatever new revelations she’s had about him since her change, if any.
I hope that this leads to some character development for Joe. I don’t hate him – I often think he’s amusing in a low brow humor sort of way – but for quite some time now he’s felt kind of out of place for me. Even infrequently appearing minor characters have now received enough character development to feel three dimensional now but Joe still strikes me as a one note joke whose occasional appearances of depth seem more informed than demonstrated. I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who sets out to hurt people, but as others have mentioned, he does come across as the kind of guy who hurts people anyway. I think it would be cool to see him go through a learning process that teaches him some sensitivity to time and place. Some joking is cool when it’s just between you and your bros over a couple of brewskis and being generally more thoughtful about and to the people around you is just about always the better idea.
The only person more at odds with the general themes of growth and development is Mike who is literally a static plot device more than he is a character at this point.
It’s not quite that small, but we can assume the rest of them paired off the same way. Just wasn’t worth the panel time showing another dozen unnamed people pairing up.
I dunno man, my Japanese 202 class only had six people in it, and one of those people was me who was merely auditing the course and not actually paying for it. And I go to the University of Miami which is a really big school.
I get the feeling Joe may be a good emotional punching bag of sorts. Maybe the way he talks with Danny gave me that impression and it could be inaccurate but I can kinda see it working out like that…
Like, this is kind of the resounding answer to a conversation some of us were having yesterday. Which is, if he’s the class clown, who else is laughing? And well, not only have we seen no one else laughing, but it’s quite clear that Joe has earned himself such a negative reputation in the class with his disruptive bullshit that no one wants to partner with him, not even the last person stuck left with him.
And that’s kind of critical to note, because we know one student in the class (Roz) is regularly sleeping with him, but even she wants literally nothing to do with him. He’s alienated everyone in the class and while I can hope that that is starting to sink in. That it’s dawning on him that he’s trashed his reputation in the class and has just become that guy. That that look on his face in the last panel includes some small amount of self-awareness that will get him to look at his gross actions…
Well, I can’t quite manage enough hope for that. More likely he will continue to think it’s just a fluke or that the women “secretly like it” or it’s just because “everyone’s a (slur for lesbian)” and go about his merry Joe business.
But it definitely does sit how it sits. Joe is persona non grata here. And it’s really all his fault that it is so.
Regularly sleeping with him? As in, more than once?
And even so, both are independent enough that they wouldn’t gloop together in class just because they’re glooping together in bed.
(No, I won’t say what gloop means. Derive the definition from context.)
Roz has been just as disruptive as Joe, and if she’s been more disruptive less frequency, she’s been so with greater animosity.
I think the bigger issue is that Joe’s demonstrating that he isn’t learning a damn thing about the material and no one wants to partner with the guy who won’t take it seriously.
That look on his face isn’t a broader realization of how his previous actions have landed him here. It’s just an immediate, limited realization of “oh, hey, limited partner selection, I might end up with Joyce, AWKWARD.”
“Regularly sleeping with him? As in, more than once?”
That’s what the latest slipshine says.
“I think the bigger issue is that Joe’s demonstrating that he isn’t learning a damn thing about the material and no one wants to partner with the guy who won’t take it seriously.”
You know what? I agree really strongly with this. He really has been going out of his way to not learn the material and actively disengage with it. So, yeah, even if he didn’t have a reputation as that creepy porn-obsessed lesbian fetishist who talks about his sex life and his dick too much, he’d be last on the list as potential partners because who wants to partner up with someone who’s going to be constantly fighting against any attempt at taking the project or exercise seriously?
“That look on his face isn’t a broader realization of how his previous actions have landed him here. It’s just an immediate, limited realization of “oh, hey, limited partner selection, I might end up with Joyce, AWKWARD.””
Sadly, I think you’re 100% right. I mean, I’d love for him to become aware of how his actions impact the world, but he’s just not in a headspace to do so and probably won’t be until he stops finding women willing to sleep with him.
Really it’s kind of inevitable that him and Joyce get singled out because he’s a clown and while she’s definitely trying to learn now she’s still just grappling with the basics that pretty much everyone else in the class was likely already taking for granted especially if they were taking a Gender Studies course.
Yeah, despite how much she’s grown, she’s probably got a reputation as that girl who’s often struggling with the introductory stuff.
She chose good people for her attempt to reach out though. Dorothy would have been a good choice if she wasn’t Team Keenering and Roz would have been a good choice if she wasn’t in full-on “distance so I don’t embarrass myself with another scene” mode.
Ah, this probably might not turn out good. I’m sure Joe could try to be sensitive but with his strong aversion of anything to do with “feels” or sensitivity, I don’t hold much hope for this turning out well. Or at least taking quite a while before Joe gets some uh… “character development”? I’m not sure if that’s the right phrase I should use. Sometimes it’s hard for me to put my thoughts into words.
Yeah, I’m just not seeing the angle by which good can come out of this. Joe is not only deathly allergic to the “girliness” of feelings, but he tends to lash out at those who make him feel them or who try and ask him for help with theirs (responses to Danny, responses to his Gender Studies class (especially when it gets serious), and responses to Joyce on the date).
And Joyce? Joyce doesn’t need any more crap this week. But then this might be break the cutie with this and the plotline for this weekend when she goes home, where she just gets her faith taking to the woodshed until she stops caring anymore about retaining it.
Joe does need to learn to have non-sexual relationships with women. So far, he’s only made one of those – with Joyce. Yes, it’s a yelling, angry relationship, but you gotta start somewhere.
Technically he and Dorothy are friends, although that might only be cause she was dating his best friend in high school and therefore she “tolerates” him.
When I was in school, desks would get rearranged all the time. The exact same spot in the classroom that had a left-desk one day, would have a right-desk the next day. I got used to sitting in whatever was in my location.
I doubt there’s anyone else left. If there was, they’d both be unabashedly relieved, but we’d lose out on the guaranteed character drama of throwing those two together.
Scouring through the archives, I can identify 6, maybe 7 novel hairstyles and face shapes among the background characters in addition to the 5 major/minor cast members. While this would be about 11 or 12, my suspicion is the class probably has either 14 or 16 students (I’m suspecting an even number, otherwise Joyce could have dodged out of partnering with Joe by partnering with Leslie or being a part of a group of 3). As that would be a typical size for this sort of class.
I didn’t expect to feel bad for Joe today. What a surprising time.
(because he knows he’s walking onto a minefield, which would be tricky even if he hadn’t just annoyed her again, and even if he had more emotional sensitivity than a staple gun.)
Someone might disagree with you. Also there are plenty of methods you can walk away from an explosion. For example,if you don’t have shades,make sure you put on the no fucks given face. Or you can go full Joker.
Took me a sec to get that “Roz” speech bubble belongs to Joyce. Neat that she’d ask her. Joyce is good at extending the olive branch when she feels that it’s warranted.
I was wondering about that. It also seems possible that it could be Dorothy trying to help or, worse yet, Leslie. I found it hard to imagine Joyce reaching out to Roz in this moment, given her current “not two fucks given” mood.
You’re right, it’s either Joyce or Dorothy. (It would be somebody who had already talked in this comic; Leslie knows it’s enough of a stretch for Roz and Joyce to be civil in the same room, and Walky isn’t likely to jump in and solve somebody else’s problem.) Most likely, Willis figured that it didn’t much matter so long as we got Roz’s reaction to pair with Anyone But Joyce, and so long as Joyce was stuck with Joe.
At university I once took a class with a grand total of three students in it. That professor liked to hold “entry exams” to encourage people to read the materials beforehand and see if they actually knew the language they were supposed to be studying.
Regularly, 80% or more failed on that initial test. In the more basic classes he’d do a second test a week or two later, and generally 80% or more would pass that one. In the more advanced classes he’d make it clear that the initial test showed what his demands were, and left it up to the students to deicde whether or not they thought they could meet them.
His classes were smaller than the average, but you learned a LOT in them.
Y’know, this may actually be very interesting. Joe has many bad qualities but he is neither insincere or stupid. Depending on what the exercise is, Joyce may be in for an insight into a very different set of ethics and standards that remain sincere, no matter how alien to her.
Alternatively, Joe may be in for a morning of pain due to Joyce v.1.5 responding to double-entendres and clumsy come-ons with physical negative reinforcement.
Also, while I’m pretty sure she still has “stupid jerk” as her favored enemy for her class, the whole “brandishing a shotgun and kidnapping a daughter” incident may have significantly improved her definition of what makes one a “stupid jerk in need of being punched in the face”.
Well hopefully Joyce can refrain from punching Joe and maybe Joe could stop making unhelpful comments…
But seriously I would like to see Joe use his brains for a change (the way he shot down Walky on the subject of what being a man means was pretty impressive)
Joe definitely has the POTENTIAL to be a smart and informed dude he just has to get over his aversion to feelings and taking anything even remotely seriously.
A lot now depends on the nature of the exercise. It is possible that either Joyce or Joe may yet thank the Fates that they were paired together for this one.
I predict this will be good for Joyce. A heavy dose of righteous indignation at Joe will help bring her back to her (morality) roots, at least some of the way. She’ll feel better in a few weeks when they finally make it to Sunday and go to Church again.
Maybe I’m weird, but ever since their disastrous date, I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that Joyce/Joe may be a possibility somewhere down the line…like waaaaaaaaaaaay down the line. It likely won’t be, but hey, a girl can speculate. Really, though, all I want for these two to do is apologize for their respective behaviours on that date (something I can’t recall if they’ve ever done or even made an effort to do) and become, if nothing else, belligerent friends. Because good God damn do I love when these two interact.
It would take a long time, and a lot of character development, for that to happen.
Like, this Joe is even flatter than his Roomies counterpart. IW!Joe grew a lot and become a much more mature person without ever losing what made him Joe, and there was some romance with Joyce there.
He’s got some hints of depth. His parents divorce and apparently his father’s cheating give hints as to what he’s using sex to avoid. As does his aversion to anything emotional.
That’s the kind of thing that leaves you vulnerable to being hurt. Can’t let that happen.
Yeah, if you pay close attention you’ll notice a few instances where Joe’s “one-dimensional macho womanizer” mask slips a bit.
The first one as I recall is the beginning of his date with Joyce. When the discussion comes to his parents, Joe becomes very solemn and there’s a brief lapse in his usual air of chauvinistic overconfidence. His parents’ divorce is apparently something that affected him on an deep emotional and/or psychological level.
Later, Danny is about to confide in Joe regarding his recent revelations regarding his sexual interests. Joe won’t have any of it, but the way he so quickly picks up on the nature of the situation and strongly evades the issue indicates he has a much higher level of emotional intelligence than he lets on.
Basically, Joe was hurt by his parents divorce, and puts up his “one-dimensional macho womanizer” facade in an attempt to avoid what he saw happen to his parents. He figures if he never gets attached, he can’t get hurt.
Oh, and he’s flat here because in this universe so far, he’s only been relevant as a character through his interactions with others. We haven’t had any stories or arcs focusing on Joe, specifically.
See, I absolutely love this interpretation, and I totally believe it, but Joe doesn’t have enough appearances beyond being an annoying macho douchebag. If we saw more of that, of why he’s so insistent on avoiding any emotional connection and shutting down any attempt at being serious, he’d be a far more interesting character.
Actually I can see him getting drunk and then opening up and confiding.. in Ethan. Maybe passing out in his arms.
We know Joe would see Ethan as a catch. They can bond as being Transforming loving Jews. Joe has this misplaced homo-social energy, and when after it slips to intimacy.. he can awkwardly realize the next day , he has been depriving himself of emotional connection to women.
As his unconquerable potential conquest, he could turn to Joyce .
and if Danny found them together , it would be even better.
Perfects 3s company situation.
Danny gets Jealous and confronts his feelings. Joe has to confront his womanizing backfires and sends him into the arms of a man for solace. And Danny gets to come out to Joe.
It is refreshing to see someone think about Joe as a human being and care enough to glimpse behind the mask. thejeff, A5PECT, I commend you for that display of insight.
He’s given a few reasons to think of him complexly. He’s yet to be confronted about his actions directly, in a way that he can’t skip out on it. Everyone else has been forced to face themselves; when will it be Joe’s turn?
Until then, as long as he continues to make women in this comic uncomfortable, and as long as he’s determined to be a shitty friend to Danny, I refuse to give him leniency.
I’m kind of happy it worked out this way. I kept thinking these two could really help each other out if they were ever forced to work together and actually talk to each other for any length of time about something besides their usual topics.
Joe needs a lot of help understanding that his dad’s way of doing things is neither the right way nor the best way, and that his one-dimensional personality is not protecting him from being hurt, it’s just hiding his hurt.
Joyce has newly-minted hurt and is still in the “angry at God and everything” phase, so if Joe even remotely triggers a tirade from her, she’s likely to expose that without intending to. It’s a good opportunity for her to learn that being angry at everything doesn’t protect you from hurt, either.
Personally, I want to see Joe and Joyce get together, not in a “hop in the sack just because” or “fanfiction-style hate sex” sense, but in the sense of “we were able to talk to each other eventually, which led to talking to each other, which led to realizing we kind of get each other, which led being friends for a while, which led to deciding we wanted to start spending a lot of time together.”
Is there some signal that the person asking Roz is definitively Joyce that I’m missing? Because while that was my first impression, now I’m not really sure if it’s Joyce or Joe, since it would make sense to show each of them unsuccessfully try to partner up, and Joe knows Roz much better outside of class than Joyce does.
Really hoping that Joe will get some character development here, because “not being as one-dimensional as his early Roomies! counterpart” only goes so far.
On another note, the alt text confused the hell out of me for what felt like minutes, before I finally noticed the names. 🙂
Loading ...
Go Team Awkward!!!
I’m mildly disappointed Jen Aside wasn’t the first poster this time.
not even first INSIDE the comic, alt-text
Jen Aside, your grav makes me feel like Dina is cheating on Becky!!
WHY DO YOU CHOOSE THE BEST GRAVATAR MAKE OUTS THEN NOT USE THEM.
Well then I’m going to cross “Disappoint strangers online” off my Resolutions list
come to think of it, I’ve never been able to FIRST one of my own appearances
dang, my hair got long since then
THE SECRET TO ETERNAL YOUTH: be in DoA
Well, it HAS only been like two months since the semester started.
I thought the first month just ended.
Today is Friday of Week Five, the 34th day of the comic.
Should use you appearance as your icon.
Are you a …. Time Lady?
Never ask that question!
yes, but what do you want? XD
Team JoJo?
lately, it’s Min
AS AN ASIDE, do I have to work, or is Roz so passionate she’ll do everything and I can just sit back
dangit this dual thing setup isn’t working
And NOW I finally understand the “middle name Ana” comment!
At least Jen gets a line of dialog! 😀
I don’t. What is this?
(me either. It’s probably a Doctor Who thing somehow. It’s always a Doctor Who thing somehow.)
Jen Aside, Sue Aside, and Ana Chronistic are all commenting aliases of the same DoA fan, who is the person cameoing in the comic, and who is widely known for tending to be the first commenter on many many strips, to the point where we started to get annoying with “Where’s Jen?” comments when someone else got first. Possibly yet more aliases exist, but those are the ones that are ‘public’.
Oh, ok. I know who Jen Aside is, and I’d figured out she became Sue Aside and Ana Chronistic, but I hadn’t realized she was using all three accounts at the same time. I’d though she’d retired Jen for Ana, and someone else was now using Jen’s name. Thanks for clearing that up.
There is actually a Jhennaside here too.
Ah! I knew the rest, but hadn’t made the connection with the Jen in the comic. And thus, the alt text is explained. 😀 Thanks!
Oh. I haven’t seen “Sue Aside.”
Min… Farshaw? Is this a Wheel of Time/DoA crossover thing?
The face of ultimate disapproval.
With your icon as first runner-up
This pleases the anon. Thank you.
On another note, looking forward to Joe and Joyce teaming up. They have good chemistry.
Like sodium and water.
Or oil with water.
Na and H2O is much more explosive.
Well, they are going to have a blowing experience then.
Honestly, more like termite, innocent ingrediense being mixed together that when ignited provides high heat with sparks flying everywhere that burns whoever is stupid enough to get close enogh to it:-P
Or thermite. Termites mostly just invisibly eat away at your house until the whole thing comes crashing down around your ears.
So, okay, not really all that different. 😛
Sodium and Water just burns a bit and makes a few sparks. As shown in this video of Alkali metals in water.
Try Caesium and water instead. ;P
Joyce makes Holy Water by adding the sodium and chlorine separately and expecting a miracle.
Aside, since the two elements only combine in water, how did sodium chloride first get made in space?
What about francium and water?
Apparently, due to the size of Francium atoms and the binding energy of the electrons in its outer shel, Francium + water is basically the same as Caesium + water, in fact maybe a little less reactive. Also,
a) it’s radioactive, so hard to handle, and
b) it’s transuranic, so manmade. There’s usually only a few grammes of Francium in existence anywhere in the world at any time.
🙂
Um, Francium is cis-uranic. It’s just odd numbered, so it has a significantly shorter half-life than it’s more famous neighbors Radium and Radon.
I… *looks at a periodic table again* …o yes, so it is. My bad. xD
But still, short half-life and slightly less reactive due to shell sizes. Also, while it is pre-uranic and therefore naturally occurring, it’s ridiculously difficult to find, owing to its short half-life (and possbily its naturally high reactivity too?).
According to Wikipedia, it is the second-most electronegative element after Caesium, as a consequence slightly less reactive than Cs too.
Kyon-kun, denwa !
Say what you like about Joe being a horrible monster, I have high hopes for this pairing. I think Joe’s recent spate of machine-gun monogamy is starting to get a bit stale – he’s lonely, and seeking connection (of the non-physical kind). Once you get past the horn-dog facade, there’s a decent guy in there, and Joyce is just the person to bring him out.
Of course, Kyon spends most of his time in a state of disapproval, so this isn’t surprising.
That is one unhappy Joyce, and Joe don’t look thrilled either.
A lose-lose situation.
Hey. I’ll be on a team with you instead. Walky can find someone else.
No, That’s all right. Be with your boyfriend.
But he was the one who just said I should … oh.
You know, this will actually be good for Joyce. Force her to confront the source of her issues!
Joe, keep an eye on her fingers. If she closes them up, duck!
What if ducking just sets up connecting with the other fist? Maybe he should just lean away instead.
Eh, Joe is built to take punches.
How is this doing that, though (she’s not scared of all men or specifically of Joe (although she doesn’t like him), and I think her main crisis here has to do with faith/family more than her previous trauma), and is it really good if it’s not in a controlled/safe environment?
This. Her current crisis is with regards to crises of faith. Joe has little to nothing to offer on that score. And that’s not a slam on him though I do dislike the man. He’s a secular-leaning Jewish gentleman. He’s going to have very very little to offer Joyce with regards to her crises surrounding Pre-Millennial Dispensationalist Christian theology.
Well, she definitely has issues with Joe, she’s been treating him horribly when he did pretty much nothing wrong. Yes, he wanted to have sex with her, but there was never any attempt to force her, she was never in any danger, instead she had him assaulted repeatedly for showing any sign of sexuality at all and then acted like a victim afterward.
She has every right to dislike him and his attitude but she’s been going overboard and treating him like a monster for no reason.
He attempted to remove her chaperone. He was dishonest in his intentions with the date. He has since continued to make inappropriate comments including coming up behind her to make comments about her hiding exciting things in her pants in direct response to complaining about guys trying to get in her pants over the phone. And he keeps doing it over and over and over again despite how much she has communicated not only her no, her get the fuck away from me, but also that she in no uncertain terms does not feel safe around him.
And that pants one is important because it was him inserting himself into a conversation that wasn’t even relating to him to make a come-on statement and then when she went off on him about it (mostly due to triggers, admittedly), he started whining like he was a poor martyr who had been done wrong.
Yes, she had him punched repeatedly. Yes, she comes from a fucked up background that has historically viewed him as evil simply for being a sexual being and that’s neither of those things are even remotely okay, but she has very good reasons to view him as a pushy creep in addition to the terrible reasons she has to hate him.
But he also has good reasons to hate her, because well, aside from the fucked up shit Evangelicals believe about Jews, she punched him repeatedly, and paid someone to punch him.
Of COURSE he attempted to remove her chaperone. Mike threatened to strangle him from the word go. While that might have been in jest, it wasn’t, and it’s not a promising sign even if it weren’t true. Yeah, he’s harrassing her, but it’s not like this is a one way relationship and she just ‘hates him for terrible reasons too’.
Mike’s presence (and especially the “punch anyone who acts inappropriately” part) would be a perfectly good reason to walk away from the date at that point. Secretly bribing him to go away is inappropriate.
There is this.
Rutee-
I’m definitely not saying he doesn’t have reasons to be aggrieved. He was straight up assaulted at their date and Mike not only threatened him from the get-go, but found an excuse in the conversation to punch him repeatedly and Joyce cared more about his language while he was being punched than the fact he was being punched and later on straight up ordered Mike to continue punching him over actions that were in no ways a call for anything other than an ended date.
But he tried to get rid of Mike as an isolation tactic so he could get his flirt for sex on, not because Mike is violent. I’m very much with thejeff that the right thing in that case would have been to walk away rather than trying to find a way to return to game plan one of getting her to agree to sex she did not want to have at the beginning of the night.
Wasn’t that for comic effect though? A metaphor, if you will.
If Joe can be nasty for, a-hem, “light relief”, I’m sure it can work both ways.
amirite or amirite.
Will let you if it ever happens.
Yeah, I feel the same way about Joyce and Mike beating up Joe the same way I do Amazi-Girl beating up Beef and his friends at the party, or Mary vs. Carla from a while back. It was such a purely cartoony moment so divorced from reality that I can’t even consider it a legitimate moment with any weight to the characters.
The problem with that approach in this case is that Joe keeps bringing it up again, apparently seriously.
I know, and that’s where the problem stems. It was too cartoony to take seriously, so consequently, I don’t care when Joe brings it up.
Like, remember when everyone went to the beach? I kind of doubt Sal was able to materialize a speedboat out of nowhere to water ski immediately at a point where it would be perfectly timed for Billie to gripe about how Sal wasn’t that cool.
Or that one time Mrs. Warner tried to hug Sal, and she pulled out her bat to repel her. Not only was the hammerspace silly, but she reacted violently over the top to someone who was super dedicated to hug her. It was too silly to take seriously.
You’re right! THIS CAN ONLY END WELL!
Joe is the source of her issues? I thought the date-rapist at the party or maybe her fundamentalist upbringing was the source. Joe did literally nothing wrong.
This is going to hurt…probably Joe.
different mindsets can help make for an interesting project. or it can make one person do all the work. I have experienced both
I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyce tries to do the whole thing to avoid interacting with Joe. I wonder how he’d react to that.
Joe: *Shrugs* “Whatever.” *Leans closer to cute coed in next row* “SOoooo… /:D”
probably depends on the final grade
Too much meta
I SENSE BONDING AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT COMING
That which does not kill them …
…breaks the other wrist.
… still hurts a lot.
If by bonding you mean stitches and by character development you mean new complications in the character-relationships flowchart.
I sense Joe being unable to extricate himself from the desk, and Joyce repeatably rapping his knuckles for swearing, or something.
See Blues Brothers as the comedic archetype for this set of comic shenanigans.
Team Keener and Team Peener.
…I wish I could thumbs-up that comment.
Seconded
d(^u^)b
there you go
one for both of us
Does the offer still stand, Dorothy?
I predict they fight passionately and end up making out just as much so
Yessss! *bounce* *bounce*
Ha ha ha, this will be great.
Joyce is not a happy chappie it seems.
I ship them soo hard I just don’t know why
They sorta had kind of a thing in It’s Walky! and shacked up in an alternate universe of that.
Pretty much every possible combination of characters shacked up in an A.U. in the other continuity.
it would require some pretty big character development in both of them to work which makes it great from a story perspective
also their sorta thing in its walky affected my heart permanently im stuck on them
I actually think they could be good for each other — even just as friends tho yes the ship is setting sail in my heart — because Joyce could help ground Joe a little bit, and Joe could maybe help Joyce break out of her shell a bit, and maybe recover some of her optimism.
Not really seeing that. While Joyce needs to reconnect with her sexuality at some point, Joe would probably be the worst person to do so with. But I respect that other people are seeing ship fodder in different places than I am.
Why would Joe be the worst person? He’s done trying to get her to sleep with him, the most that he’d give her is a series of questions she has no personal answers for. It’d be interesting to see her try and answer them in her current religious shaken state.
Also if you look back there’s been a few indications that they’d have fun platonicly together if Joyce wasn’t so repressed.
Cause he keeps on making unwanted sexual comments at her and she doesn’t trust him/also hates him?
I see Joyce’s behavior towards Joe as a venting of her anger and frustration with the world at an appropriate target, rather than hate, which is a further repression of emotion. Joe’s rude horndoggieness is a means of attention-getting. Joe and Joyce are actually in similar situations right now – both seek real connection with others, but neither really knows how to make that connection happen. I’d like to see them fight more – it may seem negative, and triggery to some, but I think it’s a connection they both need.
Forgot to include this in original post:
Likewise Joyce could ask Joe a series of questions about his behaviour that might actually get through to him. Joyce isn’t as easy to blow off as Danny is.
I really like that hope. It’d be nice if that happened.
I’ve called this previously, and I still ship it. Joe and Joyce both have room to grow, and I can see them doing it together, odd couple style.
There’s a lot of growth that needs to happen before they could even start to be a couple. Currently, Joe isn’t interested in a relationship with any girl who won’t put out.
He’s not even really interested in any relationship at all.
Agreed. It will take probably the whole comic for this ship to set sail. *settles in for the long haul*
Yet he went on a date with Joyce where he wasn’t interested at all, apparently.
Why do think he wasn’t interested? He started by talking about “hot bangable chicks”. He tried to bribe Mike to get lost. He brought up sex at the table.
Seems to me that by that time he thought the chances were slim, but he was there, so he might as well keep trying.
He misjudged his target, because he didn’t know her at all.
I ship them too. I can also see them having a fling as a way for her to rebel against her family.
Plus, I had a kinky thought of the two of them having sex with Mike standing nearby to punch Joe if he was slack in pleasing her.
Well now she Ana,
I’m starting to think Jen/Sue/Ana is the grown up version of that Penuts character who changed her name everyday.
Or Alaska Young.
…no one gets it
Maybe when the movie comes out.
Man Joyce cannot catch a break can she?
Except for her right wrist.
Nope! That was only sprained or strained or something.
Give it 10 minutes and a conversation with Joe.
I’m sure Joe has a spare set of gonads somewhere.
But whose?
Toedads, possibly.
No, Roz! Team up with Joyce and set Jen aside!
/stabbed repeatedly
I actually think that would have been a great team up. Why? Because Roz’s main block with regards to Joyce is that every time she has tried to reach out in a friendly way, Joyce has gone all super fundie on her either assuming a therapist card was an invitation to a coven or talking about how Roz giving her the riot act is like when God needed to murder a bunch of people to teach a lesson about arc care:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/nemeses/
And well… Joyce is not in the headspace to really go that route right now. So an attempt by Roz to reach out would have actually have chance to go in a positive direction without Roz bailing. Similarly, Roz is in a mindset where she is not going to read her the riot act because she recognizes how her conflict last time led to bad behavior on her part (sadly, this is also why she dodges to Jen/Anna, because she doesn’t want to risk another potential argument).
If they had gotten together here, they could have met without their respective armors and Roz would have had a chance to provide Joyce some help with her moral crisis and Joyce in turn would have given Roz a positive fundie encounter to make her less snap-trigger on those issues.
But that would be considerably less drama and potential for complete nuclear explosion than Joe/Joyce.
Maybe it’s just me but comparing me to a vengeful and capricious god is a great way to get in my good books.
Maybe Roz is just uncomfortable having that much power?
Like, no, demigod is as high as I’ll go. Sorry.
The Sarah grav is very appropriate here.
I read that differently from you.
I saw Roz was refusing to pair with Joyce partly because of her conversation with Leslie. Even though Joyce has wound her up and slut-shamed her before; and Joyce has objectified* Roz multiple times, Roz was already primed to be wound-up against Joyce too. She also sees Joyce as less of a person, and more of a symbol of what shes fighting against. That Roz is roommates with Mary doesnt help out.
I read Roz’s actions passive-aggressively.
Shes refusing to pair with Joyce out of the self-knowledge that she would be liable to break her agreement with Leslie and be a monster in her own judgment. So compassionate. Yet she also gets the self-satisfaction that refraining from doing anything toward joyce that would be hostile, forces Joyce to pair with Joe , who just started an argument with Joyce.
Roz just Checkmated Joyce. Even though she knows Joyce is feeling vulnerable. Whats my evidence? Roz had another option, she could have paired with Joe.
Is Roz actively doing anything wrong, anything she can be personally blamed for? Nope. Not anything the entire class ( but Dorothy ) couldnt be blamed for. But she is knowingly choosing not to actively defuse a conflict she didnt cause, when she could.
In another comment you pointed out Joe may have alienated his classmates, and thats why he doesnt have a partner. Ditto for Joyce.
Maybe we will all get lucky and this well be a classroom lesson on personal boundaries! Which will be Hilarious for us and educational for them as they both lack any sense of normal healthy boundaries.
* I am using the word in the Satrean phenomenological-sense , http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/#SarExiMar
not in the more common usage of commodification, sexual or otherwise.
I can see that reading, though I still believe that Roz has been being earnest rather than passive-aggressive, but that would totally be how to read that response if she were being actively passive-aggressive.
I see it as a meeting-place between Roz’s best impulses , which is to actively restrain herself from antagonizing Joyce in any way ( which is good ) ,
— but not to be actively stick her neck out and be better to Joyce then the whole class is , including Dorothy.
Its Not Mary levels of passive-aggression.
Im not saying Roz is being poison or that she isnt also acting on good impulses too. I think she is. But I think shes acting on both simultaneously.
Like I dont think there is cognitive dissonance here. Its the inverse, her best self and worst -self shook their hands, made an even and fair compromise and said “We shall be this good, and no more”
I’m guilty of that, sometimes.
I think this because we have seen Roz internalize prior conflicts with Joyce and then suddenly begin them in a new context , to claim moral superiority.
Leslie has confronted this about her and her response is sort of passive-aggressive, there: ‘You dont seem very friendly to me’ is not how one usually talks to a professor. I kind of love it, but I also know its wrong.
Shes tone-policing leslie Back when Leslie rightly wants to keep order in her classroom.
Same for this page. I love how Roz has given herself an alibi.
She didnt ask for this opportunity, and she kind of has to refuse Joyce to do the right thing. Its basically “Ill remove the cause, but not …the symptoms”
But I dont think Roz is sincere about Gender studies class— she thinks shes already learned the material, and can teach the class.
I’m reading Roz as impulsive and at the limit of her self-awareness.
Joyce has never even apologized to her for slut-shaming her, and Roz reasons Joyce is too ignorant to understand what she did wrong. Shes right.
But I think Roz has probably actually restrained herself from taking Joyce down a few times. So in her mind Shes being nice and full of restraint. Which explains why she just responded to Leslie that way. I think she is being earnest as her self-image is based on NOT yelling at Joyce , most gender-studies classes.
In a way , this is a callback to Joyce’s party. I think Joyce Checkmated Roz there by highlighting how Joyce found a way to value Roz antagonism by seeing her as Judgmental Preacher! That had to painful, weird and creepy to Roz, and probably stuck in the back if her head. Its also a successful objectification of Roz as it substitutes her best self-image for one she despises, and then praises it. It was creepy as hell to read
That nullifies Roz’s subjectivity for a counter-narrative , one which is too close for comfort.
I also think Roz is probably enjoying the exchange between Joe and Joyce.
Roz is probably against sexual harassment —but is going to make an exception for her former lover making a dick Joke and the antisex fundie who slut-shamed her freaking out . Its Leslies class not hers.
At the same time, I am enjoying Joyce snark Joe back. If she keeps it up she may earn Rozs respect the way she earned Sals.
Remember that date we had a couple months ago, where you hired a guy to punch my face repeatedly?
And then you started punching my face? And told me it shouldn’t hurt because I was a guy? But then you apologized and said I looked nice because you didn’t want the date to end on a bad note?
That was an interesting day.
Oh, and for the record, yes, I AM a big horndog, but I’m not an ass about it. I’d have taken no for an answer because, let’s be honest, negotiating a “no” into a “reluctant yes” is more work and less dignified than just heading elsewhere to find a “hell yeah” in at least three meanings of the phrase. I mean, have you SEEN how toned my body is? You could have just clearly communicated what you wanted the way I clearly communicate what I want, and we’d have recognized the mismatch and gone our way on our separate searches like mature adults. But no, instead of being up-front about your desires the way I’m up-front about mine, you had to get all preachy-punchy about it. … why do you look like you’re about to get punchy again?
That’s an awful lot of character for a comic bit-part.
It’s not like he actually clearly communicated what he wanted before or during that date anyway. He asked her on a date. He didn’t say “Want to hook up for casual sex?”
The punching was completely out of line though.
And it’s not like she *didn’t* clearly communicate what she wanted: NO HANKY-PANKY!
“I AM a big horndog, but I’m not an ass about it.”
What?
“Hey honey, you got nice bits. Wanna jiggle them for us?”
But that was such a laugh, heh? Aren’t we still rolling in the aisles?
yessssssss
Team Cockblock? Team Awkward? Team Forgotten Relationship? Team Beam (well you know whose beam it is heheheh)? Team My Unit?
Team Odd Couple
Team president & first mate
more like president and first DATE amirite
…that didn’t work
Hoo boy, this should be interesting. Maybe it will be a complete disaster, or maybe Joe will get some real character development. I’m very curious to see where this is going.
Even more freakish an idea, what if Joe gets character development? Could that happen?
It has before
Oh great, instead of being a one-off annoyance Joe’s going to be a participant in this storyline. Is it too much to hope he finally gets metaphorically smacked down for constantly being a shallow one-note creep?
I guess the sticking point for me is, what am I supposed to think of Joe? What is his role as a character in DoA? Am I supposed to laugh? Should I find him as loathsome as I should?
Like, with the other characters I think I have an idea of what the story is trying to say about them, and my views of the character stem from that. I honestly don’t know where to begin with Joe.
I think he’s open to interpretation a bit. Some people find him loathsome, some find him entertaining. It’s that way with a lot of jokes/comedy – what is funny to one person another gets offended/bothered by.
And that’s okay.
Joe’s been more or less a walking gross-punchline, as in he either provides said punchlines himself or gives other characters good openings for them.
Hopefully this can be the start of him doing more than that, storywise. He’s really the only consistently-meant-for-laughs character left, in my view, which means he’s due for some three-dimensionality.
My guess is he serves a similar role as Mary in that he’s a representation of a certain flavor of masculinity (either for Danny to reject in search of one more along the lines of Ethan’s or for the girls in the cast to encounter as an example of that sort of creeper behind every corner deal) that the other characters interact off of.
It’s a potential that he could develop and grow, but I have a feeling that won’t happen, or at least won’t happen for awhile (my suspicion is that if he eventually ends up growing it will be in response to Danny completely giving up on reaching out to him once and for all).
Which is a shame because right now, he’s mostly serving as a foil to the very concept of the Gender Studies course and an illustration of a sort of gross masculinity and privilege wallowing.
*Should I find him as loathsome as I do
I do. But that’s because I’m kind of done with that type of creeper being ancillary to my life (not that that actually makes them go away when I walk outside).
And I think his disruptions to the gender studies alone are frequently homophobic and sexist. And reminds me of a lot of disruptive assholes who wasted everyone’s times back in my similar classes in college.
Honestly? I think Joe has the same problem as Mike. In a more realistic world, their personalities have real-world analogues that make them frequently unpleasant and resonant in bad ways and thus their utility is diminished. And even if Joe was to grow up and become a better person who actually did respect consent and flirted in a way that was respectful of boundaries, we’ve already been through that storyline with Walkyverse Joe.
So we’re just sort of stuck with him as just this gross foil.
Joe doesn’t really seem that bad to me. What’s so bad about him? He wants to get laid?
He doesn’t really seem like a creep. He went on a date with Joyce and behaved pretty well. It was mostly Joyce and Mike that messed that up. Yeah, he was hoping for eventual sex but it’s not like he forced himself on her or pressured her in anyway.
Also, when he hit on Sarah he immediately backed off when she said she wasn’t interested. He didn’t creepily persist. He just respected her wishes and stopped.
I’d say he’s not a creep, because creeps are disengenuous and/or they ignore boundaries. Joe is completely straightforward and he immediately stops hitting on people when rebuffed or told to stop. Instead, he is a douchey dudebro. He obnoxiously derails conversations, and is a bad listener who refuses to consider anything deep or important. At the moment he’s mostly there as contrast, to crack jokes, and to be a foil for other characters. I find him novel in the cast, but I can see how he’d be really tiresome to people who are impacted by dudebros in real life.
There’s a long list of things that scream creep for me and I’ve catalogued them several other times, though I can’t figure out how to link a comment directly (but for an older list, it’s my May 18 at 8:12 am comment here):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/sharp/
But the more modern collection would be:
He treats women like numbers, specifically a numbering system used most these days in the Pick-Up Artist community, a notorious group known for trading “seduction” techniques that are mostly working around consent:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/seven/
He thought that Gender Studies would be a good cruising ground and has since seemed baffled and upset that people actually want to learn the material for which they are paying:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/02-uphill-from-here/why/
Looking down on the very concept of recovery time from breakups (I mean, this one is very very minor, but hey, everyone has different ways of viewing relationships, but he has zero respect for anyone who isn’t 100% on team casual):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/comfortable/
Speaking of that PUA lingo, he really does seem to be versed in it and his best friend from way back mostly knows him for misogyny. Not for being sexual or sexually aggressive. For being a misogynist and it’s hard to disagree with that assessment given his behavior in most Gender Studies classes:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/best-2/
He’s also extremely dishonest in his flirtation methods. And this matters. Because so many of his defenses argue that well, he’s just a horndog who likes sex. And cool, people like sex and early college is great for that sort of exploration. Except, he doesn’t approach encounters in a way that respectfully brings it up.
Like Roz? Roz is up front and forward, but leaves it as an invitation where there is no ambiguity for what she is looking for:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/rival/
But Joe? Joe hides it. Here’s him moments before making a move. This is his goal from an encounter:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/destiny/
And here is his move:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/follow/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/clipboard/
And that’s him in “charming” mode. A mode he reserves for “shy” girls who to use his direct parlance: “need to be broken in”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/corrupt/
Which is pretty ew to say the least.
Even more ew in that this “breaking in” is based on a really f-ed up view of repressed women where they’re just itching to let loose and go wild (a view that’s usually seen in porn) rather than prone to a lot of self-hatred and self-doubt if they do so (I kinda started dating my it’s complicated in the recovery phase from her having been “broken in” by guys who thought a combination of social pressures and other less savory, more abusive tactics would get her to put out for lots of crazy sex… this had the result of giving her major triggers around most forms of sex, requiring years of work to overcome).
One of his other major flaws? He sees everyone as wanting to bone him. Everyone. He does not wait for signs of interest, just assumes that any human contact equals perverse lust:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/threesome/
And this I want to highlight, because that is very much a PUA thing. Basically there’s a thing they like to call IOI or indicator of interest and what that means is that you are always looking for “secret” signals that women want your bod (based in assumptions that no woman is actually going to tell you when they are interested in sex… which yeahhhhhhh, apparently these people have not actually met many women they’re not targeting). And pretty much anything outside of screaming and running the other way is treated as this IOI thing.
How does that relate to Joe? Well, he treats literally every interaction outside of punching him or screaming at him as a sign that a woman wants him. Sarah simply walking up to him to talk to him is treated as proof that she wants a “threesome” because… well, she’s female and she willingly approached him.
And that’s a big problem with Joe. He doesn’t allow you to exist as a non-target around him. He doesn’t let women be people. Every woman is either a fetish object, a target, or a b-word who’s gone all nutso on him, because he doesn’t let women just exist in his general vicinity without bringing his creepy crap to bear.
Like, for instance, in the end of that encounter?
Sarah straight up tells him off, ending with a very dismissive exasperation:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/children/
His response?
“I bet she’s great in the sack”.
She just read him the riot act and not three seconds later, he’s fetishizing her and assuming he’s “got an in”. That’s not a person who is going to accept anything other than screaming and yelling as a “no” and it’s not someone who is going to let women simply exist in their space un-Joed and that’s genuinely a social problem.
Continuing with that conversation:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
I’m ace. As such, I’ve got a lot of bad associations with the whole “fixing someone with sex” thing. Especially when what is being “fixed” is a lack of having sex. The reason I have these bad associations is that this whole “fixing with one’s penis” deal is a genuine threat that ace people regularly encounter. A number of ace people I know have had friends or partners after they come out try and insist on “helping out” and “showing them what they are missing” and “fix them”, because if they just get the right level of dickin’ then they’ll no longer be asexual.
As such, statements like that on his part? Really fucking scuzzy and would have him on my lifelong “fuck this guy” list regardless of anything else.
Back with his other actions. We have the fact that he views sex as a commodity and refers to it in the terminology of economic theory:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/supply/
And the thing about that is that is yet again, a very common thing in the PUA community. A lot of PUA theory talks about women in terms of and content warning for dehumanizing language… “pussy supply”.
And that’s a common refrain for Joe. He’s often using this dehumanizing language to refer to women and sex as if sex is a material good he just needs to hound the organic unit known as girl for rather than a mutual dance of pleasure and connection. And this also fits in with all his boasts and brags about getting laid. Women matter most for him as a means of showing his “prowess” at having sex rather than human beings in their own right.
So let’s get to Joyce and Joe’s date. Yes, it ends bad for him and while comedic, Joyce and Mike do commit assault against him which is really not okay. But there’s stuff to mine from it with regards to Joe.
First up, we’ve got more PUAisms with an attempt at isolation:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/fifty/
So there’s a lot here that may not be obvious on the surface. First, there’s the simple fact that Mike, while completely ancillary is nonetheless an important boundary for Joyce. She doesn’t feel comfortable going on a date without a chaperone. Is that weird, is that from a really poisonous religious ideology? Oh, hell yeah. But nonetheless it is here boundary.
So what does Joe do? Tries and navigate around it by trying to bribe Mike to get lost when it would no longer be possible for Joyce to get a replacement, thus eliminating one of her “barriers” to him getting what he wants: sex.
And that’s not the only PUAism on display here. There’s a tactic common in the PUA community which is isolation. Basically, a lot of PUA “tactics” are based around finding excuses to escape to one-on-one situations where the “target” doesn’t have their support network around “harshing” your “game”. As such, there’s a lot of writing in that community about how to maneuver women into such states.
And well… that’s exactly what he is doing here. She brought a friend, so he tries to separate her from said friend because he views him as an obstacle for his chosen method of “seduction”. Which, may I remind everyone is to basically get Joyce to throw away all of the culture of raising and do something she regards as a mortal sin. Again, is that a good thing for her? No. But it is nonetheless her position here and he is actively campaigning to “maneuver” around that to get what he wants.
And these “manipulations” around consent and boundaries, while common in PUA circles, are also kinda sorta super rapey and can often lead to really bad ends and even at their most innocuous encourage behaviors like Joe’s here where he shows little respect for boundaries and tacit noes.
Oh and on that point? He keeps trying to ditch and isolate Joyce from Mike throughout the evening:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/galassos/
Oh yeah, and then there’s “game”. We see Joe “dating” exactly once in comic. And during that we don’t see much of his technique for trying to create sexy times. And I suspect part of that is that Joe is kinda skeezy.
Like here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/seconds/
His “game” for “breaking through” Joyce’s religious upbringing is to give some gender essentialist garbage about how men just can’t help but be horndogs and move the topic as quickly as he can to encompass sex. And while this backfires in the worst way largely because Mike is a complete asshole, it does make one wonder what his supposed end-game was supposed to be.
Another minor one from this whole affair? Perving on a high schooler. I mean, seriously, dude, you couldn’t not stare at a 16 year old’s tits? Really?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/drinks/
Also, I want to take the moment here to note that Joyce’s actions at the end of this date were most definitely wrong. There’s ways to communicate noes and boundaries other than having someone beat him up and then joining in.
But it’s worth noting for the future how that all ends:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/olives/
This is a no. This is an emphatic no. And yet, later on, Joe keeps on circling back and making all sorts of lecherous comments at her even though he knows it sends her into apoplectic rage. And then he acts shocked when that’s exactly what he gets (more on that later).
More PUA numbering:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/cam/
He’s a liar when he’s called out on his dishonest flirtations:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/serious/
And oof, yeah, I’m reaching the point in the archives where we need to talk about his shitty shitty behavior in Gender Studies.
How does he open Day Two of Gender Studies?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/movies/
Making a creepy porn joke about someone else’s movie choice.
Which yeah. No. Just no. And also, look at Dorothy’s face in Panel 4. She’s not amused. No one who’s a girl has been shown on panel actually enjoying Joe’s brand of “inappropriateness”. Most commonly they are shown to be ignored and no duh. Joe’s a creep. And he’s a creep who doesn’t ever stop no matter how much body language you throw his way to say you’re not interested. I mean, Dorothy is giving him a full on glare here and yet he still acts aggrieved even though he knows he’s being rude and dismissive towards her. And this is a common pose for him. Wait until someone rounds on him for one of his statements and then act like the wounded party.
Oh, I’m going to try and “break in” Joyce? What, she beat me up? Everyone look how violent and crazy she is! What, did Dorothy glare at me for making a porn joke during class? Ugh, better adopt an arms crossed pose.
And this porn joke thing is something he does over and over again, constantly derailing lessons with this bullshit:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/thehangover/
Lest he learn the slightest something about gender dynamics and how his actions fit in with that overall tapestry and it’s something he can get away with because of his immense privilege. And that annoys me.
And yes, he does straight up go to that privilege when he can:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/symptom/
Making the sort of tired old remarks that Shortpacked! comics on the male gaze often get.
Oh, another minor one, but another worthwhile illustration of his awfulness? He uses really not okay ableist language:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/newspaper/
I mean, the r-word, really Joe?
And he uses it multiple times too:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/retardo/
But back to his inappropriate sexuality:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/advantage/
Again, no one is laughing with him on these unbidden missives about and from his dick. Dorothy could not give a fuck about Joe’s penis size and insecurities surrounding it. But of course he’s sharing, because Joe is gross like that.
And of course that interview only clearly got grosser later on given that this is all Dorothy had to work with at the end:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/boytoy/
Again, no one’s laughing with. This time with Danny giving him the eyeglare of doom.
And of course, he’s a creep afterwards too:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/headline/
More unrequested sex jokes and again, in the midst of really ice cold body language.
Like, here, in the day to day world, would any of us be continuing saying shit like this to someone with this sort of body language? Would we continue to push it, going more and more elaborate in the description of our gonads when the person on the other end is hackles raised, death glare, halfway to punching us like this? I’d argue no. I’d argue that most of us would be able to recognize that sort of body language and lay off.
And here’s the thing. Joe’s got this reputation for “consent”, but he’s constantly been shown to completely ignore this level of “fuck this noise” body language.
So… how could he possibly actually respect consent? How can we trust him to actually lay off flirtation or lay off pressure when someone is receiving it like this, is giving all the signs of get away from me? And it’s not because he’s not noticing it. Joe is not emotionally impaired or neurodivergent. He understands the reception he is getting, but nonetheless he barrels over that body language because until someone straight up yells at him well… technically they hadn’t said no. And that’s well, kinda rapey as fuck.
And very much in keeping with his other PUA behaviors. A lot of the material in PUA circles is all about basically ignoring any signs that a woman is disinterested and basically continuing to add pressure and euphemisms and hit-ons until they either scream out their no and run away or “give in”.
Oh, on that consent note:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/frequency/
Oh, hello belief that alcohol is a useful tool for acquiring consent that would not normally occur when sober.
Yeah, this is a biggie, because this is rapey as fuck and sadly not an uncommon belief among young men. This “alcohol” as lubricant or foreplay idea is a really toxic notion that often excuses and encourages rape by intoxication. Given Joe’s habit of only accepting noes when they are screamed at him or accompanied by violence, that belief becomes rather chilling to consider.
Like, if Joyce had gotten too drunk and too isolated to yell him off, would he just have presumed that she was into him and wanted him to take her home to his bed? Maybe not, but I’m not sure the answer is as automatically a no as we might want to believe given lines like this.
And since we’ll be opening a “fetishizing lesbians” tab soon:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/continue/
Exhibit A for that. Maybe Exhibit B with the whole 3some comment to Sarah.
And on that note, Exhibit C:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/compete/
Cause, yes, if two women are interacting near him, clearly they should be putting on a show for him.
Oh, and hey, remember that bookmark for how strong of a no Joyce has given Joe?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/full/
Here’s him straight up following her showing really angry body language talking about people trying to constantly get in her pants (people like him and at this point, more horribly Ryan) with a sex joke about her gonads.
Unbidden, unrequested, and to someone who couldn’t have more screamed “I’m not interested in this shit” if she had tattooed it on his forehead with her own blood as ink.
And when that goes badly, because, duhhhh:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/touch/
He plays martyr. The aggrieved victim done wrong.
Admittedly he doesn’t know she’s triggered, but still, what the fuck did you expect dude?
And honestly, that’s not an unreasonable thing for her to say. She’s in a bad headspace, she’s all alone and a guy who has previously tried to “finesse” his way past her boundaries is coming up from behind and following up a “fuck these guys getting into my pants” by staring at her crotch and making a creepy joke. While he wasn’t actually grabbing her, telling him to not grab her is a reasonable thing for her to do.
And his response, trying to “defend his reputation”, demanding she interrupt her conversation further to tell the person on the other line that he, Joe, is a good consent man who doesn’t actually touch women without consent, is well…
Okay, you know when someone makes a big deal about how they have most definitely never stolen anything in their life. Goes out of their way to counter anyone who even so makes a vague comment in that direction. And how the more they emphatically deny it when no one has actually made an accusation, the more you start to wonder about things that have gone missing at their parties?
Yeah, Joe seems way more invested in women telling each other that he is good on consent than he seems to be actually living up to said consent. And it’s the sort of red flag that has my creepdar thoroughly pinged.
Oh, and while he gets a good rep for calling out Danny on his paternalistic misogyny here, it’s worth remembering that he starts with being gross about it:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/dickdeep/
And when Danny actually reveals the real reasons that were blocking him from having sex, he runs off mid-conversation, because he doesn’t respect anyone not having the exact type of sex and relationships as him:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/text/
He also follows this up with one of his many instances of being gross about male sexuality, but I’ll save that because this is already going off the rails. And as this is getting long enough, lightning round:
Derailment of class, gender essentialism, transmisogyny:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/themuppets/
Fetishization of lesbianism:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/announcement/
Being creepy and intrusive and slagging other men to be creepy at someone who has previously stated their disinterest including multiple death glares at previous sexual comments:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/fulldisclosure/
Inappropriately grabbing people without consent including a person who has previously expressed their extreme disinterest in being a sexual target or a target for his sexual jokes. Fetishization of lesbianism. And also, note Sierra’s face in addition to Dorothy’s face. They are not particularly pleased to have been grabbed. From behind. All of a sudden. In a rather intimate way:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/no/
Oh, hey, for all those hoping that “alcohol is a great way to help sex happen” rapeyness was a one off, here’s him arguing not only that he used it for a threesome, but that he sees booze as a great way to facilitate and make threesomes happen in a way they would not if he was sober. Again, this is not okay and not the practices of someone who actually gives a single damn about consent:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/theplural/
Fetishization of fellow students:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/wearing-2/
Oh and he’s not much interested in women who actually show him interest:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/billingsworth/
That was him ditching someone actually showing interest to chase after someone who didn’t so much as look at him. Because again, being a woman in his general presence is something he considers to be a come-on.
Derailment of class time to brag about his sex life:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/binary-2/
Creeping on Sarah when she’s adopted “fuck you” body language, is actively shirking away from him in disgust, and is actively warning her friends about him in front of him:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/sitnext/
Which occurs when the last encounter he had with Sarah was his dad going all creeper on her with her adopting extremely negative body language, directly threatening said dad with physical harm to his reproductive system, and straight up saying he was the exact same as him:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/persistent/
And again, this is really not neutral. Sarah has already communicated she does not like him. She has threatened someone she regards as just like him with physical harm. She is adopting body language literally anyone could read as “not interested” (I mean, for fuck’s sake, Dina for all her lack of knowledge about human body language would not see that as an inviting body language, so I don’t know what Joe thinks his excuse is other than he only takes shouted out noes as noes, which again, makes him rapey as fuck). And yet, he creeps on her nonetheless. Because she’s a woman and she’s existing near him.
Only accepting straight up angry threats as noes:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/chaps/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/harness/
And again, when called out he adopts false martyr pose, makes a big deal about his supposed “care for consent”, and yet STILL continues to try and make ins for himself with flirtations when she’s already made it more than clear she is not interested.
Oh, and her rejecting him is not because he’s being super creepy and ignoring body language and someone actively ignoring him. It’s because Sarah’s being “cranky” (note, he’s been referring to Joyce as crazy after her rejection of him):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/cussed/
This is also a common PUA/MRA thing. Slagging women who won’t sleep with you as if they have a character flaw or personality defect. Because not wanting to sleep with a creeper means you’re broken in some way.
Not going to get into it, but man does he have issues with masculinity, especially in the “no homo” direction:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/brb/
Creepy wall leaning thing and ignoring the fact that Sierra is giving him no body language suggesting she wants to take this in a sexual direction:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/gift/
Continuing to make porn comments at Joyce after she’s made it so so so so clear she’s not interested:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/etchasketch/
Creeping over literally every girl he hears about:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/tutoring/
Including his best friend’s current girlfriend. And oh yeah, PUA numbering system again:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/skim-2/
And bonus for creepy PUA “sex as commodity” talk again.
Creeping on Joyce’s friends and talking to them as if they were prey:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/snarrghl/
Dismissal of the Gender Studies class, treating it like garbage that’s beneath him, making jokes about getting extra credit for having had sex instead of learning the material:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/extracredit/
Demanding conversations about sex be in objectifying terms:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/knockers/
I don’t have enough fuck yous in the world to encompass this one (but fetishization of lesbians, mistreatment of the time and learning of others, derailment of class, homophobia, responding to the slightest amount of education that might make him aware of his privilege with bigoted creepy bullshit, and just, flames, flames on the side of my face…):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/sweetlesbianfacts/
Trying to dodge out of said class so he could continue to protect his ignorance and otherwise being a fucker:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/shouldgo/
And then yesterday and I think I said enough about what was wrong with that yesterday.
So yeah, t waytoofucking l;dr:
Fuck Joe and his creepy PUA harassing terrible consent “tweaking” ass.
oh my goodness that is a lot of text
There’s no one anyone is gonna ready ALL this. It’s like 1/4 of the whole comment section in height.
Yeah, Joe’s going to need to have less awful moments in the future if these sorts of summary posts aren’t going to eat the world going forward.
I read all of it, but I didn’t click on all the links. Partly because I already knew the strips they led to.
Same, here.
I read all of it.
I really tried to put together a point by point discussion of each of your examples but it’s so long and so many of them are reliant on intense nipicking and reading super far into inappropriate but largely benign behaviour. There are a lot of good points here too but I’m not arguing Joe is a paragon of feminist masculinity just that he’s a just a fairly decent dude who still has a lot of learning to do. Maybe I just have a really low bar for what I expect from college age dudes but by and large Joe is a significantly better person than his real life equivalents usually are. Yes, he’s self-absorbed and immature and rude but he’s not some PUA piece of human garbage he’s a “manly” 18 year old college freshman with all the socializing and general lack of life experience that entails and looking at his dad I’d say he’s doing pretty well considering the environment he came from.
Also rating attractiveness on a numerical scale isn’t a PUA thing it’s a dude thing. Just because a man does it doesn’t mean he’s a borderline rapist.
Admittedly, I don’t know of a single non-PUA who does the numbering system, but maybe it’s more common in subcommunities that are not rife with toxic masculinity.
And I think I see where you’re coming from with regards to the bar-setting.
I tend to set bars of consent and behavior very high, partially because consent activism is very important to me (largely because I belong to about 3 different groups that are frequently targeted for corrective rape). Additionally, I often refuse to lower said expectations for men, because it used to greatly annoy me back when I thought I was a cisdude how much of a low bar had been set for me and how much unearned free cred I was earning from the women in my life at the time for doing things I thought were minimum standards of decent behavior.
And that might also be the major disconnect in how I see Joe versus how others see Joe. I look at Joe, I see his red flags. Others see a dumbass kid with a teenager’s understanding of consent and a lot of growing up to do.
And the irony is I also agree with that view as well. He is a dumbass kid with a lot of growing up to do. And it’s about damn time he actually uses this Gender Studies class to do so.
I meant “more common than I think” rather than “more common”. Though admittedly the idea rather grosses me out that it might be a rather common thing for people to treat other people like numbers.
Using numerical ratings to rank attractiveness is so pervasive in media that a lot of dudes just pick it up via cultural osmosis rather than because of any actual intent to devalue or objectify women.
And I definitely see where you’re coming from as both a gender and sexual minority when it comes to his “fix her with his penis” thing because yeah YIKES does that have terrifying implications but I just try to remind myself that he doesn’t have the same frame of reference and experiences that I have so the incredibly bad implications of that vis a vis corrective rape just isn’t on his radar at all. I didn’t like choose to lower my expectations of men so much as had them worn down over time as a result of interacting with them and having them consistently fail to meet them.
Hopefully, at some point in the comic Joe starts to be less of a complete clown in Gender Studies and actually learns him a thing or two because I do believe he has the potential to be a better person he just has to be mature enough to realize he isn’t already perfect.
“I didn’t like choose to lower my expectations of men so much as had them worn down over time as a result of interacting with them and having them consistently fail to meet them.”
*Sympathy through light physical contact*
But I can respect that and it’s a viewpoint straight women i have known have stated… unfortunately. But yeah, I can see the divergence of personal experience there.
“Hopefully, at some point in the comic Joe starts to be less of a complete clown in Gender Studies and actually learns him a thing or two”
Bob, yes. He desperately needs it. Hell, one of the interesting things with him and Joyce partnered together is that Joyce and Joe are probably the ones who most need this class and they are also illustrations of two divergent ways of responding to the material.
When the material challenged Joyce, she’s grappled with it, struggled with it, sometimes taken terrible lessons from it, but has been deeply affected by it and had it improve her way of interacting with others.
When the material challenged Joe, he retreated from it, started showing up hungover or late, and increased his active resistance to it.
And much like Walky is learning in Calculus, you can only fight against learning a subject matter for so long before it bites you in the butt.
It’s really just emblematic of my lifestyle in general: pessimistically low expectations of all things and people. Like Sarah except less filled with rage and more filled with mild exasperation. Of course a low bar also means that it’s a lot easier to justify writing off people who manage to squeeze their way under it. Plus you’re pleasantly surprised a lot.
Heh, I guess we’re both fitting into our avatars a bit then. 🙂
And I totally get the lowering expectations so others can’t disappoint you thing. I do that a lot with new shows or media that is supposed to have some good representation. Really helps blunt the edge if it’s only done semi-okay.
Yes, a lot of people, both men and women, will occasionally use numerical rankings to describe others. Very few of them, in my experience, keep notebooks where they have them all ranked.
There’s a slight difference.
Wait does he do that? If so ew I need to drop my opinion of him a few notches.
Worse than I remembered actually. His “To-Do” list has an RSS feed. Next strip for the rankings.
D:
thejeff-
Right. Crap, I don’t think I even mentioned the whole rss and newsletter aspect to it all.
Personally guys like this generally make me sigh in exasperation and roll my eyes. Of course that’s only cause in general people know better than to target me. Mostly because, as previously stated, guys who don’t understand “fuck off I’m taken and wouldn’t be interested in you even if I wasn’t” are gonna end up in some kind of pain.
A tedious kludgey way to link to a specific comment:
(Done on a Windows 7 system with Firefox)
Go to the comment of interest. Right click on the “Reply” link and select the “Copy Link Location”.
Paste the link into Notepad or other text editor. It looks like this: (except I’ve removed the “http”)
://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/sharp/?replytocom=714773#respond
Edit this into the form of link you get right after you post a comment (one I just made in this thread below):
://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/teams/#comment-931121
So for your May 18, 2015 at 8:12 am comment on Sharp:
://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/sharp/#comment-714773
Add the “http” back and there you are:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/sharp/#comment-714773
(If the comment is so deeply indented that there is no reply link, I don’t know what to do in that case.)
Oh thank you so so much!
You are welcome.
I’m still reading your list, so this is just a short nitpick: I don’t think Joe is dishonest to approach Joyce in “charming” mode when he wants to have sex with her. He did not say “I would like to chastely compare notes on why Jesus is awesome and do nothing sexual”, he invited her on a date.
The purpose of dates if to find out if the other person is compatible either for future dates or sex. Joyce wants to find out the former and Joe wants to find out the latter.
I don’t think it’s necessary to tell a person you’re interested in a sexual relationship BEFORE a date, but it should be made known DURING the date.
Basically dates are interviews to see if you’re compatible with the other person.
Not necessarily dishonest, but also hardly clear and up-front about what he wanted, as some have been claiming.
This. He’s got a reputation for being awesome on consent, but we just don’t see it in comic. Instead we just get to see the grossness and the weaseliness and so on and so forth.
That is true that there’s nothing on its own wrong with putting one’s most charming self forward for a date and that people shouldn’t have to state what they’re interested in upfront.
I guess it just raises a lot of red flags for me, because it’s one of the instances where we really get to see his “game” in action, see how he interacts with women when he wants to sleep with them and it’s very… underhanded and indirect.
Roz is straight-forward. I want sex, if you’re interested, you know where I am. But Joe here is stated as only being interested in banging Joyce even though he knows that’s not where she wants the evening to go and spends a bit of time presenting this front of a man who would be totally interested in more traditional forms of dating and getting to know them, only to segue into sexual topics when he recovers back into his “comfort zone” at the pizza restaurant.
And it’s that part that feels like a “red flag”. Like, if he had gotten his way, if Mike had buggered off for a 50, what was his game plan, because at that trajectory, it didn’t look like it was going towards “hey, I don’t know if you’d be into this, but I find you really attractive and I feel we’ve got this mutual chemistry that’d be fun to explore together” so much as it was going in the direction of eeling around her (admittedly awful religious) defenses and boundaries, which she more than made clear at the start of the evening.
(still working through it)
I don’t think Joe is trying to “isolate” Joyce as much as he’s trying to get away from Mike, who should I remind you KEEPS PUNCHING HIM IN THE FACE. I’d try to get rid of Mike too.
Yeah the line of “men think about sex all the time” IS gender essentialist garbage, but I don’t think Joe realizes it’s garbage, he really thinks this is a scientific fact. So he’s not lying to Joyce as far as he knows: he really thinks he’s teaching her correct stuff on human biology and sexuality.
Does Joe know Connie is 16? I don’t think we could fault him if he assumes she’s a student at the college, it IS a college town and they’re from walking distance of the campus, I’d also assume pretty much all the young people with minimum wage jobs are students. It’s more a general perv thing to stare at Connie, but not underage fetishization.
“He’s a liar when he’s called out on his dishonest flirtations”
Seriously, explain to me how Joe lied or was dishonest?? He asked Joyce out on a date. Dates are for determining if you want to keep going out with a person or not. They were incompatible, so they parted ways. When did he lie?
He did not pretend he wanted to study with her, he did not pretend to be interested in her favourite churchmouse show; he asked her out on a DATE and that’s exactly what Joyce got. Joyce was extremely disappointed with the date; but that’s because her expectations did not match Joe’s, not because he lied.
He’s not trying to educate Joyce, he’s trying to turn the conversation to sex.
16 is legal in Indiana, as I understand it. Beyond that, it’s only 2 years younger than Joe and not really out of his peer group. Especially when he’s been in college for a couple days at that point. His mindset hasn’t really adjusted from high school mode.
This one I can’t really ding Joe for. And that’s even assuming, as you said, that he had any reason to think she was younger and not a college student.
Dishonest and lying? Perhaps not, but hardly upfront about just looking for sex either. Which he was – “hot bangable chicks are just around the corner”. Joyce was far more upfront about her intentions – in a weird, creepy way with her questionnaire. Which would have been enough to send me running for the hills and I would have started out looking for a relationship, not just casual sex. Joe just continues, figuring he’s still got a chance of talking her into bed anyway.
Methinks you’re reading too much of Dorothy’s exasperation as “death glares” and cold body language. Dorothy has been friends with Joe since high school, perhaps even before that. Much like Danny, she glares at Joe because she’s heard his dick jokes a thousand times, not because she thinks her boundaries have been invaded.
Also I’m not sure what’s wrong with him openly saying in an interview that he has an open relationship with Roz and that he’s looking for more partners? Danny glares at him because it’s not the sort of thing people usually announce, but Joe is not at fault for talking about his sexual availability when the interview was about how he had sex with someone.
“Fetishization of fellow students:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/wearing-2/”
fetishization??? he looks SHOCKED at the idea
I don’t think Joe calls Joyce crazy because she rejected him, I think Joe calls Joyce crazy because she hired a guy to constantly assault Joe on their date AND she consistently goes full-fundie with speeches about purity. Joe is not the only person in this comic to call Joyce crazy…
“Creepy wall leaning thing and ignoring the fact that Sierra is giving him no body language suggesting she wants to take this in a sexual direction:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/gift/”
this one is really eeeeehhhhhhh on the creepyness factor; Sierra is not leaning away from him (like Sarah was) so Joe is basically is trying to get the ball going on the sexual talk and seeing if Sierra responds positively. If she continues to keep a neutral stance he probably just walked away. Is Joe not allowed to initiate encounters now?
My tl;dr conclusion: yeah Joe is obnoxious and sexist you’re right to point that out. But I don’t think he subscribes to PUA or is as creepy as you make him out to be. Him being obnoxious and sexist is something we MIGHT see him grow out of, depending on how long DoA runs.
It’s about isolation as a tactic. Which… okay, everyone, so so so so many content warnings about the links on this one for all sorts of rapeyness and general misogyny:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=pua+isolation
Basically, it’s this common method used by PUAs (and abusers, which is why it’s one of the spokes on the Duluth Control Wheel) to try and remove a person from the “barrier” of their friends who will try and “cockblock” you, putting them in a situation where they feel they have less protection, less means of easy escape, and thus in their viewpoints “more likely to be down” or rather to just give in and put up with the stranger being all creepy because they feel all on their own and a bit hit sideways.
In the comic in question, Joe knows Mike is an important boundary for Joyce to feel safe (he’s an awful boundary who threatens Joe with bodily harm and Joe would have been more than justified to run screaming the other way or demand she get a less violent guardian). And so he tries to arrange a situation where that boundary is removed and removed in such a way that would make it impossible for Joyce to get another one.
I mean, if he didn’t feel physically safe around Mike, he would have been, yeah, no, if that’s your “guardian” fuck this, we can do another night if you’ve got someone less violent or just nope, fuck this, I’m out. But instead, he tried to bribe Mike to “get lost along the way” when Joyce would have been unable to find a replacement “guardian” to feel fully safe.
And it’s why that felt more a “hey, you’re harshing my game” thing than a “you’re a violent asshole I want nothing to do with” thing for me, but YMMV.
On the gender essentialist stuff, I have no doubts he genuinely believes it, but it’s still gross and gender essentialist and clearly used as a means of advancing his argument that “sex is natural and we men can’t help it, so c’mon baby”, which is rather pushy.
And you’re right, I don’t think he knows she’s 16 and technically in Indiana 16 is legal, but I dunno, call it my own thing because I’m a high school teacher, but I find the notion of adults perving on high school kids to be all sorts of sketchy even if they are only very recently adults.
As far as the dishonest bit, it’s what “thejeff” says. His goal at the end of the evening is to bang her. He enters into targeting her as “hot bangable chicks are around the corner”, he tells Sarah his intention is to “fix her. With my penis.” And makes a lot of comments to Danny about how she’ll be powerless to his charms and will totally fuck him.
And well, Joyce has emphatically stated up front that that’s not something she is interested in from this encounter (though she has her own fucked up narratives about potential life-long commitment, but she lays those out really early on, because they are important to her at that time). But he plays at this being a super respectful date that could totally go in the direction she wants it to (it wouldn’t) even though his angle is he wants to fuck her despite the fact she says she’s not into that and he circles conversations in that direction when he gets the chance (he’s not at all prepared for the level of PMD type Christianity Joyce comes from).
And when she cottons on and flips out and calls him out on it the next day, he pretends that it wasn’t totally his plan all along to have a casual sex type of affair.
And that last part gets extra insulting to her intelligence when he’s been shown in all of his interactions with Danny to be completely dismissive of the notion of a longer term more interconnected relationship and 100% on team casual sex.
And maybe “lying” is the wrong word, but he’s definitely underhanded in his seduction technique and he seems to be rather fond of using tactics that obfuscate his intentions rather than just laying them out there and seeing if anyone is interested.
And while we may have very different views on Joe’s behavior, thank you so much for being polite and not calling me an “it”.
Hey, nobody deserves being misgendered! And while I don’t agree with your analyses 100% they’re interesting to read at the very least so keep it up!
Eh, I don’t completely agree on how much Joe is hiding or pretending his intentions to have sex when he went on a date with Joyce.
Even someone who would consider having sex with a man she just met (let’s say Dorothy or Amber?) would probably be skeeved out if he came up to her and said “wanna bang??”. Even Roz doesn’t say it outright when she’s dropping big hints.
I dunno, the way I look at sex and dates is: it’s alright to go on a friendly date with the hopes it will end in sex; it only becomes creepy if the guy gets OFFENDED that he doesn’t get the sex he “deserves”. Joe was disappointed they didn’t have sex, but he was not offended because he didn’t get his “prize” (well he was offended at being punched in the face…). To me that would be the true mark of a PUA creeper.
I can see and respect that viewpoint and distinction and I can very much agree that he is doing good to not see sex as something he is owed from the world. He’s got the pieces he needs to do what he’s doing right, but he’s also got some bad habits he needs to shed.
That certainly is an exhaustive and comprehensive look at his behaviour, and I agree, taken in total it certainly is a lot worse than the way we usually see it, which is one or two stupid comments at a time. Mind you, as you point out, it seems to happen pretty much every time we see him, which in real life would be exhausting at best, I think.
Having read this, I agree that Joe’s behaviour seems way more problematic than I had first assumed.
I think the resistance you’re encountering to pointing out Joe’s behaviour is that he comes across (to me, anyways; I know some people find him grating) as a very likable character. He comes across as very good-natured. IRL I might find him unbelievably annoying, but reading about him, I like him. And we always want to give people we like the benefit of the doubt.
But yeah, taken in aggregate, his history of behaviour, despite what he says his behaviour actually is (and the dichotomy between them) does seem to raise some serious questions.
I think the divide comes from how many Joes a given commenter has met irl, and whether they’ve been on the receiving end of their “harmless” jokes or not. Me, for example: I am a young woman who is fairly open and, er, omnivorous when it comes to sexuality. And I’m in no way ashamed of that. However, it very much does open me up to the Joes of the world thinking that because I’m having sex with lots of people, that automatically means I need to have sex with them in particular–no matter how many times they have to make “harmless” jokes about me hopping on their dick. Totally joking. You know, unless I’m into it this time. Thirty-third time’s the charm, right?
Shiro-
I think you might be dead on here. As a homo-leaning panromantic asexual I unfortunately attract a lot of Joes. Either because they think they can “fix me… with their penis”, because they’re catcalling me or a femme-presenting partner of mine on the street, or because they’re being like the seagulls in Finding Nemo just asking for 3somes whenever I cuddle with a queer partner. And the “harmlessness” of the dick jokes tend to fit in uncomfortably with a lot of narratives of “correction” for people like me. Not to mention I have a lot of bad memories from back before I figured out I was trans of “fellow dudes” trying to “bond” with me by being really gross about women (in the talking about them like child-brained pieces of meat sense).
And so I tend to have a strongly viscerally negative impression of them, whereas to others, a Joe may just be that buddy, who might be a little inappropriate, but he’s an all-right dude nonetheless.
And so feel you on that last line. Ha ha your penis, yes, again, so droll, now can you please leave so I can get back to the date I was actually having? No, I’m really really sure I want nothing to do with your meat. No I don’t care how big it is. Why do you even think I would care how big it is to begin with?
Yaaaas this.
I have encountered multiple Joes. One was almost exactly like him in attitude, only more creepy and way less successful. This Joe is a dude SO CREEPY that the women in the geek circles of my city have an unspoken rule where we do not allow him to be alone with any other woman. Full stop. Because he is that creepy. Literally, rape jokes every other minute, spends more time talking at womens’ butts and boobs than our faces, wandering hands, will not stop with the inappropriate comments even when he’s been told to f— off in so many words. Women in geek circles will literally boycott small events if he is not banned and will not take part in any tabletop RPG or competition he’s a part of (hey dudes, be aware that if you pull that pattern of behavior, you’re flagging yourself as at the very least a major creep to women in your circles). Again, because he’s that damn creepy. And it’s not one comment, it’s literally constant. As in, every second sentence out of the guy’s mouth is something sexual directed at the women in the room. Literally every second sentence, on average. I counted once. And even then, even with him pinching women in the ass and boobs, even with him making seriously creepy comments like telling a girl her shirt wasn’t low-cut enough and he likes her better when she wears V-necks (btw, I use “girl” because she was a high school kid and dude’s nearly 30), joking about date-rape, and so on, all but one dude I know just write off his crap as “just a joke” the way like 99% of the dudes in the city seem to think it is (seriously dudes, you have a major blind spot for seeing sexual harassment even when it’s happening right in front of you).
Fact is, a lot of the stuff Joe pulls is sexual harassment – repeated uninvited and unwanted sexual comments long after a woman has told him to drop it, objectification, dehumanization, touching women in intimate ways without their prior consent (see the strip Cerberus linked above where he basically bear hugs Dorothy and Sierra without their consent as just one example). Joe is the sort of creep who, if he had a French accent, would kiss every woman he met on the cheek knowing fully well that’s not North American mores, counting on his accent and dudes’ tendency to twist themselves into pretzels to give the benefit of the doubt to protect him from backlash (not the first guy I used as an example, another guy, also a creep, also someone who gets away with being a major creep up to and including low-level sexual assault – which is what groping and kissing people who don’t want you to kiss them even as they try to pull away IS – because dudes just plain suck at seeing sexual harassment when it’s happening right in front of them because in large part, they don’t want to see it and even if every single woman in the room is saying, “this guy is a creep and what he’s doing is not okay,” nobody will do anything until some cis dude lends his voice to it).
As a woman in a male-dominated field with a lot of male-dominated hobbies, I get this treatment a lot. Any guy with even a hint of creep almost seems to get bragging rights from his creep card in any room that has >75% men in it (and that’s a lot of rooms I’m in at work and at my hobbies). I am very used to it, and I have a thick skin, and I’m that kind of stubborn jerk who will refuse on principle to be scared out of the boys’ club. By virtue of spending most of my time in boys’ clubs, I’ve learned what separates genuine creep from sexist jerkoff. I will be around sexist jerkoffs because I have to, and I don’t mind being alone with them (beyond worrying I might strain an eye muscle from rolling them so hard) because sexist arse does not necessarily mean creep.
So keep all that in mind when I say that you could not pay me enough to be alone with Joe for an extended period of time. Because IME, dudes with that level of disregard for womens’ comfort and consent to their activities do not magically shape up when it comes to sex. If you have a pattern of disregarding womens’ consent and comfort, that pattern carries over to all parts of life. And, like many real-life rapists (see Jian Gomeshi scandal here in Canada for just one example), it’s not at all unreasonable that he’d put on this huge show of being super-duper consent happy, just to give himself plausible deniability.
Does that mean he’s definitely a rapist? No. But I also don’t think he’s even one tenth as good on the consent front as he makes himself out to be, and what I really hope a lot of people pick up from this line of discussion is that the difference between a Joe and the rapist who targeted Joyce is one of degrees in their attitude. By which I mean: Both of those dudes are super entitled and seem to think a woman’s consent is an after-thought that you should have plausible deniability over, and who seem to think that being nice is paying dues for sex. The major difference between Joe and the date rapist is that the date rapist was willing to use force if he couldn’t manipulate and drug Joyce into it. Joe was fine just with manipulation (and possibly drugging, though he’s never done it on camera – he’s joked about it often enough that I’m pretty sure he’s actually okay with getting someone too drunk to say no to him, if that’s what it takes for him to get sex).
I’m with Kryss as well. Cerb’s post put Joe’s actions all together and problematized Joe much more for me. (I mean, he was already problematic as being a douche, but now I have more suspicion as well.)
I’m bummed that the conversation was derailed at length in the middle. I suspect Willis would’ve normally deleted many of those comments if he had time.
*wow*
I nominate you for Willis to write into the Gender Studies class ( too ) , as a foil to Roz and Joe.
Yeah, I don’t get the hate either. He is gross, and inappropriate, sure.
But people are making him out to be some sort of sexual harasser and I don’t see that in the writing.
I don’t even see any evidence that he is sexiest. He see’s woman as sexual objects? yes – he sees HIMSELF as just a sexual object too though. I dont remember reading anything, anywhere, that infers he sees the other gender as inferior in any way.
I would also point out part of the reason Joyce finds Joe so repellent is his open sexuality – in direct opposition to Joyces upbringing. You could say she is sexually repressed somewhat. This is a character conflict, and she is perfectly justified to feel that way, and Joe should take that into account when he is around here – but that doesn’t make Joes outward sexuality wrong. Thats the wrong thing to take away. He is inconsiderate – not creepy.
There is nothing wrong with casual sex, and there is nothing really wrong with Joe pursuing it as a main life-goal. (wrong to himself, maybe, but not others).
I would even go so far too say that there is things others in the class can learn from Joe – (mostly) but not ally by negative examples – but rather he can be a prop as too, yes, people can have lots of sex with different partners – and no there is nothing wrong with being a “slut” in that regard.
I’ve tried giving him the benefit of the doubt countless times, but it’s like watching someone else’s dirty dishes slowly pile up and having to clean them yourself because “maybe that person will take responsibility for them next time.” He’s yet to do so, and I’ve long since stopped covering for him. Until he confronts himself and his actions, I’ll be wait for that pile to start crashing down on him. It looks like that’s about to start soon, too.
Joe is mostly comic relief, sometime foil, and occasional bullshit-caller.
He won’t get character development until Mike psychoanalyzes him to his face.
I think I’m sensing some character development for Joe here! 😀 I hope so anyway.
As much as I’m disliking this, I am curious to see how Joe will react to the new Joyce, and how Joyce will react to him with her new worldview. Do you think she will care about Joe’s “jokes” as much as she did before? Joyce seemed to handle the last one just fine.
I hope that Joe will notice the change in Joyce and adjust his attitude a bit. And I hope that Joyce shares whatever new revelations she’s had about him since her change, if any.
And then Joyce ends up having angry sex with Joe…
More like angry kissing. This is Joyce we’re talking about.
But it’ll be in class with everyone watching. And Joyce will freak out when she realizes it.
Walky will never let her hear the end of it.
“More like angry kissing”
Aggressive hand holding.
Woah slow down Satan.
I hope that this leads to some character development for Joe. I don’t hate him – I often think he’s amusing in a low brow humor sort of way – but for quite some time now he’s felt kind of out of place for me. Even infrequently appearing minor characters have now received enough character development to feel three dimensional now but Joe still strikes me as a one note joke whose occasional appearances of depth seem more informed than demonstrated. I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who sets out to hurt people, but as others have mentioned, he does come across as the kind of guy who hurts people anyway. I think it would be cool to see him go through a learning process that teaches him some sensitivity to time and place. Some joking is cool when it’s just between you and your bros over a couple of brewskis and being generally more thoughtful about and to the people around you is just about always the better idea.
The only person more at odds with the general themes of growth and development is Mike who is literally a static plot device more than he is a character at this point.
Can Mike chaperone this one, too?
….This might ……be a good thing. Ok we all know Joe is…..Joe, but a few bits of Joe wisdom might put things in perspective.
It’s happened before hasn’t it?
not for Joyce but for other people
I didn’t realize their gender studies class was so small
This was my experience during undergrad at a large university. Classes like this just didn’t have enough demand to justify large class sizes.
Gender Studies classes tend to be workshop sized classes that don’t tend to go much over 20 students at best.
It’s not quite that small, but we can assume the rest of them paired off the same way. Just wasn’t worth the panel time showing another dozen unnamed people pairing up.
I dunno man, my Japanese 202 class only had six people in it, and one of those people was me who was merely auditing the course and not actually paying for it. And I go to the University of Miami which is a really big school.
I mean, I figured Joyce would sooner partner with some Rando than with Joe.
I get the feeling Joe may be a good emotional punching bag of sorts. Maybe the way he talks with Danny gave me that impression and it could be inaccurate but I can kinda see it working out like that…
With Joyce, he might wind up being a physical one, as well.
Aww man, someone should do Joyce a solid and switch with her.
Although, Joe was also left for last pick. Perhaps his shitty comments have been annoying people.
This. Thisity this this.
Like, this is kind of the resounding answer to a conversation some of us were having yesterday. Which is, if he’s the class clown, who else is laughing? And well, not only have we seen no one else laughing, but it’s quite clear that Joe has earned himself such a negative reputation in the class with his disruptive bullshit that no one wants to partner with him, not even the last person stuck left with him.
And that’s kind of critical to note, because we know one student in the class (Roz) is regularly sleeping with him, but even she wants literally nothing to do with him. He’s alienated everyone in the class and while I can hope that that is starting to sink in. That it’s dawning on him that he’s trashed his reputation in the class and has just become that guy. That that look on his face in the last panel includes some small amount of self-awareness that will get him to look at his gross actions…
Well, I can’t quite manage enough hope for that. More likely he will continue to think it’s just a fluke or that the women “secretly like it” or it’s just because “everyone’s a (slur for lesbian)” and go about his merry Joe business.
But it definitely does sit how it sits. Joe is persona non grata here. And it’s really all his fault that it is so.
Regularly sleeping with him? As in, more than once?
And even so, both are independent enough that they wouldn’t gloop together in class just because they’re glooping together in bed.
(No, I won’t say what gloop means. Derive the definition from context.)
Roz has been just as disruptive as Joe, and if she’s been more disruptive less frequency, she’s been so with greater animosity.
I think the bigger issue is that Joe’s demonstrating that he isn’t learning a damn thing about the material and no one wants to partner with the guy who won’t take it seriously.
That look on his face isn’t a broader realization of how his previous actions have landed him here. It’s just an immediate, limited realization of “oh, hey, limited partner selection, I might end up with Joyce, AWKWARD.”
“Regularly sleeping with him? As in, more than once?”
That’s what the latest slipshine says.
“I think the bigger issue is that Joe’s demonstrating that he isn’t learning a damn thing about the material and no one wants to partner with the guy who won’t take it seriously.”
You know what? I agree really strongly with this. He really has been going out of his way to not learn the material and actively disengage with it. So, yeah, even if he didn’t have a reputation as that creepy porn-obsessed lesbian fetishist who talks about his sex life and his dick too much, he’d be last on the list as potential partners because who wants to partner up with someone who’s going to be constantly fighting against any attempt at taking the project or exercise seriously?
“That look on his face isn’t a broader realization of how his previous actions have landed him here. It’s just an immediate, limited realization of “oh, hey, limited partner selection, I might end up with Joyce, AWKWARD.””
Sadly, I think you’re 100% right. I mean, I’d love for him to become aware of how his actions impact the world, but he’s just not in a headspace to do so and probably won’t be until he stops finding women willing to sleep with him.
Really it’s kind of inevitable that him and Joyce get singled out because he’s a clown and while she’s definitely trying to learn now she’s still just grappling with the basics that pretty much everyone else in the class was likely already taking for granted especially if they were taking a Gender Studies course.
Emily-
Yeah, despite how much she’s grown, she’s probably got a reputation as that girl who’s often struggling with the introductory stuff.
She chose good people for her attempt to reach out though. Dorothy would have been a good choice if she wasn’t Team Keenering and Roz would have been a good choice if she wasn’t in full-on “distance so I don’t embarrass myself with another scene” mode.
I really hope this pairing up only goes “wacky antics and bickering” bad because there’s a lot of potential for just straight up unpleasantness.
He’s in a corner of the room, too.
Crap, they are in the two most dangerous seats, aren’t they?
Oh, fuck.
Whether or not this goes well for them, it will be entertaining as hell for us.
Indeed.
Ready your popcorn for tomorrow night, everyone!
All aboard the train wreck!
Choo-choo!
You tell it bro !
Ah, this probably might not turn out good. I’m sure Joe could try to be sensitive but with his strong aversion of anything to do with “feels” or sensitivity, I don’t hold much hope for this turning out well. Or at least taking quite a while before Joe gets some uh… “character development”? I’m not sure if that’s the right phrase I should use. Sometimes it’s hard for me to put my thoughts into words.
Yeah, I’m just not seeing the angle by which good can come out of this. Joe is not only deathly allergic to the “girliness” of feelings, but he tends to lash out at those who make him feel them or who try and ask him for help with theirs (responses to Danny, responses to his Gender Studies class (especially when it gets serious), and responses to Joyce on the date).
And Joyce? Joyce doesn’t need any more crap this week. But then this might be break the cutie with this and the plotline for this weekend when she goes home, where she just gets her faith taking to the woodshed until she stops caring anymore about retaining it.
Joe does need to learn to have non-sexual relationships with women. So far, he’s only made one of those – with Joyce. Yes, it’s a yelling, angry relationship, but you gotta start somewhere.
Technically he and Dorothy are friends, although that might only be cause she was dating his best friend in high school and therefore she “tolerates” him.
Joyce, don’t forget that he owes you twenty damn bucks.
Joe makes those desks look so tiny it’s almost adorable.
I noticed he was in a left-handed desk today, but an archive search indicates he goes both ways on desks, as does Walky.
What is the deep hidden meaning here?
Deskuality is a fluid and moving target.
That or neither really take notes
They are both ambidesktrous.
When I was in school, desks would get rearranged all the time. The exact same spot in the classroom that had a left-desk one day, would have a right-desk the next day. I got used to sitting in whatever was in my location.
There are 6 people in this class?
It’s possible she’ll say no and get up and see if anyone else is available. That would be interesting. I’d like to see how Joe reacts to that.
I doubt there’s anyone else left. If there was, they’d both be unabashedly relieved, but we’d lose out on the guaranteed character drama of throwing those two together.
I just figured everybody else already paired up off-panel.
Scouring through the archives, I can identify 6, maybe 7 novel hairstyles and face shapes among the background characters in addition to the 5 major/minor cast members. While this would be about 11 or 12, my suspicion is the class probably has either 14 or 16 students (I’m suspecting an even number, otherwise Joyce could have dodged out of partnering with Joe by partnering with Leslie or being a part of a group of 3). As that would be a typical size for this sort of class.
Only good things can come of this, or at least entertaining things. But that’s basically the same thing, no?
I didn’t expect to feel bad for Joe today. What a surprising time.
(because he knows he’s walking onto a minefield, which would be tricky even if he hadn’t just annoyed her again, and even if he had more emotional sensitivity than a staple gun.)
(Er, I meant to say, walking onto Joyce’s minefield.)
Is that what you kids are calling it now?
Yep. There are explosions and then you wear shades.
Someone might disagree with you. Also there are plenty of methods you can walk away from an explosion. For example,if you don’t have shades,make sure you put on the no fucks given face. Or you can go full Joker.
What if you’re already wearing shades.
Wear another pair over them.
Profit.
Took me a sec to get that “Roz” speech bubble belongs to Joyce. Neat that she’d ask her. Joyce is good at extending the olive branch when she feels that it’s warranted.
I was wondering about that. It also seems possible that it could be Dorothy trying to help or, worse yet, Leslie. I found it hard to imagine Joyce reaching out to Roz in this moment, given her current “not two fucks given” mood.
You’re right, it’s either Joyce or Dorothy. (It would be somebody who had already talked in this comic; Leslie knows it’s enough of a stretch for Roz and Joyce to be civil in the same room, and Walky isn’t likely to jump in and solve somebody else’s problem.) Most likely, Willis figured that it didn’t much matter so long as we got Roz’s reaction to pair with Anyone But Joyce, and so long as Joyce was stuck with Joe.
I assumed in context that it was Joe asking Roz.
Wow roz, be a little more dismissive.
AWK-WARD…
RIGHT?!
THIS WILL TOTALLY GO WELL
No jury on earth would convict her.
Someone’s going to lose their femurs before this is over and I’m pretty sure it’s Joe.
He had it coming.
Oh Dear…
This is when Joe shows his secret genius side in this one.
OH NO THEY’RE GOING TO DATE IN THE FUTURE.
Wait, are there really only six people in this class? I guess I just assumed everyone else was always just off panel.
I have been in classes with 70 people registered, handing in assignments and sitting exams, with about six actually showing up each week.
When I took general chemistry there were only 10 people that stuck through until the end of the class.
Maybe everyone else dropped because Leslie is one of those teachers that acts really cool in class but grades like the spawn of Satan.
Only six people that matter in narrative terms, yes.
6, plus the background characters. They’ve already separated into their groups and are partying in the back. Only background characters allowed.
At university I once took a class with a grand total of three students in it. That professor liked to hold “entry exams” to encourage people to read the materials beforehand and see if they actually knew the language they were supposed to be studying.
Regularly, 80% or more failed on that initial test. In the more basic classes he’d do a second test a week or two later, and generally 80% or more would pass that one. In the more advanced classes he’d make it clear that the initial test showed what his demands were, and left it up to the students to deicde whether or not they thought they could meet them.
His classes were smaller than the average, but you learned a LOT in them.
Now…KISS!
And this comment is where Willis realizes there’s a market for DoA action figures.
…. heh heh heh, I said “action”.
Well, he did some statues for Shortpacked, I can see some happening for DoA.
“Sue Aside” is an inauspicious name.
Surprise twist! Sue doesn’t want to work with Roz!
That wouldn’t be a surprise, though, really. I wouldn’t want to work with someone who cared so little about even just my name.
I think Roz was just like “Oh shit Joyce wants to work with me um um THAT GIRL.”
Y’know, this may actually be very interesting. Joe has many bad qualities but he is neither insincere or stupid. Depending on what the exercise is, Joyce may be in for an insight into a very different set of ethics and standards that remain sincere, no matter how alien to her.
Alternatively, Joe may be in for a morning of pain due to Joyce v.1.5 responding to double-entendres and clumsy come-ons with physical negative reinforcement.
I can see the barest of cleavage of Leslie.
Why is it that the barest of cleavage is, paradoxically, not the least bit bare?
*brainsplosion*
Okay this time no calling anybody a crazy bongo and no hiring people to punch someone in the face.
Is Mike considered part of “people”?
Technically. He hasn’t died twice yet.
Is it bad that I want to see a page where Joyce bully Joe into famous stop hitting yourself act?
“split up in groups of two” … short pause, get wise to the situation “…or three.”
That’s one of several good ways to solve this situation as a teacher.
I completely adore Dorothy here. She has really fallen hard for Walky, hasn’t she? “Team Keener” indeed!
Okay Joe, good news bad news time.
The bad news is that she has leveled up and put all her points into punching jerks. She seriously can knock a dude out now.
The good news is her attack uses up all her mana, as evidenced by the cast, so you should be safe for awhile yet.
Also, while I’m pretty sure she still has “stupid jerk” as her favored enemy for her class, the whole “brandishing a shotgun and kidnapping a daughter” incident may have significantly improved her definition of what makes one a “stupid jerk in need of being punched in the face”.
I suspect she took a level of Barbarian or some other class giving the Rage ability.
Joyce run!
No, Joe run.
Leslie run.
“Don’t you see? We all run.”
– George R. R. Martin
*gets popcorn* This oughta be fun to watch. 😀
Dis gun be gud!
You know, Sue Inside sounds almost as “good” as Sue Aside…
It’s an inside joke.
groan
Well hopefully Joyce can refrain from punching Joe and maybe Joe could stop making unhelpful comments…
But seriously I would like to see Joe use his brains for a change (the way he shot down Walky on the subject of what being a man means was pretty impressive)
Joe definitely has the POTENTIAL to be a smart and informed dude he just has to get over his aversion to feelings and taking anything even remotely seriously.
that last panel Joyce face though is just beautiful
reminds me of an angry cat
…that’s kind of Karma here, Joyce. Dotty tried to warn you.
No good deed goes unpunished.
A lot now depends on the nature of the exercise. It is possible that either Joyce or Joe may yet thank the Fates that they were paired together for this one.
I predict this will be good for Joyce. A heavy dose of righteous indignation at Joe will help bring her back to her (morality) roots, at least some of the way. She’ll feel better in a few weeks when they finally make it to Sunday and go to Church again.
That’ll be with her parents and I doubt it’s going to make her feel better.
Nor will getting back to her (morality) roots – since that would make her denounce her two best friends.
Maybe I’m weird, but ever since their disastrous date, I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that Joyce/Joe may be a possibility somewhere down the line…like waaaaaaaaaaaay down the line. It likely won’t be, but hey, a girl can speculate. Really, though, all I want for these two to do is apologize for their respective behaviours on that date (something I can’t recall if they’ve ever done or even made an effort to do) and become, if nothing else, belligerent friends. Because good God damn do I love when these two interact.
It would take a long time, and a lot of character development, for that to happen.
Like, this Joe is even flatter than his Roomies counterpart. IW!Joe grew a lot and become a much more mature person without ever losing what made him Joe, and there was some romance with Joyce there.
He’s got some hints of depth. His parents divorce and apparently his father’s cheating give hints as to what he’s using sex to avoid. As does his aversion to anything emotional.
That’s the kind of thing that leaves you vulnerable to being hurt. Can’t let that happen.
Yeah, if you pay close attention you’ll notice a few instances where Joe’s “one-dimensional macho womanizer” mask slips a bit.
The first one as I recall is the beginning of his date with Joyce. When the discussion comes to his parents, Joe becomes very solemn and there’s a brief lapse in his usual air of chauvinistic overconfidence. His parents’ divorce is apparently something that affected him on an deep emotional and/or psychological level.
Later, Danny is about to confide in Joe regarding his recent revelations regarding his sexual interests. Joe won’t have any of it, but the way he so quickly picks up on the nature of the situation and strongly evades the issue indicates he has a much higher level of emotional intelligence than he lets on.
Basically, Joe was hurt by his parents divorce, and puts up his “one-dimensional macho womanizer” facade in an attempt to avoid what he saw happen to his parents. He figures if he never gets attached, he can’t get hurt.
Oh, and he’s flat here because in this universe so far, he’s only been relevant as a character through his interactions with others. We haven’t had any stories or arcs focusing on Joe, specifically.
See, I absolutely love this interpretation, and I totally believe it, but Joe doesn’t have enough appearances beyond being an annoying macho douchebag. If we saw more of that, of why he’s so insistent on avoiding any emotional connection and shutting down any attempt at being serious, he’d be a far more interesting character.
As it stands, he’s just some shithead.
Actually I can see him getting drunk and then opening up and confiding.. in Ethan. Maybe passing out in his arms.
We know Joe would see Ethan as a catch. They can bond as being Transforming loving Jews. Joe has this misplaced homo-social energy, and when after it slips to intimacy.. he can awkwardly realize the next day , he has been depriving himself of emotional connection to women.
As his unconquerable potential conquest, he could turn to Joyce .
and if Danny found them together , it would be even better.
Perfects 3s company situation.
Danny gets Jealous and confronts his feelings. Joe has to confront his womanizing backfires and sends him into the arms of a man for solace. And Danny gets to come out to Joe.
It is refreshing to see someone think about Joe as a human being and care enough to glimpse behind the mask. thejeff, A5PECT, I commend you for that display of insight.
He’s given a few reasons to think of him complexly. He’s yet to be confronted about his actions directly, in a way that he can’t skip out on it. Everyone else has been forced to face themselves; when will it be Joe’s turn?
Until then, as long as he continues to make women in this comic uncomfortable, and as long as he’s determined to be a shitty friend to Danny, I refuse to give him leniency.
In other words, “Cool motive, still murder.”
Joyce truly is the most relatable protagonist! She too has to group with someone she dislikes for class projects!
With me, that would be everyone.
I’m not really a people person
one of them will be dead or institutionalized by the end of this
I’m kind of happy it worked out this way. I kept thinking these two could really help each other out if they were ever forced to work together and actually talk to each other for any length of time about something besides their usual topics.
Joe needs a lot of help understanding that his dad’s way of doing things is neither the right way nor the best way, and that his one-dimensional personality is not protecting him from being hurt, it’s just hiding his hurt.
Joyce has newly-minted hurt and is still in the “angry at God and everything” phase, so if Joe even remotely triggers a tirade from her, she’s likely to expose that without intending to. It’s a good opportunity for her to learn that being angry at everything doesn’t protect you from hurt, either.
Personally, I want to see Joe and Joyce get together, not in a “hop in the sack just because” or “fanfiction-style hate sex” sense, but in the sense of “we were able to talk to each other eventually, which led to talking to each other, which led to realizing we kind of get each other, which led being friends for a while, which led to deciding we wanted to start spending a lot of time together.”
And remember, it doesn’t count as slut-shaming if he admits to BEING a slut!
Willis, I miss Sayyid. Make him gay or pan and bring that skater back.
and what about Lucy?
Shes the most likeable character in the whole cast.
Sayid actually is a queer dude. He was pretty DTF with Brian.
Also yes on more Lucy, if only so we can see more of her unintentionally clam jamming Marcie.
Is there some signal that the person asking Roz is definitively Joyce that I’m missing? Because while that was my first impression, now I’m not really sure if it’s Joyce or Joe, since it would make sense to show each of them unsuccessfully try to partner up, and Joe knows Roz much better outside of class than Joyce does.
Oooh. That being Joe asking makes that a pretty nasty vote of no confidence from his occasional sex partner.
Really hoping that Joe will get some character development here, because “not being as one-dimensional as his early Roomies! counterpart” only goes so far.
On another note, the alt text confused the hell out of me for what felt like minutes, before I finally noticed the names. 🙂
Why are MRAssholes even reading this comic?
Because dickheads are omnipresent.
I visited r/MRA today out of morbid curiosity.
What I found was somehow both a total shock and completely expected.
They provide a counterpart to the people who think generic dick jokes are borderline sexual harassment
But he isn’t. He’s a clown but not outright disruptive, which is why Leslie doesn’t kick him out of the class like she did with Roz that time.
Phones are teh hard. This was supposed to be a reply to a post claiming Joe is an ass about his horndog behavior.
He is disruptive.
But he’s disruptive in small doses. He doesn’t keep being disruptive and refuse to stop. He just does it again later.
If Joe was smart he’d pick anyone but her, or just fail out of the assignment.
Unfortunately he is indeed a fucking idiot.
it’s heavily implied they’re the last two to pair up. there’s nobody else to pick
joe wouldn’t willingly do this with joyce
Hence the failing out of the assignment.
It’s not like he’s actually there to learn, he just took the class hoping to find women to sleep with.
I’m really worried the Walky-Dorothy team up is going to end badly when Walky doesn’t pull his weight. I feel some reality check brewing for him…