I think Joyce and Joe are going to do it. At first it will be because Joyce thinks she can change him and Joe’s only in it to nail her first. Afterwards he’ll fall madly in love with her and she’ll be the one to end it by saying “well, bye” after she realizes she likes the sex but doesn’t want to do it with Joe anymore.
I don’t believe that for one second. After barely escaping from a pastor’s son who drugged and tried to rape her, Joyce isn’t going to spread her legs for a self-confessed slut like Joe.
I think Joe bedding Joyce is pretty unlikely, but I think the idea that someone who is more experienced with sex will help Joyce grow in that facet, should the events of DoA go that far. Probably not someone who makes the subject toxic like Joe, but someone like Dorothy* who owns their sexuality and for whom it is a healthy part of their life.
*: No, I don’t think Dorothy is going to bed Joyce, but she is the first example I thought of when describing the kind of healthy sexuality that would let relax enough to take that step.
before joyce was all talk “you should totally get together” now she’s trying to force them to be together (nicely for right now). there’s a difference between shipping your friends and ‘SHIPPING’ your freinds
Joyce’s blatant disregard for Jacobs supposed girlfriend is also reminding me of the frozen theory that the trolls warped Hans mind in order to get Anna to marry Christoph.
Actually, it’s been established that even though he’s all about the ladies, he has some sort of honor with it. He won’t force himself on a woman, he just tries to make women like him temporarily to sleep with them. A different kind of bad, but better than some guys out there. I think it natural that his sense of honor when it comes to the opposite sex would extend to respect the relationships of others. Besides, he seems like a “plenty of fish” guy, he probably doesn’t feel like he needs to risk the drama of hooking up with a girl who has a boyfriend when there’s plenty of singles out there.
Don’t be absurd, they had no contact at all with Hans and by the time Anna and Kristof met them Hans’ regicidal plans had already been made quite plain if you watch for the various signs of it. It is much more likely that the trolls are responsible for kidnapping and/or warping KRISTOF’S mind, but Hans? Come on, be serious.
Oh good. So okay then? After all it’s well known that students exist for the amusement of their teachers. This reaches a maximum when you reach college level and the teacher is a grad student. But that’s okay. Grad students exist for the amusement of their academic advisers
The problem is that she isn’t just Pushy. She is actively encouraging and enabling Sarah making Jacob engage in infidelity towards his girlfriend. She is actively participating in breaking the 9th Commandment. I wonder if she’ll ever realize that…
No, I don’t think she’s trying to encourage infidelity exactly…seems to me instead like Joyce is pushing them towards each other in the hopes that Jacob will realise that he likes Sarah more than any girlfriend he may currently have, and (rather than cheating on his girlfriend) straight-up dump his current girlfriend and then go out with Sarah instead.
Of course, if it goes this way then yes but she is still participating in breaking the 9th Commandment “Though shall not covet thine neighbour’s wife (or rather your neighbour’s hot boyfriend)”
I think people are ignoring a potentially important part of what is going on. Don’t forget that in comic time, it is not all that long ago that Joyce went through some pretty traumatic stuff. She is still rather messed up from it all. Most recently, she has decided to put some effort into moving past the trauma by trying to make things better in her life. What she is currently doing is latching onto a symbol of something that she sees as ideal: her friend and roommate getting together with the man she loves. Joyce is literally meddling because she is trying to fight darkness in her own life. Sarah getting together with Jacob is a symbol of “love conquers all” which will indicate to Joyce that everything will be alright. In the end, Joyce is a damaged young woman trying to prove to herself that happy endings are still possible.
That certainly is a popular trope. I find that it’s generally rooted in the silly idea that married couples aren’t supposed to like each other, and by extension the trope that marriage is the worst ever thing that could happen to a guy.
In real life, I find more often that constant bickering means two people don’t care for each other and don’t want to have sex.
Ehh, I get where you’re coming from, but I’d say it’s rooted just as much in the way that people who’re really close, like siblings or best friends, can often act incredibly vitriolic while still being close because they know the other’s limits and aren’t walking on eggshells like with a new friend – I’ve generally seen the trope as a sort of “They bounce off of each other and are close enough to feel comfortable arguing” thing.
I for one enjoy bickering with people I care about and my partner ESPECIALLY. I tend to not want to date or engage with people who seem put off by it since they will obviously not like being around me/ I will have no one to play with and be bored.
My current boy and I flirt by insulting each other constantly, pinching each other and being as deliberately annoying as possible and it makes me happy as a clam. People saying sappy tender love stuff makes me feel a bit vomitty.
Not a win for everyone obviously but definitely for some people aka me!
I don’t think the kind of arguments where you start taking potshots at each other’s beliefs lead to healthy romantic relationships. It falls more into the toxic idea with straight people where husbands and wives are supposed to argue and fight constantly and not actually get along and not actually discuss, communicate, and resolve hurt feelings.
I have had platonic and fun arguments with people, I have had fun arguments with my SO.
Anyone I have actually had a heated full blown argument with? I have outright hated them and only liked them after we reached a point where we DIDN’T argue any more.
I don’t think in this case Joe was deliberately taking a potshot at her beliefs. Other times, yes, he has (things like abstinence before marriage etc) but the stuff in Book of Revelations isn’t actually all that common knowledge outside the faith. Joe’s Jewish; Book of Revelations may well be pretty far outside his wheelhouse. (Source: am Jewish, only learned about most of stuff which is common knowledge in Christianity after hanging out with a Christian youth group. Revelations was even further along than the so-called common knowledge stuff.)
Not saying he wouldn’t, mind you; I don’t know. But in this case I don’t think that’s what he was doing.
lmao yo man it’s okay, I’m catholic and it was never really covered in the “How To Be An Upstanding Catholic Person” classes. Probably if not for today’s strip and these comments, I would’ve forgotten about it again (read that bit of the bible once to piss off my dad, who is the Upstandingest Catholic Person) (that’s a joke, in his head he is, but it’s not very true)
Nonono, those are the WINDOWS in the Firmament that got opened during the Flood. We normally can’t see those. The stars are explicitly described as lights FIXED in the firmament. Supposedly they’re there for signs and portents. Yaknow, astrology.
And stars are small enough that when they fall to Earth, they can gang up on and beat up people, and people can stomp on them to put them out.
Y’know, for all the ‘issues’ that Joe has, at least he’s respectful of when someone else is already in a relationship, unlike Joyce, who seems very insistent on the ‘right’ pairs.
…are we implying here that making two people who are already friends talk to each other is more harmful than repeatedly coming onto someone who has, at the very least, shown that those come-ons are unwelcome?
Or is this one of those “well everyone here’s a little bit wrong” things?
I read it more as “Joe obviously still has a lot of growing to do as regards respecting boundaries so it’s odd to see an instance where he is more respectful of boundaries than Joyce.”
I don’t know if it is about respecting boundaries of people per se, but rather respecting boundaries of a guy. I read it to be sign of a belief that a male has the right to choose his mate, which mate then becomes the property of the male, and it’s nobody else’s business. Also called as “bros before hoes”, I believe.
… I always thought “bros before hoes” was “no girl should be more important to a dude than his friends” as in, if the chick you’re dating demands you spend more time with her and less time with her friends, you ignore her and go hang out with your friends.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other..unless it’s easy for you (general you) to compartmentalize and move on, hanging around someone who’s already taken that you know you like a lot can be painful for everyone involved. Joe can be wrong for hitting on women who don’t want him and Joyce can be wrong for trying to get Sarah to pull Jacob away from Radiah (did I get that right? or did I just make that up? I’m too lazy to check right now.)
When has Joe come on to anyone who made it clear that such an interest was unwelcome? He’s a woman-chaser, to be sure, but every time the ‘target’ said some variation of “nope,” he immediately disengaged.
Joe made exactly one pass at Sarah (back in Book 4), she (emphatically) indicated her disinterest, and that was the end of it. In his own words, “consider it tried. Mission abandoned at the lady’s request.”
You asked for instances where Joe’s behavior was unwelcome. It was very unwelcome there, and he should have expected that from the aforementioned “fuck off”
Usually I agree with what you post here, but I think this time you’re reading things into the interaction that neither of the participants experienced.
Sarah approached him. To talk about Joyce. He knew that, and entered that conversation with her. He didn’t give her the answer she wanted, about Joyce, and that’s why she told him to fuck off.
The “threesome” comment was pretty obviously meant as a joke and taken as a joke. The topic of the joke was Joyce. With a subtext of “I know what you want to talk about and I already know I don’t agree with it so I’ll say something bizarre to show you I’m not going to take your request too seriously.” In no way was it putting a move on Sarah.
It wasn’t Joe’s behavior toward Sarah that was unwelcome in this interaction. It was that Joe didn’t agree to do what Sarah wanted him to. Which is his right.
A) Joe made a pass at her in book one, she told him to fuck off.
B) Joe saw her tell his dad to fuck off when he came on to her the DAY BEFORE the book 4 confrontation
C) He completely ignores Sarah’s very disinterested body language and responses until she got up and screamed in his face she was not on his menu. He proceeded to act like she was a crazy person and kept calling her hot.
D) Just in yesterday’s strip, he complained that Sarah was using him to get to the guy she wanted, as other girls do with Danny, implying he’d rather she come to him (or go to Jacob directly).
A) He never made a pass at her in book one. He indicated that he wanted to have sex with Joyce, and she told him to fuck off.
B) That did happen, yes.
C) She did not respond before telling him that she wasn’t on his menu. He wiggles his fingers and says “ladies” to the table she’s sitting at; that’s the entirety of their interaction before she tells him she’s uninterested and he backs off.
D) He’s upset because “he’s the Danny,” not because he wanted Sarah to come to him.
A) Yes, he did, he told her he didn’t think Joyce would be up for a threesome yet. There’s really no way to take that other than a pass. Even if that were what happened, she still told him in no uncertain terms she hated him and to fuck off. So his book 4 hit on should never have happened.
C) She was scrunched up away from him and actively warning her friends to avoid him. It doesn’t take a genius to read that as ‘not interested’. Joe’s not stupid, nor is he particularly unskilled at reading people – that should’ve been a neon ‘fuck off’ sign.
D) The Danny being the middle man to a hotter person someone would rather have sex with. That’s….really not a good sign for him not angling at something, especially when he’s already tried to get in her pants.
Y’know, I started going through the archives looking for the strips in question where Sarah shows VERY CLEARLY she’s not interested, but he doesn’t actually give up til she says the word no, but decided it wasn’t worth my time to have this argument again. If someone else wants to link them, much appreciated, but I am T I R E D of explaining why Joe’s views of consent are fucked up.
Joe’s attempts to engage with Sarah are three strips long, in book 4 chapter 1.
In the first one, he wiggles his fingers and says “ladies” to the table with Joyce, Dorothy, and Sarah. Sarah hasn’t said anything to him at this point.
In the second, Sarah tells him to back off, and he clearly does.
In the third, Sarah tells him off further, and he states that he’s done if she’s not interested.
He doesn’t pursue it after she states or indicates disinterest. He doesn’t refuse to take a “no,” implicit or otherwise. There’s nothing indicating that he’s been doing anything off-panel, since Sarah realizes she’s his ‘target’ and indicates her disinterest in the same panel.
Joe is definitely initiating a skeezy unwanted pass. I’m not disputing that. But he does not, at any point, continue to make a pass after the subject of his attention indicates disinterest.
Except she’d expressed disinterest in him weeks beforehand. He also continues to come up to Joyce and hit on her after she’s told him in no uncertain terms to ‘keep his hanky-pankious ways away from her’.
…dude, even besides the good points BBCC and FC are making, your own post contradicts itself. If he backed off in the second, how was he able to back off again in the third? That’s not how that works.
If he were that concerned about consent, he should have taken the damn hint when she said “yeah it better not be Sarah” or whatever to that effect; the word no is not present and yet she is very clearly stating her disinterest.
And if even you concede that it was a skeezy pass, why are you defending him? Since when do we allow skeezeballs to harass women if they back off at a no?
Because “makes skeezy pass” is different than “does not respect consent if the pass is rejected.” Two bad things can be bad and not be the same thing, and the second thing is much, much worse than the first.
She says “it’d better not be Sarah.” He responds, “does Sarah typically refer to herself in the third person?” with face and body language that clearly indicates disengaging. In the first panel of the next strip, she’s laying into him about being “not on your menu,” and he continues the ‘backing away’ body language for the first two panels while explaining that, if she’s not into it, he’s done.
There are a lot of bad things to say about Joe, which definitely include making passes at women who are just going about their business. The only thing I’m defending him on is whether he keeps making those passes after women indicate that they aren’t interested.
but “does not respect consent if the pass is rejected” is not the only context where consent matters. Respecting consent isn’t just backing off after explicit distenterest is shown, it’s reqiring a clear expression of interest before approaching at all. Thus, making “skeezy pass”es are in fact perfectly relevant to a discussion on Joe’s views of consent.
Virtually every first interaction Joe has with a female character involves him making a pass of some sort, most of the time without any indication that the pass is wanted. It’s obviously better that he backs off after they say no, but it doesn’t change the fact that unwanted attention was shown in the first place, and that he doesn’t seem to see it as a problem at all.
To reinforce insomniac’s point it’s like the difference between cat-calling someone and following them home while yelling propositions at them.
Catcalling -almost literally what Joe is doing- is gross and kind of sleazy but while it can certainly ruin a girls day it’s more a societal problem than a direct threat (it’s a major issue that a lot of people are doing it a lot of the time but outside of that you’re usually not scared of that one specific guy siting on the corner saying you’re hot.) Because there’s no follow up it’s more annoying then scary.
But with following someone (or actually forcing sexual advances) there is follow up and that’s when the situation gets terrifying, because they’re still going and what if you can’t make them stop and that’s the important difference from what Joe’s doing, because Joe cat-calls constantly and that’s gross but there’s no pressure behind it, even if you don’t tell him to stop just ignoring him for a moment can make him go away so there’s very little weight (very little threat) to his innuendos.
Basically Joe is super gross and skeezy but he’s nowhere near the would be rapist a lot of people seem worried he is because respects consent not by never making nasty jokes but by never following though on those jokes – which is still bad because it can be scary for girls who have been in those situations before, but there’s a difference between looking like an abuser and being an abuser.
Think I put my last post weirdly but I’m pretty sure the thing with Joe is he’s all bark with no bite, and while he might push too much when flirting (and still back-off if hit with a hard no) I have no doubt that if a girl showed any discomfort, no matter how little, during actual sexy times Joe would back-off immediately.
@dn3s: “it’s reqiring a clear expression of interest before approaching at all.”
I’m sorry, are you actually suggesting that nobody should ever attempt to engage with someone else without first being given a clear signal of interest?
This is frankly stunning, to me, because I have read countless posts from girls, no less, that very much contradict this. By far the majority opinion seems to be that as long as one only approaches in situations where an easy exit is available; there is no penalty implicit in rejecting the advances; and the pursuer takes any form of rejection at all, politely and calmly, there is nothing wrong with approaching someone.
To go so far as to imply that someone who fails to follow your guidelines is not respecting consent is frankly despicable.
What would you suggest for a “clear expression of interest”? And who should express it?
As I see it, a “clear expression of interest” is likely to be indistinguishable from a “pass” (sleazy or not), in which case it becomes impossible for people to approach each other.
One thing really sticks out in my mind though. I’m not about to archive-binge looking for the strip but at one point he grabs Sierra around the waist out of nowhere with one arm (I think he grabbed Dorothy with the other arm and was implying a threesome). Like, he’d never interacted with Sierra at all prior to this and suddenly he’s just grabbing her around the waist and pulling her towards him? The fuck?
If a guy, any guy who wasn’t my boyfriend, did that to me, especially some shit I’d never met before, I’d break his fucking arms. It is not OK to treat women like property that you can just manhandle whenever you fucking want out of nowhere.
well, I fucked up there. I definitely shouldn’t have tried to make such an absolute statement. I do see the disrespect Joe shows to the women he approaches as linked to consent though.
Like, they way he propositons people, if someone doesn’t want to have sex with him, it’s their problem. He doesn’t show any consideration to the possibility that they aren’t interested until after he gets a clear no. Like, it’s always an extremely awkward situation for all the girls he approaches who aren’t immediately DTF. Sure, it’s not as scary an experience as someone not taking no for an answer, but that doesn’t make it ok.
Showing respect for the possibility that someone isn’t interested can’t be so straightforwardly described as I attempted to, but I think it’s clear that Joe isn’t showing that respect.
When has he actually backed off when he got a mild variation on “nope”?
Joyce wound up having Mike beat him (and joining in herself) – completely out of line, btw – but up until then he hadn’t given up, despite Joyce’s clear intentions.
Sarah was, as you said, very emphatic about it – getting up in his face, if not quite yelling or threatening. Even then he has to fit in another line about her “hot angry energy” as he backs off.
Have we actually seen him really hitting on anyone else? Becky got hustled away when he started. We didn’t see how the Roz thing started. Pretty much all his other ‘conquests’ have been off-panel.
This is one of my problems with Joe’s portrayal. It’s all informed attributes. We’re told he’s good with the ladies. We’re told he’s all about consent. We never actually see either in practice. We never see his ‘game’, except with people (Joyce, Sarah) it’s never going to work on at all. We never see how he succeeds. We never see how he deals with a milder rejection than Sarah’s. Whether he really does back off or whether he tries to overcome it – and how. (Though we can get hints from that first date with Joyce.)
A lot of the arguments around Joe could probably be resolved if we followed him through a party night.
Joe actually hadn’t made any advances towards Joyce on their date. But that may be because it only lasted five minutes before he started getting punched in the face. And when that really started happening was when he was trying to start a conversation with Joyce about lust: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/seconds/ From that point on, he was just about getting punched nonstop.
Yes, Joe completely intended to sleep with Joyce, but he never actually made any sexual advances to her on their date.
In the strictest sense, you’re correct. He never got that far. But he was working towards it every step of the way.
Trying to bribe Mike to get out of the way, for example.
Even in the one you link, he was turning the conversation back around to sex – defending lust.
Out of context, you can see it his behavior as not that bad, but knowing he was on the date intending to “fix Joyce with his penis” – it’s all pretty creepy.
Overshadowed of course by Joyce’s completely over the top paying Mike for violence.
It may in part be the culture Joyce comes from. Parents presumably play a greater role in her circles in deciding who can date who compared to less controlling parents in more secular circles. So Joyce is just acting like her mother might regarding who Joyce would date.
I once stayed up several nights in a row, writing too many final papers about religions, and I specifically remember thinking, “I’m probably not sleep-deprived to get Revelations, but I should read Isaiah or Ezekiel, I’d totally get those guys” before passing out asleep. True Story.
God, Joyce is so aggravating sometimes, when she does shit like this. Stop fucking meddling in other people’s love lives just for your own romance novel fantasies or whatever.
Ok but would you do it in real life? I understand these characters are fictional but they’re doing very real things and this type of stuff just gets under my skin because I know way too many people who try to meddle in other people’s love lives just because they think these people are not with the ‘right/appropriate people’ and it’s all very icky to me.
Maybe I’m taking this too personally, totally possible lol. It just bugs me. And that’s why *I* commented in this case 😉
I don’t understand this reference. But I once had a crush on a dude named Lars and I haven’t thought about him in years and now I’m remembering him fondly, so thanks haha.
The descriptions of the end of the world in Revelation are, indeed, terrifying.
To the people who believe it will literally take place, the compassionate–say even “Christian”–response is terror at the thought of what that will mean for the people who will suffer through it.
Way, way too many of them seem obviously gleeful at the thought of all the sinners getting what’s coming to us.
… Weirdly, Sodom and Gamorrah, and Revelations are two parts of why I’m no longer Christian. Some learn about them and cling to their faith all the harder.
Me? I couldn’t reconcile “all-loving” with those tales (and other tales of God’s atrocities in the Bible, and the threat of hell), and I couldn’t find the logic in the tales of the Bible being completely different from what we actually know about the world (There is no firmament to separate the “waters above” from the “waters below” the earth, there’s no “waters above” at all. It’s vacuum up there. I could go on). By the time I was a teenager, I was already agnostic, and then by the time I finished university I admitted to myself that I was an atheist.
The science stuff cemented it – but what first caused my break with the faith was being asked to worship a deity with the temperament of an angry toddler. You humans don’t do what I want you to to? I will kill everyone in the world. Even the babes in arms are too wicked to be allowed to live.
My morality won’t let me worship a deity that rules through terror.
No…? Joe is pointing out all those things as every bit as unlikely as Sarah/Jacob happening (at least as long as Joyce is being all Joycey about it), and Joyce is saying that those are things she really does believe will happen, eventually, so Sarah/Jacob isn’t unlikely at all.
Jeez Joyce, I know you want your OTP to become reality but maybe you shouldn’t try to force it? If it does happen, it’d be for the best if it happened naturally. Forced relationships tend to not work out.
Kind of funny to me because if I were Jacob or Sarah and my tablemates suddenly whipped out their phones and ceased conversation, I’d feel a bit put-off.
It’s also really clear how uncomfortable Sarah is about all this. And Joyce is either oblivious about that or is just deliberately ignoring her friend’s discomfort. I don’t know why this strip bugs me in particular, but I guess it just hit a nerve, because I hate this type of behavior.
I sense that Sarah and Jacob are now going ‘….WTF’ at Joe and Joyce’s immediate and total absorption in their phones. Especially since their expressions are perfectly appropriate to their statements.
I actually really like the Joyce and Joe dynamic. A lot. Like, more than I think I should.
I don’t know if the other universe aspect of this comic will force a drift away from Walky/Joyce, but if it does (and keeps up with this version of Joe) I wouldn’t mind seeing them at least try something.
Joyce/Walky probably wasn’t going to happen here around since, well, it was the direct focus of about ten years of a comic. We already have the definitive depiction of that romance.
Meanwhile, Joe/Joyce was teased and shown throughout It’s Walky! until we reach where are now in the redux, where it’s plainly laid out why they can’t work. The ship’s got another chance in this universe (though how much of one is up to debate, since the differences are still there with the added problem of the cast forever being in college).
In Joyce’s defense:
1. She didn’t know ahead of time that Sarah and Jacob have already sort of broken up, nor that he’s moved on and got a new GF.
2. We’re still, what, 2 months into college? And Jacob has been dating his new GF for even less time than that? I’ve yet to meet anyone who takes “I have been dating this girl for a few weeks” super seriously and refrains therefore from making a friendly introduction of someone whom they think they might be interested in.
3. Sarah previously expressed to Joyce strong interest in Jacob, and so Joyce thinks Sarah is still interested in Jacob.
4. Joyce is worried about Sarah, trying to help her make friends, and thinks that Sarah’s current attitude toward Jacob is defeatism rather than an actual problem. Which was initially true.
5. It certainly wouldn’t hurt Sarah and Jacob to associate socially and be friends.
Looking back on my own life, there were plenty of times when I actually would have appreciated a helping relationship hand from my friends. Joyce is, at worst, being very mildly annoying in an attempt to be helpful.
1. Actually, she does know that Jacob has a girlfriend: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/lowstress/
2. Just because they haven’t been dating long doesn’t mean their relationship shouldn’t be respected. And while there’s nothing wrong with making friends with people while you’re dating someone, trying to set your friend up with someone who’s already dating someone else is disrespectful and rude.
Like, it’d be another story entirely if Joyce was just trying to help Sarah be better friends with Jacob. But she’s not. She explicitly wants them to get married and have children. And it’s ignoring their boundaries and completely ignoring Jacob’s agency to continue and try to hook them up.
Well this is all fine for a Normal person but Joyce is an Ultra-Fundie who is actively breaking the “Thou Shall not covet thine neighbour’s hot boyfriend” commandment so it’s a bit different here.
1) Joyce does know about Raidah, as mentioned above.
2) If somebody’s in a relationship that isn’t abusive, you don’t try to break it up, period, full stop, end of story. No matter how long it’s been. It’s called respecting people’s choices.
3) Well, no shit she is. That doesn’t justify trying to break up him and his girlfriend.
4) Trying to force her into a relationship with a guy who’s not interested, which Sarah has accepted, is not helping her. Even if Joyce sees it that way.
5) See point 4.
Look…I like Sarah, and I don’t like Raidah. I hope Sarah and Jacob get together eventually. This is not the way to arrange that.
I LOVE how good shape Joyce is in compared to last week. The visit at home, traumatic as it is, and the renewed faith she found in Hank and Jocelyne was incredibly healthy for her.
So now she can be back to be her sunny self again, worry about things in teh shower and play matchmaker in just a way that is juuuuust a bit too manic. Welcome back, smily!Joyce. We missed you.
Calling it now: Sarah and Jacob will dump Joe and Joyce and the latter will be so involved in their txt argument that they won’t notice. When later asked, Sarah will tell Joyce that they both felt that Joyce and Joe wanted to be ‘alone together’.
Panel One: I love seeing Joyce this storyline. She’s so perky and happy about jobs and matchmaking – back to smiley Joyce. I love it. <333 And yeah, fair question from Joe, considering Joyce dragged Sarah over to them (over her objections) and interrupted his lunch with his friend.
Panel Two: My response to Sarah is two fold here: First, yeah, don't blame her for not wanting to take credit for the interrupting of their lunch. If I were Sarah, I'd be SO EMBARRASSED Joyce did that and definitely not in the mood to put moves on the hot boy.
But the second part makes me sad. Sarah IS genuinely thoughtful sometimes – while her advice is often crabby and 'worst case pessimistic scenario', the fact she tries to help at all is thoughtful, especially since her advice is usually aimed at trying to prepare for or prevent bad situations, or help ease them afterwards. Even if it doesn't come out kindly, she IS trying to look out for her friends, and I think that qualifies as thoughtful, even if the situations don't require it. She may not have the easiest time with kind, but she IS a caring and thoughtful person, which is just as good, and it bites that she's not seeing that about herself.
Also, damn, Joyce, laying it on thick, ain'tcha?
Panel Three: Even though Sarah told you she didn't want to come over here. Yeaaaah, Joyce could stand a chat about her matchmaking and boundaries on that too. This isn't the first time she's done so over objections and/or someone expressing dissatisfaction. She means well, though. Being marriage fixated is part of her culture that's pretty ingrained, so I don't see this going away any time soon.
But damn, if Joe's picking up on it, I wonder if Jacob will soon?
Panel Four: Thank you, Joe, for pointing this out. Maybe don't shove girls at boys with girlfriends, Joyce? It's kinda disrespectful to their relationship. And Joyce KNOWS he has a girlfriend, because Sarah learned this AT JOYCE'S DORM PARTY and it caused a bit of a thing.
I do like how much Joyce adores Sarah though. Their friendship makes me happy. And yeah, I can see Joyce not caring much for Raidah in comparison – she doesn't dislike her, but she thinks Sarah is awesome, so how could anyone possibly choose someone else?
Panel Five: Damn, Joe, you're salty. What'd Sarah do to you, kick your puppy? It's not impossible to like Sarah and want to date her. Just cuz she wouldn't date YOU doesn't make her some dried out husk, y'know.
Also, ahhhhh Revelations. So much stuff to dig in on that one. Joyce is literally living on the idea the Rapture will probably be soon and so this stuff is imminent, really not the time to disobey God. But she has. And she's survived. And she got her smile back. I'm proud of her.
And she'll do it while still believing her soul is safe come this apocalypse.
Although, to be fair, Joyce, how would Joe know what's in Revelations? 😛
I’m so glad the smile is back. This is the Joyce we have come to know and love. “Awwwww, no, Joyce, you shouldn’t do that, but I’ll be danged if it’s not adorable.”
Sure, but the likelihood of succeeding is directly tied to Sarah’s likability – he’s acting like it’s impossible Jacob would like her more than Raidah (which would mean Joyce succeeded).
She may not have the easiest time with kind, but she IS a caring and thoughtful person, which is just as good, and it bites that she’s not seeing that about herself.
I don’t think it’s so much ‘not seeing’ it as ‘actively trying to make it not true’. Her ‘uncaring’ is like Becky’s ‘wacky’ or Joe’s ‘dudebro’. It’s a front to defend herself from Bad Things.
Hey, Bagge, just in case you somehow missed it (like, if the stars just dropped down on Sweden or something and the dead arose… It could happen), I think that the latest update of Always Human contains some really high DOOOOOFUS levels.
There’s a great book about the dead rising in Sweden by Ajvide Lindqvist where a zombie apocalypse is averted in a very… Swedish way (note – not as fun as I made it sound, but a good read). http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4328472-handling-the-undead
Awwwwwwwwwww. That’s some seriously dooofusy doofusing. Someone has a rad haircut!
If they were sitting at my table, I’d definitely start a conversation with the guy without a photo sitting next to me (even though I’m not into guys). Something along the line of “they seem to have a lot to say to each other. Do we start to guess what, or do you wanna talk about the last film you saw?”
So, big chance for Sarah to bond with Jacob?
You know what else you literally believe, Joyce? “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” So maybe don’t make stuff up about Sarah being a kind and thoughtful person, huh?
This is a curious concept… The 8th Commandment reads “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”. So technically Joyce is not lying because what she is saying is not Hurtful (against) towards Sarah. But on the OTHER hand what she is saying gives Jacob a false perception AND by proxy hurts Jacob’s girlfriend by painting Sarah as a better person and thus making her more desirable.
So in a way Joyce’s lie is against Jacob’s current girlfriend.
Once again, I reply in a separate comment because there’s so much.
Joe definitely has consent issues, and it’s a large part of why his talk about women comes off as skeezy. Consent isn’t just about respecting a firm “no.” It’s about not continuing until you get a clear “yes.” Notice I said “clear,” not “verbal.”
The other part is his raw objectification. Women are a list of numbers for him. He values women on how they look, and nothing more. That’s why he uses passes instead of just talking to women like normal people.
But,here’s the thing. Objectification is still a consent issue. An object doesn’t have feelings. An object doesn’t care about what you do with it. An object can’t give consent. So objectification inherently reduces the amount of consent you offer the other person. It inherently means you will ignore signs of disinterest.
As for “how do you express interest without making a pass?” You talk to them like you would a normal person. You might crack some jokes. You might drop some hints as you talk, and see if they respond. You might touch them briefly in a non-threatening, non-sexual way, and see how they respond. And you can then ask for a number or ask someone out if they seem interested.
So it’s not something Joe couldn’t do, if Joe wasn’t so obsessed with winning the most sexual partners. It just would take time and getting to know people as people, rather than as numbers that get higher if you reject him.
Sorry, but Joe does have consent issues. I do hope that his interactions with Joyce as a real person actually help him get over the objectification, which then leads him to understanding consent better.
And, of course, at the same time, I hope Joe helps Joyce realize that pushing people so much is a problem. Sure, she’s trying to help, but she’s got the same issue as Claire in Questionable Content. In her own way, she has consent problems, too. Just not with sex.
Consent isn’t just about respecting a firm “no.” It’s about not continuing until you get a clear “yes.” Notice I said “clear,” not “verbal.”
I wonder if part of the issues Joe has is that its (maybe) been drummed into him that No means No but that anything else means the option is still on the table.
As for “how do you express interest without making a pass?”
I’m not disagreeing with you on this the problem is though just how ambiguous that really is but Joe still has to initiate the expression of interest and if its reciprocated then great but if its not and hes shot down then hes a sleazbag (personal note, I’m glad I’m married and don’t have to deal with this kind of stuff anymore)
I mean is Joe deliberately oblivious to body language or does he really just not see it?
However being that Joe is one of the more mature main characters I do hope he starts to unravel the “lessons” his Dad probably taught him
I think Joe very much thinks he’s better educated about the issue than he thinks he is. He doesn’t strike me as actually misogynist, just grossly immature about the subject. I think he’s more the guy who said to Sarah, “When you said you didn’t want me to hit on you, I took it to heart.”
Okay, pardon me while I shoehorn in a little non sequitur.
After reviewing the ‘glower vacuum’ stuff, I just had a wild idea:
Joyce ends up unintentionally applying for the RA position (maybe she meant to show support for Dorothy and filled in the application wrong), and due to the other two candidates ripping each other apart, comes out looking like the best person for the job to the Faculty (they see her being genuinely nice and helpful to others, etc.) and they give her the job.
Probably won’t happen (I don’t think Dorothy would invest any real time/effort into smearing Roz – and making herself look petty at the same time – so the ‘big players cancel each other out’ situation wouldn’t be likely) but…makes ya think, don’ it?
Loading ...
friggin couples and their talking to each other with their phones
…they’re totes gonna poop out babies, huh
Well, one of them is.
It’s Joe, isn’t it?
“Poop out” babies? Gross!
That’s not what Walky would say.
I believe he would use the verb ‘squirt’.
Pooping out a litter of Christian babies… Just as the Lord intended.
I think Joyce and Joe are going to do it. At first it will be because Joyce thinks she can change him and Joe’s only in it to nail her first. Afterwards he’ll fall madly in love with her and she’ll be the one to end it by saying “well, bye” after she realizes she likes the sex but doesn’t want to do it with Joe anymore.
I don’t believe that for one second. After barely escaping from a pastor’s son who drugged and tried to rape her, Joyce isn’t going to spread her legs for a self-confessed slut like Joe.
I think Joe bedding Joyce is pretty unlikely, but I think the idea that someone who is more experienced with sex will help Joyce grow in that facet, should the events of DoA go that far. Probably not someone who makes the subject toxic like Joe, but someone like Dorothy* who owns their sexuality and for whom it is a healthy part of their life.
*: No, I don’t think Dorothy is going to bed Joyce, but she is the first example I thought of when describing the kind of healthy sexuality that would let relax enough to take that step.
*let Joyce relax
Joe makes a very good point, getting a little too pushy here Joyce
Have you MET Joyce?
before joyce was all talk “you should totally get together” now she’s trying to force them to be together (nicely for right now). there’s a difference between shipping your friends and ‘SHIPPING’ your freinds
Next she moves on to “””SHIPPING””” her friends, in which she actually puts them in a crate and ships them to a wedding chapel.
Joyce’s blatant disregard for Jacobs supposed girlfriend is also reminding me of the frozen theory that the trolls warped Hans mind in order to get Anna to marry Christoph.
(oh no, I mentioned frozen. What have I done.)
It’s cool, I’m sure we’ll all let it go 🙂
You just kicked in an open door.
They were supposed to blow the bloody door off.
yeah, I like that Joe respects Jacob having a girlfriend enough, to bring it up like this.
Well, you know, anything to win an argument.
Actually, it’s been established that even though he’s all about the ladies, he has some sort of honor with it. He won’t force himself on a woman, he just tries to make women like him temporarily to sleep with them. A different kind of bad, but better than some guys out there. I think it natural that his sense of honor when it comes to the opposite sex would extend to respect the relationships of others. Besides, he seems like a “plenty of fish” guy, he probably doesn’t feel like he needs to risk the drama of hooking up with a girl who has a boyfriend when there’s plenty of singles out there.
“won’t force himself on a women” is not even “some sort of honor”, it’s a bare minimum standard that he manages to clear.
HEYO
Don’t be absurd, they had no contact at all with Hans and by the time Anna and Kristof met them Hans’ regicidal plans had already been made quite plain if you watch for the various signs of it. It is much more likely that the trolls are responsible for kidnapping and/or warping KRISTOF’S mind, but Hans? Come on, be serious.
i had a teacher who made group/pair homework based on what students she shipped.
I’ve been sorely tempted to do that.
“Mom, how did you and Dad meet?”
“We were stuck on a school project together, and I’ve been doing all the work ever since.”
That is so totally uncreepy
Oh good. So okay then? After all it’s well known that students exist for the amusement of their teachers. This reaches a maximum when you reach college level and the teacher is a grad student. But that’s okay. Grad students exist for the amusement of their academic advisers
My teacher did that with me and a friend for three full years, making us play Romeo and Juliet etc. We both turned out to be gay…
The problem is that she isn’t just Pushy. She is actively encouraging and enabling Sarah making Jacob engage in infidelity towards his girlfriend. She is actively participating in breaking the 9th Commandment. I wonder if she’ll ever realize that…
No, I don’t think she’s trying to encourage infidelity exactly…seems to me instead like Joyce is pushing them towards each other in the hopes that Jacob will realise that he likes Sarah more than any girlfriend he may currently have, and (rather than cheating on his girlfriend) straight-up dump his current girlfriend and then go out with Sarah instead.
See? No infidelity involved. xD
Of course, if it goes this way then yes but she is still participating in breaking the 9th Commandment “Though shall not covet thine neighbour’s wife (or rather your neighbour’s hot boyfriend)”
Not married, so there’s no sin involved. Other than having sex at all without being married, which is sinful all to itself.
Well this is a Letter of the Law interpretation while I’m going more for the Spirit of the Law.
I don’t get it. In which way she is supporting bearing of false witness against someone’s neighbor?
Different numbering between denominations I believe, easiest way to determine: What’s your second commandment?
Thou shalt have the right to shoot stuff?
I think people are ignoring a potentially important part of what is going on. Don’t forget that in comic time, it is not all that long ago that Joyce went through some pretty traumatic stuff. She is still rather messed up from it all. Most recently, she has decided to put some effort into moving past the trauma by trying to make things better in her life. What she is currently doing is latching onto a symbol of something that she sees as ideal: her friend and roommate getting together with the man she loves. Joyce is literally meddling because she is trying to fight darkness in her own life. Sarah getting together with Jacob is a symbol of “love conquers all” which will indicate to Joyce that everything will be alright. In the end, Joyce is a damaged young woman trying to prove to herself that happy endings are still possible.
nooo this is just tragic enough to ring true
…yeah, I still don’t ship it. Joyce/Phone OTP.
Maybe she can set it to vibrate.
You know, Joyce and Walky will always be my OTP, but Joyce totally wants the D, and she wants it from Joe! ^_^
Yeah, she just doesn’t want to admit that D is short for Dorothy
I think Joe could dig it! 😉
That…is…an interesting interpretation of the body and written languages being conveyed here.
Most bickering (like an old married couple) about who among your friends should pair up has never been platonic in MY experience. Just sayin’. 😉
That certainly is a popular trope. I find that it’s generally rooted in the silly idea that married couples aren’t supposed to like each other, and by extension the trope that marriage is the worst ever thing that could happen to a guy.
In real life, I find more often that constant bickering means two people don’t care for each other and don’t want to have sex.
Ehh, I get where you’re coming from, but I’d say it’s rooted just as much in the way that people who’re really close, like siblings or best friends, can often act incredibly vitriolic while still being close because they know the other’s limits and aren’t walking on eggshells like with a new friend – I’ve generally seen the trope as a sort of “They bounce off of each other and are close enough to feel comfortable arguing” thing.
I for one enjoy bickering with people I care about and my partner ESPECIALLY. I tend to not want to date or engage with people who seem put off by it since they will obviously not like being around me/ I will have no one to play with and be bored.
My current boy and I flirt by insulting each other constantly, pinching each other and being as deliberately annoying as possible and it makes me happy as a clam. People saying sappy tender love stuff makes me feel a bit vomitty.
Not a win for everyone obviously but definitely for some people aka me!
I have “old married couple” style arguments with my friends all the time. I can assure you it can be platonic.
It’s possible in the future Joyce might be into that, but right now I think Joyce is only at “willing to be friends while he’s not being a creeper”
I don’t think the kind of arguments where you start taking potshots at each other’s beliefs lead to healthy romantic relationships. It falls more into the toxic idea with straight people where husbands and wives are supposed to argue and fight constantly and not actually get along and not actually discuss, communicate, and resolve hurt feelings.
I have had platonic and fun arguments with people, I have had fun arguments with my SO.
Anyone I have actually had a heated full blown argument with? I have outright hated them and only liked them after we reached a point where we DIDN’T argue any more.
I don’t think in this case Joe was deliberately taking a potshot at her beliefs. Other times, yes, he has (things like abstinence before marriage etc) but the stuff in Book of Revelations isn’t actually all that common knowledge outside the faith. Joe’s Jewish; Book of Revelations may well be pretty far outside his wheelhouse. (Source: am Jewish, only learned about most of stuff which is common knowledge in Christianity after hanging out with a Christian youth group. Revelations was even further along than the so-called common knowledge stuff.)
Not saying he wouldn’t, mind you; I don’t know. But in this case I don’t think that’s what he was doing.
lmao yo man it’s okay, I’m catholic and it was never really covered in the “How To Be An Upstanding Catholic Person” classes. Probably if not for today’s strip and these comments, I would’ve forgotten about it again (read that bit of the bible once to piss off my dad, who is the Upstandingest Catholic Person) (that’s a joke, in his head he is, but it’s not very true)
So like, has it been established how Joe and Jacob know each other? Or am I just forgetting a previous interaction?
I believe they first met around the time when Amber rage-flipped a table at Ethan, if my memory serves correctly.
They were already friends then. No word how – Class together maybe?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/best-friend/
First interaction between the two. I assume they just started talking during the evacuation.
I was under the impression they work out together. IDK why I assume the school has a gym
Most colleges have some sort of gym facility. I’m fairly positive IU does.
http://www.recsports.indiana.edu/facilities-and-hours/index.php
They definitely do
Yes.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/jacob+joe/
(If you go to the tag listing you can hack the URL to give you whatever combination of characters you want.)
……..
LIFEHACK!
In that order? Because if all the suns fall to Earth, then there won’t be many corpses to raise.
You’re expecting apocalyptic prophecy to make sense?
I thought the stars were just holes in the crystal spheres cenbtered on the Earth, letting tiny rays of God’s awesomeness shine through.
Nonono, those are the WINDOWS in the Firmament that got opened during the Flood. We normally can’t see those. The stars are explicitly described as lights FIXED in the firmament. Supposedly they’re there for signs and portents. Yaknow, astrology.
And stars are small enough that when they fall to Earth, they can gang up on and beat up people, and people can stomp on them to put them out.
Freaking Microsoft. Linux never has these problems with stars falling out of its firmament.
Actually it does, but when it does it’s always the result of user error. RTFM people!
…are you guys brainstormning an xkcd strip?
No, I think they just finished writing the ultimate xkcd strip.
I think they mean the planes coming into LAX the night before the Oscars.
I enjoy how Joe is tapping and Joyce is swiping.
Joyce must have a Samsung ‘Galaxy’-family phone with Swype activated.
-“BB”-
These keyboards are available for practically every Android and Windows phone, dunno how about iPhone.
This is actually my favorite part of this strip. Subtle, but gives the scene a little extra depth.
Agreed. Plus it makes it extra hilarious when you imagine Sarah and Jacob listening to their phone sounds in stunned silence
I wanted that to be the final panel, but I didn’t have the room.
Sads.
That’s what our imagination is for!
Just knowing that’s what’s going on via your comment adds deep amusement to this for me!
I enjoy how they are texting furiously and yet there are no typos.
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
also Sarah + Jacob kissy time
Y’know, for all the ‘issues’ that Joe has, at least he’s respectful of when someone else is already in a relationship, unlike Joyce, who seems very insistent on the ‘right’ pairs.
Danny aside.
…are we implying here that making two people who are already friends talk to each other is more harmful than repeatedly coming onto someone who has, at the very least, shown that those come-ons are unwelcome?
Or is this one of those “well everyone here’s a little bit wrong” things?
I read it more as “Joe obviously still has a lot of growing to do as regards respecting boundaries so it’s odd to see an instance where he is more respectful of boundaries than Joyce.”
I don’t know if it is about respecting boundaries of people per se, but rather respecting boundaries of a guy. I read it to be sign of a belief that a male has the right to choose his mate, which mate then becomes the property of the male, and it’s nobody else’s business. Also called as “bros before hoes”, I believe.
… I always thought “bros before hoes” was “no girl should be more important to a dude than his friends” as in, if the chick you’re dating demands you spend more time with her and less time with her friends, you ignore her and go hang out with your friends.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other..unless it’s easy for you (general you) to compartmentalize and move on, hanging around someone who’s already taken that you know you like a lot can be painful for everyone involved. Joe can be wrong for hitting on women who don’t want him and Joyce can be wrong for trying to get Sarah to pull Jacob away from Radiah (did I get that right? or did I just make that up? I’m too lazy to check right now.)
When has Joe come on to anyone who made it clear that such an interest was unwelcome? He’s a woman-chaser, to be sure, but every time the ‘target’ said some variation of “nope,” he immediately disengaged.
There’s Sarah for one.
Joe made exactly one pass at Sarah (back in Book 4), she (emphatically) indicated her disinterest, and that was the end of it. In his own words, “consider it tried. Mission abandoned at the lady’s request.”
Not only did he argue first, then act like she was being unreasonable, he had in fact put moves on her before in book 1, and she had quite explicitly told him to fuck off.
He wasn’t putting any moves on her in that sequence. This was before his date with Joyce.
You asked for instances where Joe’s behavior was unwelcome. It was very unwelcome there, and he should have expected that from the aforementioned “fuck off”
Usually I agree with what you post here, but I think this time you’re reading things into the interaction that neither of the participants experienced.
Sarah approached him. To talk about Joyce. He knew that, and entered that conversation with her. He didn’t give her the answer she wanted, about Joyce, and that’s why she told him to fuck off.
The “threesome” comment was pretty obviously meant as a joke and taken as a joke. The topic of the joke was Joyce. With a subtext of “I know what you want to talk about and I already know I don’t agree with it so I’ll say something bizarre to show you I’m not going to take your request too seriously.” In no way was it putting a move on Sarah.
It wasn’t Joe’s behavior toward Sarah that was unwelcome in this interaction. It was that Joe didn’t agree to do what Sarah wanted him to. Which is his right.
The point is Sarah expressed disinterest in him in three ways
A) She said ‘let me amend talk to fight’ about the threesome comment. While he was joking, that’s a clear ‘let’s not’.
B) She still told him she hated him – you’d think that would mean ‘do not come to her for nookie’ which he did later.
C) She told him to fuck off. Yes, his behaviour is what caused it, but that should still mean ‘do not come to her for sex’ which he still did.
…and back when Becky first met him, he was lifting his shirt up and asking “who’s the tasty new redhead?” without even pausing for an introduction.
Oh, and there’s the repeated and very unwelcome sexual comments towards Joyce.
A) Joe made a pass at her in book one, she told him to fuck off.
B) Joe saw her tell his dad to fuck off when he came on to her the DAY BEFORE the book 4 confrontation
C) He completely ignores Sarah’s very disinterested body language and responses until she got up and screamed in his face she was not on his menu. He proceeded to act like she was a crazy person and kept calling her hot.
D) Just in yesterday’s strip, he complained that Sarah was using him to get to the guy she wanted, as other girls do with Danny, implying he’d rather she come to him (or go to Jacob directly).
A) He never made a pass at her in book one. He indicated that he wanted to have sex with Joyce, and she told him to fuck off.
B) That did happen, yes.
C) She did not respond before telling him that she wasn’t on his menu. He wiggles his fingers and says “ladies” to the table she’s sitting at; that’s the entirety of their interaction before she tells him she’s uninterested and he backs off.
D) He’s upset because “he’s the Danny,” not because he wanted Sarah to come to him.
A) Yes, he did, he told her he didn’t think Joyce would be up for a threesome yet. There’s really no way to take that other than a pass. Even if that were what happened, she still told him in no uncertain terms she hated him and to fuck off. So his book 4 hit on should never have happened.
C) She was scrunched up away from him and actively warning her friends to avoid him. It doesn’t take a genius to read that as ‘not interested’. Joe’s not stupid, nor is he particularly unskilled at reading people – that should’ve been a neon ‘fuck off’ sign.
D) The Danny being the middle man to a hotter person someone would rather have sex with. That’s….really not a good sign for him not angling at something, especially when he’s already tried to get in her pants.
Y’know, I started going through the archives looking for the strips in question where Sarah shows VERY CLEARLY she’s not interested, but he doesn’t actually give up til she says the word no, but decided it wasn’t worth my time to have this argument again. If someone else wants to link them, much appreciated, but I am T I R E D of explaining why Joe’s views of consent are fucked up.
Joe’s attempts to engage with Sarah are three strips long, in book 4 chapter 1.
In the first one, he wiggles his fingers and says “ladies” to the table with Joyce, Dorothy, and Sarah. Sarah hasn’t said anything to him at this point.
In the second, Sarah tells him to back off, and he clearly does.
In the third, Sarah tells him off further, and he states that he’s done if she’s not interested.
He doesn’t pursue it after she states or indicates disinterest. He doesn’t refuse to take a “no,” implicit or otherwise. There’s nothing indicating that he’s been doing anything off-panel, since Sarah realizes she’s his ‘target’ and indicates her disinterest in the same panel.
Joe is definitely initiating a skeezy unwanted pass. I’m not disputing that. But he does not, at any point, continue to make a pass after the subject of his attention indicates disinterest.
Except she’d expressed disinterest in him weeks beforehand. He also continues to come up to Joyce and hit on her after she’s told him in no uncertain terms to ‘keep his hanky-pankious ways away from her’.
…dude, even besides the good points BBCC and FC are making, your own post contradicts itself. If he backed off in the second, how was he able to back off again in the third? That’s not how that works.
If he were that concerned about consent, he should have taken the damn hint when she said “yeah it better not be Sarah” or whatever to that effect; the word no is not present and yet she is very clearly stating her disinterest.
And if even you concede that it was a skeezy pass, why are you defending him? Since when do we allow skeezeballs to harass women if they back off at a no?
Because “makes skeezy pass” is different than “does not respect consent if the pass is rejected.” Two bad things can be bad and not be the same thing, and the second thing is much, much worse than the first.
She says “it’d better not be Sarah.” He responds, “does Sarah typically refer to herself in the third person?” with face and body language that clearly indicates disengaging. In the first panel of the next strip, she’s laying into him about being “not on your menu,” and he continues the ‘backing away’ body language for the first two panels while explaining that, if she’s not into it, he’s done.
There are a lot of bad things to say about Joe, which definitely include making passes at women who are just going about their business. The only thing I’m defending him on is whether he keeps making those passes after women indicate that they aren’t interested.
but “does not respect consent if the pass is rejected” is not the only context where consent matters. Respecting consent isn’t just backing off after explicit distenterest is shown, it’s reqiring a clear expression of interest before approaching at all. Thus, making “skeezy pass”es are in fact perfectly relevant to a discussion on Joe’s views of consent.
Virtually every first interaction Joe has with a female character involves him making a pass of some sort, most of the time without any indication that the pass is wanted. It’s obviously better that he backs off after they say no, but it doesn’t change the fact that unwanted attention was shown in the first place, and that he doesn’t seem to see it as a problem at all.
To reinforce insomniac’s point it’s like the difference between cat-calling someone and following them home while yelling propositions at them.
Catcalling -almost literally what Joe is doing- is gross and kind of sleazy but while it can certainly ruin a girls day it’s more a societal problem than a direct threat (it’s a major issue that a lot of people are doing it a lot of the time but outside of that you’re usually not scared of that one specific guy siting on the corner saying you’re hot.) Because there’s no follow up it’s more annoying then scary.
But with following someone (or actually forcing sexual advances) there is follow up and that’s when the situation gets terrifying, because they’re still going and what if you can’t make them stop and that’s the important difference from what Joe’s doing, because Joe cat-calls constantly and that’s gross but there’s no pressure behind it, even if you don’t tell him to stop just ignoring him for a moment can make him go away so there’s very little weight (very little threat) to his innuendos.
Basically Joe is super gross and skeezy but he’s nowhere near the would be rapist a lot of people seem worried he is because respects consent not by never making nasty jokes but by never following though on those jokes – which is still bad because it can be scary for girls who have been in those situations before, but there’s a difference between looking like an abuser and being an abuser.
Think I put my last post weirdly but I’m pretty sure the thing with Joe is he’s all bark with no bite, and while he might push too much when flirting (and still back-off if hit with a hard no) I have no doubt that if a girl showed any discomfort, no matter how little, during actual sexy times Joe would back-off immediately.
@dn3s: “it’s reqiring a clear expression of interest before approaching at all.”
I’m sorry, are you actually suggesting that nobody should ever attempt to engage with someone else without first being given a clear signal of interest?
This is frankly stunning, to me, because I have read countless posts from girls, no less, that very much contradict this. By far the majority opinion seems to be that as long as one only approaches in situations where an easy exit is available; there is no penalty implicit in rejecting the advances; and the pursuer takes any form of rejection at all, politely and calmly, there is nothing wrong with approaching someone.
To go so far as to imply that someone who fails to follow your guidelines is not respecting consent is frankly despicable.
@dn3s
What would you suggest for a “clear expression of interest”? And who should express it?
As I see it, a “clear expression of interest” is likely to be indistinguishable from a “pass” (sleazy or not), in which case it becomes impossible for people to approach each other.
One thing really sticks out in my mind though. I’m not about to archive-binge looking for the strip but at one point he grabs Sierra around the waist out of nowhere with one arm (I think he grabbed Dorothy with the other arm and was implying a threesome). Like, he’d never interacted with Sierra at all prior to this and suddenly he’s just grabbing her around the waist and pulling her towards him? The fuck?
If a guy, any guy who wasn’t my boyfriend, did that to me, especially some shit I’d never met before, I’d break his fucking arms. It is not OK to treat women like property that you can just manhandle whenever you fucking want out of nowhere.
Joe and Sierra, first strip ever: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/no/
well, I fucked up there. I definitely shouldn’t have tried to make such an absolute statement. I do see the disrespect Joe shows to the women he approaches as linked to consent though.
Like, they way he propositons people, if someone doesn’t want to have sex with him, it’s their problem. He doesn’t show any consideration to the possibility that they aren’t interested until after he gets a clear no. Like, it’s always an extremely awkward situation for all the girls he approaches who aren’t immediately DTF. Sure, it’s not as scary an experience as someone not taking no for an answer, but that doesn’t make it ok.
Showing respect for the possibility that someone isn’t interested can’t be so straightforwardly described as I attempted to, but I think it’s clear that Joe isn’t showing that respect.
I will, however, point out that the use of the word “target” is very fucking interesting language indeed.
When has he actually backed off when he got a mild variation on “nope”?
Joyce wound up having Mike beat him (and joining in herself) – completely out of line, btw – but up until then he hadn’t given up, despite Joyce’s clear intentions.
Sarah was, as you said, very emphatic about it – getting up in his face, if not quite yelling or threatening. Even then he has to fit in another line about her “hot angry energy” as he backs off.
Have we actually seen him really hitting on anyone else? Becky got hustled away when he started. We didn’t see how the Roz thing started. Pretty much all his other ‘conquests’ have been off-panel.
This is one of my problems with Joe’s portrayal. It’s all informed attributes. We’re told he’s good with the ladies. We’re told he’s all about consent. We never actually see either in practice. We never see his ‘game’, except with people (Joyce, Sarah) it’s never going to work on at all. We never see how he succeeds. We never see how he deals with a milder rejection than Sarah’s. Whether he really does back off or whether he tries to overcome it – and how. (Though we can get hints from that first date with Joyce.)
A lot of the arguments around Joe could probably be resolved if we followed him through a party night.
Joe actually hadn’t made any advances towards Joyce on their date. But that may be because it only lasted five minutes before he started getting punched in the face. And when that really started happening was when he was trying to start a conversation with Joyce about lust: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/seconds/ From that point on, he was just about getting punched nonstop.
Yes, Joe completely intended to sleep with Joyce, but he never actually made any sexual advances to her on their date.
In the strictest sense, you’re correct. He never got that far. But he was working towards it every step of the way.
Trying to bribe Mike to get out of the way, for example.
Even in the one you link, he was turning the conversation back around to sex – defending lust.
Out of context, you can see it his behavior as not that bad, but knowing he was on the date intending to “fix Joyce with his penis” – it’s all pretty creepy.
Overshadowed of course by Joyce’s completely over the top paying Mike for violence.
It may in part be the culture Joyce comes from. Parents presumably play a greater role in her circles in deciding who can date who compared to less controlling parents in more secular circles. So Joyce is just acting like her mother might regarding who Joyce would date.
Jeez you know you have a problem when theirs relationship talk and JOE’S the voice of reason.
Methinks Joe knew that and was speaking with heavy sarcasm.
Aaw…I like Joyce in the fourth panel. It’s sweet that, even though Raidah has tried to turn Jacob against Sarah, Joyce is firmly on Sarah’s side.
When the stars fall to Earth? Y’know, with Trump in the White House, now might not be a bad time for UY Scuti to stop by.
I’m all in favor of the Jacob/Sarah, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to get them together when Jacob’s already dating someone else.
The Book of Revelations is OFF THE HOOK.
There’s a literally-illustrated version of it on the internets somewhere, it somehow makes it even trippier.
I once stayed up several nights in a row, writing too many final papers about religions, and I specifically remember thinking, “I’m probably not sleep-deprived to get Revelations, but I should read Isaiah or Ezekiel, I’d totally get those guys” before passing out asleep. True Story.
My head canon is that the Book of Revelations is what happens when God becomes a Doom Metal fan.
I thought it was singular, “Book of Revelation”?
I wonder how uncomfortable it is to sit with people who are arguing without speaking.
Slightly less uncomfortable and more amusing than if they argue WHILE speaking.
This is why I gave up Christianity for Lent a number of years ago.
So the moon will become as black as sackcloth. What is sackcloth and just how black is it?
*sun
Sackcloth is, like, burlap. It isn’t all that dark? Darker than the sun, sure, but generally it’s more beige and itchy.
Sackcloth means goat hair, a lot of goats in Southern Europe and North Africa are black, soooooo…
Oh, that would indeed make more sense. I guess goathair is the old black.
Bah dump
Or whatever the correct sound effect is for a drum beat punctuation to something funny
“Ba dum tsch” is how I’ve always seen it.
Or just *rimshot*
Ohhhhhhh, I always thought “rimshot” meant something much different
Also, it is a two beat tag, neither of those works.
Not very, according to Google images: https://www.google.com/search?q=sackcloth&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS_qao8cDRAhVF74MKHW3wB88QsAQILg&biw=1920&bih=946
sure, but this was written thousands of years ago. They got their sackcloth pics from encyclopedia CD-ROMs back then.
joyce…. jacob and sarah will never get married, pls stop doing this
…. WAIT JOYCE CAN BOLD AND ITALICS HER TEXTS WTF?
maybe she’s typing it out as “*YES ACTUALLY…*” and David’s brain just parsed it as Markdown 😀
It’s probably just all caps, but the font’s already all caps, so bold italics were used instead.
God, Joyce is so aggravating sometimes, when she does shit like this. Stop fucking meddling in other people’s love lives just for your own romance novel fantasies or whatever.
Kinda hard to tell her off, other people’s love lives are kinda why I read this strip and meddling in them is why I comment.
Ok but would you do it in real life? I understand these characters are fictional but they’re doing very real things and this type of stuff just gets under my skin because I know way too many people who try to meddle in other people’s love lives just because they think these people are not with the ‘right/appropriate people’ and it’s all very icky to me.
Maybe I’m taking this too personally, totally possible lol. It just bugs me. And that’s why *I* commented in this case 😉
Said Lars to Steven.
I don’t understand this reference. But I once had a crush on a dude named Lars and I haven’t thought about him in years and now I’m remembering him fondly, so thanks haha.
I’m guessing it’s a Steven Universe reference.
Lars isn’t good enough for Sadie.
TRUE
One of the few cases of Lars being the voice of reason.
Always good to see Joe in the storyline
It tickles me that Joyce and Joe seem to communicate best when they’re texting each other.
Also, Joyce’s version of the end of the world sounds terrifying.
That’s why you want to make sure you are one of the Raptured, they get to duck out of the really nasty parts.
The descriptions of the end of the world in Revelation are, indeed, terrifying.
To the people who believe it will literally take place, the compassionate–say even “Christian”–response is terror at the thought of what that will mean for the people who will suffer through it.
Way, way too many of them seem obviously gleeful at the thought of all the sinners getting what’s coming to us.
… Weirdly, Sodom and Gamorrah, and Revelations are two parts of why I’m no longer Christian. Some learn about them and cling to their faith all the harder.
Me? I couldn’t reconcile “all-loving” with those tales (and other tales of God’s atrocities in the Bible, and the threat of hell), and I couldn’t find the logic in the tales of the Bible being completely different from what we actually know about the world (There is no firmament to separate the “waters above” from the “waters below” the earth, there’s no “waters above” at all. It’s vacuum up there. I could go on). By the time I was a teenager, I was already agnostic, and then by the time I finished university I admitted to myself that I was an atheist.
The science stuff cemented it – but what first caused my break with the faith was being asked to worship a deity with the temperament of an angry toddler. You humans don’t do what I want you to to? I will kill everyone in the world. Even the babes in arms are too wicked to be allowed to live.
My morality won’t let me worship a deity that rules through terror.
Congratulations, BTW, on being the only person so far to know that the name of the book is “Revelation”, and not “Revelations”. 😉
Wait, Joyce thinks Sarah being in a committed, lasting, fulfilling monogamous relationship is one of the signs of the Apocalypse???
Well, that would involve Sarah being truly happy, which sounds like a job for divine intervention to me.
It’s possible Sarah thinks it’s one of the signs.
No…? Joe is pointing out all those things as every bit as unlikely as Sarah/Jacob happening (at least as long as Joyce is being all Joycey about it), and Joyce is saying that those are things she really does believe will happen, eventually, so Sarah/Jacob isn’t unlikely at all.
Jeez Joyce, I know you want your OTP to become reality but maybe you shouldn’t try to force it? If it does happen, it’d be for the best if it happened naturally. Forced relationships tend to not work out.
OTOH, given Sarah’s nature, without some forcing no relationship would happen.
OTGH, still not cool since Jacob’s dating someone else.
Splitting a large Hawaiian sounds like a euphemism.
Everything can be a euphemism with enough imagination.
“When correctly viewed, everything is lewd. I can tell you things about Peter Pan, and the Wizard of Oz is a dirty old man!” – Tom Lehrer
“Everything” can be a “euphemism” with enough “imagination”…. if you know what I mean. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Say no more!
I mean, if Joe brings back his Walkyverse wardrobe…
“Are you guys having a telepathic conversation? Cool! Rude, but cool.”
Any chance that Sarah will end up with Joe instead?
Look back in their character tags. She’s very definitely sunk that ship.
Maybe Joyce would like Satan much more than Jesus.
Kind of funny to me because if I were Jacob or Sarah and my tablemates suddenly whipped out their phones and ceased conversation, I’d feel a bit put-off.
It’s also really clear how uncomfortable Sarah is about all this. And Joyce is either oblivious about that or is just deliberately ignoring her friend’s discomfort. I don’t know why this strip bugs me in particular, but I guess it just hit a nerve, because I hate this type of behavior.
I sense that Sarah and Jacob are now going ‘….WTF’ at Joe and Joyce’s immediate and total absorption in their phones. Especially since their expressions are perfectly appropriate to their statements.
Joyce and Joe, the silent movie. LOL.
I actually really like the Joyce and Joe dynamic. A lot. Like, more than I think I should.
I don’t know if the other universe aspect of this comic will force a drift away from Walky/Joyce, but if it does (and keeps up with this version of Joe) I wouldn’t mind seeing them at least try something.
“I like this dynamic more than I think I should.”
Could be said word by word by both Joe AND Joyce.
Joyce/Walky probably wasn’t going to happen here around since, well, it was the direct focus of about ten years of a comic. We already have the definitive depiction of that romance.
Meanwhile, Joe/Joyce was teased and shown throughout It’s Walky! until we reach where are now in the redux, where it’s plainly laid out why they can’t work. The ship’s got another chance in this universe (though how much of one is up to debate, since the differences are still there with the added problem of the cast forever being in college).
Ohhhhh Joyce.
Weird reading this considering what’s going on in the It’s Walky reruns right now
When Joe is the one with the stronger morality in matters of dating/sex/etc… you should really know you’ve gone too far
Sarah and Jacob will get a new funny Joyce-story of their own tonight, together with a funny Joe-story.
I love the tapping vs swiping thing they have going on.
In Joyce’s defense:
1. She didn’t know ahead of time that Sarah and Jacob have already sort of broken up, nor that he’s moved on and got a new GF.
2. We’re still, what, 2 months into college? And Jacob has been dating his new GF for even less time than that? I’ve yet to meet anyone who takes “I have been dating this girl for a few weeks” super seriously and refrains therefore from making a friendly introduction of someone whom they think they might be interested in.
3. Sarah previously expressed to Joyce strong interest in Jacob, and so Joyce thinks Sarah is still interested in Jacob.
4. Joyce is worried about Sarah, trying to help her make friends, and thinks that Sarah’s current attitude toward Jacob is defeatism rather than an actual problem. Which was initially true.
5. It certainly wouldn’t hurt Sarah and Jacob to associate socially and be friends.
Looking back on my own life, there were plenty of times when I actually would have appreciated a helping relationship hand from my friends. Joyce is, at worst, being very mildly annoying in an attempt to be helpful.
While the rest of your points are valid, Joyce definitely knows Jacob has a girlfriend, as it caused a stir at her dorm party not even two weeks ago.
1. Actually, she does know that Jacob has a girlfriend: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/lowstress/
2. Just because they haven’t been dating long doesn’t mean their relationship shouldn’t be respected. And while there’s nothing wrong with making friends with people while you’re dating someone, trying to set your friend up with someone who’s already dating someone else is disrespectful and rude.
Like, it’d be another story entirely if Joyce was just trying to help Sarah be better friends with Jacob. But she’s not. She explicitly wants them to get married and have children. And it’s ignoring their boundaries and completely ignoring Jacob’s agency to continue and try to hook them up.
Well this is all fine for a Normal person but Joyce is an Ultra-Fundie who is actively breaking the “Thou Shall not covet thine neighbour’s hot boyfriend” commandment so it’s a bit different here.
1) Joyce does know about Raidah, as mentioned above.
2) If somebody’s in a relationship that isn’t abusive, you don’t try to break it up, period, full stop, end of story. No matter how long it’s been. It’s called respecting people’s choices.
3) Well, no shit she is. That doesn’t justify trying to break up him and his girlfriend.
4) Trying to force her into a relationship with a guy who’s not interested, which Sarah has accepted, is not helping her. Even if Joyce sees it that way.
5) See point 4.
Look…I like Sarah, and I don’t like Raidah. I hope Sarah and Jacob get together eventually. This is not the way to arrange that.
I LOVE how good shape Joyce is in compared to last week. The visit at home, traumatic as it is, and the renewed faith she found in Hank and Jocelyne was incredibly healthy for her.
So now she can be back to be her sunny self again, worry about things in teh shower and play matchmaker in just a way that is juuuuust a bit too manic. Welcome back, smily!Joyce. We missed you.
THIS IS WHAT JOYCES ACTUALLY BELIEVE
Joyce believes the dead will be frigging? Somehow I doubt that.
Calling it now: Sarah and Jacob will dump Joe and Joyce and the latter will be so involved in their txt argument that they won’t notice. When later asked, Sarah will tell Joyce that they both felt that Joyce and Joe wanted to be ‘alone together’.
The face Joyce will make will be comparable to her finally learning that Evolution is true.
Panel One: I love seeing Joyce this storyline. She’s so perky and happy about jobs and matchmaking – back to smiley Joyce. I love it. <333 And yeah, fair question from Joe, considering Joyce dragged Sarah over to them (over her objections) and interrupted his lunch with his friend.
Panel Two: My response to Sarah is two fold here: First, yeah, don't blame her for not wanting to take credit for the interrupting of their lunch. If I were Sarah, I'd be SO EMBARRASSED Joyce did that and definitely not in the mood to put moves on the hot boy.
But the second part makes me sad. Sarah IS genuinely thoughtful sometimes – while her advice is often crabby and 'worst case pessimistic scenario', the fact she tries to help at all is thoughtful, especially since her advice is usually aimed at trying to prepare for or prevent bad situations, or help ease them afterwards. Even if it doesn't come out kindly, she IS trying to look out for her friends, and I think that qualifies as thoughtful, even if the situations don't require it. She may not have the easiest time with kind, but she IS a caring and thoughtful person, which is just as good, and it bites that she's not seeing that about herself.
Also, damn, Joyce, laying it on thick, ain'tcha?
Panel Three: Even though Sarah told you she didn't want to come over here. Yeaaaah, Joyce could stand a chat about her matchmaking and boundaries on that too. This isn't the first time she's done so over objections and/or someone expressing dissatisfaction. She means well, though. Being marriage fixated is part of her culture that's pretty ingrained, so I don't see this going away any time soon.
But damn, if Joe's picking up on it, I wonder if Jacob will soon?
Panel Four: Thank you, Joe, for pointing this out. Maybe don't shove girls at boys with girlfriends, Joyce? It's kinda disrespectful to their relationship. And Joyce KNOWS he has a girlfriend, because Sarah learned this AT JOYCE'S DORM PARTY and it caused a bit of a thing.
I do like how much Joyce adores Sarah though. Their friendship makes me happy. And yeah, I can see Joyce not caring much for Raidah in comparison – she doesn't dislike her, but she thinks Sarah is awesome, so how could anyone possibly choose someone else?
Panel Five: Damn, Joe, you're salty. What'd Sarah do to you, kick your puppy? It's not impossible to like Sarah and want to date her. Just cuz she wouldn't date YOU doesn't make her some dried out husk, y'know.
Also, ahhhhh Revelations. So much stuff to dig in on that one. Joyce is literally living on the idea the Rapture will probably be soon and so this stuff is imminent, really not the time to disobey God. But she has. And she's survived. And she got her smile back. I'm proud of her.
And she'll do it while still believing her soul is safe come this apocalypse.
Although, to be fair, Joyce, how would Joe know what's in Revelations? 😛
I’m so glad the smile is back. This is the Joyce we have come to know and love. “Awwwww, no, Joyce, you shouldn’t do that, but I’ll be danged if it’s not adorable.”
I know! It makes it harder to want any consequence more severe than someone investing in a spray bottle and treating her like a misbehaving cat.
Huh, I took Joe’s text in panel 5 as more of a comment on Joyce’s antics and their likelihood of suceeding, and less on Sarah as a person.
Agreed.
Sure, but the likelihood of succeeding is directly tied to Sarah’s likability – he’s acting like it’s impossible Jacob would like her more than Raidah (which would mean Joyce succeeded).
I don’t think it’s so much ‘not seeing’ it as ‘actively trying to make it not true’. Her ‘uncaring’ is like Becky’s ‘wacky’ or Joe’s ‘dudebro’. It’s a front to defend herself from Bad Things.
It’s a flaw she’s trying to rid herself of.
I think it’s part mask and part real feeling – particularly because she’s been describing herself in terms like ‘bongoy killjoy misanthrope’.
Hardcore optimist meets hardcore pessimist. Texting and funny faces ensue.
Gotta love the march of technology. Joe and Joyce’s friendship is so magical. I just can’t even. 🙂
Hey, Bagge, just in case you somehow missed it (like, if the stars just dropped down on Sweden or something and the dead arose… It could happen), I think that the latest update of Always Human contains some really high DOOOOOFUS levels.
There’s a great book about the dead rising in Sweden by Ajvide Lindqvist where a zombie apocalypse is averted in a very… Swedish way (note – not as fun as I made it sound, but a good read).
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4328472-handling-the-undead
Awwwwwwwwwww. That’s some seriously dooofusy doofusing. Someone has a rad haircut!
And with the haircut comes an eeeeeeevil tendency to steal the last strawberry!
SHE WOULDN’T!!!???
Oh, but she did.
If they were sitting at my table, I’d definitely start a conversation with the guy without a photo sitting next to me (even though I’m not into guys). Something along the line of “they seem to have a lot to say to each other. Do we start to guess what, or do you wanna talk about the last film you saw?”
So, big chance for Sarah to bond with Jacob?
Has Joyce been a civilizing force on Joe?
He seems a lot more thoughtful than he used to be.
Does Joyce use SwiftKey?
Jo-Jo seems to be coming on fine. Whens the wedding?
JOYCE NO
but damn Joe got roasted <3
You think? I’m pretty sure he typed that knowing that Joyce actually believes in all that stuff ^^ I don’t see a clear winner here.
You know what else you literally believe, Joyce? “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” So maybe don’t make stuff up about Sarah being a kind and thoughtful person, huh?
This is a curious concept… The 8th Commandment reads “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”. So technically Joyce is not lying because what she is saying is not Hurtful (against) towards Sarah. But on the OTHER hand what she is saying gives Jacob a false perception AND by proxy hurts Jacob’s girlfriend by painting Sarah as a better person and thus making her more desirable.
So in a way Joyce’s lie is against Jacob’s current girlfriend.
Too late for that, I’m afraid. She already lie to her mom a few times. Joyce is beyond salvation, and that’s just the way we like ’em.
Also, some guy named John will eat a book and get indigestion
He should have thought of that before… before…
Joyce should specify that she wishes it doesn’t happen in near future because holy smokes, it sure would kill the mood for Sarah and Jacob’s “date”.
“But FIRST Jacob and Sarah are getting married and having LOTS of children.”
Before or after they both go to law school?
I now ship JJ, choo choo
JJ? Jacob/Joe?
JoJo
Once again, I reply in a separate comment because there’s so much.
Joe definitely has consent issues, and it’s a large part of why his talk about women comes off as skeezy. Consent isn’t just about respecting a firm “no.” It’s about not continuing until you get a clear “yes.” Notice I said “clear,” not “verbal.”
The other part is his raw objectification. Women are a list of numbers for him. He values women on how they look, and nothing more. That’s why he uses passes instead of just talking to women like normal people.
But,here’s the thing. Objectification is still a consent issue. An object doesn’t have feelings. An object doesn’t care about what you do with it. An object can’t give consent. So objectification inherently reduces the amount of consent you offer the other person. It inherently means you will ignore signs of disinterest.
As for “how do you express interest without making a pass?” You talk to them like you would a normal person. You might crack some jokes. You might drop some hints as you talk, and see if they respond. You might touch them briefly in a non-threatening, non-sexual way, and see how they respond. And you can then ask for a number or ask someone out if they seem interested.
So it’s not something Joe couldn’t do, if Joe wasn’t so obsessed with winning the most sexual partners. It just would take time and getting to know people as people, rather than as numbers that get higher if you reject him.
Sorry, but Joe does have consent issues. I do hope that his interactions with Joyce as a real person actually help him get over the objectification, which then leads him to understanding consent better.
And, of course, at the same time, I hope Joe helps Joyce realize that pushing people so much is a problem. Sure, she’s trying to help, but she’s got the same issue as Claire in Questionable Content. In her own way, she has consent problems, too. Just not with sex.
Reminding me of Patrick’s line in Coupling.
Polly: Patrick, what do you call friends that you don’t want to sleep with?
Patrick: Men
Ack! That’s Sally, not Polly.
“He values women on how they look, and nothing more.”
That’s just not true!
He also values women for potentially how good they are in bed.
Wait, that doesn’t make it any better, does it… In fact, it only makes it even creepier.
Forget I said anything.
Consent isn’t just about respecting a firm “no.” It’s about not continuing until you get a clear “yes.” Notice I said “clear,” not “verbal.”
I wonder if part of the issues Joe has is that its (maybe) been drummed into him that No means No but that anything else means the option is still on the table.
As for “how do you express interest without making a pass?”
I’m not disagreeing with you on this the problem is though just how ambiguous that really is but Joe still has to initiate the expression of interest and if its reciprocated then great but if its not and hes shot down then hes a sleazbag (personal note, I’m glad I’m married and don’t have to deal with this kind of stuff anymore)
I mean is Joe deliberately oblivious to body language or does he really just not see it?
However being that Joe is one of the more mature main characters I do hope he starts to unravel the “lessons” his Dad probably taught him
This.
I think Joe very much thinks he’s better educated about the issue than he thinks he is. He doesn’t strike me as actually misogynist, just grossly immature about the subject. I think he’s more the guy who said to Sarah, “When you said you didn’t want me to hit on you, I took it to heart.”
Okay, pardon me while I shoehorn in a little non sequitur.
After reviewing the ‘glower vacuum’ stuff, I just had a wild idea:
Joyce ends up unintentionally applying for the RA position (maybe she meant to show support for Dorothy and filled in the application wrong), and due to the other two candidates ripping each other apart, comes out looking like the best person for the job to the Faculty (they see her being genuinely nice and helpful to others, etc.) and they give her the job.
Probably won’t happen (I don’t think Dorothy would invest any real time/effort into smearing Roz – and making herself look petty at the same time – so the ‘big players cancel each other out’ situation wouldn’t be likely) but…makes ya think, don’ it?
I still hope that Billie is the “Unknown Evil”.
I still ship Joe and Joyce l.
Joyce uses the swipey keyboard! I use the swipey keyboard! they swipey keyboard is excellent!
Is it just me, or is the new comic late?
tap tap tappity tap swipity swipe tap tappity swipe!!!