I think it’s been pretty consistent that he is a genuinely social person who does enjoy the company of women on a non-sexual level, even if he has a tendency toward the sexual himself.
In the Walkyverse he and Rachel originally met on a message board and based on Rachel’s description, Joe can actually be incredibly thoughtful etc – he just usually hides it between his horndog persona.
Correction, they did meet in meatspace before that, but neither of them knew it was the other when they met online, much to both people’s surprise when they found out.
He knows what his father is like and how Richard’s behaviour led to a divorce. Joe probably sees a lot of the same in himself, and as a result doesn’t do relationships, only one-night stands. If he doesn’t have a long-term romantic relationship with anyone it means he never will hurt the other person or himself when he (in his mind) inevitably fails and cheats on them with someone else..
He DOES value feminine companionship in a non-sexual way, is evidenced by his texts with Joyce a while back.
He just refuses to admit it, and part of the denial process is desperately trying to turn every encounter with a female into a sexual encounter. Which is… sad? I pity him a bit, but I pity the women he has to put up with more, and I’m kinda pissed off at the cowardice involved.
“Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s Becky, and we should know it.
With each glance and every little movement she shows it . . . ”
I still wonder if a haircut is really the way of signifying your sexual orientation? Like it’s legitimately a cool cut so I’d understand anyone wanting their hair to look like that, gay, straight, male, female, or other.
It’s absolutely a way. Not the only way, and not a slam dunk by any means –aa you said, other people might like to wear it like that too– but it’s definitely more queer-coded than, say, wearing a lot of flannel. It’s less of a clear signal than wearing a rainbow triangle pin with two women-signs on it, but it’s still coded enough that my brain automatically says “ooh she might be into me, let’s take a look”.
Well Mark Trail’s girlfriend has that haircut now so, yeah, definitely not exclusively gay. (Girlfriend? Wife? Fellow member of a polyamourous pod? I still don’t really read that comic.)
Let the new writer have a long and fruitful run, and not get into bizarre Twitter fights with members of Congress or write lengthy storylines about how pathetic People Looking For Attention On The Internet are that end with the hero just… abandoning this guy to die in the Himilayas, not even an attempt to look for him or pay lip service to it being too dangerous. (That was one surreal storyline.)
God, newspaper comics are a WEIRD landscape, even by comic standards.
I’ve been caught out numerous times now for assuming nothing about a person based on their personal aesthetic/sense of style, only for them to be surprised I didn’t realise they were gay/pan/nonbinary based on that exact metric.
cheer up, if you’re not detecting the dog whistles then they’re not for you. (assuming, that is, you actually treat other people decently regardless). Want embarrassing? Having a member of your gaming group sit you down and explain that they’re gay, that everybody else knows they’re gay, and that you’re the only lunkhead they know who has to actually be outright told. I rather suspect there’s something wrong with me that I can’t pick up on obvious flags like everyone else.
My philosophy has always been that if someone mentions their sexuality, then cool, I’ve learned something about them. If they don’t, then it doesn’t really matter to me anyway, since I wasn’t planning to either hit on them or attempt to hook them up with someone else, neither of which are remotely within my competencies.
Generally, most people seem to pick up that I’m fundementally clueless a lot faster than I pick up literally anything.
There’s a thing in queer communities called ‘signalling’, where certain common presentation choices or affectations are ways to tell other queer people ‘I’m a friend!’ without saying it outright. Butch and femme presentations – exaggerated versions of one stereotypical gender presentation, but in subtly different ways – are one of them, and especially among women, pretty common. Especially in combination. Extremely short hair and undercuts are both things queer women and more fem-aligned people signal with. They’re not exclusively ours or anything, but like, Becky’s presentation at the moment is very much signalling ‘soft butch’ with that haircut and plaid overshirt. (Even moreso, her outfit with the plaid and the vest she wore to Jacob’s church.) Even actively presenting as the stereotype associated with our gender tends to look different on queer people than on straight people when signalling, because it’s a more exaggerated form of that presentation. (For example, see the entire discography of the Village People, or… Actually you know what? I’m just going to link this person’s list of somewhat tongue-in-cheek ranking of outfits in the 90s Sailor Moon anime per character. Compare Usagi’s lists or Minako’s to Michiru’s, which is literally titled ‘Communicating Gayness Through Fashion.’ Michiru, the blue-haired one, is totally femme. https://sailormoonsub.tumblr.com/post/166325279758/can-we-get-like-an-index-of-your-top-10-outfits Also see Haruka’s for some Peak 90s Butch.) They’re never exclusively ‘oh only gay people would ever wear this,’ and not all of us choose to do so in those actively stereotyped ways, but that lends a degree of camouflage that helps keep the straight people who wouldn’t approve from immediately catching on. (Again, see the 1970s.)
Also part of why so many people here in the comments pinged Booster as nonbinary in their first strip – the point about their name and former roommate was a definite narrative sign to the audience, but just seeing their character art would’ve given a lot of people immediate nb vibes. There’s not a standard ‘look’ for any of these necessarily, especially with nonbinary people (who are pretty much definitionally not a single gender in their own right, but a collection of different ones falling outside the traditional gender binary,) but certain things tend to read queer more frequently than others. It’s hard to explain without just showing a bunch of image examples.
It’s not restricted to LGBTQ2+. Signalling has been done for millenia by various groups trying to remain connected in the wash of a more dominant group.
Like any kind of style it’s not an absolute, but it’s definitely a clue.
This applies well beyond sexuality of course – hairstyles can link to any culture or subculture. Traditional ones often have strict standards: see Ross’s comment to Becky in the first kidnapping about “your hair is your womanhood”.
If Becky wants to be a scientist she needs to be more careful about numbers. No one lives long enough to say anything 16 billion times. (A billion seconds is about 30 years.)
It’s the owner, not the hardware. That’s a common theme in the Shadowrun game I’m in with a bunch of “On the Spectrum” people, and that’s several spectrums at once, since I’m on the “neurotypical” spectrum becaause I got hit in the head with a truck and totaled out the truck before breaking the street with my face (FAAAACCCCCE!), we used to have several Enbies, one of whom changed her pronouns like most people change their socks, our current GM is epileptic, our previous GM was bipolar and had SAD so bad that playing the game in my house caused her to go into depression in just a few hours.
Anywho, in game I have a cybernetic penis with 22 levels of vibration that somehow has never come up in a role playing session between combats, for the same reason I have 2 cybernetic legs and a synthetic arm, My legs have ghost flames painted on them…
Look. The way I see it, DoA will eventually end. Willis will get too old or run out of ideas, maybe sell the property to some young upstart web cartoonist that can reboot the characters for a new generation that doesn’t even exist yet and in that uncertain future Becky will still be making this joke.
The last comic that runs will include Becky shouting that she’s a lesbian. For as long as the internet exists, Becky will be perpetually announcing it.
Like how Shortpacked ended with an unending tide of Deeply Gross White Male Homogeny brought into their reality to attack a perceived excess of diversity, and the forces of the comic store determinedly fighting them, forever. (The ‘gross’ is not being dismissive or anything, that reality was invaded by the Soggies from the old Cap’n Crunch ad campaigns.)
Or at least until that one flashforward. We’ll never know.
Join us. It’s nice in the Paleontology Corner. We have cool rocks, and Weird Shit. Look at Spinosaurus. Look at its tail, it’s new. Look at the attempts to figure out how back feathers (or similar predecessors) go, and therefore what groups might have had them or not. Look at the modern birds, and their courtship rituals. So varied. So Weird. They’re alive, but we can learn from them too. Joooooin uuuuuus.
Sorry, what was that? Something came over me for a minute there.
Yeaaaah, that second panel there? Is why those of us who think Becky’s not going to take Joyce saying she doesn’t believe anymore super-well do so, because Becky clearly has some Impressions of atheism that may not be wholly accurate!
Seriously, I don’t think Becky usually brings up God nearly so often in a single storyline. There’s authorial intention here if nothing else.
I don’t think Becky will take it very well, especially since she describes herself and Joyce as the “Homeschooled Christian Chicks.” I don’t know if she’ll be angry but I do expect her to be upset by it.
I’ll just say this, even though I still don’t think it would be a big deal *or at least it shouldn’t be* It will be very interesting to see how Becky responds to what is thematically a parallel to her coming out to Joyce. No revealing you’re an atheist is not at all the same as coming out as queer, but the situation will require Becky to re-evaluate her prejudices towards atheists the same way Joyce had to toward homosexuals. I wonder if Becky is up for that. Should be very compelling.
Compelling indeed, and yeah, I can absolutely see that parallel happening. Ideally, Becky would be fine with it, but since we’ve seen her be dismissive of Joyce’s struggles since, hey, Becky’s been dealing with these struggles with parental authority way longer and gone through way worse, and she’s fine (most clearly here https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/beeessin/ but I think it’s been implied once or twice on other occasions too,) the groundwork’s been laid for her not to take it ideally. Remember, Joyce was shocked and faltering the first moments after Becky came out, too, and it took her several arcs to really adjust.
I’m certain Becky will accept it after some time to adjust, but I do think she has to hear from Joyce herself that it’s not just the ‘our parents were wrong’ thing, it’s not just a nihilist phase brought on by the trauma parade of last semester, it’s been building for a while. (‘Maybe I never really felt God when I prayed’ and that insistence at the beginning of the dream she does, she’s normal being a big point.) It’s a HUGE shift in Becky’s conception of Joyce, though – she was the Good Christian Girl of the Good Christian Girls back home, after all, and basically every adult who’s seen her since has commented on how much she’s changed. Given how Becky’s lost her nuclear family* and basically the entire community they grew up in (Hank and Jocelyne, who she didn’t seem to know all that well before Sisterly House Break-In Time, are not nearly enough to make a dent there,) that’s a huge shift that she might not be ready for. Joyce was her constant through this all, but now suddenly Joyce is changing too.
* If Becky had siblings, we would’ve had some kind of hinting way before now.
“It will be very interesting to see how Becky responds to what is thematically a parallel to her coming out to Joyce.”
I was just thinking about those parallels, and imagining a conversation between Becky and Joyce.
Joyce: “Becky? You remember when you came out to me, and you were afraid I’d hate you for being gay like our old church taught that I should?”
Becky: “Yeah?”
Joyce: “And you remember how I hesitated for a split second and then I said no, I’m you’re my friend, I’m putting you before everything else?”
Becky: “Yeah?”
Joyce: “And from that moment on I was accepting of gay people and I wasn’t 100 percent perfect on that but I worked super-hard on getting there and I quickly stopped making casually homophobic remarks even accidentally?”
Becky: “Yeah!”
Joyce: “And you know how that isn’t supposed to be anything special, how that’s just supposed to be how we treat people regardless, and yet it was special because it wasn’t a sure thing and you were really nervous about how it would play out?”
Becky: “Yeah?”
Joyce: “Well I’m calling in the marker.”
… okay, it’s less a conversation between Becky and Joyce, and more a conversation between a less-tandem-prone-Becky and someone-not-afraid-of-confrontation-pretending-to-be-Joyce.
I’m getting a ‘Becky already knows Joyce is leaning towards atheism and is bringing up the subject as obtusely as possible til she talks about it’ vibe.
You know how Carla can be insufferable til people pay her attention? This is like that.
Probably not. Subtlety implies an intent that’s mutually exclusive with oblivious, especially with denial in play. I’m not 100% sure which, but probably one of those.
Becky PLAYS oblivious very well, but she’s sharp, and alert. I think she has caught on to Joyce’s struggles, and is being a supportive (Yet concerned) friend…while using the oblivious act to get Joyce to take the first step in opening up about the problem.
Yeah I’m definitely kinda worried about how Becky will react when she eventually finds out that Joyce is an atheist, because even though she seems fine with her girlfriend Dina being an atheist, I suspect she might not take it so well when it’s her childhood friend who she’s been in Christian homeschooling with since they were both very little.
Becky, you mad Joyce used him as a pillow at your slumber party?
I’m also with Sarah, I must hate everyone to a certain point to be atheist? There’s so many things I don’t do that atheists apparently do…like enjoy kale.
Given that she’s saying things that are likely to piss off Joyce, Sarah, AND Becky today, I think she’s letting her “I’ve got my education money sorted out and am no longer reliant on my friends for survival” status go to her head. (Oh, and saying the thing Joe least wants to hear, but he doesn’t deserve to have it sugarcoated.)
(Not really, pretty sure that’s not how it works when you get out of a homelessness situation, just… yeesh, Becky, is there anyone you aren’t risking pissing off today?)
That one was kind of subjective since Joyce was the most obedient one. Both girls are homeschooled mess, but the difference is that Becky is a wildcard.
To a certain extent, I suspect Becky is prone to some very black or white thinking, and not just due to her age. She went (and power to her) *Full Lez*, she went deep in on her first relationship with Dina, she assume’s Joe overt philandery means he’s not able to control his impulses, and she boxed Sarah into a concise description that is woefully simplistic of her situation.
Such thinking can be a resulr of youth, but also of her upbringing always framing as in or other, and the extreme fundamentalist stance of ToeDad, which was clearly not new. So I understand why she is, but it doesn’t make her behaviour ok.
It’s kind of difficult to maintain the illusion of being the plucky underdog when you’re surrounded by friends and most people agree with you and don’t want to cause you problems for any particular reason.
At some point, I hope that Becky realises that it is increasingly Joyce>i> who needs the support now. It’s harder to be strong when there isn’t a fight, just a long, long time having to deal with growing up.
What she’s saying in Panel 2 about Joyce… and she IS saying it about Joyce, whether or not she knows she’s saying it about Joyce… this is one reason why you don’t just say casually spout out bigotry.
Thank you; I am well aware of Becky’s inability to read a room, but come on. Joyce has been obviously uncomfortable with Becky’s comments about religion for the past week of strips or so.
Has Becky traveled so far down the ‘hyper-aware of other people’s emotions because of abuse’ spectrum that she’s arrived on the other side?
Most of my experience with the Hyper-Aware is not that they sensitive to a *particular person’s* problems, but rather that they know the problem exists and un-ironically presume to apply it to everyone for whom it _could_ be a problem. Typically this is done regardless of the preference of the person actually affected.
Like interupting a person of a minority group to tell them they can’t tell a joke about said minority group.
A part of me wonders why she’s saying this given Dina. I could almost get it if Dorothy was the only atheist she knew given her issues/jealousy of her even if it would be still nasty/not remotely a good look, but Becks: what?
I can totally see Joe seeing Joyce be uncomfortable with Becky’s spouting of anti-atheism and trying to do something but getting shot down by one of Becky’s tangents and then being shooed away (or leaving because Joyce and him are still a…topic to discuss).
Becky was NOT the most socialized member of their homeschooling group. But she is confident and not hiding her light under a basket. Meanwhile Joyce lacks confidence in her convictions.
Not sure how widespread it is but I heard a couple of times how having preference for specific sexual organs is transphobic. Like a gay man not wanting to have sex with a pre-transition trans man or a lesbian with a pre-transition trans woman. I imagine it is being seen as transphobic when straight people voice the same opinions.
Isn’t that, in itself kinda bad though? Sexuality isn’t a choice. You can’t choose what sex organs you’re gonna find appealing, personal politics aside. For example, I’m straight in absolutely every way except I have simply never found vaginas appealing. That’s just how I am. That’s not due to any hatred or distaste for women. It’s just how I’m wired.
Genital preferences are a nightmare mess of grey and partially a kind of meaningless debate because you’re right, at the end of the day you can’t just choose to be attracted to something. I think, at least in some cases, it can be worth analysing why you are/aren’t attracted to certain things though, in the same way all kinds of features can end up being a turn-on/off and usually stem from some kind of internal bias. Sometimes things just like that, though.
The thing that is transphobic about it is not the having of the preference itself, but it’s deciding that having this “preference” means that you have to explicitly tell every single trans person you meet or could ever hypothetically meet that you find them unfuckable specifically because of their sex organs, and reiterating how gross they are.
Like, if you don’t want to date or have sex with a specific trans person, for whatever reason, you don’t have to justify it to them. You don’t have to tell them WHY on TOP of rejecting them. It’s like rejecting a cis person by going “ew, you have fat rolls? no thanks”. It’s just like, needlessly cruel, and belies a fixation or disgust that is, in fact, transphobic.
And if you decide to say that you just don’t want to date ANY trans person, despite having not actually met ALL trans people, that it of itself is pretty transphobic. You are making a judgement about someone before you’ve even met them based on one single characteristic, an unrealistic assumption, or a stereotype. It’s also racist to say “I just don’t date black people” or whatever, too.
Please note: it is not racist to have never, by happenstance, been attracted to a black person. It IS racist to SAY that you WILL NEVER be attracted to a black person, especially if it’s “for x y z reason” as if black people are a monolith, or to decide to never ever date them even if you do maybe end up attracted to one, or *whatever*.
tl;dr — treat people like people, on an individual basis, and not some amalgamation of their hypothetical characteristics that you use to grade their fuckability. You know, quite a lot like “DONT RATE WOMEN, JOE”?
It’s funny cuz mom has definitely said she will NEVER be attracted to a white person. Which I find to be somewhat unfair, but I guess is more acceptable than the opposite. Even though, in a real sense she’s basically just again treating people like a monolith. It’s sort of a frustrating double standard in that regard. But yeah, I agree with you. I can definitely say my taste in women, both trans and cis is pretty accomadatin’ so long as you’re appealing to me. And even then if you’re personality is suuuuper good most appearance level stuff doesn’t really matter, to an extent. Though I get that that’s not true for everyone.
The way I’ve heard it, ‘preference’ basically implies that this is a thing, but it’s not a dealbreaking thing. Like, oh, I prefer Cinnamon Toast Crunch to Fruit Loops, but I’ll eat the Fruit Loops if they’re what’s available. Thus you get straight people insisting you can be straight if you choose to, and things like the argument that it’s not discriminatory to outlaw same-gender marriages because gay people have the exact same right to marry someone of a different gender as straight people do. (Yes, I really remember hearing that one as an argument from a lawmaker.)
It’s like how there’s been a shift from the phrase ‘preferred pronouns’ to ‘use x pronouns’, because cis people’s pronouns are never referred to that way (they’re just, y’know, their pronouns) and it downplays the fact that not using those pronouns is misgendering and harmful to the people being misgendered.
Not misogynistic: “I’m just not really attracted to cis women, thus far anyway.” And, if talking to a cis woman: “Sorry, I’m just not interested.” Mysogynistic: “Why would I ever date a WOMAN? THEY’RE SO WHINY, AND VAGINAS ARE SO GROSS.”
Not racist: “I haven’t found myself attracted to any people of color.” And, if talking to a person of color: “Sorry, I’m just not interested.” Racist: “Ugh, I just don’t date asian guys…they’re so effeminate and have tiny dicks.” OR “I love asian women because they’re so cute and small and meek and ethnic.”
Not transphobic: “I have not found myself attracted to a trans person, to my knowledge.” OR, if having found yourself attracted to a trans person, but finding that attraction fade if you discover they have some specific type of genitalia “Sorry, I’m just not interested.” Transphobic: “Oh my god you have a DICK? Oh, geez, NEVERMIND, EW!” or “Eugh, maybe if you didn’t have a dick…” or “I mean, I guess live and let live or whatever, but they shouldn’t expect people to want to fuck them if they’ve got the wrong parts? Like, that’s just how people are wired, and all trans people have to know precisely how unfuckable and unlovable they are because of their parts. And I specifically must remind them, and point it out, right now.”
Yeah, it’s not about being transphobic as Eldritchy suggests, but that using “preference” rather than “orientation” implies it’s your choice rather than your nature. One step up from talking about the gay lifestyle. It’s relatively subtle and forgivable in most cases for people not up on their jargon – but in the context of a SC nominee everything gets microanalyzed since they are parsing their words closely and often use such phrasings to signal their support to one group while avoiding saying anything overtly offensive.
I’ve always found a slight flaw with that. In that Preference is not exactly something I choose. I prefer a bar of chocolate to a heaping bowl of salt. In that I would never eat the latter of my own free will. I can see how it CAN be used to devalue people’s experience and I’m sure it has been, but I definitely feel like it’s useful. Such as in the case of a bisexual person, A pansexual person or someone or even asexual, they may have a “preference” while not having a specific “orientation”. ie. “My sexual preference is men, but I’m not against being with a woman. etc. It’s got a place somewhere in the zeitgeist but orientation’s probably a better catch all.
I’ve generally seen ‘preference for’ in that context be a ‘oh yeah, checks out,’ for exactly the reasons you describe. You can’t control that one either, but preference sort of implies the options involved are all acceptable, and there’s not a bowl of salt among them.
It would make sense in that context, but she wasn’t making nearly that subtle a distinction.
“I have never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference.”
(Which also appears to be untrue.)
every strip that becky appears in since the timeskip, i’ve been getting more and more worried about her. she’s been through a lot, and i don’t know if she goes to therapy, or if therapy even works for her, but.. she’s gotta get help somehow. this “new” becky.. concerns me. i hope she’ll be okay
I really think she, might be in a similar place to Joyce, really questioning what her faith means when coupled with her sexuality (I had a very similar process to go through), but dealing with it in a different way. Sure that if she just puts on a positive face it will all work itself out.
Hey @DavidMWillis, you ever seen a band dressed like Transformers playing a song from the original 1980s Transformers movie? https://youtu.be/4tc6UbEYI4M
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Surprised Joe even bothers, but maybe he legitimately values feminine companionship in a not-sexual way?
…
*snrk*
…
ok fine, he actually MIGHT legitimately enjoy Joyce’s company, maybe in this universe he’ll actually admit it
I think it’s been pretty consistent that he is a genuinely social person who does enjoy the company of women on a non-sexual level, even if he has a tendency toward the sexual himself.
In the Walkyverse he and Rachel originally met on a message board and based on Rachel’s description, Joe can actually be incredibly thoughtful etc – he just usually hides it between his horndog persona.
Correction, they did meet in meatspace before that, but neither of them knew it was the other when they met online, much to both people’s surprise when they found out.
I might go so far as to suspect that Joe’s hypersexual persona is a defense mechanism.
Well, yeah.
He knows what his father is like and how Richard’s behaviour led to a divorce. Joe probably sees a lot of the same in himself, and as a result doesn’t do relationships, only one-night stands. If he doesn’t have a long-term romantic relationship with anyone it means he never will hurt the other person or himself when he (in his mind) inevitably fails and cheats on them with someone else..
Worse.
He DOES value feminine companionship in a non-sexual way, is evidenced by his texts with Joyce a while back.
He just refuses to admit it, and part of the denial process is desperately trying to turn every encounter with a female into a sexual encounter. Which is… sad? I pity him a bit, but I pity the women he has to put up with more, and I’m kinda pissed off at the cowardice involved.
*pity the women who have to put up with him more
Does anyone know if they make beano for brains?
It’s in the aisle with the Purina Zombie Chow
No, but too often have I used beano instead of my brains.
Take Beano before, there’ll beano proofreading.
Joe grudgingly removes Becky from the Do List.
Nah, I’m joshing. We all know he no longer has that thing.
…Because DoList has become a global social networking app that your racist aunt uses to share anti-vaccine memes.
(That’s honestly not far off from how it actually happened, though)
The do-list is about who Joe would do if given a chance, not whether they’ll ever give him a chance. Their opinions of him are irrelevant.
The global social networking DoList app is where Mike met your mom.
The funny thing is, that’s not the declaration that’s gonna make dinner awkward.
It’s the declaration that dinner will be Glorp.
How dare you eat this adorable creature?
https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2020/10/17
Hey! Who’s that redheaded girl walking down 6th Avenue wearing a sandwichboard that says “Sapphic Ad infinitum”?!
Why, It’s BECKY!!
*cue theme song*
“Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s Becky, and we should know it.
With each glance and every little movement she shows it . . . ”
(apologies to MTM Show and writer Sonny Curtis)
Wonder Woman theme song or something more traditional?
Who’s peeking out from under her red bangs
Stylin’ that undercut that she wears
Who’s reaching out to cuddle with Dina
Everyone knows it’s Becky
And Becky has Stormy Eyes, that flash at the sight of guys…
I still wonder if a haircut is really the way of signifying your sexual orientation? Like it’s legitimately a cool cut so I’d understand anyone wanting their hair to look like that, gay, straight, male, female, or other.
It’s absolutely a way. Not the only way, and not a slam dunk by any means –aa you said, other people might like to wear it like that too– but it’s definitely more queer-coded than, say, wearing a lot of flannel. It’s less of a clear signal than wearing a rainbow triangle pin with two women-signs on it, but it’s still coded enough that my brain automatically says “ooh she might be into me, let’s take a look”.
See to me it reads more cyberpunk than specifically lgbtq. Mostly due to depictions in media, mainly video games which is why I it’s cool.
Yes, but consider:
Cyberpunk is very gay
yup, yup
When I saw you left a link I was excited for examples.
Well Mark Trail’s girlfriend has that haircut now so, yeah, definitely not exclusively gay. (Girlfriend? Wife? Fellow member of a polyamourous pod? I still don’t really read that comic.)
Mark Trail is still around?!
Mark Trail just got revamped! I saw an article.
Let the new writer have a long and fruitful run, and not get into bizarre Twitter fights with members of Congress or write lengthy storylines about how pathetic People Looking For Attention On The Internet are that end with the hero just… abandoning this guy to die in the Himilayas, not even an attempt to look for him or pay lip service to it being too dangerous. (That was one surreal storyline.)
God, newspaper comics are a WEIRD landscape, even by comic standards.
Willis has tweeted about it.
I hope that Mark Trail gets as well written as Nancy (yes Nancy and Sluggo) is now.
That new creator (Olivia Jaimes) is cool. It’s been awhile since a legacy comic strip was this interesting.
That was my first reaction as well, with a few expletives included.
The comments on New Mark Trail are an… experience. So many triggered boomers…
If hair was an explicit statement about who we are, then people would assume I’m a rasta. But I’m not, I’m a douchebag.
Those are not mutually exclusive characteristics
I’ve been caught out numerous times now for assuming nothing about a person based on their personal aesthetic/sense of style, only for them to be surprised I didn’t realise they were gay/pan/nonbinary based on that exact metric.
Yeah, I get that too.
cheer up, if you’re not detecting the dog whistles then they’re not for you. (assuming, that is, you actually treat other people decently regardless). Want embarrassing? Having a member of your gaming group sit you down and explain that they’re gay, that everybody else knows they’re gay, and that you’re the only lunkhead they know who has to actually be outright told. I rather suspect there’s something wrong with me that I can’t pick up on obvious flags like everyone else.
My philosophy has always been that if someone mentions their sexuality, then cool, I’ve learned something about them. If they don’t, then it doesn’t really matter to me anyway, since I wasn’t planning to either hit on them or attempt to hook them up with someone else, neither of which are remotely within my competencies.
Generally, most people seem to pick up that I’m fundementally clueless a lot faster than I pick up literally anything.
There’s a thing in queer communities called ‘signalling’, where certain common presentation choices or affectations are ways to tell other queer people ‘I’m a friend!’ without saying it outright. Butch and femme presentations – exaggerated versions of one stereotypical gender presentation, but in subtly different ways – are one of them, and especially among women, pretty common. Especially in combination. Extremely short hair and undercuts are both things queer women and more fem-aligned people signal with. They’re not exclusively ours or anything, but like, Becky’s presentation at the moment is very much signalling ‘soft butch’ with that haircut and plaid overshirt. (Even moreso, her outfit with the plaid and the vest she wore to Jacob’s church.) Even actively presenting as the stereotype associated with our gender tends to look different on queer people than on straight people when signalling, because it’s a more exaggerated form of that presentation. (For example, see the entire discography of the Village People, or… Actually you know what? I’m just going to link this person’s list of somewhat tongue-in-cheek ranking of outfits in the 90s Sailor Moon anime per character. Compare Usagi’s lists or Minako’s to Michiru’s, which is literally titled ‘Communicating Gayness Through Fashion.’ Michiru, the blue-haired one, is totally femme. https://sailormoonsub.tumblr.com/post/166325279758/can-we-get-like-an-index-of-your-top-10-outfits Also see Haruka’s for some Peak 90s Butch.) They’re never exclusively ‘oh only gay people would ever wear this,’ and not all of us choose to do so in those actively stereotyped ways, but that lends a degree of camouflage that helps keep the straight people who wouldn’t approve from immediately catching on. (Again, see the 1970s.)
Also part of why so many people here in the comments pinged Booster as nonbinary in their first strip – the point about their name and former roommate was a definite narrative sign to the audience, but just seeing their character art would’ve given a lot of people immediate nb vibes. There’s not a standard ‘look’ for any of these necessarily, especially with nonbinary people (who are pretty much definitionally not a single gender in their own right, but a collection of different ones falling outside the traditional gender binary,) but certain things tend to read queer more frequently than others. It’s hard to explain without just showing a bunch of image examples.
But anyway, short answer, yes, absolutely.
Or the practical wlw signal of having some fully clipped fingernails.
Oh yes, DEFINITELY that too. Hell I don’t generally put in the effort to signal but that’s just good sense.
It’s not restricted to LGBTQ2+. Signalling has been done for millenia by various groups trying to remain connected in the wash of a more dominant group.
Also true! Tried to limit it to the question, but people absolutely do it whenever they need to have a better sense of their community at a glance.
It’s better than assuming a person’s views on race and religion based on their haircut.
I’m not a goddamn Nazi, it’s just easier to take care of a shaved head.
Indeed. Some of us also shave it all since we started going bald.
It is why I kept a beard for so long after the hair fell out – differentiation from the skinheads….
Like any kind of style it’s not an absolute, but it’s definitely a clue.
This applies well beyond sexuality of course – hairstyles can link to any culture or subculture. Traditional ones often have strict standards: see Ross’s comment to Becky in the first kidnapping about “your hair is your womanhood”.
As a lesbian who has grown out my hair but kept my undercut, Becky is a mood.
Look, she’s been busy today and hasn’t had time to announce it yet. Let her finish her daily 16 billion times!
If Becky wants to be a scientist she needs to be more careful about numbers. No one lives long enough to say anything 16 billion times. (A billion seconds is about 30 years.)
All that means is she needs to transcend the limits of the human form to achieve her goals
Do you remain lesbian if your cooch is cyborg’d
It’s the owner, not the hardware. That’s a common theme in the Shadowrun game I’m in with a bunch of “On the Spectrum” people, and that’s several spectrums at once, since I’m on the “neurotypical” spectrum becaause I got hit in the head with a truck and totaled out the truck before breaking the street with my face (FAAAACCCCCE!), we used to have several Enbies, one of whom changed her pronouns like most people change their socks, our current GM is epileptic, our previous GM was bipolar and had SAD so bad that playing the game in my house caused her to go into depression in just a few hours.
Anywho, in game I have a cybernetic penis with 22 levels of vibration that somehow has never come up in a role playing session between combats, for the same reason I have 2 cybernetic legs and a synthetic arm, My legs have ghost flames painted on them…
Obviously she needs to go into longevity research.
YES THAT WOULD TOO INVOLVE POLI-SCI.
The secret is to say it more than one time at the same time.
You didn’t think that was reverb added in post, did you?
Becky is constantly broadcasting her lesbianness on several psychic wavelengths. She got a billion announcements in before she woke up this morning.
How long can Becky keep this joke going?
I’m honestly curious.
Until morale improves.
The heat death of the universe can be a safe, if conservative, bet on when the joke will end.
Look. The way I see it, DoA will eventually end. Willis will get too old or run out of ideas, maybe sell the property to some young upstart web cartoonist that can reboot the characters for a new generation that doesn’t even exist yet and in that uncertain future Becky will still be making this joke.
The last comic that runs will include Becky shouting that she’s a lesbian. For as long as the internet exists, Becky will be perpetually announcing it.
Like how Shortpacked ended with an unending tide of Deeply Gross White Male Homogeny brought into their reality to attack a perceived excess of diversity, and the forces of the comic store determinedly fighting them, forever. (The ‘gross’ is not being dismissive or anything, that reality was invaded by the Soggies from the old Cap’n Crunch ad campaigns.)
Or at least until that one flashforward. We’ll never know.
One of the twins will continue DoA, the other picks the Walkyverse back up. They tag-team the yelling about Transformers online.
That’s why there’s two of them, you know.
Lesbians like Becky improve my morale.
Oh, that smug grin in the last panel is excellent.
I wonder what interactions Joe and Becky have had since October that led to such an aggressive interaction.
I wonder what interactions Joe and Joyce have had since October that led to such an aggressive interaction.
Becky why must you say such controversial yet brave things? It wounds Sarah and that isn’t very nice.
Also, I didn’t know Sarsh was agnostic, you learn something everyday. If you’re doing it right at least.
Unrelated to that, I’ve been reading up on dinosaurs lately, Dina is having an influence on me, help.
Refocus on ornithology. It’s basically the same thing, but updated for modern times. Knowing that stuff’s definitely something to crow about.
>_<
I thought about majoring in ornithology in Uni, but when I researched the career potential, I chickened out.
Join us. It’s nice in the Paleontology Corner. We have cool rocks, and Weird Shit. Look at Spinosaurus. Look at its tail, it’s new. Look at the attempts to figure out how back feathers (or similar predecessors) go, and therefore what groups might have had them or not. Look at the modern birds, and their courtship rituals. So varied. So Weird. They’re alive, but we can learn from them too. Joooooin uuuuuus.
Sorry, what was that? Something came over me for a minute there.
Yeaaaah, that second panel there? Is why those of us who think Becky’s not going to take Joyce saying she doesn’t believe anymore super-well do so, because Becky clearly has some Impressions of atheism that may not be wholly accurate!
Seriously, I don’t think Becky usually brings up God nearly so often in a single storyline. There’s authorial intention here if nothing else.
I don’t think Becky will take it very well, especially since she describes herself and Joyce as the “Homeschooled Christian Chicks.” I don’t know if she’ll be angry but I do expect her to be upset by it.
I’ll just say this, even though I still don’t think it would be a big deal *or at least it shouldn’t be* It will be very interesting to see how Becky responds to what is thematically a parallel to her coming out to Joyce. No revealing you’re an atheist is not at all the same as coming out as queer, but the situation will require Becky to re-evaluate her prejudices towards atheists the same way Joyce had to toward homosexuals. I wonder if Becky is up for that. Should be very compelling.
Compelling indeed, and yeah, I can absolutely see that parallel happening. Ideally, Becky would be fine with it, but since we’ve seen her be dismissive of Joyce’s struggles since, hey, Becky’s been dealing with these struggles with parental authority way longer and gone through way worse, and she’s fine (most clearly here https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/beeessin/ but I think it’s been implied once or twice on other occasions too,) the groundwork’s been laid for her not to take it ideally. Remember, Joyce was shocked and faltering the first moments after Becky came out, too, and it took her several arcs to really adjust.
I’m certain Becky will accept it after some time to adjust, but I do think she has to hear from Joyce herself that it’s not just the ‘our parents were wrong’ thing, it’s not just a nihilist phase brought on by the trauma parade of last semester, it’s been building for a while. (‘Maybe I never really felt God when I prayed’ and that insistence at the beginning of the dream she does, she’s normal being a big point.) It’s a HUGE shift in Becky’s conception of Joyce, though – she was the Good Christian Girl of the Good Christian Girls back home, after all, and basically every adult who’s seen her since has commented on how much she’s changed. Given how Becky’s lost her nuclear family* and basically the entire community they grew up in (Hank and Jocelyne, who she didn’t seem to know all that well before Sisterly House Break-In Time, are not nearly enough to make a dent there,) that’s a huge shift that she might not be ready for. Joyce was her constant through this all, but now suddenly Joyce is changing too.
* If Becky had siblings, we would’ve had some kind of hinting way before now.
Joyce’s doubts actually go back to before Becky showed up, though she wasn’t aware that’s what they were. Noticing God’s silence and asking that he say something is the first step. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/angel/
“It will be very interesting to see how Becky responds to what is thematically a parallel to her coming out to Joyce.”
I was just thinking about those parallels, and imagining a conversation between Becky and Joyce.
Joyce: “Becky? You remember when you came out to me, and you were afraid I’d hate you for being gay like our old church taught that I should?”
Becky: “Yeah?”
Joyce: “And you remember how I hesitated for a split second and then I said no, I’m you’re my friend, I’m putting you before everything else?”
Becky: “Yeah?”
Joyce: “And from that moment on I was accepting of gay people and I wasn’t 100 percent perfect on that but I worked super-hard on getting there and I quickly stopped making casually homophobic remarks even accidentally?”
Becky: “Yeah!”
Joyce: “And you know how that isn’t supposed to be anything special, how that’s just supposed to be how we treat people regardless, and yet it was special because it wasn’t a sure thing and you were really nervous about how it would play out?”
Becky: “Yeah?”
Joyce: “Well I’m calling in the marker.”
… okay, it’s less a conversation between Becky and Joyce, and more a conversation between a less-tandem-prone-Becky and someone-not-afraid-of-confrontation-pretending-to-be-Joyce.
All I know for sure is that I am staying out of the comments section for that one. It will not be fun.
I’m getting a ‘Becky already knows Joyce is leaning towards atheism and is bringing up the subject as obtusely as possible til she talks about it’ vibe.
You know how Carla can be insufferable til people pay her attention? This is like that.
Agreed. Becky’s perceptive, she must have noticed by now.
Also agreeing that Becky knows. They’ve grown up together so she can read Joyce pretty well.
I’m getting either Becky-oblivious, Becky trying to be subtle (and she isn’t, because Becky), AND Becky-in-denial vibes here.
…. it’s probably not all of them at once.
Probably not. Subtlety implies an intent that’s mutually exclusive with oblivious, especially with denial in play. I’m not 100% sure which, but probably one of those.
Generally if Becky’s trying to be subtle, she really is subtle. She covers it up with being loud and brash, but the subtle part is subtle
Becky PLAYS oblivious very well, but she’s sharp, and alert. I think she has caught on to Joyce’s struggles, and is being a supportive (Yet concerned) friend…while using the oblivious act to get Joyce to take the first step in opening up about the problem.
Yeah I’m definitely kinda worried about how Becky will react when she eventually finds out that Joyce is an atheist, because even though she seems fine with her girlfriend Dina being an atheist, I suspect she might not take it so well when it’s her childhood friend who she’s been in Christian homeschooling with since they were both very little.
Wait… she’s a lesbian? 🙂
When did that happen?
During the timeskip, apparently.
Les-be honest, it took everyone by surprise.
If only there had been a nuke from orbit to give us a sign.
I never would have guessed.
Guessed what?
Becky, you mad Joyce used him as a pillow at your slumber party?
I’m also with Sarah, I must hate everyone to a certain point to be atheist? There’s so many things I don’t do that atheists apparently do…like enjoy kale.
Again, that’s our code word for babies. Which we definitely don’t hate, BECKY.
Babies are cool, as long as I can give them back to their parents when done.
(I don’t have to eat them, right…? They’re dirty and stinky half the time)
You are not alone.
If your religion is all about love, then atheists have to be full of hate. Stands to reason, amirite?
I see 0 reasoning here, tbh. Why must you hate because you have no religion? There’s plenty of religious people that practice hate.
Did I miss sarcasm? I missed sarcasm again, didn’t I? Crap, I’m bad about that on the internet…
Becky has almost replaced announcing she’s a lesbian with announcing she’s a Christian.
I was sick the day they covered minimum hating in Atheist School. What?
God damn, Becky, keep those blows against Sarah above the belt!
Does… Does Becky think her hair is *less* gay now than it was right after she got the under cut?
That implies there are no straight women with undercuts, which I think is profiling. And profiling is wrong.
I agree, but it’s obvious someone is trash when their profile has a maga hat, or if they wear an ahegao jacket.
I wear an ahegao shirt. Of Dragonball Guys.
He’s looking for someone to be his sister, since Amber is resisting
My Sister from another mister.
I know it’s Joe but face says Faz
Becky’s gay?
I dunno, she’s been dropping some hints! 😛
They WERE pretty subtle.
It was the nail polish, wasn’t it? Plain on the fingers, glitter in a different color on the thumbs.
Challange accepted
I recognize that second panel from one of the banner images
I didn’t, but now that you mention it, it’s the banner above it right now.
Okay both Joe and Becky are giving off obnoxious vibes, but right now I’m feeling like Becky’s being just a little more.
Given that she’s saying things that are likely to piss off Joyce, Sarah, AND Becky today, I think she’s letting her “I’ve got my education money sorted out and am no longer reliant on my friends for survival” status go to her head. (Oh, and saying the thing Joe least wants to hear, but he doesn’t deserve to have it sugarcoated.)
(Not really, pretty sure that’s not how it works when you get out of a homelessness situation, just… yeesh, Becky, is there anyone you aren’t risking pissing off today?)
Becky is great at saying things to piss Becky off.
Im the only one that think that Becky needs to learn to talk to people already?
So remember where they said Joyce was the most-socialized member of the homeschool group?
That one was kind of subjective since Joyce was the most obedient one. Both girls are homeschooled mess, but the difference is that Becky is a wildcard.
It might be that, but it might also have some merit…
That’d be interesting to watch, honestly.
Becky’s good at talking to people. She teases, but keeps it mostly to an appropriate level for the people involved.
It can escalate when she feels threatened – especially about Joyce.
I think Becky is going strong against atheism from the way she words things.
Also, straight and bisexual tomboys exist, Becky, and nonbinary people can claim the haircut too.
To a certain extent, I suspect Becky is prone to some very black or white thinking, and not just due to her age. She went (and power to her) *Full Lez*, she went deep in on her first relationship with Dina, she assume’s Joe overt philandery means he’s not able to control his impulses, and she boxed Sarah into a concise description that is woefully simplistic of her situation.
Such thinking can be a resulr of youth, but also of her upbringing always framing as in or other, and the extreme fundamentalist stance of ToeDad, which was clearly not new. So I understand why she is, but it doesn’t make her behaviour ok.
It’s kind of difficult to maintain the illusion of being the plucky underdog when you’re surrounded by friends and most people agree with you and don’t want to cause you problems for any particular reason.
At some point, I hope that Becky realises that it is increasingly Joyce>i> who needs the support now. It’s harder to be strong when there isn’t a fight, just a long, long time having to deal with growing up.
What she’s saying in Panel 2 about Joyce… and she IS saying it about Joyce, whether or not she knows she’s saying it about Joyce… this is one reason why you don’t just say casually spout out bigotry.
Becky’s starting to piss me off.
Thank you; I am well aware of Becky’s inability to read a room, but come on. Joyce has been obviously uncomfortable with Becky’s comments about religion for the past week of strips or so.
Has Becky traveled so far down the ‘hyper-aware of other people’s emotions because of abuse’ spectrum that she’s arrived on the other side?
Most of my experience with the Hyper-Aware is not that they sensitive to a *particular person’s* problems, but rather that they know the problem exists and un-ironically presume to apply it to everyone for whom it _could_ be a problem. Typically this is done regardless of the preference of the person actually affected.
Like interupting a person of a minority group to tell them they can’t tell a joke about said minority group.
A part of me wonders why she’s saying this given Dina. I could almost get it if Dorothy was the only atheist she knew given her issues/jealousy of her even if it would be still nasty/not remotely a good look, but Becks: what?
I asked the other day if Becky is OK, due to her lack of mentioning that she is a lesbian for a few strips.
Puh, I’m glad we are back to normal again
It’s like a pressure release valve, she’ll use it when necessary.
I love Becky so much. XD
Dina has good taste! I’d fight a crazy rifle dad for her too just in a friendship/protective older queer way.
I can totally see Joe seeing Joyce be uncomfortable with Becky’s spouting of anti-atheism and trying to do something but getting shot down by one of Becky’s tangents and then being shooed away (or leaving because Joyce and him are still a…topic to discuss).
Go away, Joe. In that trio, the only person that, sometimes and with some distance between you and her, like your company is Joyce.
7 billions would be enough, one per person. Wait, we’re over 7B now tho.
When she gets to 16 billion, the world ends (based on a story by Arthur C. Clarke – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God).
Becky was NOT the most socialized member of their homeschooling group. But she is confident and not hiding her light under a basket. Meanwhile Joyce lacks confidence in her convictions.
Off-topic question:
sidestepping all the politics and the importance of the Supreme Court and blatant hypocrisy of the current nomination process…
Before last week, I had never heard that “sexual preference” was outdated or offensive. Is this really a thing?
Not sure how widespread it is but I heard a couple of times how having preference for specific sexual organs is transphobic. Like a gay man not wanting to have sex with a pre-transition trans man or a lesbian with a pre-transition trans woman. I imagine it is being seen as transphobic when straight people voice the same opinions.
Isn’t that, in itself kinda bad though? Sexuality isn’t a choice. You can’t choose what sex organs you’re gonna find appealing, personal politics aside. For example, I’m straight in absolutely every way except I have simply never found vaginas appealing. That’s just how I am. That’s not due to any hatred or distaste for women. It’s just how I’m wired.
cisgender women*
Genital preferences are a nightmare mess of grey and partially a kind of meaningless debate because you’re right, at the end of the day you can’t just choose to be attracted to something. I think, at least in some cases, it can be worth analysing why you are/aren’t attracted to certain things though, in the same way all kinds of features can end up being a turn-on/off and usually stem from some kind of internal bias. Sometimes things just like that, though.
The thing that is transphobic about it is not the having of the preference itself, but it’s deciding that having this “preference” means that you have to explicitly tell every single trans person you meet or could ever hypothetically meet that you find them unfuckable specifically because of their sex organs, and reiterating how gross they are.
Like, if you don’t want to date or have sex with a specific trans person, for whatever reason, you don’t have to justify it to them. You don’t have to tell them WHY on TOP of rejecting them. It’s like rejecting a cis person by going “ew, you have fat rolls? no thanks”. It’s just like, needlessly cruel, and belies a fixation or disgust that is, in fact, transphobic.
And if you decide to say that you just don’t want to date ANY trans person, despite having not actually met ALL trans people, that it of itself is pretty transphobic. You are making a judgement about someone before you’ve even met them based on one single characteristic, an unrealistic assumption, or a stereotype. It’s also racist to say “I just don’t date black people” or whatever, too.
Please note: it is not racist to have never, by happenstance, been attracted to a black person. It IS racist to SAY that you WILL NEVER be attracted to a black person, especially if it’s “for x y z reason” as if black people are a monolith, or to decide to never ever date them even if you do maybe end up attracted to one, or *whatever*.
tl;dr — treat people like people, on an individual basis, and not some amalgamation of their hypothetical characteristics that you use to grade their fuckability. You know, quite a lot like “DONT RATE WOMEN, JOE”?
It’s funny cuz mom has definitely said she will NEVER be attracted to a white person. Which I find to be somewhat unfair, but I guess is more acceptable than the opposite. Even though, in a real sense she’s basically just again treating people like a monolith. It’s sort of a frustrating double standard in that regard. But yeah, I agree with you. I can definitely say my taste in women, both trans and cis is pretty accomadatin’ so long as you’re appealing to me. And even then if you’re personality is suuuuper good most appearance level stuff doesn’t really matter, to an extent. Though I get that that’s not true for everyone.
The way I’ve heard it, ‘preference’ basically implies that this is a thing, but it’s not a dealbreaking thing. Like, oh, I prefer Cinnamon Toast Crunch to Fruit Loops, but I’ll eat the Fruit Loops if they’re what’s available. Thus you get straight people insisting you can be straight if you choose to, and things like the argument that it’s not discriminatory to outlaw same-gender marriages because gay people have the exact same right to marry someone of a different gender as straight people do. (Yes, I really remember hearing that one as an argument from a lawmaker.)
It’s like how there’s been a shift from the phrase ‘preferred pronouns’ to ‘use x pronouns’, because cis people’s pronouns are never referred to that way (they’re just, y’know, their pronouns) and it downplays the fact that not using those pronouns is misgendering and harmful to the people being misgendered.
Not misogynistic: “I’m just not really attracted to cis women, thus far anyway.” And, if talking to a cis woman: “Sorry, I’m just not interested.”
Mysogynistic: “Why would I ever date a WOMAN? THEY’RE SO WHINY, AND VAGINAS ARE SO GROSS.”
Not racist: “I haven’t found myself attracted to any people of color.” And, if talking to a person of color: “Sorry, I’m just not interested.”
Racist: “Ugh, I just don’t date asian guys…they’re so effeminate and have tiny dicks.” OR “I love asian women because they’re so cute and small and meek and ethnic.”
Not transphobic: “I have not found myself attracted to a trans person, to my knowledge.” OR, if having found yourself attracted to a trans person, but finding that attraction fade if you discover they have some specific type of genitalia “Sorry, I’m just not interested.”
Transphobic: “Oh my god you have a DICK? Oh, geez, NEVERMIND, EW!” or “Eugh, maybe if you didn’t have a dick…” or “I mean, I guess live and let live or whatever, but they shouldn’t expect people to want to fuck them if they’ve got the wrong parts? Like, that’s just how people are wired, and all trans people have to know precisely how unfuckable and unlovable they are because of their parts. And I specifically must remind them, and point it out, right now.”
Yeah, it’s not about being transphobic as Eldritchy suggests, but that using “preference” rather than “orientation” implies it’s your choice rather than your nature. One step up from talking about the gay lifestyle. It’s relatively subtle and forgivable in most cases for people not up on their jargon – but in the context of a SC nominee everything gets microanalyzed since they are parsing their words closely and often use such phrasings to signal their support to one group while avoiding saying anything overtly offensive.
I’ve always found a slight flaw with that. In that Preference is not exactly something I choose. I prefer a bar of chocolate to a heaping bowl of salt. In that I would never eat the latter of my own free will. I can see how it CAN be used to devalue people’s experience and I’m sure it has been, but I definitely feel like it’s useful. Such as in the case of a bisexual person, A pansexual person or someone or even asexual, they may have a “preference” while not having a specific “orientation”. ie. “My sexual preference is men, but I’m not against being with a woman. etc. It’s got a place somewhere in the zeitgeist but orientation’s probably a better catch all.
I’ve generally seen ‘preference for’ in that context be a ‘oh yeah, checks out,’ for exactly the reasons you describe. You can’t control that one either, but preference sort of implies the options involved are all acceptable, and there’s not a bowl of salt among them.
It would make sense in that context, but she wasn’t making nearly that subtle a distinction.
“I have never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference.”
(Which also appears to be untrue.)
every strip that becky appears in since the timeskip, i’ve been getting more and more worried about her. she’s been through a lot, and i don’t know if she goes to therapy, or if therapy even works for her, but.. she’s gotta get help somehow. this “new” becky.. concerns me. i hope she’ll be okay
I really think she, might be in a similar place to Joyce, really questioning what her faith means when coupled with her sexuality (I had a very similar process to go through), but dealing with it in a different way. Sure that if she just puts on a positive face it will all work itself out.
Gladly? More like GLAADly! I’ll see myself out.
Ref the alt text, I think Sir Willis should have verbified that: “Lesbianing will continue until morale improves.
One hopes the lesbianing will continue after morale improves as well. No reason to stop.
Hey @DavidMWillis, you ever seen a band dressed like Transformers playing a song from the original 1980s Transformers movie? https://youtu.be/4tc6UbEYI4M