“If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.”
Amazingly, yes! You can even choose to not have sex in a stable relationship, let alone things like what Joe is trying to avoid here (which, btw, kudos to Joe for having enough character growth to realize that he would be taking advantage of her to go through with it).
So he’s a pointy boob. Like, a boob when it’s cold out, or in one of those old-timey bras, or one of the Fembots from Austin Powers with the machine gun barrels.
…I forget what we were talking about, but whatever it was I conclude that Danny is a robot.
**head tilt**
I have heard of this odd tradition before, but I will admit that it utterly baffles me. What precisely is the point of men not orgasming in the month of November?
I’d previously been assuming it was the same vague prostate cancer awareness thing that No Shave November is about but honestly if it’s not, I don’t really want to know.
True. However, a full month starvation isn’t usually necessary to gain those results in food – merely a few hours. And, back to the BDSM, orgasm denial and/or edging achieves basically the same results (for both men and women) in, again, an hour or two.
But to each their own. Your body your choice and all that.
If it is about prostate cancer, then a month of not ejaculating would achieve pretty much the same thing as eating all the pies in order to raise awareness about dieting. Regular ejaculation keeps the prostate healthy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t that whole thing start because some right-wing nutters are obessed with the idea that masturbation makes you weak or some shit?
Kinda weird how that became a thing the internet as a whole seems to give a shit about.
It started as a satire thing (don’t ask me; I don’t understand satire), but somehow caught on as something serious. The hard right seems to have taken it up. If you go to the NNN website, which I decline to link to, you’ll find such expressions as “nigga nigga nigga nigga” and “I hate Jews.” This is supposed to be funny. I didn’t laugh.
I’m not gonna try to claim you’re doing this, but I definitely feel like there’s this issue where people think “Right wing people like this thing so now it’s bad”. Like I get that it can put a bad taste in your mouth but at the end of the day, statistically right wing people are gonna like things that other people like too. Right wing people are people who interact with media and the internet too. The problem is when people allow people they don’t like to effect their opinion of that thing because that honestly just relinquishes it to them. Then it truly DOES become a right wing thing because everyone else stop liking it because they did.
I dunno I feel not everything has to have this “actually under the surface there’s this”. Just do/like something because you like it. If you don’t like the people behind it reclaim it. It’s why I didn’t want to let that dickweed who did the inktober thing Ruin inktober for me. Because I liked inktober before I knew he existed and I’m not gonna let him take something I like away from me.
I think there’s a sensible conversation in discussing stuff that comes from alt-right circles or otherwise questionable places, like the term “friendzone” can be casually used these days as “I like them, but they don’t like me back”, but it started as “I am entitled to a woman’s vagina if I’m nice to her” and the only problem there is how someone else reacts to you saying it because of the context they know of it that you don’t.
Then you get stuff that’s just outright harmful, like “I identify as an attack helicopter!” which is an explicitly transphobic joke, but share it with ten people and most of them will go “that’s silly, people can’t be helicopters” and eventually it gets so widespread that the official Sonic the Hedgehog twitter account makes this joke. There’s not really any value in that, and there’s not really a way to redefine it either.
Then I think about stuff like the OK symbol or having 88 in your username, which you just can’t do anymore because of Nazis I guess? And they just took it so now we can’t do them anymore and then eventually a forum I frequent starts questioning whether the new Matrix should have the Red Pill/Blue Pill scene because of what Red Pill has come to mean to the modern alt-right movement, except the Matrix is the most trans narrative in the universe made by two trans women, why the fuck would we take that from them?
Pepe the Frog was a cartoon some dude drew and then Nazis made it theirs over the protests of the guy who made it as his creation became the mascot of the alt-right as he’s attempted to take it back. Life comes at you funny sometimes.
Frankly, I do agree that capitulating in that “oh but they do this” is kinda spineless, because we’re just letting them take stuff from us, which they will do anyway. If Steven Universe and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind were the only works of fiction to ever exist, you’d still get some berk trying to claim them as an expression of their based redpilled worldview. There’s no point in negotiating with them and even less in letting them take away stuff you love, you just gotta start hitting them.
Really, the only thing that’s up for debate to me is why did someone come up with an entire month of not touching your bits? That’s wack.
Yeah I feel like that’s the problem with trying to avoid things with a bad connotation. It just relinquishes those things to bad actors. The nazi party took and corrupted a symbol representing peace and prosperity, the manji and associated it with hatred and genocide. And now it’s gone. The name adolf? Gone. Hell even the toothbrush moustache is gone. The sheer power of bad people is their ability to take things from us forever. And honestly I’m sick of that. Agree with its usage or not I admire the idea of the black community to reclaimed the [N-word]. Personally I’m sick and tired letting assholes all the power.
Like, they just start using it, much to my chagrin they exist and do appropriate symbols, and then we just give it to them forever because we’re afraid of other people associating us with them.
I know a region where half mail adresses being or end with 88.. because it’s the département administrative number. It’s weird because there are also a neo-nazi presence there, but they can’t use it as a beacon since it’s widely neutralized.
Also a form of svastika is used byt bask independantists, without it being thougth as affiliation o nazis. It has to do with their antifascist stance, ofc, but not only.
What I’m saying is that you can’t, alone, claim the use of a symbol, be it a word, without a social context favoring it.
Personnally, I’m all about nazis being easy to identify because the alternative is frightening (and already happening).
the swastika is absolutely everywhere in India. they don’t really care about nazism, that’s always been a traditional Hindu symbol for good things, and they just went right on using it that way I guess.
as for the Hitlerstache and the name Adolf, i mean… does anyone miss those? like… really?
oh that’s definitely the reason we hate them. i’m just saying to me those things sit at the “meh” end on the spectrum of things we can’t touch anymore because of nazis.
also, Charlie Chaplin wasn’t called Adolf you ding dong!
I think it’s great to keep doing lnktober if you want, but at the same time, there are SO MANY variants of exactly the same thing that AREN’T called lnktober, like the Botober entries I did!
That said, it is your choice. It hurts no one. It makes you happy. Therefore, here’s rooting for your success. May you find that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Early on in the comic Dorothy sent Billie to Danny for a lead on Amazi-girl for a story and she was having a low self esteem moment and decided to spontaneously bang him.
But it ultimately didn’t happen because Danny was reluctant do to a mix of coming off Dorothy’s harsh breakup with him and developing a connection with Amber. But I don’t think there would have been anything wrong if they hooked up except that Danny didn’t want to which is fine. I think people expect guys to always be wanting sex, but when a dude is this worried about it, it almost feels like they’re being used. Which was my point in the first place.
Goodness, I think this was the strip where young yoto was like “alright this Billie girl is pretty damn hot”
(I had not yet read the walkyverse. Also Dumbiverse Billie is hotter)
Haha, i was 11 when that came out. I think that would’ve been a year before my buddy got me into doa and sp.
I wonder if he still reads the comments…
Hi van! It’s me!
I mean, no, it really isn’t. This situation has a lot more weird nuance.
Danny + Billie: Billie was bored and wanted sex and was like “you’ll do” to Danny who was like “no thank you” which was a reasonable response.
This is a young woman trying to prove to herself that she’s thrown away all her ideals along with her religion (which is the same unhealthy attitude that Joyce is currently wallowing in) approaching Joe in a creepy way. Joe is also having some complex feelings that he is trying to deal with, so now really isn’t a great time for him. THere’s a lot more going on with this one than the one they’re comparing it to.
Billie and Danny had more going on, too. She wasn’t bored, she was feeling really terrible about not being a head cheerleader and on top of the hierarchy anymore, for a long time, and when Danny reached to her like she *was* top of the hierarchy, even mentioning that she was out of his league due to being “a cheerleader or something”, that felt so good and she wanted so much to hold onto that old preferred role for a moment. But Danny was working through all his breakup feels and a new crush. Danny wasn’t into a casual bang, which is valid too, so they didn’t.
Probably not, given the context of that strip and how it’s being called back to here.
We the audience obviously know Billie had Stuff in her head, but Danny comes up with a dumb, invalidating read on Billie to say he couldn’t have sex even though, being a man, he super wanted to, and then he came clean that he wasn’t ready so soon after Dorothy and he still had residual feels, plus he had fallen for Amazi-Girl at that point.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this post so much as I don’t think approaching sex really quickly is throwing away any ideals, especially when those ideals are something that Liz just made clear yesterday have caused her a great deal of harm.
Like, Liz’s ideals mean she has to lie to someone important to her to keep up appearances and her peers condescend* to her as a Jesus Freak, those aren’t ideals worth upholding and certainly not so worth upholding to the point where she can’t have a small bit of release away from them. She clearly has some expectations but are they wrong? Would it not be healthy for her to just assert herself here just to say she did, to take ownership of that part of her?
*she did specify ‘condescend’, which, y’know, pretty relevant to a certain other ex-Christian now atheist non-believer who’s had it repeatedly enforced that she belongs in a box her friends insist she has to stay in so they can laugh about it.
@Spencer re throwing away ideals
I mean, I don’t either, but I think that’s how Liz is viewing it. To coop the old adage, she thinks that throwing the baby out is required to be rid of the bathwater.
Or, to put it another way, I entirely agree with you – but I think that, while Liz taking control of her own sexuality is great, I don’t think she sees it that way. I think she is in a very bad headspace right now and that has the potential to taint the experience if she’s not careful – which she explicitly isn’t being.
I guess I’m questioning what the baby is, if the bathwater is all the resentments she’s got with her peers and her stepmom. Like, what is she throwing away here that isn’t something she finds harmful and stifling to her?
She’s obviously got a lot of hang-ups about how she’s perceived, but unlike Joyce who used to draw strength by doubling down on the things other people made fun of her, Liz wants to break away from them as hard as possible, if only for a moment, because who knows how she’ll be forced to act once she’s back at her college pretending to be deeply religious for her stepmom while everyone else calls her a Jesus Freak.
She’s rushing in, but she’s rushing in because she’s been held back for so long. She’s missed out on stuff she wanted and was told she was too stupid, weird and naive to have, so she wants them badly without having the right words to describe them, and it’s not like she’s walking into bars going “yo whaddup someone stick their dick in me”, she approached a guy that someone she views as a cool friend told her was good at sex, so she’ll bang him one time and then go on with her life.
Liking casual sex, or not, really has nothing to do with religion. However, Liz has been taught that it does. So, in her rejection of religion, Liz is trying to embrace casual sex.
Casual sex might be great for her. Or she might prefer sex only with people she’s close to. Or there might be some middle ground – maybe she likes casual sex with friends but not strangers.
However, she isn’t taking the time to figure herself out. She is just doing the opposite of what she was taught to do. That means she’s still letting her upbringing shape her decisions rather than considering her own needs and desires.
Hmm. I guess the way I’m seeing this, Liz rejecting her religion, and the influence it’s had from her stepmom and her peers, that speaks to me as figuring herself out, in that pursuing sex because she wants it, and she wants it in this specific context of “I need to prove myself a real adult”, is a step in figuring herself out, what she wants out of her life, and what she expects from her sexual relationships, and I don’t think she can do that unless she makes that move when she chooses it, because the people around her aren’t going to guide her, they’re the ones causing her problems. If she doesn’t choose, then that choice will have to be made later. Maybe in a better state of mind? Or does she get worse kicking it down the road? I dunno, I think that’s something you can only process by making the best choice you can.
Like it’s not a healthy start, but that’s because that healthy start was shaped by other people who should have done better by her, and I don’t think that many people always get that healthy start anyway. To me, Liz breaking away from those influences, defying them where she can, strikes me as a play at independence even if she goes back to being “a Jesus Freak”, because banging a dude with no consequence is something she’ll get to hold to herself like “yeah you assholes are talking about me like I’m some dumb naive twit, guess who got some mad dick last night???”
Drawing this back to Ken over in Shortpacked!, he had this big mushy romance narrative where he’d silently (and not so silently) pine after Malaya. That’s what he wanted even if she had zero interest and it was honestly pathetic, bordering on hurting him to keep going. He brings Conquest over to make Malaya jealous, that doesn’t happen, and then woah, turns out he can actually just have sex with this cool lady and feel good about himself, and then when complicated feelings came up for him (saying how he feels bad that he doesn’t feel bad about it), he processed them. He did something against the narrative, and he came out of it healthy enough to be more assertive and confident in himself that he could stopped pursuing Malaya, started talking to girls, and eventually found something nice with Lucy.
I guess to wrap this up, I just think it’s best to do what’s right for you in the moment. That doesn’t mean harmful indulgence in instant gratification, what’s best for you in the moment also means what’s best for you later, but if you process something as good for you now, the only way you’ll know is if you go for it.
I mean, sure, that’s one way it could go. And, if that’s how she feels about it after, then that’s wonderful.
However, if she ends up feeling ashamed for entirely secular reasons of body image or issues with intimacy, the bad experience could make her think that her upbringing was correct after all – that the sex made her feel bad or uncomfortable because it was sinful rather than because it was something she wasn’t emotionally ready for. That could send her running back to toxic roots rather than away from them.
The trouble is, we don’t know which it might end up being. We don’t know Liz well enough to really predict what she is or is not ready for. And the foreshadowing we’ve been given through her dialogue – her almost desperate attempt to sound mature, mirroring Joyce own – makes me fearful.
We never know the future, and there are always bad what-ifs that we can dream up which might happen. But it’s stultifying to let those rule our choices instead of “what if it’s wonderful?”. Try an oyster, and if you don’t like it you can spot it out. It isn’t a disaster if you don’t like your first sip of beer.
The myth that virginity is a precious gift that we ought only to give away if it’s going to be wonderful and perfect, in a context of divinely-sanctioned true love, is oppressive patriarchal tosh. Treat it that way if you want, but if you find instead that for you shedding your virginity is a slightly awkward minor obstacle that you want to get past as lightly as you can that’s fine, too.
As for proving something to yourself, that too can be fine depending on what you are trying to prove and whether the proof is harmful or dangerous. Plucking up the courage to dive from the three-metre or even the nine-metre platform to prove to yourself that you can pluck up courage is usually fine. Getting a tattoo to prove that you can be cool is usually dumb and can have lasting bad consequences. To fuck hots boys as a way of proving go yourself that you can throw off or even rebel against the patriarchal strictures of a repressive, tyrannical upbringing.
Like I guess what I’m asking is if this is any different from Shortpacked! where Ken had this big dream narrative where he’d sweep Malaya off her feet and lose his virginity to her in a big romantic fantasy, and then he went on a date with Conquest and they banged and he felt confident and desirable enough about himself that he stopped pining after Malaya and started living more for his own sake.
Okay, looking over several threads where you’ve been commenting, you seem to be focused on two main points:
1) That the experience of having sex might be freeing for Liz.
2) That Joe has no right to tell Liz how she feels.
Assuming that my read on this is correct (you may correct me if not), then… I don’t really feel like people are arguing those two points. I feel like two separate points are being argued back at you.
Re1) That Liz might NOT find sex freeing, at least not yet.
Re2) That Joe has the right to not consent.
On the first point, the argument seems to be you say “she might’ and others say “she might not’ and then it goes around a few times getting nowhere – because we have no idea how Liz will respond. So that one doesn’t seem very productive other than musing.
On the second, your argument is very focused on Joe policing Liz’s feelings. But… that doesn’t matter. Joe has the right to say no. Full stop. He has that right. It might be for a good reason, a bad reason, or many mixed reasons, but if Joe says no, then that’s that. Joe is fully within his rights to refuse sex for any reason that Joe deems fit.
I don’t really see any counter argument that flies in the face of Joe’s right to consent.
Re1) That Liz might NOT find sex freeing, at least not yet
Less whether or not it will or won’t be, more that it’s her choice to go through with it if it’s what she wants to.
“Whether Liz should” and “whether it’ll be good for Liz” are things we can certainly think about since we’re an audience to a fictional character, which is the reason I laid out why I think it could and would be a healthy move for her. Obviously, if it does actually happen, I could be wrong.
This has me wondering if there’s some acceptable way to lose your virginity? Like Joe’s worried about Liz being inexperienced but how is she supposed to gain experience? Some people just want to get the moment but don’t have the time, opportunity, or desire to find someone to date and deal with that whole ordeal y’know?
What is Liz supposed to find a guy, date him for 3 weeks, then bang him only to find out they don’t really connect and the experience was overall unsatisfying? Is there some hypothetical perfect partner out there? I doubt it.
Faz would happily point out that he’s now above the age of consent in Indiana, which is 16. Fortunately for us, he’s under 18 and so there’s a 0% chance we’ll ever see him in a Dumbiverse-set Slipshine.
Yes, there absolutely are acceptable ways to be introduced to sex for the first time. “Casual experience with someone who’s on the same wavelength as you” is definitely one of them. “Rushing into your first sexual experience under false pretenses, while trying to prove something to yourself, with a far more experienced partner, all for the sake of bragging rights and/or internalized self-loathing” is not one of them.
I guess the question is: Do you make that decision for somebody else, or just trust that they’ve got their shit together enough to make and live with their own mistakes.
I don’t know whether or not I’d consider myself to be making that decision for them vs not getting involved in something that seems almost guaranteed to be a bad time even if I never hear from them again.
additionally, although I’m not interested in anyone as young as she is already (18-19?), the way she was talking on the previous page would kind of make me feel like I was interacting with a 13 year old and that’s not hot.
I don’t think they’re saying it’s just like Billie (Jennifer). The comparison is that Danny didn’t want to, and now Joe doesn’t seem to want to, and neither guy was aware of that at first.
A fair point. If Liz had been like “Hi. I know you’re skilled and experienced, and I want to make sure my first time is good, so please with the banging me now?” then all would have been well, but Liz is all “Let us have the casual intercourse to prove how much of an atheist I am now.” which is not a healthy mindset.
That’s the question though. Is Liz actually rushing into this or are we and Joe just projecting insecurities on to her like Danny said. Liz made a conscious decision to come to Joe. She didn’t have to and frankly even through the red flags of her language last strip she seemed fairly confident she was ready for something. But at this point it feels more like she would be using Joe than Joe somehow taking advantage of the helpless virgin girl who doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.
Those red flags in the language were pretty red flaggy, though, and you can read her body language as either ‘confident’ or ‘trying to prove something to herself’ or ‘like Joyce, bad at boundaries.’ (The joys of body language being something you interpret.)
Either way, Joe doesn’t seem enthused at the prospect. Even if he’s projecting Joyce onto Liz, the part where he’s caught Feelings for Joyce makes that a risky proposition. So it’s probably going to happen, and be a disaster on every possible level.
As did I. Not the best circumstances to be having sex, and even if Joe is misreading her signals, he’s uncomfortable with the prospect and that means he should say ‘no’. If he’s wrong, Liz can keep looking if she wants – plenty of hot guys in the hall, probably a few who are down for semi-anonymous sex and aren’t assholes.
I also think it’s worth noting that the strip characters can also hear tone of voice, whereas we have to intuit that from facial expressions, body language, and the dialogue itself. In a scene like this where it’s ambiguous to us, it’s entirely possible it’s NOT ambiguous spoken out loud.
It’s also not just the last strip, since her entire time here she’s been projecting a transparently fake image of herself as “worldly and experienced”.
More broadly though, how sure do you have to be that there’s something fishy going on before you’re justified in considering that when deciding whether or not to have sex with someone? My answer is “not very”. If you pick up on something and it makes you uncomfortable with it, it’s perfectly fine to refuse. It doesn’t mean you’re deciding for her or patronizing her or controlling her or that you’re a prude or whatever else people are saying.
I’m also not saying, just to be clear, that Joe would be a bad person if he went ahead with it anyway, despite some doubts. I just hope it wouldn’t be because he thought his man code required him to or some such nonsense.
Sure enough for me to be uncomfortable with it. Which will likely vary wildly based on a bajillion unpredictable factors at any given moment.
But, me being arbitrary and unpredictable doesn’t matter: once I’m uncomfortable with it, I no longer consent to being part of it, and one unconsenting partner is one too many.
The only acceptable way to lose your virginity is to lose it by your own volition. You’re gonna fuck it up somehow, someway. So the best you can hope for is that it is your own decision fuck it up with someone who’s also cool with that.
My college boyfriend and I had sex with each other, it was the first time for both of us, there was love and gentleness and so much communication, glacially gradual.
It is possible to not fuck it up!
@Sirksome
I don’t think Liz is “rushing into things” – I think, based on the clues in her dialogue, that Liz doesn’t actually want to have casual sex but thinks that she is supposed to – that part of being an atheist is having meaningless sex (Joyce had a similar impression about atheists earlier in this comic, but was mostly disabused of it by Dorothy).
If she has sex for reasons other than actually wanting sex, she’s likely to have a bad time emotionally.
Plus, I think that is what Joe is picking up on, even if he can’t find the words for it. Roz and Mayala desired casual sex, and Joe had no difficulty delivering. Liz wants the image that casual sex will give her and is trying to psyche herself up for it – and Joe is reading this correctly as her not actually wanting the sex.
To be fair, Danny didn’t actually tell Joe that Billie also flat-out said she expected to regret her choices. So he wasn’t really projecting much.
Also, Danny only said that because Joe refused to accept Danny saying he didn’t want to in the first place. So both parts of that were really all about Jo–oh.
“Someone get this hot probably a vergin girl away from me before I ruin her life, I do not consent to tarnishing someone’s innocence!”
For real though maybe since she’s under the influence he could string together how it’s immoral and possibly illegal to take advantage of someone while the under influence since she still thinks she’s tripping or he can do what someone joked he would do and climb out the window.
I wonder how the placebo effect holds up in court. Like seriously is being convinced you’re under the influence of a substance which then affected your behavior the same as acting under the influence of that substance?
Generally even being as “under the influence” as Liz appears to be (or could possibly be from one edible a while back) doesn’t hold up in court. Having a few beers and then taking the initiative to get laid doesn’t mean being raped. Otherwise every even slightly drunken hookup would be rape on someone’s part – possibly on both people’s part.
You have to be really impaired by the drug or alcohol for it to count.
She didn’t necessarily have sex with the guy Sarah liked. Making out or asking him to a dance or something would still cause a fight between teen sisters
I’m really proud of Joe growth here. Even just considering this is a huge step for him. I dont think there is any real problem if he has sex with the hott little sister. She is being frank up front and knows what she wants but now he has to decide if he wants to and it’s good he learn that hey it’s okay if he doesn’t want to
In terms of percents what is stopping Joe I wager 40% fear of Sarah 40% awareness that the situation, 18% Joyce feelings and miscellaneous. 2% Jabberwocky.
If your potential sexual partner is the promiscuous equivalent of an 8-year-old boy who’s found the gun his father keeps in the desk drawer in his study…
Some time I kind of read these strips out in my head imagining the conversation being spoken by the voice actors I had once assigned them for my fantasy VA cast team.
Right now I’m hearing Bender from Futurama with everything Joe is saying and Ron Stoppable for everything Dan is saying.
Will Friedle as Danny? Yeah, makes sense. The only characters I’ve got established voices for in my head are Ruth (Shelby Rabara) and Raidah (Reagan Gomez-Preston).
Why not Jennifer? Rich, distanced from her parents, had a Dramatic Haircut, not openly on the friendliest of terms with her brother but still cares for him on some level…there’re at least surface-level parallels to be made between Azula and Jennifer. 😛
Twilight Sparkle is probably closest. Intelligent and bookish, optimistic but with a bit of dry humor. Maybe give her just a dash of Raven too, bring her vocal range down just a bit.
That said, a bubbly, Timmy Turner/Bubbles/Rikku Tara Strong would be a perfect Joyce, too.
And something like her Raven voice would be FANTASTIC for Amber/Amazi-girl.
There was a brief period of time that some people wanted to do a dumbing of age Dub. I was cast as Danny. So y’know…Danny could have sounded like a loser 😛 (At least it woulda been accurate)
I remember that, I would have killed to at least play the “Buckets of Blood Guy”…Which in my mind may or may not have proven I was a good fit if you ask me
Could this be character development? In Joe?! (ngl, Mike having been offed, Joe is now my favorite guy in the series. I like asshole characters, don’t ask me why.)
Cute Joe and I agree. 😛 I tend to like all the characters everyone hates. Especially when there’s that kernel of goodness buried deep down that you can see coming through the cracks.
I never imagined it would happen but Joe ended up being my absolute favourite around two years ago and I’ve been on board with his character arc ever since. He truly is one of the best characters in this story and that’s a really nice, cute drawing of him! (All your drawings are cute, by the way! I really like your chibis.)
(It’s nearly 1AM and I’m tired so bear with me this comment might be rambly nonsense)
Everyone in the comments has been arguing for the past day about whether Joe doesn’t want to bang Liz for the “right” reasons which is really weird to me because any reason to not want sex is a good reason to say no to sex.
Yes, even the dumb condescending ones. Even the ones that are like “I don’t want to have sex with you because I think I know your wants and mental state better than you.” Having sex when someone puts the opportunity on the table is opt-in, not opt-out, and Joe’s discomfort with the situation shouldn’t need to reach some arbitrary standards of Discomfort and Moral Upstandingness.
Danny has the right of it by highlighting the validity of Joe’s unwillingness and discomfort in the matter. Joe should say no to this, because Joe doesn’t want to have sex with Liz. His reasons for why he doesn’t want to have sex with her don’t really matter past that point and aren’t deserving of any sort of moral scrutiny.
Also, like, it’s not actually wrong to say, “I don’t think I feel good about having sex with you because you don’t seem mature enough to make good decisions. I feel like you’re being reckless and it’s going to hurt you, which would hurt me.” Is it condescending? Well, duh. Sometimes you honestly don’t think a person is being very smart. That doesn’t make it toxic or even inherently sexist (context matters a lot here).
We are two different people. Just adding that because I just realized our avatars are the same and I opened my post with “Also,” like I was you posting an addendum.
But no, like, I’ve been in relationships where I really wish one of us had been smart enough to take a step back and realize, “Okay, I know you say you’re ready for this, and I respect that, but I also am not sure I trust your judgement on it because you’re sending some red flags, and this could really hurt both of us if we go ahead and you can’t handle it.”
Agreed, being uncomfortable with the situation for absolutely any reason is a sufficient reason to decline sex, even if it’s paternalistic or condescending or more about you than them.
That said, I took a lot of the arguing to be less about “is Joe justified in turning her down?” and more like “if Joe takes her up on it, is that wrong?” Or even “Joe’s answer aside, was it okay/a good idea for Liz to be asking?”
But admittedly I didn’t read all the comments so I might’ve missed the ones you’re referring to, in which case, yeah. Joe doesn’t exactly have to have an airtight argument to not wanna have sex.
That’s what I was seeing, up until Liz revealed she’s less experienced. I think the comments section had swung from this is a bad idea to kind of implying casual sex was bad. But I guess now its swung back around to a reality check “does joe actually want this” which is probably a good thing as that’s all that matters to Joe right now
How I read the comments section is a lot of people saying “is Joe justified in turning her down?” and a lot of other people hearing “if Joe takes her up on it, is that wrong?”
There’s also a big difference between “was it okay for Liz to be asking?” and was it a good idea for Liz to be asking?” There’s nothing morally wrong about Liz asking, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually a good idea for her.
“I don’t want to have sex with you because I think I know your wants and mental state better than you.”
Well yeah this is still A Reason not to have sex, it’s just one where you’re taking a bizarre level of ownership of another person’s mental state to do so.
I question how often it shakes out the way Danny and Joe have, in that they’ve both lied about it, where they’ve just declared someone else generally unfit to decide for themself whether or not they can have sex rather than stuff like “I don’t think you want the same thing I do from this”, “I am removing myself from this entire process for whatever justification I need”, “I don’t want to be the person this goes down with” ’cause at least those imply some input from the person saying it as opposed to “well you’re just totally incapable of making your own decisions, in general, so I need to protect you from the thing you’re saying you want, which I am totally willing to give you, and not having it is your fault.”
Like how many reasons can you burn through before you land on deciding you innately know better than someone else?
So was it wrong for Dorothy to bang Walky? He’s never touched a weed, he rarely swears, he has in fact said “jeepers” in front of his mom. Totally inexperienced, really problematic of Dorothy to propose the idea after romantic hijinks and Walky was all about it, as his inexperience and lack of weed dictates that’s a thing he can’t decide for himself.
It’s also Hella Weird to me to process Liz’s inexperience as a reason she can’t bang a dude. Like, how’s she supposed to get that experience? A casual fling with a dude the extremely cool and worldly Joyce told her was her friend with rewards program that she’ll never see again, banging him to assert herself away from the Jesus Freak she’s forced to be to appease her stepmom while her peers at her college condescend to her, that kind of strikes me as a remarkably good time to get your feet and other things wet if losing your virginity is a thing you think of as a rite of passage or emotionally fulfilling.
It sounds like you’re trying to find a moral reason why it’s okay not to have sex instead of just not having sex because you don’t want it.
No, it’s not wrong for inexperienced people to have sex that’s ridiculous. But when an one person senses an another person is headed for pain… pfft, screw it, nevermind. For some reason you are incredibly invested in the idea that it’s wrong for them to care.
I don’t think what you’re describing is caring, but then I think you’re processing what I’ve been saying as a lack of caring, so we’re probably not having the same conversation.
Dorothy and Walky had a different dynamic. There was a relationship developing. It was no one night stand. Walky wasn’t desperate for sex. Dorothy would have taken no for an answer without it seriously hurting their budding relationship.
Liz is “I’m horny. You’re hot and experienced. Let’s do it, then you’ll never see me again. Oh, and by the way, I also may be a virgin and I am the little sister of a woman you really do not want to cross.” That is definitely reason to hesitate.
Furthermore, Joe probably suspects, at least subconsciously, that there is an above zero chance than Liz’s post-coital response would be, “Ooh, that was incredible. I want to stay with you forever and ever and be your only girl.” with the implied “Or I’ll tell my sister…”
Dorothy and Walky had a different dynamic. There was a relationship developing. It was no one night stand. Walky wasn’t desperate for sex. Dorothy would have taken no for an answer without it seriously hurting their budding relationship.
Can it not be a one-night stand if a one-night stand is all you want?
Liz is “I’m horny. You’re hot and experienced. Let’s do it, then you’ll never see me again. Oh, and by the way, I also may be a virgin and I am the little sister of a woman you really do not want to cross.” That is definitely reason to hesitate
Okay but he’s hesitating by declaring her unable to decide for herself that she can choose to have sex, as opposed to saying he doesn’t want it (and he can’t because yaaaaay toxic masculinity).
Also yeah, virgins can have sex if they want to. That’s kind of the point, they stop being virgins afterward. That’s also okay if they want to have a one-night stand with someone an extremely cool person asserted was an incredible sexual partner.
Furthermore, Joe probably suspects, at least subconsciously, that there is an above zero chance than Liz’s post-coital response would be, “Ooh, that was incredible. I want to stay with you forever and ever and be your only girl.” with the implied “Or I’ll tell my sister…”
a. One night stands are fine. I was pointing out that Dorothy and Walky had a different dynamic and are not a good comparison.
b. As other people pointed out, Joe cannot conceive of saying no. He needs an excuse for himself so he can say no. Danny is doing a great job of pointing that out in this strip.
c. Yes, it is creepy. I have experienced it, though not with a virgin. I know others it has happened to as well. Not just woman to man (Liz to Joe), but maybe more frequently man to woman. I have little doubt Joe has seen this at least a few times, if not personally then through his father (also creepy).
To clarify, this isn’t Liz’s motivation, but it could be an unintended result, especially with one as talented and skilled as Joe is (in his own mind). It can also provide another excuse to justify Joe saying no, again, in his own mind.
An aside: I think the right thing for Joe to do is say no. The dynamics between Joe and Liz, Joyce and Sarah are too volatile for Joe for this to go forward. Ideally, Joe should realize this and say no for the right reasons. But this is Joe. This is a hot (virginal?) babe. I am impressed Danny isn’t out the door and Joe isn’t naked already.
So Joe should just ignore his instincts and go to town with Liz because that’s what she says she wants right now? Is he wrong to feel there’s something off about this situation?
Is Joe uncomfortable for literally any reason, like say, the Dreaded Feels he’s got going on in relation to how he views sex now, how that ties into the person he used to be he thought was an ideal that Joyce made clear was deeply harmful to her, and whether or not a certain other ex-churchy girl is who he’s thinking about right now, let alone any other reason banging Liz isn’t something he’d want to do?
Or to put it in one line: Joe’s uncomfortable right now because he’s in a situation he’s supposed to think of as his ideal, and he doesn’t know how to process that he can not want to have sex with an eager woman, because A. he never has processed that question and B. he’s been reinforced over and over that saying no to sex makes him a loser.
I’ll just tell you upfront, just so everyone else has got it here, that I’m not processing this as “Joe needs to RESPECT WOMEN and have sex in a circumstance he is uncomfortable in!”
But I think it’s pretty clear, as in this strip is directly calling back to that time Danny objected to sex with Billie on the grounds of knowing better than her when she wanted sex (which was a slim deflection to his true feelings that he didn’t want to because like all men, Danny buys into some aspects of toxic masculinity enforced upon us), that Joe’s objections aren’t with Liz, they’re with him and his feelings and he’s projecting them onto Liz to justify why having sex with her isn’t a thing he doesn’t want to do, Joe is a Man’s Man and therefore is Always Horny and Always Eager, but that she’s incapable of deciding for herself.
IIRC, you’re viewing this as Joe feeling uncomfortable because he’s weirded out by Liz’s behaviour, and that his budding morality is acting on that discomfort instead of rolling with it to her detriment, right?
I obviously won’t call that wrong or anything, being Wrong All The Time is my forte, but, yes, my read on Joe is definitely that this is related to his feelings on what he’s supposed to do, because he doesn’t want to have sex with her but doesn’t have the words to say that and his reasons for not wanting to have sex with Liz aren’t that she’s “inexperienced” or whatever. They’re rooted in his own discomfort with what he’s gone through and learned about himself relating to what sex means to him, his inability to form emotional bonds, how that persona he built so he’d never be hurt or hurt anyone else actually caused Joyce a tremendous amount of pain, and he’s kinda sorta in love with her.
Probably, yeah. I don’t think Joe is weirded out because Liz is “inexperienced”, I don’t think Liz’s agency or behaviour is, in a vacuum, particularly weird, because she’s 18 and had a sheltered upbringing and now she really wants to break out of it, I think Joe is freaking out because:
-he’s being propositioned for sex at a point in time where what sex means to him is up in the air
– he’s being propositioned for sex by someone who is actually just Joyce.
I’m not sure I agree that any reason not to have sex is a “good” reason. You’re absolutely correct that sex is an opt-in and any reason is valid, but I’d put that more as “you don’t need a good reason to not have sex.”
Especially in fiction, when a reason is offered, we can critique that reason and see whether it makes sense and whether it offers insight into a character’s personality or even morality. Of course, we first have to figure out what that reason actually is, especially since people aren’t always explicit or honest about their motivations, sometimes even to themselves.
Not necessarily. He certainly doesn’t have to justify it, but there’s nothing wrong with talking to a friend or even to the other person involved about why you didn’t. Depending on the circumstances it might even help the other person handle being rejected better.
Joe dude if u have reservations about having sex w someone u shouldn’t have sex with them I know this shatters ur whole devil may care horn dog shit but u gotta say no man
I’m betting money on it being Dana, returning to the series, and making a running gag out of Jacob dating people Sarah had horrible dramatic fallouts with.
I’m hoping Dana comes back and Sarah and Raidah both go “see, I was right!” where Sarah was totally right to send her back home while Raidah was totally right that Dana could have gotten better, and then Dana just cold stares them dead in the eye and goes “you stupid assholes have no idea what you did to me.”
And then we find out that Sarah sent her back to a troubled home life (which would line up with how the last time Raidah talked to Dana, Dana said she wasn’t doing well), but at least Sarah acknowledged the drug abuse unlike Raidah, who just ignored it thinking it’d be fine and never thought to listen to Sarah and talk to Dana about it.
And then Dana power walks away and goes and has a pleasant time with Jacob while those two smug jackasses can’t bring themselves to say anything because they’ve based their entire adversarial relationship on doing right by Dana, and they both ruined it.
(I’m not linking to the time sink website, but it’s that “heroes and villains team up to defeat a common foe” trope. It wouldn’t make a bad chapter title, either…)
That’s a compelling theory and I kinda suspect that too, but I was talking about Juanita, who is a new character that (unless I’m mistaken) will be introduced in “Trial and Sarah”, and I think she might be introduced dating Jacob
Just judging by the title, that chapter sounds like it’s going to tie into Sarah’s law classes at least a little (ideally in the form of a mock trial, but I don’t want to get my hopes up), classes she shared with Jacob. Basically I’m pretty confident we’ll be seeing Jacob again in “Trial and Sarah” and he’ll have a new girlfriend, who will be either Dana or Juanita
Or maybe I’m wrong about everything and I’ll be completely owned in a couple of months.
If I were the gambling type (a) I would have had a flutter on the Melbourne Cup last Tuesday, and (b) I would wager that Joe is going to bed Liz, with the result that Liz will be fine and Joe will be a mess of regrets and second thoughts.
…for other side, I rather Liz get laid with Joe than other random guy, also because I don’t sip him with Joyce.
Besides, he should rage Sarah, but I’m kind wait for it. hahaha
For some reason my responses are not showing up. I am probably messing up the link. It is a text Joe sent to Danny when they went through this the first time. (Feb 6, 2012, Text)
In my opinion there’s a difference between something being wrong, and something being a mistake. Liz is free to lose her virginity on her terms, and I wouldn’t think less of Joe if he decides this is what he wants. However, it probably will make him less happy in the long run since this will for sure disrupt his relationship with Sarah and possibly Joyce.
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people can… choose… NOT to have sex??
*head a splode*
“If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
And so, if I am unfaithful, you must blame it either on the woman or God. Your choice.
Spoiler: it’s never God.
It’s also never the woman (unless it’s the woman being unfaithful).
But the rules of the game are that you must blame someone and never never take responsibility.
*flips the board*
You always sneeze like that when you’re losing.
I have INCREDIBLE allergies to bullshit rules. Blame Big Pharma for making the medication so expensive I can’t keep them under control.
Amazingly, yes! You can even choose to not have sex in a stable relationship, let alone things like what Joe is trying to avoid here (which, btw, kudos to Joe for having enough character growth to realize that he would be taking advantage of her to go through with it).
There is supposed to be a /s tag embedded there but I can’t type
It was clear enough, but the internet be internetting.
I dunno Danny. I think you’re a boob.
Also I’m willing to bet money that everyone is racing to make that same joke.
He’s a boob who’s currently making a good point.
So he’s a pointy boob. Like, a boob when it’s cold out, or in one of those old-timey bras, or one of the Fembots from Austin Powers with the machine gun barrels.
…I forget what we were talking about, but whatever it was I conclude that Danny is a robot.
Pointy bras are underrated. I dunno what it is but I love a good ol’ fashioned pointy bra.
Look up Chansonette or Bullet Bra .. they were the in style of the 1950’s
Your impeccable logic compells me to agree.
That was a reply to the Doctor, which is not to denigrate point bras.
Boobs are nice and Danny is nice, so by the transitive property…
Speaking of which, just looking at the strip and the comments section is kinda hard for me right now.
Just wondering, is anyone else besides me trying to do a No Nut November?
**head tilt**
I have heard of this odd tradition before, but I will admit that it utterly baffles me. What precisely is the point of men not orgasming in the month of November?
Masochism
Seems to me there are easier ways to accomplish that.
Nipple clamps for one.
You are totally correct…. that would be easier. But some like it….harder….
Or even, like, nails. On the person’s back. Real hard-like. …not that I’d know, mind you.
I’d previously been assuming it was the same vague prostate cancer awareness thing that No Shave November is about but honestly if it’s not, I don’t really want to know.
People do it for multiple reasons. Sometimes it’s to raise awareness, sometimes it’s for masochism, sometimes it’s out of shear curiosity.
As for my reason to participate, here’s a hint —
“Food tastes better when you’re hungry.”
Re: Food tastes better when you’re hungry.
True. However, a full month starvation isn’t usually necessary to gain those results in food – merely a few hours. And, back to the BDSM, orgasm denial and/or edging achieves basically the same results (for both men and women) in, again, an hour or two.
But to each their own. Your body your choice and all that.
If it is about prostate cancer, then a month of not ejaculating would achieve pretty much the same thing as eating all the pies in order to raise awareness about dieting. Regular ejaculation keeps the prostate healthy.
Very true!
If I’m willing to sacrifice that bit of health maintenance for a time to eventually make it more enjoyable, I wonder what that says about me.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t that whole thing start because some right-wing nutters are obessed with the idea that masturbation makes you weak or some shit?
Kinda weird how that became a thing the internet as a whole seems to give a shit about.
Either pornhub or reddit made it mainstream. Potentially both
It started as a satire thing (don’t ask me; I don’t understand satire), but somehow caught on as something serious. The hard right seems to have taken it up. If you go to the NNN website, which I decline to link to, you’ll find such expressions as “nigga nigga nigga nigga” and “I hate Jews.” This is supposed to be funny. I didn’t laugh.
I’m not gonna try to claim you’re doing this, but I definitely feel like there’s this issue where people think “Right wing people like this thing so now it’s bad”. Like I get that it can put a bad taste in your mouth but at the end of the day, statistically right wing people are gonna like things that other people like too. Right wing people are people who interact with media and the internet too. The problem is when people allow people they don’t like to effect their opinion of that thing because that honestly just relinquishes it to them. Then it truly DOES become a right wing thing because everyone else stop liking it because they did.
I dunno I feel not everything has to have this “actually under the surface there’s this”. Just do/like something because you like it. If you don’t like the people behind it reclaim it. It’s why I didn’t want to let that dickweed who did the inktober thing Ruin inktober for me. Because I liked inktober before I knew he existed and I’m not gonna let him take something I like away from me.
I think there’s a sensible conversation in discussing stuff that comes from alt-right circles or otherwise questionable places, like the term “friendzone” can be casually used these days as “I like them, but they don’t like me back”, but it started as “I am entitled to a woman’s vagina if I’m nice to her” and the only problem there is how someone else reacts to you saying it because of the context they know of it that you don’t.
Then you get stuff that’s just outright harmful, like “I identify as an attack helicopter!” which is an explicitly transphobic joke, but share it with ten people and most of them will go “that’s silly, people can’t be helicopters” and eventually it gets so widespread that the official Sonic the Hedgehog twitter account makes this joke. There’s not really any value in that, and there’s not really a way to redefine it either.
Then I think about stuff like the OK symbol or having 88 in your username, which you just can’t do anymore because of Nazis I guess? And they just took it so now we can’t do them anymore and then eventually a forum I frequent starts questioning whether the new Matrix should have the Red Pill/Blue Pill scene because of what Red Pill has come to mean to the modern alt-right movement, except the Matrix is the most trans narrative in the universe made by two trans women, why the fuck would we take that from them?
Pepe the Frog was a cartoon some dude drew and then Nazis made it theirs over the protests of the guy who made it as his creation became the mascot of the alt-right as he’s attempted to take it back. Life comes at you funny sometimes.
Frankly, I do agree that capitulating in that “oh but they do this” is kinda spineless, because we’re just letting them take stuff from us, which they will do anyway. If Steven Universe and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind were the only works of fiction to ever exist, you’d still get some berk trying to claim them as an expression of their based redpilled worldview. There’s no point in negotiating with them and even less in letting them take away stuff you love, you just gotta start hitting them.
Really, the only thing that’s up for debate to me is why did someone come up with an entire month of not touching your bits? That’s wack.
Yeah I feel like that’s the problem with trying to avoid things with a bad connotation. It just relinquishes those things to bad actors. The nazi party took and corrupted a symbol representing peace and prosperity, the manji and associated it with hatred and genocide. And now it’s gone. The name adolf? Gone. Hell even the toothbrush moustache is gone. The sheer power of bad people is their ability to take things from us forever. And honestly I’m sick of that. Agree with its usage or not I admire the idea of the black community to reclaimed the [N-word]. Personally I’m sick and tired letting assholes all the power.
It is a super danged weird thing.
Like, they just start using it, much to my chagrin they exist and do appropriate symbols, and then we just give it to them forever because we’re afraid of other people associating us with them.
I know a region where half mail adresses being or end with 88.. because it’s the département administrative number. It’s weird because there are also a neo-nazi presence there, but they can’t use it as a beacon since it’s widely neutralized.
Also a form of svastika is used byt bask independantists, without it being thougth as affiliation o nazis. It has to do with their antifascist stance, ofc, but not only.
What I’m saying is that you can’t, alone, claim the use of a symbol, be it a word, without a social context favoring it.
Personnally, I’m all about nazis being easy to identify because the alternative is frightening (and already happening).
the swastika is absolutely everywhere in India. they don’t really care about nazism, that’s always been a traditional Hindu symbol for good things, and they just went right on using it that way I guess.
as for the Hitlerstache and the name Adolf, i mean… does anyone miss those? like… really?
Hey, Charlie Chaplin made it work.
But, I think the idea is more that the reason we hate them is because of the real life evils they’ve become associated with.
Granted, that hard rejection is way more understandable in the case of actual World War II Nazis.
oh that’s definitely the reason we hate them. i’m just saying to me those things sit at the “meh” end on the spectrum of things we can’t touch anymore because of nazis.
also, Charlie Chaplin wasn’t called Adolf you ding dong!
coming in late
I think it’s great to keep doing lnktober if you want, but at the same time, there are SO MANY variants of exactly the same thing that AREN’T called lnktober, like the Botober entries I did!
As an artist, I make it my goal. Nay my DUTY to get as many people as I can to fail No nut November.
You’d make a great demon, that’s for sure!
None of your recent pieces have gotten me to that point so far, but I encourage you to keep trying!
Didja see the one I did tonight?
As a matter of fact I did.
While it was appealing aesthetically, it didn’t quite *get* me like that.
In fact, just about nothing has been getting me recently. Which is kind of why I’m doing this No Nut November in the first place.
You fight the good fight, Yotomoe. And no, I haven’t yet – is it linked here somewhere?
https://imgur.com/a/AFSqWqV
I thought it was some food allergy thing.
2 days so far isn’t really a issue.
No, because I don’t like pointlessly depriving myself of things just cuz an unfunny internet meme told me to.
“Hunger is the best sauce.”
– Anonymous, wise one
I’ve never seen the appeal of it, and if I was trying I would’ve failed already anyway.
… that’s a real thing?
I think i failed at the literal beginning hours
Ditto.
Not doing it. Doubt I ever voluntarily will.
That said, it is your choice. It hurts no one. It makes you happy. Therefore, here’s rooting for your success. May you find that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
What on earth happened under my comment
DoA fans gonna DoA
Boo[…b]!
shit, did I type that code wrong |=’
and not reply in-thread
[cut losses here]
Yeesh. If Joe’s actually fretting this much about it he just shouldn’t do it. It almost feels wrong on his end now.
I mean, it’s wrong in the exact same sense it was wrong for Danny to have sex with Billie.
My bet is still that Joe goes for it. I’m glad I didn’t actually put down stakes.
Wait when did that happen in this universe?
Early on in the comic Dorothy sent Billie to Danny for a lead on Amazi-girl for a story and she was having a low self esteem moment and decided to spontaneously bang him.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/business/
But it ultimately didn’t happen because Danny was reluctant do to a mix of coming off Dorothy’s harsh breakup with him and developing a connection with Amber. But I don’t think there would have been anything wrong if they hooked up except that Danny didn’t want to which is fine. I think people expect guys to always be wanting sex, but when a dude is this worried about it, it almost feels like they’re being used. Which was my point in the first place.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/eyecontact/ it’s been a bit
Goodness, I think this was the strip where young yoto was like “alright this Billie girl is pretty damn hot”
(I had not yet read the walkyverse. Also Dumbiverse Billie is hotter)
That was 9 years ago, geez.
I would been about 17 going on 18.
Aagh yes going down old memory memory lane.
Let’s see, nine years ago I was…
oh no
[Aging sequence from Saving Private Ryan dot gif]
Nine years ago today I would have been deciding what to buy myself for my upcoming twenty-ninth birthday in a few days.
Haha, i was 11 when that came out. I think that would’ve been a year before my buddy got me into doa and sp.
I wonder if he still reads the comments…
Hi van! It’s me!
Actually, probably this one is more accurate. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/casualbang/
I mean, no, it really isn’t. This situation has a lot more weird nuance.
Danny + Billie: Billie was bored and wanted sex and was like “you’ll do” to Danny who was like “no thank you” which was a reasonable response.
This is a young woman trying to prove to herself that she’s thrown away all her ideals along with her religion (which is the same unhealthy attitude that Joyce is currently wallowing in) approaching Joe in a creepy way. Joe is also having some complex feelings that he is trying to deal with, so now really isn’t a great time for him. THere’s a lot more going on with this one than the one they’re comparing it to.
Billie and Danny had more going on, too. She wasn’t bored, she was feeling really terrible about not being a head cheerleader and on top of the hierarchy anymore, for a long time, and when Danny reached to her like she *was* top of the hierarchy, even mentioning that she was out of his league due to being “a cheerleader or something”, that felt so good and she wanted so much to hold onto that old preferred role for a moment. But Danny was working through all his breakup feels and a new crush. Danny wasn’t into a casual bang, which is valid too, so they didn’t.
I suspect Danny actually picked up on and was weirded out by Jennifer wanting to use him to validate her self-esteem.
But of course to Joe and to some here, any considerations like that are suspect at best.
Probably not, given the context of that strip and how it’s being called back to here.
We the audience obviously know Billie had Stuff in her head, but Danny comes up with a dumb, invalidating read on Billie to say he couldn’t have sex even though, being a man, he super wanted to, and then he came clean that he wasn’t ready so soon after Dorothy and he still had residual feels, plus he had fallen for Amazi-Girl at that point.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this post so much as I don’t think approaching sex really quickly is throwing away any ideals, especially when those ideals are something that Liz just made clear yesterday have caused her a great deal of harm.
Like, Liz’s ideals mean she has to lie to someone important to her to keep up appearances and her peers condescend* to her as a Jesus Freak, those aren’t ideals worth upholding and certainly not so worth upholding to the point where she can’t have a small bit of release away from them. She clearly has some expectations but are they wrong? Would it not be healthy for her to just assert herself here just to say she did, to take ownership of that part of her?
*she did specify ‘condescend’, which, y’know, pretty relevant to a certain other ex-Christian now
atheistnon-believer who’s had it repeatedly enforced that she belongs in a box her friends insist she has to stay in so they can laugh about it.@Spencer re throwing away ideals
I mean, I don’t either, but I think that’s how Liz is viewing it. To coop the old adage, she thinks that throwing the baby out is required to be rid of the bathwater.
Or, to put it another way, I entirely agree with you – but I think that, while Liz taking control of her own sexuality is great, I don’t think she sees it that way. I think she is in a very bad headspace right now and that has the potential to taint the experience if she’s not careful – which she explicitly isn’t being.
I guess I’m questioning what the baby is, if the bathwater is all the resentments she’s got with her peers and her stepmom. Like, what is she throwing away here that isn’t something she finds harmful and stifling to her?
She’s obviously got a lot of hang-ups about how she’s perceived, but unlike Joyce who used to draw strength by doubling down on the things other people made fun of her, Liz wants to break away from them as hard as possible, if only for a moment, because who knows how she’ll be forced to act once she’s back at her college pretending to be deeply religious for her stepmom while everyone else calls her a Jesus Freak.
She’s rushing in, but she’s rushing in because she’s been held back for so long. She’s missed out on stuff she wanted and was told she was too stupid, weird and naive to have, so she wants them badly without having the right words to describe them, and it’s not like she’s walking into bars going “yo whaddup someone stick their dick in me”, she approached a guy that someone she views as a cool friend told her was good at sex, so she’ll bang him one time and then go on with her life.
Liking casual sex, or not, really has nothing to do with religion. However, Liz has been taught that it does. So, in her rejection of religion, Liz is trying to embrace casual sex.
Casual sex might be great for her. Or she might prefer sex only with people she’s close to. Or there might be some middle ground – maybe she likes casual sex with friends but not strangers.
However, she isn’t taking the time to figure herself out. She is just doing the opposite of what she was taught to do. That means she’s still letting her upbringing shape her decisions rather than considering her own needs and desires.
Hmm. I guess the way I’m seeing this, Liz rejecting her religion, and the influence it’s had from her stepmom and her peers, that speaks to me as figuring herself out, in that pursuing sex because she wants it, and she wants it in this specific context of “I need to prove myself a real adult”, is a step in figuring herself out, what she wants out of her life, and what she expects from her sexual relationships, and I don’t think she can do that unless she makes that move when she chooses it, because the people around her aren’t going to guide her, they’re the ones causing her problems. If she doesn’t choose, then that choice will have to be made later. Maybe in a better state of mind? Or does she get worse kicking it down the road? I dunno, I think that’s something you can only process by making the best choice you can.
Like it’s not a healthy start, but that’s because that healthy start was shaped by other people who should have done better by her, and I don’t think that many people always get that healthy start anyway. To me, Liz breaking away from those influences, defying them where she can, strikes me as a play at independence even if she goes back to being “a Jesus Freak”, because banging a dude with no consequence is something she’ll get to hold to herself like “yeah you assholes are talking about me like I’m some dumb naive twit, guess who got some mad dick last night???”
Drawing this back to Ken over in Shortpacked!, he had this big mushy romance narrative where he’d silently (and not so silently) pine after Malaya. That’s what he wanted even if she had zero interest and it was honestly pathetic, bordering on hurting him to keep going. He brings Conquest over to make Malaya jealous, that doesn’t happen, and then woah, turns out he can actually just have sex with this cool lady and feel good about himself, and then when complicated feelings came up for him (saying how he feels bad that he doesn’t feel bad about it), he processed them. He did something against the narrative, and he came out of it healthy enough to be more assertive and confident in himself that he could stopped pursuing Malaya, started talking to girls, and eventually found something nice with Lucy.
I guess to wrap this up, I just think it’s best to do what’s right for you in the moment. That doesn’t mean harmful indulgence in instant gratification, what’s best for you in the moment also means what’s best for you later, but if you process something as good for you now, the only way you’ll know is if you go for it.
I mean, sure, that’s one way it could go. And, if that’s how she feels about it after, then that’s wonderful.
However, if she ends up feeling ashamed for entirely secular reasons of body image or issues with intimacy, the bad experience could make her think that her upbringing was correct after all – that the sex made her feel bad or uncomfortable because it was sinful rather than because it was something she wasn’t emotionally ready for. That could send her running back to toxic roots rather than away from them.
The trouble is, we don’t know which it might end up being. We don’t know Liz well enough to really predict what she is or is not ready for. And the foreshadowing we’ve been given through her dialogue – her almost desperate attempt to sound mature, mirroring Joyce own – makes me fearful.
We never know the future, and there are always bad what-ifs that we can dream up which might happen. But it’s stultifying to let those rule our choices instead of “what if it’s wonderful?”. Try an oyster, and if you don’t like it you can spot it out. It isn’t a disaster if you don’t like your first sip of beer.
The myth that virginity is a precious gift that we ought only to give away if it’s going to be wonderful and perfect, in a context of divinely-sanctioned true love, is oppressive patriarchal tosh. Treat it that way if you want, but if you find instead that for you shedding your virginity is a slightly awkward minor obstacle that you want to get past as lightly as you can that’s fine, too.
As for proving something to yourself, that too can be fine depending on what you are trying to prove and whether the proof is harmful or dangerous. Plucking up the courage to dive from the three-metre or even the nine-metre platform to prove to yourself that you can pluck up courage is usually fine. Getting a tattoo to prove that you can be cool is usually dumb and can have lasting bad consequences. To fuck hots boys as a way of proving go yourself that you can throw off or even rebel against the patriarchal strictures of a repressive, tyrannical upbringing.
That’s a good thing to know you can do.
Like I guess what I’m asking is if this is any different from Shortpacked! where Ken had this big dream narrative where he’d sweep Malaya off her feet and lose his virginity to her in a big romantic fantasy, and then he went on a date with Conquest and they banged and he felt confident and desirable enough about himself that he stopped pining after Malaya and started living more for his own sake.
Okay, looking over several threads where you’ve been commenting, you seem to be focused on two main points:
1) That the experience of having sex might be freeing for Liz.
2) That Joe has no right to tell Liz how she feels.
Assuming that my read on this is correct (you may correct me if not), then… I don’t really feel like people are arguing those two points. I feel like two separate points are being argued back at you.
Re1) That Liz might NOT find sex freeing, at least not yet.
Re2) That Joe has the right to not consent.
On the first point, the argument seems to be you say “she might’ and others say “she might not’ and then it goes around a few times getting nowhere – because we have no idea how Liz will respond. So that one doesn’t seem very productive other than musing.
On the second, your argument is very focused on Joe policing Liz’s feelings. But… that doesn’t matter. Joe has the right to say no. Full stop. He has that right. It might be for a good reason, a bad reason, or many mixed reasons, but if Joe says no, then that’s that. Joe is fully within his rights to refuse sex for any reason that Joe deems fit.
I don’t really see any counter argument that flies in the face of Joe’s right to consent.
Re1) That Liz might NOT find sex freeing, at least not yet
Less whether or not it will or won’t be, more that it’s her choice to go through with it if it’s what she wants to.
“Whether Liz should” and “whether it’ll be good for Liz” are things we can certainly think about since we’re an audience to a fictional character, which is the reason I laid out why I think it could and would be a healthy move for her. Obviously, if it does actually happen, I could be wrong.
Re2) That Joe has the right to not consent.
Yeah that was never up for debate.
That he has gotten to this point makes me feel proud of Joe.
Now I’m conflicted as whether to play Iggy & The Stooges or Ozzy Osbourne.
Joe has really grown as a character to just have qualms, even if he eventually goes through with it.
(Also, I think he might be afraid of Sarah.)
He probably should be
There are oh so many strings, Joe…
Danny is a good friend.
This has me wondering if there’s some acceptable way to lose your virginity? Like Joe’s worried about Liz being inexperienced but how is she supposed to gain experience? Some people just want to get the moment but don’t have the time, opportunity, or desire to find someone to date and deal with that whole ordeal y’know?
What is Liz supposed to find a guy, date him for 3 weeks, then bang him only to find out they don’t really connect and the experience was overall unsatisfying? Is there some hypothetical perfect partner out there? I doubt it.
Faz is still underage, so no.
Faz would happily point out that he’s now above the age of consent in Indiana, which is 16. Fortunately for us, he’s under 18 and so there’s a 0% chance we’ll ever see him in a Dumbiverse-set Slipshine.
Frankly his chances would probably be zero even if he was over 18
Yes, there absolutely are acceptable ways to be introduced to sex for the first time. “Casual experience with someone who’s on the same wavelength as you” is definitely one of them. “Rushing into your first sexual experience under false pretenses, while trying to prove something to yourself, with a far more experienced partner, all for the sake of bragging rights and/or internalized self-loathing” is not one of them.
This (Jon). It’s weirding me out that people are agreeing that it’s just like Billie
I guess the question is: Do you make that decision for somebody else, or just trust that they’ve got their shit together enough to make and live with their own mistakes.
I don’t know whether or not I’d consider myself to be making that decision for them vs not getting involved in something that seems almost guaranteed to be a bad time even if I never hear from them again.
additionally, although I’m not interested in anyone as young as she is already (18-19?), the way she was talking on the previous page would kind of make me feel like I was interacting with a 13 year old and that’s not hot.
You can suspect it, and decide you don’t want to get involved.
I don’t think they’re saying it’s just like Billie (Jennifer). The comparison is that Danny didn’t want to, and now Joe doesn’t seem to want to, and neither guy was aware of that at first.
A fair point. If Liz had been like “Hi. I know you’re skilled and experienced, and I want to make sure my first time is good, so please with the banging me now?” then all would have been well, but Liz is all “Let us have the casual intercourse to prove how much of an atheist I am now.” which is not a healthy mindset.
That’s the question though. Is Liz actually rushing into this or are we and Joe just projecting insecurities on to her like Danny said. Liz made a conscious decision to come to Joe. She didn’t have to and frankly even through the red flags of her language last strip she seemed fairly confident she was ready for something. But at this point it feels more like she would be using Joe than Joe somehow taking advantage of the helpless virgin girl who doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.
Those red flags in the language were pretty red flaggy, though, and you can read her body language as either ‘confident’ or ‘trying to prove something to herself’ or ‘like Joyce, bad at boundaries.’ (The joys of body language being something you interpret.)
Either way, Joe doesn’t seem enthused at the prospect. Even if he’s projecting Joyce onto Liz, the part where he’s caught Feelings for Joyce makes that a risky proposition. So it’s probably going to happen, and be a disaster on every possible level.
For what it’s worth, I got “trying to prove something to herself” out of that interaction.
As did I. Not the best circumstances to be having sex, and even if Joe is misreading her signals, he’s uncomfortable with the prospect and that means he should say ‘no’. If he’s wrong, Liz can keep looking if she wants – plenty of hot guys in the hall, probably a few who are down for semi-anonymous sex and aren’t assholes.
I also think it’s worth noting that the strip characters can also hear tone of voice, whereas we have to intuit that from facial expressions, body language, and the dialogue itself. In a scene like this where it’s ambiguous to us, it’s entirely possible it’s NOT ambiguous spoken out loud.
It’s also not just the last strip, since her entire time here she’s been projecting a transparently fake image of herself as “worldly and experienced”.
More broadly though, how sure do you have to be that there’s something fishy going on before you’re justified in considering that when deciding whether or not to have sex with someone? My answer is “not very”. If you pick up on something and it makes you uncomfortable with it, it’s perfectly fine to refuse. It doesn’t mean you’re deciding for her or patronizing her or controlling her or that you’re a prude or whatever else people are saying.
I’m also not saying, just to be clear, that Joe would be a bad person if he went ahead with it anyway, despite some doubts. I just hope it wouldn’t be because he thought his man code required him to or some such nonsense.
Sure enough for me to be uncomfortable with it. Which will likely vary wildly based on a bajillion unpredictable factors at any given moment.
But, me being arbitrary and unpredictable doesn’t matter: once I’m uncomfortable with it, I no longer consent to being part of it, and one unconsenting partner is one too many.
The only acceptable way to lose your virginity is to lose it by your own volition. You’re gonna fuck it up somehow, someway. So the best you can hope for is that it is your own decision fuck it up with someone who’s also cool with that.
My college boyfriend and I had sex with each other, it was the first time for both of us, there was love and gentleness and so much communication, glacially gradual.
It is possible to not fuck it up!
Yeah that’s pretty much how I see it.
If there’s an emotional affirmation Liz feels she’s getting out of losing her virginity, well, why not?
@Sirksome
I don’t think Liz is “rushing into things” – I think, based on the clues in her dialogue, that Liz doesn’t actually want to have casual sex but thinks that she is supposed to – that part of being an atheist is having meaningless sex (Joyce had a similar impression about atheists earlier in this comic, but was mostly disabused of it by Dorothy).
If she has sex for reasons other than actually wanting sex, she’s likely to have a bad time emotionally.
Plus, I think that is what Joe is picking up on, even if he can’t find the words for it. Roz and Mayala desired casual sex, and Joe had no difficulty delivering. Liz wants the image that casual sex will give her and is trying to psyche herself up for it – and Joe is reading this correctly as her not actually wanting the sex.
That’s my read, anyway.
To be fair, Danny didn’t actually tell Joe that Billie also flat-out said she expected to regret her choices. So he wasn’t really projecting much.
Also, Danny only said that because Joe refused to accept Danny saying he didn’t want to in the first place. So both parts of that were really all about Jo–oh.
I really do like Danny and Joe’s friendship. They’re my favorite.
Oh, look at that. Who called this exact thing yesterday, I wanna give you a prize.
“Someone get this hot probably a vergin girl away from me before I ruin her life, I do not consent to tarnishing someone’s innocence!”
For real though maybe since she’s under the influence he could string together how it’s immoral and possibly illegal to take advantage of someone while the under influence since she still thinks she’s tripping or he can do what someone joked he would do and climb out the window.
I don’t think there’s any evidence that she’s under the influence. Mistakenly thinking you took some edibles isn’t being under the influence.
I wonder how the placebo effect holds up in court. Like seriously is being convinced you’re under the influence of a substance which then affected your behavior the same as acting under the influence of that substance?
Generally no.
I’d say its consenting your ability to merely assent for sex so you can skirt feelings of full responsibility/ Guilt.
Liz thinks she’s been given a figleaf of plausible deniability. But the leaf is merely pretend and we know she did the same thign in the past .
Generally even being as “under the influence” as Liz appears to be (or could possibly be from one edible a while back) doesn’t hold up in court. Having a few beers and then taking the initiative to get laid doesn’t mean being raped. Otherwise every even slightly drunken hookup would be rape on someone’s part – possibly on both people’s part.
You have to be really impaired by the drug or alcohol for it to count.
Yeah but SHE doesn’t know she’s not.
We know she’s not a Virgin she slept with one of Sarah’s boyfriend before I think it was mentioned.
She didn’t necessarily have sex with the guy Sarah liked. Making out or asking him to a dance or something would still cause a fight between teen sisters
Fair enough I thought that was implied though.
It was implied that she “stole” a boyfriend that Sarah was interested in. It does not follow that she slept with him, particularly at that age.
I’m really proud of Joe growth here. Even just considering this is a huge step for him. I dont think there is any real problem if he has sex with the hott little sister. She is being frank up front and knows what she wants but now he has to decide if he wants to and it’s good he learn that hey it’s okay if he doesn’t want to
In terms of percents what is stopping Joe I wager 40% fear of Sarah 40% awareness that the situation, 18% Joyce feelings and miscellaneous. 2% Jabberwocky.
*of the
Something something Joe’s vorpal blade.
If you vorpal blade goes snicker-snak for more than 4 hours, please consult your doctor.
“my own equally-valid unwillingness.”
Man sometimes I love psychology.
Damnit Joe! Do the right thing.
Third panel: Danny oh no
Fourth panel: Oh
Word of advice, Joe…
If your potential sexual partner is the promiscuous equivalent of an 8-year-old boy who’s found the gun his father keeps in the desk drawer in his study…
…maybe keep your pants on.
Neither Joyce nor Liz is the equivalent of an 8 year old child, and it demeans them to make such a comparison.
Also, sex will not blow your head off nor leave lasting disabilities.
Play dangerously! Leave to manage risks and recover from mistakes.
YEs…..yes….YES Let’s go Joe! Decline Liz! You don’t want to! Say the best two letter word in the English Language: NO!
OX!…oh…I guess it’s not ox….I’ll just see my way out
Some time I kind of read these strips out in my head imagining the conversation being spoken by the voice actors I had once assigned them for my fantasy VA cast team.
Right now I’m hearing Bender from Futurama with everything Joe is saying and Ron Stoppable for everything Dan is saying.
Will Friedle as Danny? Yeah, makes sense. The only characters I’ve got established voices for in my head are Ruth (Shelby Rabara) and Raidah (Reagan Gomez-Preston).
Imagining Peridot threatening to tear off my femurs was strangely amusing to me.
You say Peridot, but for some reason, I hear Sadie Miller. I don’t know why my brain decided Kate Micucci is Ruth, but I just decided to roll with it.
Incidentally, Joe in my mind is Brian Posehn, so add Sour Cream to that list of ties to Steven Universe my brain decided to make.
For me, Dorothy will always be Tara Strong.
Tara Strong as which character? Dorothy could take on a plethora of different nuances depending on which voice Tara uses.
Okay yeah Tara strong but here’s the real question, who’s Grey DeLisle playing?
ooh. that’s a tough one. I’m picturing her as maybe Carla, but I could be swayed to a different role for her too.
Why not Jennifer? Rich, distanced from her parents, had a Dramatic Haircut, not openly on the friendliest of terms with her brother but still cares for him on some level…there’re at least surface-level parallels to be made between Azula and Jennifer. 😛
Twilight Sparkle is probably closest. Intelligent and bookish, optimistic but with a bit of dry humor. Maybe give her just a dash of Raven too, bring her vocal range down just a bit.
That said, a bubbly, Timmy Turner/Bubbles/Rikku Tara Strong would be a perfect Joyce, too.
And something like her Raven voice would be FANTASTIC for Amber/Amazi-girl.
Dang I love Tara Strong.
Peridot as Ruth actually… kinda might work.
I hear a few other Steven Universe actors for DoA voices in my head, as it is. Like, you cannot convince me Leslie doesn’t sound like Pearl.
There was a brief period of time that some people wanted to do a dumbing of age Dub. I was cast as Danny. So y’know…Danny could have sounded like a loser 😛 (At least it woulda been accurate)
I remember that, I would have killed to at least play the “Buckets of Blood Guy”…Which in my mind may or may not have proven I was a good fit if you ask me
I still hear Danny as Willis
Joe, if you’re so uncertain about this, the only “D” you should give her is your… “Weed drugs”.
“You gave me drugs!”
“No, I gave you multi-vitamins.”
“NO! Despite my best efforts I was tricked into living a healthy life!”
Oh hey, I just mentioned that last strip.
Cool.
HIS WIDDLE FINGIES I WUV
I decided to do it.
Joyce, Liz and Joe.
Also know if there’s anything you wanna see outta this series. I mean I’m mostly doing it for fun but I’m open to suggestions haha.
Joe in bondage getting licked everywhere!
Oh god this is great, keep it rolling please. Girls competitively trying to one-up each other at sex is weirdly hot.
Oh man these are so fun! I love their expressions, haha.
HOORAY!
We knew you could do it! Great work!!!
Wow that one was a bit wild. 😳
Like there’s fast exultation then there’s that.
Not only hot but also completely in character
o3o I think porn is better when it’s in character. Character is the most appealing thing! Sexy parts be damned!
Very true.
Also: Amazing first page! Love it.
(It is just the first page, right? WHen I attempted to click next, it took me to something entirely different.)
Yes but I’ve only drawn one so far. Me calling it part one is my own little way of promising I want to do more of this. Hopefully tonight if I can.
Awesome.
I’ve saved it as JoyceLizJoe01, so I’m holding you to that. ;D
Nicely done.
You are a gift to this community
aw damn
it’s so cute ^^
i love Liz’s face in the last panel, she’s like “wheee!” =)
Could this be character development? In Joe?! (ngl, Mike having been offed, Joe is now my favorite guy in the series. I like asshole characters, don’t ask me why.)
Anyway here’s a chibi Joe I drew: https://twitter.com/namioshiro/status/1455754655074553860/photo/1
Cute Joe and I agree. 😛 I tend to like all the characters everyone hates. Especially when there’s that kernel of goodness buried deep down that you can see coming through the cracks.
Yeah exactly! I enjoy it when characters are like…STRUGGLING to be good haha.
I never imagined it would happen but Joe ended up being my absolute favourite around two years ago and I’ve been on board with his character arc ever since. He truly is one of the best characters in this story and that’s a really nice, cute drawing of him! (All your drawings are cute, by the way! I really like your chibis.)
Thanks so much! And yeah, I agree that he’s a really great character. His development has been done really well.
wow we’re just so spoilt tonight?!
i just wanna eat im up like a men’s multivitamin gummy ^u^
(It’s nearly 1AM and I’m tired so bear with me this comment might be rambly nonsense)
Everyone in the comments has been arguing for the past day about whether Joe doesn’t want to bang Liz for the “right” reasons which is really weird to me because any reason to not want sex is a good reason to say no to sex.
Yes, even the dumb condescending ones. Even the ones that are like “I don’t want to have sex with you because I think I know your wants and mental state better than you.” Having sex when someone puts the opportunity on the table is opt-in, not opt-out, and Joe’s discomfort with the situation shouldn’t need to reach some arbitrary standards of Discomfort and Moral Upstandingness.
Danny has the right of it by highlighting the validity of Joe’s unwillingness and discomfort in the matter. Joe should say no to this, because Joe doesn’t want to have sex with Liz. His reasons for why he doesn’t want to have sex with her don’t really matter past that point and aren’t deserving of any sort of moral scrutiny.
Also, like, it’s not actually wrong to say, “I don’t think I feel good about having sex with you because you don’t seem mature enough to make good decisions. I feel like you’re being reckless and it’s going to hurt you, which would hurt me.” Is it condescending? Well, duh. Sometimes you honestly don’t think a person is being very smart. That doesn’t make it toxic or even inherently sexist (context matters a lot here).
We are two different people. Just adding that because I just realized our avatars are the same and I opened my post with “Also,” like I was you posting an addendum.
But no, like, I’ve been in relationships where I really wish one of us had been smart enough to take a step back and realize, “Okay, I know you say you’re ready for this, and I respect that, but I also am not sure I trust your judgement on it because you’re sending some red flags, and this could really hurt both of us if we go ahead and you can’t handle it.”
I’m glad you added that note because at fisrt glance I did indeed think you were the OP.
But if we don’t attach a moral framework to the personal decisions of fictional people how will we win arguments on the internet
We’d have to fall back on superior numbers and superior firepower
Agreed, being uncomfortable with the situation for absolutely any reason is a sufficient reason to decline sex, even if it’s paternalistic or condescending or more about you than them.
That said, I took a lot of the arguing to be less about “is Joe justified in turning her down?” and more like “if Joe takes her up on it, is that wrong?” Or even “Joe’s answer aside, was it okay/a good idea for Liz to be asking?”
But admittedly I didn’t read all the comments so I might’ve missed the ones you’re referring to, in which case, yeah. Joe doesn’t exactly have to have an airtight argument to not wanna have sex.
That’s what I was seeing, up until Liz revealed she’s less experienced. I think the comments section had swung from this is a bad idea to kind of implying casual sex was bad. But I guess now its swung back around to a reality check “does joe actually want this” which is probably a good thing as that’s all that matters to Joe right now
How I read the comments section is a lot of people saying “is Joe justified in turning her down?” and a lot of other people hearing “if Joe takes her up on it, is that wrong?”
There’s also a big difference between “was it okay for Liz to be asking?” and was it a good idea for Liz to be asking?” There’s nothing morally wrong about Liz asking, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually a good idea for her.
If Joe takes her up on it, it is not wrong. If Joe takes her up on it, it is a bad idea.
“I don’t want to have sex with you because I think I know your wants and mental state better than you.”
Well yeah this is still A Reason not to have sex, it’s just one where you’re taking a bizarre level of ownership of another person’s mental state to do so.
I question how often it shakes out the way Danny and Joe have, in that they’ve both lied about it, where they’ve just declared someone else generally unfit to decide for themself whether or not they can have sex rather than stuff like “I don’t think you want the same thing I do from this”, “I am removing myself from this entire process for whatever justification I need”, “I don’t want to be the person this goes down with” ’cause at least those imply some input from the person saying it as opposed to “well you’re just totally incapable of making your own decisions, in general, so I need to protect you from the thing you’re saying you want, which I am totally willing to give you, and not having it is your fault.”
Like how many reasons can you burn through before you land on deciding you innately know better than someone else?
Sorry, but “weed drugs”. She is plainly inexperienced and something else is going on. You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to see it.
What’s bizarre is your antipathy to even this low-bar caring about another person.
So was it wrong for Dorothy to bang Walky? He’s never touched a weed, he rarely swears, he has in fact said “jeepers” in front of his mom. Totally inexperienced, really problematic of Dorothy to propose the idea after romantic hijinks and Walky was all about it, as his inexperience and lack of weed dictates that’s a thing he can’t decide for himself.
It’s also Hella Weird to me to process Liz’s inexperience as a reason she can’t bang a dude. Like, how’s she supposed to get that experience? A casual fling with a dude the extremely cool and worldly Joyce told her was her friend with rewards program that she’ll never see again, banging him to assert herself away from the Jesus Freak she’s forced to be to appease her stepmom while her peers at her college condescend to her, that kind of strikes me as a remarkably good time to get your feet and other things wet if losing your virginity is a thing you think of as a rite of passage or emotionally fulfilling.
It sounds like you’re trying to find a moral reason why it’s okay not to have sex instead of just not having sex because you don’t want it.
No, it’s not wrong for inexperienced people to have sex that’s ridiculous. But when an one person senses an another person is headed for pain… pfft, screw it, nevermind. For some reason you are incredibly invested in the idea that it’s wrong for them to care.
I don’t think what you’re describing is caring, but then I think you’re processing what I’ve been saying as a lack of caring, so we’re probably not having the same conversation.
Dorothy and Walky had a different dynamic. There was a relationship developing. It was no one night stand. Walky wasn’t desperate for sex. Dorothy would have taken no for an answer without it seriously hurting their budding relationship.
Liz is “I’m horny. You’re hot and experienced. Let’s do it, then you’ll never see me again. Oh, and by the way, I also may be a virgin and I am the little sister of a woman you really do not want to cross.” That is definitely reason to hesitate.
Furthermore, Joe probably suspects, at least subconsciously, that there is an above zero chance than Liz’s post-coital response would be, “Ooh, that was incredible. I want to stay with you forever and ever and be your only girl.” with the implied “Or I’ll tell my sister…”
Dorothy and Walky had a different dynamic. There was a relationship developing. It was no one night stand. Walky wasn’t desperate for sex. Dorothy would have taken no for an answer without it seriously hurting their budding relationship.
Can it not be a one-night stand if a one-night stand is all you want?
Liz is “I’m horny. You’re hot and experienced. Let’s do it, then you’ll never see me again. Oh, and by the way, I also may be a virgin and I am the little sister of a woman you really do not want to cross.” That is definitely reason to hesitate
Okay but he’s hesitating by declaring her unable to decide for herself that she can choose to have sex, as opposed to saying he doesn’t want it (and he can’t because yaaaaay toxic masculinity).
Also yeah, virgins can have sex if they want to. That’s kind of the point, they stop being virgins afterward. That’s also okay if they want to have a one-night stand with someone an extremely cool person asserted was an incredible sexual partner.
Furthermore, Joe probably suspects, at least subconsciously, that there is an above zero chance than Liz’s post-coital response would be, “Ooh, that was incredible. I want to stay with you forever and ever and be your only girl.” with the implied “Or I’ll tell my sister…”
This is a really weird and creepy thing to say.
a. One night stands are fine. I was pointing out that Dorothy and Walky had a different dynamic and are not a good comparison.
b. As other people pointed out, Joe cannot conceive of saying no. He needs an excuse for himself so he can say no. Danny is doing a great job of pointing that out in this strip.
c. Yes, it is creepy. I have experienced it, though not with a virgin. I know others it has happened to as well. Not just woman to man (Liz to Joe), but maybe more frequently man to woman. I have little doubt Joe has seen this at least a few times, if not personally then through his father (also creepy).
No I’m saying it’s creepy to assign some kind of sinister motivation and conclusion to something as simple as “Liz says she’s dtf.”
Ah. Fair point.
To clarify, this isn’t Liz’s motivation, but it could be an unintended result, especially with one as talented and skilled as Joe is (in his own mind). It can also provide another excuse to justify Joe saying no, again, in his own mind.
I mean if we’re talking specifically within Joe’s head then yes like objectively, you should say no if you have any hesitations you can’t reconcile.
But I don’t think Liz is causing those hesitations in Joe, I think those are his current sexual hangups he’s grappling with.
An aside: I think the right thing for Joe to do is say no. The dynamics between Joe and Liz, Joyce and Sarah are too volatile for Joe for this to go forward. Ideally, Joe should realize this and say no for the right reasons. But this is Joe. This is a hot (virginal?) babe. I am impressed Danny isn’t out the door and Joe isn’t naked already.
So Joe should just ignore his instincts and go to town with Liz because that’s what she says she wants right now? Is he wrong to feel there’s something off about this situation?
Is Joe uncomfortable for literally any reason, like say, the Dreaded Feels he’s got going on in relation to how he views sex now, how that ties into the person he used to be he thought was an ideal that Joyce made clear was deeply harmful to her, and whether or not a certain other ex-churchy girl is who he’s thinking about right now, let alone any other reason banging Liz isn’t something he’d want to do?
Or to put it in one line: Joe’s uncomfortable right now because he’s in a situation he’s supposed to think of as his ideal, and he doesn’t know how to process that he can not want to have sex with an eager woman, because A. he never has processed that question and B. he’s been reinforced over and over that saying no to sex makes him a loser.
I’ll just tell you upfront, just so everyone else has got it here, that I’m not processing this as “Joe needs to RESPECT WOMEN and have sex in a circumstance he is uncomfortable in!”
But I think it’s pretty clear, as in this strip is directly calling back to that time Danny objected to sex with Billie on the grounds of knowing better than her when she wanted sex (which was a slim deflection to his true feelings that he didn’t want to because like all men, Danny buys into some aspects of toxic masculinity enforced upon us), that Joe’s objections aren’t with Liz, they’re with him and his feelings and he’s projecting them onto Liz to justify why having sex with her isn’t a thing he doesn’t want to do, Joe is a Man’s Man and therefore is Always Horny and Always Eager, but that she’s incapable of deciding for herself.
So his uncertainty must stem from internalized toxic masculinity, not budding morality?
IIRC, you’re viewing this as Joe feeling uncomfortable because he’s weirded out by Liz’s behaviour, and that his budding morality is acting on that discomfort instead of rolling with it to her detriment, right?
I obviously won’t call that wrong or anything, being Wrong All The Time is my forte, but, yes, my read on Joe is definitely that this is related to his feelings on what he’s supposed to do, because he doesn’t want to have sex with her but doesn’t have the words to say that and his reasons for not wanting to have sex with Liz aren’t that she’s “inexperienced” or whatever. They’re rooted in his own discomfort with what he’s gone through and learned about himself relating to what sex means to him, his inability to form emotional bonds, how that persona he built so he’d never be hurt or hurt anyone else actually caused Joyce a tremendous amount of pain, and he’s kinda sorta in love with her.
So he’s not mature enough to say “no, this doesn’t feel right” without projecting and making excuses.
I think we’re just arriving at the same conclusion from opposing angles…
Probably, yeah. I don’t think Joe is weirded out because Liz is “inexperienced”, I don’t think Liz’s agency or behaviour is, in a vacuum, particularly weird, because she’s 18 and had a sheltered upbringing and now she really wants to break out of it, I think Joe is freaking out because:
-he’s being propositioned for sex at a point in time where what sex means to him is up in the air
– he’s being propositioned for sex by someone who is actually just Joyce.
I’m not sure I agree that any reason not to have sex is a “good” reason. You’re absolutely correct that sex is an opt-in and any reason is valid, but I’d put that more as “you don’t need a good reason to not have sex.”
Especially in fiction, when a reason is offered, we can critique that reason and see whether it makes sense and whether it offers insight into a character’s personality or even morality. Of course, we first have to figure out what that reason actually is, especially since people aren’t always explicit or honest about their motivations, sometimes even to themselves.
I mean yeah, you’re right. “I don’t want to because-” should really stop at “I don’t want to.”
Not necessarily. He certainly doesn’t have to justify it, but there’s nothing wrong with talking to a friend or even to the other person involved about why you didn’t. Depending on the circumstances it might even help the other person handle being rejected better.
Damn, the sass on Danny in that last panel.
YOU’RE RIGHT THERE COME ON MAN, STICK THE LANDING!
Danny is the worst wingman ever.
Joe dude if u have reservations about having sex w someone u shouldn’t have sex with them I know this shatters ur whole devil may care horn dog shit but u gotta say no man
Wow, he actually cares Sarah’s opinion. If he wants to respect that, then go for it and tell her no!!
God Dammit, look at that character growth and maturity. Joe’s growing up and he’s quickly turning into my favorite male character.
By this point Liz has already left and is propositioning Jacob.
I suspect Jacob already has a new girlfriend, and if I am right we may have already seen the character art
Who dat?
I’m betting money on it being Dana, returning to the series, and making a running gag out of Jacob dating people Sarah had horrible dramatic fallouts with.
I’m still wagering that if Dana does return to college it
will be to thank Sarah for being a true friend and looking out for her
well being.
I’m hoping Dana comes back and Sarah and Raidah both go “see, I was right!” where Sarah was totally right to send her back home while Raidah was totally right that Dana could have gotten better, and then Dana just cold stares them dead in the eye and goes “you stupid assholes have no idea what you did to me.”
And then we find out that Sarah sent her back to a troubled home life (which would line up with how the last time Raidah talked to Dana, Dana said she wasn’t doing well), but at least Sarah acknowledged the drug abuse unlike Raidah, who just ignored it thinking it’d be fine and never thought to listen to Sarah and talk to Dana about it.
And then Dana power walks away and goes and has a pleasant time with Jacob while those two smug jackasses can’t bring themselves to say anything because they’ve based their entire adversarial relationship on doing right by Dana, and they both ruined it.
Well, you know what that means… ENEMY MINE!
(I’m not linking to the time sink website, but it’s that “heroes and villains team up to defeat a common foe” trope. It wouldn’t make a bad chapter title, either…)
Oh god that’d actually be funny.
Sarah and Raidah are quie for like a minute before going “god what a jerk, she didn’t appreciate us at all. Let’s be friends again.”
That’s a compelling theory and I kinda suspect that too, but I was talking about Juanita, who is a new character that (unless I’m mistaken) will be introduced in “Trial and Sarah”, and I think she might be introduced dating Jacob
Just judging by the title, that chapter sounds like it’s going to tie into Sarah’s law classes at least a little (ideally in the form of a mock trial, but I don’t want to get my hopes up), classes she shared with Jacob. Basically I’m pretty confident we’ll be seeing Jacob again in “Trial and Sarah” and he’ll have a new girlfriend, who will be either Dana or Juanita
Or maybe I’m wrong about everything and I’ll be completely owned in a couple of months.
Or maybe I’m wrong about everything and I’ll be completely owned in a couple of months.
First time, huh?
No, I’m very familiar with being wrong and owned about predictions.
It’s nice to meet a kindred spirit.
If I were the gambling type (a) I would have had a flutter on the Melbourne Cup last Tuesday, and (b) I would wager that Joe is going to bed Liz, with the result that Liz will be fine and Joe will be a mess of regrets and second thoughts.
But I don’t gamble because I’m always wrong.
Conflicted Joe is very cute♡. Danny is a true friend, he knows what to say to him.
Sidenote, when a junkie comes along asking for your gummy vitamins, you gotta be firm.
Yeah, man, gotta ration whose weed drugs.
Liz is gonna head back to Ball State tomorrow giggling like a loon with a half-eaten bag of gummy bears she was told were edibles.
She realized halfway in but kept going and now she has a stomach ache.
She’s lucky Mike isn’t around in corporeal form anymore. He would’ve given her a big bag of sugar-free Haribos.
Dangit, WordPress!
Take the extra quotation mark off the end of that link, and it will work.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R2JGNJ5ZPJT4YC
Extremely proud of my dapper lad being a good egg instead of rubbing in the schadenfreude.
That’s how you know the character development is legit.
This time the hovertext beats me.
…for other side, I rather Liz get laid with Joe than other random guy, also because I don’t sip him with Joyce.
Besides, he should rage Sarah, but I’m kind wait for it. hahaha
Are maybe YOU projecting equally-valid unwillingness, Joe?
Danny sass is great sass.
This is quite the change from how Joe used to be.
For some reason my responses are not showing up. I am probably messing up the link. It is a text Joe sent to Danny when they went through this the first time. (Feb 6, 2012, Text)
This was supposed to be a response to Sombrero.
Got it! Thanks!!! Funny I didn’t remember that almost 10 years later… well, 2 years in fact, I didn’t discover DoA ’til 2019.
*sniff* I’m so proud of him
In my opinion there’s a difference between something being wrong, and something being a mistake. Liz is free to lose her virginity on her terms, and I wouldn’t think less of Joe if he decides this is what he wants. However, it probably will make him less happy in the long run since this will for sure disrupt his relationship with Sarah and possibly Joyce.
Plus possible guilt or other emotional fallout if Liz isn’t as ready as she seems and has trouble coping with the reality afterwards.