My rule in that situation would be to absolutely stop. Sex on drugs can be fun, but personally i’d only do that with someone i’ve had sex with while sober before. And a negotiation about boundaries.
… and also, i’d say starting to make out with a stranger who’s on drugs already is a different level than someone starting to make out with you sober (or less on drugs) and then pausing to take more drugs. If making out isn’t drugging your brain with excitement enough, and you can still think of taking more drugs, you should probably not make out with that person right now!
I think that the stranger being the one wanting, for whatever reason, to be under the influence (of Flintstone vitamins, let us not forget) is a fairly crucial distinction.
Well…
I’m in my 50s now. I can count on one hand and have fingers left over the number of times I’ve been… intimate with anyone.
I often wish I could have given myself a bit of help, if you will, to reduce the anxiety, reduce my inhibitions.
While I would agree that if someone ELSE says stop, for whatever reason, that you stop, I would also say that if they are willing to go on with a bit of help, even chemical help, that it’s THEIR choice to do that.
Yeah, that’s the thing that’s kind of getting skimmed over in our eagerness to praise Joe’s willingness to stop.
It seems that the signs her eagerness to do this wasn’t quite as solid as she was pretending were real. Now, it looks like they’re going to get through this without huge mistakes or more trauma, since her regrets kicked in early on. Could have been a lot more awkward if they’d waited until afterwards. Which is why it can be a good idea to pay attention to those warning signs in a potential partner and not dismiss it as “taking away her agency” as some were doing before.
Nah, it’s still weird to decide how someone else will feel about sex.
Liz wanted sex, Joe wanted sex, Liz now does not want sex, so Joe stops.
As a matter of fact, it strikes me as a healthy lesson to learn that you can withdraw consent even during sex, and that doing so is a healthy and valid choice if you start to become uncomfortable and that your partner needs to respect it.
I don’t think it’s better to completely abstain from sex just because you might not be sure to go through with it. Sometimes we don’t know what we want or where our boundaries are until we try things out for ourselves.
The point is: You don’t HAVE to go through with it. You CAN stop at any point, and anyone who doesn’t respect that isn’t worth fucking.
If this doesn’t turn into drama on the next page, this is the healthiest way to do things, in my opinion. She’ll have learned a lesson (let’s see what kind), and no harm is done.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with making out with a guy if that’s what you felt at the time, and then stop. Yay!
Yes, that’s my guess, too.
It’s good they have a break, but I suspect Liz aren’t still not so free of her christians beliefs and fears, what make all this situation sad a lot.
I mean, it isn’t necessarily the christian stuff, sex (for a lot of people any way) involves intimacy and emotional entanglements that aren’t present here. IMO doing it just to get rid of the V-card is a bad idea, especially if it’s with someone who you don’t know well enough to have proper trust and rapport with. Sure different people are different, and different circumstances are different, so like all things I take “as a rule” there are exceptions where things worked out well for everyone involved, but it was clear that that wasn’t what was going to happen here. Her motives were not conducive to a good first experience because she wasn’t in the right head space for it, and it didn’t help that he’s in the middle of an existential crisis, exacerbated by her offer of no strings sex since that’s at the core of who he thought he was and what he thought he wanted out of life.
Sure the christian stuff added to the baggage, but even if she wasn’t shaking off fundie programing (we assume, due to her attitude when talking to Joyce, but given Sarah’s attitude I’m not sure it’s fundie programing and not a more mild for of christianity) I really don’t think either of them was in a position to make this a healthy first experience for her.
I don’t know… she’d figured out but, as I know, Joyce was a fundie, huh?
You should be right about people not like casual sex, but I don’t think this can’t be imposed in people by family, society, etc.
Speaking as someone that Danny would insist get some initiative, it’s a whole big thing.
Liz wants sex to assert herself as an adult, because it’s her choice, because she’s been told she’s too stupid and naive to have it, but realizing something is wrong doesn’t make you deprogram all the responses and reactions you have telling you that it’s wrong, and even if you’ve had harmful thought processes on sexual purity hammered into you, the endpoint of those thoughts, that sex is something of importance that you share with someone you love and trust, is still something that can be healthy, just not the one path of many that led you there.
Even as Joyce deprograms herself, I don’t think she’d ever have a one-night stand with someone. Even without her fundie death cult upbringing insisting that sex is an inherently corrupting act that is only redeemed in one context, she’s still someone who’s big on emotionally connecting with the people she cares about. Same with Danny, he had the North American-brand generic Christian upbringing, but sex is a deeply emotional thing to him that he shares with his partner. I lost my religion when I was 12, it has no meaning to me, but I am also someone who, at least as I see myself, couldn’t do a one-night stand because sex to me is something I share with someone I love.
Just so we’re clear, as far as your argument goes, you don’t see any reason someone wouldn’t want casual sex other than they’re dealing with fundamentalist deprogramming? I’ve noticed that you think this is why Becky doesn’t want it, why Joyce doesn’t, and now Liz.
If they weren’t recovering fundies to start with, then no, but both Joyce and Becky were raised with in an intense sexual purity culture. Both of them have openly talked about not wanting to have pre-marital sex in explicitly Christian terms. It’s not really a big stretch here.
Liz is a bit more of a black box, since we know less about how she was raised other than that she’s hiding her lack of faith from her mom and that she’s nearly as naive as Joyce was. We’ll likely learn more in the next few strips, but currently it seems like she was trying to push herself to have sex to prove something, but couldn’t go through with it. It’s not as certain, but the obvious bet is that it’s tied to the faith she was born in.
Well it seems rather obvious that Liz is a Joyce expy, right down to Joe figuring he can have sex with Liz to get Joyce out of his mind.
And yeah, he didn’t say all of that, I just filled in the fairly obvious gaps.
But Liz showing off her God flaunting while still maintaining a Christian oriented FB page shows that she isn’t quite ready to be outed as an atheist. And probably not ready to do a lot of the things she’s been assuming that atheists get up to all the time.
My internal turmoil is something that gives me non-stop self loathing, fear for the future, and a desire to disappear from this earth. I try my best to be a worthwhile person but I constantly feel like the world would be better off without me. And honestly I don’t wanna live in the world anymore. So much negativity. So much anxiety. And it’s never gonna get better. There’s just something wrong with me and I’m sick of it.
I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through that. I don’t presume that your trouble must be the same as mine, but I used to have something similar and found (to my surprise) that a clinical psychologist was a great help.
I don’t really have any insurance and I feel like I need to save my money so for the time being that’s a luxury I’m gonna pass on. It’s my own fault cuz I didn’t do it when I did have insurance.
Yoto: free or low-cost counseling, pls look into it if the only thing stopping you is you think you can’t afford it https://www.opencounseling.com/
or search for “free therapy” etc. for different options
I don’t think that’s right about Seligman, because I clearly recall that in his book What You Can Change and What you Can’t he described gender identity and sexual orientation as being impossible to alter, and condemned methods advertised for changing them as expensive, dangerous, cruel, and ineffective. As for “pop psychology” he’s one of the most frequently cited academic psychologists of the Twentieth Century.
None of which is to say that he’s always right nor that his advice is useful to everyone. But do please be more careful with the insinuating questions.
@Yoto I read your thoughts comment and all I could think was “Brother!” Although I continue to struggle against that negative thinking (a lifetime of it is hard to redirect), the best part of getting the help I needed was installing the mental/emotional floor that keeps me from falling into the deepest parts of that bleak well of despair.
Seligman’s “Learned Optimism” is partly at fault/to credit for me being alive today.
I’m not “great” by a long shot, but I’m not looking at every highway barricade and wanting to hit it either. From a very analytical/scientific standpoint, he delves into why teaching yourself to be less depressed and more optimistic can help. Without reading Seligman, I’m nit sure I’d have talked to my Dr about therapy or medication. It’s not just a theory book. He includes some practical exercises to help confront negative self talk. (CBT type stuff)
Fact checking about Seligman and conversion therapy. Here’s a couple of sources about Seligman:
Unified Psychotherapy Project cites his observations from 1966 on Conversion ‘therapy’ in “What you can change and what you can’t”. It’s neither an endorsement nor (disappointingly) a resounding criticism of it.
The same passage is referenced at LGBT Wiki.
NeuroTree only lists one publication by Seligman that primarily addresses sex, and that is “Sex differences in depression and explanatory style in children.”
So that’s one summary of part of “What you can change[…]”. Between quoting Seligman’s passage about how excited the psychology community initially was, and only adding that he “notes that the findings were later demonstrated to be flawed.” It reads like it’s framed to paint a particular view of the passage. At the same time, this may be coloured by my own response in a “never meet your heroes” kind of defense. I’m now hunting for the book to see if I can read the full passage.
N.b. The passage in those two sources reads like it was something Seligman reported on in 1966, but also like that’s when the study occured. The first source then provides a citation as the book “What you can change[…]” but that book was first published in 1993. So something isn’t adding up clearly.
One thing is clear is that I shouldn’t looking into this while still waking up.
In my experience, that voice is nothing short of a liar. It just takes a while to really understand that. You’re worthwhile because you’re there. Period. That’s something you don’t need to earn.
That’s not true. People only say stuff like that because they like me. And people like me because I try very hard to be liked. I’ve seen the way people on turn on people on the internet, and honestly my will to live ain’t that strong. So I try to avoid any controversy I can cuz I cannot mentally handle it. And living in fear of that is just so stressful. I’m tired.
Dude, I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through all this!
Your art is so important to me, it got me through some really difficult and stressful times!
What you draw gave me the ability to escape, even if only for a few minutes or even a brief moment, that was invaluable in getting me through those dreary days!
I’d be really sad if anything ever happened to you! 😖
What you do makes the world a better place! YOU make the world a better place. You help people, you help the world, as an artist, just like Willis, just like the artists behind all your favorite comics and anime!
Please just believe me when I say the world is SO much better with you around!!! 😫
Pretty much so. It’s not just a liar but an unimaginative and repetitious one, so once you expose its lies it is often possible to cultivate a habit of refuting them and divert its litanies. Easier with help, of course.
A) People are frequently dicks on the internet. Being part of an anonymous mob can bring out the worst in people and turn them into rabid shred-beasts. Judging your self-worth by the vicious, unwarranted assault others can aim at people who stumble into their firing line is not logical!
B) If it/they seem to exist to counter any argument as to why you may matter, and to put you down and mock you, that internal turmoil may be.you experiencing intrusive thoughts. Basically it’s depression hijacking part of your brain to attack you with, not your ACTUAL thoughts.
C) You don’t need to engage with intrusive thoughts, and if you can just go “intrusive thought, not my thought” and ignore it,.eventually they do go away (at least mostly)
Source: spent 6 years with suicidal depression. Ultimately managed to CBT myself without professional help. Am now a much happier, stable person who enjoys her own company and life. Can be done, worth trying xx
Adding on to what Miri said, while I was waiting for CBT (it was sliding scale and there was a waitlist) the therapist office recommended two books: Mind over mood, and The thoughts and feelings handbook.
Another trick is to wear a rubber band and snap it saying NO when you get an intrusive thought.
You’re very supportive @Alanari and this is it 100%
> “You’re worthwhile because you’re there. Period.”
But this:
> “That’s something you don’t need to earn.”
Is well meaning but quite wrong. Many of us actually *do* need to learn that we deserve living. We’ve been taught through emotional abuse, learned experience, and often very explicit statements by abusers that the opposite is true. It’s not, but our brains are actually convinced of our lack of worth, and we need to learn to value ourselves. We shouldn’t *have* to do this. No-one should teach the living to feel and think this way But they do.
Can’t respond to the later post but it’s not your fault if you weren’t able to get help when you had insurance. It’s nobody’s fault, except maybe the systems that cause you to losr insurance before you’re ready for therapy. You deserve to feel better. I hope one day you can.
Hi Yotomoe. Here are my thoughts for whatever they are worth.
You are a stranger to me, but some of the things you are saying could be words from my own mouth. I have lived with a cloud of…feeling like I was one step off a razor’s edge from ruining my life beyond repair, that it didn’t matter because I was already ruined really, and like I was being a fake and hollow person who somehow tricked people into tolerating me.
I use past tense, but I’m not totally beyond those thoughts yet. They still happen sometimes. I’m working on it. I have downturns, but things are getting better for me now. Sometimes I feel so much better that it HURTS to think about it. It’s weird.
Your situation is your own, I don’t know your details but…all I can say is that therapy helped me a lot. And one of the ways it helped me was in realizing that medication would also help me. Therapy helped me to learn how to pull myself out of a spiral, but I want to not have to spiral down so far to begin with. It is exhausting. And it is a special kind of…shittiness? To realize that there is actually a legit option there within reach, and that existing actually does not have to be so hard. And that I was fighting with myself and making rational reasons to continue suffering. Thinking I would have to just bootstrap myself out of it, and THEN I could be better. And that if I couldn’t do that…well, then somehow I wouldn’t deserve to feel better anyway? I’m a little embarrassed at how long it took me to realize that if I felt like this suffering was an innate part of me, then that is actually a checkmark in the “Need to Fix Your Brain Chemistry” column.
Sometimes being able to feel better has to happen before the changes that will fix my life. My conclusion, finally, has been that I need to not be busy fighting myself all the time so that I can actually make my life better. It takes SO MUCH ENERGY and TIME to feel shitty. I’m drawing again, now. It’s baby steps, but I am drawing again and that means so much to me.
So, just in case any of the following could help you. Apologies if I’m suggesting stuff you already know.
I know you mentioned not having insurance, and therapy/support would be ideal alongside this, but general practice doctors can prescribe meds and are usually more accessible and affordable for an appointment than psychiatric clinicians. Given *gestures at everything* a lot of doctors are discussing mental health as a regular part of patient care. Generic brand pills are also surprisingly affordable, and some pharmacies have specialties that allow them to offer discounts. Your doctor might know, or you might be able to call around and ask.
Planned Parenthood also provides mental health counseling with a sliding fee based on income – their goal is whole community health, so you will see a variety of genders in their waiting rooms. The cost can be established upfront when making the appointment.
You don’t have to have everything in place to start making any one step, there is no such thing as a perfect process, whatever you do to help yourself is part of self care.
Hey, Yoto, I got this damn voice in my head, too. Partly because my youth that was wasted in years and years of fundamentalism shit, partly of massive amount of self loathing, bullying and another traumas and etc.
Have some hug from here, and hope you pass through, because you’re fucking awesome.
Not me. I have no backstory. A very accepting upbringing, pretty privileged all things considered. My divorce from religion was just a gradual realization I didn’t believe. I dunno it’s not like I have a reason to be sad. I’m just sorta selfish. All my insignificant problems don’t really matter in the face of people who actually struggle.
I know this response is a bit late, but: suffering’s not a compeptition. Some of us have reasons we can point to for why we’re messed up and others of us don’t, but an unexplained problem is still a problem.
I’m also an artist with depression (on the other side of it now). I remember with perfect clarity everything about that your brain is saying to you, in your post and responses above, because my brain said it to me, and it was saying it 100% because of my depression.
The backstory, the “reason” that you’re having these thoughts and feelings is that you’re experiencing depression. (That’s all that’s “wrong with you”, as you said above — it’s not actually something wrong with you as a person.) It’s a chemical thing that is happening, that you’re trying to fix and survive and deal with currently, from inside of it (which is badass, but also really sucky, as you sure don’t need me to tell you).
You have lots of skills that are helping you (such as creativity, plus being articulate and vulnerable — do you realize, not everyone can do that, it’s kind of a big deal!) and these skills will continue to help you.
You’re currently encountering depression on Very Hard Mode, ie, without meds or therapy. Sounds like you wish you had access to cheap-or-free meds and therapy. Are you in the US? One can often find free therapy, or on a sliding scale. If you want, let me know your zipcode, and I’ll find one for you, or you can yourself. I’d be going to http://www.findhelp.org .
No but it does mean that my problems don’t matter. In the grand scheme of the world I’m pretty blessed and I don’t deserve to be. I’m sick of being here. I’m sick of feelings guilty for being here. I’m sick of being my mediocre self. I’m sick of wanting to die I’m sick of being terrified of dying. I’m sick of needing money I’m sick of going to work I’m sick of crying I’m sick of hurting I’m sick of sucking I’m sick of failing I’m sick of people dying I’m sick of people sucking I’m sick of lying to everyone I’m sick of lying to myself I’m sick of the steady progress of time I’m sick of this world we live on I’m sick of humans I’m sick of animals I’m sick of my brain and the chaos inside of it I’m sick of being alone I’m sick of hating myself because it’s my fault that I’m alone I’m sick of being an underachiever I’m sick of not being able to change I’m sick of wasting my life I wish I had never been born what an absolute waste of consciousness.
I just had a bit of an emotional breakdown at work. :/ Got myself a bit too worked up.
Also it’s 30157. Just don’t use that information to track me down watch me through my bedroom window . You are allowed to watch me through my living room window though.
I understand, I’ve been there, too. Remember that your depression will grab whatever obstacle is handy, in order to perpetuate itself. (Is there really a better use of money than not having to feel like your stream-of-depression, above? That’s what [that part of your] money is for. But yeah. It’s hard to imagine.)
I hope you hold onto the willful powerful part of you that expressed how you’re feeling that loudly, that screamed how much you wanted that feeling to stop. You didn’t have to say anything so real, but you chose to. You’re a person who wants to feel better so damn much. Hold onto this part of you. It is great.
I hope you find a sliding scale price that works for you. (Or, you can always ask them for free resources in your area.)
Rooting so hard for you.
This seems like a perfect opportunity for them to actually take a moment to talk about what’s happening here, really turn this awkward thing into a good moment for two young people struggling with their identity.
First is Kissing, 2nd is getting hands on, 3rd is hands in the more erogenous zones, Home is actual intercourse. Oral and digital penetration somewhere in the grey area between 3rd and home base.
So keep in mind the baseball system is…for the most part applicable to mainly cishet couples so with that in mind.
1st base is kissing. Maybe full on deep tongue makeouts but usually the cute smooching stuff to start you off.
2nd base is usually over the clothes/under the clothes touching. Rubbing the chest/ boobs, maybe some grinding or touching the genitals. Not quite sexy times but definitely in the ballpark (hehe, an on theme metaphor).
3rd base is where you start getting to what can be considered sex acts. Your handjobs, blowjobs, eating out, fingering. Basically your non-penetrative sex.
4th base/Going home is full on vaginal/anal penetrative sex.
Now I will say I’m basing this on context clues and I have not researched this in any way shape or form.
Also remember, the baseball system is awful and prescriptive and strongly implies that none of it amounts to anything unless someone makes it all the way “home”. Ultimately, the “score” is against a defender and they should be resisting the base runner making any progress. F that.
I guess it depends on what kinda group you’re in. I’m definitely happy to hear anyone has made it to any base. The difference between “I made it to 2nd base” and “We made it to 2nd base”. Baseball’s a team sport and we’re on the same team :3
There’s a robot chicken sketch where they made a snack food where the “dust” was actually pleasurable so you didn’t have to worry about fingering a girl after snacks.
But my not telling doesn’t make it any less true. Fortunately the lesson I learned was always to wash my hands before I pee as well as after, and nobody else got their pink bits dosed with capsaicin in the incident. I have also learned not to touch my face while I am working in a kitchen.
Stopping? That’s the bare minimum. Being good about it, or very good? That remains to be seen. For someone who doesn’t do feels Joe can be very good with other’s feels, but we’ll have to see this play out.
I’m actually glad we get to see this in a comic. Because I think you’re absolutely right about Joe’s fundamental decency, and that tends to get lost in the comments section a lot.
Willis has always walked a fine line with Joe. On the one hand, he’s all about objectifying women, in public, often to their faces (until he seemed to learn better). On the other hand, we’ve had indications that he takes consent very seriously.
And he’s largely walked that fine line by avoiding it. We’ve never seen Joe successfully make a pass at anyone – Malaya and Liz came on to him while we only saw the aftermath with Roz and Penny. Even his rejections were all early in the attempt and very forceful – he backs off when he’s yelled at, but that’s not saying a lot really.
And of course we also known that he’s very performative about this and some (much?) of his reputation is exaggerated.
All that said, I expect him to be good here – though that’s partly due to his own Joyce-related doubts and mostly for narrative reasons.
Y’know, I legitimately have been so focused on “oooh, that would be useful for drawing liz from different angles. Oooh, this will help me nail down her body type. Ah that’s what her bra looks like” that I haven’t really taken the time to think “this is hot”.
Joking aside, I understand completely. When I took a drawing class in college, on the occasions that we had live models, they rather quickly ceased to be a person and became just a particularly tricky collection of lines, surfaces, shadows, etc.
I miss going to live drawing sessions. Breaking down the body into rhythms is such a good proccess and I just can’t get motivated to do it with online models.
Oh that’s actually a very good point. She might be reverting to the “You must say no” programming inherent to a lot of sexually repressed societies – and expecting the sexually liberated person to charge ahead regardless, because that’s part of the “dangers of sex” teachings.
See for example the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” where the tone of voice is expected to demonstrate that yes, the woman is entirely into it but for propriety’s sake must put up arguments against having sex.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but as a horny LDS teen, most of my fantasies involved being forced into sex somehow because that’s the only loophole I could imagine, as God doesn’t punish victims, you see.
I’d imagine that’s not an uncommon line of thought.
Little of column A, little of column B, I think. Current interpretations aside, the original intent of the song was definitely playful repartee by two people who already want to get down on a cold night, but need to go through the motions that society expects of them because it’s not proper for both parties to desire sex. She puts up a token protest because she can’t seem too eager despite knowing he will object, and he gives her excuses and a cover story for when people talk.
The fact the song was originally written to be sung by a married couple kind of reinforces this, I think. There was a really excellent reasoning regarding the song that was making the rounds a few years back that I wish I could find that basically argued precisely what you’re saying. The issue, of course, is that times have changed but I see the yearly outrage as an example of how presentist and reductionist our culture is right now. For some really good reasons sometimes — but not every time.
it’s not just reductionist; ask yourself what, for example, Joyce might think if, standing in the grocery store or mall, she suddenly hears lyrics in which a woman trying to leave a romantically charged situation while being pressured by a man asks “what’s in this drink?”
then think about all the people out there who have been in Joyce’s shoes, and especially those who didn’t make it out in time.
expecting everyone to calmly look up 50s conversational dynamics whole fighting off flashbacks to one of their worst experiences is ridiculous; it’s a fucking Christmas song. we won’t miss one vapid song about holiday parties if it stops being played, and if it brings a tiny bit of comfort to people who are complaining about it every year, why not just take it off the playlists? it’s always gonna exist in some form, people can download it or buy albums, it doesn’t need to be shoved down our throats 50 times a year alongside songs about mistletoe and trees on every errand. hell this wouldn’t be an issue if christmas wasn’t the months-long annual prison that capitalism has made it in the first place, but if we gotta endure it, we could at least do so without valiantly defending a song that just screams creepy misogyny to everyone younger than 50.
Context does matter but when aired without context, as radio station do all the time, you can’t claim “but context!” to save it. Again, asking people to calmly google context while they’re triggered and/or flash backing is not a fair or reasonable expectation.
Yes, context matters. So when you take a thing out of its original context you change it, and when you puts it into a new, different context, that matters.
Smith, just because some other things are worse doesn’t mean that that thing isn’t bad.
Also, we live in a subjective world. Always has been that way. So of course people will receive the song differently. And good for you if that song just sounds light and d frothy to you.
But as you said context matters. And some people’s context is that they’ve been through traumatizing or simply really hard stuff. And that’s going to affect how they see the world. So please don’t argue back when some people tell you that a piece of media is hurtful to them. It’s their reality, it’s how they live it. You can’t argue against something like that unless you’re inside their head.
It’s kind of a weird thing because in one hand I agree. The song could absolutely make people uncomfortable. Even if you’re not a victim of sexual assault it could remind you of every pushy douchebag that wouldn’t take no for an answer. And it’s not like I’ll miss it much. I heard it on the radio maybe once as a teenager and never again. If it disappeared entirely from the face of the earth I doubt I’d notice.
And yet I find myself hating the idea of getting rid of it. Like I have very little attachment to this song but the idea of it being taken down really bothers me. And I think part of it is just that it has become the norm to rid ourselves of anything that doesn’t fit our current sensibilities. Between our increased knowledge of gender, race relations, celebrities doing shitty things, the internet becoming increasingly mainstream, the pandemic and our subsequent sedentary lifestyle, and the fact that many of us have become terminally online if we weren’t already (I’m typing this while I’m at work btw). And due to that we’re sorta filling a lot of old media and future that a lot of us grew up with. And in some ways it’s liberating and in other ways it’s scary. I’ve never been good with change and anytime there’s some new callout about an old property I like I’m just like “oh no not this too”. We’ve sorta grown a strong dislike for most old things. And there’s an argument to be made about how much we should just call something “a product of its time” to justify it. It’s selfish I’m sure but at a certain point I just feel this urge to hold onto things because of how much stuff I like is being eroded away. So I feel this desire to hold on to what I can for as long as I can before we all declare that this thing and anyone who likes it is bad.
To thejeff I’m so embarrassed right now. That was a link for another site…ahh fuck me sideways but heres the correct clip (basically just the original clip of the song from the movie)
@thejeff
I wouldn’t be so sure. Sure it’ll still exist physically but the conversation surrounding it will always just see it as that terrible song we all hate now. Like it’s still gonna carry that. And you’ll start to feel it’s absence if you’re the the kinda person who listens to a lot of Christmas songs. It sorta forces you to have a strong opinion of that song because now you’d have to willfully seek it out. Which I mean most music that’s not tied to a holiday is like that but now it seems almost like a statement.
Kinda like Pepe le pew. He’s far from my favorites looney tune, I get why people would find him problematic and I might not notice them phasing him out if they didn’t but make a point out of it. (Which personally I found sad cuz I feel like in recent years they found other things for him to do and it kinda showed that he could change with the times too). But now that they’ve made a point to sorta remove him and even make some of his material hard to find it made me want to archive it. Ended up gaining a new appreciation for the original shorts dated though they be. So I went from it having much of an opinion to having one after it became somewhat taboo.
It doesn’t HAVE to be ‘that song we all hate now’. It’s okay to go ‘Yeah, absolutely, I get why it would skeeve people out or be triggering for some, but I still enjoy it’. That’s totally fine. Same with Pepe Le Pew. I used to like his stuff before I got harassed at school. These days I find him more wince worthy but I still find myself enjoying him. TBF, his movie lead actor being accused of assault REALLY didn’t help. At the end of the day, Warner Brothers is a business and they’re gonna say ‘Okay, really, at this point, it’s too hard to justify keeping him around. We’re gonna put him on a shelf for a bit until/unless we figure out how to use him’. At some point, he’ll probably be back, because he does have his fans, but that might be a while. I think I get what you’re saying and it’s a valid way to feel. I doubt most stations won’t play Baby It’s Cold Outside, but some probably won’t and that’s okay. Really it means there’s stations for people who don’t want to hear it to listen to.
@ Smith – Yes, in the movie for sure, BUT most people these days, especially younger people, have not seen that movie. Again, you can bring up context when you’re trying to explain the song, but if someone just hears the song on the radio and is triggered by it, going ‘look at the context’ is neither a reasonable, compassionate or fair response.
To BBCC, the issue I have is people wanting to cancel a chessy little number like Baby Its Cold Outside but there are so many more songs, songs that younger people will probably listen to more, that are out there and have much worse messages and nothings said about it
She says the words “What’s in this drink?” but it’s not really presented as accusatory. She’s curious about the drink, which she also requests during the song as I recall.
“What’s in this drink?” is kind of an ironic line. People will joke how it goes along with her insistent No and her listing of how many people know where she is as questionable, but the way it’s generally presented it’s supposed to be one of the lines showing she’s into it. She’s interrupting her argument to say something casual and unrelated, because she’s not that serious about it.
She also pauses in the middle of her protestations to ask for a comb. And repeatedly acknowledges that she wants to stay.
Really, the woman isn’t saying she wants to leave anyway, her arguments are all about people noticing that she stayed and judging her. And his argument, that it’s a bad idea to travel in the middle of the night in a snowstorm, isn’t exactly wrong.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right about the song, and that it reflects the sexual customs of its time. The thing is that those were bad, dangerous customs and I’m pretty sure that they many times left women with no way to say “no” and be taken as meaning it. The standard that women were to deny wanting what they wanted, but not too much, and that men ought to be pushy but only not to pusht was fraught with danger and we’re much better off without it. We’ve moved on from dangerous Fifties attitudes to drinking and driving, handling firearms, and muddled language about consent.
Now its time (and past time) for some popular culture that promotes and explores the standard that only “yes” means yes.
And if she’s following that good girls must pretend to be forced trope, Joe taking what she says respectfully and at face value is good reprogramming. (Rakes in modern romance novels are good at this too. Come to think of this, if this strip were a regency, Joe would end up with bluestocking Dorothy!)
For want of an edit function I’m going to repost that with most of the errors repaired, because what with one thing and another it ended up a bit garbled.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right about the song, and that it reflects consent in terms of the sexual customs of its time. The thing is that those were bad, dangerous customs; I’m pretty sure that they many times left a woman with no way to say “no” and be taken as meaning it. The standard that women ought to deny wanting what they wanted (but not too much) and that men ought to be insistent (but not too pushy) was fraught with danger, and we’re much better off without it. We’ve moved on from dangerous Fifties attitudes to drinking and driving, handling firearms, and muddled language about consent.
Now it’s time (and past time) for some popular culture that promotes and explores the standard that only “yes” means yes.
Oof. I was thinking more that part of Liz immediately regretted stopping. But now that you explained all this, I can see all the additional complication. I think we’re about to see that story line play out.
Maybe, but I doubt it here. She’s certainly conflicted, but I don’t think it’s really that. She may regret stopping or regret that she still has the hangups that made her stop, but this doesn’t feel like the “protesting for form’s sake” thing. Especially with her being the one to initiate this as a sexual encounter.
This feels much more to me like she wasn’t really ready to go through with it.
Liz sucking on her fingers to self soothe/comfort (as I’m interpreting it) is really pushing on my big sister instinct and I just want to reassure her :/
(though I do recognize that my original interpretation of the panel might be wrong as although to me it looks like her mouth is around three of her fingers while she looks worried it might also just be her fist resting against her face in thought)
She might freak out a little, but is probably good that on her first makeut freakout she learned she can ask to stop, even halt everything and she will get an okay and stop and all is chill besides the natural awkwardness.
So she got cold feet and stopped, but only after enough happened such that we got slipshine material? Admittedly not sure if the latter part is true, but if it is my prediction was spot on.
Probably just because he’s so creepy about everything else. Example being the motivation for sleeping with Liz in the first place was to “get it out of his system” It can understandably throw people off that a guy who can say that respects consent.
Yeah Joe likes the concept of having All The Sex and talks like the people no one trusts because they’re kind of just objectifying people and running on sexual status, but he’s just. Not the frat boy archetype in reality? He kinda does all that shit because he doesn’t trust himself not to be like his dad and be terrible to his partners if he doesn’t. He really doesn’t want to hurt people he’s intimate with. In fact “no one gets hurt” is his stated goal. Like sure he’s a casual sex person, but I think if he’d knock off all the sexual status garbage and No Feelings Allowed schtick he’d probably just be a reasonably healthy casual sex haver.
Of course til he does that he’s still spouting some horrifying garbage that there’s a good reason no one trusts. He’s made progress, but fear of having feelings for Joyce has resulted in him actively backtracking some of it, so. He’s got a long way to go.
Yes to all this. I think he believes that if he states out loud bluntly that he is a horndog (despite being only maybe 10% more horny than any 18-19 year old boy on any given day, tops) women know what they’re getting into and thus if it goes south he can feel that his hands are clean.
wait, why is that creepy? If he wants to work through emotions with sex, then that’s not… bad? Is it? I don’t know if it’s unhealthy, but it’s not hurting anyone.
And it’s not actually wrong to imagine someone else when having sex with someone, as long as it’s casual sex. It can get weird, sure, but if nobody knows, nobody knows. (and iirc not even Danny knows about Joe’s feelings towards Joyce)
I feel like imagining someone else instead of your partner during sex has been pretty universally seen as rude if not communicated before hand at the very least. But Joe also said as much to his friend. Which I find rather creepy that someone would vocalize such a thought. And I don’t think Liz would appreciate Joe stating “Hey, you’re hot but I’m only really banging you because you remind me of another girl I have feelings for, so maybe having sex with you will make it so I no longer want to be with her!”
That plus in the past Joe has said stuff like virginity is something that he can “fix” specifically with his dick. So Joe doesn’t really have a lot of credit to give him a pass on his toxic and creepy speak to begin with.
I always respect my man Joe, he likes sex but he knows the bounderies and respects them. And I respect that. Sex isn’t fun if you’re both not having fun!
He used to act pretty crappy about consent tbh – saying stuff like ‘a drunker version’ of Joyce might make a sex tape or how alcohol really facilitates the threesomes (which, of course, turned out to be bullshit – he’s never had a threesome). BUT this is like….bare minimum decency and I do think Joe’s capable of bare minimum decency.
Honestly, even considering a few offhand statements, he still made his stance pretty clear from early on whenever the conversation turned serious: “Was she underage? Was she drunk? Was she crying?” Joe’s got some major problems to work through but he’s always been serious about casual sex. At the very least, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
He did that ONCE but at the same time, he was going around talking about how great booze was at facilitating sex. Yes, NOW we know he was full of shit, but at the time it very much seemed like he was, at the very least, dangerously close to the line, assuming he hadn’t crossed it already.
He certainly doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but it’s often seemed like his approach to consent was more like “How do I get past the ‘no’?” The only times he’s actually backed off on his attempts were when the ‘No’ was very forceful and even then while he’d say he was done, he’d often come back later on. Partly because that was the only way he knew how to talk to women – before he started making the connection with Joyce. Part of the problem is that we’ve never really focused on his seduction attempts, outside of Sarah and Joyce who both rejected him strongly: Sarah right up front and Joyce with punching during the awful date. I’d really like to see Joe on the prowl, preferably with someone who doesn’t want to have sex right then and there, but also isn’t willing to tell him to go fuck off.
I don’t know: Maybe it’s because he did a fucking ‘do-list’? He didn’t respect the boundaries of friendship with Danny, after DOrothy broke-up with him? Maybe it’s because he’s a huge, classic sex-drive man, what naturally can be scary for women.
Kinda expected this outcome. I’d guessed one of the reasons Joe agreed was that he realized she was inclined to throw herself at anyone who seemed interested, and better him than someone who wouldn’t accept a “no”
Honestly, you’re probably right. I don’t think HE necessarily 100% expected this, but like. Anybody who cares as much about consent as Joe I think is always prepared for a “no” to happen at any moment anyway, and is probably checking in with his partner for an enthusiastic “yes” fairly frequently. You don’t check in if you aren’t prepared for a negative answer.
Maybe. I mean, we haven’t seen him check in, so I’m not sure we can really draw any conclusions from that.
It’s certainly good that he seems okay with stopping, but don’t read too much into it.
To be fair “Joe gets it out of his system.” Or “Liz does secular things with a hot boy like it’s no big deal.” Aren’t really great titles for a slipshine anyway.
For me it’s a “leave something to the imagination. If I just see everything I’m like “oh there it is” but if I see an outfit that just highlights those curves I’m like “oh boy, something’s under there.”
I don’t think I’ve said this here but for me the sexiest moment is RIGHT when the person is taking off their clothes. That moment is the peak of the interest curve. Once the boobs or whatever are out they just become a part of my reality. That excitement over getting to see something we don’t normally see is what makes it so arousing.
Yeah for me the sexiest moment is the sensational part, when they’re erogenous zones are stimulated/tickled and they spasm and swear and make their faces when they feel SHO good!
Speaking of which, that’s how I ended my No Nut November after 48 hours in — with none other than Clara Nova!!!
Haha that’s surprising to hear since I rarely draw her doing anything all that sexy. Unless you are not referring to my character and it’s just a weird coincidence 😛
That’s why it was originally called a ‘strip-tease’. After you’ve seen enough boobs, under whatever circumstance – visiting titty bars, online porn, personal ‘hands-on’ experience – you come to realize that there’s not a whole lot of variation, and once you’ve seen two you’ve pretty much seen them all.
One of my friends did some amateur modelling for fun and one of the best shots I saw of her was topless with jeans. It was also definitely a look I felt hot in before I transitioned, but that might have been more to do with opportunities to be topless like other guys.
I feel the ever-so powerful urge to now go back and redraw my Liz/Joyce/Joe comic to get Liz’s bra more accurate. I’ve never been any good at drawing a convincing bra 😛
Whelp, now I have to take a long journey through my art and see how many times I’ve drawn Joyce’s bra. It’s weird cuz I used to not draw Joyce very often but now I probably draw her more than anyone.
I checked and I did draw it a couple of times. Once not even on Joyce’s body!
I feel like Liz is desperately trying to think of something to say to preserve her I Am A Cool Sinner Woman Who Does This All The Time thing.
If so, fortunately for her it doesn’t matter if she fails. Joe doesn’t care either way about her Cool Sinner Lady routine AND often rises to the occasion, when the occasion is ‘emotional support of sweet triangle-smile ladies going through tough stuff’.
Long term, he’s already noted the distinct similarities of Joyce and Liz. This, whatever it ends up being, could be some good notes for him to be ready for in Joyce dealings. ALSO I suspect he could end up feeling warm fuzzies if he is a good and real person for Liz here, which will not help him with his Joyce feels ‘problem’ even a little bit.
I am, of course, here for any or all of the above, even if it just remains happy possibilities in my head.
I agree that he’ll probably apply this experience with Liz onto Joyce, but I have a feeling that’ll probably lead to some problems down the line. Not every ex-Christian is going to feel the exact same way about sex, and I wonder if Joe is going to use Liz’s reticence as another excuse to avoid his feelings for Joyce. (You know, despite them being two different people. And despite the fact that he doesn’t HAVE to immediately initiate sex with Joyce.) Ah, I’m so excited to see where it all goes!!
I’m super cool with the idea of making out with someone and then legitimately just not having sex with them and just sleeping next to them. Like…now I’m really hoping they do that. I don’t even need cuddling, though that’d be a nice bonus.
And she can still go around and tell everyone she slept with Joe.
All of this is good. That they both wanted to have casual, no-strings sex. even if their specific reasons were different and not discussed. That they stopped when someone got uncomfortable. That Liz is with someone who immediately backed off and made it clear that stopping is always an option, which sadly isn’t always the case. “Of course, always” is probably the best possible response to avoid making her feel more awkward or disappointed about hitting the brakes.
I like the direction this story is taken but I can’t lie that after seeing panel 1 that i would like to see what a pornagraphique of this encounter would look like. (Then again, it’s not like i haven’t been drawing such a thing)
I kinda saw this coming… I hope they have a chat about it. Maybe some growth for the both of them! Liz can learn she doesn’t have to do sexy things just because she’s non-religious now, and Joe can… I honestly had an idea when I started this post and then I forgot in the middle of writing it. Uh. He can learn something. Someone supply something.
We’ve seen Joe do this sort of thing before. Remember him telling Danny “if she’s drunk or crying, it doesn’t count as YES”? Joyce brought Mike along as a chaperone, but didn’t really need to – especially Mike. Joe is a libertine and quite experienced but he isn’t a rapist. He projects a persona as a Don Juan but actually, girls are quite safe with him, for a given value of safe.
That’s not actually what he told him: More like “If she’s not drunk or crying, then don’t worry about it.” I mean, I’m sure he’d agree with that, but the emphasis is very different.
It’s always been clear that Joe isn’t a rapist and I don’t think there are many even among his detractors here who’d disagree, but there’s a good deal of distance between “Isn’t a rapist” and “good on consent”. Not being a rapist is a bare minimum.
What Joe actually said was that those are the only acceptable signs of non-consent (he listed acceptable reasons, thus failing to provide Danny the opportunity to provide the reason “She literally told me”). And also that Danny was not allowed to not-consent.
Aww this is both sad and very very good. Sad that Liz probably feels award now but good that it went so well. Joe consistently treats partners responsibly even if he has a lot of unhealthy masculinity to work through. I hope they talk and I’d even be okay with them getting it in once they work it out
Good on Joe for practicing good consent boundaries and Liz knowing she can say “no more” at any time. Though now I see her probably overthinking on something and potentially dropping some sort of bomb in about a minute.
Hopefully she purposefully picked Joe, thinking he had experience dealing with repressed ex-Christian girls, what with being Joyce’s supposed “sex friend”. Even though I’m pretty sure she didn’t think it through to that extent.
Now that I think about it, she may have picked Joe for this assuming, “He helped Joyce with this, maybe he can help me”.
And people doubted me when I suggested Liz was pushing far outside her comfort zone in order to prove something to herself… Either she’s not as ready as she thought the was, or she’s still got some of that fundie shame ringing in the back of her head.
(Also, suck it, Grav roulette, ya weirdo algorithm! I finally found a combo that gives me the default Daisy grav I had before the last shuffle!)
Having been in Joe’s position (though not with a virgin), it isn’t that bad to be asked to stop. Disappointing, but not bad. A decent person, which Joe is in bed, will not hold this against her and might even help her talk through her issues.
Hopefully, whoever you were with, Ainara, was understanding and kind. If not, you have my sympathy for a bad experience.
thank you 🙁 unfortunately thinking about it 2 years later still stresses me out, it’s hard to explain exactly how much this sort of thing messes with you
This is good to see. Like, I get the comments about “stopping is the minimum” and questioning praising Joe, but as someone with experience of someone *not* stopping, of someone responding to “no” with “shut up,” it feels really good to see this.
Yeah I can tell those “stopping is the minimum” comments were compelled by me saying “it was very good of Joe to stop when asked”, by which I meant “it was a good thing Joe stopped when asked”, but yes that’s for sure the LEAST you should expect and I regret not taking the time to chose better words.
I’m really sorry to hear that Yumi. That must’ve been awful!
He’s very immediate and polite about it. No “aw, really?” or “are you sure?” A lot of people would feel disappointed and have a hard time handling that at least, but “of course, always” is very classy and sensitive. I like it.
I’m reserving judgment until it’s clear that Joe is not going to try to persuade Liz to resume, and is not going to reproach her for “cock-teasing”, nor rush her out with abuse and recriminations. But so far, so good. Joe has cleared the bar (which is sadly low), and we’ve yet to see by how much. I hope to see Joe handle this well.
Remember his talk with Danny earlier, where he wasn’t sure going through with it was the right decision and projected that doubt onto Liz?
Following that narrative, she just “let him off the hook”. If anything I think he’ll act disappointed but understanding, but inside feel emotional relief that he didn’t “have to” be the one who hit the brakes.
I bet we’ll see him revisit this down the road, maybe if/when things get more serious with Joyce.
I can’t remember when it was, but I know Joe has made it very clear before that enthusiastic consent is very important to him. Like, he wants to have lots of sex with people, but he also specifically wants to have sex with people that also really want to have sex with him.
That must have been horrible. I’m sorry to hear that.
I agree with everyone saying stopping when asked is the only thing that can be called decent. “the least to be expected”, sure. Most people think it’s easy and normal to stop. “Of course I would stop” is what every single person thinks until they’ve been there. Having been on the receiving end of someone asking to stop, It requires more willpower than you would think. There is no doubt in my mind that Joe deserves praise here.
I’m trying to word this as carefully as possible, but I’m not sure what the bare minimum is, or what else is supposed to happen so that it goes beyond the bare minimum. Liz said wait, he immediately acknowledged and pulled back, she said stop, he accepts with no hesitation, it’s over and done now because Liz said stop.
I guess I’m trying to say that “the bare minimum” just kind of comes off as a binary thing to me, at least here. She wanted to have sex, he also wanted sex. She changed her mind before they got into it, he immediately stops and doesn’t vocalize the slightest dissent or disappointment.
What I meant by using “bare minimum” isn’t that he should have done more here, but that this by itself doesn’t prove that he’s just all around great about consent. He’s handling this well, but that’s not a really high bar to get over.
As a teen I was with my boyfriend once. Wasn’t feeling well – my temperature control can be off when I’m unwell, and going from outside on a hot summer day to inside caused my body temp to plummet to borderline hypothermic and I felt appropriately cruddy as well as freaked out because that isn’t normal. Nobody else was at home and I felt bad enough I didn’t want to be alone. He was happy to stay with me and fool around but was apparently incapable of understanding I needed company but not like that. He started trying to initiate stuff and I said no, he said he’d go home then and I told him I wanted him to stay. 30 seconds later, repeat. “oh yeah, I forgot.” I must have told him “no” at least 50 times until I was literally too exhausted to say “no” any more or do anything other than lie there waiting for it to be done. Afterwards, I pointed out that it had “technically” been rape, because as an 18, 19 year old I didn’t understand that there was no technically about it – he hadn’t been violent but it was still a violation. Then I had to muster the energy to comfort him because apparently being told you raped your girlfriend is worse than being raped by your boyfriend?
About 6 months after we broke up I went to visit him at uni. We drank and hooked up (which I’d kinda expected before going to see him). Afterwards he tried to tell me he didn’t think it should “count” as us getting back together because I’d been drinking and therefore hadn’t really known what I was doing. I asked him if he was saying he thought he had had sex with me while I had been too drunk to consent, mainly because I wanted him to be honest with me (I hadn’t been anything more than pleasantly lightly tipsy). He got very upset, started to backtrack, and as part of this asked me if I really thought he was capable of raping somebody.
I reminded him of THAT TIME HE HAD RAPED ME. Apparently it had slipped his mind.
I genuinely thought it was funny when my now-husband (then cohabiting boyfriend) wouldn’t sleep with me because I was a bit drunk (enough to not be able to climb stairs on my feet, sober enough to recognise this and go to crawl up them instead. I don’t think he realised this had been a conscious decision). I needed to actually think about it to realise NO THIS IS A GOOD THING, SHOWING RESPECT AND CONSIDERATION. It was very different to everything I had previously experienced.
So yeah. Should be the default response. Isn’t. Lots of guys who don’t project the Bro culture Joe acts like he embraces seem to struggle with this. It’s not OK. A lot more education on this is needed, at younger ages, so everybody knows that relationship rape is still rape, that consent can be withdrawn at any time, that previous consent does not mean there is current consent, etc etc.
It’s kinda nice this is happening. Liz was too insecure before and Joe was kinda creepy with his “Get this out of my system” thing. Let’s hope Danny is with Sal now and they both have no doubts about what they are doing.
Depends how far he was willing to go with this “lets have sex with someone who is exactly like my crush but is willing to do me” thing. The moment he cracks out some glasses and a sweater vest, that’s when it starts getting creepy. Added creep points if he yells out Joyce’s name or asks Liz to start rattling off bible quotes.
It’s a bad decision he’s making trying to throw himself back into the person he knows he’ll never be happy being. Ruth and Billie entering an alcoholic death pact was unhealthy and wrong, but it sure seemed like a good idea to them at the time.
Liz might have more in common with Becky than she thought. Unlike her though it seems she can acknowledge she’s actually just not ready and using Jesus perhaps as an excuse (I mean that’s the theory I’ve seen around and it fits, wasn’t Becky really weird and said a part of her wanted Dina to ignore her no??)
Granted Christianity when programmed from birth in your head can fuck with you for a while even after leaving it. There can be this thought of being free to do what you want but still having all kinds of hang ups thanks to it. But if you’re not comfortable you’re not comfortable so in the end you still have to follow that. Can be frustrating as hell though. When for years you panic at the thought of pregnancy, especially when in my case I grew up in a place I’d have to travel over to England to get an abortion and would have to pay for it anyway and my parents would then disown me or lock me up or hate me and ohgodbankstatementstheydfineout.
Yeah I never had sex in university actually even though I wasn’t a Christian by second year.
Yeah, as someone who was raised with very sex-negative abstinence-only sex education, even after I realized it was all bullshit, it was still a looong time before I felt comfortable having sex. And even then I still panicked about possibly being pregnant for months afterwards, even though I was on birth control, had a regular period, and had gained no weight. The pregnancy paranoia is very real.
(I mean that’s the theory I’ve seen around and it fits, wasn’t Becky really weird and said a part of her wanted Dina to ignore her no??)
Not in those exact words but it’s a common interpretation of her current sexual hangups.
Becky still holds onto her views of sexual purity, and she’s openly horny on main for Dina but insistent on not having sex before marriage. The problem now though is that Dina herself, who has repeatedly expressed she finds Becky attractive and beautiful, experiences intermittent sexual attraction, and has made it clear that she is open to having sex whenever Becky is comfortable with the idea, is not constantly and loudly affirming how much she wants to have sex with Becky, and this leads into a few things where:
– Becky feels that she’s undesirable, because Dina isn’t expressing that she’s as attracted to Becky as Becky is to her. The script is supposed to be that they both want to have sex really badly but have to stop their sinful urges, except Dina does not feel those sinful urges in the same capacity as Becky and wouldn’t view them as sinful to begin with.
– Becky wants to marry her and have God-sanctioned sex, except if she does that and Dina still doesn’t want to haves sex with her (again, Dina has said she is comfortable with it and she has expressed sexual attraction to Becky in certain circumstances, but Becky processes it as “she needs to say she wants me all the time”), then Dina is the second woman who Becky loved that didn’t love her back.
Drawing this back to the original snippet I quoted, how I’ve had it explained to me by folks who’ve gone through similar feelings is that from Becky’s perspective it’d be fine as long as Dina became so overwhelmingly crazed with lust that she couldn’t stop herself, and Becky did her part in staying pure by saying ‘no.’
Really, I still don’t understand the amount of applause Joe is receiving here and on Patreon. Like, “hey, Joe, congratulations for not raping Liz, because that’s what non-consensual sex is”.
Shit, that’s basic decent behavior!! We, giving ‘cookies’ for men for not abusing, just fuel the nice-guys syndrome we got in our decade; where we giving boys a impression that they deserves good things only for not being assholes…
I mean, I don’t get the “bare minimum” comments either. Liz wants to stop and Joe stops.
That doesn’t strike as either the bare minimum or an “atta boy” moment, it’s a binary choice with a clearly, morally correct option. Person A withdraws their desire for sex, Person B complies.
Then with the specifics, she says to wait so he verbally complies and pulls back. She says she wants to stop and he agrees and adds that her choice to stop is always valid. If we’re defining the bare minimum as “stopping when your partner says stop”, then Joe saw that she felt hesitant in how she’s inherently entitled to stop whenever she wants and told her she is always allowed to stop in any circumstance.
It’s because Joe fits most aspects of the archetype of the hot, horny ‘alpha’ college student without crossing the line into shitface territory. So it’s not an “attaboy, you did the bare minimum”, it’s more like “good on you for working against type”.
Because we all know that a significant amount of dumbass college teens (with much less dudebro energy than Joe) would at this point get pushy or be begging their asses off.
People are saying “bare minimum” because they mean that not pressuring, hurting, or raping someone *should* just be basic vehavior and it isn’t worthy of praise. Imagine if instead of praising Joe for that everyone was going in a wild direction and praising Joe for not punching Liz in the face for wanting to stop. You might be sitting there thinking “well OF COURSE he shouldn’t punch her in the face. It’s very easy to not punch someone in the face. Someone shouldn’t be praised for not punching someone in the face.”
Same here. OF COURSE Joe shouldn’t pressure or ignore Liz. It isn’t really a choice at all and to a lot of people praising someone for *not* ignoring someone’s consent is implying that it’s somehow the harder or less expected choice.
Minimum effort= stopping when someone says no
Maximum effort= going above and beyond to talk things out with the hesitant person, making them understand that they aren’t mad at them, making them feel safe and secure in their right to say no, etc. Etc.
The fact that Joe didn’t wheedle, whine, or guilt Liz into continuing and instead stopped immediately and told her they can “always” stop is very very nice but it is still the expected and correct action and it does not require effort.
Yeah but it’s as morally simple as can be. If I don’t hit someone with my car I’m not doing the bare minimum of road safety I’m just not doing the thing that’s an actual crime.
From that point of view I understand how weird it is to praise Joe here (I figured those were because he, like, immediately complies and tries to reassure her that her choice matters, which doesn’t strike me as “bare minimum” to offer emotional support to a casual hookup, that’s just caring about someone in front of you and offering advice that you know how to offer), but calling this the bare minimum implies that, within a vacuum, there’s something else you’re supposed to do when your partner says “I want to stop” other than, like, stop. Even if you start pissing and whinging about it you’re still doing the bare minimum, it just makes you an asshole complaining that doing the bare minimum is somehow a burden.
The world is so messed up that someone doing the bare minimum is a good guy. The truth is that some guys wouldn’t even do this. They’d try to pressure her to continue.
I think the praise isn’t so much about Joe as it is about the state of society. Its a commonly held perception that most men, when asked to stop won’t. Joe, by doing the clear right thing here, sets himself apart from most men, who would do the opposite. By that logic, I think the more appropriate praise is “your better than most men in that regard, Joe,” and not “you did a good thing, Joe.”
Also, I want to point out that I have very little reference points on how accurate the aforementioned perception is to real life, but its definitely the way I’ve noted media seems presents it.
Also, if a significant amount of people aren’t doing the bare minimum, seeing others praised for doing so could help with making positive strides toward everyone doing the bare minimum.
I think that “most” is probably inaccurate, but even if it’s 1 in 5 or 10 that’s enough to be a societal problem with a comfortable margin. I’m fairly certain the amount of men who _knowingly_ wont stop are few, while much more common is that some men are slow on the uptake while in the act (“Stop what?” etc). Especially if alcohol or other drugs are involved.
There’s probably also a bit of a media lag going on here, with Gen X and older millennial creators working through the even shittier culture around sex that we grew up with. Today you’d have to have lived under a rock not to have heard of best practices about consent, but we’re not many decades removed from when the _dominant_ attitude was that consent was something you gave once and couldn’t take back.
A _lot_ of people live under rocks. While the poplular social awareness gives the perception that, if not everyone, at least “all young people” understand consent, that is not in fact, the case. Which is why rape amongst college students continues to be reported.
Everyone certainly doesn’t – even among young people, but “most” is very strong. It doesn’t take “most” to keep seeing rape among college students.
There are a lot of nuances about consent that aren’t well understood and lots of ways to press to avoid the “no”.
This is a fairly clear case and I doubt more than a small percentage would just push on under the “you’ve already consented” doctrine. A larger group would likely try to persuade her to keep going, but that’s a bit different than “knowingly won’t stop”.
I think much of the praise is about Joe. Would we be praising Danny as much if he did this?
Joe is a horndog. Horndogs are notorious for not taking “no” for an answer. Joe is acting out of horndog character. It should be noted that Willis has said that Joe is big on consent, so this is not out of character for Joe.
I once watched, incredulous, as Bill O’Reilly argued at length that a woman did not have the right to withdraw consent once it was given. And at the time he was one of the highest-paid television heads. So yes, on one level what Joe is doing here is just basic, but despite his hyperactive libido he is counter to a whole chunk of our culture that fails to clear that bar. It’s worth at least a nod and a thumbs-up.
Because men are constantly bombarded with role models that are utterly toxic and fucked up, so when we see a role model that for once is doing the right thing it feels genuinely elating.
I really wish there was more of this in my childhood but there wasn’t.
I understand where you are coming from and I agree with you, it shouldn’t be like this, but it’s the world we live in.
Looks like Liz is having second thoughts about on being rebellious, for its own sake, and that is completely within her rights to do so. More importantly, Joe respected her choice, and backed off, so good on him. When Liz said, “stop, I don’t want to do this”, he stopped, and validated her decision. Joe might come off as a creep, by the way he talks, but this demonstrates that is not the case.
I genuinely don’t think Joe is a creep, nor has ever really been depicted as such.
He’s just enthusiastic and honest about his libido. Has he ever done anything truly questionable? Even the “hot co-eds” database he kept was for his own eyes only, rather than any creepy project to embarrass and objectify female students.
Joe may be a shallow sex obsessed beefcake, but he’s not a bad guy.
I mean, yeah, the Do-List, that thing where he engaged in constant misogynist objectifying of every woman around him completely convinced it made him honest and forward-thinking. He did hand it out to anyone who asked, too, and where Joyce spelled out how harmful his actions were, that he reinforced in her that the thought processes that led to her being a lump of meat for Ryan to decide he was entitled to aren’t some singular evil but stuff men casually engage with all the time (and this horrified Joe so much that he immediately pulled the plug on just about every thought process he engaged in, which is particularly meaningful since that persona he built up was one he did to protect himself from getting hurt after seeing his dad repeatedly cheat on his mom), Rachel made it clear that his list could have been used as a tool to stalk and harass any woman on there, and Joe had logged every woman he came across.
When Joe makes an effort to hit on a woman, he’s really forward about it in a way where he puts the expectation of saying ‘no’ onto whoever’s he hitting on instead of, like, not pushing at Sarah until she screams at him or seeing Becky for the first time and lifting his shirt. That’s technically consent, but it’s one where he’s given himself free reign to act how he pleases because he expects everyone else to set boundaries.
This is all ended four years ago, granted. Joe’s a much different person despite his attempts otherwise, and even at his worst I don’t think he’d ever act any differently than he is now. Liz is saying stop, so he stops, it’s not complex.
How does one go about asking a person if they’re interested without putting the “burden” of them saying “no” onto them? Frame it as a negative question so they say ‘yes’ to reject you instead?
Well for starters, you don’t push the issue until they scream in your face to leave them alone, or see someone for the first time ever and start lifting your shirt.
I’m actually just going to start smacking blokes with a wiffle bat when they grab a single sentence out of multiple paragraphs and go “ey yo whats all this then.”
Or… put more care into how sentences stand on their own, as well as in the context of the surrounding paragraph? Alternately, accept that people are going to ask questions about what is written in an open forum?
Sentences in a paragraph aren’t supposed to stand on their own as individual statements that you pick out and process one at a time in a vacuum, they are shaped by the context of the words surrounding them, you clown.
It wasn’t for his eyes only. He kept talking about it and giving his ratings publicly (though not to the girls in question unless they were highly rated) and offering the password to the RSS feed.
It wasn’t intended to embarrass women, but that was the effect on those that heard about it, even before it was leaked.
He hit on Rachel by telling her she was an eleven out of ten. He didn’t ask her name or try to have a conversation. He just said “hey, you’re hot!” and assumed his own hotness made it a welcome gesture.
And then brought up the “eleven” again when they met after the list was outed, despite her being pretty damn emphatic about wanting nothing to do with his nonsense.
It was not for his eyes only. Things you make for your eyes only don’t have RSS feeds with subscribers, nor do you hand out the password to randos you meet.
He also used to go around talking about how booze lead to threesomes. While WE know that that ended up being bullshit, I doubt every girl on campus he was creeping on knows that.
I view Joe as a guy who wants to do the right thing, and thought he was a good guy because he understood consent, but was still heavily mired in toxic masculinity/sexist societal behavior. He thought being respectful when it comes to literal sex was enough, when it’s not, boundaries need to exist in other contexts too.
I don’t think he’s an all around bad guy though, I think he’s a product of his upbringing and society. Because once it finally hit him that his actions were problematic, he clearly was genuinely remorseful and tried to do better. I think that’s the key that makes him a redeemable character and why so many are rooting for him. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone believes or does things that are harmful at some point in their life (especially their youth). But he’s trying to change and that made me like him much more as a character (I love a good redemption story).
Exactly. Also all tied into his dad and trying to avoid emotional connections to keep from being able to hurt women.
He’s trying to do better and he certainly is in some ways – though it was just implied that he was still needing the room for sex fairly often, which raises the question of how much he’s still blatantly hitting on every attractive girl he sees. Just maybe a little less grossly.
Joe is an 18-year old guy, saw that he’d never able to emotionally connect with a woman (because look how his parents turned out), and so decided he’d lionize the concept of the horny frat bro but do it the right way. He only wants to bang, he will never mislead anyone about that, he will be as extremely, viscerally clear as possible that he’s dtf and anyone who does not want him merely has to say so.
That manifests as a dude treating every woman around him as a potential lay. I still pretty firmly believe Joe’s ability to help Joyce while at her parents’ was in her being a Zero Minus and thus he’d never pursue her, meaning he automatically sidestepped everything he’s built up because nothing he’s about to say is going to impact his chances with sleeping with her, thus he was able to be emotionally available in a time of need and he didn’t even realize it. Then the Do-List comes out and he doesn’t particularly care, because he’s molded himself into someone he never wants anyone to care about and thus he’s incapable of causing any harm, and then Joyce spells it out clear as day how wrong his actions have been, drilling into her head that she can be seen as a slab of meat and the guy doing it would think it’s funny, to the point where this entire persona he built up and clung to as an ideal was immediately thrown out the window.
She’s quite a flexible young lady — straddling Joe face-first in the first frame, and twisted completely around at the waist in the fourth. What time does the exorcism start?
I noted this too, but comics are not required to have the same rates of time flow for dialogue and artwork, nor do we have to interpret everything depicted in the frame as happening simultaneously. Willis could have depicted Liz in the act of lifting one leg and turning, but it would have used up a frame and spotlighted an action whose only importance is Liz’s resulting position.
Dan is probably in Sal’s room, and it’ll probably lead to a Slipshine, because Sal has probably been thinking constantly about grappling hook cunnilingus.
Hey good on you Joe! Despite your manwhore ways you still fully understand consent and are totally cool with it being withdrawn. You’d think that’s a bar everyone clears but since they don’t… kudos Joe!
I have a feeling that Sarah or Joyce is going to find out about what almost happened between Liz and Joe, and Joe is probably going to wind up being accused of something that didn’t happen.
… what if tomorrow Liz brags to Joyce that she saw Joe’s chest hair (that goes all the way down to his feet) and then asks her what it was like for her to be his friend with a rewards program, because the both of them think the other is an outrageous hyper badass who does secular adult things.
So these two start comparing experiences that never happened.
That would probably be the least possible worst thing that could happen. Joyce would probably be devastated.
I have a feeling that if the details of this came to light, Liz might claim that she wasn’t a willing participant in order to protect her, image? Reputation?
Maybe to keep Sarah from killing her for ditching her and Joyce for some time with Joe?
Joe has a reputation as a “man whore”, and even though he did the right thing, an accusation like this against him would be hard to disprove, or believe.
I have a bad feeling she is going to accuse him of not stopping when she first said it. I don’t know why but the look in her eye… Denial of her own actions.
I was playing with that idea myself. I don’t think Willis would do a fake-rape-accusation storyline… but if she is on a verge of a screaming panic attack where she won’t remember things clearly afterwards…?
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“…I need another edible, THEN we can resume”
“oh”
“is that a good ‘oh’ or bad ‘oh’?”
“…you ever heard of an Oh-face?”
“OH… I thought that’d be kinkier”
the flintstones are wearing off
They’re yabba dabba done.
Not funny.
If a stranger needs to be under the influence to resume then you stop.
Or it could just be that they prefer to be under the influence but would still be willing to do it sober? I dunno, how do you tell the difference?
You kind of can’t tell the difference, and that’s exactly the problem.
My rule in that situation would be to absolutely stop. Sex on drugs can be fun, but personally i’d only do that with someone i’ve had sex with while sober before. And a negotiation about boundaries.
… and also, i’d say starting to make out with a stranger who’s on drugs already is a different level than someone starting to make out with you sober (or less on drugs) and then pausing to take more drugs. If making out isn’t drugging your brain with excitement enough, and you can still think of taking more drugs, you should probably not make out with that person right now!
I think that the stranger being the one wanting, for whatever reason, to be under the influence (of Flintstone vitamins, let us not forget) is a fairly crucial distinction.
more accurately they’d prolly be like VitaFusion (can’t imagine Centrum but possible)
I mean, if someone thinks they have to be drugged in order to continue a sexual encounter, that’s not a good sign either.
Well…
I’m in my 50s now. I can count on one hand and have fingers left over the number of times I’ve been… intimate with anyone.
I often wish I could have given myself a bit of help, if you will, to reduce the anxiety, reduce my inhibitions.
While I would agree that if someone ELSE says stop, for whatever reason, that you stop, I would also say that if they are willing to go on with a bit of help, even chemical help, that it’s THEIR choice to do that.
What have you done, Liz?
well she was about to do Joe
…and probably regretting it.
Well, its probably better for the regrets to kick in BEFORE going through with it. Tends to minimize the future regrets.
Yeah, that’s the thing that’s kind of getting skimmed over in our eagerness to praise Joe’s willingness to stop.
It seems that the signs her eagerness to do this wasn’t quite as solid as she was pretending were real. Now, it looks like they’re going to get through this without huge mistakes or more trauma, since her regrets kicked in early on. Could have been a lot more awkward if they’d waited until afterwards. Which is why it can be a good idea to pay attention to those warning signs in a potential partner and not dismiss it as “taking away her agency” as some were doing before.
Nah, it’s still weird to decide how someone else will feel about sex.
Liz wanted sex, Joe wanted sex, Liz now does not want sex, so Joe stops.
As a matter of fact, it strikes me as a healthy lesson to learn that you can withdraw consent even during sex, and that doing so is a healthy and valid choice if you start to become uncomfortable and that your partner needs to respect it.
Exactly!
I don’t think it’s better to completely abstain from sex just because you might not be sure to go through with it. Sometimes we don’t know what we want or where our boundaries are until we try things out for ourselves.
The point is: You don’t HAVE to go through with it. You CAN stop at any point, and anyone who doesn’t respect that isn’t worth fucking.
If this doesn’t turn into drama on the next page, this is the healthiest way to do things, in my opinion. She’ll have learned a lesson (let’s see what kind), and no harm is done.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with making out with a guy if that’s what you felt at the time, and then stop. Yay!
Yass all the sex NO REGERTS
wait
REGERTS
ALL THE REGERTS
It’s a little hard to have sex when your brain is screaming at you.
Yeah, I get the distinct feeling that this is her first time doing this and the fundie programming is on red alert.
Yes, that’s my guess, too.
It’s good they have a break, but I suspect Liz aren’t still not so free of her christians beliefs and fears, what make all this situation sad a lot.
Well damn, looks like even the Placebo effect has its limits.
I mean, it isn’t necessarily the christian stuff, sex (for a lot of people any way) involves intimacy and emotional entanglements that aren’t present here. IMO doing it just to get rid of the V-card is a bad idea, especially if it’s with someone who you don’t know well enough to have proper trust and rapport with. Sure different people are different, and different circumstances are different, so like all things I take “as a rule” there are exceptions where things worked out well for everyone involved, but it was clear that that wasn’t what was going to happen here. Her motives were not conducive to a good first experience because she wasn’t in the right head space for it, and it didn’t help that he’s in the middle of an existential crisis, exacerbated by her offer of no strings sex since that’s at the core of who he thought he was and what he thought he wanted out of life.
Sure the christian stuff added to the baggage, but even if she wasn’t shaking off fundie programing (we assume, due to her attitude when talking to Joyce, but given Sarah’s attitude I’m not sure it’s fundie programing and not a more mild for of christianity) I really don’t think either of them was in a position to make this a healthy first experience for her.
I mean, you don’t have to be fundie to not be into casual hookups.
Joyce of all people figured that out.
I don’t know… she’d figured out but, as I know, Joyce was a fundie, huh?
You should be right about people not like casual sex, but I don’t think this can’t be imposed in people by family, society, etc.
Speaking as someone that Danny would insist get some initiative, it’s a whole big thing.
Liz wants sex to assert herself as an adult, because it’s her choice, because she’s been told she’s too stupid and naive to have it, but realizing something is wrong doesn’t make you deprogram all the responses and reactions you have telling you that it’s wrong, and even if you’ve had harmful thought processes on sexual purity hammered into you, the endpoint of those thoughts, that sex is something of importance that you share with someone you love and trust, is still something that can be healthy, just not the one path of many that led you there.
Even as Joyce deprograms herself, I don’t think she’d ever have a one-night stand with someone. Even without her fundie death cult upbringing insisting that sex is an inherently corrupting act that is only redeemed in one context, she’s still someone who’s big on emotionally connecting with the people she cares about. Same with Danny, he had the North American-brand generic Christian upbringing, but sex is a deeply emotional thing to him that he shares with his partner. I lost my religion when I was 12, it has no meaning to me, but I am also someone who, at least as I see myself, couldn’t do a one-night stand because sex to me is something I share with someone I love.
Just so we’re clear, as far as your argument goes, you don’t see any reason someone wouldn’t want casual sex other than they’re dealing with fundamentalist deprogramming? I’ve noticed that you think this is why Becky doesn’t want it, why Joyce doesn’t, and now Liz.
Is it possible someone just isn’t into it?
Did you…did not read the comment you’re replying to?
If they weren’t recovering fundies to start with, then no, but both Joyce and Becky were raised with in an intense sexual purity culture. Both of them have openly talked about not wanting to have pre-marital sex in explicitly Christian terms. It’s not really a big stretch here.
Liz is a bit more of a black box, since we know less about how she was raised other than that she’s hiding her lack of faith from her mom and that she’s nearly as naive as Joyce was. We’ll likely learn more in the next few strips, but currently it seems like she was trying to push herself to have sex to prove something, but couldn’t go through with it. It’s not as certain, but the obvious bet is that it’s tied to the faith she was born in.
He’s like that, Yumi.
The three characters you listed are all explicitly recovering hardline christians.
Well it seems rather obvious that Liz is a Joyce expy, right down to Joe figuring he can have sex with Liz to get Joyce out of his mind.
And yeah, he didn’t say all of that, I just filled in the fairly obvious gaps.
But Liz showing off her God flaunting while still maintaining a Christian oriented FB page shows that she isn’t quite ready to be outed as an atheist. And probably not ready to do a lot of the things she’s been assuming that atheists get up to all the time.
Damn, that explains why it’s so hard for me. My brain is ALWAYS screaming at me!
What’s it screaming at you?
I don’t wanna say 😛 It’s quite rude.
Tell us the story! Please!
Surely it can’t be any worse than the c-word?
My internal turmoil is something that gives me non-stop self loathing, fear for the future, and a desire to disappear from this earth. I try my best to be a worthwhile person but I constantly feel like the world would be better off without me. And honestly I don’t wanna live in the world anymore. So much negativity. So much anxiety. And it’s never gonna get better. There’s just something wrong with me and I’m sick of it.
Oh I’m so sorry to hear that! 😞
Don’t believe it!
Your art makes this world so much of a better place!
I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through that. I don’t presume that your trouble must be the same as mine, but I used to have something similar and found (to my surprise) that a clinical psychologist was a great help.
I don’t really have any insurance and I feel like I need to save my money so for the time being that’s a luxury I’m gonna pass on. It’s my own fault cuz I didn’t do it when I did have insurance.
How good are you at bibliotherapy? There are some decent resources by Martin Seligman, and books are cheap.
I dunno about bibliotherapy. Self-help books and pop psych based therapy are kind of a crap shoot.
Also, wasn’t Martin Seligman that one who sold books about “curing” homosexuality?
Yoto: free or low-cost counseling, pls look into it if the only thing stopping you is you think you can’t afford it
https://www.opencounseling.com/
or search for “free therapy” etc. for different options
@Red Balloon.
I don’t think that’s right about Seligman, because I clearly recall that in his book What You Can Change and What you Can’t he described gender identity and sexual orientation as being impossible to alter, and condemned methods advertised for changing them as expensive, dangerous, cruel, and ineffective. As for “pop psychology” he’s one of the most frequently cited academic psychologists of the Twentieth Century.
None of which is to say that he’s always right nor that his advice is useful to everyone. But do please be more careful with the insinuating questions.
Oh sorry! I must’ve been thinking of someone else!
I generally try to avoid DIY therapy books ’cause depending on the source some of them actually have some really terrible advice.
But yeah if Seligman is this widely cited and accredited then I might actually check his stuff out at some point.
@Yoto I read your thoughts comment and all I could think was “Brother!” Although I continue to struggle against that negative thinking (a lifetime of it is hard to redirect), the best part of getting the help I needed was installing the mental/emotional floor that keeps me from falling into the deepest parts of that bleak well of despair.
Seligman’s “Learned Optimism” is partly at fault/to credit for me being alive today.
I’m not “great” by a long shot, but I’m not looking at every highway barricade and wanting to hit it either. From a very analytical/scientific standpoint, he delves into why teaching yourself to be less depressed and more optimistic can help. Without reading Seligman, I’m nit sure I’d have talked to my Dr about therapy or medication. It’s not just a theory book. He includes some practical exercises to help confront negative self talk. (CBT type stuff)
Fact checking about Seligman and conversion therapy. Here’s a couple of sources about Seligman:
Unified Psychotherapy Project cites his observations from 1966 on Conversion ‘therapy’ in “What you can change and what you can’t”. It’s neither an endorsement nor (disappointingly) a resounding criticism of it.
The same passage is referenced at LGBT Wiki.
NeuroTree only lists one publication by Seligman that primarily addresses sex, and that is “Sex differences in depression and explanatory style in children.”
So that’s one summary of part of “What you can change[…]”. Between quoting Seligman’s passage about how excited the psychology community initially was, and only adding that he “notes that the findings were later demonstrated to be flawed.” It reads like it’s framed to paint a particular view of the passage. At the same time, this may be coloured by my own response in a “never meet your heroes” kind of defense. I’m now hunting for the book to see if I can read the full passage.
N.b. The passage in those two sources reads like it was something Seligman reported on in 1966, but also like that’s when the study occured. The first source then provides a citation as the book “What you can change[…]” but that book was first published in 1993. So something isn’t adding up clearly.
One thing is clear is that I shouldn’t looking into this while still waking up.
In my experience, that voice is nothing short of a liar. It just takes a while to really understand that. You’re worthwhile because you’re there. Period. That’s something you don’t need to earn.
That’s not true. People only say stuff like that because they like me. And people like me because I try very hard to be liked. I’ve seen the way people on turn on people on the internet, and honestly my will to live ain’t that strong. So I try to avoid any controversy I can cuz I cannot mentally handle it. And living in fear of that is just so stressful. I’m tired.
Dude, I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through all this!
Your art is so important to me, it got me through some really difficult and stressful times!
What you draw gave me the ability to escape, even if only for a few minutes or even a brief moment, that was invaluable in getting me through those dreary days!
I’d be really sad if anything ever happened to you! 😖
What you do makes the world a better place! YOU make the world a better place. You help people, you help the world, as an artist, just like Willis, just like the artists behind all your favorite comics and anime!
Please just believe me when I say the world is SO much better with you around!!! 😫
Pretty much so. It’s not just a liar but an unimaginative and repetitious one, so once you expose its lies it is often possible to cultivate a habit of refuting them and divert its litanies. Easier with help, of course.
A) People are frequently dicks on the internet. Being part of an anonymous mob can bring out the worst in people and turn them into rabid shred-beasts. Judging your self-worth by the vicious, unwarranted assault others can aim at people who stumble into their firing line is not logical!
B) If it/they seem to exist to counter any argument as to why you may matter, and to put you down and mock you, that internal turmoil may be.you experiencing intrusive thoughts. Basically it’s depression hijacking part of your brain to attack you with, not your ACTUAL thoughts.
C) You don’t need to engage with intrusive thoughts, and if you can just go “intrusive thought, not my thought” and ignore it,.eventually they do go away (at least mostly)
Source: spent 6 years with suicidal depression. Ultimately managed to CBT myself without professional help. Am now a much happier, stable person who enjoys her own company and life. Can be done, worth trying xx
Adding on to what Miri said, while I was waiting for CBT (it was sliding scale and there was a waitlist) the therapist office recommended two books: Mind over mood, and The thoughts and feelings handbook.
Another trick is to wear a rubber band and snap it saying NO when you get an intrusive thought.
You’re very supportive @Alanari and this is it 100%
> “You’re worthwhile because you’re there. Period.”
But this:
> “That’s something you don’t need to earn.”
Is well meaning but quite wrong. Many of us actually *do* need to learn that we deserve living. We’ve been taught through emotional abuse, learned experience, and often very explicit statements by abusers that the opposite is true. It’s not, but our brains are actually convinced of our lack of worth, and we need to learn to value ourselves. We shouldn’t *have* to do this. No-one should teach the living to feel and think this way But they do.
I don’t mean to be rude but the quote is “You don’t need to earn” not “You don’t need to learn”
Ah… yes.. that is rather different. Learning to read is something I need to re-earn. 🤦♂️
It doth remain better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open my mouth and stick a foot in it.
Can’t respond to the later post but it’s not your fault if you weren’t able to get help when you had insurance. It’s nobody’s fault, except maybe the systems that cause you to losr insurance before you’re ready for therapy. You deserve to feel better. I hope one day you can.
Hi Yotomoe. Here are my thoughts for whatever they are worth.
You are a stranger to me, but some of the things you are saying could be words from my own mouth. I have lived with a cloud of…feeling like I was one step off a razor’s edge from ruining my life beyond repair, that it didn’t matter because I was already ruined really, and like I was being a fake and hollow person who somehow tricked people into tolerating me.
I use past tense, but I’m not totally beyond those thoughts yet. They still happen sometimes. I’m working on it. I have downturns, but things are getting better for me now. Sometimes I feel so much better that it HURTS to think about it. It’s weird.
Your situation is your own, I don’t know your details but…all I can say is that therapy helped me a lot. And one of the ways it helped me was in realizing that medication would also help me. Therapy helped me to learn how to pull myself out of a spiral, but I want to not have to spiral down so far to begin with. It is exhausting. And it is a special kind of…shittiness? To realize that there is actually a legit option there within reach, and that existing actually does not have to be so hard. And that I was fighting with myself and making rational reasons to continue suffering. Thinking I would have to just bootstrap myself out of it, and THEN I could be better. And that if I couldn’t do that…well, then somehow I wouldn’t deserve to feel better anyway? I’m a little embarrassed at how long it took me to realize that if I felt like this suffering was an innate part of me, then that is actually a checkmark in the “Need to Fix Your Brain Chemistry” column.
Sometimes being able to feel better has to happen before the changes that will fix my life. My conclusion, finally, has been that I need to not be busy fighting myself all the time so that I can actually make my life better. It takes SO MUCH ENERGY and TIME to feel shitty. I’m drawing again, now. It’s baby steps, but I am drawing again and that means so much to me.
So, just in case any of the following could help you. Apologies if I’m suggesting stuff you already know.
I know you mentioned not having insurance, and therapy/support would be ideal alongside this, but general practice doctors can prescribe meds and are usually more accessible and affordable for an appointment than psychiatric clinicians. Given *gestures at everything* a lot of doctors are discussing mental health as a regular part of patient care. Generic brand pills are also surprisingly affordable, and some pharmacies have specialties that allow them to offer discounts. Your doctor might know, or you might be able to call around and ask.
Planned Parenthood also provides mental health counseling with a sliding fee based on income – their goal is whole community health, so you will see a variety of genders in their waiting rooms. The cost can be established upfront when making the appointment.
You don’t have to have everything in place to start making any one step, there is no such thing as a perfect process, whatever you do to help yourself is part of self care.
Sorry to hear about that, glad to hear you’ve been feeling better at the very least. Glad everyone’s super concerned about me at the very least.
Yep. You’re in it. You’re really, really in it. It’s an awful place to be.
What’s your zip code?
(Ech, I was trying to respond to Yotomoe’s comment below, which was a depression stream of consciousness.)
Yo, Yotomoe, what’s your zipcode?
Hey, Yoto, I got this damn voice in my head, too. Partly because my youth that was wasted in years and years of fundamentalism shit, partly of massive amount of self loathing, bullying and another traumas and etc.
Have some hug from here, and hope you pass through, because you’re fucking awesome.
Not me. I have no backstory. A very accepting upbringing, pretty privileged all things considered. My divorce from religion was just a gradual realization I didn’t believe. I dunno it’s not like I have a reason to be sad. I’m just sorta selfish. All my insignificant problems don’t really matter in the face of people who actually struggle.
I know this response is a bit late, but: suffering’s not a compeptition. Some of us have reasons we can point to for why we’re messed up and others of us don’t, but an unexplained problem is still a problem.
I’m also an artist with depression (on the other side of it now). I remember with perfect clarity everything about that your brain is saying to you, in your post and responses above, because my brain said it to me, and it was saying it 100% because of my depression.
The backstory, the “reason” that you’re having these thoughts and feelings is that you’re experiencing depression. (That’s all that’s “wrong with you”, as you said above — it’s not actually something wrong with you as a person.) It’s a chemical thing that is happening, that you’re trying to fix and survive and deal with currently, from inside of it (which is badass, but also really sucky, as you sure don’t need me to tell you).
You have lots of skills that are helping you (such as creativity, plus being articulate and vulnerable — do you realize, not everyone can do that, it’s kind of a big deal!) and these skills will continue to help you.
You’re currently encountering depression on Very Hard Mode, ie, without meds or therapy. Sounds like you wish you had access to cheap-or-free meds and therapy. Are you in the US? One can often find free therapy, or on a sliding scale. If you want, let me know your zipcode, and I’ll find one for you, or you can yourself. I’d be going to http://www.findhelp.org .
No but it does mean that my problems don’t matter. In the grand scheme of the world I’m pretty blessed and I don’t deserve to be. I’m sick of being here. I’m sick of feelings guilty for being here. I’m sick of being my mediocre self. I’m sick of wanting to die I’m sick of being terrified of dying. I’m sick of needing money I’m sick of going to work I’m sick of crying I’m sick of hurting I’m sick of sucking I’m sick of failing I’m sick of people dying I’m sick of people sucking I’m sick of lying to everyone I’m sick of lying to myself I’m sick of the steady progress of time I’m sick of this world we live on I’m sick of humans I’m sick of animals I’m sick of my brain and the chaos inside of it I’m sick of being alone I’m sick of hating myself because it’s my fault that I’m alone I’m sick of being an underachiever I’m sick of not being able to change I’m sick of wasting my life I wish I had never been born what an absolute waste of consciousness.
Yep. You’re in it. You’re really, really in it. It’s an awful place to be.
What’s your zip code?
I just had a bit of an emotional breakdown at work. :/ Got myself a bit too worked up.
Also it’s 30157. Just don’t use that information to track me down watch me through my bedroom window . You are allowed to watch me through my living room window though.
Cool. Here’s one!
Mental Health Services by Highland River Center
Call 800-729-5700 (you’ll just talk to a receptionist or leave a message)
126 Enterprise Path
Open Now : 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
And nice living room, I like your couch. 👍
I’ll check it out but I’m probably unlikely to do it if it costs money.
I understand, I’ve been there, too. Remember that your depression will grab whatever obstacle is handy, in order to perpetuate itself. (Is there really a better use of money than not having to feel like your stream-of-depression, above? That’s what [that part of your] money is for. But yeah. It’s hard to imagine.)
I hope you hold onto the willful powerful part of you that expressed how you’re feeling that loudly, that screamed how much you wanted that feeling to stop. You didn’t have to say anything so real, but you chose to. You’re a person who wants to feel better so damn much. Hold onto this part of you. It is great.
I hope you find a sliding scale price that works for you. (Or, you can always ask them for free resources in your area.)
Rooting so hard for you.
unless it’s screaming; “DO IT! DO IT! DOOOOO IIIIIIIIT!”
And now Liz freaks out. Hope Joe can deal with that.
He can, and he’s already seeeing it coming at this point
And baby, just remember
When our love affair aborts…
EAT MY SHORTS!–Rick Dees
I’m so angry that I know that’s a real song.
oops
No oops as of yet. Liz is thinking it over.
This seems like a perfect opportunity for them to actually take a moment to talk about what’s happening here, really turn this awkward thing into a good moment for two young people struggling with their identity.
So naturally Sarah’s opening the door right now.
Or Joyce, she would be bad too.
For either we would need some preparation to make it reasonable. As with Becky and Dorothy showing up earlier.
For starters, it was VERY good on Joe’s part to stop when asked, whatever they were doing.
But what I’m wondering is, did any copulation actually occur, or were they just doing dry humping until now?
She’s wearing pants, he has underwear….
I’m thinking “Dry Humping”, ayup.
Second base, maybe second and a half?
Definitely brings back memories of what I did with my first GF. Honestly that level of intimacy is a pretty good stopping point for strangers.
Not being an American, I need a key to the baseball system.
Cricket is not a useful analogy to dating.
First is Kissing, 2nd is getting hands on, 3rd is hands in the more erogenous zones, Home is actual intercourse. Oral and digital penetration somewhere in the grey area between 3rd and home base.
There’s a mnemonic: French (or “facesucking” for you youngsters), feel, finger, fuck.
Rugby is an even worse analogy to dating.
But what about the tackles?
Tackles are an especially poor analogue to dating. Almost as bad as rucks. Or mauls. Or scrums. Kicking. Drawing the defence….
So keep in mind the baseball system is…for the most part applicable to mainly cishet couples so with that in mind.
1st base is kissing. Maybe full on deep tongue makeouts but usually the cute smooching stuff to start you off.
2nd base is usually over the clothes/under the clothes touching. Rubbing the chest/ boobs, maybe some grinding or touching the genitals. Not quite sexy times but definitely in the ballpark (hehe, an on theme metaphor).
3rd base is where you start getting to what can be considered sex acts. Your handjobs, blowjobs, eating out, fingering. Basically your non-penetrative sex.
4th base/Going home is full on vaginal/anal penetrative sex.
Now I will say I’m basing this on context clues and I have not researched this in any way shape or form.
Also remember, the baseball system is awful and prescriptive and strongly implies that none of it amounts to anything unless someone makes it all the way “home”. Ultimately, the “score” is against a defender and they should be resisting the base runner making any progress. F that.
Also, never liked baseball as a sport either.
I guess it depends on what kinda group you’re in. I’m definitely happy to hear anyone has made it to any base. The difference between “I made it to 2nd base” and “We made it to 2nd base”. Baseball’s a team sport and we’re on the same team :3
I wonder what a six is equivalent to
?
It’s really best not to ask. Bear in mind that a crickey game lasting more than four hours is….
“Cricket”: not “crikey”. Damned fat fingers and tiny keyboards.
I don’t think sixth base is gonna be possible until real life SAO Nerve Gear is invented.
I think maybe MrSmith is referring to cricket, where you can score a six.
Damn strait. NZ v England semi final T20 world cup
Two threes.
One four and one two
Three twos
Six ones
her silly mid-on is still covered, so we know Joe hasn’t knocked “it” for sixes yet
As always, there’s an xkcd for this: https://xkcd.com/540/
Truly all knowledge is contained on the Internet.
Perfect grav for that comment.
There’s almost always a relevant xkcd, somehow.
I love that virginity is as imaginary a line as Maginot
From the fact that clothes are still on all of the relevant parts, I think they were just making out/undressing.
Although… I am wondering why Liz is sucking her fingers in the last panel?
I don’t know, maybe regretting of herself kissing him…
My first thought was “I didn’t expect him to stop- What do I do?”.
My second thought is that she’s thinking things over.
My third thought, however, is that she is looking for that edible to give it back
I looks to me like she’s pressing her fist to he rmouth. No sucking involved. In any sense of the word, hurr hurr.
my interpretation of the finger sucking is self soothing, like a kid sucking on their thumb
Same.
It looks more like her fingers are bent and just pressed against her lips, not in her mouth. It looks more like a thinking gesture.
Two fingers appear to be in her mouth, but it still appears she’s thinking.
Personally I would would offer hugs and a backrub, making clear it was an offer with no push.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that she’s somewhat regretting stopping, while simultaneously regretting ever starting.
She seems like a woman who regrets a lot right now, unfortunately.
I forsee her getting angry at herself in the next few comics for her inability to shed her puritan upbringing as quickly as she would like to.
That or mad at Joe for leading her astray with his Joe-ness.
Could be biting her nails?
She was eating cheeto’s earlier and wanted to suck off the residual cheese dust before they continued.
There’s a story in the Thousand Nights and a Night about someone who didn’t wash his hands after eating and made his partner very cross.
Didn’t get the nooky, as I recall.
She cut his thumbs off.
There’s a robot chicken sketch where they made a snack food where the “dust” was actually pleasurable so you didn’t have to worry about fingering a girl after snacks.
Then it was probably neither chilli, horseradish, nor mustard.
Things you learn working in a commercial kitchen!
Please don’t tell me you learned that the hard way 😵
As you wish.
But my not telling doesn’t make it any less true. Fortunately the lesson I learned was always to wash my hands before I pee as well as after, and nobody else got their pink bits dosed with capsaicin in the incident. I have also learned not to touch my face while I am working in a kitchen.
There’s definitely an important lesson to be learned here:
Always wash your hands before and after touching BOTH kinds of weiners!
@The Wellerman: also, tacos. And clams.
Looks to me like she’s biting her knuckles or pressing her fist against her mouth.
Oh YES! I got Dina!
I wouldn’t call it very good so much as ‘the expected default’
Stopping is the expected default.
Stopping well is good. “Yeah, of course. Of course. Always.” Those are very reassuring things to hear when you ask someone to stop.
Stopping is bare minimum, and I did want to draw a distinction between that and what should be the expected normal thing.
Joe gets some consent cred back for the fact he handled it in a reassuring manner.
For what it’s worth, Joe’s boxers are still on in that first panel, so it would seem we were still in Make-Out Mode.
Stopping? That’s the bare minimum. Being good about it, or very good? That remains to be seen. For someone who doesn’t do feels Joe can be very good with other’s feels, but we’ll have to see this play out.
Yeah that’s what I meant. I was just at a loss of words when I wrote that.
I don’t think Joe has ever pushed back when a woman was clear with him about sex stuff. He’s hilariously immature, but fundamentally decent.
Frankly, I suspect he’ll walk her to the bus stop or whatever.
I’m actually glad we get to see this in a comic. Because I think you’re absolutely right about Joe’s fundamental decency, and that tends to get lost in the comments section a lot.
He flipped the Hell out when Danny said he didn’t want to have sex that time, though.
Willis has always walked a fine line with Joe. On the one hand, he’s all about objectifying women, in public, often to their faces (until he seemed to learn better). On the other hand, we’ve had indications that he takes consent very seriously.
And he’s largely walked that fine line by avoiding it. We’ve never seen Joe successfully make a pass at anyone – Malaya and Liz came on to him while we only saw the aftermath with Roz and Penny. Even his rejections were all early in the attempt and very forceful – he backs off when he’s yelled at, but that’s not saying a lot really.
And of course we also known that he’s very performative about this and some (much?) of his reputation is exaggerated.
All that said, I expect him to be good here – though that’s partly due to his own Joyce-related doubts and mostly for narrative reasons.
Well considering Joe still has boxers on and she only has her shirt off… they didn’t really get past making out and removing some clothing.
I’m proud of them. Which in Joe’s case is kind of sad given that he’s basically just being cool about doing the bare minimum.
The bare minimum is a bar that is rarely achieved in the hellhole that is DOA’s university from what we’ve seen.
sorry but the lighting is really nice here
trust the Moon to know/notice such things.
I feel like that first panel is targeted at Yotomoe.
Y’know I thought that too. At the very least it’s very useful for references.
yes… reference.
Y’know, I legitimately have been so focused on “oooh, that would be useful for drawing liz from different angles. Oooh, this will help me nail down her body type. Ah that’s what her bra looks like” that I haven’t really taken the time to think “this is hot”.
Joking aside, I understand completely. When I took a drawing class in college, on the occasions that we had live models, they rather quickly ceased to be a person and became just a particularly tricky collection of lines, surfaces, shadows, etc.
I miss going to live drawing sessions. Breaking down the body into rhythms is such a good proccess and I just can’t get motivated to do it with online models.
I havd nothing useful or interesting to say to today’s comic, so have this instead.
https://i.imgur.com/UjPOu0Y.webp
…and then the wolves came.
As the prophecy fortold.
And thus, I died.
There is no escape from destiny.
Be that as it may, still may it be as it may be.
In this economy?
That’s just what they would have said.
Yoto got his wish, a passionate make out session right before they stop and realize this might be getting out of hand.
It’s a mid-ish November miracle!
Oh yeah you’re right. That is exactly what i wanted. Looks like I backed the right horse. 1st base for the win!
Congratulations Yoto!!!
As for Liz, I definitely wish her the best of luck in her journey to de-program herself!
Growing pains ahoy!
Not so sure, Yoto. Their tops were off; I think Joe had already rounded second and was heading for third.
…when he got the ‘stop’ sign from the third-base coach.
He got tagged out trying to run the base.
Thank you for did nothing more than your obligation like a humain beign, Joe.
I choose to believe your typo was “beignet”.
That last panel there? It kinda looks to me like she thought “Oh, crap. I didn’t expect him to stop. What do I do now?”
“what is that thing under my other hand ?”
Oh that’s actually a very good point. She might be reverting to the “You must say no” programming inherent to a lot of sexually repressed societies – and expecting the sexually liberated person to charge ahead regardless, because that’s part of the “dangers of sex” teachings.
See for example the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” where the tone of voice is expected to demonstrate that yes, the woman is entirely into it but for propriety’s sake must put up arguments against having sex.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but as a horny LDS teen, most of my fantasies involved being forced into sex somehow because that’s the only loophole I could imagine, as God doesn’t punish victims, you see.
I’d imagine that’s not an uncommon line of thought.
So, Becky.
the exact same place that a whole lot of Twilight comes from, IMO.
I always took the song to be that they both want it and he’s providing the excuse for her to do what she wants to do
Little of column A, little of column B, I think. Current interpretations aside, the original intent of the song was definitely playful repartee by two people who already want to get down on a cold night, but need to go through the motions that society expects of them because it’s not proper for both parties to desire sex. She puts up a token protest because she can’t seem too eager despite knowing he will object, and he gives her excuses and a cover story for when people talk.
The fact the song was originally written to be sung by a married couple kind of reinforces this, I think. There was a really excellent reasoning regarding the song that was making the rounds a few years back that I wish I could find that basically argued precisely what you’re saying. The issue, of course, is that times have changed but I see the yearly outrage as an example of how presentist and reductionist our culture is right now. For some really good reasons sometimes — but not every time.
it’s not just reductionist; ask yourself what, for example, Joyce might think if, standing in the grocery store or mall, she suddenly hears lyrics in which a woman trying to leave a romantically charged situation while being pressured by a man asks “what’s in this drink?”
then think about all the people out there who have been in Joyce’s shoes, and especially those who didn’t make it out in time.
expecting everyone to calmly look up 50s conversational dynamics whole fighting off flashbacks to one of their worst experiences is ridiculous; it’s a fucking Christmas song. we won’t miss one vapid song about holiday parties if it stops being played, and if it brings a tiny bit of comfort to people who are complaining about it every year, why not just take it off the playlists? it’s always gonna exist in some form, people can download it or buy albums, it doesn’t need to be shoved down our throats 50 times a year alongside songs about mistletoe and trees on every errand. hell this wouldn’t be an issue if christmas wasn’t the months-long annual prison that capitalism has made it in the first place, but if we gotta endure it, we could at least do so without valiantly defending a song that just screams creepy misogyny to everyone younger than 50.
No.
Context matters.
Context does matter but when aired without context, as radio station do all the time, you can’t claim “but context!” to save it. Again, asking people to calmly google context while they’re triggered and/or flash backing is not a fair or reasonable expectation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IotorCh7dPM
Can anyone watch this and say its in anyway, shape or form dodgy.
Its light, frothy and all about wooing someone that is quite keen on the idea.
Maybe the issue isn’t the song but people today taking something and applying motives and ideas to it that were never there in the first place
There are a helluva lot worse songs than this to ban yet this inconsequential song is the one that gets singled out?
Yes, context matters. So when you take a thing out of its original context you change it, and when you puts it into a new, different context, that matters.
Smith, just because some other things are worse doesn’t mean that that thing isn’t bad.
Also, we live in a subjective world. Always has been that way. So of course people will receive the song differently. And good for you if that song just sounds light and d frothy to you.
But as you said context matters. And some people’s context is that they’ve been through traumatizing or simply really hard stuff. And that’s going to affect how they see the world. So please don’t argue back when some people tell you that a piece of media is hurtful to them. It’s their reality, it’s how they live it. You can’t argue against something like that unless you’re inside their head.
I’m just still trying to process that link being to a Tucker Carlson/Andrew Yang interview. Not exactly light and frothy.
It’s kind of a weird thing because in one hand I agree. The song could absolutely make people uncomfortable. Even if you’re not a victim of sexual assault it could remind you of every pushy douchebag that wouldn’t take no for an answer. And it’s not like I’ll miss it much. I heard it on the radio maybe once as a teenager and never again. If it disappeared entirely from the face of the earth I doubt I’d notice.
And yet I find myself hating the idea of getting rid of it. Like I have very little attachment to this song but the idea of it being taken down really bothers me. And I think part of it is just that it has become the norm to rid ourselves of anything that doesn’t fit our current sensibilities. Between our increased knowledge of gender, race relations, celebrities doing shitty things, the internet becoming increasingly mainstream, the pandemic and our subsequent sedentary lifestyle, and the fact that many of us have become terminally online if we weren’t already (I’m typing this while I’m at work btw). And due to that we’re sorta filling a lot of old media and future that a lot of us grew up with. And in some ways it’s liberating and in other ways it’s scary. I’ve never been good with change and anytime there’s some new callout about an old property I like I’m just like “oh no not this too”. We’ve sorta grown a strong dislike for most old things. And there’s an argument to be made about how much we should just call something “a product of its time” to justify it. It’s selfish I’m sure but at a certain point I just feel this urge to hold onto things because of how much stuff I like is being eroded away. So I feel this desire to hold on to what I can for as long as I can before we all declare that this thing and anyone who likes it is bad.
To thejeff I’m so embarrassed right now. That was a link for another site…ahh fuck me sideways but heres the correct clip (basically just the original clip of the song from the movie)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFJ7ie_yGU
@Yotomoe: It’s all still out there. It won’t go away.
It just doesn’t need to be part of the staple Christmas playlist rotation.
@thejeff
I wouldn’t be so sure. Sure it’ll still exist physically but the conversation surrounding it will always just see it as that terrible song we all hate now. Like it’s still gonna carry that. And you’ll start to feel it’s absence if you’re the the kinda person who listens to a lot of Christmas songs. It sorta forces you to have a strong opinion of that song because now you’d have to willfully seek it out. Which I mean most music that’s not tied to a holiday is like that but now it seems almost like a statement.
Kinda like Pepe le pew. He’s far from my favorites looney tune, I get why people would find him problematic and I might not notice them phasing him out if they didn’t but make a point out of it. (Which personally I found sad cuz I feel like in recent years they found other things for him to do and it kinda showed that he could change with the times too). But now that they’ve made a point to sorta remove him and even make some of his material hard to find it made me want to archive it. Ended up gaining a new appreciation for the original shorts dated though they be. So I went from it having much of an opinion to having one after it became somewhat taboo.
It doesn’t HAVE to be ‘that song we all hate now’. It’s okay to go ‘Yeah, absolutely, I get why it would skeeve people out or be triggering for some, but I still enjoy it’. That’s totally fine. Same with Pepe Le Pew. I used to like his stuff before I got harassed at school. These days I find him more wince worthy but I still find myself enjoying him. TBF, his movie lead actor being accused of assault REALLY didn’t help. At the end of the day, Warner Brothers is a business and they’re gonna say ‘Okay, really, at this point, it’s too hard to justify keeping him around. We’re gonna put him on a shelf for a bit until/unless we figure out how to use him’. At some point, he’ll probably be back, because he does have his fans, but that might be a while. I think I get what you’re saying and it’s a valid way to feel. I doubt most stations won’t play Baby It’s Cold Outside, but some probably won’t and that’s okay. Really it means there’s stations for people who don’t want to hear it to listen to.
@ Smith – Yes, in the movie for sure, BUT most people these days, especially younger people, have not seen that movie. Again, you can bring up context when you’re trying to explain the song, but if someone just hears the song on the radio and is triggered by it, going ‘look at the context’ is neither a reasonable, compassionate or fair response.
Fuckin’ Pepe Le Pew and fuck off Warner Bros.
Yeah lets remove Pepe ’cause hes ‘problematic’ but we’ll have the Droogs make a cameo
To BBCC, the issue I have is people wanting to cancel a chessy little number like Baby Its Cold Outside but there are so many more songs, songs that younger people will probably listen to more, that are out there and have much worse messages and nothings said about it
She says the words “What’s in this drink?” but it’s not really presented as accusatory. She’s curious about the drink, which she also requests during the song as I recall.
“What’s in this drink?” is kind of an ironic line. People will joke how it goes along with her insistent No and her listing of how many people know where she is as questionable, but the way it’s generally presented it’s supposed to be one of the lines showing she’s into it. She’s interrupting her argument to say something casual and unrelated, because she’s not that serious about it.
She also pauses in the middle of her protestations to ask for a comb. And repeatedly acknowledges that she wants to stay.
Really, the woman isn’t saying she wants to leave anyway, her arguments are all about people noticing that she stayed and judging her. And his argument, that it’s a bad idea to travel in the middle of the night in a snowstorm, isn’t exactly wrong.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right about the song, and that it reflects the sexual customs of its time. The thing is that those were bad, dangerous customs and I’m pretty sure that they many times left women with no way to say “no” and be taken as meaning it. The standard that women were to deny wanting what they wanted, but not too much, and that men ought to be pushy but only not to pusht was fraught with danger and we’re much better off without it. We’ve moved on from dangerous Fifties attitudes to drinking and driving, handling firearms, and muddled language about consent.
Now its time (and past time) for some popular culture that promotes and explores the standard that only “yes” means yes.
Thank you.
Exactly what Agemegos is saying.
And if she’s following that good girls must pretend to be forced trope, Joe taking what she says respectfully and at face value is good reprogramming. (Rakes in modern romance novels are good at this too. Come to think of this, if this strip were a regency, Joe would end up with bluestocking Dorothy!)
Yes, this.
For want of an edit function I’m going to repost that with most of the errors repaired, because what with one thing and another it ended up a bit garbled.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right about the song, and that it reflects consent in terms of the sexual customs of its time. The thing is that those were bad, dangerous customs; I’m pretty sure that they many times left a woman with no way to say “no” and be taken as meaning it. The standard that women ought to deny wanting what they wanted (but not too much) and that men ought to be insistent (but not too pushy) was fraught with danger, and we’re much better off without it. We’ve moved on from dangerous Fifties attitudes to drinking and driving, handling firearms, and muddled language about consent.
Now it’s time (and past time) for some popular culture that promotes and explores the standard that only “yes” means yes.
Oof. I was thinking more that part of Liz immediately regretted stopping. But now that you explained all this, I can see all the additional complication. I think we’re about to see that story line play out.
Maybe, but I doubt it here. She’s certainly conflicted, but I don’t think it’s really that. She may regret stopping or regret that she still has the hangups that made her stop, but this doesn’t feel like the “protesting for form’s sake” thing. Especially with her being the one to initiate this as a sexual encounter.
This feels much more to me like she wasn’t really ready to go through with it.
Well, pretty much as expected
Liz sucking on her fingers to self soothe/comfort (as I’m interpreting it) is really pushing on my big sister instinct and I just want to reassure her :/
(though I do recognize that my original interpretation of the panel might be wrong as although to me it looks like her mouth is around three of her fingers while she looks worried it might also just be her fist resting against her face in thought)
For what it’s worth, that was my interpretation as well.
Yes. That’s how it works.
Consent isn’t complicated.
I’m definitely intrigued.
Guessing she’s maybe biting her knuckles or otherwise stressing.
Consent doesn’t stop at yes or no peeps. I’m glad Joe’s aware of that. Maybe he is a good choice for this.
Whatever his other faults, Joe seems to have a pretty solid grasp on the concept of consent.
She might freak out a little, but is probably good that on her first makeut freakout she learned she can ask to stop, even halt everything and she will get an okay and stop and all is chill besides the natural awkwardness.
So she got cold feet and stopped, but only after enough happened such that we got slipshine material? Admittedly not sure if the latter part is true, but if it is my prediction was spot on.
Clothes still on, so probably not enough for Slipshine. Still, a pretty good prediction, though.
“Slipshining away……Slipshining away…..”…P. Simon
Why is everyone giving Joe so much shit in the comment section? He’s never been bad about consent!
Probably just because he’s so creepy about everything else. Example being the motivation for sleeping with Liz in the first place was to “get it out of his system” It can understandably throw people off that a guy who can say that respects consent.
Yeah Joe likes the concept of having All The Sex and talks like the people no one trusts because they’re kind of just objectifying people and running on sexual status, but he’s just. Not the frat boy archetype in reality? He kinda does all that shit because he doesn’t trust himself not to be like his dad and be terrible to his partners if he doesn’t. He really doesn’t want to hurt people he’s intimate with. In fact “no one gets hurt” is his stated goal. Like sure he’s a casual sex person, but I think if he’d knock off all the sexual status garbage and No Feelings Allowed schtick he’d probably just be a reasonably healthy casual sex haver.
Of course til he does that he’s still spouting some horrifying garbage that there’s a good reason no one trusts. He’s made progress, but fear of having feelings for Joyce has resulted in him actively backtracking some of it, so. He’s got a long way to go.
Yes to all this. I think he believes that if he states out loud bluntly that he is a horndog (despite being only maybe 10% more horny than any 18-19 year old boy on any given day, tops) women know what they’re getting into and thus if it goes south he can feel that his hands are clean.
wait, why is that creepy? If he wants to work through emotions with sex, then that’s not… bad? Is it? I don’t know if it’s unhealthy, but it’s not hurting anyone.
And it’s not actually wrong to imagine someone else when having sex with someone, as long as it’s casual sex. It can get weird, sure, but if nobody knows, nobody knows. (and iirc not even Danny knows about Joe’s feelings towards Joyce)
Although I guess the latter point really depends on the situation.
I feel like imagining someone else instead of your partner during sex has been pretty universally seen as rude if not communicated before hand at the very least. But Joe also said as much to his friend. Which I find rather creepy that someone would vocalize such a thought. And I don’t think Liz would appreciate Joe stating “Hey, you’re hot but I’m only really banging you because you remind me of another girl I have feelings for, so maybe having sex with you will make it so I no longer want to be with her!”
That plus in the past Joe has said stuff like virginity is something that he can “fix” specifically with his dick. So Joe doesn’t really have a lot of credit to give him a pass on his toxic and creepy speak to begin with.
Yeah, that’s why you don’t tell someone that. But just imagining someone else in your head doesn’t hurt anyone, except maybe yourself?
Joe can be creepy, that’s def true, I’m just still confused how this specifically is creepy. Maybe unhealthy, but creepy?
Yeah it ain’t surprising to me , Joe may be a womanizer but he has more than enough human decency to know about the concept of Consent.
I always respect my man Joe, he likes sex but he knows the bounderies and respects them. And I respect that. Sex isn’t fun if you’re both not having fun!
All so true! I wish I could upvote this!
He used to act pretty crappy about consent tbh – saying stuff like ‘a drunker version’ of Joyce might make a sex tape or how alcohol really facilitates the threesomes (which, of course, turned out to be bullshit – he’s never had a threesome). BUT this is like….bare minimum decency and I do think Joe’s capable of bare minimum decency.
Honestly, even considering a few offhand statements, he still made his stance pretty clear from early on whenever the conversation turned serious: “Was she underage? Was she drunk? Was she crying?” Joe’s got some major problems to work through but he’s always been serious about casual sex. At the very least, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
He did that ONCE but at the same time, he was going around talking about how great booze was at facilitating sex. Yes, NOW we know he was full of shit, but at the time it very much seemed like he was, at the very least, dangerously close to the line, assuming he hadn’t crossed it already.
He certainly doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but it’s often seemed like his approach to consent was more like “How do I get past the ‘no’?” The only times he’s actually backed off on his attempts were when the ‘No’ was very forceful and even then while he’d say he was done, he’d often come back later on. Partly because that was the only way he knew how to talk to women – before he started making the connection with Joyce. Part of the problem is that we’ve never really focused on his seduction attempts, outside of Sarah and Joyce who both rejected him strongly: Sarah right up front and Joyce with punching during the awful date. I’d really like to see Joe on the prowl, preferably with someone who doesn’t want to have sex right then and there, but also isn’t willing to tell him to go fuck off.
Eh? You’re referencing the conversation where Danny told Joe that he had chosen not to have sex and Joe flipped out and demanded a justification?
I’m confused as to how those comments have anything to do with consent.
I agree that they’re shitty things to say, though.
As a general rule, drunkenly-given consent (implied by Joe’s “alcohol really facilitates the threesomes” remark) isn’t really consent.
Joe said exactly that to Danny a while ago, something like “if she’s drunk I’d crying, it doesn’t count”.
Except that he said it backwards – basically “She wasn’t drunk or crying, so you’ve got no excuse not to”.
(Leaving aside the fact that it was Jennifer in the early days and she probably was a little drunk – when wasn’t she.)
Joe can be crass at times, a braggart, and he’s no more or less mature than any other college freshman, but he is a better man than his father.
Jewish man defiling our pure Christian women.
IMO, that was uncalled for.
I don’t know: Maybe it’s because he did a fucking ‘do-list’? He didn’t respect the boundaries of friendship with Danny, after DOrothy broke-up with him? Maybe it’s because he’s a huge, classic sex-drive man, what naturally can be scary for women.
If Joe was genuinely the super-stud he advertises himself to be, he’d know how off-putting that would be, for a lot of women.
Yeah, Joe’s always been pretty good on consent as far as I can remember.
No joke, just Joe is Joeing right
Oh good there’s still some sense between them.
Hopefully enough for Liz to book a bus the fuck outta that room.
Kinda expected this outcome. I’d guessed one of the reasons Joe agreed was that he realized she was inclined to throw herself at anyone who seemed interested, and better him than someone who wouldn’t accept a “no”
Hard same.
Honestly, you’re probably right. I don’t think HE necessarily 100% expected this, but like. Anybody who cares as much about consent as Joe I think is always prepared for a “no” to happen at any moment anyway, and is probably checking in with his partner for an enthusiastic “yes” fairly frequently. You don’t check in if you aren’t prepared for a negative answer.
Maybe. I mean, we haven’t seen him check in, so I’m not sure we can really draw any conclusions from that.
It’s certainly good that he seems okay with stopping, but don’t read too much into it.
To be fair his mouth was otherwise occupied in panel 1, making speaking tricky.
Yeah that seems about right.
I am both intrigued and excited how much insight they could gain from this, and from each other.
This is dumbing of age though. Even though they stopped the chances that they’ll learn something from this are pretty low.
Depending on how this goes Joe might get genuine insight into what’s going on in Joyce’s head too
To be fair “Joe gets it out of his system.” Or “Liz does secular things with a hot boy like it’s no big deal.” Aren’t really great titles for a slipshine anyway.
“so I skipped the last bus and now I probably can’t stay here… now what ? do I really have to go sleep at Sarah ? She’s gonna beat me to death”
Oh shit, the gummies are wearing off.
Joe knows consent. Yay, Joe!
That’s not really news, though.
It’s still something to acknowledge and celebrate.
Joe, ya did good. Liz, I hope you’re good. She seems upset.
Welp, guess y’all are getting a two parter for search for Sal tonight because I wanna be a person.
Oh fuck yea <33333
That’s interesting because I wouldn’t mind being a lizard for a night!
I love fuckface but what can I say? 😛 I wanna be a person – and not a fictional one like Julia.
You say that like Fuckface is not a person.
Or the main character of this comic
So two Beckys for BC. I’m on try 92.
As long as we’re all playing Grav roulette, let me try again.
Acceptable, but give it one more try.
And my own search continues!
Hah hah, very funny.
Nope nope nope
Pffft welp this might cinch it for my phone grav if I run out of combos by the time I’m through. Back to Asher for my main!
And another person gets the elusive Becky.
Can I just say that Topless but still wearing jeans is a pretty great look? Like in general. It’s my favorite level of undress.
Right next to bottomless and wearing an oversized t-shirt.
or a woman wearing her man’s shirt.
Yes that’s good too.
You’re objectively correct.
Hey I like the oversized shirt look too!
Sometimes I even find the clothing itself more arousing than being topless or bottomless if it’s the right color and style.
Real talk, nudity is overrated. It’s what clothes the person still has on that are sexy.
100%, though I think the reason they’re sexy differs from person to person and that reason is pretty interesting to get into.
Sometimes it’s about mystery/exposure. Sometimes it’s a personality thing. Sometimes it’s a confidence thing. It’s a lot and it’s pretty neat.
Yeah, another thing is how much time or energy expended it’s been since you’ve last seen someone you’ve found attractive.
Josué Pereira even made a strip about this effect:
https://www.nerfnow.com/comic/2196
It’s like how food tastes better when you’re hungry, you know?
For me it’s a “leave something to the imagination. If I just see everything I’m like “oh there it is” but if I see an outfit that just highlights those curves I’m like “oh boy, something’s under there.”
I don’t think I’ve said this here but for me the sexiest moment is RIGHT when the person is taking off their clothes. That moment is the peak of the interest curve. Once the boobs or whatever are out they just become a part of my reality. That excitement over getting to see something we don’t normally see is what makes it so arousing.
Yeah for me the sexiest moment is the sensational part, when they’re erogenous zones are stimulated/tickled and they spasm and swear and make their faces when they feel SHO good!
Speaking of which, that’s how I ended my No Nut November after 48 hours in — with none other than Clara Nova!!!
Haha that’s surprising to hear since I rarely draw her doing anything all that sexy. Unless you are not referring to my character and it’s just a weird coincidence 😛
No coincidence. It’s your Clara Nova, and I especially love the first and last pics here with that jacket and zipper!
Haha neat! Fun fact, her design is based on Powergirl, a la Amanda conner.
Cool! Say, ya think you can draw her chilling out, eating fast food or something?
Fried food, hot dog, corn dog, a hot pretzel, anything you can get at a fair or a mall? I think that’d look fantastic! And in character!
That’s why it was originally called a ‘strip-tease’. After you’ve seen enough boobs, under whatever circumstance – visiting titty bars, online porn, personal ‘hands-on’ experience – you come to realize that there’s not a whole lot of variation, and once you’ve seen two you’ve pretty much seen them all.
Once you’ve seen two you have not seen them all
Yeah, topless in jeans always does it for me.
One of my friends did some amateur modelling for fun and one of the best shots I saw of her was topless with jeans. It was also definitely a look I felt hot in before I transitioned, but that might have been more to do with opportunities to be topless like other guys.
I feel the ever-so powerful urge to now go back and redraw my Liz/Joyce/Joe comic to get Liz’s bra more accurate. I’ve never been any good at drawing a convincing bra 😛
What are you talking about? I always thought your bras were really good. Especially Joyce’s bras! 😛
Whelp, now I have to take a long journey through my art and see how many times I’ve drawn Joyce’s bra. It’s weird cuz I used to not draw Joyce very often but now I probably draw her more than anyone.
I checked and I did draw it a couple of times. Once not even on Joyce’s body!
*reads alt text*
Hmm that’s usually done after the deed, right?
I’ll show myself out now 😛
Damn, you beat me to it.
Interesting. Most people were betting on Joe stopping things. And yet we have Liz being the one to put the kibosh on it.
Well, let’s see what happens next.
I had a suspicion this would be Liz’ first time and hesitation would be part of this.
Not as far along as she thought.
Further along than she thought.
OOh Nice inks
I feel like Liz is desperately trying to think of something to say to preserve her I Am A Cool Sinner Woman Who Does This All The Time thing.
If so, fortunately for her it doesn’t matter if she fails. Joe doesn’t care either way about her Cool Sinner Lady routine AND often rises to the occasion, when the occasion is ‘emotional support of sweet triangle-smile ladies going through tough stuff’.
Long term, he’s already noted the distinct similarities of Joyce and Liz. This, whatever it ends up being, could be some good notes for him to be ready for in Joyce dealings. ALSO I suspect he could end up feeling warm fuzzies if he is a good and real person for Liz here, which will not help him with his Joyce feels ‘problem’ even a little bit.
I am, of course, here for any or all of the above, even if it just remains happy possibilities in my head.
I agree that he’ll probably apply this experience with Liz onto Joyce, but I have a feeling that’ll probably lead to some problems down the line. Not every ex-Christian is going to feel the exact same way about sex, and I wonder if Joe is going to use Liz’s reticence as another excuse to avoid his feelings for Joyce. (You know, despite them being two different people. And despite the fact that he doesn’t HAVE to immediately initiate sex with Joyce.) Ah, I’m so excited to see where it all goes!!
Real talk. Like super real talk.
I’m super cool with the idea of making out with someone and then legitimately just not having sex with them and just sleeping next to them. Like…now I’m really hoping they do that. I don’t even need cuddling, though that’d be a nice bonus.
And she can still go around and tell everyone she slept with Joe.
Technically not a lie!
And Liz would get to shed even more of her fundie programming!
Everybody wins!
Still though, I wonder if she’d object to them masterbating in front of each other before sleeping.
That’d be a nice bonus too.
Goodness gracious that sounds like wishfull thinking. But it’s very hot, yoto approved wishful thinking.
Yeah I know.
I just wonder if she thinks it would count as sex if they’re not touching each other when the Big O happens.
All of this is good. That they both wanted to have casual, no-strings sex. even if their specific reasons were different and not discussed. That they stopped when someone got uncomfortable. That Liz is with someone who immediately backed off and made it clear that stopping is always an option, which sadly isn’t always the case. “Of course, always” is probably the best possible response to avoid making her feel more awkward or disappointed about hitting the brakes.
this is good! Almost thought we got a Slipshine panel in lmao.
I like the direction this story is taken but I can’t lie that after seeing panel 1 that i would like to see what a pornagraphique of this encounter would look like. (Then again, it’s not like i haven’t been drawing such a thing)
I kinda saw this coming… I hope they have a chat about it. Maybe some growth for the both of them! Liz can learn she doesn’t have to do sexy things just because she’s non-religious now, and Joe can… I honestly had an idea when I started this post and then I forgot in the middle of writing it. Uh. He can learn something. Someone supply something.
We’ve seen Joe do this sort of thing before. Remember him telling Danny “if she’s drunk or crying, it doesn’t count as YES”? Joyce brought Mike along as a chaperone, but didn’t really need to – especially Mike. Joe is a libertine and quite experienced but he isn’t a rapist. He projects a persona as a Don Juan but actually, girls are quite safe with him, for a given value of safe.
That’s not actually what he told him: More like “If she’s not drunk or crying, then don’t worry about it.” I mean, I’m sure he’d agree with that, but the emphasis is very different.
It’s always been clear that Joe isn’t a rapist and I don’t think there are many even among his detractors here who’d disagree, but there’s a good deal of distance between “Isn’t a rapist” and “good on consent”. Not being a rapist is a bare minimum.
What Joe actually said was that those are the only acceptable signs of non-consent (he listed acceptable reasons, thus failing to provide Danny the opportunity to provide the reason “She literally told me”). And also that Danny was not allowed to not-consent.
Aww this is both sad and very very good. Sad that Liz probably feels award now but good that it went so well. Joe consistently treats partners responsibly even if he has a lot of unhealthy masculinity to work through. I hope they talk and I’d even be okay with them getting it in once they work it out
Gasp!
No thank you.
Good on Joe for practicing good consent boundaries and Liz knowing she can say “no more” at any time. Though now I see her probably overthinking on something and potentially dropping some sort of bomb in about a minute.
I’m not sure she does know that. It’s just that luckily, she tried to bang a guy who’d listen to her when she surprised herself by saying it.
Hopefully she purposefully picked Joe, thinking he had experience dealing with repressed ex-Christian girls, what with being Joyce’s supposed “sex friend”. Even though I’m pretty sure she didn’t think it through to that extent.
Now that I think about it, she may have picked Joe for this assuming, “He helped Joyce with this, maybe he can help me”.
And people doubted me when I suggested Liz was pushing far outside her comfort zone in order to prove something to herself… Either she’s not as ready as she thought the was, or she’s still got some of that fundie shame ringing in the back of her head.
(Also, suck it, Grav roulette, ya weirdo algorithm! I finally found a combo that gives me the default Daisy grav I had before the last shuffle!)
Nobody doubted that. Everybody knew that.
Praising Joe for this feels like praising him for not driving into an occupied crosswalk. I don’t expect much from Joe, but I expect at least this.
Yeah, it actually worries me a bit how many people are taking this as proof of how great Joe is about consent. Standards seem pretty low.
People were praising Joe during the conversation where he was screaming at Danny for not having sex.
At least he’s not actively doing something wildly wrong here?
She’s hitting the brakes long before that’s necessary, alt-text.
oof, this hits hard. ive been in liz’s position, it’s genuinely horrible
Having been in Joe’s position (though not with a virgin), it isn’t that bad to be asked to stop. Disappointing, but not bad. A decent person, which Joe is in bed, will not hold this against her and might even help her talk through her issues.
Hopefully, whoever you were with, Ainara, was understanding and kind. If not, you have my sympathy for a bad experience.
thank you 🙁 unfortunately thinking about it 2 years later still stresses me out, it’s hard to explain exactly how much this sort of thing messes with you
Thing about living in the moment…The moment always passes, and then you find yourself where ever you’re actions landed you.
Joe’s being decent, at least.
Oh man, I hope she’s not sticking her fingers in her mouth to induce vomiting to get the “edibles” out of her system.
It has to be my mind going to very dark places, right?
I think she’s doing that “character bites their knuckles as shorthand for nervousness and doubt” thing.
This is good to see. Like, I get the comments about “stopping is the minimum” and questioning praising Joe, but as someone with experience of someone *not* stopping, of someone responding to “no” with “shut up,” it feels really good to see this.
Yeah I can tell those “stopping is the minimum” comments were compelled by me saying “it was very good of Joe to stop when asked”, by which I meant “it was a good thing Joe stopped when asked”, but yes that’s for sure the LEAST you should expect and I regret not taking the time to chose better words.
I’m really sorry to hear that Yumi. That must’ve been awful!
He’s very immediate and polite about it. No “aw, really?” or “are you sure?” A lot of people would feel disappointed and have a hard time handling that at least, but “of course, always” is very classy and sensitive. I like it.
I’m reserving judgment until it’s clear that Joe is not going to try to persuade Liz to resume, and is not going to reproach her for “cock-teasing”, nor rush her out with abuse and recriminations. But so far, so good. Joe has cleared the bar (which is sadly low), and we’ve yet to see by how much. I hope to see Joe handle this well.
Remember his talk with Danny earlier, where he wasn’t sure going through with it was the right decision and projected that doubt onto Liz?
Following that narrative, she just “let him off the hook”. If anything I think he’ll act disappointed but understanding, but inside feel emotional relief that he didn’t “have to” be the one who hit the brakes.
I bet we’ll see him revisit this down the road, maybe if/when things get more serious with Joyce.
I can’t remember when it was, but I know Joe has made it very clear before that enthusiastic consent is very important to him. Like, he wants to have lots of sex with people, but he also specifically wants to have sex with people that also really want to have sex with him.
I mean early comic joe maybe, but it’d be straight up out of character for him to do that now
Yeah, it’s well demonstrated that “consent” is his prime directive.
This could’ve gone very poorly for Liz if she picked a guy without those scruples, even if the story wouldn’t go there.
I’m sorry that happened to you, Yumi.
That must have been horrible. I’m sorry to hear that.
I agree with everyone saying stopping when asked is the only thing that can be called decent. “the least to be expected”, sure. Most people think it’s easy and normal to stop. “Of course I would stop” is what every single person thinks until they’ve been there. Having been on the receiving end of someone asking to stop, It requires more willpower than you would think. There is no doubt in my mind that Joe deserves praise here.
I’m trying to word this as carefully as possible, but I’m not sure what the bare minimum is, or what else is supposed to happen so that it goes beyond the bare minimum. Liz said wait, he immediately acknowledged and pulled back, she said stop, he accepts with no hesitation, it’s over and done now because Liz said stop.
I guess I’m trying to say that “the bare minimum” just kind of comes off as a binary thing to me, at least here. She wanted to have sex, he also wanted sex. She changed her mind before they got into it, he immediately stops and doesn’t vocalize the slightest dissent or disappointment.
This was supposed to be its own comment and not a reply, and I’m extremely sorry it landed here.
What I meant by using “bare minimum” isn’t that he should have done more here, but that this by itself doesn’t prove that he’s just all around great about consent. He’s handling this well, but that’s not a really high bar to get over.
*hugs if wanted*
As a teen I was with my boyfriend once. Wasn’t feeling well – my temperature control can be off when I’m unwell, and going from outside on a hot summer day to inside caused my body temp to plummet to borderline hypothermic and I felt appropriately cruddy as well as freaked out because that isn’t normal. Nobody else was at home and I felt bad enough I didn’t want to be alone. He was happy to stay with me and fool around but was apparently incapable of understanding I needed company but not like that. He started trying to initiate stuff and I said no, he said he’d go home then and I told him I wanted him to stay. 30 seconds later, repeat. “oh yeah, I forgot.” I must have told him “no” at least 50 times until I was literally too exhausted to say “no” any more or do anything other than lie there waiting for it to be done. Afterwards, I pointed out that it had “technically” been rape, because as an 18, 19 year old I didn’t understand that there was no technically about it – he hadn’t been violent but it was still a violation. Then I had to muster the energy to comfort him because apparently being told you raped your girlfriend is worse than being raped by your boyfriend?
About 6 months after we broke up I went to visit him at uni. We drank and hooked up (which I’d kinda expected before going to see him). Afterwards he tried to tell me he didn’t think it should “count” as us getting back together because I’d been drinking and therefore hadn’t really known what I was doing. I asked him if he was saying he thought he had had sex with me while I had been too drunk to consent, mainly because I wanted him to be honest with me (I hadn’t been anything more than pleasantly lightly tipsy). He got very upset, started to backtrack, and as part of this asked me if I really thought he was capable of raping somebody.
I reminded him of THAT TIME HE HAD RAPED ME. Apparently it had slipped his mind.
I genuinely thought it was funny when my now-husband (then cohabiting boyfriend) wouldn’t sleep with me because I was a bit drunk (enough to not be able to climb stairs on my feet, sober enough to recognise this and go to crawl up them instead. I don’t think he realised this had been a conscious decision). I needed to actually think about it to realise NO THIS IS A GOOD THING, SHOWING RESPECT AND CONSIDERATION. It was very different to everything I had previously experienced.
So yeah. Should be the default response. Isn’t. Lots of guys who don’t project the Bro culture Joe acts like he embraces seem to struggle with this. It’s not OK. A lot more education on this is needed, at younger ages, so everybody knows that relationship rape is still rape, that consent can be withdrawn at any time, that previous consent does not mean there is current consent, etc etc.
It’s kinda nice this is happening. Liz was too insecure before and Joe was kinda creepy with his “Get this out of my system” thing. Let’s hope Danny is with Sal now and they both have no doubts about what they are doing.
Why was that creepy?
Yeah I’d call it as a ‘stupid idea’ and ‘inevitably not going to work’ but not creepy.
Depends how far he was willing to go with this “lets have sex with someone who is exactly like my crush but is willing to do me” thing. The moment he cracks out some glasses and a sweater vest, that’s when it starts getting creepy. Added creep points if he yells out Joyce’s name or asks Liz to start rattling off bible quotes.
Sorry, but how can not be creepy being whit someone expecially for try to destroy the feelings for someone that resemble her?
That’s not really creepy no. Weird but not creepy
Yeah.
It’s a bad decision he’s making trying to throw himself back into the person he knows he’ll never be happy being. Ruth and Billie entering an alcoholic death pact was unhealthy and wrong, but it sure seemed like a good idea to them at the time.
Not telling the person would be a start.
Totally off-topic, but is anyone else experiencing inescapable pop-up video ads that come on and run in the lower right-hand corner of the screen?
Yep. Mostly ads for Adobe Stock.
Liz might have more in common with Becky than she thought. Unlike her though it seems she can acknowledge she’s actually just not ready and using Jesus perhaps as an excuse (I mean that’s the theory I’ve seen around and it fits, wasn’t Becky really weird and said a part of her wanted Dina to ignore her no??)
Granted Christianity when programmed from birth in your head can fuck with you for a while even after leaving it. There can be this thought of being free to do what you want but still having all kinds of hang ups thanks to it. But if you’re not comfortable you’re not comfortable so in the end you still have to follow that. Can be frustrating as hell though. When for years you panic at the thought of pregnancy, especially when in my case I grew up in a place I’d have to travel over to England to get an abortion and would have to pay for it anyway and my parents would then disown me or lock me up or hate me and ohgodbankstatementstheydfineout.
Yeah I never had sex in university actually even though I wasn’t a Christian by second year.
Yeah, as someone who was raised with very sex-negative abstinence-only sex education, even after I realized it was all bullshit, it was still a looong time before I felt comfortable having sex. And even then I still panicked about possibly being pregnant for months afterwards, even though I was on birth control, had a regular period, and had gained no weight. The pregnancy paranoia is very real.
Yeah, I feel ya. It makes me wonder how many people I lost a change to dating just because of christianity..
(I mean that’s the theory I’ve seen around and it fits, wasn’t Becky really weird and said a part of her wanted Dina to ignore her no??)
Not in those exact words but it’s a common interpretation of her current sexual hangups.
Becky still holds onto her views of sexual purity, and she’s openly horny on main for Dina but insistent on not having sex before marriage. The problem now though is that Dina herself, who has repeatedly expressed she finds Becky attractive and beautiful, experiences intermittent sexual attraction, and has made it clear that she is open to having sex whenever Becky is comfortable with the idea, is not constantly and loudly affirming how much she wants to have sex with Becky, and this leads into a few things where:
– Becky feels that she’s undesirable, because Dina isn’t expressing that she’s as attracted to Becky as Becky is to her. The script is supposed to be that they both want to have sex really badly but have to stop their sinful urges, except Dina does not feel those sinful urges in the same capacity as Becky and wouldn’t view them as sinful to begin with.
– Becky wants to marry her and have God-sanctioned sex, except if she does that and Dina still doesn’t want to haves sex with her (again, Dina has said she is comfortable with it and she has expressed sexual attraction to Becky in certain circumstances, but Becky processes it as “she needs to say she wants me all the time”), then Dina is the second woman who Becky loved that didn’t love her back.
Drawing this back to the original snippet I quoted, how I’ve had it explained to me by folks who’ve gone through similar feelings is that from Becky’s perspective it’d be fine as long as Dina became so overwhelmingly crazed with lust that she couldn’t stop herself, and Becky did her part in staying pure by saying ‘no.’
The Willis giveth
Ah, a predictable reaction, time for a breakdown!
Crackpot theory: Liz just realized she’s gay or some flavor of ace
Alternate, less crackpot-y theory: Liz just realized hooking up with Joyce’s “sex friend” might be a dick move.
Most likely theory: Liz just realized she was forcing herself to do something she wasn’t ready for.
I hope this leads to a conversation where Joe teaches liz how Consent works.
He just demonstrated one of its principles. “You say stop, I stop. Period.”
Say what you will about Joe, and he has many foibles, but ignoring consent or lacktherof is not one of them
That’s one thing that I’ve always respected about Joe. He definitely has many failings, but if a girl says “stop”, he stops.
In this moment when it really really matters, good job Joe
Really, I still don’t understand the amount of applause Joe is receiving here and on Patreon. Like, “hey, Joe, congratulations for not raping Liz, because that’s what non-consensual sex is”.
Shit, that’s basic decent behavior!! We, giving ‘cookies’ for men for not abusing, just fuel the nice-guys syndrome we got in our decade; where we giving boys a impression that they deserves good things only for not being assholes…
I mean, I don’t get the “bare minimum” comments either. Liz wants to stop and Joe stops.
That doesn’t strike as either the bare minimum or an “atta boy” moment, it’s a binary choice with a clearly, morally correct option. Person A withdraws their desire for sex, Person B complies.
Then with the specifics, she says to wait so he verbally complies and pulls back. She says she wants to stop and he agrees and adds that her choice to stop is always valid. If we’re defining the bare minimum as “stopping when your partner says stop”, then Joe saw that she felt hesitant in how she’s inherently entitled to stop whenever she wants and told her she is always allowed to stop in any circumstance.
So I dunno what all the fuss is about.
It’s because Joe fits most aspects of the archetype of the hot, horny ‘alpha’ college student without crossing the line into shitface territory. So it’s not an “attaboy, you did the bare minimum”, it’s more like “good on you for working against type”.
Because we all know that a significant amount of dumbass college teens (with much less dudebro energy than Joe) would at this point get pushy or be begging their asses off.
People are saying “bare minimum” because they mean that not pressuring, hurting, or raping someone *should* just be basic vehavior and it isn’t worthy of praise. Imagine if instead of praising Joe for that everyone was going in a wild direction and praising Joe for not punching Liz in the face for wanting to stop. You might be sitting there thinking “well OF COURSE he shouldn’t punch her in the face. It’s very easy to not punch someone in the face. Someone shouldn’t be praised for not punching someone in the face.”
Same here. OF COURSE Joe shouldn’t pressure or ignore Liz. It isn’t really a choice at all and to a lot of people praising someone for *not* ignoring someone’s consent is implying that it’s somehow the harder or less expected choice.
Minimum effort= stopping when someone says no
Maximum effort= going above and beyond to talk things out with the hesitant person, making them understand that they aren’t mad at them, making them feel safe and secure in their right to say no, etc. Etc.
The fact that Joe didn’t wheedle, whine, or guilt Liz into continuing and instead stopped immediately and told her they can “always” stop is very very nice but it is still the expected and correct action and it does not require effort.
Yeah but it’s as morally simple as can be. If I don’t hit someone with my car I’m not doing the bare minimum of road safety I’m just not doing the thing that’s an actual crime.
From that point of view I understand how weird it is to praise Joe here (I figured those were because he, like, immediately complies and tries to reassure her that her choice matters, which doesn’t strike me as “bare minimum” to offer emotional support to a casual hookup, that’s just caring about someone in front of you and offering advice that you know how to offer), but calling this the bare minimum implies that, within a vacuum, there’s something else you’re supposed to do when your partner says “I want to stop” other than, like, stop. Even if you start pissing and whinging about it you’re still doing the bare minimum, it just makes you an asshole complaining that doing the bare minimum is somehow a burden.
The world is so messed up that someone doing the bare minimum is a good guy. The truth is that some guys wouldn’t even do this. They’d try to pressure her to continue.
I think the praise isn’t so much about Joe as it is about the state of society. Its a commonly held perception that most men, when asked to stop won’t. Joe, by doing the clear right thing here, sets himself apart from most men, who would do the opposite. By that logic, I think the more appropriate praise is “your better than most men in that regard, Joe,” and not “you did a good thing, Joe.”
Also, I want to point out that I have very little reference points on how accurate the aforementioned perception is to real life, but its definitely the way I’ve noted media seems presents it.
Also, if a significant amount of people aren’t doing the bare minimum, seeing others praised for doing so could help with making positive strides toward everyone doing the bare minimum.
Maybe, though it seems to be going beyond that at least in some cases.
I think that “most” is probably inaccurate, but even if it’s 1 in 5 or 10 that’s enough to be a societal problem with a comfortable margin. I’m fairly certain the amount of men who _knowingly_ wont stop are few, while much more common is that some men are slow on the uptake while in the act (“Stop what?” etc). Especially if alcohol or other drugs are involved.
There’s probably also a bit of a media lag going on here, with Gen X and older millennial creators working through the even shittier culture around sex that we grew up with. Today you’d have to have lived under a rock not to have heard of best practices about consent, but we’re not many decades removed from when the _dominant_ attitude was that consent was something you gave once and couldn’t take back.
A _lot_ of people live under rocks. While the poplular social awareness gives the perception that, if not everyone, at least “all young people” understand consent, that is not in fact, the case. Which is why rape amongst college students continues to be reported.
Everyone certainly doesn’t – even among young people, but “most” is very strong. It doesn’t take “most” to keep seeing rape among college students.
There are a lot of nuances about consent that aren’t well understood and lots of ways to press to avoid the “no”.
This is a fairly clear case and I doubt more than a small percentage would just push on under the “you’ve already consented” doctrine. A larger group would likely try to persuade her to keep going, but that’s a bit different than “knowingly won’t stop”.
I think much of the praise is about Joe. Would we be praising Danny as much if he did this?
Joe is a horndog. Horndogs are notorious for not taking “no” for an answer. Joe is acting out of horndog character. It should be noted that Willis has said that Joe is big on consent, so this is not out of character for Joe.
Part of the problem is that “big on consent” is largely an informed characteristic for Joe, so it’s good to see a bit of it in practice.
He gives off a lot of red flags for not being big on consent – especially in the earlier strips.
I once watched, incredulous, as Bill O’Reilly argued at length that a woman did not have the right to withdraw consent once it was given. And at the time he was one of the highest-paid television heads. So yes, on one level what Joe is doing here is just basic, but despite his hyperactive libido he is counter to a whole chunk of our culture that fails to clear that bar. It’s worth at least a nod and a thumbs-up.
Because men are constantly bombarded with role models that are utterly toxic and fucked up, so when we see a role model that for once is doing the right thing it feels genuinely elating.
I really wish there was more of this in my childhood but there wasn’t.
I understand where you are coming from and I agree with you, it shouldn’t be like this, but it’s the world we live in.
“That…was weird.” – Joe
Looks like Liz is having second thoughts about on being rebellious, for its own sake, and that is completely within her rights to do so. More importantly, Joe respected her choice, and backed off, so good on him. When Liz said, “stop, I don’t want to do this”, he stopped, and validated her decision. Joe might come off as a creep, by the way he talks, but this demonstrates that is not the case.
I genuinely don’t think Joe is a creep, nor has ever really been depicted as such.
He’s just enthusiastic and honest about his libido. Has he ever done anything truly questionable? Even the “hot co-eds” database he kept was for his own eyes only, rather than any creepy project to embarrass and objectify female students.
Joe may be a shallow sex obsessed beefcake, but he’s not a bad guy.
Joe’s issues are he has no respect for boundaries and thinks he’s being sex positive when he’s often just being a creep.
He definitely has.
I mean, yeah, the Do-List, that thing where he engaged in constant misogynist objectifying of every woman around him completely convinced it made him honest and forward-thinking. He did hand it out to anyone who asked, too, and where Joyce spelled out how harmful his actions were, that he reinforced in her that the thought processes that led to her being a lump of meat for Ryan to decide he was entitled to aren’t some singular evil but stuff men casually engage with all the time (and this horrified Joe so much that he immediately pulled the plug on just about every thought process he engaged in, which is particularly meaningful since that persona he built up was one he did to protect himself from getting hurt after seeing his dad repeatedly cheat on his mom), Rachel made it clear that his list could have been used as a tool to stalk and harass any woman on there, and Joe had logged every woman he came across.
When Joe makes an effort to hit on a woman, he’s really forward about it in a way where he puts the expectation of saying ‘no’ onto whoever’s he hitting on instead of, like, not pushing at Sarah until she screams at him or seeing Becky for the first time and lifting his shirt. That’s technically consent, but it’s one where he’s given himself free reign to act how he pleases because he expects everyone else to set boundaries.
This is all ended four years ago, granted. Joe’s a much different person despite his attempts otherwise, and even at his worst I don’t think he’d ever act any differently than he is now. Liz is saying stop, so he stops, it’s not complex.
How does one go about asking a person if they’re interested without putting the “burden” of them saying “no” onto them? Frame it as a negative question so they say ‘yes’ to reject you instead?
Well for starters, you don’t push the issue until they scream in your face to leave them alone, or see someone for the first time ever and start lifting your shirt.
I’m actually just going to start smacking blokes with a wiffle bat when they grab a single sentence out of multiple paragraphs and go “ey yo whats all this then.”
Or… put more care into how sentences stand on their own, as well as in the context of the surrounding paragraph? Alternately, accept that people are going to ask questions about what is written in an open forum?
Sentences in a paragraph aren’t supposed to stand on their own as individual statements that you pick out and process one at a time in a vacuum, they are shaped by the context of the words surrounding them, you clown.
It wasn’t for his eyes only. He kept talking about it and giving his ratings publicly (though not to the girls in question unless they were highly rated) and offering the password to the RSS feed.
It wasn’t intended to embarrass women, but that was the effect on those that heard about it, even before it was leaked.
He hit on Rachel by telling her she was an eleven out of ten. He didn’t ask her name or try to have a conversation. He just said “hey, you’re hot!” and assumed his own hotness made it a welcome gesture.
And then brought up the “eleven” again when they met after the list was outed, despite her being pretty damn emphatic about wanting nothing to do with his nonsense.
It was not for his eyes only. Things you make for your eyes only don’t have RSS feeds with subscribers, nor do you hand out the password to randos you meet.
He also used to go around talking about how booze lead to threesomes. While WE know that that ended up being bullshit, I doubt every girl on campus he was creeping on knows that.
I view Joe as a guy who wants to do the right thing, and thought he was a good guy because he understood consent, but was still heavily mired in toxic masculinity/sexist societal behavior. He thought being respectful when it comes to literal sex was enough, when it’s not, boundaries need to exist in other contexts too.
I don’t think he’s an all around bad guy though, I think he’s a product of his upbringing and society. Because once it finally hit him that his actions were problematic, he clearly was genuinely remorseful and tried to do better. I think that’s the key that makes him a redeemable character and why so many are rooting for him. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone believes or does things that are harmful at some point in their life (especially their youth). But he’s trying to change and that made me like him much more as a character (I love a good redemption story).
Exactly. Also all tied into his dad and trying to avoid emotional connections to keep from being able to hurt women.
He’s trying to do better and he certainly is in some ways – though it was just implied that he was still needing the room for sex fairly often, which raises the question of how much he’s still blatantly hitting on every attractive girl he sees. Just maybe a little less grossly.
Yeah this is my read on him too.
Joe is an 18-year old guy, saw that he’d never able to emotionally connect with a woman (because look how his parents turned out), and so decided he’d lionize the concept of the horny frat bro but do it the right way. He only wants to bang, he will never mislead anyone about that, he will be as extremely, viscerally clear as possible that he’s dtf and anyone who does not want him merely has to say so.
That manifests as a dude treating every woman around him as a potential lay. I still pretty firmly believe Joe’s ability to help Joyce while at her parents’ was in her being a Zero Minus and thus he’d never pursue her, meaning he automatically sidestepped everything he’s built up because nothing he’s about to say is going to impact his chances with sleeping with her, thus he was able to be emotionally available in a time of need and he didn’t even realize it. Then the Do-List comes out and he doesn’t particularly care, because he’s molded himself into someone he never wants anyone to care about and thus he’s incapable of causing any harm, and then Joyce spells it out clear as day how wrong his actions have been, drilling into her head that she can be seen as a slab of meat and the guy doing it would think it’s funny, to the point where this entire persona he built up and clung to as an ideal was immediately thrown out the window.
She’s quite a flexible young lady — straddling Joe face-first in the first frame, and twisted completely around at the waist in the fourth. What time does the exorcism start?
Women in comics have spines similar to the neck of an owl. Well known fact.
Or a bobble head
No? She just turned around, you can clearly see her knees facing forward, she’s not twisted at the waist at all
Someone’s been reading too much 9 Chickweed Lane.
If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
That’s why the first thing you do is punch the abyss in the eye. Gaze back now, mofo.
I noted this too, but comics are not required to have the same rates of time flow for dialogue and artwork, nor do we have to interpret everything depicted in the frame as happening simultaneously. Willis could have depicted Liz in the act of lifting one leg and turning, but it would have used up a frame and spotlighted an action whose only importance is Liz’s resulting position.
And now Joe saves the day by shrugging and booting up Mario Kart.
I hope he would text Danny in that eventuality. no need to keep the poor lad exiled anymore.
Dan is probably in Sal’s room, and it’ll probably lead to a Slipshine, because Sal has probably been thinking constantly about grappling hook cunnilingus.
I never declared it in the comments but i totally called it
Hey good on you Joe! Despite your manwhore ways you still fully understand consent and are totally cool with it being withdrawn. You’d think that’s a bar everyone clears but since they don’t… kudos Joe!
Clear communication is a good start to working through your bullshit before you do something you’re not ready for.
I have a feeling that Sarah or Joyce is going to find out about what almost happened between Liz and Joe, and Joe is probably going to wind up being accused of something that didn’t happen.
… what if tomorrow Liz brags to Joyce that she saw Joe’s chest hair (that goes all the way down to his feet) and then asks her what it was like for her to be his friend with a rewards program, because the both of them think the other is an outrageous hyper badass who does secular adult things.
So these two start comparing experiences that never happened.
That would probably be the least possible worst thing that could happen. Joyce would probably be devastated.
I have a feeling that if the details of this came to light, Liz might claim that she wasn’t a willing participant in order to protect her, image? Reputation?
Maybe to keep Sarah from killing her for ditching her and Joyce for some time with Joe?
Joe has a reputation as a “man whore”, and even though he did the right thing, an accusation like this against him would be hard to disprove, or believe.
I have a bad feeling she is going to accuse him of not stopping when she first said it. I don’t know why but the look in her eye… Denial of her own actions.
I was playing with that idea myself. I don’t think Willis would do a fake-rape-accusation storyline… but if she is on a verge of a screaming panic attack where she won’t remember things clearly afterwards…?
Concur.
I have a feeling that even though Joe did the right thing when she waved him off, the best move would have been to have politely declined her offer.