It’s been my experience that 90% of people who say “bad writing” in any comments section actually mean “contains people who do not fit MY racial/sexual/social demographic.”
And 99% of them have, as their sole writing credit, plagiarized restroom graffiti.
I was initially upset at the kidnapping plot, until it became apparent that it was falling apart as fast as one would expect of a plan from the mind of two violent idiots. Then it just made me wonder if Willis’s mom was involved in something like that.
The kidnapping was fine, but I checked out when Amber’s dad decided to go full on masked supervillain. Blaine was way more effective when he was the kind of abusive asshole who exists in reality. When he checked out to play by Comic Rules, I stopped caring, you know?
I enjoyed it. It was heartfelt but playful, it helped us see Joyce open up and showed us the hangups and “plausible deniability” workarounds that people find to discover their sexuality when theyve been scared away from traditional methods by their upbringing.
Like, it was surreal, sure. But that was the point.
Yep. A lot of people – particularly cis women – who have repressed or isolated childhoods learn about masturbation and/or washing machines being used for masturbation when they go to college, and I had multiple friends in undergrad who mentioned it a few years after the fact. It’s also pretty normal for people exploring their sexuality away from home for the first time to explore with homosocial masturbation, regardless of where on the kinsey scale they fall.
turns out sometimes different people have different experiences, and there is no default or mean human experience.
I’m a cis woman and I learned about using washing machines for masturbation from this comic. (but I’m aro-ace and aggressively indifferent about sex and masturbation and stuff)
I’m not even sure where I learned about it. I guess it just makes sense that the big shaky thing might be fun to sit on while you have an orgy for one?
Well, sexual attraction isn’t necessarily a requirement for sexual gratification. It depends on the person, but there are plenty of people who can have and enjoy various sexual activities without actually being attracted to anyone involved.
People have this weird idea that sexual attraction has to factor into any sex act performed, despite the fact that, say, sex work exists? It’s like how people assume that when an actor does gay porn, that guy must have been gay all along.
I think @eh, whatever’s point was that by Kinsey’s literal definition of “zero” you couldn’t have had sex with anyone of the same sex. Thankfully the kinsey scale has been reinterpreted by actual queers and his original concept has been amended
Exactly, I used to do solo porn for a gay website that no longer exists, and I’m (mostly) straight. I also did ads on the site for bodybuilding supplements in spite of the fact that I was not a body-builder and the only exercise I got was riding my bicycle as much as 150 miles in a day but usually about 30 to 50 miles a day. I mean it was Texas and it usually took that many miles just to get to the bookstore in the closest town. And that much riding on the type of bike I was riding gave me some huge quads and glutes.
I don’t think it was nonsensical or badly written, but it was fucked up. Dorothy became the creep she hated Joe for being. I think she can be better than that, just like Joe can be better than the September version of himself. But it’s part of Dorothy’s failure spiral.
Maybe Joyce never thinks of it differently than she does now, and that could be questionable writing, since her main issue is shame.
That’s how I saw it, it was fucked up but not badly written. Certainly part of Dorothy spiraling and thinking that she needs “a win” and to prove herself as “Joyce’s minder.”
I really, really want Joe to be the one to help Joyce realize just how fucked up it was. And to be the one who actually gives her the confidence that masturbation is okay. Because once he finds out what “doing laundry” is, there is no way he will let her think he would consider it cheating or that it should be considered cheating. For her to do that alone.
I think Dorothy can have been doing it for selfish, “needs a win” reasons and still have it be a positive thing. Danny did that, too, remember? He offered to help Sal with math purely for the feeling of being useful. And their relationship is one of the healthiest in the comics.
I dunno. I’m happy for Joyce to be chipping away at her purity trauma. I think Dorothy did a good thing ultimately, even if for partially selfish reasons.
I wouldn’t argue unrealistic or realistic or anything like that, but I definitely didn’t like it. At first, I was really interested in seeing where it would go, but it ended up being the closest I’ve ever come to dropping this comic. I kinda just have to not care/not be emotionally invested when it come up now, which is fine, but part of how I enjoy media is by being emotionally invested.
at least joe’s understanding, i’ve read some bs stories about some men finding that their partners using vibrators was ‘cheating’ and one even broke/ruined some toy she spent like 100 bucks on
This is way too funny. I kind of figured he’d have maybe figured it out due to the time Amber blatantly said Joyce has been masturbating, but I wonder if maybe Joe kind of just brushed it off.
For the record, I do think he’s probably going to (rightfully) tell Joyce that simply masturbating isn’t cheating in any way, shape, or form. Uhh, maybe refrain from doing that with Dorothy again without explicit permission, though.
I would be a lot more amused by this if Joyce didn’t imply that masturbating counts as ’emotionally cheating’ on one’s partner.
Unless she’s suggesting that she might develop romantic feelings for the dryer (or any other sex toy), masturbating is in no way emotionally cheating. Actually, even if she DID develop feelings for the dryer, masturbation STILL isn’t cheating, emotionally or otherwise.
Right? Maybe if she’s holding hands with Dorothy though during it I could see where the emotional cheating aspect would play in, but alone, definitely not. But its very understandable given her background. Many fundamentalists are taught they are cheating on their future or current spouse if they masturbate.
I mean, holding hands with someone while you both masturbate is certainly some sort of sexual/romantic interaction. Although, given that she and Joe have not discussed such boundaries, I’m not sure it exactly qualifies as cheating – but she should certainly discuss the matter with Joe before engaging with Dorothy again.
Of course, knowing Joe, I am fairly certain he would give her a free pass and possibly a request to watch/participate the next time Joyce and Dorothy do laundry.
(that’s a free pass on the Joyce Dorothy part – obviously Joe doesn’t care if Joyce masturbates privately aside from possibly being aroused by the idea)
Masturbation being equated to an emotional affair is definitely a line I’ve heard somewhere before, probably in religious circles. I think the idea is that all sexual thoughts/intimacy belong to your partner, since the only time they’re sanctioned by god is when they’re within the bounds of your (wedded) partnership?
Point of order: She was specifically doing that under marching orders from someone else in order to be able to ‘think clearly’ — i.e. without sexual desire — about Joe.
So congrats Dorothy, you managed to mess up Joyce *even more*, I guess…
Yeah i can’t imagine this relationship will last very long if jerkin’ it is considered cheating, so i hope they can uh…. communicate about that… Even if through euphemisms, hehe
I think they’ll have to work through it for sure, but “doing anything sexual, even by yourself, without your partner is cheating because you could/should be doing it with them” is actually a super common hang-up for the kind of repressive patriarchal subculture Joyce is from. It’s why so many people in conservative Christian spheres think that watching porn/jerking off to porn is an addiction, and that it’s problematic because it leads to neglecting your partner.
The number of supposedly feminist women who believe this annoy me, but I didn’t realize why they would believe that in the first place. Thanks for explaining this to me.
I mean, I guess she could excuse herself more politely.
But I get the feeling that Joe isn’t keen on rushing things with Joyce, while he would also be happy to know that she is exploring sexual pleasure on her own.
Hmm… I think the emotional cheating comes in if she’s not thinking about him alone while she does it.
…And then if she does use thoughts of him for her masturbation fantasies, that can feel like exploitation … like fetishizing him without his knowledge.
Nope. Masturbating while thinking about, say, a hot dude in a movie is not emotionally cheating, and masturbating while thinking about a person who doesn’t know you’re doing that is not exploitation. Particularly as they don’t know about it and as such cannot be harmed by it.
Masturbation is morally neutral (if not slightly positive due to the health benefits), and having thoughts during said masturbation does not change that neutrality. Chuck all of those ideas in the garbage where they belong. There is no scenario in which a person in a committed relationship deciding to go and masturbate is a harmful thing.
(Assuming they’re not doing some unrelated crime, like jerkin’ it in the fruit aisle of the grocery store. Don’t do that.)
Well, yes, that makes sense. I was just explaining it from her perspective. Having been raised with a biblical view of “lustful thoughts” (e.g. “If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee,” or “he hath already committed adultery with her in his heart,” or “thou shalt not covet” …) that’s where masturbation and fantasy and pornography (or erotic literature, in Joyce’s case) can feel like “cheating” to someone who was raised on Biblical morality.
…Just looking at it from the perspective of the moralizing voices in her head, that’s all. Sorry, I should have made that more clear.
Like how in STTNG, folks were creeped out by characters like Barclay and LaForge using simulations of real people for their fantasy scenarios. When the real people got wind of their images’ being used in that way, it did feel to them like an exploitation. Like a betrayal — as if their images had been taken without their consent.
Of course there’s a difference between just fantasizing about a person and actually creating a tangible interactive hologram of that person. Different levels of realism. But Incould see how, for someone raised in a black-and-white moralistic system, one might not be able to make that more subtle distinction.
Thanks for bringing this up. As someone who isn’t Christian it’s very wild to see Christian Atheists quoting some of this stuff, like, unironically. And just assuming that I would agree with it even if I’m, like, pagan. Most people assume I’m pagan. My actual relationship to religion is complicated but it’s kind of interesting. And it’s also like “as long as you aren’t devil worshippers lol!” Coming from people ! Who! Identify as atheist! Which is fine actually atheism isn’t like a religion or whatever it’s okay to be Christian Atheist.
Looking forward to the scene wherein Joyce is in the laundry room, sitting on one of the machines, and Joe strolls in with a basket of his laundry and casually strikes up a conversation, while Joyce is trying not to show that she is freaking out.
You throw water on them, put them in the same room, and let them bounce off each other.
But first you separate the colors from the whites *Gets thrown into dryer
I think Joe will hang back from this for quite a while. I suspect that he’s never had a relationship like this before — certainly not where we could see — and he’s (a) enjoying it as-is and (b) afraid he will slip into old patterns, which he’s come to dislike in himself.
Outside the story, that would make a good deal of space for the characters to gently conflict and, after growing to trust each other a bit more, break down and talk honestly about why they are conflicted over this issue.
Not to worry: they can still come up with an immature solution or silly work-arounds that make things even worse for them and more fun for the reader.
Joyce, honey, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction is right there on your campus. Go talk to them. They’ll clear some things up for you. Take your friends with you too.
By the way you should absolutely masturbate while dating someone. Imagine if like…you had to always find your partner whenever you felt horny. That’d be EXHAUSTING.
What, are people expected to fuck at the drop of a hat just because someone else wants to?
Hell, sometimes arousal is nothing but an annoying distraction that people need to get out of their system so they can get back to something they actually want to do. Five minutes of privacy and it’s solved, and if somebody wants to feel betrayed by that they can get over themselves.
Can confirm. The notifications I get from my system when my cycle is ramping up are annoying and inconvenient; an hour or so alone and I can get back to whatever it is I actually WANT to be doing.
Like reading comics about girls learning that they’re allowed to masturbate.
I deeply hate that taboo solely for the amount of damage it does to couples who are, temporarily or permanently, possessed of wildly differing libidos.
OTOH I’m remembering an ancient commercial for a soft drink. Guy comes crawling out of the desert, ragged and obviously dehydrated, dragging a briefcase. Folks help him up, offer water, he refuses. “Bring me some dry, salty crackers.” He gets as thirsty as he can stand, and then opens the briefcase to reveal a frosty bottle of the sponsor’s product, which he chugs down blissfully.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the product, is it? “Even a man who’s dying of thirst is gonna want a little more dehydration before he bothers with our drink!”
Joe: I will be the brave feminist here… women should be strong and independent enough to do laundry without a man. Nay, they must do it without their man.
**Joe then heroically gives Joyce his laundry and slams the door and heroically plays Ninja Gaiden.
That half of his brain is mostly focused on loving Joyce, but there is enough left that he might be able to figure it out. That’s if she doesn’t just tell him immediately.
Masturbating is normal whether you’re single or in a committed relationship. Holding hands with a (allegedly) platonic friend while you masturbate is not.
I don’t think the other shoe has dropped from that, but more generally, if two friends hold hands while masturbating, that’s pretty atypical, not abnormal. In their situation, I think Dorothy violated some norms.
I am not a classical scholar, so maybe it was typical in Plato’s Greece.
I’m really on the fence for the common laundry scene.
Dorothy was in a bad headspace.
On the other hand, just telling Joyce about masturbation via spin cycle and leaving her alone with it, she just wouldn’t have managed to deal with the emotions if she even dared to try.
Holding hands was in no way romantic but providing an anchor.
But Joyce with her upbringing and her crush will have all kinds of interpretations for that.
(BTW: people objecting to their partners watching/reading porn might be due to the overwhelming hate most easily accessible porn shows and the obsession with penetration.)
You’re not trying. There’s bestiality, golden showers, scat including analingus and coprophagia, mild S&M, brutal S&M, vacuum bags, punching or kicking soft parts, fake (I hope) strangulation, fake crucifixion, and everything your sick mind can conceive rendered in cartoons. Name your kink, follow with “porn,” and search. Don’t go looking for anything involving “child,” “kiddy,” or “loli.” You probably won’t find it, and you might go to prison.
Well no, I’m certainly not trying to find those things. I’m well aware there’s some nasty stuff out there, but I got the impression CJ meant like, front-page type stuff, not “Go to this specific booru and peruse the botched_beheading tag”.
That’s not /hate/, though. That’s kink. If all parties involved are either consenting or fictional, it’s fine.
There certainly are a lot of problems running around in the mainstream porn industry, but the existence of kinks, and the existence of cartoons showcasing weird kinks and/or unwise-IRL kinks, is not one of those problems.
The ugliness/hate that *I* see is often pretty subtle–how EVERY mainstream/front-page porn scene seems to have to involve choking or slapping or spanking now, or how almost all of the stepfamily-fantasy stuff involves implicit power dynamics, or the fact that 95% of front-page “interracial” porn is specifically “very large dark man” and “palest woman possible”.
It’s not necessarily in the titles, but it’s certainly in the actual films.
You make a solid point, and I hadn’t thought about it that way. The only example I’ll object to is spanking, because that one’s just good fun*. That power dynamic thing always felt low-key scummy to me, like vaguely uncomfortable at best and downright disgusting at worst. I also noticed that trend with the interracial thing, but didn’t really know if it was something I should point out? Like, on the surface it’s just two people who happen to be different colors, but I think it plays on that racist dynamic of “massive Black man railing petite white girl ohoho how novel is that”? There’s so much weird shit like that, and I can’t even add “nowadays”, because it’s been there as long as I can remember, and even shows up in old stuff I happen to see.
*(yeah yeah, caveats, not everyone, it’s fucking implied and we’re all grown-ups here, don’t @ me)
Yeah, I have objections against porn as an industry but not porn as a concept, part of which is stuff like that… And like, I’m pretty pro-kink overall, but it’s frustrating how much various kink things are treated as “standard” increasingly through porn, and safe kink practices aren’t being emphasized. Which makes sense for something that’s meant to be fantasy, but like… (this part gets personal) too many people have put/tried to put their hands on my neck during sex. I immediately pull back/object, and they stop, but holy shit, ask first. And I do enjoy kink play, but not that kind, and people are just assuming it’s, like, a package deal?
And yeah, kink can be a way to play with power dynamics and act in ways that don’t actually reflect one’s real world beliefs, but porn and such can also reinforce real world power dynamics.
I’m just as pro-kink as the next kinky guy, I should be clear, but there’s definitely a problem when “choking” or “spanking” becomes *expected every time from everyone* rather than *if everyone involved wants it*.
And it’s ALWAYS (on the front page of porn, anyway) men choking/spanking women without asking–when it’s the reverse, it’s in the title and tags.
Becky helped Joyce with her problem more than Dorothy, by just talking. Joyce has a shame reaction to her own sexuality. She is mortified of other people thinking of her as having sexual thoughts, judging her. Dorothy told her she’d been judging her the whole time she knew her, and then took her to a public place to masturbate with her. That is not helping her get past her shame reflex.
I have no idea what you mean by “she just wouldn’t have managed to deal with the emotions if she even dared to try.” I understand the situation (so this isn’t me asking for an explanation). I just cannot reach that conclusion.
Holding hands with someone you trust while doing something new-and-scary, however, is normal and reasonable. And it was scary for Joyce, whether or not others think it should be.
Hmm… well, you are certainly the same sex as yourself, so it could certainly be interpreted as homosexual. More than that, it’s homopersonal, since it’s one person…
Wait, did I just solve the age-old clone-fucker debate? It’s not ‘gay,’ it’s ‘homopersonal!”
The clonefucker debate is so fucking stupid to me. It’s so goddamn obvious what it is. It’s not gay, it’s not masturbation, it’s hot and you’re never gonna get the chance again, so stop asking pseudophilosophical questions and go fuck your clone.
Oo, I love when people hold strong opinions on stuff like this that shows a completely different perspective to me.
I find the idea of having sex with my clone 0% attractive. I am bi so it’s not that I am not attracted to my own gender. I mean, *other* people fucking their clones is hot…
Y’know, since the topic’s making a comeback, I used to think that college wasn’t actually about all the hook-ups and orgies and stuff, and that was just pop-culture’s fun way of portraying it. But the number of people that actively defend the whole “my friend took me to the laundry room to teach me to masturbate” thing as normal and not-weird makes me second-guess myself. But then that makes me wonder what my sex-repulsed friends were learning when they were students, so I dunno
I think college is too large and varied an experience for any set of media portrayals to sufficiently cover it. Even my close friends in college had a wide variety of experiences with sex, drugs, and alcohol.
But I don’t think it’s all that helpful to look at any one aspect as more normal or more weird. A lot of people go to some kind of college/university and they have a lot of different experiences.
I gotta say “emotionally cheating” is a completely new term to me, I’ve never heard of this. Is this a common phrase? Like… not to judge but I can’t imagine how stressful it would be to date someone who’s outlook was that thoughts or emotions can be considered a form of cheating. Even if she climbs on top of the dryer and the the image of, idunno, Burt Reynolds flashes through her mind… I mean, it’s thoughts!
I think the general idea is more like, if you’re in a committed relationship and you start to not only develop #Feelings for someone else (which isn’t a voluntary action no matter how much people wanna pretend it is), but start to wish you could act on them to the detriment of your existing relationship. Like if Jill is dating Jodie and Jodie is fantasizing about Jenny instead of being emotionally present with Jill, I think is a way to describe it.
Just thinking a cashier or even friend is hot doesn’t count. Your partner doesn’t own your synapses.
Ehhh I guess I follow, but I feel like “Jodie being emotionally present with Jill” is a completely different issue than “Jodie fantasizing about Jenny”. Jodie could fantasize about eating a ham sandwich instead of being emotionally present with Jill. What you do with your synapses is like, the last refuge of personal privilege, I still can’t process how the realm of thought could be considered a place where “cheating” can occur.
I think the main difference is, the ham sandwich doesn’t constitute a potential betrayal. Jodie could eat the real ham sandwich right in front of Jill and it’s not going to ruin their relationship. Getting intimate with Jenny could absolutely do that.
Now, I’m obviously not saying that if a person is attracted to someone they’re not dating, they’re gonna have an affair. That would be stupid. But if Jodie says “God, I want a ham sandwich inside me right now”, it’s never going to be as troublesome as “God, I want Jenny inside me right now”.
Usually I see it meaning like, one is having deep intimate conversations with someone outside their relationship, maybe talking about having a life together, even if they never cross the line to doing anything sexual (especially see it a lot about workplace affairs)
But in Joyce’s case I think it’s mostly ‘that kind of feels like cheating, but I know it’s not the same as physically cheating’
When I see it, it’s usually a combo of “deep intimacy with someone outside your relationship” AND “partner(s) are not aware of said intimacy” AND “said intimacy takes away from intimacy with partner(s)”.
That is, for it to rise to the level of “emotional cheating”, usually I see that it has to take away from the primary relationship in some covert way.
I think that’s a pretty good checklist to go by, Big Z! Having an emotionally intimate friendship with someone in and of itself really shouldn’t be considered emotional cheating, but so many people act like it is. Some friendships are just going to be deep, and some people are good at maintaining several deep relationships including a romantic relationship. The additions of the secrecy and negative impact on the romantic relationship are where it really changes into a problem.
Emotional cheating is like, a hard line to quantify exactly, but it is basically when you start to treat a friend like they are your partner or better than your partner.
This outside party does NOT have to reciprocate and may just think they are a friend. But the one seeking comfort in this is invested as if they are dating this person.
It is NOT cheating to simply have thoughts or feelings. That is Joyce overreacting here due to her repressed sexuality. Emotionally cheating is more than that, it’s more becoming emotionally intimate with someone as if they are your partner, while you may be freezing out, ignoring, or running away from your actual partner, because it feels easier than sorting out your issues or breaking up with them.
Ok, I think I get it now. Most of the responses I’m seeing here are describing emotional cheating as something that happens in the realm of social interactions (opposed to private thoughts and feelings). It’s still kinda dicey where to draw a line and actually call it infidelity but I get the gist of the idea.
I suppose we could say that holding someone’s hand while getting stimulated by a dryer is sexually intimate, and if it’s your first time and you’re learning how to even masturbate, we could call that emotionally intimate as well. Does this mean Joyce was kinda cheating on Joe with Dotty? And how should we square the fact that Joyce has basically been masturbating in a publicly accessible room that anyone in the building could waltz into?
Part of why it is hard to specifically quantify is that people are emotionally open to different levels, show physical closeness to different degrees and express love in different ways.
So what Joyce did with Dorothy could fall within the typical realm of their closeness and their bond, as while emotionally intimate, Joyce tends to be quite intimate with her friends typically. While if say, Sal did that with Dorothy, it’d be pretty unusual.
So there isn’t like a hard set list I can make as some friends cuddle or hold hands or have quite deep discussions as friends, it’s not partner-specific. But others only talk about shared interests and you’d be lucky to get a fist bump as a friend, and they only typically hold hands or talk about certain topics with partners.
Not quite. The usual translation is “lusting,” not “thinking dirty thoughts.” “Lusting” is giving in to the desire to possess (even without overt action).
As for the other: sadly true, but if you are observant you’ll see that being Christian today has very little connection with following the teachings of the Christ.
I don’t think the context here is a common use of “emotional cheating”. Certainly not masturbation in and of itself. Might be common fundamentalist usage?
I’d see it more as a prelude to physical cheating or to a break up over someone else. A lot of the time cheating doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Sometimes it’s just going out to randomly get laid, but often it’s a longer term process of falling for someone else. That takes time and emotional investment before it comes to the surface. Often with no intent to do any physical cheating. But then you find yourself in love with this other person. That build up is what I think of as emotional cheating. It’s dangerous.
Or think of Joyce and Jacob, from his point of view. He didn’t even know what was going on until the end.
Or honestly, if cheating is only sex – is it impossible to cheat in a relationship where you’re not having sex yet? Like Joe & Joyce.
It sounds like she’s trying to reconcile something she learned about in gender studies (emotional cheating) with her misconceptions (masturbation bad).
Sadly, I think Joe calmly explaining, “I think it’s perfectly fine and normal for a partner to laundry” is Smarting of Age.
Also, @Willis, can I request you substitute “laundry” for masturbation in the forum? It’s very funny with bongo and deserves to be immortalized as well.
I’m pretty sure Joe’s only issue with it would be that she’s doing it in public, as exhibitionism is . . . something to be done only around those who consented to it. Please learn to masturbate in your room alone, Joyce.
If the room is empty, there’s nobody who needs to consent. It’s that easy. Somebody walking in would change the parameters I guess, but I doubt anyone’s gonna take you to court because they saw you sitting on an appliance.
Okay? And if you do walk in on that, the polite thing to do is lob something at them or spray them with water. Y’all act like these things are complicated and hard to navigate.
Hm, that’s a confusing ethical line to me – it seems like if it would be inappropriate to do in front of someone, it shouldn’t be done outside of your private space period, not just conditional on your best guess of whether someone’s watching.
I don’t know about You all, but I’ll be uncomfortable to tell my future partner about my sexual awakening. That’s not partner business, right?
And Joyce should be more cool with pleasuring herself, instead with him. “Emotional cheating”? Calm down. Joe had a lot of partners, he have to understand Joyce.
I mean, if the relationship is likely to be sexual at some point, I’d assume things like “here’s how I figured out some of my sexuality” might come up eventually.
It’s partner business if the partners agree that it is. Sharing a vulnerable moment can be quite the bonding experience, if the partners are agreed that they are committed to working through any unforeseen issues.
It’s not a thing partners should pry into, but if one brings it up in a confusing euphemistic way, it’s not surprising the other will try to figure out what they’re talking about.
It can be an expression of intimacy. However, in this case, it happened during the wooing, after Joe told her how he felt, and she said she’d think about it while also showing interest. Sexual encounters with a third party shortly before a couple becomes exclusive can bruise feelings.
It doesn’t have to be if that’s a boundary you have, but it’s definitely possible for that boundary to be someone’s dealbreaker, and that’s okay too as long as everyone is respectful and straightforward about it.
With an audience this big (and loud), even characters having cute interactions will inevitably piss off somebody, and then that sets off a cascade of other people annoyed at the first person for being such a downer.
Possible though… unlikely? Like, this guy was a high-grade horndog, no sexy thing should have been beyond his reach. On the other hand maybe his horn-dogness Was limited just to rating girls and sleeping with them…
I think it more likely he’s working hard not to think of Joyce that way at this early stage of their relationship. The comedic value of this is of course that Joyce is revelling in her new-found freedom to think of herself in that way and plunging ahead, unaware of Joe’s internal struggle.
“Huh. Really? I’d stopped reading the comments around then because of the time I offhandedly mentioned feeling like people are especially harsh on woman in this comics, and I got a multi-paragraph furious reply about how Absolutely Not Sexist someone who’d decided I meant Them was.” I thought.
“Is it really that bad?” I thought, clicking and scrolling down. Confused, I scroll a little further down.
“Ah.” I say, nodding quietly. Then I write this, resolving to once again stop reading the comments, which is a shame since theres a lot of very funny, sane people in here.
Yeah, I had a similar experience noting the disproportionately harsh criticisms certain commenters had towards the women of color characters specifically. Lots of defensiveness and deflection.
The repression and damage wrought by a cult upbringing doesn’t just go away the moment you decide there’s no god. It can take years to navigate out of that maze.
yeah, no kidding. I’m still trying to detangle some parts of my head, and I was raised Methodist and liberal, so not exactly a bastion of conservative repression.
Okay so time for her to have the “what you do with yourself and your own body in a relationship is your business alone” conversation.
Y’all consider porn cheating? I always thought that was stupid. Cam girls or anything with actual interaction is a line with discussing, or if it’s like someone you know personally that could be weird if you don’t get everyone’s say. But pictures and videos of strangers, or lewd drawings; that’s just entertainment. Who gives a shit. Your partner being turned on by anything but you isn’t cheating, and you will never be the only thing that they find attractive or turns them on. It’s irrational to expect different
Sorry, can’t hear you, finding ways to make it my business whether my partner wants to fuck G’raha Tia, because it’s a very attainable desire that can ever be fulfilled and I’m insecure about how probable it is.
well, joe, theres’ this here thing that happens, when your washer is slightly unbalanced and goes into spin cycle, and if you’ve got lots of nerves in a certain part of your body and sit on it just right, it stimulates the hell out of those nerves and…yeah. It’s a mostly-female thing.
To do some discourse, I think the laundry scene demonstrates how sex scenes can be pivotal to telling the story. Things happened in it, for better or for worse, that couldn’t be told as well after the fact. Dorothy pressured Joyce, Joyce consented, but with some reluctance. How the hand-holding played out, and how Joyce told Dorothy to leave before she came, and how Dorothy reacted to that.
Not every reader saw the same nuance in the scene, and if it were explained afterwards, there’d be that stated interpretation. Joyce and Dorothy might not even have full realizations/reactions of/to the encounter yet.
I would liked to have known when the scene was going to be over. It was better to read it all at once instead of having a day-by-day suspense. Not for horniness, but because 1) Dorothy’s behavior seemed especially troubling to me. and 2) It feels like voyeurism to me. The characters here aren’t real people, no reader is violating their privacy. But that’s what I feel like I’m doing, it reminds me of a college friend who was recorded having sex by a stalker. Again, no reader is violating their privacy, I do not care if anyone gets their jollies from the sex scenes here.
I’ve been unclear in my feelings re: Dorothy in the laundry scene. Sometimes I have different feelings about dynamics to many because I feel some degree of comic exaggeration/cartoonishness has to be taken into account. And the whole scenario was so bizarre to me that I didn’t know what to think about it. (Also, there is a bizarre level of Dorothy hate on here, making me tend to skip anything showing a lot of vitriol.)
I think your explanation/viewpoint is really good.
+1 to all of this lol I still don’t know what to make of it. I’ve settled on “this is the absurdest cartooniest peak of the arc, there’s always an absurd cartoony peak to the arc” for now
even without context I still think I would have figured it out, given how much common knowledge it is that bored housewives sometimes masturbate by sitting on their washing machines
Joyce, Joyce, Joyce… you do laundry when you just really want clean clothes so bad that you might make a bad decision like banging them on the rocks or bending over the kitchen sink.
ugggghhhhh i used to believe that as a christian teen, so i made myself stop masturbating (and felt really guilty when i failed).
Masturbation. Is. Not. Cheating!!!!!
Sex and masturbation are two different things. Sometimes you have needs and the other person doesn’t feel like sex, that’s okay… masturbation is an addition, not a replacement. Masturbation is *not* emotional cheating because masturbation, at least in my experience, does not contain the emotions i have for my partner. It’s just physical release, and might be paired with sexual fantasies that also have nothing to do with my partner.
I get to be a sexual being without having to depend on my partner.
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I’m reading their lines literally and it’s hilarious XD
cheating on Joe with some tube socks
NOT THE TUBE SOCKS ANYTHING BUT THAT
I wonder, do people actually use tube socks for… doing laundry? Wouldn’t that feel wildy uncomfortable?
Guys can use the socks for containing some of the messy bits of “laundry”.
So can girls. 😛
I’m hoping you mean trans girls and not cis women bc Ow
Don’t sock shame.
no one’s suggesting rubbing anything on the socks, but you can at least try to clean up
If you have an intact penis (meaning the foreskin wasn’t amputated) you can masturbate in a sock without the cloth rubbing the head much.
Aaand by “masterbate” you mean…
“Doing laundry”
that still sounds like you’d get sore before you’d get off.
Nope. Can confirm from scientific observation.
Honestly, the funniest part about that IMO is that Joe thought that she didn’t do laundry in the very literal sense.
“God, I hope that’s a euphemism”
If someone told you that they wouldn’t “do laundry” while they were dating you, you’d hope it was a euphemism, too.
although Joe’s “WHAT DOES ‘DOING LAUNDRY’ MEAN?” is also hilarious out of context XD
There is an overwhelming likelihood that I’ll need to renew my slipshine subscription soon :3
Right? There’s something about this pairing that is oddly enticing.
The entire thing is just Joe staring at the washing machine trying to figure out what Joyce was even talking about.
…Was it the spin cycle?
Joe performs an erotic laundry investigation?
Then he absentmindedly puts his hand on a running machine and cue HOLY SHIT panel.
Tub sox
Brb going on Laundryhub
Everyone in the comments gets angry because it was a nonsensical and badly written scene.
I liked it, sent it to a friend, said friend is a regular reader now. More laundry.
Who gets angry in the comment section? That would be annoying..
I have decided to get angry at anyone who gets angry in the comment section.
It’s been my experience that 90% of people who say “bad writing” in any comments section actually mean “contains people who do not fit MY racial/sexual/social demographic.”
And 99% of them have, as their sole writing credit, plagiarized restroom graffiti.
For a good time, dial 1-900-490-FREAK
I was initially upset at the kidnapping plot, until it became apparent that it was falling apart as fast as one would expect of a plan from the mind of two violent idiots. Then it just made me wonder if Willis’s mom was involved in something like that.
The kidnapping was fine, but I checked out when Amber’s dad decided to go full on masked supervillain. Blaine was way more effective when he was the kind of abusive asshole who exists in reality. When he checked out to play by Comic Rules, I stopped caring, you know?
Lucky you You’ve never had to deal with an asshole who was that self aggrandizing and reckless
I thought it fit. He’s a bit like his kid. He can play super, but unlike Amber, he can’t play it well.
Good point.
Amber has been at it a lot longer, and has already made her early mistakes. These days she…makes fewer mistakes.
And you only need for the other guy to make the Final Mistake.
Reminds me of the White Ninja comic with the hats.
It’s silly sitcom hijinks but that’s not exactly inappropriate for the tone of the comic
I enjoyed it. It was heartfelt but playful, it helped us see Joyce open up and showed us the hangups and “plausible deniability” workarounds that people find to discover their sexuality when theyve been scared away from traditional methods by their upbringing.
Like, it was surreal, sure. But that was the point.
not only did I like it, I did a similar thing irl
admittedly, I’m a lesbian and so was the girl I did it with, but still, it’s a thing that does happen and you need to get a life
I liked it. It was a relatable, realistic, and well-written scene.
realistic???
Yep. A lot of people – particularly cis women – who have repressed or isolated childhoods learn about masturbation and/or washing machines being used for masturbation when they go to college, and I had multiple friends in undergrad who mentioned it a few years after the fact. It’s also pretty normal for people exploring their sexuality away from home for the first time to explore with homosocial masturbation, regardless of where on the kinsey scale they fall.
turns out sometimes different people have different experiences, and there is no default or mean human experience.
I’m a cis woman and I learned about using washing machines for masturbation from this comic. (but I’m aro-ace and aggressively indifferent about sex and masturbation and stuff)
I think I learned about it from Scrubs, but point taken.
I’m not even sure where I learned about it. I guess it just makes sense that the big shaky thing might be fun to sit on while you have an orgy for one?
…unless they fall on zero, by definition. But few people do. It’s just Western culture that (inconsistently) presumes 0 is the default.
Well, sexual attraction isn’t necessarily a requirement for sexual gratification. It depends on the person, but there are plenty of people who can have and enjoy various sexual activities without actually being attracted to anyone involved.
No, falling on zero does not magically somehow preclude homosocial masturbation, and not sure why you think it would.
People have this weird idea that sexual attraction has to factor into any sex act performed, despite the fact that, say, sex work exists? It’s like how people assume that when an actor does gay porn, that guy must have been gay all along.
Or for that matter, that the guy doing straight porn isn’t gay.
Or that some early same sex experimentation when you’re first figuring out sex stuff means anything to your later sexuality.
Far more common of course, given heteronormativity, is doing opposite sex stuff even though you’re really homosexual. Even more common in the past.
I think @eh, whatever’s point was that by Kinsey’s literal definition of “zero” you couldn’t have had sex with anyone of the same sex. Thankfully the kinsey scale has been reinterpreted by actual queers and his original concept has been amended
Exactly, I used to do solo porn for a gay website that no longer exists, and I’m (mostly) straight. I also did ads on the site for bodybuilding supplements in spite of the fact that I was not a body-builder and the only exercise I got was riding my bicycle as much as 150 miles in a day but usually about 30 to 50 miles a day. I mean it was Texas and it usually took that many miles just to get to the bookstore in the closest town. And that much riding on the type of bike I was riding gave me some huge quads and glutes.
agreed, it was stupid and weird and very off putting
I don’t think it was nonsensical or badly written, but it was fucked up. Dorothy became the creep she hated Joe for being. I think she can be better than that, just like Joe can be better than the September version of himself. But it’s part of Dorothy’s failure spiral.
Maybe Joyce never thinks of it differently than she does now, and that could be questionable writing, since her main issue is shame.
That’s how I saw it, it was fucked up but not badly written. Certainly part of Dorothy spiraling and thinking that she needs “a win” and to prove herself as “Joyce’s minder.”
I really, really want Joe to be the one to help Joyce realize just how fucked up it was. And to be the one who actually gives her the confidence that masturbation is okay. Because once he finds out what “doing laundry” is, there is no way he will let her think he would consider it cheating or that it should be considered cheating. For her to do that alone.
I think Dorothy can have been doing it for selfish, “needs a win” reasons and still have it be a positive thing. Danny did that, too, remember? He offered to help Sal with math purely for the feeling of being useful. And their relationship is one of the healthiest in the comics.
I dunno. I’m happy for Joyce to be chipping away at her purity trauma. I think Dorothy did a good thing ultimately, even if for partially selfish reasons.
Looks to me like someone is too strongly associating “bad” with “I didn’t like it”.
I wouldn’t argue unrealistic or realistic or anything like that, but I definitely didn’t like it. At first, I was really interested in seeing where it would go, but it ended up being the closest I’ve ever come to dropping this comic. I kinda just have to not care/not be emotionally invested when it come up now, which is fine, but part of how I enjoy media is by being emotionally invested.
Same.
Joyce, sweetie, this arc was called *Don’t* Give Yourself Away
Okay, maybe Joyce hasn’t fully figured out masturbation yet.
She sure has figured out laundry though!
at least joe’s understanding, i’ve read some bs stories about some men finding that their partners using vibrators was ‘cheating’ and one even broke/ruined some toy she spent like 100 bucks on
If your worth as a person is shattered by a pair of double A batteries, God damn.
If your toy costs £100 there’s no way it isn’t rechargeable
This is way too funny. I kind of figured he’d have maybe figured it out due to the time Amber blatantly said Joyce has been masturbating, but I wonder if maybe Joe kind of just brushed it off.
For the record, I do think he’s probably going to (rightfully) tell Joyce that simply masturbating isn’t cheating in any way, shape, or form. Uhh, maybe refrain from doing that with Dorothy again without explicit permission, though.
Joe: Are you cheating on me? With whom? Are they hot? Do they want a threesome? Because I will ******** and ****** both ya’ll all night long.
Even if their mom is still probably on campus.
Fill in the blanks:
“rinse” and “spin”?
“heat” and “tumble”?
“durable press” and “Bounce®”
There will be a dryer sheet stuck to Joyce’s back all day and nobody will know why
Emotionally cheating on her mostly-officially-dating-now partner with the cold wet heart of a big machine.
You know, that would make a great arc for Fighter Pilot Julia Grey.
I would be a lot more amused by this if Joyce didn’t imply that masturbating counts as ’emotionally cheating’ on one’s partner.
Unless she’s suggesting that she might develop romantic feelings for the dryer (or any other sex toy), masturbating is in no way emotionally cheating. Actually, even if she DID develop feelings for the dryer, masturbation STILL isn’t cheating, emotionally or otherwise.
Yeah, Joyce still has a lot to figure out and unpack about sex and relationships. Which honestly is fair given where she’s coming from.
Right? Maybe if she’s holding hands with Dorothy though during it I could see where the emotional cheating aspect would play in, but alone, definitely not. But its very understandable given her background. Many fundamentalists are taught they are cheating on their future or current spouse if they masturbate.
I mean, holding hands with someone while you both masturbate is certainly some sort of sexual/romantic interaction. Although, given that she and Joe have not discussed such boundaries, I’m not sure it exactly qualifies as cheating – but she should certainly discuss the matter with Joe before engaging with Dorothy again.
Of course, knowing Joe, I am fairly certain he would give her a free pass and possibly a request to watch/participate the next time Joyce and Dorothy do laundry.
(that’s a free pass on the Joyce Dorothy part – obviously Joe doesn’t care if Joyce masturbates privately aside from possibly being aroused by the idea)
Masturbation being equated to an emotional affair is definitely a line I’ve heard somewhere before, probably in religious circles. I think the idea is that all sexual thoughts/intimacy belong to your partner, since the only time they’re sanctioned by god is when they’re within the bounds of your (wedded) partnership?
Between that, no condoms and no birth control…
Ah, breeding kink.
Point of order: She was specifically doing that under marching orders from someone else in order to be able to ‘think clearly’ — i.e. without sexual desire — about Joe.
So congrats Dorothy, you managed to mess up Joyce *even more*, I guess…
Yuuuuup.
This feels like it could be the premise of a Skyward fanfic.
“Oh, just… gals being pals…”
ROOMATES.
Joyce wants the D…etergent.
If your thinking about Joe while you do Laundry I don’t think that’s emotionally cheating, unless your using Era 3x Oxybooster which dear God why?!
If you actually have something to wash, then it doesn’t count as cheating.
Joyce, hun… masturbating is not cheating on your partner and is perfectly healthy to do and I’m sure Joe does it
Yeah i can’t imagine this relationship will last very long if jerkin’ it is considered cheating, so i hope they can uh…. communicate about that… Even if through euphemisms, hehe
I think they’ll have to work through it for sure, but “doing anything sexual, even by yourself, without your partner is cheating because you could/should be doing it with them” is actually a super common hang-up for the kind of repressive patriarchal subculture Joyce is from. It’s why so many people in conservative Christian spheres think that watching porn/jerking off to porn is an addiction, and that it’s problematic because it leads to neglecting your partner.
The number of supposedly feminist women who believe this annoy me, but I didn’t realize why they would believe that in the first place. Thanks for explaining this to me.
That’s an important lesson he can teach her.
not cheating, but also not a good time to leave him to go masturbate.
I mean, I guess she could excuse herself more politely.
But I get the feeling that Joe isn’t keen on rushing things with Joyce, while he would also be happy to know that she is exploring sexual pleasure on her own.
Hmm… I think the emotional cheating comes in if she’s not thinking about him alone while she does it.
…And then if she does use thoughts of him for her masturbation fantasies, that can feel like exploitation … like fetishizing him without his knowledge.
It’s a no-win scenario.
+1
Nope. Masturbating while thinking about, say, a hot dude in a movie is not emotionally cheating, and masturbating while thinking about a person who doesn’t know you’re doing that is not exploitation. Particularly as they don’t know about it and as such cannot be harmed by it.
Masturbation is morally neutral (if not slightly positive due to the health benefits), and having thoughts during said masturbation does not change that neutrality. Chuck all of those ideas in the garbage where they belong. There is no scenario in which a person in a committed relationship deciding to go and masturbate is a harmful thing.
(Assuming they’re not doing some unrelated crime, like jerkin’ it in the fruit aisle of the grocery store. Don’t do that.)
Well, yes, that makes sense. I was just explaining it from her perspective. Having been raised with a biblical view of “lustful thoughts” (e.g. “If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee,” or “he hath already committed adultery with her in his heart,” or “thou shalt not covet” …) that’s where masturbation and fantasy and pornography (or erotic literature, in Joyce’s case) can feel like “cheating” to someone who was raised on Biblical morality.
…Just looking at it from the perspective of the moralizing voices in her head, that’s all. Sorry, I should have made that more clear.
Like how in STTNG, folks were creeped out by characters like Barclay and LaForge using simulations of real people for their fantasy scenarios. When the real people got wind of their images’ being used in that way, it did feel to them like an exploitation. Like a betrayal — as if their images had been taken without their consent.
Of course there’s a difference between just fantasizing about a person and actually creating a tangible interactive hologram of that person. Different levels of realism. But Incould see how, for someone raised in a black-and-white moralistic system, one might not be able to make that more subtle distinction.
Thanks for bringing this up. As someone who isn’t Christian it’s very wild to see Christian Atheists quoting some of this stuff, like, unironically. And just assuming that I would agree with it even if I’m, like, pagan. Most people assume I’m pagan. My actual relationship to religion is complicated but it’s kind of interesting. And it’s also like “as long as you aren’t devil worshippers lol!” Coming from people ! Who! Identify as atheist! Which is fine actually atheism isn’t like a religion or whatever it’s okay to be Christian Atheist.
Rock on!
<3
Please describe it in great detail, if you can. I may need to do some laundry myself.
She should invite Joe to do some laundry with her. Doing laundry together really saves time you know.
Looking forward to the scene wherein Joyce is in the laundry room, sitting on one of the machines, and Joe strolls in with a basket of his laundry and casually strikes up a conversation, while Joyce is trying not to show that she is freaking out.
You throw water on them, put them in the same room, and let them bounce off each other.
But first you separate the colors from the whites *Gets thrown into dryer
Everyone in the comments is always angry.
Listen Cap, that’s our secret.
Eh, I tend to swing between incredulity and disappointment, with occasional stops to learn something, but in general you’re not wrong.
it’s kind of like the internet!
That is a top tier punchline. Excellent work.
Hehehehebebehehh….
Another funny one! Don’t have strong opinions besides hee hee for this strip
Clearly, she just needs to invite Joe to do the laundry with her.
…
…with his penis.
I guess I underestimated just how messed up Joyce’s upbringing was; that she would equal masturbation as a form of cheating on your significant other.
So we’re taking bets on how long until they do the horizontal tango. How long do you think it will take?
I’m guessing less than a week(in comic week.)
I think Joe will hang back from this for quite a while. I suspect that he’s never had a relationship like this before — certainly not where we could see — and he’s (a) enjoying it as-is and (b) afraid he will slip into old patterns, which he’s come to dislike in himself.
Outside the story, that would make a good deal of space for the characters to gently conflict and, after growing to trust each other a bit more, break down and talk honestly about why they are conflicted over this issue.
Not to worry: they can still come up with an immature solution or silly work-arounds that make things even worse for them and more fun for the reader.
Hard agree on Joe holding ’em back from boning for a while. This relationship seems to mean a lot to him, and boy won’t want to mess this up.
Plus, y’know, he has his own hangups and sexual trauma to sort out. That might take a minute.
Yeah *Dorothy* underestimated Joyce’s hang ups because now her plan seemed like it worked but it actually didn’t work at all. Ha!
Joyce, honey, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction is right there on your campus. Go talk to them. They’ll clear some things up for you. Take your friends with you too.
WOW!
…They’ll also clear some things up for you
By the way you should absolutely masturbate while dating someone. Imagine if like…you had to always find your partner whenever you felt horny. That’d be EXHAUSTING.
Also your partner might not always feel like boning, so you masturbate during the times they aren’t available or aren’t feeling up to it.
Also, masturbate before making any important relationship decisions. Your decision may be more based in libido than in calm thinking.
Also, masturbate before making any important online purchases.
Even if I’m buying an appliance?
Especially then.
What, you don’t buy fridges based on which one looks most fuckable?
Fridges, no. Laundry machines, yes.
It depends if masturbation happens at the expense of sex, or if it’s used as a way to avoid communicating your desires.
It is a taboo over here: it’s still considering cheating masturbating instead looking for you partner.
What, are people expected to fuck at the drop of a hat just because someone else wants to?
Hell, sometimes arousal is nothing but an annoying distraction that people need to get out of their system so they can get back to something they actually want to do. Five minutes of privacy and it’s solved, and if somebody wants to feel betrayed by that they can get over themselves.
Five minutes? I can’t imagine. I like an hour alone, just me and the internet.
Sure, but that’s not exactly practical when you’re trying to focus on D&D.
That day will never come.
Can confirm. The notifications I get from my system when my cycle is ramping up are annoying and inconvenient; an hour or so alone and I can get back to whatever it is I actually WANT to be doing.
Like reading comics about girls learning that they’re allowed to masturbate.
I deeply hate that taboo solely for the amount of damage it does to couples who are, temporarily or permanently, possessed of wildly differing libidos.
OTOH I’m remembering an ancient commercial for a soft drink. Guy comes crawling out of the desert, ragged and obviously dehydrated, dragging a briefcase. Folks help him up, offer water, he refuses. “Bring me some dry, salty crackers.” He gets as thirsty as he can stand, and then opens the briefcase to reveal a frosty bottle of the sponsor’s product, which he chugs down blissfully.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the product, is it? “Even a man who’s dying of thirst is gonna want a little more dehydration before he bothers with our drink!”
“BrandName®: it’s better than dying of thirst!”
Joe: I will be the brave feminist here… women should be strong and independent enough to do laundry without a man. Nay, they must do it without their man.
**Joe then heroically gives Joyce his laundry and slams the door and heroically plays Ninja Gaiden.
Hee hee hee!
Joyce skips off to the laundry room humming, grateful because all she had left to wash was one nightgown.
LMAO, oh Joyce. PLEASE tell him, I need his reaction.
Don’t share what you can’t share, Joyce
She will, won’t she? It’s not hard for Joe to pick up on the “without you”/”with Dorothy” duality
[“Oh god! My taxes! vibes intensify]
In a surprise twist, Joe beats Dorothy to buying Joyce a proper vibrator.
Didn’t Sarah already do that?
Joe half your brain used to be consumed by sex. You should be able to pickup on the subtext.
That half of his brain is mostly focused on loving Joyce, but there is enough left that he might be able to figure it out. That’s if she doesn’t just tell him immediately.
Anyone else and he’d’ve got it last strip.
But it’s Joyce.
And panel six is knowing damned well what it is and being in total disbelief xD
Masturbating is normal whether you’re single or in a committed relationship. Holding hands with a (allegedly) platonic friend while you masturbate is not.
Eh. Not unheard of, though. Circle jerks and simultaneous masturbation aren’t that uncommon among teens.
It’s not normal, but it is pretty flippin’ sweet~
I don’t think the other shoe has dropped from that, but more generally, if two friends hold hands while masturbating, that’s pretty atypical, not abnormal. In their situation, I think Dorothy violated some norms.
I am not a classical scholar, so maybe it was typical in Plato’s Greece.
I’m really on the fence for the common laundry scene.
Dorothy was in a bad headspace.
On the other hand, just telling Joyce about masturbation via spin cycle and leaving her alone with it, she just wouldn’t have managed to deal with the emotions if she even dared to try.
Holding hands was in no way romantic but providing an anchor.
But Joyce with her upbringing and her crush will have all kinds of interpretations for that.
(BTW: people objecting to their partners watching/reading porn might be due to the overwhelming hate most easily accessible porn shows and the obsession with penetration.)
Overwhelming hate?
Yeah. It’s pretty bad. There’s a lot of ugly stuff out there.
That’s really vague. Any time I go to any porn site, the most egregious thing I ever notice is the flood of step-family crap.
You’re not trying. There’s bestiality, golden showers, scat including analingus and coprophagia, mild S&M, brutal S&M, vacuum bags, punching or kicking soft parts, fake (I hope) strangulation, fake crucifixion, and everything your sick mind can conceive rendered in cartoons. Name your kink, follow with “porn,” and search. Don’t go looking for anything involving “child,” “kiddy,” or “loli.” You probably won’t find it, and you might go to prison.
Forgot to mention chikan and sharking. Chikan is all fake and sharking is real but just irritating.
Well no, I’m certainly not trying to find those things. I’m well aware there’s some nasty stuff out there, but I got the impression CJ meant like, front-page type stuff, not “Go to this specific booru and peruse the botched_beheading tag”.
That’s not /hate/, though. That’s kink. If all parties involved are either consenting or fictional, it’s fine.
There certainly are a lot of problems running around in the mainstream porn industry, but the existence of kinks, and the existence of cartoons showcasing weird kinks and/or unwise-IRL kinks, is not one of those problems.
The ugliness/hate that *I* see is often pretty subtle–how EVERY mainstream/front-page porn scene seems to have to involve choking or slapping or spanking now, or how almost all of the stepfamily-fantasy stuff involves implicit power dynamics, or the fact that 95% of front-page “interracial” porn is specifically “very large dark man” and “palest woman possible”.
It’s not necessarily in the titles, but it’s certainly in the actual films.
You make a solid point, and I hadn’t thought about it that way. The only example I’ll object to is spanking, because that one’s just good fun*. That power dynamic thing always felt low-key scummy to me, like vaguely uncomfortable at best and downright disgusting at worst. I also noticed that trend with the interracial thing, but didn’t really know if it was something I should point out? Like, on the surface it’s just two people who happen to be different colors, but I think it plays on that racist dynamic of “massive Black man railing petite white girl ohoho how novel is that”? There’s so much weird shit like that, and I can’t even add “nowadays”, because it’s been there as long as I can remember, and even shows up in old stuff I happen to see.
*(yeah yeah, caveats, not everyone, it’s fucking implied and we’re all grown-ups here, don’t @ me)
Yeah, I have objections against porn as an industry but not porn as a concept, part of which is stuff like that… And like, I’m pretty pro-kink overall, but it’s frustrating how much various kink things are treated as “standard” increasingly through porn, and safe kink practices aren’t being emphasized. Which makes sense for something that’s meant to be fantasy, but like… (this part gets personal) too many people have put/tried to put their hands on my neck during sex. I immediately pull back/object, and they stop, but holy shit, ask first. And I do enjoy kink play, but not that kind, and people are just assuming it’s, like, a package deal?
And yeah, kink can be a way to play with power dynamics and act in ways that don’t actually reflect one’s real world beliefs, but porn and such can also reinforce real world power dynamics.
I’m just as pro-kink as the next kinky guy, I should be clear, but there’s definitely a problem when “choking” or “spanking” becomes *expected every time from everyone* rather than *if everyone involved wants it*.
And it’s ALWAYS (on the front page of porn, anyway) men choking/spanking women without asking–when it’s the reverse, it’s in the title and tags.
THAT’S my objection, here.
Becky helped Joyce with her problem more than Dorothy, by just talking. Joyce has a shame reaction to her own sexuality. She is mortified of other people thinking of her as having sexual thoughts, judging her. Dorothy told her she’d been judging her the whole time she knew her, and then took her to a public place to masturbate with her. That is not helping her get past her shame reflex.
I have no idea what you mean by “she just wouldn’t have managed to deal with the emotions if she even dared to try.” I understand the situation (so this isn’t me asking for an explanation). I just cannot reach that conclusion.
That sounds gay. But, personally, I would like Joyce and Dorothy doing the gay, it would be funny. But Willis has choose Joyce straight, so…
Holding hands with someone you trust while doing something new-and-scary, however, is normal and reasonable. And it was scary for Joyce, whether or not others think it should be.
Now I have that old George Carlin bit about “the bannister” in my head…..thanks a lot, Willis! 🙂
Oh gosh I haven’t laughed this hard and this long (heyo) at a strip in a while, and that was before I got to the alt text.
Gosh I love it when Willis makes comments about the comments.
Rather than getting into a pointless and stupid conversation about whether masturbation is cheating, I’m more concerned with whether it’s gay.
I mean, I’d at least Communicate to my partner if I was jacking off with a friend. You know, cover those bases.
Pun intended?
With a friend, sure. I’m talking more about solo adventures.
Hmm… well, you are certainly the same sex as yourself, so it could certainly be interpreted as homosexual. More than that, it’s homopersonal, since it’s one person…
Wait, did I just solve the age-old clone-fucker debate? It’s not ‘gay,’ it’s ‘homopersonal!”
The clonefucker debate is so fucking stupid to me. It’s so goddamn obvious what it is. It’s not gay, it’s not masturbation, it’s hot and you’re never gonna get the chance again, so stop asking pseudophilosophical questions and go fuck your clone.
I suppose that depends on whether one considers themself desirable.
Some don’t. At all.
I guess some people don’t want to make infinite money with homemade clone porn either.
Oo, I love when people hold strong opinions on stuff like this that shows a completely different perspective to me.
I find the idea of having sex with my clone 0% attractive. I am bi so it’s not that I am not attracted to my own gender. I mean, *other* people fucking their clones is hot…
This is a very interesting way of looking at the topic. Sort of a “None for me, thanks, but you chow down and we can just hang out”.
It’s only gay if dryer is gay.
in my case it’s gay. everything I do is gay.
Yes, the laundry thing was kinda if gay. It could be so awesome if it was true.
Dumbing of Age, book 13: WHAT DOES DOING LAUNDRY MEAN?!
No wait—Dumbing of Age, book 13: It’s Absolutely A Euphemism
OK, would anyone be up for a game?
The game is to complete the sentence:
Love is like doing laundry: ______________. (Fill in the blank.)
I can go first:
Love is like doing laundry: wet and smelly!
Love is like doing laundry: I do it in the kitchen sink because I can’t afford it elsewhere.
Been there!
You gotta get in the folds!!!! XD
I’ll be seeein myself to horny jail now :p
Bonk!
😂
Love is like doing laundry: you can do it outside with good weather.
That’s what rain is for!
Sure, but then the rain washes away the lube and gets in your boombox, and then you can’t blare a Hillary Duff song to hide your own sounds anymore.
Much easier than it was in the Victorian era.
True that!
Love is like doing laundry: the wet and hot parts are OK, but the follow-up is tedious. Go away, sweetie. I want to be alone.
As FBorFW said: “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”
Good one!
Y’know, since the topic’s making a comeback, I used to think that college wasn’t actually about all the hook-ups and orgies and stuff, and that was just pop-culture’s fun way of portraying it. But the number of people that actively defend the whole “my friend took me to the laundry room to teach me to masturbate” thing as normal and not-weird makes me second-guess myself. But then that makes me wonder what my sex-repulsed friends were learning when they were students, so I dunno
I think college is too large and varied an experience for any set of media portrayals to sufficiently cover it. Even my close friends in college had a wide variety of experiences with sex, drugs, and alcohol.
But I don’t think it’s all that helpful to look at any one aspect as more normal or more weird. A lot of people go to some kind of college/university and they have a lot of different experiences.
Face it, Joe, you’re in a quadrouple now with Joyce, Dorothy, and Maytag, except that Dotty’s off-limits.
grrr. argh. angery
Nope. Not seeing a whole lot of anger.
I gotta say “emotionally cheating” is a completely new term to me, I’ve never heard of this. Is this a common phrase? Like… not to judge but I can’t imagine how stressful it would be to date someone who’s outlook was that thoughts or emotions can be considered a form of cheating. Even if she climbs on top of the dryer and the the image of, idunno, Burt Reynolds flashes through her mind… I mean, it’s thoughts!
I think the general idea is more like, if you’re in a committed relationship and you start to not only develop #Feelings for someone else (which isn’t a voluntary action no matter how much people wanna pretend it is), but start to wish you could act on them to the detriment of your existing relationship. Like if Jill is dating Jodie and Jodie is fantasizing about Jenny instead of being emotionally present with Jill, I think is a way to describe it.
Just thinking a cashier or even friend is hot doesn’t count. Your partner doesn’t own your synapses.
Ehhh I guess I follow, but I feel like “Jodie being emotionally present with Jill” is a completely different issue than “Jodie fantasizing about Jenny”. Jodie could fantasize about eating a ham sandwich instead of being emotionally present with Jill. What you do with your synapses is like, the last refuge of personal privilege, I still can’t process how the realm of thought could be considered a place where “cheating” can occur.
I think the main difference is, the ham sandwich doesn’t constitute a potential betrayal. Jodie could eat the real ham sandwich right in front of Jill and it’s not going to ruin their relationship. Getting intimate with Jenny could absolutely do that.
Now, I’m obviously not saying that if a person is attracted to someone they’re not dating, they’re gonna have an affair. That would be stupid. But if Jodie says “God, I want a ham sandwich inside me right now”, it’s never going to be as troublesome as “God, I want Jenny inside me right now”.
Usually I see it meaning like, one is having deep intimate conversations with someone outside their relationship, maybe talking about having a life together, even if they never cross the line to doing anything sexual (especially see it a lot about workplace affairs)
But in Joyce’s case I think it’s mostly ‘that kind of feels like cheating, but I know it’s not the same as physically cheating’
When I see it, it’s usually a combo of “deep intimacy with someone outside your relationship” AND “partner(s) are not aware of said intimacy” AND “said intimacy takes away from intimacy with partner(s)”.
That is, for it to rise to the level of “emotional cheating”, usually I see that it has to take away from the primary relationship in some covert way.
I think that’s a pretty good checklist to go by, Big Z! Having an emotionally intimate friendship with someone in and of itself really shouldn’t be considered emotional cheating, but so many people act like it is. Some friendships are just going to be deep, and some people are good at maintaining several deep relationships including a romantic relationship. The additions of the secrecy and negative impact on the romantic relationship are where it really changes into a problem.
Emotional cheating is like, a hard line to quantify exactly, but it is basically when you start to treat a friend like they are your partner or better than your partner.
This outside party does NOT have to reciprocate and may just think they are a friend. But the one seeking comfort in this is invested as if they are dating this person.
It is NOT cheating to simply have thoughts or feelings. That is Joyce overreacting here due to her repressed sexuality. Emotionally cheating is more than that, it’s more becoming emotionally intimate with someone as if they are your partner, while you may be freezing out, ignoring, or running away from your actual partner, because it feels easier than sorting out your issues or breaking up with them.
Ok, I think I get it now. Most of the responses I’m seeing here are describing emotional cheating as something that happens in the realm of social interactions (opposed to private thoughts and feelings). It’s still kinda dicey where to draw a line and actually call it infidelity but I get the gist of the idea.
I suppose we could say that holding someone’s hand while getting stimulated by a dryer is sexually intimate, and if it’s your first time and you’re learning how to even masturbate, we could call that emotionally intimate as well. Does this mean Joyce was kinda cheating on Joe with Dotty? And how should we square the fact that Joyce has basically been masturbating in a publicly accessible room that anyone in the building could waltz into?
Part of why it is hard to specifically quantify is that people are emotionally open to different levels, show physical closeness to different degrees and express love in different ways.
So what Joyce did with Dorothy could fall within the typical realm of their closeness and their bond, as while emotionally intimate, Joyce tends to be quite intimate with her friends typically. While if say, Sal did that with Dorothy, it’d be pretty unusual.
So there isn’t like a hard set list I can make as some friends cuddle or hold hands or have quite deep discussions as friends, it’s not partner-specific. But others only talk about shared interests and you’d be lucky to get a fist bump as a friend, and they only typically hold hands or talk about certain topics with partners.
I don’t think most would object to that one-time thing with Dorothy, especially since Joe and Joyce weren’t really to an exclusive point then.
I think it would be different if they kept doing it, which I can’t really imagine either of them doing.
Yeah, but Jebus said thinking dirty thoughts is the same as adultery. If you’re Christian, you’re not permitted to think.
Not quite. The usual translation is “lusting,” not “thinking dirty thoughts.” “Lusting” is giving in to the desire to possess (even without overt action).
As for the other: sadly true, but if you are observant you’ll see that being Christian today has very little connection with following the teachings of the Christ.
My understanding of giving in to a desire means executing that desire, not thinking about it.
I don’t think the context here is a common use of “emotional cheating”. Certainly not masturbation in and of itself. Might be common fundamentalist usage?
I’d see it more as a prelude to physical cheating or to a break up over someone else. A lot of the time cheating doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Sometimes it’s just going out to randomly get laid, but often it’s a longer term process of falling for someone else. That takes time and emotional investment before it comes to the surface. Often with no intent to do any physical cheating. But then you find yourself in love with this other person. That build up is what I think of as emotional cheating. It’s dangerous.
Or think of Joyce and Jacob, from his point of view. He didn’t even know what was going on until the end.
Or honestly, if cheating is only sex – is it impossible to cheat in a relationship where you’re not having sex yet? Like Joe & Joyce.
It sounds like she’s trying to reconcile something she learned about in gender studies (emotional cheating) with her misconceptions (masturbation bad).
re: alt-text: yeah it does mean that
😀 <3
Sadly, I think Joe calmly explaining, “I think it’s perfectly fine and normal for a partner to laundry” is Smarting of Age.
Also, @Willis, can I request you substitute “laundry” for masturbation in the forum? It’s very funny with bongo and deserves to be immortalized as well.
“doing laundry”
Yes, Joyce, you can do laundry and Joe won’t mind. Joe does laundry all the time and intends to continue.
He won’t go blind nor will you.
But will they be crippled in one arm? (Just something silly I heard in an anti-masturbation video from over a decade ago)
I’m pretty sure Joe’s only issue with it would be that she’s doing it in public, as exhibitionism is . . . something to be done only around those who consented to it. Please learn to masturbate in your room alone, Joyce.
If the room is empty, there’s nobody who needs to consent. It’s that easy. Somebody walking in would change the parameters I guess, but I doubt anyone’s gonna take you to court because they saw you sitting on an appliance.
It’s a public space though, pretty sure there’s an implied understanding that you won’t walk in on someone maaturbating
Okay? And if you do walk in on that, the polite thing to do is lob something at them or spray them with water. Y’all act like these things are complicated and hard to navigate.
Hm, that’s a confusing ethical line to me – it seems like if it would be inappropriate to do in front of someone, it shouldn’t be done outside of your private space period, not just conditional on your best guess of whether someone’s watching.
Did I not mention the water? 🔫
So your argument is that anyone who walked in would also agree that Joyce should stick to doing it in her room.
That’d be for the best
I don’t know about You all, but I’ll be uncomfortable to tell my future partner about my sexual awakening. That’s not partner business, right?
And Joyce should be more cool with pleasuring herself, instead with him. “Emotional cheating”? Calm down. Joe had a lot of partners, he have to understand Joyce.
Yeah, but Joyce has no off switch. She tells everything.
I mean, if the relationship is likely to be sexual at some point, I’d assume things like “here’s how I figured out some of my sexuality” might come up eventually.
It’s partner business if the partners agree that it is. Sharing a vulnerable moment can be quite the bonding experience, if the partners are agreed that they are committed to working through any unforeseen issues.
It’s not a thing partners should pry into, but if one brings it up in a confusing euphemistic way, it’s not surprising the other will try to figure out what they’re talking about.
It can be an expression of intimacy. However, in this case, it happened during the wooing, after Joe told her how he felt, and she said she’d think about it while also showing interest. Sexual encounters with a third party shortly before a couple becomes exclusive can bruise feelings.
>That’s not partner business, right?
It doesn’t have to be if that’s a boundary you have, but it’s definitely possible for that boundary to be someone’s dealbreaker, and that’s okay too as long as everyone is respectful and straightforward about it.
What happens in the Laundromat,
stays in the Laundromat!
re: Alt-text: Isn’t that what everything means?
With an audience this big (and loud), even characters having cute interactions will inevitably piss off somebody, and then that sets off a cascade of other people annoyed at the first person for being such a downer.
…Ironically, Joe, your dirty thoughts are closer to the truth than you might think
Come on Joe, you are a smart, horny man, it’s not that hard to figure it out XD
Maybe he’s never heard of major appliances being utilized for such activities.
Possible though… unlikely? Like, this guy was a high-grade horndog, no sexy thing should have been beyond his reach. On the other hand maybe his horn-dogness Was limited just to rating girls and sleeping with them…
I think it more likely he’s working hard not to think of Joyce that way at this early stage of their relationship. The comedic value of this is of course that Joyce is revelling in her new-found freedom to think of herself in that way and plunging ahead, unaware of Joe’s internal struggle.
Guys are much less likely to associate laundry and washing machines with hanky panky.
Aww, sweet honest Joyce. The siren call of laundry is hard to resist.
“Huh. Really? I’d stopped reading the comments around then because of the time I offhandedly mentioned feeling like people are especially harsh on woman in this comics, and I got a multi-paragraph furious reply about how Absolutely Not Sexist someone who’d decided I meant Them was.” I thought.
“Is it really that bad?” I thought, clicking and scrolling down. Confused, I scroll a little further down.
“Ah.” I say, nodding quietly. Then I write this, resolving to once again stop reading the comments, which is a shame since theres a lot of very funny, sane people in here.
Who you callin’ funny and sane?
Yeah, I had a similar experience noting the disproportionately harsh criticisms certain commenters had towards the women of color characters specifically. Lots of defensiveness and deflection.
The repression and damage wrought by a cult upbringing doesn’t just go away the moment you decide there’s no god. It can take years to navigate out of that maze.
yeah, no kidding. I’m still trying to detangle some parts of my head, and I was raised Methodist and liberal, so not exactly a bastion of conservative repression.
This. And healing is never the same from each person. Joyce is advanced in some parts of her life, as I’m chill with another parts, for example.
No, continue, “doing laundry”, with Dorothy, Joe will love it.
*plays song where the lyrics discuss not wanting to be angry anymore*
*either that or, as long as we’re talking about euphemisms, She Bop*
Can’t help singing “Do the laundry” to the tune of “Do the Hustle”.
So in this context is a dry cleaning comsidered a brothel. Since you are paying for it and all.
Okay so time for her to have the “what you do with yourself and your own body in a relationship is your business alone” conversation.
Y’all consider porn cheating? I always thought that was stupid. Cam girls or anything with actual interaction is a line with discussing, or if it’s like someone you know personally that could be weird if you don’t get everyone’s say. But pictures and videos of strangers, or lewd drawings; that’s just entertainment. Who gives a shit. Your partner being turned on by anything but you isn’t cheating, and you will never be the only thing that they find attractive or turns them on. It’s irrational to expect different
Sorry, can’t hear you, finding ways to make it my business whether my partner wants to fuck G’raha Tia, because it’s a very attainable desire that can ever be fulfilled and I’m insecure about how probable it is.
well, joe, theres’ this here thing that happens, when your washer is slightly unbalanced and goes into spin cycle, and if you’ve got lots of nerves in a certain part of your body and sit on it just right, it stimulates the hell out of those nerves and…yeah. It’s a mostly-female thing.
To do some discourse, I think the laundry scene demonstrates how sex scenes can be pivotal to telling the story. Things happened in it, for better or for worse, that couldn’t be told as well after the fact. Dorothy pressured Joyce, Joyce consented, but with some reluctance. How the hand-holding played out, and how Joyce told Dorothy to leave before she came, and how Dorothy reacted to that.
Not every reader saw the same nuance in the scene, and if it were explained afterwards, there’d be that stated interpretation. Joyce and Dorothy might not even have full realizations/reactions of/to the encounter yet.
I would liked to have known when the scene was going to be over. It was better to read it all at once instead of having a day-by-day suspense. Not for horniness, but because 1) Dorothy’s behavior seemed especially troubling to me. and 2) It feels like voyeurism to me. The characters here aren’t real people, no reader is violating their privacy. But that’s what I feel like I’m doing, it reminds me of a college friend who was recorded having sex by a stalker. Again, no reader is violating their privacy, I do not care if anyone gets their jollies from the sex scenes here.
Thank you for your disc horse!
I’ve been unclear in my feelings re: Dorothy in the laundry scene. Sometimes I have different feelings about dynamics to many because I feel some degree of comic exaggeration/cartoonishness has to be taken into account. And the whole scenario was so bizarre to me that I didn’t know what to think about it. (Also, there is a bizarre level of Dorothy hate on here, making me tend to skip anything showing a lot of vitriol.)
I think your explanation/viewpoint is really good.
+1 to all of this lol I still don’t know what to make of it. I’ve settled on “this is the absurdest cartooniest peak of the arc, there’s always an absurd cartoony peak to the arc” for now
Dorothy dares to want things for herself, while also making the mistake of being an 18-year-old girl. She did this to herself.
I think it’s actually probably fine if Joyce does her laundry while she dates Joe, as long as she blares RWBY music while she does it.
even without context I still think I would have figured it out, given how much common knowledge it is that bored housewives sometimes masturbate by sitting on their washing machines
So she was *expecting* to do laundry with Dorothy again. Interesting. Interesting.
Poor Joe… So confused…
In current retrospect, it’s too bad Mike didn’t have an evil twin who is just now transferring into this college… We NEED a sarcastic @$$hole now…
We already have half the cast.
Seems every cast member got a part of what earthlings would call his “soul”.
Joyce, Joyce, Joyce… you do laundry when you just really want clean clothes so bad that you might make a bad decision like banging them on the rocks or bending over the kitchen sink.
ugggghhhhh i used to believe that as a christian teen, so i made myself stop masturbating (and felt really guilty when i failed).
Masturbation. Is. Not. Cheating!!!!!
Sex and masturbation are two different things. Sometimes you have needs and the other person doesn’t feel like sex, that’s okay… masturbation is an addition, not a replacement. Masturbation is *not* emotional cheating because masturbation, at least in my experience, does not contain the emotions i have for my partner. It’s just physical release, and might be paired with sexual fantasies that also have nothing to do with my partner.
I get to be a sexual being without having to depend on my partner.