Do other people know about Jason and Sal’s thing? I guess Walky does but I don’t remember if the rest of that math class learned the specifics of why Jason was fired
I mean, Jason isn’t going to reveal her identity. Which is kind of interesting because it wouldn’t be something she’d care about unless it affected her.
Which it might if they would punish a student for her part in it.
I think Sal would care actually. She doesn’t really like Jason and she gets pretty miffed at injustice. I think she just wouldn’t be surprised by it or complain about it, but I think it would upset her. Sal’s just good at suppressing her emotions.
Considering she initiated it and he wasn’t grooming her or such (he wasn’t even corrupt enough to change her grade), I think she’d be more upset that he got another teaching role despite being a terrible teacher.
I am curious however if the school has any say in who Robin hires?
Klinger was actually really good at his job. Even when he was acting like he was a siding salesman in Toledo, he jumped in to help carry stretchers without breaking his schtick.
He was a good company clerk once he settled into the job. My older relatives introduced me to the phrase “the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way” during an episode of this show.
he was also probably the only positive instance of a guy in a dress when I was growing up. sure, he started out trying to get a section 8, but by the end he just liked dresses, and everyone who wasn’t an antagonist was cool with it. heck, even the antagonists might’ve stopped caring (I can’t binge it on netflix so I haven’t actually watched an episode in… decades? oh dear)
I’d call squatting at your crushes house to dodge a political scandal more like generalized mayhem over being a sex pest specifically, but that’s just me. Maybe Robin has some skeletons in her closet.
Its possible that there were incidents not shown in the comics which contribute to Robin being a ‘sex pest’. (We know that she can have little or no social filters; maybe she “hit on” others during her political career.)
I think she’s referring to staying past her welcome at Leslie’s house because she has a crush. It was the storyline where she blew up her political career
She stalked Leslie, broke into her house and stayed for several days despite being thrown out more than once and being told to her face that she’s not welcome and destroyed Leslie’s sentimental valuables
I’m a little confused on that angle too but looking back on it Robin was being very flirty while squatting at Leslie’s. That does likely qualify as sexual harassment.
I’m guessing Robin’s acknowledging the fact that she was doing this in a (wacky sitcom) romantic way and considering that equivalent, in the context of stalking, to if it had been sexual.
Alternately, there’s a reveal coming that she’s talking about an incident we DON’T know about, but there’s already so much baggage Robin has just from the original decision to put her in politics again here and therefore make her a Republican, and then end up modeling her after TRUMP, that adding more would make buying her slowly reforming even further.
Thankfully that only lasted for a few gags before reality moved to “that’s not funny anymore” and she did her own thing again. She didn’t get stuck in the bit like Mr. Garrison.
I expected nothing less after she sent Ryan packing. I presume it would also depend what KIND of sex pest – I would immediately ask “Define sex pest” but that’s me.
And, again, Leslie….how trustworthy would you be if you helped get the guy you refused to hire because it’d make you untrustworthy find a job at your same institution? I only thought of that looking back over that conversation.
…Yeah… but Sal did it BECAUSE he had authority over her grades. I would’a done it DESPITE her authority over my grades.
(Eventually, we became dear friends and even housemates, but I never did manage to seduce her. 🙁 )
I’ll be honest I don’t know how one goes about doing that. My technique is to very frankly ask “hey wanna make out” or something cuz I literally have no game.
I fully endorse this version of game. When I asked my now-husband to our first date, I was sure to include “I am flirting with you” and “I am totally asking you out!”
He was glad I was doing those things, and I totally got to go on the date.
You’re allowed to just be direct.
For fear of ignoring the significant differences in pressures on AFABs vs AMABs — here are some perfectly manful updates, for asking people out / asking people to smooch without “yo, wanna make out”:
– “I’m going to xyz on Saturday, would you like to come, as a date?”
– “Wow, I really want to kiss you.”
– “May I kiss you”
Thank you, Leorale! That is very helpful! I really appreciate you for explaining everything so clearly.
I am so sad, Taffy, that a fellow might get harmed for asking whether it would be OK to kiss someone. I do hear that, though. FWIW, asking is probably a lower risk venture than simply starting the kiss and hoping that the other person joins in.
Man, dating and intimacy can be such a minefield! I am so lucky that phase of life is over for me. It’s a good thing to have left it behind.
I dunno about getting harmed but I definitely fear coming off as a creep. Anytime I wanna talk to a girl there’s a voice in my head like “really? You don’t think she gets hit on by enough sweaty nerds?” Or “she’s definitely out of your league.” And so I never shoot my shot. Or the more damning “why would anyone want to date/kiss YOU.” But also I feel like if I don’t make the first move a move will never be made on me. I’m really envious of people who can casually hook up and date and talk to people without second guessing themselves because everything I say, feel and do makes me feel like a creep.
I know then when men are super direct, I’m often afraid that saying no means they’re going to get violent and act entitled to a yes. Like the sexism dynamic is one where guys act like you’re not supposed to say no to them. They try to ply you, some will use drugs, some will use violence. Being alone with a guy can be scary. It depends on if I know a guy and how I know him.
If I remember, the interaction seemed to start with a “I haven’t had sex in a while… you will do” sort of mentality, and the whole “My grades didn’t improve” seemed to almost be an afterthought.
Yeah I always thought Sal expected improved grades as bonus for the sex rather than the sole reason the sex was happening. Like I love the taste of Honey Nut Cheerios AND it’s food for my heart (allegedly). But I’m eating them for the taste mostly. It’d just be a nice coincidence if my heart also got stronger.
Her hair exploding out of its Part 1 sleekness and angrily confronting Jason over the poor grade lends me to think that her primary objective was to improve her grades, getting laid being secondary.
I assumed she was giving up AND wanted sex. I guess that’s sorta the issue is that I assumed the sex was a treat for her and not for Jacob. Considering she’s been complaining about not getting sex and literally the only thing holding Jason in this room is Sal (cuz as you recall, his office hours aren’t today.) I feel like I read this more as a “I release you from the hostage situation “I’ve more or less put you in and also wanna fuck?”. That’s probably not how Sal meant it but I can totally see that being lost in translation.
If agreeing to inappropriate sex that was nonetheless consensual and initiated enthusiastically by the other person constitutes one’s lowest moment…you’re doing alright.
I don’t know. It’s weird given that it was presented initially as enthusiastic, consensual, and sexy, but then later turned into something else. Yes, he should have said no (if he got the same training as I did as a TA, especially), but she also should not have initiated.
I’m not sure what you mean about it turning into something else. If it did, it did so very soon after – when Sal confronted him about not living up to his end of the implicit deal.
It never even occurred to me that such a deal existed until literally tonight, upon reading comments people have left on different threads. I don’t think Jason understood that she thought such a deal was happening. However, I don’t currently have an active Slipshine account, so I can’t look over it to see where the communication breakdown occurred. I do not that in a non-Slipshine comic he seemed to take offense at the idea that she only slept with him for a grade.
She seemed to mostly refuse to hire him because she doesn’t have any money for it. Maybe she also thinks that Robin is more acceptable to help because she views Robin as already morally compromised.
Have the facial blushes become more prominent lately? I swear I just keep staring at them nowadays.
But onto the comic itself. . . it’s really nice to see this side of Robin. And it tracks considering how and why she threw away her Political Career back in the day, what I think is. . .what a few months back in the timeline?
This tracks for Robin and it’s pretty great to see.
I feel like there was a point…god like 6 or so years ago where I feel like they became super prominent and I haven’t stopped noticing them since. Which is why I tend to draw them with blush marks (toriyama style). A more recent change I’ve noticed is more prominent lips. A lot of the characters lips are quite a bit more prominently shaded than they were previously.
Webcomic art drift is fascinating. Now you mention the lip shading, I think I remember when it first appeared. It was a lot less subtle at first, so for a couple of strips I thought eveyone had been drinking strawberry milk. Then I stopped noticing it.
Huh, did not expect that Robin would be this tactful. It’s rather out of character for her. Or maybe she’s only horrible to Roz and Leslie specifically and treats hypothetical people she doesn’t know like human beings
It’s not so much the basic attitude – I expected her to be against sex pests, but the tact. Even when Robin is doing the right thing, she’s rarely tactful about it.
It does – I think an important continuation to “people should get second chances” is “but with full disclosure, so that people know what they’re getting into, and appropriate precautions can be taken if necessary” – but I’m guessing Robin is just trusting Leslie would only ask something like this with good reason.
I unintentionally read the first 2 panels as double entendre
“Some-body specific” read to me as “Some specific body part”
And “C’mon Les, Out with it” obviously read as “Les out with it.”
Though that 2nd one may have been intentional on Robin’s part.
It’s cool to see that Robin *has* grown since the earlier content. She knows what she did was wrong and is trying to be better. Honestly, it almost kind of reframes her constant obnoxiousness towards Leslie, in a weird way–she didn’t change so she could flashily show Leslie She’s Better Now, she changed out of genuine remorse.
Also, people *do* deserve second chances. I don’t even like Jason, but it’s pretty obvious from framing that his crappy behavior was more out of ignorance than malice. He didn’t realize there was a power imbalance because it didn’t occur to him to leverage his position at all. This doesn’t excuse it, but it’s a very different situation from his awful colleague’s behavior.
The joke was always meant to be Jason didn’t realize Sal DIDN’T LIKE HIM. He assumed she was actually attracted to him and it was an affair based on passion. When, in fact, Sal was just that desperate to pass math.
Which is EXACTLY why the rules against this exist.
Honestly makes me feel bad for him.
Having said that I probably woulda fell for that too at his age…or now because honestly a girl showing interest in me would be such a welcome opportunity I’d help myself for missing the opportunity. Like the time I almost fell for a “wrong number” scam because of similar reasons because having someone be nice to me was such a welcome change I forgot my common sense.
I dunno. Sal’s literal words when jumping on him were ‘I’m only being judged by my marks’. Which is a pretty big hint as to why she was hopping on him after pretty much taking potshots at him for hours.
True but leading up to that she was complaining about her brother getting action and how pent up she’s been and says “You’ll do.” Which is still a very unromantic thing to say but probably woulda struck me as a “I want to just fuck someone and you’re here so…”
Pretty sure Sal admitted to being physically attracted to him both immediately before first engaging with him and later when he called her out on using him just for grades as he implied it wouldn’t matter who he was or what he looked like.
Now her being attracted to his personality is a different issue.
ha, yeah, he’s way more of a jerk in the original continuity and really crappy towards sal specifically in the older continuity, so it’s nice that he gets consequences for that sort of behavior while also improving it. Both of those things make it more enjoyable to read about him, although I do still prefer him as a side character. (Sal is one of my favorite characters if not my favorite.)
“Second chances” is really a bit problematic in this context. Sex pests tend to get a lot of second chances, especially if they’re promising white men from good families. It often turns into another chance to be a sex pest or worse.
I get that Jason’s not likely to do anything again, but neither Leslie nor Robin have any real reason to trust that. If he can get hired again, that’s a serious failure of the system. Not an unexpected one, but still bad.
…hmm, really not sure what to make of Robin’s response here. It’s clearly one of the few matters she takes entirely seriously, what with the way she immediately promised to fire Ryan on Leslie’s word alone and fired all of her campaign staff when they told her not to. There’s a clear admission that she knows something she did wasn’t okay, but what was it? Was it her utter lack of respect for Leslie’s boundaries, or somnething else entirely? Part of it is that I’m not exactly sure where she draws the line between whatever it is she did and the kind of things that Ryan did. I’m curious to see how this develops.
Thinking about it, I believe it was probably something that happened before Robin showed up in the comic. Her reactions to Ryan were pretty intense even before the whole crashing at Leslie’s thing. Plus, while her actions in that incident were certainly inappropriate, I don’t think they’d really be considered ‘sex pest’ inappropriate.
Man, I’m not sure how I feel about Jason being called a “sex pest”. I mean, it’s absolutely fair that he lost his job for several reasons, but he’s not an abuser or a pervert. He didn’t incite or provoke the act, all the opposite.
A friend of mine in third year of high school made her goal to seduce our music teacher, and boy, did she put her back to it. Eventually, she succeeded and the guy lost everything. I remember feeling really bad about the guy. There’s undeniably a weight of responsibility on his shoulders but he got the full weight of the punishment, while the worst my friend got was some gossip.
I understand that most people don’t really want to talk much about this sort of cases because they’re used as ammunition by the people who want to defend the actual sex predators (who are infinitely more common than people like my music teacher), but I still feel it’s unfair. What do you guys think?
1. I know emotions make things complicated, but at the end of the day, it’s actually really easy to not have sex with someone; you just don’t have sex with them.
2. It’s beyond creepy to me that grown adults will go for high schoolers. My student teaching, right out of undergrad, had me working with high school seniors, and like… those are teenagers, you know? I was just a few years older, but they were fucking significant years. Like, no.
3. The music teacher should have gotten other school officials involved when it seemed a student was trying to seduce him. Would it have embarrassed the girl? Probably! But it still would have been the right call.
4. How does your friend feel about it now? Are you still in touch? I ask because I know people who, when they were in high school, had relationships with goddamn adults that at the time they were excited about. When you’re seventeen, it’s easy to think you’re grown up because you’re as old as you’ve ever been. But for the people I know, they look back on those relationships with a sense of “Oh, that was fucked up and actually had a negative impact on my life.”
Yeah, as I said, I do understand and approve that he lost his job. Even if this had happened in a university setting with grown-ass adults, this is a fireable offence, no ifs or buts.
As for my friend, well, in a surprising turn of events, they eventually got married, and as far as I can tell, happily so. I don’t know much about the guy but from my point of view, my friend got everything she wanted.
So he also got a relationship out of it? It sounds like he made a choice, knowing it could cost him his job. He wasn’t forced to, unless you’ve left something out; he probably could have even waited until your friend had graduated, and I still wouldn’t be his biggest fan, but it would have had less of an impact on his career. But he still ended up in a seemingly happy marriage, so… I really don’t feel bad for him.
Gonna be real, that they ended up getting married is extremely important to the situation and it’s a little unfair to her to leave that out imo. In your initial telling, you made it seem like your friend may have done this with some sort of malicious intent, as if she was some sort of seductress trying to ruin him rather than that she actually had feelings for the guy (which, if she didn’t, I doubt she would have married him).
It seems like you harbor at least some animosity towards this friend for what she did and, while I’m not saying that’s unfair or that you can’t argue that she had agency in the situation, it comes off as more than a little dishonest to paint him as a victim when, as Yumi said, he wasn’t forced to pursue her and she was trying to do more than just “seduce” him.
I mean, when she first planned it she literally said “I’m going to make him mine” (he was married). So while I’m not going to say there was “malicious” intent, there very much was intent (horny teenager intent, I guess?)
I bear 0 animosity towards her as I was impacted in no way, that’s a strange conclusion to jump to. While I did want to emphasize that the guy was not the instigator, I wouldn’t call him a “victim” either.
Rather it seems that the issue is that you have very black&white thinking (or think that others do). There was no villain, hero or victim here. Both acted wrongly, reaped some consequences and managed to still come ahead in the end.
I think when you’re the person in the position of power, especially if there’s like…a significant age gap, there’s a responsibility to not have sex with someone under you. In the case with your friend I’d definitely side against the teacher because he is probably much older (and that’s being charitable to assume your friend was 18 at the time) and he definitely in a position of power. I find it hard to feel too bad for him, even if your friend was particularly relentless/hot. In the same way that it would be wrong for him to fight a student, even if that student was constantly egging him on for a fight and even punching him.
That being said it definitely should be more appropriate to call out/punish people who go far out of their way to try to seduce someone who is uninterested or literally can’t. because of power imbalance. I dunno it seems like punching down but it’s inappropriate regardless of who’s initiating. Assuming the person doesn’t act on it they should be allowed to sit down the person and tell them it’s inappropriate or even remove them from the class/school if they refuse to respect those boundaries.
I don’t think Jason specifically is a “Sex Pest” cuz he probably didn’t consider the power difference (they’re about the same age, they’re both horny teenagers, they were trapped in a sweaty room and they both haven’t had any action in a while.) From his perspective I can see why he’d think of it as just a saucy hookup.Doesn’t mean it wasn’t inappropriate but I also don’t particularly think he had any ill will. He’s just a rube who got lost in the heat of the moment. That’s all it takes.
But yeah, can’t say I agree with the anecdote scenario.
Just gotta say I don’t think Jason is a teenager, you need to be at least 21 to serve alcohol and I think he’s actually 22. That’s not old but I think the age difference between 18 and 21 is significant enough to know better. You gotta take responsibility sometime. That being said, you’ve raised fair points and I don’t want to just pile on Jason. He’s taken his lumps I guess.
I don’t agree that 21-y/os are neccessarily more mature than 18 y/os. It’s 3 years, most people don’t “grow up” until their mid 20s, especially in college. That doesn’t excuse anything, though, if power balance is involved.
When’s the cut off age then? 25? 30? I get that it’s still young but most of society has started trusting you by age 21 to have some responsibility. By 21 you can drink, drive, and buy a gun in basically all states, vote etc. If you can do all that but aren’t expected to have mature decision making skills I don’t know what to say. I mean I’m 30 and I still feel like I don’t have my shit together, but I’ll own any mistake I make.
Up until last year, an oddity of UK law meant that you could get married at 16, but not drink until 18. (I think that’s still the case in Scotland?) It’s kind of interesting our Moral Majority types haven’t leapt on the fact that the age of consent is now 2 years before the age you can do it in wedlock…
I’d like to point out that Jason was hired because he had a bow tie on and was already behind the counter, not because he met any legal criteria. That’s not a scold or “um actually”, it just think it’s funny.
Then he profiled her as someone who avails with thugs and hoodlums. Admittedly Sal didn’t make a good first impression but neither did he.
All that being said I think he means well enough and is regretful of his actions. He doesn’t deserved to be labeled as a pervert especially since the campus has real perverts trying to force themselves on girls at night.
Sal does also hold some responsibility for initiating the hookup but Jason should also know better. Like Yumi said you can choose to just not have sex. Even if a hot person is coming on to you.
Yeah! I’ve made it 28 years by not doing it on purpose.
I always bring up Sal hopping in Jason’s lap topless as like a big “ok, would I have acted differently” moment. And personally I can’t say with the utmost clarity that I wouldn’t at least try to make out or something. Again, that goes back into my earlier statements about feeling generally undesirable which I don’t think Jason suffers from, considering he and Penny were Boffin. And like…Penny’s pretty hot.
Yeah she was a real firecracker, that one. I do hope she appears in some form again. I miss her accent and idioms, though I assume it requires Willis to also learn her accent and idioms.
At the same time, just because there are worse predators around, doesn’t mean you hire him back when he’s already had to be fired once for sex with a student.
I can be sympathetic to him, but not to that point. Especially when neither Robin or Leslie have any good reason to trust him not to do so again.
To be honest, Jason has always been kind of creepy. If you take a look at their whole dynamic and not just that one moment, Jason is the one who made things sexual initially. It was his idea to host Sal outside of office hours, also.
We’re the fuck was this level of foresight and concern when she was on congress? It’s a kick in the dick she only got it after the scandal with Leslie.
It’s a common rationalization: “I’ve got to make these moral compromises now because it’s the only way to get representation from someone in my community in a position of power. I won’t cast any deciding votes; I’ll just caucus with everyone else who’s in power and say what they want to hear. Then, when the next person of my community comes along, breaking through that glass ceiling will be easier for them. And if I ever move up to any REAL power, then I’ll be in a position to actually do some good in the world. Even small successes, like committee work or constituent services, can make these superficial compromises worth it.”
A lot of people think that way. Even Thurgood Marshall made his moral compromises. I know I have felt that way, and so have others I have cared about. Keep your head down, don’t make waves, go with the flow, meet expectations, and you can make little differences here and there to make change from inside the system.
wow…. really, no matter why she knows all these, her thinking on panel four is so grown up and humanly empathetic… it’s astounding.
I want to say “WTG Robin!”, but I’m scared it will soon turn into, “Oh god, what did she do?”
I will say, every time we see Robin she seems to be embracing her role as teacher,
what little we saw of the lesson today seemed to be something of actual note rather than Robin winging it, and with this she’s taking this decision seriously and thinking it through rationally and not just going “Heck yeah sure i’ll hire him” with no prior thought behind it.
How does hr work at us colleges? In my country, that’s centralised. So last word comes from hr and they would definitely not agree to rehire someone who was let go for sexual misconduct.
AFAIK, professors, no matter how senior/renowned/tenured, are not in charge of hiring/selecting candidates for TA and other support roles. At most, they would have denial and referral options.
I’m happy to see Robin show that she has depth, that she’s changed and that she reflects on her mistakes. She listed perfectly the problems of getting someone who has Jason’s fame to work, Leslie is really impressed. I like Jason and I know he needs that job. But at the same time, it’s clear that he’s not cut out to work as a professor or as something like that. School is just not for him.
Yeah, I think there’s a few things going on here like Leslie not knowing all the details of how things went down, and her being a mindful person and gender studies professor, etc.. her bar for sex pest is probably pretty low.
In my mind a sex pest is someone more like Joe who makes advances on everyone he meets, to the point of disrupting their community—hence the pest part. Even though I like Joe and don’t believe he did anything really evil, it’s still degrading to be treated that way and imo qualifies as harassment.
From what I can tell Sal was the initiator with Jason, though I don’t know the details since I didn’t read the slipshine. I see some people sharing a strip where Jason expresses sexual attraction to Sal out loud in a cartoonish way like some kind of “gotcha”, but I still don’t think this qualifies as sex pest behavior considering many of the characters do this regularly.
I do think Sal has been hurt by her encounter with Jason, but it’s kind of hard to frame Jason as the asshole here. Sal has a history of self destructive sexual relationships and her hookup with Jason was another repetition of this behavior. Not saying she’s to blame either, just that it’s not so straightforward as all that.
Jason may have had authorial power, but Sal initiated it with ill intent.
Jason continued the physical relationship without presenting clear boundaries to ensure there was no power imbalance. (Seriously, I think if he admitted to having sex with someone who turned out to be a student, and then ensured all papers were graded by the other TA/teacher, then he’d have been in the clear.)
Sal may have decided it was a transaction with someone she found attractive, but after it was clear that wasn’t what was happening, she got angry, but did eventually accept it.
It’s a weird situation given all the nuances. Is Jason responsible for Sal’s plan? Is Sal responsible for Jason’s urges? Out of it all, they both messed up. Though the scale of how much they messed up is higher for Jason, since he was the person with power.
He wouldn’t be in the clear because he had sex with a student. Which is against the rules.
And, if he’d made it clear to Sal up front that he wouldn’t grade her papers, then she wouldn’t have gone ahead with the sex in the first place.
She’s certainly not without blame here, but he’s the one in the position of authority. Probably could legitimately boot Sal out of school for attempting it, but firing Jason for letting it happen is still correct.
I really don’t like the idea that Sal would be punished for that. Jason kept making creepy sexual advances, he leered at her, he kept making sexual comments towards her, it was his idea to offer tutoring outside of office hours specifically because he thought sal was hot. He came across as predatory and corrupt. In my opinion, I think he’s manipulative.
The entire point of that situation being seen as wrong in the first place is because… Sal was being victimized. Like, the power dynamic. One thing that kind of predator does is deliberately give their prey bad grades on purpose and make them feel that the only way to improve their grades is with “grading prostitution.” Making Sal feel like it’s her fault is gaslighting, making other people feel like it’s Sal’s fault is manipulation.
Sal was absolutely not being victimised when she physically dragged him into a room, made him try to teach her math, and then fucked him on a desk with repeated, enthusiastic consent. Let’s not take things in a weird direction, here.
That’s definitely the way many predators like that work, but there’s no reason to think Jason was doing so. He didn’t suggest it. He had to be literally dragged to those out of office hours tutoring – despite the gross comment suggesting it when they first met.
Then of course he didn’t raise her grades and later made a point of giving them to another TA to grade, when he could have at least tried to extort more sex out of her.
Not reading the Slipshine doesn’t take away any context, I feel. I’ve read it several times, and Sal is absolutely the one initiating that fuck. Jason maybe protests a little bit about ethics, and then she’s on him like white on rice. So yeah, no worries about that.
(They are not making any comments about any form of morality, only clarifying the “Sal was the initiator” part.)
Not midwestern slang, newer term emerging on the internet. Basically its anyone, usually a man, who gives people unwanted sexual attention or advances.
The Google Ngram viewer shows the first citations in the 1800s, but it faded away until the mid 20th century. There was a sizeable bump in the 1960s, it faded away again from print in the 1970s, and then it started really picking up speed in the mid 1980s. That is, of course, technically after the internet was a thing, but before it was all that common in people’s lives.
Pests are health hazards, destructive to their environment or just unwelcome. A sex pest exhibits unhealthy, destructive or unwelcome sexual behavior. It can cover a whole lot. A much milder accusation than, say, sexual predator.
It’s kind of a less harsh term than calling them an outright sexual predator while still saying ‘this person has had inappropriate sexual behaviour they did on purpose’.
To me it is accusing someone of being inappropriate and likely being sexually harassing, without actually crossing over into committing sexual assault or worse. And Leslie doesn’t know exactly how Jason and Sal stuff went down.
I kind of expected Robin to give a better answer than one might expect from her, but I did not expect her to give THIS good of an answer. I kinda feel like Leslie seems to feel, honestly kind of weirded out haha.
Also I did more DoA watercolor character headshots! This time it’s Rachel, Sal, and Jennifer. I didn’t intend to do a trio of black-haired girls, but, welp.
This arc is less about Jason and more about Robin and Leslie. Otherwise a lecturer and adjunct would not cross paths. Robin isn’t on a tenure track. They are in different administrative structures as far as subject. Jason is a means to that end.
Robin: “Students, do any of you have any issues with this Jason guy?”
Students: *ensue scenes of hair pulling, shirt wringing, and tears
Robin: “Oh, wow, he’s that much of a sex pest to you all?”
Visibly confused students: “No, he’s a math tutor!”
Robin: *ensues visible confusion also
I gotta say, as a current T.A., “sex pest” is definitely not the word I would use to describe somebody who sleeps with a student. Definitely unethical, but also often unrelated to sexual harassment.
Jocelyne!!!
EXTRA hooray! (76%, 2,556 Votes)
wait who's jocelyne i didn't read the first ten years of the strip (13%, 444 Votes)
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ooo, birds of a feather??
I’d say then he could shorten his name to Jay, but idk if Jason would actually appreciate being a bird
If Ethan were here he would point out that ‘Jason’ is also the name of one of the former Robins (of Batman &). Fortunately, he’s not.
Two days later my brain finally rebooted and I get this joke now.
i mean i’m sure sal wouldn’t give a shit either way but it would be interesting to see other ppl’s reactions
Do other people know about Jason and Sal’s thing? I guess Walky does but I don’t remember if the rest of that math class learned the specifics of why Jason was fired
I mean, Jason isn’t going to reveal her identity. Which is kind of interesting because it wouldn’t be something she’d care about unless it affected her.
Which it might if they would punish a student for her part in it.
I don’t think anyone know outside of Jason and Sal. What make you think Walky know?
The rumour mill knows he was fired for sex with a student, but no one, including Walky, knows that it was Sal. (Other than Sal and Jason, of course.)
Is Sal even in this class?
Nope. She wouldn’t even know and it’s fairly unlikely she’d find out since most aren’t even aware she was the student.
I’m sure the people she does know in the class would gossip enough that she’d hear about it eventually.
It still doesn’t really concern her, though.
I think Sal would care actually. She doesn’t really like Jason and she gets pretty miffed at injustice. I think she just wouldn’t be surprised by it or complain about it, but I think it would upset her. Sal’s just good at suppressing her emotions.
I don’t think this would be something she’d have clear feelings on given her later interactions with Jason.
Considering she initiated it and he wasn’t grooming her or such (he wasn’t even corrupt enough to change her grade), I think she’d be more upset that he got another teaching role despite being a terrible teacher.
I am curious however if the school has any say in who Robin hires?
IU would be funding anyone Robin hires; TAs are a line item in the school budget. It’s not like Robin would be paying for Jason out her own pocket.
Robin? Being tolerable? What a day.
Yay character development! 🙂
“Klinger is NOT a pervert! I’m a pervert and he doesn’t come to the meetings.”–Trapper John
Klinger was actually really good at his job. Even when he was acting like he was a siding salesman in Toledo, he jumped in to help carry stretchers without breaking his schtick.
He was a good company clerk once he settled into the job. My older relatives introduced me to the phrase “the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way” during an episode of this show.
he was also probably the only positive instance of a guy in a dress when I was growing up. sure, he started out trying to get a section 8, but by the end he just liked dresses, and everyone who wasn’t an antagonist was cool with it. heck, even the antagonists might’ve stopped caring (I can’t binge it on netflix so I haven’t actually watched an episode in… decades? oh dear)
I’d call squatting at your crushes house to dodge a political scandal more like generalized mayhem over being a sex pest specifically, but that’s just me. Maybe Robin has some skeletons in her closet.
yeah that’s just being a regular pest
A sexy pest, maybe. Which is different from a sex pest.
I would dispute the adjective in this scenario
I would dispute “former.”
Well, breaking into your crush’s house and getting in bed with them while they’re asleep pushes it a good way into the sex pest category.
Its possible that there were incidents not shown in the comics which contribute to Robin being a ‘sex pest’. (We know that she can have little or no social filters; maybe she “hit on” others during her political career.)
she got sex fumigated
I do not remember Robin being a former sex pest. Can anyone elaborate? Thanks!
I mean I think she’s flat out admitting that her behavior to Leslie had moved to stalking.
Yeah. The “former” part is news.
I think she’s referring to staying past her welcome at Leslie’s house because she has a crush. It was the storyline where she blew up her political career
“past her welcome”? She broke in. Leslie woke up to find her in her bed.
Misremembered. Conflated two storylines in my head, I think
She stalked Leslie, broke into her house and stayed for several days despite being thrown out more than once and being told to her face that she’s not welcome and destroyed Leslie’s sentimental valuables
Yeah but where’s the sex part
I’m a little confused on that angle too but looking back on it Robin was being very flirty while squatting at Leslie’s. That does likely qualify as sexual harassment.
I’m guessing Robin’s acknowledging the fact that she was doing this in a (wacky sitcom) romantic way and considering that equivalent, in the context of stalking, to if it had been sexual.
Alternately, there’s a reveal coming that she’s talking about an incident we DON’T know about, but there’s already so much baggage Robin has just from the original decision to put her in politics again here and therefore make her a Republican, and then end up modeling her after TRUMP, that adding more would make buying her slowly reforming even further.
Thankfully that only lasted for a few gags before reality moved to “that’s not funny anymore” and she did her own thing again. She didn’t get stuck in the bit like Mr. Garrison.
I don’t see why you would sentence someone more qualified to work at this university.
bless robin for being surprisingly mindful
To deal with sex pests, do you call the Orkin Man? Or is this a job for the Porkin’ Man?
Please accept a short round of applause and one (1) internet.
THIS IS NOT WAR. THIS IS SEX PEST CON-TROL.
As long as it’s not Sorkin, man.
I expected nothing less after she sent Ryan packing. I presume it would also depend what KIND of sex pest – I would immediately ask “Define sex pest” but that’s me.
And, again, Leslie….how trustworthy would you be if you helped get the guy you refused to hire because it’d make you untrustworthy find a job at your same institution? I only thought of that looking back over that conversation.
Leslie is interesting here because she’s caught between two diametrically opposed impulses.
1:] Leslie is incredibly friendly and helpful to a fault. Especially to the students she treats as surrogate daughters.
2:] Her principles that what Jason did was genuinely awful.
Yeah… and what gives her the idea that Jason is reformed? Jason only told her he was sorry he wasn’t MORE corrupt. 🙁
…Now, that said, I would’a seduced my TA in a second. She was gorgeous.
Sorry, sorry! I know the two situations aren’t at all analogous.
…I only meant that it’s not unheard of for some undergrad students to be legitimately attracted to their TAs.
Oof, me but she was an adjunct professor.
I had such a crush on one of my professors… who wore a see-through blouse to class…
I can see how that could be a catalyst to said crush, yes 😳
At one point I wrote a poem about her and then I READ SAID POEM TO HER without telling her she was the subject.
Woah. Sounds like quite the emotional rollercoaster. 😵💫
Relatable. It was such a frustrating experience, she was so much older than me and never would have gone for it even if she wasn’t.
Technically they are. Sal basically seduced her TA, not the other way around.
…Yeah… but Sal did it BECAUSE he had authority over her grades. I would’a done it DESPITE her authority over my grades.
(Eventually, we became dear friends and even housemates, but I never did manage to seduce her. 🙁 )
I’ll be honest I don’t know how one goes about doing that. My technique is to very frankly ask “hey wanna make out” or something cuz I literally have no game.
Yeah, same. It’s tough!
I fully endorse this version of game. When I asked my now-husband to our first date, I was sure to include “I am flirting with you” and “I am totally asking you out!”
He was glad I was doing those things, and I totally got to go on the date.
You’re allowed to just be direct.
For fear of ignoring the significant differences in pressures on AFABs vs AMABs — here are some perfectly manful updates, for asking people out / asking people to smooch without “yo, wanna make out”:
– “I’m going to xyz on Saturday, would you like to come, as a date?”
– “Wow, I really want to kiss you.”
– “May I kiss you”
And then the guy gets slapped/maced/tasered/kicked/arrested for asking to kiss somebody.
I like the date part though, that’s very direct and seems to have the best success rate. On Saturdays, at least.
Thank you, Leorale! That is very helpful! I really appreciate you for explaining everything so clearly.
I am so sad, Taffy, that a fellow might get harmed for asking whether it would be OK to kiss someone. I do hear that, though. FWIW, asking is probably a lower risk venture than simply starting the kiss and hoping that the other person joins in.
Man, dating and intimacy can be such a minefield! I am so lucky that phase of life is over for me. It’s a good thing to have left it behind.
I dunno about getting harmed but I definitely fear coming off as a creep. Anytime I wanna talk to a girl there’s a voice in my head like “really? You don’t think she gets hit on by enough sweaty nerds?” Or “she’s definitely out of your league.” And so I never shoot my shot. Or the more damning “why would anyone want to date/kiss YOU.” But also I feel like if I don’t make the first move a move will never be made on me. I’m really envious of people who can casually hook up and date and talk to people without second guessing themselves because everything I say, feel and do makes me feel like a creep.
I know then when men are super direct, I’m often afraid that saying no means they’re going to get violent and act entitled to a yes. Like the sexism dynamic is one where guys act like you’re not supposed to say no to them. They try to ply you, some will use drugs, some will use violence. Being alone with a guy can be scary. It depends on if I know a guy and how I know him.
Did she “seduce Jason because he had authority”?
If I remember, the interaction seemed to start with a “I haven’t had sex in a while… you will do” sort of mentality, and the whole “My grades didn’t improve” seemed to almost be an afterthought.
At least that’s the way I interpreted things.
Yeah I always thought Sal expected improved grades as bonus for the sex rather than the sole reason the sex was happening. Like I love the taste of Honey Nut Cheerios AND it’s food for my heart (allegedly). But I’m eating them for the taste mostly. It’d just be a nice coincidence if my heart also got stronger.
Honey Nut Cheerios just make my burps taste gross later in the day.
Her hair exploding out of its Part 1 sleekness and angrily confronting Jason over the poor grade lends me to think that her primary objective was to improve her grades, getting laid being secondary.
You want to get out of here. Ah want to get out of here.
The only way sex gets them out of there is if he fixes her grades. If she’s just giving up, she could just leave.
It’s implicit, but it’s there in the original scene.
I assumed she was giving up AND wanted sex. I guess that’s sorta the issue is that I assumed the sex was a treat for her and not for Jacob. Considering she’s been complaining about not getting sex and literally the only thing holding Jason in this room is Sal (cuz as you recall, his office hours aren’t today.) I feel like I read this more as a “I release you from the hostage situation “I’ve more or less put you in and also wanna fuck?”. That’s probably not how Sal meant it but I can totally see that being lost in translation.
He did call it his lowest moment
If agreeing to inappropriate sex that was nonetheless consensual and initiated enthusiastically by the other person constitutes one’s lowest moment…you’re doing alright.
I don’t know. It’s weird given that it was presented initially as enthusiastic, consensual, and sexy, but then later turned into something else. Yes, he should have said no (if he got the same training as I did as a TA, especially), but she also should not have initiated.
I’m not sure what you mean about it turning into something else. If it did, it did so very soon after – when Sal confronted him about not living up to his end of the implicit deal.
It never even occurred to me that such a deal existed until literally tonight, upon reading comments people have left on different threads. I don’t think Jason understood that she thought such a deal was happening. However, I don’t currently have an active Slipshine account, so I can’t look over it to see where the communication breakdown occurred. I do not that in a non-Slipshine comic he seemed to take offense at the idea that she only slept with him for a grade.
I’m not sure what I meant where it says “I do not that in a …” Maybe “note?”
Yeah, but in doing so he basically communicated to her that he did not do it for corrupt reasons.
She seemed to mostly refuse to hire him because she doesn’t have any money for it. Maybe she also thinks that Robin is more acceptable to help because she views Robin as already morally compromised.
Have the facial blushes become more prominent lately? I swear I just keep staring at them nowadays.
But onto the comic itself. . . it’s really nice to see this side of Robin. And it tracks considering how and why she threw away her Political Career back in the day, what I think is. . .what a few months back in the timeline?
This tracks for Robin and it’s pretty great to see.
I feel like there was a point…god like 6 or so years ago where I feel like they became super prominent and I haven’t stopped noticing them since. Which is why I tend to draw them with blush marks (toriyama style). A more recent change I’ve noticed is more prominent lips. A lot of the characters lips are quite a bit more prominently shaded than they were previously.
I think the lip shading was part of the post-timeskip mild refresh.
Yep. Everyone asked for fuller lips from Santa this year.
Two years ago.
I meant more “this year in-universe”
I really like the new lip style, it’s more realistic and makes characters more distinct from each other.
Webcomic art drift is fascinating. Now you mention the lip shading, I think I remember when it first appeared. It was a lot less subtle at first, so for a couple of strips I thought eveyone had been drinking strawberry milk. Then I stopped noticing it.
I remember it was also around the time Booster was introduced, so people were a little on-edge about lip-related remarks coming across as queerphobic.
I fuckin’ feel Robin in this one. In my bones.
Not for the specifics, but just the “I think about it all the time” part.
Huh, did not expect that Robin would be this tactful. It’s rather out of character for her. Or maybe she’s only horrible to Roz and Leslie specifically and treats hypothetical people she doesn’t know like human beings
Accidentally hit the flag button, whoops.
But do recall she also rejected Ryan and fired people trying to cover for him, so this has precedence.
It’s not so much the basic attitude – I expected her to be against sex pests, but the tact. Even when Robin is doing the right thing, she’s rarely tactful about it.
Robin’s in politics.
Despite how clueless she can be at times about the real world, she’s pretty clever about optics.
I mean; the sex-pestery really needs more context. Especially when its something that happened in THIS campus, and to a student here lol
C’mon Les; I think this may be a bit of a tough ask, even for Robin.
It does – I think an important continuation to “people should get second chances” is “but with full disclosure, so that people know what they’re getting into, and appropriate precautions can be taken if necessary” – but I’m guessing Robin is just trusting Leslie would only ask something like this with good reason.
That’s… Pretty much what Robin is saying?
Which is kind of the problem – Leslie doesn’t have a good reason here. If Robin trusts her, that’s a mistake.
I read that as ‘sex pastry’, which sounds much more appealing.
I dunno. I’d need more context for that cuz that could easily be really gross.
PIE OF THE DAY: choice of cream or hair.
https://imgur.com/a/FAnWELg
For no reason at all I drew Robin in like 10 minutes.
Nice!!! 😎
The fact that you did this as a way of impulsively relaxing makes it all the more impressive o:
I unintentionally read the first 2 panels as double entendre
“Some-body specific” read to me as “Some specific body part”
And “C’mon Les, Out with it” obviously read as “Les out with it.”
Though that 2nd one may have been intentional on Robin’s part.
It’s cool to see that Robin *has* grown since the earlier content. She knows what she did was wrong and is trying to be better. Honestly, it almost kind of reframes her constant obnoxiousness towards Leslie, in a weird way–she didn’t change so she could flashily show Leslie She’s Better Now, she changed out of genuine remorse.
Also, people *do* deserve second chances. I don’t even like Jason, but it’s pretty obvious from framing that his crappy behavior was more out of ignorance than malice. He didn’t realize there was a power imbalance because it didn’t occur to him to leverage his position at all. This doesn’t excuse it, but it’s a very different situation from his awful colleague’s behavior.
The joke was always meant to be Jason didn’t realize Sal DIDN’T LIKE HIM. He assumed she was actually attracted to him and it was an affair based on passion. When, in fact, Sal was just that desperate to pass math.
Which is EXACTLY why the rules against this exist.
Honestly makes me feel bad for him.
Having said that I probably woulda fell for that too at his age…or now because honestly a girl showing interest in me would be such a welcome opportunity I’d help myself for missing the opportunity. Like the time I almost fell for a “wrong number” scam because of similar reasons because having someone be nice to me was such a welcome change I forgot my common sense.
I dunno. Sal’s literal words when jumping on him were ‘I’m only being judged by my marks’. Which is a pretty big hint as to why she was hopping on him after pretty much taking potshots at him for hours.
True but leading up to that she was complaining about her brother getting action and how pent up she’s been and says “You’ll do.” Which is still a very unromantic thing to say but probably woulda struck me as a “I want to just fuck someone and you’re here so…”
That’s how I read it too. I was as surprised as Jason when the truth came out.
Pretty sure Sal admitted to being physically attracted to him both immediately before first engaging with him and later when he called her out on using him just for grades as he implied it wouldn’t matter who he was or what he looked like.
Now her being attracted to his personality is a different issue.
Yeah, she said she wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t at least a little attractive.
I just checked.
But she also wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the grades.
ha, yeah, he’s way more of a jerk in the original continuity and really crappy towards sal specifically in the older continuity, so it’s nice that he gets consequences for that sort of behavior while also improving it. Both of those things make it more enjoyable to read about him, although I do still prefer him as a side character. (Sal is one of my favorite characters if not my favorite.)
“Second chances” is really a bit problematic in this context. Sex pests tend to get a lot of second chances, especially if they’re promising white men from good families. It often turns into another chance to be a sex pest or worse.
I get that Jason’s not likely to do anything again, but neither Leslie nor Robin have any real reason to trust that. If he can get hired again, that’s a serious failure of the system. Not an unexpected one, but still bad.
I too am a sexpert (that is an expert in six things, none of which are sex).
I am a nexpert? Expert in how not to get dates and/or have sex.
…hmm, really not sure what to make of Robin’s response here. It’s clearly one of the few matters she takes entirely seriously, what with the way she immediately promised to fire Ryan on Leslie’s word alone and fired all of her campaign staff when they told her not to. There’s a clear admission that she knows something she did wasn’t okay, but what was it? Was it her utter lack of respect for Leslie’s boundaries, or somnething else entirely? Part of it is that I’m not exactly sure where she draws the line between whatever it is she did and the kind of things that Ryan did. I’m curious to see how this develops.
Thinking about it, I believe it was probably something that happened before Robin showed up in the comic. Her reactions to Ryan were pretty intense even before the whole crashing at Leslie’s thing. Plus, while her actions in that incident were certainly inappropriate, I don’t think they’d really be considered ‘sex pest’ inappropriate.
Hey my name is Jason and I am legally obligated to report that I am a sexual pest so I advise you to come with company for oral exams
The worst thing is choking up in the oral exams.
Man, I’m not sure how I feel about Jason being called a “sex pest”. I mean, it’s absolutely fair that he lost his job for several reasons, but he’s not an abuser or a pervert. He didn’t incite or provoke the act, all the opposite.
A friend of mine in third year of high school made her goal to seduce our music teacher, and boy, did she put her back to it. Eventually, she succeeded and the guy lost everything. I remember feeling really bad about the guy. There’s undeniably a weight of responsibility on his shoulders but he got the full weight of the punishment, while the worst my friend got was some gossip.
I understand that most people don’t really want to talk much about this sort of cases because they’re used as ammunition by the people who want to defend the actual sex predators (who are infinitely more common than people like my music teacher), but I still feel it’s unfair. What do you guys think?
1. I know emotions make things complicated, but at the end of the day, it’s actually really easy to not have sex with someone; you just don’t have sex with them.
2. It’s beyond creepy to me that grown adults will go for high schoolers. My student teaching, right out of undergrad, had me working with high school seniors, and like… those are teenagers, you know? I was just a few years older, but they were fucking significant years. Like, no.
3. The music teacher should have gotten other school officials involved when it seemed a student was trying to seduce him. Would it have embarrassed the girl? Probably! But it still would have been the right call.
4. How does your friend feel about it now? Are you still in touch? I ask because I know people who, when they were in high school, had relationships with goddamn adults that at the time they were excited about. When you’re seventeen, it’s easy to think you’re grown up because you’re as old as you’ve ever been. But for the people I know, they look back on those relationships with a sense of “Oh, that was fucked up and actually had a negative impact on my life.”
Yeah, as I said, I do understand and approve that he lost his job. Even if this had happened in a university setting with grown-ass adults, this is a fireable offence, no ifs or buts.
As for my friend, well, in a surprising turn of events, they eventually got married, and as far as I can tell, happily so. I don’t know much about the guy but from my point of view, my friend got everything she wanted.
So he also got a relationship out of it? It sounds like he made a choice, knowing it could cost him his job. He wasn’t forced to, unless you’ve left something out; he probably could have even waited until your friend had graduated, and I still wouldn’t be his biggest fan, but it would have had less of an impact on his career. But he still ended up in a seemingly happy marriage, so… I really don’t feel bad for him.
Gonna be real, that they ended up getting married is extremely important to the situation and it’s a little unfair to her to leave that out imo. In your initial telling, you made it seem like your friend may have done this with some sort of malicious intent, as if she was some sort of seductress trying to ruin him rather than that she actually had feelings for the guy (which, if she didn’t, I doubt she would have married him).
It seems like you harbor at least some animosity towards this friend for what she did and, while I’m not saying that’s unfair or that you can’t argue that she had agency in the situation, it comes off as more than a little dishonest to paint him as a victim when, as Yumi said, he wasn’t forced to pursue her and she was trying to do more than just “seduce” him.
I mean, when she first planned it she literally said “I’m going to make him mine” (he was married). So while I’m not going to say there was “malicious” intent, there very much was intent (horny teenager intent, I guess?)
I bear 0 animosity towards her as I was impacted in no way, that’s a strange conclusion to jump to. While I did want to emphasize that the guy was not the instigator, I wouldn’t call him a “victim” either.
Rather it seems that the issue is that you have very black&white thinking (or think that others do). There was no villain, hero or victim here. Both acted wrongly, reaped some consequences and managed to still come ahead in the end.
Okay, so then… what was your point? In, like, all of this?
I think when you’re the person in the position of power, especially if there’s like…a significant age gap, there’s a responsibility to not have sex with someone under you. In the case with your friend I’d definitely side against the teacher because he is probably much older (and that’s being charitable to assume your friend was 18 at the time) and he definitely in a position of power. I find it hard to feel too bad for him, even if your friend was particularly relentless/hot. In the same way that it would be wrong for him to fight a student, even if that student was constantly egging him on for a fight and even punching him.
That being said it definitely should be more appropriate to call out/punish people who go far out of their way to try to seduce someone who is uninterested or literally can’t. because of power imbalance. I dunno it seems like punching down but it’s inappropriate regardless of who’s initiating. Assuming the person doesn’t act on it they should be allowed to sit down the person and tell them it’s inappropriate or even remove them from the class/school if they refuse to respect those boundaries.
I don’t think Jason specifically is a “Sex Pest” cuz he probably didn’t consider the power difference (they’re about the same age, they’re both horny teenagers, they were trapped in a sweaty room and they both haven’t had any action in a while.) From his perspective I can see why he’d think of it as just a saucy hookup.Doesn’t mean it wasn’t inappropriate but I also don’t particularly think he had any ill will. He’s just a rube who got lost in the heat of the moment. That’s all it takes.
But yeah, can’t say I agree with the anecdote scenario.
Just gotta say I don’t think Jason is a teenager, you need to be at least 21 to serve alcohol and I think he’s actually 22. That’s not old but I think the age difference between 18 and 21 is significant enough to know better. You gotta take responsibility sometime. That being said, you’ve raised fair points and I don’t want to just pile on Jason. He’s taken his lumps I guess.
I don’t agree that 21-y/os are neccessarily more mature than 18 y/os. It’s 3 years, most people don’t “grow up” until their mid 20s, especially in college. That doesn’t excuse anything, though, if power balance is involved.
When’s the cut off age then? 25? 30? I get that it’s still young but most of society has started trusting you by age 21 to have some responsibility. By 21 you can drink, drive, and buy a gun in basically all states, vote etc. If you can do all that but aren’t expected to have mature decision making skills I don’t know what to say. I mean I’m 30 and I still feel like I don’t have my shit together, but I’ll own any mistake I make.
I mean, I Germany, I can drink beer with 16 and everything else with 18.
And I think you misunderstood me.
Sorry. My bad if I misunderstood something.
Up until last year, an oddity of UK law meant that you could get married at 16, but not drink until 18. (I think that’s still the case in Scotland?) It’s kind of interesting our Moral Majority types haven’t leapt on the fact that the age of consent is now 2 years before the age you can do it in wedlock…
Yep, men especially don’t finish their brain development until well into their 20s.
I’d like to point out that Jason was hired because he had a bow tie on and was already behind the counter, not because he met any legal criteria. That’s not a scold or “um actually”, it just think it’s funny.
As a grad student, unless he skipped years somewhere, he’s almost certainly at least 21, probably older.
Jason’s a little bit of a sex pest. Like his first interaction with Sal was hitting on her.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/hours/
Then he profiled her as someone who avails with thugs and hoodlums. Admittedly Sal didn’t make a good first impression but neither did he.
All that being said I think he means well enough and is regretful of his actions. He doesn’t deserved to be labeled as a pervert especially since the campus has real perverts trying to force themselves on girls at night.
Sal does also hold some responsibility for initiating the hookup but Jason should also know better. Like Yumi said you can choose to just not have sex. Even if a hot person is coming on to you.
Yeah! I’ve made it 28 years by not doing it on purpose.
I always bring up Sal hopping in Jason’s lap topless as like a big “ok, would I have acted differently” moment. And personally I can’t say with the utmost clarity that I wouldn’t at least try to make out or something. Again, that goes back into my earlier statements about feeling generally undesirable which I don’t think Jason suffers from, considering he and Penny were Boffin. And like…Penny’s pretty hot.
I miss Penny.
Yeah she was a real firecracker, that one. I do hope she appears in some form again. I miss her accent and idioms, though I assume it requires Willis to also learn her accent and idioms.
Penny was very hot.
Alas, she’s also been a Bad Penny (both times we’ve seen her so far).
True, but I’ve made it no secret that I love terrible people.
Ah good call with his display of attraction for her in the beginning, I had forgotten that. I guess Sal didn’t get the idea out of nowhere.
At the same time, just because there are worse predators around, doesn’t mean you hire him back when he’s already had to be fired once for sex with a student.
I can be sympathetic to him, but not to that point. Especially when neither Robin or Leslie have any good reason to trust him not to do so again.
To be honest, Jason has always been kind of creepy. If you take a look at their whole dynamic and not just that one moment, Jason is the one who made things sexual initially. It was his idea to host Sal outside of office hours, also.
Pretty sure Sal yanked him around by the collar until he tutored him. First part is correct though.
She speaks from sexperience.
Robin is slowly working her way up to being Leslie-worthy . . .
We’re the fuck was this level of foresight and concern when she was on congress? It’s a kick in the dick she only got it after the scandal with Leslie.
It’s a common rationalization: “I’ve got to make these moral compromises now because it’s the only way to get representation from someone in my community in a position of power. I won’t cast any deciding votes; I’ll just caucus with everyone else who’s in power and say what they want to hear. Then, when the next person of my community comes along, breaking through that glass ceiling will be easier for them. And if I ever move up to any REAL power, then I’ll be in a position to actually do some good in the world. Even small successes, like committee work or constituent services, can make these superficial compromises worth it.”
A lot of people think that way. Even Thurgood Marshall made his moral compromises. I know I have felt that way, and so have others I have cared about. Keep your head down, don’t make waves, go with the flow, meet expectations, and you can make little differences here and there to make change from inside the system.
Not excusing it though.
wow…. really, no matter why she knows all these, her thinking on panel four is so grown up and humanly empathetic… it’s astounding.
I want to say “WTG Robin!”, but I’m scared it will soon turn into, “Oh god, what did she do?”
Personal growth! I like it.
Same. :3
I will say, every time we see Robin she seems to be embracing her role as teacher,
what little we saw of the lesson today seemed to be something of actual note rather than Robin winging it, and with this she’s taking this decision seriously and thinking it through rationally and not just going “Heck yeah sure i’ll hire him” with no prior thought behind it.
How does hr work at us colleges? In my country, that’s centralised. So last word comes from hr and they would definitely not agree to rehire someone who was let go for sexual misconduct.
AFAIK, professors, no matter how senior/renowned/tenured, are not in charge of hiring/selecting candidates for TA and other support roles. At most, they would have denial and referral options.
This is Robin. The rules don’t apply to her
I’m happy to see Robin show that she has depth, that she’s changed and that she reflects on her mistakes. She listed perfectly the problems of getting someone who has Jason’s fame to work, Leslie is really impressed. I like Jason and I know he needs that job. But at the same time, it’s clear that he’s not cut out to work as a professor or as something like that. School is just not for him.
I’m still surprised Leslie is going out of her way for Ruth an’ all
Doesn’t “sex pest” usually imply that the attention is completely unwanted?
Yeah, I think there’s a few things going on here like Leslie not knowing all the details of how things went down, and her being a mindful person and gender studies professor, etc.. her bar for sex pest is probably pretty low.
In my mind a sex pest is someone more like Joe who makes advances on everyone he meets, to the point of disrupting their community—hence the pest part. Even though I like Joe and don’t believe he did anything really evil, it’s still degrading to be treated that way and imo qualifies as harassment.
From what I can tell Sal was the initiator with Jason, though I don’t know the details since I didn’t read the slipshine. I see some people sharing a strip where Jason expresses sexual attraction to Sal out loud in a cartoonish way like some kind of “gotcha”, but I still don’t think this qualifies as sex pest behavior considering many of the characters do this regularly.
I do think Sal has been hurt by her encounter with Jason, but it’s kind of hard to frame Jason as the asshole here. Sal has a history of self destructive sexual relationships and her hookup with Jason was another repetition of this behavior. Not saying she’s to blame either, just that it’s not so straightforward as all that.
Jason may have had authorial power, but Sal initiated it with ill intent.
Jason continued the physical relationship without presenting clear boundaries to ensure there was no power imbalance. (Seriously, I think if he admitted to having sex with someone who turned out to be a student, and then ensured all papers were graded by the other TA/teacher, then he’d have been in the clear.)
Sal may have decided it was a transaction with someone she found attractive, but after it was clear that wasn’t what was happening, she got angry, but did eventually accept it.
It’s a weird situation given all the nuances. Is Jason responsible for Sal’s plan? Is Sal responsible for Jason’s urges? Out of it all, they both messed up. Though the scale of how much they messed up is higher for Jason, since he was the person with power.
He wouldn’t be in the clear because he had sex with a student. Which is against the rules.
And, if he’d made it clear to Sal up front that he wouldn’t grade her papers, then she wouldn’t have gone ahead with the sex in the first place.
She’s certainly not without blame here, but he’s the one in the position of authority. Probably could legitimately boot Sal out of school for attempting it, but firing Jason for letting it happen is still correct.
I really don’t like the idea that Sal would be punished for that. Jason kept making creepy sexual advances, he leered at her, he kept making sexual comments towards her, it was his idea to offer tutoring outside of office hours specifically because he thought sal was hot. He came across as predatory and corrupt. In my opinion, I think he’s manipulative.
The entire point of that situation being seen as wrong in the first place is because… Sal was being victimized. Like, the power dynamic. One thing that kind of predator does is deliberately give their prey bad grades on purpose and make them feel that the only way to improve their grades is with “grading prostitution.” Making Sal feel like it’s her fault is gaslighting, making other people feel like it’s Sal’s fault is manipulation.
Sal was absolutely not being victimised when she physically dragged him into a room, made him try to teach her math, and then fucked him on a desk with repeated, enthusiastic consent. Let’s not take things in a weird direction, here.
That’s definitely the way many predators like that work, but there’s no reason to think Jason was doing so. He didn’t suggest it. He had to be literally dragged to those out of office hours tutoring – despite the gross comment suggesting it when they first met.
Then of course he didn’t raise her grades and later made a point of giving them to another TA to grade, when he could have at least tried to extort more sex out of her.
Not reading the Slipshine doesn’t take away any context, I feel. I’ve read it several times, and Sal is absolutely the one initiating that fuck. Jason maybe protests a little bit about ethics, and then she’s on him like white on rice. So yeah, no worries about that.
(They are not making any comments about any form of morality, only clarifying the “Sal was the initiator” part.)
In my experience, in this comic at least, Jason tends to complain or protest (whatever) and then give in. To anything and anyone.
Huh, right
Forgot all the shit Robin got up to
What is a sex pest?
Is it Midwestern slang or more something heard in lgbtq circles?
Not midwestern slang, newer term emerging on the internet. Basically its anyone, usually a man, who gives people unwanted sexual attention or advances.
The term may be new to you, but it is not new.
The Google Ngram viewer shows the first citations in the 1800s, but it faded away until the mid 20th century. There was a sizeable bump in the 1960s, it faded away again from print in the 1970s, and then it started really picking up speed in the mid 1980s. That is, of course, technically after the internet was a thing, but before it was all that common in people’s lives.
Worth noting, btw, that there is no real difference between the British and the American corpora there.
Pests are health hazards, destructive to their environment or just unwelcome. A sex pest exhibits unhealthy, destructive or unwelcome sexual behavior. It can cover a whole lot. A much milder accusation than, say, sexual predator.
It’s kind of a less harsh term than calling them an outright sexual predator while still saying ‘this person has had inappropriate sexual behaviour they did on purpose’.
To me it is accusing someone of being inappropriate and likely being sexually harassing, without actually crossing over into committing sexual assault or worse. And Leslie doesn’t know exactly how Jason and Sal stuff went down.
And yet she kinda harasses Leslie…?
That is literally the punchline
I kind of expected Robin to give a better answer than one might expect from her, but I did not expect her to give THIS good of an answer. I kinda feel like Leslie seems to feel, honestly kind of weirded out haha.
Whoa double Lizzes
Also I did more DoA watercolor character headshots! This time it’s Rachel, Sal, and Jennifer. I didn’t intend to do a trio of black-haired girls, but, welp.
https://twitter.com/namioshiro/status/1610318693510127618
Robin or Ruth might be fun to do next…
I really love these, especially Sal’s hair. Keep it up <3
Thanks man!
😍 Aaaah!! Sal’s hair is PERFECT!!!! 😍
Very nice!
This arc is less about Jason and more about Robin and Leslie. Otherwise a lecturer and adjunct would not cross paths. Robin isn’t on a tenure track. They are in different administrative structures as far as subject. Jason is a means to that end.
Robin has the best expressions. Look at that mouth, trying to climb up her face sideways.
Introducing Robin’s new band: The Sex Pestols!
Featuring Jason on bass!
I’d try it
So glad that Robin acknowledges how she was towards Leslie as sex pest behavior.
I was going, “Wait she’s trying to get Joe hired? That was a twi-Oh right Jason did sex stuff”
Robin: “Students, do any of you have any issues with this Jason guy?”
Students: *ensue scenes of hair pulling, shirt wringing, and tears
Robin: “Oh, wow, he’s that much of a sex pest to you all?”
Visibly confused students: “No, he’s a math tutor!”
Robin: *ensues visible confusion also
I gotta say, as a current T.A., “sex pest” is definitely not the word I would use to describe somebody who sleeps with a student. Definitely unethical, but also often unrelated to sexual harassment.