It’s Joyce. When she saw in her contract that everyone was required to have at least one gay experience in the course of the comic, she thought it just meant “happy”.
“Taking advice on how the birds and the bees work from an antisocial, neanderthal alcoholic with one of the most underdeveloped perceptions of reality on the entire boor-laden campus?”
I keep seeing that quote referenced, but I only remember having heard it on an episode of The Venture Brothers.
Based on context, I am guessing it is from Star Wars.
Eh.
I think this makes me a “young person”. Yay!
And on the 3rd day he created Amazi-girl, and he saw that it was good.
On the 4th day he made Danny and said, “Meh…I’ll make it work” and saw that it was…”eeehhhh”.
So is Billie affirmative, against or somewhere inbetween on the whole “choice” debate. Just to be clear, I believe people’s sexuality can be either nature or nurture, depending on the situation.
I think we would need to do some testing. Let’s take a bunch of straight people, remove their appendixes, and see if they are gay afterwards, and vica-versa. We could change the world!
The appendix may actually have role in the immune system and in maintaining your gut flora (which are very important in health, we are finding). Based on that I highly recommend avoiding appendix removal unless absolutely necessary.
Billie doesn’t know, because she never remembers how it happened the next morning. She’s always all, “Well, last I recall, I told some guys that I’d make out with this girl if they bought us booze, and now it’s morning… er, early afternoon, and I’m in bed with a completely different girl and a bunch of empty bottles and I think that’s my shirt hanging on the ceiling fan. So I guess I had fun!”
Ruth freaked her out because it was her first sober kiss.
Speaking from experience, Billie’s about right. Might not be a choice, but some of us get curious, and try other things.
Or, heck, there isn’t as thin a line as we think with straight, bi, gay. Some straights and gays identify as such, but don’t have an issue with going with someone of the same/opposite sex, though I don’t know if it skirts the lines of bisexuality.
Let’s just say some people are flexible in their sexuality.
Wow. Considering what Billie’s been through recently, I’d have thought she was more defensive, especially since she has no context for this conversation.
If I were in her short shorts, I’d be worried that Joyce was coming onto me.
I predict that in tomorrow’s comic, Joyce will fall to the floor unconscious and one of these ladies will feel compelled to give her mouth to mouth… that’s when the fun and misunderstandings will really start.
In fact, there will be a sleeping beauty-like line of girls outside leading up to joyce to see who can wake her up. It isn’t until her true love, Sal’s bike kisses her that she finally come’s to.
Although it’s venturing into slightly less polite terminology, Joyce is also showing a lot of interest in a ‘box’ in that strip. And asking to ‘borrow’ Dorothy from Walky.
And Joyce has another meltdown. She is indeed getting an education.
I’m confused by Billie’s good mood and happily open remark to Joyce concerning ‘we are all curious…”, considering she herself had a meltdown when Ruth kissed her. Something going on in the background we don’t know about?
Actually, I think it -was- the kiss, but not because she was opposed to the idea of kissing a girl, but more because Ruth had been bouncing back and forth between hate and affection -already-.
Don’t forget, none of the bathrooms on this campus have showers. (Didn’t click the link, so sorry if this is not info you need! I expected NSFW and I am at work 🙂
It’s a link back to an earlier DoA strip, no less SFW than most, and safer than some. I was repeating Joyce’s own suggestion from said strip. Any innuendo expressed or implied is the product of Joyce’s subconscious. Limited time only. Void where prohibited by law.
I imagine so, but I doubt it was honestly her conclusion, and more of an exasperated reaction to something that has been punching her in the life over and over lately.
Joyce, three people have been confirmed as gay. (Or maybe just one, if Billie was joking.) This is nowhere near everybody, although I get that it can seem that way if unexpected relevation is followed by another unexpected relevation, thus making it seem much more common. This might be good, though! Joyce realizing people who “seem normal” might have different convictions from her is one of the most important things she needs to learn.
Honestly, I think Billie was projecting. You might notice that she kinda sees lesbians everywhere. Although given that she’s the recipient of ALL THE LESBIAN KISSES, that might not be unjustified.
That’s entirely possible! She’s expressed attraction towards Sal, too, so that brings more evidence to the table than “is a lesbian kiss magnet”. She may not be steady in her own sexuality and she could be projecting. But I also think that Billie has shown herself to be pretty well versed in a) what college kids do and get up to and b) sexual stuff. (Better than Joyce, anyway. Which, y’know…isn’t that hard.)
Actually, looking at her face in the fifth panel, projection seems a bit more likely. I don’t know why — she just looks a little “yeah, that must be it”, as if she’s trying to make sense of all the stuff that’s been happening to her, and so frames it as inevitable that she’d get uncertain about her sexuality at some point.
I dunno. Billie may be projecting and exaggerating when she says everyone does it, but it might still be common.
Billie may be biased, but I don’t see how the idea that sexuality is 100% nature/genetics stands up to even minute scrutiny – given a) the concept of sexuality as understood currently is a very very modern one and b) what we know of older cultures, including the Athenians and Spartans, to talk just about some rather popular and well-known oldies.
I’m not straight, so I get why saying ‘this is how I am and it’s not wrong because it’s not a choice, so stop bothering me!’ is so appealing, but because I’m not straight I also kind of dislike it, because it seems to me to be saying that ‘this is how I am and it’s not wrong because it’s not a choice and we can’t help it, but if it was a choice then it would be wrong’.
And of course ‘bisexuality’ as a thing that exists and something that people can be often gets pushed off both the stages.
The whole “choice vs birth” debate is just a dumb, overblown response to the Christian idea that “It’s a choice, therefore, it can be a sin, because you can always choose NOT to do it”.
I mean, it’s understandable, sure, since that was the main political concept at the time, and so the gay community had to popularize the opposite idea ie that it’s not 100% a choice, that it’s not something they could healthily choose NOT to do, but that was in the 90’s, man. When we gonna move on.
I ask this but I realize that we will probably not move on until we get, like… nationwide gay marriage first. Which makes sense because, like. What’s the hold up, America. You only repealed DADT like a year ago or something. The hell, America.
As long as well-meaning parents will try to “correct” their children’s “choices”, it matters that our sexual identity — though something we each define for ourselves — is not just a fun party hat we can either choose to wear or choose not to wear.
The idea that sexuality is fluid, or at least much more complicated than a simple “gay, straight, or bi” multiple choice question — does not preclude the possibility that it is genetic. Genetic shaping who we find attractive, society shaping how we are allowed to express that, and we ourselves shaping how we WISH to express it.
Also, “bi” is a scary in-between word to label oneself; it feels like a much more fragile identity than “gay/straight with some exceptions”, which in turn comes from the extremely false perception that in order to be of Seuxality X you must find ALL of Gender X attractive. Which is probably partially a consequence of cismen being the only people anyone cares about — most “gay” studies are exclusively or excessively about gay men, and our view of sexuality is shaped by preconceived notions like “a straight man would have sex with literally any woman, so I can’t be Sexuality X because some Gender X people do nothing for me.”
Simultaneously we have accepted a worldview where women are as a whole so asexual that “porn for women” can be seriously expected to mean “men doing housework” or something else equally divorced from sex, and MANY women never have orgasms or enjoy sex at all but that’s just written off as “normal”. Nothing that a couple should work on. Not a sign of a relationship in trouble or even a woman who might ACTUALLY be asexual (and so of course there’s no reason they should have less sex!), just… considered TYPICAL for a woman.
I don’t have some kind of long, complicated reply; I just wanted to mention that I’m straight, and it wasn’t a choice. My hormones didn’t really ask my opinion.
I mean, we’re talking about who you’re attracted to, right? Not who you choose to be with. I don’t see how it even makes sense to say that you can choose who prompts the involuntary feeling of attraction in you.
I have one problem with your comment: The Athenians and Spartans did NOT endorse homosexuality, according to my college Classical Mythology teacher (who I’d imagine is an expert on the subject due to his position). They had people who did it, yes. And they may have pointedly ignored it if the man in question is still producing heirs and doing his duty. But it was never endorsed.
If that is not what you meant to imply, however, feel free to ignore me.
Actually, your CM teacher’s opinion is just one among several stances on the subject. We don’t really “know” for sure where the Athenians and Spartans stood on the whole gaysecks issue. People with lots of spare time have been researching and debating it over the last few decades, and it doesn’t look like the debate is going anywhere. So make of it what you will.
Well I dunno about the Greeks in particular, but the ancient Romans used the idea of someone being gay/bi as an insult. So for THEM at least it was not endorsed, but more of what Crimson suggested as just mostly ignored.
That is true, but the Roman idea of insulting “homosexuality” was that it was shameful to be the receiving partner. So a man who likes to stick it into other men = a-okay. Man who likes to get fucked by other man = what you want to be like a woman? how shameful!
So, standard patriarchal misogyny as applicable to same-sex relationships, nothing new.
What Arkadi said. There’s not enough evidence one way or another. And is be super wary of anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, because they are projecting their own expectations on to history and letting them full in substantial gaps.
I’ve heard that widespread, culturally-expected *bi*sexuality was the norm, which makes equally as much sense as anything else with the evidence we have, as long as you don’t go around thinking “No society can ever have CONCEIVABLY not recognized ‘straight’ as the preferable default!”
A bit of what other people said but not completely.
The scholarship controversy is not whether it was accepted/endorsed at all or not but rather whether it was commonly practiced/endorsed by people outside of the aristocracy. And it’s exacerbated by the homophobic ideology/politics of modern day Greece. Adult men assuming the passive role in same-sex relationships was again, still a subject of derision, i give you that.
Given that Zeus and Heracles, both considered pinnacles of sexual manliness, both had stories concerning their love for their male paramours, anyone painting the controversy as whether the idealizing of same-sex relationship, at least among the male aristos, is someone to take with a very huge grain of salt.
Unfortunately. assuming that a professor must be an unbiased expert when it comes to history/anthro/social sciences is only setting yourself for failure. Taking them for their word without extensive personal reading is good for getting grades but not for knowing what the theories around a subject really are. :/
Not because she’s even remotely on the list of my favorite characters, but because I know she’ll lose and hey, maybe she might happen to be interesting. Possibly.
Well Joyce’s head is clearly about to explode, looks like we’re about to get the strip’s first fatality. Gotta say, I’m a little surprised that Mike isn’t directly responsible
I kind of feel like the next panel should be Joe saying “I felt a great disturbance, like a great voice shrieking in fear. Plus… lesbians… All-right!” (because at least in part Joe sounds like Quagmire in my head)
Things Willis has said recently in Twitter that would make excellent slogans for Christian Mingle:
“that’s right, up the urethra”
“I really wish I could kick people through the Internet.”
“Man, you guys do some dirty stuff.”
And finally:
“Well, you could get some custom-made lesbian smooches at the $300.”
I’m part of a drama club here at UConn, and inevitably we always run out of males at casting time so we have a HUGE club history of turning mixed-sex couples into lesbian couples. whenever this happens and someone comments on it we all turn and shout “Suddenly-LESBIANS!”
I was discussing it with a friend in class one day and my professor overheard and just goes, “That’s my new catchphrase now”
AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
HA…. ha… ha… oh, okay I’m stopping. I’m stop-
(Takes another look)
AHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH GOD MAKE IT STOP
B – There is no escape. Don’t make me eat you. Joyce, you do not yet realize your importnace. You’ve only begun to discover your sexuality. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined sexiness, we can end this sexual drought, and bring order to the quad!
J – I’ll never join you!
B – If you only knew the power of the lesbians… Your mother never told you what happened to your first lover.
J – She told me enough! She told me you killed him.
B – No, *I* am your lover.
J – No… no! That’s not true. That’s impossible!
B – Search your feelings, you *know* it to be true!
Poor Joyce 🙂 But really, Billie’s answering a different question than what was asked, and inadvertently she’s confirming the fundamentalists’ position that everyone is tempted by it and succeptible to being dragged into it. By saying “everybody” thinks about it or tries it and “it’s inevitable” (neither of which can be proven), first she’s assuming that what she has felt or experienced is what everyone has and will (so maybe some of her own denial?); and at the same time she may not realize that what Joyce just heard was that JOYCE will “inevitably” herself “think about it or try it”.
I actually don’t think Billie’s making a statement about actual sexuality, just about experimentation: where you wonder, “Am I…?” And you try it in an attempt to confirm, or even just out of pure “I wonder what that would be like!” curiosity / boredom.
In this situation there really is no temptation because there’s not necessarily any lust; you don’t have to *actually* be attracted to girls or boys in order to wonder whether you *might* be and seek confirmation. :|a
Billie and Joyce are kind of talking about different things. True homosexuality isn’t a choice, there’s a genuine difference in the brain wiring. But for a straight or gay person to experiment with bisexuality, sure, that’s a choice. I wouldn’t call it inevitable, though.
Dammit Willis, I’m all up for helping the kickstarter, I pledged a good 30+ in the last one, but 43$ to have a hardcopy of book 2 in canada!? I’ll most likely support it, but being a poor college student is hard enough ;o;
Yeah, the GIANT increase in postage that happened this past year is amazingly frustrating. It shouldn’t cost to ship a book what the book costs! I’m really lucky that the price hikes didn’t happen before I was done sending out books from last year’s Kickstarter, or I would have seriously been ruined financially. Losing $10 per international order would have put me on the street.
Wow. We’re only a week or two into the semester, right? And already into the bi-curious phase of college.
Kids move fast, these days. I’m afraid to blink, or else I’ll open my eyes and find the graduation day comics before me. Dang kids. Makin’ me feel old.
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JOYCE ANEURYSM
Imagine the coroner trying to explain WHY she died.
She seems to have died from hanky pankreatitis.
Three internets for you.
All of the internets XDXDXD
She seems to have died from hanky pankreatitis.
10 / 10
10/10
Good joke, would read again.
“It is apparent to me that this woman died of Gay Panic”
Heart attack brought on by the stress of all the lesbians.
It’s a Willis comic, what did she expect?! She knew what she was getting into when she signed on!!
It’s Joyce. When she saw in her contract that everyone was required to have at least one gay experience in the course of the comic, she thought it just meant “happy”.
And “lesbian students” obviously referred to exchange students from a Greek island!
“Taking advice on how the birds and the bees work from an antisocial, neanderthal alcoholic with one of the most underdeveloped perceptions of reality on the entire boor-laden campus?”
Why the hell not.
Here lies Joyce Brown
She couldn’t keep her head down
I guess I don’t get it. What’s Joyce upset about?
Go back and read the 5th panel again.
She’s scared of the prospect that she might at some point end up doing exactly what she was trying to do in the previous strip.
I feel like we’ve seen that panel before.
Yep.
I’m making that my, “Joyce’s worldview is being rearranged.” face.
No, I will not use the meme.
I am sure someone will
… FAAAAACE?
Rearranged? Hell no, she’s just scrambling to get a new recycle bin to fit this.
Mind blown #2
I hope someone tells her more shocking info tomorrow and her head explodes.
Or she gives in and makes out with Billie? Apparently lesbian make outs are all the rage from what she understands 😉
She will be assimilated!
“Hey Joyce, did you know people lie on the internet?”
Can you do that? Explode twice?
Don’t be silly Spike
More Joyce horrified faces forever.
She’ll be stuck like that until they reach the classroom.
JOYCE, CALM DOWN!
Homosexuality might not be a choice, but doing it with the right person is.
Do the right thing, Joyce. Do it with Sal.
No no, she needs to do it with Billie first! Or Sarah! Or…screw it, someone organize a lesbian orgy on campus, it’s inevitable.
Joe knows what to do. He’s done this before.
He’s already got flowcharts put together to make sure everyone is arranged perfectly.
How do you “do homosexuality”? =/
Do you need a Manuel?
…Manual. Manual. That’s what I meant.
Si.
Dat final panel. It’s like a prophecy has been fulfilled.
Billie’s not only happy to talk to Joyce, but is giving a reasonable opinion?
Clearly, the universe is imbalanced.
Does this mean that Billie has accepted the fact that she will be getting more smooches from the ‘fairer sex’?
You can’t spell “Billie” without “bi”.
nor, Bill, ill, or lie.
I had the impression Billie had no issue, per se, with the kiss from Ruth so much as the way Ruth went about it.
Yeah. bongo shouldna shoved her.
She’s never complained about bongo tongue-wrestling her. Just, bongo shouldna shoved her.
More than that I seem to recall Billie herself trying to make out with Sal during one of her heavily drunk episodes.
Search your feelings, Joyce. You know it to be true.
Give in to the sexy side and you and Billie can rule the world!
No! You kissed my RA.
No Joyce…I AM your RA!
No! That’s not true!
That’s IMPOSSIBLE!
http://i.imgur.com/2Kyyehk.gif
I keep seeing that quote referenced, but I only remember having heard it on an episode of The Venture Brothers.
Based on context, I am guessing it is from Star Wars.
Eh.
I think this makes me a “young person”. Yay!
Just when I think I can’t identify with Billie any more then I do.
STOP POOP
POP STOOP
POOP POTS
OOPS TOPP
Blown up version of the last frame pls.
This has been a really fun day for Joyce hasn’t it.
And it’s not even lunchtime.
Yes Joyce, before you get your MRS degree, why don’t you check out the MS degree. 😀
Joyce is gonna have to rethink her stance on evolution if she wants a Masters of Science.
She should first try for a masters of bation.
I easily graduated with Honours on that degree when I was 12 years old.
(only in case you misunderstood my joke)
When I said MS, I meant in the feminist/lesbian Ms.
But can’t you be a Ms. without being either of those things?
Sure, I was only making certain they knew what I mean by MS in that context.
I didn’t know Microsoft was a lesbian.
I did understand it, the joke I was trying to make was that MS is an actual degree.
And what happened then…? Well…in B-town they say…
That Joyce’s mind was blown to tiny sizes that day…
Willis, are you attempting to compensate for the lack of a mind-wipe in this universe with trauma? 😉
Joyce has more trauma than she knows what to do with.
It is literal trying to escape out of her face.
Why can’t I hold allthese traumas?!
*FAAAAACE
“It’s basically inevitable, as long as David Willis is scripting your life.”
Yes. Lesbians will happen. It is written.
Taco Bell will happen too.
And Willis looked down and saw that it was good.
And on the 3rd day he created Amazi-girl, and he saw that it was good.
On the 4th day he made Danny and said, “Meh…I’ll make it work” and saw that it was…”eeehhhh”.
Hahaha
No, no, Danny was Day 1. Amazi-Girl was Day 6. And Mike was Day 3.
His response to Mike was…interesting. You had to be there.
The real question is, did he create Your mom before our after Mike ?
Mike brought Your Mom into being with the sheer force of his hate. And nickels.
If this were social media, I would like, retweet, reblog, +1, and whatever the Pinterest equivalent would be this comment.
Why is this quotes? Who did you murder?
Lemme check their wallets. Okay, I murdered–whoahohoho, nice try!
Billy looks so happy to see Joyce in that first panel. I swear this week just gets better and better.
OH! Have Roz walk in with her dildo helmet talking about how her sister and Leslie are going at it like bunnies!
See, now I’m just thinking everyone wants Joyce to go comatose….
It might make the lesbian experience easier for her I guess?
And while she’s passes out she hallucinates she’s making out with Dorothy and horrifies herself back to consciousness.
I think Joyce’s going into a coma?
Why won’t my reply show up? Do I have to say a magic word?
Butt.
So is Billie affirmative, against or somewhere inbetween on the whole “choice” debate. Just to be clear, I believe people’s sexuality can be either nature or nurture, depending on the situation.
What if…it’s based on your appendix, and we think it’s a useless organ but it determines what we’re attracted to!!!
I think we would need to do some testing. Let’s take a bunch of straight people, remove their appendixes, and see if they are gay afterwards, and vica-versa. We could change the world!
Naw, we’d have to remove straight appendixes and then replace them with gay appendixes to be 100% sure.
The appendix may actually have role in the immune system and in maintaining your gut flora (which are very important in health, we are finding). Based on that I highly recommend avoiding appendix removal unless absolutely necessary.
Sorry for ruining the fun thread with science 😛
Zoos! In our bellies! Awesome!
Gut flora!!!!
Am I the only one thinking of a gut bouquet at this point? 😀
I think Billie’s stance on a lot of issues is “whatever, where the booze at?”
Billie is, as she stated, in the “I don’t know” camp in that debate. She’s in the midst of a big figuring-things-out fog.
I think Billie’s entire understanding of sexual orientation comes from movies.
Billie doesn’t know, because she never remembers how it happened the next morning. She’s always all, “Well, last I recall, I told some guys that I’d make out with this girl if they bought us booze, and now it’s morning… er, early afternoon, and I’m in bed with a completely different girl and a bunch of empty bottles and I think that’s my shirt hanging on the ceiling fan. So I guess I had fun!”
Ruth freaked her out because it was her first sober kiss.
Makes perfect sense.
Speaking from experience, Billie’s about right. Might not be a choice, but some of us get curious, and try other things.
Or, heck, there isn’t as thin a line as we think with straight, bi, gay. Some straights and gays identify as such, but don’t have an issue with going with someone of the same/opposite sex, though I don’t know if it skirts the lines of bisexuality.
Let’s just say some people are flexible in their sexuality.
Willis, you have any of those “poop” signs for sale in the store?
http://www.poopsign.com/
I’m asking you to sign this at Phoenix Comicon.
Okay, but keep in mind it isn’t my product!
Too bad. I figured you were that guy on the website with the widow’s peak and huge hoop earrings. No such luck.
That crashing sound you can hear is Joyce’s brain smashing into a million pieces
And that, my friends, was the second time I died.
We’ll play Eyebrows and the Thugs at your funeral.
Dat panel…it’s back!
Wow. Considering what Billie’s been through recently, I’d have thought she was more defensive, especially since she has no context for this conversation.
If I were in her short shorts, I’d be worried that Joyce was coming onto me.
My gravatar appears to be Walky, in Billie’s short shorts.
If I were in Billie’s short shorts, I don’t think I’d be thinking about Joyce at all.
(My Billie grav is probably going to make this come off weird.)
Billie gravatar is giving a whole new meaning to self-satisfied! *EG*
I think if there is any woman in DoA that Billie can be sure isn’t coming onto her, it’s Joyce. I think Dina would come onto Billie before Joyce.
So do we get a reaction face from Joyce every day now? I can dig that.
It seems so. I’m surprisingly ok with this.
I predict that in tomorrow’s comic, Joyce will fall to the floor unconscious and one of these ladies will feel compelled to give her mouth to mouth… that’s when the fun and misunderstandings will really start.
In fact, there will be a sleeping beauty-like line of girls outside leading up to joyce to see who can wake her up. It isn’t until her true love, Sal’s bike kisses her that she finally come’s to.
Yes. It’s like that scene in Airplane where everyone lines up to slap the hysterical woman.
But much hotter.
Just imagine that the woman in question was Joyce.
Well, Joyce _does_ look like a younger version of that actress…
Then mouth to boob, followed by mouth to [CENSORED] …
Ohp, looks we got a new favorite avatar.
“Nooo! I don’t wanna eat tacos!”
“In that case, you can just play around with scissors!”
That’s not what she said!
FORESHADOWING!
Although it’s venturing into slightly less polite terminology, Joyce is also showing a lot of interest in a ‘box’ in that strip. And asking to ‘borrow’ Dorothy from Walky.
And later, Joyce will learn that Jesus wasn’t a tall white guy, courtesy of the DoA-verse Historical Jesus.
I dunno how he even got here. Then again he’s jesus.
Mmmmm, shattered worldview.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/yotomoe-dinajoycekiss.png could become canon in the near future. lolol
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=73gjdc&s=5
Or this…
She is probably thinking “inevitable hanky-panky” right now!
And Joyce has another meltdown. She is indeed getting an education.
I’m confused by Billie’s good mood and happily open remark to Joyce concerning ‘we are all curious…”, considering she herself had a meltdown when Ruth kissed her. Something going on in the background we don’t know about?
She gained some confidence in last week’s strips, and given the experiences she had…
I think the key word there is “Ruth.”
My interpretation of her reaction to the Ruth incident was that she was upset by what Ruth did leading into the kiss, not the kiss itself.
Actually, I think it -was- the kiss, but not because she was opposed to the idea of kissing a girl, but more because Ruth had been bouncing back and forth between hate and affection -already-.
Maybe your bisexual roomate was the wrong person to ask that question, Joyce.
My gavatar makes that seem much more judgmental than I wanted it to be.
…Billie’s not her roommate.
She sort of is. They share a half-bath.
Only a door away…
I seeeee where this is going!
You’re thinking they should start sharing the other half?
All these avatars are SO perfect for this particular stream of comments XD
They can be shower buddies!
Don’t forget, none of the bathrooms on this campus have showers. (Didn’t click the link, so sorry if this is not info you need! I expected NSFW and I am at work 🙂
It’s a link back to an earlier DoA strip, no less SFW than most, and safer than some. I was repeating Joyce’s own suggestion from said strip. Any innuendo expressed or implied is the product of Joyce’s subconscious. Limited time only. Void where prohibited by law.
So that’s what a brain exploding looks like
I liked Joyce’s expression in the last panel. 😛
What’s that strange cracking noise…?
This is turning out to be a long day for Joyce, and it’s just getting started…
Hahaha! Poor Joyce!
All we need is her eyeballs to pop out.
How was that sentence going to end, in the third panel? ‘Is everyone gay?’
I imagine so, but I doubt it was honestly her conclusion, and more of an exasperated reaction to something that has been punching her in the life over and over lately.
Joyce’s mind… blown!
Inevitable you say?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inevitable_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29
Yes, Joyce, everyone is gay.
EVERYONE.
This is a reasonable conclusion.
Hmm… that’s the name of an online advice ‘column’ run by a couple of lesbian women.
What? Why are you looking at me like that? It’s fun to watch. It has lip-synching.
… Also, how are you able to look at me through the internet? Stop that.
What else should I be?
All apologies
What else should I say?
Everyone is gay
Oh, Joyce…let’s hope no one introduces you to the work of a certain Dr. Alfred Kinsey. Your mind might not recover.
THE RETURN OF JOYCE REACTION FACE
Joyce, three people have been confirmed as gay. (Or maybe just one, if Billie was joking.) This is nowhere near everybody, although I get that it can seem that way if unexpected relevation is followed by another unexpected relevation, thus making it seem much more common. This might be good, though! Joyce realizing people who “seem normal” might have different convictions from her is one of the most important things she needs to learn.
Honestly, I think Billie was projecting. You might notice that she kinda sees lesbians everywhere. Although given that she’s the recipient of ALL THE LESBIAN KISSES, that might not be unjustified.
That’s entirely possible! She’s expressed attraction towards Sal, too, so that brings more evidence to the table than “is a lesbian kiss magnet”. She may not be steady in her own sexuality and she could be projecting. But I also think that Billie has shown herself to be pretty well versed in a) what college kids do and get up to and b) sexual stuff. (Better than Joyce, anyway. Which, y’know…isn’t that hard.)
Actually, looking at her face in the fifth panel, projection seems a bit more likely. I don’t know why — she just looks a little “yeah, that must be it”, as if she’s trying to make sense of all the stuff that’s been happening to her, and so frames it as inevitable that she’d get uncertain about her sexuality at some point.
I dunno. Billie may be projecting and exaggerating when she says everyone does it, but it might still be common.
Billie may be biased, but I don’t see how the idea that sexuality is 100% nature/genetics stands up to even minute scrutiny – given a) the concept of sexuality as understood currently is a very very modern one and b) what we know of older cultures, including the Athenians and Spartans, to talk just about some rather popular and well-known oldies.
I’m not straight, so I get why saying ‘this is how I am and it’s not wrong because it’s not a choice, so stop bothering me!’ is so appealing, but because I’m not straight I also kind of dislike it, because it seems to me to be saying that ‘this is how I am and it’s not wrong because it’s not a choice and we can’t help it, but if it was a choice then it would be wrong’.
And of course ‘bisexuality’ as a thing that exists and something that people can be often gets pushed off both the stages.
The whole “choice vs birth” debate is just a dumb, overblown response to the Christian idea that “It’s a choice, therefore, it can be a sin, because you can always choose NOT to do it”.
I mean, it’s understandable, sure, since that was the main political concept at the time, and so the gay community had to popularize the opposite idea ie that it’s not 100% a choice, that it’s not something they could healthily choose NOT to do, but that was in the 90’s, man. When we gonna move on.
I ask this but I realize that we will probably not move on until we get, like… nationwide gay marriage first. Which makes sense because, like. What’s the hold up, America. You only repealed DADT like a year ago or something. The hell, America.
As long as well-meaning parents will try to “correct” their children’s “choices”, it matters that our sexual identity — though something we each define for ourselves — is not just a fun party hat we can either choose to wear or choose not to wear.
The idea that sexuality is fluid, or at least much more complicated than a simple “gay, straight, or bi” multiple choice question — does not preclude the possibility that it is genetic. Genetic shaping who we find attractive, society shaping how we are allowed to express that, and we ourselves shaping how we WISH to express it.
Also, “bi” is a scary in-between word to label oneself; it feels like a much more fragile identity than “gay/straight with some exceptions”, which in turn comes from the extremely false perception that in order to be of Seuxality X you must find ALL of Gender X attractive. Which is probably partially a consequence of cismen being the only people anyone cares about — most “gay” studies are exclusively or excessively about gay men, and our view of sexuality is shaped by preconceived notions like “a straight man would have sex with literally any woman, so I can’t be Sexuality X because some Gender X people do nothing for me.”
Simultaneously we have accepted a worldview where women are as a whole so asexual that “porn for women” can be seriously expected to mean “men doing housework” or something else equally divorced from sex, and MANY women never have orgasms or enjoy sex at all but that’s just written off as “normal”. Nothing that a couple should work on. Not a sign of a relationship in trouble or even a woman who might ACTUALLY be asexual (and so of course there’s no reason they should have less sex!), just… considered TYPICAL for a woman.
I don’t have some kind of long, complicated reply; I just wanted to mention that I’m straight, and it wasn’t a choice. My hormones didn’t really ask my opinion.
I mean, we’re talking about who you’re attracted to, right? Not who you choose to be with. I don’t see how it even makes sense to say that you can choose who prompts the involuntary feeling of attraction in you.
I have one problem with your comment: The Athenians and Spartans did NOT endorse homosexuality, according to my college Classical Mythology teacher (who I’d imagine is an expert on the subject due to his position). They had people who did it, yes. And they may have pointedly ignored it if the man in question is still producing heirs and doing his duty. But it was never endorsed.
If that is not what you meant to imply, however, feel free to ignore me.
Actually, your CM teacher’s opinion is just one among several stances on the subject. We don’t really “know” for sure where the Athenians and Spartans stood on the whole gaysecks issue. People with lots of spare time have been researching and debating it over the last few decades, and it doesn’t look like the debate is going anywhere. So make of it what you will.
Well I dunno about the Greeks in particular, but the ancient Romans used the idea of someone being gay/bi as an insult. So for THEM at least it was not endorsed, but more of what Crimson suggested as just mostly ignored.
That is true, but the Roman idea of insulting “homosexuality” was that it was shameful to be the receiving partner. So a man who likes to stick it into other men = a-okay. Man who likes to get fucked by other man = what you want to be like a woman? how shameful!
So, standard patriarchal misogyny as applicable to same-sex relationships, nothing new.
I am indeed beaten by your superior history skills. ;P
What Arkadi said. There’s not enough evidence one way or another. And is be super wary of anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, because they are projecting their own expectations on to history and letting them full in substantial gaps.
I’ve heard that widespread, culturally-expected *bi*sexuality was the norm, which makes equally as much sense as anything else with the evidence we have, as long as you don’t go around thinking “No society can ever have CONCEIVABLY not recognized ‘straight’ as the preferable default!”
A bit of what other people said but not completely.
The scholarship controversy is not whether it was accepted/endorsed at all or not but rather whether it was commonly practiced/endorsed by people outside of the aristocracy. And it’s exacerbated by the homophobic ideology/politics of modern day Greece. Adult men assuming the passive role in same-sex relationships was again, still a subject of derision, i give you that.
Given that Zeus and Heracles, both considered pinnacles of sexual manliness, both had stories concerning their love for their male paramours, anyone painting the controversy as whether the idealizing of same-sex relationship, at least among the male aristos, is someone to take with a very huge grain of salt.
Unfortunately. assuming that a professor must be an unbiased expert when it comes to history/anthro/social sciences is only setting yourself for failure. Taking them for their word without extensive personal reading is good for getting grades but not for knowing what the theories around a subject really are. :/
Wait …. we can’t vote for more than one character to be appearing more often ?
That means I have to choose a favorite character ? But, but I don’t like playing favorite ! I love them all (well most of them) …
DAMN YOU WILLIS !
That’s why I just voted for Mary.
Not because she’s even remotely on the list of my favorite characters, but because I know she’ll lose and hey, maybe she might happen to be interesting. Possibly.
I’m just wondering why he bothered having a poll when you can only vote for one character and Dina is an option.
I actually picked Dina figuring she wouldn’t be the most popular option. Silly me.
I know, right?
Holy crap, Sal is sixth? Wow, how the mighty have fallen.
Great, now Billie broke Joyce.
Hey, the current poll has no “Robin” option!
Some of you people have great memories. I didn’t remember the last “OMGWHAT” Joyce face in the slightest.
It first appeared here http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/gasp/ when Dorothy revealed her atheism. Can’t remember any other appearances.
Well Joyce’s head is clearly about to explode, looks like we’re about to get the strip’s first fatality. Gotta say, I’m a little surprised that Mike isn’t directly responsible
I kind of feel like the next panel should be Joe saying “I felt a great disturbance, like a great voice shrieking in fear. Plus… lesbians… All-right!” (because at least in part Joe sounds like Quagmire in my head)
Things Willis has said recently in Twitter that would make excellent slogans for Christian Mingle:
“that’s right, up the urethra”
“I really wish I could kick people through the Internet.”
“Man, you guys do some dirty stuff.”
And finally:
“Well, you could get some custom-made lesbian smooches at the $300.”
In addition to Joyce’s newest gasp, I enjoy Sara’s exit.
I’m not really sure what the point of the poll is, it’s just going to be Dina. XD
Suddenly, Lesbians! Everywhere!
I’m part of a drama club here at UConn, and inevitably we always run out of males at casting time so we have a HUGE club history of turning mixed-sex couples into lesbian couples. whenever this happens and someone comments on it we all turn and shout “Suddenly-LESBIANS!”
I was discussing it with a friend in class one day and my professor overheard and just goes, “That’s my new catchphrase now”
I think that story is worth at least 2 Internets 🙂
AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
HA…. ha… ha… oh, okay I’m stopping. I’m stop-
(Takes another look)
AHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH GOD MAKE IT STOP
B – There is no escape. Don’t make me eat you. Joyce, you do not yet realize your importnace. You’ve only begun to discover your sexuality. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined sexiness, we can end this sexual drought, and bring order to the quad!
J – I’ll never join you!
B – If you only knew the power of the lesbians… Your mother never told you what happened to your first lover.
J – She told me enough! She told me you killed him.
B – No, *I* am your lover.
J – No… no! That’s not true. That’s impossible!
B – Search your feelings, you *know* it to be true!
J – NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NO…
Poor Joyce 🙂 But really, Billie’s answering a different question than what was asked, and inadvertently she’s confirming the fundamentalists’ position that everyone is tempted by it and succeptible to being dragged into it. By saying “everybody” thinks about it or tries it and “it’s inevitable” (neither of which can be proven), first she’s assuming that what she has felt or experienced is what everyone has and will (so maybe some of her own denial?); and at the same time she may not realize that what Joyce just heard was that JOYCE will “inevitably” herself “think about it or try it”.
I actually don’t think Billie’s making a statement about actual sexuality, just about experimentation: where you wonder, “Am I…?” And you try it in an attempt to confirm, or even just out of pure “I wonder what that would be like!” curiosity / boredom.
In this situation there really is no temptation because there’s not necessarily any lust; you don’t have to *actually* be attracted to girls or boys in order to wonder whether you *might* be and seek confirmation. :|a
I take it that Joyce does not want to be showerbuddies anymore.
Best face ever.
Fun fact. That last panel is actually her having a sudden, explosive orgasm thinking about doing it with Sal
“…thinking about doing it with Dorothy”
You had a typo there. I fixed it.
No. Dorothy is her best friend. She clearly wants to dry-hump Sal
Or at least Sal’s motorcycle.
She wants to do it with Dorothy while ON Sal’s motorcycle.
“No, its all cool, Joyce. No need to freak out. Here, lemme show you…”
Yes, Joyce. Dorothy is your gay love buddy. Search your feelings, you know it to be true! It is inevitable. It is your DENSITY.
…
…I mean destiny.
Oh face.
Also, Billie is -adorable- in that next to last panel. It helps that bare shoulders are my weak point.
I mean, like, I am weak against them, not that I die if you shoot lasers at them.
Although I guess depending on the laser…
Ok, someone find the little hole in Joyce for her reset button and I’ll find a pencil.
I think we can leave that to Billie ;3
For that, Billie will need to conduct a thorough examination.
Yes. That’s exactly how it works c:
Chobits joke goes here.
(Hint: It was in her panties.)
I think mean “insert Chobits joke here”.
J.J. is totally right. The faces are great! I’m kinda wondering when the demon will return though.
^ Don’t you love putting a typo in your own email and wondering what happened to your Gravatar?
^ wow, that was fixed with a quickness. I wonder when the demon Ruth will return. I love the Joyce reaction face.
HOMOS. HOMOS EVERYWHERE DDDDDDDDDDD8
So at least one SarahxJoyce lesbian moment will happen for sure? 😀
Billie and Joyce are kind of talking about different things. True homosexuality isn’t a choice, there’s a genuine difference in the brain wiring. But for a straight or gay person to experiment with bisexuality, sure, that’s a choice. I wouldn’t call it inevitable, though.
Well, nobody said Billie was the best person to go for advice. Actually, I think only Joyce would do that.
Let’s step back a moment… and imagine this scenario instead, thanks to Mr. W and SMBC!!
http://goo.gl/htGTV
My shipping senses are tingling.
Aaaaaaaaaand a gravatar is born
Dammit Willis, I’m all up for helping the kickstarter, I pledged a good 30+ in the last one, but 43$ to have a hardcopy of book 2 in canada!? I’ll most likely support it, but being a poor college student is hard enough ;o;
Here’s hoping book 3 isn’t 60+
Yeah, the GIANT increase in postage that happened this past year is amazingly frustrating. It shouldn’t cost to ship a book what the book costs! I’m really lucky that the price hikes didn’t happen before I was done sending out books from last year’s Kickstarter, or I would have seriously been ruined financially. Losing $10 per international order would have put me on the street.
Wow. We’re only a week or two into the semester, right? And already into the bi-curious phase of college.
Kids move fast, these days. I’m afraid to blink, or else I’ll open my eyes and find the graduation day comics before me. Dang kids. Makin’ me feel old.
This just seems appropriate for the last panel.
That is exactly what I was thinking of. Or maybe even just the last note, akin to Harvey Birdman in the Boo Boo Bear episode.
damnit willis stop trying to murder joyce! what is it, the everyone break joyce arc?
Maybe it’s the “drive Joyce to drink” arc.
I think this girl and Joyce may have been separated at birth
http://www.stickydillybuns.com/strips-sdb/must_put_a_stop_to_this_right_now
Billie’s response may be *bi*ased?