It’s not that she “finds” menstrual cramps to be painful, it’s that her menstrual cramps are actually abnormally painful. That has nothing to do with how she would handle the pain of a UTI.
She finds them painful because, for her, they ARE. Normal menstrual cramps aren’t that bad, but a solid 10% of people with uteruses have endometriosis, and there are plenty of other causes of abnormally painful menstruation. Unfortunately people don’t tend to know that isn’t normal, either because pop culture has convinced them that periods are supposed to be that painful or because they think they’re just being a wimp about it.
Ugh! Yeah, just the idea of what she’s suggesting is just awful.
Would you put soap in your mouth, Joyce? Cause what you’re suggesting is far worse.
Dotty, I think you might have to throw yourself on this grenade.
And by grenade, I mean Joyce’s vulva.
With all the truth in the world, you can even stick the whole shower head up there and spray the whole thing spotless, and a little washing-up liquid won’t cause a bit of harm.
I gotta see a doctor. Ain’t no way a shower head is fitting up mine. Didn’t even know they were meant to. Hopefully it’s not too late in life to fix that.
Back in high school, a friend was absolutely fascinated with gay male sex. Being unable to have any herself, she ordered a VHS gay porn from a catalog she’d found. Among the truly awful things in this particular video, there was a scene where a shower head was inserted into a butt. Bad enough on its own, it became much worse when upon removal the guy who had done the inserting then placed his mouth behind the butt to catch the stream of water coming back out.
A gay friend and heteroflexible me were in the room. We were both horrified at pretty much everything in the video. Meanwhile our friend who had ordered the video was just absolutely fascinated with the whole thing. We had to explain to her that no, most of that was not actually commonly done. Any thoughts of giving her a live demo were out the window after seeing the video, we were that squicked.
If you’re curious: The difference is that a penis is covered with external skin, and a vaginal canal is a mucous membrane with a unique bacterial ecosystem and very specific pH requirements.
The head of the penis is an exposed gland, which is why circumcision is such a body horror idea to me. That kind of ritual mutilation is just horrific, not matter how normalised it’s become in many places.
That’s the glans. Not glan/d/s. Remember, the bit covered by the foreskin can usually be (mostly) exposed by manipulating a still-attached foreskin. It is meant to be exposed to the air (and other things) to some extent. It’s not just raw flesh or organ.
OK. Purely out of scientific curiosity: is there any kind of hygiene product that is appropriate to use “there”? Or does it have to be just water, like Dorothy says?
There are some that are safe, but the truth is that vaginas are self-cleaning and your vulva only needs warm water because it’s a mucous membrane. Soap strips away necessary protections and can create a perfect environment for bacteria to thrive in the dark, damp space (a bacteria’s favorite home).
Some smell is normal (become familiar with your natural healthy smell throughout your cycle if you are the owner of a vagina) but if it’s so bad you really feel like you NEED to get something up inside it… go to a doctor instead because you may be noticing the start of an infection, a trapped tampon, or other imbalance and need meds/assistance.
Planned Parenthood is a good option if you’re worried about expense. Sorry to those who live somewhere those have been shuttered
Internally, no, just water. For the external-but-somewhat-protected bits, lotion is fine, but no actual cleaning products. For the external bits that are all covered in hair, regular (gentle) soap is fine.
I realised at this late stage that the comic is moving towards ”vulva washing” territory.
As a Nordic bloke I cringe any time ”douching” is referenced. There is so much hate and misinformation towards the female body in the the US, and the usual snake oil salesmen.
About half of us regret our ignorance-peddling, patriarchal, and puritanical cultural founders. About a third of us continue to perpetuate the old, antisocial, and regressive practices.
Currently the US is like a horrific multi car pile-up on the highway that just keeps escalating.
I’m spending a lot of time following US politics. The collapse of the 248 year old Republic effects everybody on the planet. I hope you manage to stop becoming the 4th Reich.
It’s pretty old for a continuous form of government, though. France, for example, has been through 5 republics, 3 monarchies, 2 empires, and a fascist dictatorship in the time the US has been using the Constitution.
It was the oldest, still running democracy. I think that democracy died when Trump’s second term started.
It was far from perfect, and occasionally absolutely horrificic (genocide and repeated betrayal of treaties with the native population, overthrowing and annexing the kingdom of Hawaii, subjugating the Philippines…. etc.
Lots of horror and atrocity, but even so the death of the Republic is a tragedy.
That’s bullshit quitter talk. I’m sick to death of everyone rolling the fuck over and just letting themselves die because resistance might be a bit of a bother on such a nice and lazy Tuesday when the breeze is just right. If you’re not an American and you’re not actively aiding the fight, politely, keep your head up your ass where it belongs. If you’re an American, stop giving up just because it’s hard. My mom didn’t raise me to be a quitter, and if yours did she was a shitty fuckin’ mom.
That’s the Royal You, of course, unless you’re feeling personally attacked by it, in which case either come to my house and fucking fight me IRL or stay silent like a good little drone and let the real Americans do your fighting for you.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Trump winning a second term, and evertything that has happened since tells a very different story Taffy. Those in the US now know the answer to the question ”What would you have done when Hitler got into power”.
Wow, I would’ve been less polite if I’d read this first. On what planet is talking about us in the past-tense supposed to be encouraging anyone to fight????
By far the biggest opposition leftists are running up against in our own circles is this doomer attitude like it’s already over and we might as well lie down to die, and the fact that you both don’t know that and think “everything that’s happened” since the election shows no one in America is fighting at all is just…
And then you ALSO acknowledge how close your own most recent election brought you to being in the same position?!
I cannot follow your logic here at all. What kind of abusive drill sergeant ass motivational technique is this supposed to be.
And no, it’s not your job to motivate us, but you claim to hope we turn things around, so why would you want to demotivate us. It’s completely inscrutable and frankly infuriating.
I, meanwhile, was heartened yesterday by this post about how at the very least America’s fascist turn has motivated a lot of other countries around the world to fight harder against their OWN burgeoning far-right parties. It’s cold comfort right now, but I shared this link while literally saying to my partner, “way to go, everywhere else!”
I am not your imagined selfish American who doesn’t care about the rest of the world and isn’t painfully aware that our horrible mistake affects everyone else. I’m fuckin’ relieved for your sakes that so many of you are avoiding disaster because of our horrible example.
But I’m also still terrified pretty much every day, and all I am asking for from people on the outside is not to be smug assholes about what we’re going through. I don’t think that’s too much, but maybe it is for you.
Adept, you’re not doing anything but looking at the person who’s already tied up under the bus and whining at me for not lifting it with the one finger I can wiggle. Everything you’ve said about this topic is less than worthless. I’m doing what I can, ya foreign crybaby.
No Li, not ”close to the same position”. The US very vulnerable due to the de-facto two-party system. In my country we dealing with nasty cuts to social security, disinformation and coddling the richest 5%. We aren’t in danger of losing our actual democracy.
From over here it looks much more like the biggest danger to the US is how few people actually accept how dangerous a time this is. I’m not suggesting anybody give up, I have said nothing like that.
What I’m saying is ”we’ll get them in the midterms” is still thinking this is just democracy as usual. Heck, I hope I’m wrong and you guys are right.
You are both willfully misunderstanding and misrepresenting what I wrote however, so I’ll leave it at this. Rather archtypically rude, but not surprising at all, I’m afraid. Circular firing squad and all that.
Complaining at the people who are actually noticing the problem is pointless, and everyone knows that. You are not entitled to unconditional politeness when you go out of your way to shit-talk people who are doing their best, you fucking troll.
We’ve only really been a democracy for the rich. The founders of this country, the ones who pushed for independence from the British and wrote the Constitution, were all wealthy, white, landowning or business-owning men. Many of them owned slaves. They made this country for people like them, and while things have improved for lots of people since, it’s always been a democracy that benefits the rich over everyone else.
Exactly this. Thank you Kyulen. Progressives need to be able to face how high the hill we need to climb actually is.
Btw, I don’t care one bean about nationalism, and I think getting upset about anybody badmouthing whatever country we happen to get born in (or live in) is moronic.
Yumi, it’s obvious they don’t actually think that’s the issue. They’re upset that someone talked back when they made their worthless little jab at Americans, knowing full well this wasn’t going to be a receptive space for the “none of you are doing enough” bullshit.
I don’t know if that’s what they think people are upset about, but it wouldn’t exactly be the first time they made an embarrassing assumption around these parts, had their wrongness pointed out to them, and then proceeded to pretend they’d actually been misunderstood and had never said anything so wrong, before disappearing from the thread entirely.
Like, if they can’t even admit they were wrong about the nutritional value of potatoes, a completely neutral and fairly minor fact, how can we expect them to admit they were being a thoughtless provocateur at the expense of millions of terrified innocent civilians for the timeless lols of “American sucks”.
Yeah, it does suck, but none of us are denying that, and by the way, Adept? If this is what YOU would have been doing during Hitler’s rise — sitting on the sidelines and mocking the people who were losing their country and increasingly afraid of losing their lives for not fighting back harder? — that’s not exactly something you should be proud of.
If this is a ”foreigners shut up about our politics”, then no, I don’t think I will. That’s the thing about superpower status. What you guys in the states do effects everybody on the planet.
I’m not saying things are great here either. Finland has the most rabidly right wing government of our history. We just had our equivalent of your midterms. It was somewhat encouraging, but not nearly enough.
Thing is, this isn’t some abstract bun fight. We are at a literally critical junction regarding the climate crisis and the biosphere in general, and people are dying daily in Ukraine. Getting butt hurt over comments from outside is not a mature response.
I do what I can to make my country and the world better. I hope you’re doing the same.
No, it’s a “that’s some nice backseat driving there, would you want to be in our position”.
There’s a huge difference between “please don’t say people aren’t doing enough from outside, a lot of us are actually fighting as best we can despite how scary it is” and “shut up”.
I admit to no small amount of chuckling at the expense of the people regretting their choice to willingly put their face in the leopard’s mouth. It’s not like any of this shit was being kept secret, they had every opportunity to figure out what they were really voting for. But hey, I sure hope it was worth losing their jobs, homes, healthcare, and food to get that extra little dig in at brown and queer people. A+ job, morons, ya really owned those libs.
Not me so much. I sympathize with those feelings a lot and I’ve felt some of them too! But a lot of it IS brainwashing, even if not as much as I would like. And every one of them who comes to see that actually these policies are bad and this guy is full of shit is a potential ally.
Doesn’t mean I’ll assume they’ve all completely turned around on everything they were willing to support, certainly doesn’t mean I’ll assume they’re safe people to invite to a big group hang full of people more marginalized than me; in particular, someone who’ll be polite to me (the whitest shade in most makeup companies’ palettes) will not necessarily be remotely polite to anyone who’s less melaninly challenged.
But we are gonna need all the allies we can get, so the ones who are ready to make even the start of a sincere change are gonna get compassion from me, because I’ve got the spoons for that outreach right now, and someone who doesn’t shouldn’t have to do it, but it does need to get done.
Yeah, I guess that’s all pretty fair. Like, if somebody I was talking to genuinely showed real remorse and made it clear they understood the ramifications of how they’d been up to that point, I might be willing to let them hang out after the show. I’d probably still be making fun of their old views, to be perfectly clear they weren’t ever going to be acceptable around me, but yeah, I’d share a table for as long as they were willing to behave.
Also too, I’ve seen it pointed out VERY fairly that the permanent ostracization we’re so tempted to inflict on people is part of how cults function.
You (royal you) gotta show people there’s life after the cult, that they’ll have somewhere to GO if they leave, otherwise they’ll never get out even when they want to.
ALSO: I recognize that “actually only one-fourth” is depressing in several ways all its own, like “the fact is that a full third of America just didn’t bother to vote”.
But not all of those people stayed home out of actual apathy; a lot of them stayed home out of misplaced morality, because they’d been convinced by an active disinformation campaign that a vote for Harris was somehow a vote for genocide, so staying home was the only moral option. And a good chunk of that vote came from literal teenagers.
It’s what Shaun said about 2016. A lot of the non-voters hadn’t seen enough election cycles yet to understand the harsh realities of a two-party system. A lot of them thought that staying home “in protest” would wake the DNC up and make them pick a better candidate next time. A lot of them didn’t understand what there isn’t, in America, such a thing as a protest vote, a sarcastic vote, or a protest non-vote: if you stay home, the Democrats don’t assume you would’ve voted for Bernie Sanders, they just write you off as another non-voter who can’t be counted on to show up, so you aren’t worth trying to appeal to.
There are problems with that strategy, to be sure, but they aren’t problems we’re going to fix by staying home.
(Protest votes do exist in some other countries, but you’ve gotta have a system more like Australia, where voting is mandatory and people protest by writing stuff like “fuck all of them” on the ballot they then cast.) (Otherwise there’s no telling WHY someone didn’t vote! That’s just… the facts.)
One, very detrimental thing I’ve seen worldwide through the years (Non-american here), is that those of us who identify on the left side of the political spectrum (Anywhere from center left to far left) have a sad tendency to dismiss any candidates that aren’t absolutely perfect. We’d rather not vote at all than vote for a candidate that was problematic 10 years ago and has apologized and improved.
The right doesn’t have that issue. They vote for their guy because they’d rather have a flawed and even downright harmful to themselves winner than have the opposition win.
I agree with the basic sentiment, but I think the hyperbole goes past the point of helpfulness. Some of the things that motivate people on the left not to vote are major things, far more than not being “absolutely perfect.” It’s just that usually these are things that the other side isn’t any better about.
Like, when I was a kid, I remember watching a vice presidential debate for a US election. The Republican candidate said something about how he didn’t support the legalization of same-sex marriage, and the Democratic candidate said something like, “On that, we’re in agreement.” And I was like, wow, what a really shitty similarity to hear they have! And I think someone not supporting your equality is a fair thing to take issue with. But not voting here wouldn’t help anything.
For the right, I do think it depends on what the “flaw” of the politician was. I think they will look past a lot of things that would be sticking points for leftists, but they’ll take issue with other things. (Like, if a politician was discovered to be secretly gay in many places, I’m not sure they’d ever be fully embraced again. Here, if a Republican spoke out against Trump and especially hasn’t fallen in line since, MAGA folks will turn on them.)
I also agree with your overall point, but my IMMEDIATE brainwave was about Obama, who also during the debates said that he didn’t support same-sex marriage. He was in favor of civil unions, but keeping the word ‘marriage’ reserved for “one man, one woman”. It was an off-the-cuff remark from Joe Biden later on down the line that kind of forced Obama into actually supporting same-sex marriage.
He was striking what, at the time, seemed to him like the only politically viable answer. And we elected him anyway, thankfully, and then bam! Because we continued to agitate for the right to marriage, and because it was moving forward in other states, and because we had enough liberal judges on the Supreme Court from previous imperfect Democratic presidents (because the last few have all been seriously imperfect)…
Like, you’re right, that moment was unpleasant, whether the Democratic candidate you’re remembering was actually Obama or, like, John Kerry. But we did actually get legal same-sex marriage throughout the country because we elected a series of Democratic presidents who would’ve said “no, I don’t actually support gay marriage” during debates and on the campaign trail, but were still instrumental in it eventually passing.
They don’t get all the credit, of course; we get a good chunk of the credit, too.
But it’s definitely a point kind of on both sides, you know? We’ve made real gains during the presidencies of candidates who were too afraid to verbally support us while they were trying to win the White House.
Sucks being an acceptable loss. Sucks hard. But we’ve still managed to eke out wins under those conditions anyway.
Highlighting that it was a *vice* presidential debate, so not Obama or John Kerry.
The framing of your comment is kind of confusing to me because it seems like you’re trying to offer a contrasting view to my comment, but it’s really more an expansion on what I was saying?
My point was that it is reasonable to be upset by these statements (or by other actions of politicians that are awful but not beyond what the other side would do) but that refraining from voting because of them wouldn’t actually be beneficial, and your comment elaborates on an example of why.
My main point was some empathy with people on the left who don’t want to vote for politicians who treat them or others as acceptable losses– that it goes beyond the candidate just being “less than perfect.” I don’t think refraining from voting is the right approach; I also don’t think “so they’re not perfect” would be a helpful way to discuss the topic with them.
….you know, I preferred two minutes ago when that song’s lyrics were an inspiring story about someone wanting to break down the barriers they put up between themselves and others to protect themselves from heartache. Instead of…being about Joyce desperately needing an orgasm (or wanting to give Dorothy one).
Do you think the knocks are against the lady bits? I would think that would only be polite really, then follow with a proper “Excuse me miss, going to need you to sign for this package” before the event.
It’s clean fun when I do it! I would never make fun of someone’s pubes right after I insisted they shave them into a lightning bolt as I do with all my partners. Seems rude.
I wonder how mad somebody would get if you did that and then refused to stop making Harry Potter references. Like, not even clever ones, just the most surface-level stuff like title drops and character names.
It’s wild to watch Smiling Friends after a decade of watching Zach Hadel’s career. So many bits on that show are things he’s brought up on podcasts and Let’s Plays over the years, like a playlist of his bizarre hypotheticals.
And she’ll be the very first Seatbelts listener that isn’t sweating bullets when someone goes “whoa this stuff is pretty niche and cool, how’d you find them?”
I don’t think “like church music (generally) but secular” is actually the bridge Joyce needs at all.
It might be helpful for someone else, but Joyce has, I thought, been pretty clear on what she was actually looking for: songs she’s already liked for at least a decade, but without any of the negative associations.
There’s a reason why Willis themself has said they replaced Rich Mullens with one specific track from one specific video game, looped and extended to be hours long.
Joyce’s best bet for filling this void is, like, the soundtrack from that one specific Disney movie (or whatever) that her parents let her watch before they (or more specifically, her mom) started Having Problems with Halloween.
Like. She’s asking for a list of secular music her friends like to try, but what she actually wants is music from her childhood that isn’t tainted. Not music that kinda resembles music from her childhood, but ACTUAL music from her childhood.
Well I also didn’t listen to it because you didn’t include a link. I might’ve been morbidly curious enough to click a link, but I definitely wasn’t curious enough to find a link myself.
(I’m right, it’s not the kind of music I enjoy. It’s closer to what I imagined Rich Mullens sounds like, but as noted above I don’t actually think “CLOSE to what I liked when I was younger” is what Joyce wants either.)
Only by flagrantly breaking the “homogenous texture only” rule. The wing itself is a single ingredient, so that qualifies. Is sauce too messy? Would she only eat them plain with ketchup?
Do we know if she likes fried chicken? Has that ever come up? (i mean, _i_ like fried chicken. with both regular breading and kfc-style herbs-and-spices too)
I know there’s a joke others are gonna comment, but I cannot stress enough how correct Dorothy is here. Vagina owners PLEASE do not use soap directly in there. If it smells sweet; ya likely got a yeast infection or UTI. Warm water for cleaning is always fine
She’s not as obtuse or innocent as people perceive her to be. Remembering all of her plans regarding Jacob, she’s definitely capable of subterfuge and seduction.
Maybe her end game is to be a throuple like Mandy Sierra and…. Amanda…? Other Rachel…? I cannot recall off hand. Either way, Joyce has a track record of overcompensating for her prior ignorance.
I have to admit, I would be curious about Joe’s reaction to Joyce wanting a throuple. Old-joe would probably be all for it (hoping that he might have his ‘threesome’) but new-Joe might be a bit put off by it, being all interested in an actual relationship and upset with the idea that Joyce wants “more” than him.
But, maybe he might still go for it if he thinks it would make Joyce happy. (I am thinking of the coming “something Positive’ where one of the main characters (Davan) is married to a woman who is bi, but earlier in the relationship he he seemed to be ok if she was with other women.)
I… don’t think she does. I think she knows that she is messing with Dotty, but just like yesterday’s comic, I don’t think Joyce is aware of Dotty’s feelings towards her on anything except maybe some nebulous deep-seeded and very nebulous and undefined level. If she knew Dotty’s feelings in an articulate way, knowingly teasing her like this would require her to dismiss or minimize Dotty’s feelings to some degree. It would be basically saying “its no big deal”, and I do not believe Joyce would see Dotty’s feelings that way. I could be wrong, but I don’t see Joyce’s behavior as anything but unaware of Dotty’s feelings.
Regardless of her reaction, she *definitely* would not be this nonchalant about it. Right now, Dorothy is still just her closest friend who acting a little bit weird, but there’s bigger things to worry about. Like can one be *too* fresh?
I get the feeling she started to suspect something and Joe and her had an off panel conversation about the titty picture that’s putting some pieces together. Either that or she’s just really enjoying sexual innuendo for the first time in her life.
No I mean he must have told her Dorothy likes her and Joyce is just teasing. Unless she’s just really naive about personal hygiene. Ladies and vagina havers is shoving soap up your hoo hah okay? I would assume most vag owners know if that’s okay. I’d expect Joyce to know. If a penis haver asked me if it’s okay to put soap in your dick hole I’d assume they were fucking with me.
Trust me, it’s very possible that some vag owners might not realize whether it’s okay or not. Douching used to be a big thing (my mom had one for example) but that knowledge definitely isn’t passed down much generationally and so you have some people who may assume you’re supposed to scrub and douche as frequently down there as you do your body. I for one just do as Queen Anthei says and just do a little once over with warm water. It’s self-cleaning, so long as the PH is alright.
Okay, we’re not just talking about shoving soap up there. The interior of the vagina is a much wider area than the urethra. Like you can’t put a finger in your urethra to gently rub it with soapy water. You can with your vagina– but you shouldn’t. And if you’ve been in a space that treat knowledge about your vagina as forbidden for most of your life, very easy for you to not have thought about this! And if no one else has come near your vagina before, you probably have new worries about how it might be perceived now that it’s relevant– but again, soap is not the answer.
I am not convinced that Joe would know that Dorothy has a crush on Joyce.
We can see it because we get multiple views from a gods-eye perspective. But Dorothy was a bit “hostile” to Joe’s relationship to Joyce (because even he would say he was a sleaze before) so any signals Dorothy might be sending would be over-ridden by that hostility.
I can see Carol telling Joyce to never touch your vulva except for wiping after peeing because it’s too close to masturbation. My guess is Joyce know basically zero about that area of personal hygiene
Vagina havers being taught anything about their vaginas other than “don’t touch it, that’s for your future husband to go in and future babies to rip out of” is pretty new. I didn’t learn about the no-soap thing until I was fully grown, it’s likely that many vagina owners have the same experience and many do not.
Sex education can be heinously wrong or missing all together, parental interest in educating their kid about vaginal hygiene might be lacking or intentionally missing due to belief systems, and research into that portion of the world’s anatomy is notoriously lacking until very recently.
My parents weren’t shy about sex ed, but I still never learned about not using soap. I don’t know if my mom just forgot to tell me because she assumed it would be common sense, or did not know herself.
There are WHOLE PRODUCT LINES that would not exist if some people with vulvas weren’t being successfully convinced to use them. Commercials about feeling “not so fresh” were definitely still a thing in the 90s when I was growing up, less sure nowadays (I don’t watch cable or anything with traditional commercials anymore).
The vagina is lined in a a mucous membrane with a delicate, important microbiome on it, so nothing goes up there but warm water (and warm pretty-much-just-saline-tbh, and non-flavored lubes). However, sex ed and genital-care ed in the US is horrific, and there are a fair number of products that exist entirely to be sold under false claims and the idea that the natural smell of the vagina is shameful and gross and needs to be gotten rid of. So there are a solid number of vagina owners who don’t know they aren’t supposed to be putting all that up there.
Not sure how well that plays out, Joyce not that long ago had another best friend with the gay panic over her and it ended with Becky crying out of her room.
…I don’t necessarily think that this is a PLAUSIBLE direction (in particular I’m not sure the timeline works for Joe to have told Joyce about his conversation with Dorothy, and for that matter I’m not sure I believe Joe WOULD tell her and thus violate Dorothy’s privacy), but this strip suddenly has me thinking Joyce Already Knows and this really is all some sort of elaborate set-up to help ease her into things or something like that. Again, I don’t actually think that’s what’s happening? It’s just A Vibe I’m getting.
…
…unless it somehow turns out i’m right in which case i will absolutely claim this post as proof I Knew All Along.
I don’t know if he did tell her but Joe had plenty of time to. They had a whole lunch that Jennifer bailed on to chat about it. Also not sure if Joe cares about Dorothy’s privacy either. They’re not really close friends or anything. She more of a rival now.
Did you read that scene with Joe & Dorothy? He didn’t treat her as a rival! He was very proud of himself for “doing an empathy”. Would be kind of weird to immediately undercut that very sweet moment for him.
Also we see Joe & Joyce walking out of the cafeteria talking about the situation with Jennifer & Alice. I guess Joe could’ve told Joyce about her best friend having a crush on her really quick & then switch topic to Joyce being a good wingwoman, I just don’t think it’s likely.
Could she have texted Joe during class?
She definitely had the recognition of Dorothy’s horny face at the beginning of Robin’s class and probably put two and two together. She had been processing Dorothy’s down shirt pics immediately before lunch, and had was then told by Jennifer that you can bang your best friend without messing up a relationship.
I also don’t think she asked him about it at lunch, except maybe as an aside. I think the timeline only works if she texted him during the class.
I agree that Joe wouldn’t want to out Dorothy. But I also don’t think Joe would lie – or even waffle – to Joyce if asked directly.
With the personalities involved, I could see Joyce asking Joe about the possibility of hooking up with Dorothy, and him empathetically agreeing that it could make sense.
But seriously, respect your body’s boundaries. We scrub our skin with soap because it’s covered in keratin and has a pH of 5, and even that is delicate.
I wish Dorothy told her why instead of (or at least, before) threatening. Joyce is a lot more likely to listen if she knows it could mean problems with her (scrolls up) “up there,” not to mention extra gyno appointments.
She explained it for 20 minutes, between panels. Joyce is smiling because Dorothy confessed her attraction during that time and Joyce accepted the confession while letting Dorothy down extra gently.
Um, I’ll make chlorine gas in my Minnesota mineshaft if I want to? Don’t kink shame me, and besides that I’ll have you know my boyfriend loves to roleplay as a beleaguered miner, with his dick painted yellow like a canary.
Dorothy’s credibility on sex ed dropped down a lot when she advised Joyce to pee BEFORE and after sex/masturbation. (there’s no reason to do it before) (also why the hell was she telling Joyce to pee after non-penetrative masturbation? useless)
Here’s she’s making the same mistake as before: saying the thing one should do without explaining why.
Sex ed tips are not magic charms to ward off the eye of evil: they come from evidence-based medicine and there’s an explanation that goes with each of them. I wish Dorothy would give the reason instead of taking the “because I said so, trust me” attitude.
I remember reading through “The Joy of Sex”. (The original version, the one that used drawings of hippies that looked like they were sketched at woodstock.)
It mentioned that some people (not all, but a few) actually get pleasure/have a fetish for having sex with a full bladder. (Hey, not my thing, but there are a lot of fetishes there that don’t quite make sense to me.)
There are some people (largely those with vulvas) whose bits are set up in such a way that a full bladder can help press on things, which can feel physically good. That’s not a kink thing, that’s a plain ol’ “this is stimulating some nerves really nicely” thing. There are /also/ people who have kinks either around the idea of a full bladder and potentially around the theoretical denial of being allowed to empty it, and/or around pee itself. Those don’t necessarily overlap.
…Not having to pee during.
That part’s probably obvious– likely don’t want to stop to go urinate or be distracted by the sensation during.
For those new AFAB folks to orgasms (and possibly those experienced, this was just mostly covered in introductory stuff), a building orgasm can feel like having to pee. Because a major roadblock to orgasms can be having a hard time relaxing enough or getting in your head about things, knowing you peed shortly beforehand can be helpful in navigating these sensations.
Fun fact, if your body and brain don’t communicate about this shit effectively the beginning stages of having to pee can often feel kinda similar to your body being turned on in contexts that seem like they might go a sexy direction, probably for the same reasons. It is very annoying to say to your partner “hey I think if you wanna fuck that might be feasible right now” only to discover that the cuddles were nice but actually you just mildly needed to piss.
…I would love to know if this has ever been a problem for anyone who isn’t ace. Like I imagine if actually getting turned on prompts desire more directly and vice versa this isn’t really a thing. But maybe I’m wrong! One must wonder what the lives of normal people are like.
I can’t speak for normal people, but I’ve experienced exactly the sensation you described. It can get pretty frustrating, In The Moment™, and I’ve had it go several very annoying ways. Especially irritating is when my partner is definitively ready to go but I’m just not after pissing, even though I could have fucked my way out of a steel boulder just prior.
I guess I put that in the “well duh” category in the sense one should pee before any physically strenuous activity, not just sex. You’re correct, but Dorothy still gave the wrong reason.
points at this. And as someone wi a vagina I can say unlike penis’ theres no. Shall we say delicately. Shut down that means you CANT pee while aroused. Its harder to do. But it can happen, and it can SURE AS HELL happen AFTER when you’re REALLY RELAXED from being REALLY TENSE and had a big unusual body clench motion happen.
Only if your current significant other and you have already discussed and agreed upon adding another person into your polycule. Proper communication is crucial for healthy ‘cules.
I mean it’s a fair point that it’s often more accurate to say people with vulvas or vaginas. In this case it might’ve been most accurate to say “certain plumbing configurations”, because it’s a question of what the urethra is doing. Or isn’t doing, heh.
There’re shorter ways of saying it, but they get less and less accurate, and it’s definitely fair of both post-op folks and intersex people to be frustrated with AGAB terminology being used in this instance.
I do think it’s a fair point; in this case, I’m not sure “people with vulvas/vaginas” would be more accurate because my information is based on perisex people who have not had bottom surgery, and its not meant to refer to experiences of all those in that category– it *can* feel that way for some, but doesn’t for all. “Certain plumbing configurations” could be part but might need more to not be overly vague.
I do agree that AFAB =/= someone who has a vagina, and my comment was leaning in to the use of this general shorthand, which I apologize for.
There’s a reason to pee before, it’s just not UTIs. (Though that was a very very common myth, and I don’t blame either Willis or Dorothy for believing it, tbqh.)
I also think there’s just a limit to how much dialogue one can reasonably expect to be spent on explaining the technicalities of something like that in what’s essentially a newspaper-format strip.
I offer that Dorothy has a reoccurring habit of trying to be more well informed than she actually is. Especially when it comes to more personal topics. This happened when Danny came out as bi, when Joyce learned she’s likely autistic, she’ll quote things she likely read online, so yeah maybe she just got it wrong.
I realized it during the Joyce’s-atheism-outed story. Dorothy’s advice is medium quality and she doesn’t know it. I don’t know if that was Willis’ intention from the start and I didn’t pick up on it until this semester, or if the way they conceptualize the characters has changed that much.
Like when Danny’s reaction to her advice when he came out as bi. Was how he reacted in this chapter how Willis thought about her advice when writing the original strip?
Either way, Dorothy’s a more interesting and sympathetic character now.
If you didn’t know, it’s no different ethically than if you fucked your crush. If you did know, it’s maybe ethical, but at least a little messed up. If you summoned the doppelganger, that’s not ethical, that’s like magical deep-fake shit.
If it’s your doppelganger, like I first read, then there’s no ethical dilemma.
Took me a moment to understand why Dorothy said Joyce she shouldn’t use soap “up there”, wondering why she wouldn’t want Joyce’s face to smell nice, then it finally clicked.
Would’ve clicked faster if Joyce had said “down there” instead, though.
She doesn’t mean “down there” though. A little bit of external soap in the general region would be okay (as long as you don’t overdo it). She means inside, which is why Dorothy became so much more strident: do NOT, under any circumstances.
Do it, Dorothy! Just for be sure. Looks like Joyce is having a lot of fun talking with her best friend. Maybe even more than usual… suspiciously more than usual.
All the Joyce Looks she’s given Dorothy lately tells me that Joe told her and she’s trying to keep it friendly but there’s an obvious realization on the edges of her brain.
“My best friend is in love with me and I know but she doesn’t know I know and how do I keep our relationship the same when it’s so obviously changed drastically” is some peak ass college, ngl.
Not to mention only a couple hours ago Joyce was told by Jennifer (who she trusts to Know About Such Things) that you can bang your best friend at least once without changing the relationship.
If that’s where Joyce is mentally, and she DOESN’T want anything to change between them or to give Dorothy ideas, “come show me how to have sex” was a novel response.
While those habits do die hard (personal experience), Joyce has been seen contemplating polyamory on panel since at least before the time skip.
And one thing we know about Joyce is that when she makes a decision that something is the right choice, she goes all in.
Either Joyce is still largely oblivious to Dorothy’s feelings towards her, or she had actually been aware for a VERY long time. In hind sight, it is suspicious how little of Joyce’s reaction or processing of the boob selfies we actually saw, which leaves the wiggle room needed for these alternate theories. But i think this is just DW being DW. I find it very unlikely that Joyce is about to drop some Bond Villain-level reveal. The more likely and realistic (to me) explanation is that Joyce is still in the dark about Dorothy’s feelings, and all these looks and jokes she is making are surface teasing. That her jokes work on the unintended deeper layer is also DW being DW.
As someone who pays to see tomorrow’s strip, I’ll be a dickhead and confirm your theory. Yes, tomorrow we will see Joyce and Dorothy dressed up like 1973 Chicago street toughs, in a filthy alley, cutting up Gilligan of ‘s Island fame while they quote the intro to the show in menacing ways. In their defense, he was making the mugging difficult and needed to be taught a little lesson. He’ll live.
Explain dot, please. If anything at least tell her it’ll smell worse if you use soap in there :/ if joyce don’t like her own regular, mild cooch smells she is NOT ready for a yeast infection or BV
I can’t tell if Joyce’s expression in panel 6 is “Joe said you were crushing, but man you are just confirming it” or “*butthead laugh* heh, you said ‘come in there’.”
I’m guessing Joyce isn’t aware. She is reveling in her hanky pankyness and a playing with an idea that she considers funny. Lots of subtext floating around but it remains unexamined by Joyce.
She and Sarah have a bit of a running joke at this point. There’s more examples but more than 3 links gets moderated lol.
* I don’t think Joe would say anything more than “you should ask Dorothy what’s been bothering her”, honestly. Not after the conversation he had with her. Whatever some of the commentariat might feel about Dorothy, Joe seemed nothing but empathetic.
It might be different if JOE thought the photo had been an actual deliberate play for Joyce, or if he thought it counted as cheating the way some of the readers seem to; but I’d say he clearly doesn’t, so.
But whether or not it would be within his rights to tell Joyce, I can’t imagine he’d feel like it was.
Honestly I don’t think he’d even give Joyce a nudge to talk to Dorothy without more prompting. For example, if he noticed her looking miserable during group hangouts, or if Joyce told him she was worried about Dorothy?
Right or wrong, I think Joe currently feels like Dorothy’s feelings (and her sexuality) aren’t his business, and I don’t think he’d want to out her to anyone.
I think it’d be different if he saw the picture and then talked to Joyce about it before going to Dorothy– “I think Dorothy might seriously have a crush on you” seems to me like it’d be fair to say in that case. (I do prefer the approach he went with, though.) If he came away from his conversation with Dorothy feeling like she had been making a deliberate play for Joyce, I still think the topic of a following conversation with Joyce should focus on deliberate discussion about what the bounds of cheating are in their relationship, which wouldn’t require outing Dorothy to her.
I think Joyce figured it out all on her own at the beginning of class, or a little bit earlier, and I think Joe would be okay with verifying what Joyce asked him about directly.
Dorothy was literally biting her lip while looking into Joyce’s eyes. She’s a pretty smart cookie. And she’s fond of shenanigans.
But I don’t think she would have begun shenanigans without discussing it with Joe first – they recently had frank discussions about relationship boundaries after the party where Joe was sober.
I go back and forth on it myself! The kinda-smirky panel here definitely is a potential “Joyce Knows” panel.
Honestly the MAIN thrust of my comment should’ve been “Joe didn’t tell her”.
I still lean “she doesn’t know”, but I have admitted elsewhere that the only reason I could see for Willis not to show us Joyce actually figuring it out on-panel would be to subvert expectations here by having Joyce fully aware of and playing into Dorothy’s crush for purposes of (flirty) shenanigans.
…but if she’s not planning on telling Dorothy “I know and it’s okay, I like you too”, then I can’t imagine she’s doing all of this on purpose, because it starts to get a little mean.
So yeah: back and forth.
I think either Joyce DOESN’T know but DOES think “gay stuff with Dorothy” is a harmless source of self-deprecating teasing, OR Joyce DOES know….. and is trying to get Dorothy to tell her through gentle flirting, with plans to tell Dorothy the feeling’s mutual (but, as Taffy put it a day or so ago, “tonight’s all about Joe, so hold that thought”).
(Also, yeah, in this scenario, Joe has been looped in and is already on board.) (If anything THAT big happened off-panel, Willis will certainly do flashbacks so that we can watch it happen.)
What I don’t think could be the case: Joe told Joyce and/or Joyce knows, doesn’t return Dorothy’s feelings, and is still teasing her like this on purpose.
Oh, like, accidentally outing Dorothy because he was sure Joyce knew? Yeah, that could happen. :|a I think he’d be at least as careful as Ethan was wrt Jocelyne, but as that scene proves, being careful doesn’t always prevent a thing from happening, haha.
I’m assuming Joyce’s expression in the second-to-last panel is her finding Dorothy’s phrasing kinda funny. I doubt she knows about Dorothy’s feelings for her.
Dear god Joyce, how bad was your sex ed that that was even a question? I say as though my own sex ed on the subject wasn’t from people on the internet saying not to do that.
She had no sex ed. She was homeschooled. I imagine her parents never even brought up the subject other than to say that even thinking about discussing the topic would mean you’re a hussy.
The closest thing USA “education” gets to sex ed is telling kids about all the diseases and the nightmares of pregnancy, and a stern warning “Don’t do it! Unless you’re married! And even THEN, don’t do anything you might enjoy!”
I think Joyce is getting ready for sex with Dorothy. She’s already spent a night of hanky panky with Joe. Joe knows Dorothy has the hots for Joyce. Joe is openminded about sex, and may actually the idea of Joyce getting it on with Dorothy appealing. My guess at this point is that Joe told Joyce, told her to go for it, and this is Joyce getting Dorothy to help her get sexy for Dorothy.
I really don’t get how people think Joe is open minded about sex. He’s got a trauma response where he’s so afraid of hurting people that he refused to ever get in a real relationship because he didn’t want to hurt people like his dad hurt his mom. He used sex as band aide for his loneliness and his attitude as a 80’s jock horndog was a cover.
He would let joyce find her happiness with dottie, but it would break his heart, and he’d probably never open up again, and would probably revert into 80’s horndog mode forever.
Joe has trauma connected to hurting people like how his Dad hurt his Mom. He did create a facade to cope. He still really likes sex and is more open to the mechanics of relationships than Joyce by virtue of less moral indoctrination. What’s got him tense nowadays is not monogamy, but combining actual emotional investment in a relationship with sex. I honestly could be seeing things that aren’t there because it’d be fun to see them, but I certainly don’t think Joe is close-minded about sex.
Okay, I was agreeing with you until “He’d probably never open up again.” He’s an adult, he’s shown enormous growth over the last year, he can handle a little heartbreak without reverting into a sex-crazed misogynist.
I could not possibly disagree more. I do not see any reason why you would think Joe would be open-minded about sex, especially with somebody who he’s actually in love with like Joyce.
And unless I missed something, they did NOT have a “night of hanky panky”, they slept in the same bed and she, while he slept, touched his junk. She specifically states that she is un-hankypankied and thats what this prep is for.
I think that if Joyce and Dorothy did do anything it would break Joe.
I think you could make an argument for the handjob (which did get its own pornographique of some description, though I don’t think it took a whole night…), but Joyce definitely doesn’t count that as hankypankying her.
OK, nobody, NOBODY can tell me Joyce didn’t catch that double-entendre and wasn’t going to say anything. She may be autistic, innocent and naive, but she’s heard enough “That’s what she said!” jokes by now, hasn’t she?
I’m just confused at the point of the comment– like, I didn’t read all the comments, but I didn’t see anyone saying that. Was someone saying that? Otherwise it just seems kind of odd. (And I don’t love the way autistic was thrown in if it’s not in response to something, but that might be a personal issue.)
also I feel I should stress, all I was trying to do was make a self-deprecating joke about the comment section being too big to read. (I’m at like 33 comments myself here.
Loading ...
don’t give yourself a yeast infection Joyce @-@
She already finds menstrual cramps to be painful. She ain’t gonna like either YI or UTI. :O
She has dysmenorrhea, her cramps are actually terrible half the time, that’s why she got B.C.
It’s not that she “finds” menstrual cramps to be painful, it’s that her menstrual cramps are actually abnormally painful. That has nothing to do with how she would handle the pain of a UTI.
You’re educating the stoned avatar of Pikachu. Just breathe, friend.
Dysmenorrhea (painful cramps) can honestly get to be WAY worse than the other two.
Trust me on this.
She finds them painful because, for her, they ARE. Normal menstrual cramps aren’t that bad, but a solid 10% of people with uteruses have endometriosis, and there are plenty of other causes of abnormally painful menstruation. Unfortunately people don’t tend to know that isn’t normal, either because pop culture has convinced them that periods are supposed to be that painful or because they think they’re just being a wimp about it.
Ugh! Yeah, just the idea of what she’s suggesting is just awful.
Would you put soap in your mouth, Joyce? Cause what you’re suggesting is far worse.
Dotty, I think you might have to throw yourself on this grenade.
And by grenade, I mean Joyce’s vulva.
So what you’re saying is, she should use toothpaste.
*Le me tries to run off before that mental image registers in my own brain*
Well you don’t want cavities in your vagina dentata
Why did I read that like “hakuna matata”?
“Vagina dentata, what a wonderful phrase” is a very old and fondly regarded internet joke
For anyone who’s missed it:
http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040121.html
Huh. Was not familiar with that comic.
I have sung the Vagina Dentata song though, so must have been some cultural osmosis at some point.
Mmm, I do miss me some QoW.
@Rose by Any Other Name, the QoW archive is a great way to spend a few hours
I mean, is toothpaste not just flavoured soap for the mouth?
Very least, most types have active fluoridation to help re-mineralize teeth.
that’s what we’re all waiting for. ~<3
I sincerely hope she will NOT even spray water in there or anything…
Also don’t put any soap in your butt.
Trust me.
I mean, yeah don’t put it deep in there, but it’s totally fine to wash the first few cm with a bit of soap suds or body wash.
With all the truth in the world, you can even stick the whole shower head up there and spray the whole thing spotless, and a little washing-up liquid won’t cause a bit of harm.
I defer to your expertise.
I gotta see a doctor. Ain’t no way a shower head is fitting up mine. Didn’t even know they were meant to. Hopefully it’s not too late in life to fix that.
Get well soon from your future butt surgery.
Back in high school, a friend was absolutely fascinated with gay male sex. Being unable to have any herself, she ordered a VHS gay porn from a catalog she’d found. Among the truly awful things in this particular video, there was a scene where a shower head was inserted into a butt. Bad enough on its own, it became much worse when upon removal the guy who had done the inserting then placed his mouth behind the butt to catch the stream of water coming back out.
A gay friend and heteroflexible me were in the room. We were both horrified at pretty much everything in the video. Meanwhile our friend who had ordered the video was just absolutely fascinated with the whole thing. We had to explain to her that no, most of that was not actually commonly done. Any thoughts of giving her a live demo were out the window after seeing the video, we were that squicked.
Second hand horror here.
Another good example why people should not try to learn _anything_ about sex from porn.
In fact, this is how you do certain types of sex.
you either have a very narrow showerhead, or a very loose colon
…Unless that’s what you like.
Oh, Joyce. A little soap can absolutely hurt.
Oh god yes. “How bad could it be to use hand soap for this?”
Turns out, feels like you lit your pubes with a lighter bad!
I am reminded of every. single. review. mentioning “oh hey, don’t use Dr Bronner’s on your genitals, TRUST ME”.
Or that Lava Soap everyone was using in 2003. Or Zep Cherry Bomb. Or Colgate. Or LorAnn candy flavoring. None of them are safe to use.
But Ivory is fine for male genitals. I used it as masturbation lube in the bath as a kid.
If you’re curious: The difference is that a penis is covered with external skin, and a vaginal canal is a mucous membrane with a unique bacterial ecosystem and very specific pH requirements.
The head of the penis is an exposed gland, which is why circumcision is such a body horror idea to me. That kind of ritual mutilation is just horrific, not matter how normalised it’s become in many places.
“Behold, I, Paul say unto you that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.” – Galatians 5:2 (King James Version)
Was Paul the one who sent some guy on a fetch quest for like 20 foreskins?
I looked it up, it was Saul, and he asked David for 100. David brought back 200, I guess just to prove a point.
You appear to have been misled by the similarity between the word “gland” and the word “glans”. It is decidedly not a gland.
That’s the glans. Not glan/d/s. Remember, the bit covered by the foreskin can usually be (mostly) exposed by manipulating a still-attached foreskin. It is meant to be exposed to the air (and other things) to some extent. It’s not just raw flesh or organ.
Thanks for that description. For a brief moment, I understood how asexuals feel.
Right, because the penis is covered in skin, and is not a mucous membrane with a delicately balanced biome of microorganisms.
Once, cleaning my toothbrush, a tiny bit of toothpaste flew onto my eyeball.
Zero stars. Would not again.
*blink*
That’s only happened to you ONCE??
Once again, I am doing it wrong.
Or whatever soap I was using when I was maybe 4 years old in the bathtub and first learning this lesson.
Huh. Who could this person be? :O
OK. Purely out of scientific curiosity: is there any kind of hygiene product that is appropriate to use “there”? Or does it have to be just water, like Dorothy says?
There are some that are safe, but the truth is that vaginas are self-cleaning and your vulva only needs warm water because it’s a mucous membrane. Soap strips away necessary protections and can create a perfect environment for bacteria to thrive in the dark, damp space (a bacteria’s favorite home).
Some smell is normal (become familiar with your natural healthy smell throughout your cycle if you are the owner of a vagina) but if it’s so bad you really feel like you NEED to get something up inside it… go to a doctor instead because you may be noticing the start of an infection, a trapped tampon, or other imbalance and need meds/assistance.
Planned Parenthood is a good option if you’re worried about expense. Sorry to those who live somewhere those have been shuttered
100%
A safe, medical grade body lotion can be ok if used in moderation.
I see. Thank you guys for the info!
Internally, no, just water. For the external-but-somewhat-protected bits, lotion is fine, but no actual cleaning products. For the external bits that are all covered in hair, regular (gentle) soap is fine.
I realised at this late stage that the comic is moving towards ”vulva washing” territory.
As a Nordic bloke I cringe any time ”douching” is referenced. There is so much hate and misinformation towards the female body in the the US, and the usual snake oil salesmen.
About half of us regret our ignorance-peddling, patriarchal, and puritanical cultural founders. About a third of us continue to perpetuate the old, antisocial, and regressive practices.
Currently the US is like a horrific multi car pile-up on the highway that just keeps escalating.
I’m spending a lot of time following US politics. The collapse of the 248 year old Republic effects everybody on the planet. I hope you manage to stop becoming the 4th Reich.
When you put the number right there, it puts into perspective how fucking young the USA is.
It’s pretty old for a continuous form of government, though. France, for example, has been through 5 republics, 3 monarchies, 2 empires, and a fascist dictatorship in the time the US has been using the Constitution.
It was the oldest, still running democracy. I think that democracy died when Trump’s second term started.
It was far from perfect, and occasionally absolutely horrificic (genocide and repeated betrayal of treaties with the native population, overthrowing and annexing the kingdom of Hawaii, subjugating the Philippines…. etc.
Lots of horror and atrocity, but even so the death of the Republic is a tragedy.
That’s bullshit quitter talk. I’m sick to death of everyone rolling the fuck over and just letting themselves die because resistance might be a bit of a bother on such a nice and lazy Tuesday when the breeze is just right. If you’re not an American and you’re not actively aiding the fight, politely, keep your head up your ass where it belongs. If you’re an American, stop giving up just because it’s hard. My mom didn’t raise me to be a quitter, and if yours did she was a shitty fuckin’ mom.
That’s the Royal You, of course, unless you’re feeling personally attacked by it, in which case either come to my house and fucking fight me IRL or stay silent like a good little drone and let the real Americans do your fighting for you.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Trump winning a second term, and evertything that has happened since tells a very different story Taffy. Those in the US now know the answer to the question ”What would you have done when Hitler got into power”.
Prove me wrong. It will make me very happy.
Wow, I would’ve been less polite if I’d read this first. On what planet is talking about us in the past-tense supposed to be encouraging anyone to fight????
By far the biggest opposition leftists are running up against in our own circles is this doomer attitude like it’s already over and we might as well lie down to die, and the fact that you both don’t know that and think “everything that’s happened” since the election shows no one in America is fighting at all is just…
And then you ALSO acknowledge how close your own most recent election brought you to being in the same position?!
I cannot follow your logic here at all. What kind of abusive drill sergeant ass motivational technique is this supposed to be.
And no, it’s not your job to motivate us, but you claim to hope we turn things around, so why would you want to demotivate us. It’s completely inscrutable and frankly infuriating.
I, meanwhile, was heartened yesterday by this post about how at the very least America’s fascist turn has motivated a lot of other countries around the world to fight harder against their OWN burgeoning far-right parties. It’s cold comfort right now, but I shared this link while literally saying to my partner, “way to go, everywhere else!”
I am not your imagined selfish American who doesn’t care about the rest of the world and isn’t painfully aware that our horrible mistake affects everyone else. I’m fuckin’ relieved for your sakes that so many of you are avoiding disaster because of our horrible example.
But I’m also still terrified pretty much every day, and all I am asking for from people on the outside is not to be smug assholes about what we’re going through. I don’t think that’s too much, but maybe it is for you.
Adept, you’re not doing anything but looking at the person who’s already tied up under the bus and whining at me for not lifting it with the one finger I can wiggle. Everything you’ve said about this topic is less than worthless. I’m doing what I can, ya foreign crybaby.
No Li, not ”close to the same position”. The US very vulnerable due to the de-facto two-party system. In my country we dealing with nasty cuts to social security, disinformation and coddling the richest 5%. We aren’t in danger of losing our actual democracy.
From over here it looks much more like the biggest danger to the US is how few people actually accept how dangerous a time this is. I’m not suggesting anybody give up, I have said nothing like that.
What I’m saying is ”we’ll get them in the midterms” is still thinking this is just democracy as usual. Heck, I hope I’m wrong and you guys are right.
You are both willfully misunderstanding and misrepresenting what I wrote however, so I’ll leave it at this. Rather archtypically rude, but not surprising at all, I’m afraid. Circular firing squad and all that.
Complaining at the people who are actually noticing the problem is pointless, and everyone knows that. You are not entitled to unconditional politeness when you go out of your way to shit-talk people who are doing their best, you fucking troll.
We’ve only really been a democracy for the rich. The founders of this country, the ones who pushed for independence from the British and wrote the Constitution, were all wealthy, white, landowning or business-owning men. Many of them owned slaves. They made this country for people like them, and while things have improved for lots of people since, it’s always been a democracy that benefits the rich over everyone else.
Exactly this. Thank you Kyulen. Progressives need to be able to face how high the hill we need to climb actually is.
Btw, I don’t care one bean about nationalism, and I think getting upset about anybody badmouthing whatever country we happen to get born in (or live in) is moronic.
How are you thinking that’s what people are upset about. Holy shit.
Yumi, it’s obvious they don’t actually think that’s the issue. They’re upset that someone talked back when they made their worthless little jab at Americans, knowing full well this wasn’t going to be a receptive space for the “none of you are doing enough” bullshit.
I don’t know if that’s what they think people are upset about, but it wouldn’t exactly be the first time they made an embarrassing assumption around these parts, had their wrongness pointed out to them, and then proceeded to pretend they’d actually been misunderstood and had never said anything so wrong, before disappearing from the thread entirely.
Like, if they can’t even admit they were wrong about the nutritional value of potatoes, a completely neutral and fairly minor fact, how can we expect them to admit they were being a thoughtless provocateur at the expense of millions of terrified innocent civilians for the timeless lols of “American sucks”.
Yeah, it does suck, but none of us are denying that, and by the way, Adept? If this is what YOU would have been doing during Hitler’s rise — sitting on the sidelines and mocking the people who were losing their country and increasingly afraid of losing their lives for not fighting back harder? — that’s not exactly something you should be proud of.
Holy shit, Li.
Heh, thanks Taffy.
What are the remaining sixth doing?
Not enough.
That’s some nice backseat driving. Wanna trade countries and show us how it’s done?
If this is a ”foreigners shut up about our politics”, then no, I don’t think I will. That’s the thing about superpower status. What you guys in the states do effects everybody on the planet.
I’m not saying things are great here either. Finland has the most rabidly right wing government of our history. We just had our equivalent of your midterms. It was somewhat encouraging, but not nearly enough.
Thing is, this isn’t some abstract bun fight. We are at a literally critical junction regarding the climate crisis and the biosphere in general, and people are dying daily in Ukraine. Getting butt hurt over comments from outside is not a mature response.
I do what I can to make my country and the world better. I hope you’re doing the same.
No, it’s a “that’s some nice backseat driving there, would you want to be in our position”.
There’s a huge difference between “please don’t say people aren’t doing enough from outside, a lot of us are actually fighting as best we can despite how scary it is” and “shut up”.
Survival paralysis, I think.
It’s not a third. He was elected by more like one-fourth of the population, and a bunch of them already regret it.
I admit to no small amount of chuckling at the expense of the people regretting their choice to willingly put their face in the leopard’s mouth. It’s not like any of this shit was being kept secret, they had every opportunity to figure out what they were really voting for. But hey, I sure hope it was worth losing their jobs, homes, healthcare, and food to get that extra little dig in at brown and queer people. A+ job, morons, ya really owned those libs.
Not me so much. I sympathize with those feelings a lot and I’ve felt some of them too! But a lot of it IS brainwashing, even if not as much as I would like. And every one of them who comes to see that actually these policies are bad and this guy is full of shit is a potential ally.
Doesn’t mean I’ll assume they’ve all completely turned around on everything they were willing to support, certainly doesn’t mean I’ll assume they’re safe people to invite to a big group hang full of people more marginalized than me; in particular, someone who’ll be polite to me (the whitest shade in most makeup companies’ palettes) will not necessarily be remotely polite to anyone who’s less melaninly challenged.
But we are gonna need all the allies we can get, so the ones who are ready to make even the start of a sincere change are gonna get compassion from me, because I’ve got the spoons for that outreach right now, and someone who doesn’t shouldn’t have to do it, but it does need to get done.
Yeah, I guess that’s all pretty fair. Like, if somebody I was talking to genuinely showed real remorse and made it clear they understood the ramifications of how they’d been up to that point, I might be willing to let them hang out after the show. I’d probably still be making fun of their old views, to be perfectly clear they weren’t ever going to be acceptable around me, but yeah, I’d share a table for as long as they were willing to behave.
Also too, I’ve seen it pointed out VERY fairly that the permanent ostracization we’re so tempted to inflict on people is part of how cults function.
You (royal you) gotta show people there’s life after the cult, that they’ll have somewhere to GO if they leave, otherwise they’ll never get out even when they want to.
ALSO: I recognize that “actually only one-fourth” is depressing in several ways all its own, like “the fact is that a full third of America just didn’t bother to vote”.
But not all of those people stayed home out of actual apathy; a lot of them stayed home out of misplaced morality, because they’d been convinced by an active disinformation campaign that a vote for Harris was somehow a vote for genocide, so staying home was the only moral option. And a good chunk of that vote came from literal teenagers.
It’s what Shaun said about 2016. A lot of the non-voters hadn’t seen enough election cycles yet to understand the harsh realities of a two-party system. A lot of them thought that staying home “in protest” would wake the DNC up and make them pick a better candidate next time. A lot of them didn’t understand what there isn’t, in America, such a thing as a protest vote, a sarcastic vote, or a protest non-vote: if you stay home, the Democrats don’t assume you would’ve voted for Bernie Sanders, they just write you off as another non-voter who can’t be counted on to show up, so you aren’t worth trying to appeal to.
There are problems with that strategy, to be sure, but they aren’t problems we’re going to fix by staying home.
(Protest votes do exist in some other countries, but you’ve gotta have a system more like Australia, where voting is mandatory and people protest by writing stuff like “fuck all of them” on the ballot they then cast.) (Otherwise there’s no telling WHY someone didn’t vote! That’s just… the facts.)
One, very detrimental thing I’ve seen worldwide through the years (Non-american here), is that those of us who identify on the left side of the political spectrum (Anywhere from center left to far left) have a sad tendency to dismiss any candidates that aren’t absolutely perfect. We’d rather not vote at all than vote for a candidate that was problematic 10 years ago and has apologized and improved.
The right doesn’t have that issue. They vote for their guy because they’d rather have a flawed and even downright harmful to themselves winner than have the opposition win.
I agree with the basic sentiment, but I think the hyperbole goes past the point of helpfulness. Some of the things that motivate people on the left not to vote are major things, far more than not being “absolutely perfect.” It’s just that usually these are things that the other side isn’t any better about.
Like, when I was a kid, I remember watching a vice presidential debate for a US election. The Republican candidate said something about how he didn’t support the legalization of same-sex marriage, and the Democratic candidate said something like, “On that, we’re in agreement.” And I was like, wow, what a really shitty similarity to hear they have! And I think someone not supporting your equality is a fair thing to take issue with. But not voting here wouldn’t help anything.
For the right, I do think it depends on what the “flaw” of the politician was. I think they will look past a lot of things that would be sticking points for leftists, but they’ll take issue with other things. (Like, if a politician was discovered to be secretly gay in many places, I’m not sure they’d ever be fully embraced again. Here, if a Republican spoke out against Trump and especially hasn’t fallen in line since, MAGA folks will turn on them.)
I also agree with your overall point, but my IMMEDIATE brainwave was about Obama, who also during the debates said that he didn’t support same-sex marriage. He was in favor of civil unions, but keeping the word ‘marriage’ reserved for “one man, one woman”. It was an off-the-cuff remark from Joe Biden later on down the line that kind of forced Obama into actually supporting same-sex marriage.
He was striking what, at the time, seemed to him like the only politically viable answer. And we elected him anyway, thankfully, and then bam! Because we continued to agitate for the right to marriage, and because it was moving forward in other states, and because we had enough liberal judges on the Supreme Court from previous imperfect Democratic presidents (because the last few have all been seriously imperfect)…
Like, you’re right, that moment was unpleasant, whether the Democratic candidate you’re remembering was actually Obama or, like, John Kerry. But we did actually get legal same-sex marriage throughout the country because we elected a series of Democratic presidents who would’ve said “no, I don’t actually support gay marriage” during debates and on the campaign trail, but were still instrumental in it eventually passing.
They don’t get all the credit, of course; we get a good chunk of the credit, too.
But it’s definitely a point kind of on both sides, you know? We’ve made real gains during the presidencies of candidates who were too afraid to verbally support us while they were trying to win the White House.
Sucks being an acceptable loss. Sucks hard. But we’ve still managed to eke out wins under those conditions anyway.
Highlighting that it was a *vice* presidential debate, so not Obama or John Kerry.
The framing of your comment is kind of confusing to me because it seems like you’re trying to offer a contrasting view to my comment, but it’s really more an expansion on what I was saying?
My point was that it is reasonable to be upset by these statements (or by other actions of politicians that are awful but not beyond what the other side would do) but that refraining from voting because of them wouldn’t actually be beneficial, and your comment elaborates on an example of why.
My main point was some empathy with people on the left who don’t want to vote for politicians who treat them or others as acceptable losses– that it goes beyond the candidate just being “less than perfect.” I don’t think refraining from voting is the right approach; I also don’t think “so they’re not perfect” would be a helpful way to discuss the topic with them.
If Dorothy gets in there, would it be getting up on Joyce’s soapbox?
*side eye
bruhhhhhhh
Joyce should try Gotta Knock A Little Harder by The Seatbelts. It’s a gospel song that’s thoroughly nonreligious and it has a key change.
….you know, I preferred two minutes ago when that song’s lyrics were an inspiring story about someone wanting to break down the barriers they put up between themselves and others to protect themselves from heartache. Instead of…being about Joyce desperately needing an orgasm (or wanting to give Dorothy one).
I was so thrown off I got the names reversed but still
Look at panel 6 again.
Do you think the knocks are against the lady bits? I would think that would only be polite really, then follow with a proper “Excuse me miss, going to need you to sign for this package” before the event.
If you knock “shave and a haircut” against somebody’s crotch, is that just clean fun or are you insulting their pubes?
It’s clean fun when I do it! I would never make fun of someone’s pubes right after I insisted they shave them into a lightning bolt as I do with all my partners. Seems rude.
I wonder how mad somebody would get if you did that and then refused to stop making Harry Potter references. Like, not even clever ones, just the most surface-level stuff like title drops and character names.
Jeremy, Charlie’s only form of hellish entertainment, would rile me up less.
It’s wild to watch Smiling Friends after a decade of watching Zach Hadel’s career. So many bits on that show are things he’s brought up on podcasts and Let’s Plays over the years, like a playlist of his bizarre hypotheticals.
Zeus, is that you?
And she’ll be the very first Seatbelts listener that isn’t sweating bullets when someone goes “whoa this stuff is pretty niche and cool, how’d you find them?”
Then I’ll be the second such listener – why are people sweating bullets?
The Seatbelts were the band put together to record music for the anime Cowboy Bebop.
If Joyce was a real woman this would be a perfect way to make her music tastes suck less. She would have a hyperfixation within minutes.
I dunno. Joyce’s preferred church music has electric guitars. What makes any of us think she likes gospel?
Lucky for her, The Seatbelts has “Church music with Electric Guitar” covered too. See: “Rain”, from Episode 5
…I mean, honestly?
I don’t think “like church music (generally) but secular” is actually the bridge Joyce needs at all.
It might be helpful for someone else, but Joyce has, I thought, been pretty clear on what she was actually looking for: songs she’s already liked for at least a decade, but without any of the negative associations.
There’s a reason why Willis themself has said they replaced Rich Mullens with one specific track from one specific video game, looped and extended to be hours long.
Joyce’s best bet for filling this void is, like, the soundtrack from that one specific Disney movie (or whatever) that her parents let her watch before they (or more specifically, her mom) started Having Problems with Halloween.
Like. She’s asking for a list of secular music her friends like to try, but what she actually wants is music from her childhood that isn’t tainted. Not music that kinda resembles music from her childhood, but ACTUAL music from her childhood.
There is an electric guitar solo in the above song.
You got me! “Gospel” didn’t strike me as “contains electric guitars”, and I didn’t listen to it first because the description didn’t appeal to me.
But also see my longer comment above.
Well I also didn’t listen to it because you didn’t include a link. I might’ve been morbidly curious enough to click a link, but I definitely wasn’t curious enough to find a link myself.
All previous points stand tho.
https://youtu.be/0e5kvtmXQ5k?si=fYdfNQK65nM2FTnh
In case anyone else would like a link.
(I’m right, it’s not the kind of music I enjoy. It’s closer to what I imagined Rich Mullens sounds like, but as noted above I don’t actually think “CLOSE to what I liked when I was younger” is what Joyce wants either.)
She’s upgraded her shower jug shoes.
I like to think Carla keeps releasing new versions, like Tony Stark building new suits.
This model is slip-proof, made of 100% recycled materials, and uses bluetooth to sync with an app that gives a fine foot massage.
The superhero Wing Girl (Joyce) must have appropriate super hero gadgets. Wonderfully provided by Ultra Car (Carla).
Joyce would never eat wings.
Only by flagrantly breaking the “homogenous texture only” rule. The wing itself is a single ingredient, so that qualifies. Is sauce too messy? Would she only eat them plain with ketchup?
Do we know if she likes fried chicken? Has that ever come up? (i mean, _i_ like fried chicken. with both regular breading and kfc-style herbs-and-spices too)
She’s on the record as being a chicken tender connoisseur.
so… boneless wings, then.
I’m about to sue all of you for making me want chicken this badly.
Finger lickin’ good!
(that’s what she said)
((yeah my sense of humor is that of a 11 year old))
“Wing Girl”, of course, refers to Joyce’s excellence in being a wingperson for people in need of romance.
Yes sorry.
Wing Girl is absolutely a sidekick
Sidekick to PowerPoint (Dotty)? Or to AmaziGirl (Sal)?
Joyce is actually higher up in the panels because she’s wearing those shoes, isn’t she?
You mean her jugs? Yes.
“Miss Brown, I think you’re trying to seduce me.”
“Is it working? ”
“Well, yes. But…”
We can only hope.
That smile in the penultimate panel at the idea of Dorothy coming in there does make one wonder.
PFFFFFFF hahahahahhaahah
I really think she should go in there to make sure
Also: panel six Joyce
Can’t tell if panel seven Dorothy recognizes her own opening she gave Joyce.
And vice versa.
I know there’s a joke others are gonna comment, but I cannot stress enough how correct Dorothy is here. Vagina owners PLEASE do not use soap directly in there. If it smells sweet; ya likely got a yeast infection or UTI. Warm water for cleaning is always fine
One of the best self-cleaning organs the human body has!
Joyce knows. She definitely knows.
Also Joyce please for the love of God please keep your vagina’s pH levels happy.
Agreed. She’s been giving entirely too many strange smiles for her to not know. But if that’s the case I really gotta wonder what her game is here
She’s not as obtuse or innocent as people perceive her to be. Remembering all of her plans regarding Jacob, she’s definitely capable of subterfuge and seduction.
Maybe her end game is to be a throuple like Mandy Sierra and…. Amanda…? Other Rachel…? I cannot recall off hand. Either way, Joyce has a track record of overcompensating for her prior ignorance.
Mandy Sierra and Grace is the throuple, after I did some digging: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/unraveling/
I have to admit, I would be curious about Joe’s reaction to Joyce wanting a throuple. Old-joe would probably be all for it (hoping that he might have his ‘threesome’) but new-Joe might be a bit put off by it, being all interested in an actual relationship and upset with the idea that Joyce wants “more” than him.
But, maybe he might still go for it if he thinks it would make Joyce happy. (I am thinking of the coming “something Positive’ where one of the main characters (Davan) is married to a woman who is bi, but earlier in the relationship he he seemed to be ok if she was with other women.)
Was Joyce even still Christian when she started college? Does she even care about Joe? Or has this all just been a long game to seduce Dorothy? :0
I… don’t think she does. I think she knows that she is messing with Dotty, but just like yesterday’s comic, I don’t think Joyce is aware of Dotty’s feelings towards her on anything except maybe some nebulous deep-seeded and very nebulous and undefined level. If she knew Dotty’s feelings in an articulate way, knowingly teasing her like this would require her to dismiss or minimize Dotty’s feelings to some degree. It would be basically saying “its no big deal”, and I do not believe Joyce would see Dotty’s feelings that way. I could be wrong, but I don’t see Joyce’s behavior as anything but unaware of Dotty’s feelings.
Regardless of her reaction, she *definitely* would not be this nonchalant about it. Right now, Dorothy is still just her closest friend who acting a little bit weird, but there’s bigger things to worry about. Like can one be *too* fresh?
One can never be too fresh. Two, on the other hand, can be fresh to death.
indeed. If you’re gonna put soap up there, gotta include some lemon juice too.
Or some dilute white vinegar, another time-honored way to juice up your cooter.
I get the feeling she started to suspect something and Joe and her had an off panel conversation about the titty picture that’s putting some pieces together. Either that or she’s just really enjoying sexual innuendo for the first time in her life.
Jake Peralta wrote the alt text
You’re just digging yourself deeper and deeper, Dotty.
…if you know what I mean.
Yeah, come up for air before you go back in.
Unless…?
And sudden camera shift to just outside the shower stall, with speech balloons for both characters pointing to inside the shower.
“So like this?”
“No, a little to the left.”
Thats Joes job
Multiple people can have the same job! It’s allowed.
Not in a monogamous relationship, its not.
Jennifer said once is fine, and when is she ever wrong?
Bravo! For both of them.
Dotty giving basic advice
I’m not a woman but I feel like Joyce is being a little purposefully obtuse here. Joe must have told her already.
About… the chemistry of douching? Is that something your average 19 year old guy knows these days?
No I mean he must have told her Dorothy likes her and Joyce is just teasing. Unless she’s just really naive about personal hygiene. Ladies and vagina havers is shoving soap up your hoo hah okay? I would assume most vag owners know if that’s okay. I’d expect Joyce to know. If a penis haver asked me if it’s okay to put soap in your dick hole I’d assume they were fucking with me.
Do not under any circumstances wash your vulva and/or vagina with anything but plain warm water.
Trust me, it’s very possible that some vag owners might not realize whether it’s okay or not. Douching used to be a big thing (my mom had one for example) but that knowledge definitely isn’t passed down much generationally and so you have some people who may assume you’re supposed to scrub and douche as frequently down there as you do your body. I for one just do as Queen Anthei says and just do a little once over with warm water. It’s self-cleaning, so long as the PH is alright.
Okay, we’re not just talking about shoving soap up there. The interior of the vagina is a much wider area than the urethra. Like you can’t put a finger in your urethra to gently rub it with soapy water. You can with your vagina– but you shouldn’t. And if you’ve been in a space that treat knowledge about your vagina as forbidden for most of your life, very easy for you to not have thought about this! And if no one else has come near your vagina before, you probably have new worries about how it might be perceived now that it’s relevant– but again, soap is not the answer.
I am not convinced that Joe would know that Dorothy has a crush on Joyce.
We can see it because we get multiple views from a gods-eye perspective. But Dorothy was a bit “hostile” to Joe’s relationship to Joyce (because even he would say he was a sleaze before) so any signals Dorothy might be sending would be over-ridden by that hostility.
Joe does know. See https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/howyoudoing/ and the next several strips.
(I do not agree that it is likely he told Joyce without giving Dorothy a chance to come to terms with it and talk to Joyce herself though)
Ah I stand corrected.
Good catch.
I’m sure Joe could put two and two together if Danny casually mentions his weird conversation with Dorothy to him.
Oh wait, I forgot he directly talked with her about it…
He’ll just see that as third-party confirmation, then.
I can see Carol telling Joyce to never touch your vulva except for wiping after peeing because it’s too close to masturbation. My guess is Joyce know basically zero about that area of personal hygiene
Vagina havers being taught anything about their vaginas other than “don’t touch it, that’s for your future husband to go in and future babies to rip out of” is pretty new. I didn’t learn about the no-soap thing until I was fully grown, it’s likely that many vagina owners have the same experience and many do not.
Sex education can be heinously wrong or missing all together, parental interest in educating their kid about vaginal hygiene might be lacking or intentionally missing due to belief systems, and research into that portion of the world’s anatomy is notoriously lacking until very recently.
My parents weren’t shy about sex ed, but I still never learned about not using soap. I don’t know if my mom just forgot to tell me because she assumed it would be common sense, or did not know herself.
There are WHOLE PRODUCT LINES that would not exist if some people with vulvas weren’t being successfully convinced to use them.
Commercials about feeling “not so fresh” were definitely still a thing in the 90s when I was growing up, less sure nowadays (I don’t watch cable or anything with traditional commercials anymore).
Nowadays I’ve heard ads hawking deodorant meant for the entire body (including yes, down there) with similar “not so fresh” type marketing.
The vagina is lined in a a mucous membrane with a delicate, important microbiome on it, so nothing goes up there but warm water (and warm pretty-much-just-saline-tbh, and non-flavored lubes). However, sex ed and genital-care ed in the US is horrific, and there are a fair number of products that exist entirely to be sold under false claims and the idea that the natural smell of the vagina is shameful and gross and needs to be gotten rid of. So there are a solid number of vagina owners who don’t know they aren’t supposed to be putting all that up there.
Joe has a lot of experience being a douchebag.
Joe to Joyce: Everyone called me “The Douche Canoe Dude” in high school because I was all about that cleanliness!
Dottie, from her perch in her tree while reading his lips with her binoculars: Yeah.. That was the reason… Sure.
This is completely fucking unrealistic.
She’d be too busy staring at Joyce’s lips.
No i 100% agree and think Joe told her. And she’s teasing
Not sure how well that plays out, Joyce not that long ago had another best friend with the gay panic over her and it ended with Becky crying out of her room.
I like the phrasing of “best friend with the gay”.
I, too, am a best friend with the gay.
Best friend with the gay panic in the disco?
Or she’s just messing with Dorothy, not related to Dorothy’s crush.
When even Joyce thinks that sounded a little suggestive, perhaps it *did*.
Panel 6 Joyce-face and me are on the same page. Hurrhurrhurr.
Panel six Joyce is running out of heterosexual explanations, to cover for this girl she went on a date with.
Dorothy, I think it’s best you join her to make sure she doesn’t. That smirk she has has some serious “I’m gonna do it and you can’t stop me” energy.
I’m starting to think we’re closing in on a callback to that, in the sense Dorothy finally say a clear “no”, then explain why…
Although, while writing that, I realize she is kinda already doing it, so IDK…
Dorothy, you made a typo in your speech. It’s not “ome”, it’s “um”
Perhaps, but she may find the second one a bit difficult.
…I don’t necessarily think that this is a PLAUSIBLE direction (in particular I’m not sure the timeline works for Joe to have told Joyce about his conversation with Dorothy, and for that matter I’m not sure I believe Joe WOULD tell her and thus violate Dorothy’s privacy), but this strip suddenly has me thinking Joyce Already Knows and this really is all some sort of elaborate set-up to help ease her into things or something like that. Again, I don’t actually think that’s what’s happening? It’s just A Vibe I’m getting.
…
…unless it somehow turns out i’m right in which case i will absolutely claim this post as proof I Knew All Along.
Could Joyce be remembering Becky being like this and realising because of that?
I don’t know if he did tell her but Joe had plenty of time to. They had a whole lunch that Jennifer bailed on to chat about it. Also not sure if Joe cares about Dorothy’s privacy either. They’re not really close friends or anything. She more of a rival now.
Did you read that scene with Joe & Dorothy? He didn’t treat her as a rival! He was very proud of himself for “doing an empathy”. Would be kind of weird to immediately undercut that very sweet moment for him.
Also we see Joe & Joyce walking out of the cafeteria talking about the situation with Jennifer & Alice. I guess Joe could’ve told Joyce about her best friend having a crush on her really quick & then switch topic to Joyce being a good wingwoman, I just don’t think it’s likely.
Could she have texted Joe during class?
She definitely had the recognition of Dorothy’s horny face at the beginning of Robin’s class and probably put two and two together. She had been processing Dorothy’s down shirt pics immediately before lunch, and had was then told by Jennifer that you can bang your best friend without messing up a relationship.
I also don’t think she asked him about it at lunch, except maybe as an aside. I think the timeline only works if she texted him during the class.
I agree that Joe wouldn’t want to out Dorothy. But I also don’t think Joe would lie – or even waffle – to Joyce if asked directly.
With the personalities involved, I could see Joyce asking Joe about the possibility of hooking up with Dorothy, and him empathetically agreeing that it could make sense.
This whole thing strikes of Joyce Shenanigans.
My only question is, was it discussed with Walky?
XD Sure, Joyce.
And uh, no, no soap up there, Joyce.
Hue hue hue :y
Appreciating a signal of Joyce having a bit of a game going on.
But seriously, respect your body’s boundaries. We scrub our skin with soap because it’s covered in keratin and has a pH of 5, and even that is delicate.
They’re so cute! They’re so cute together!
Wait, SNAP. wrong comment
LOOK at these faces, seriously. Amazing faces. I particularly like the last three panels. :3
They’re so cute! They’re so cute together!
I wish Dorothy told her why instead of (or at least, before) threatening. Joyce is a lot more likely to listen if she knows it could mean problems with her (scrolls up) “up there,” not to mention extra gyno appointments.
She explained it for 20 minutes, between panels. Joyce is smiling because Dorothy confessed her attraction during that time and Joyce accepted the confession while letting Dorothy down extra gently.
This is my favorite comment tonight.
thanks now I don’t have to worry about it
Don’t we all just love a happy ending?
Yeah, but then no punchline
Yesterday I wrote
“Oh my god is Dorothy going to somehow manage to be helpful despite herself”
And boy am I feeling more confident by the day
She’s doing her goddamn best, over here. Anyone doubting her is a full-time hater and needs to get a real job.
Well, before there was some legitimate room for doubt, but at this point it seems safe to say that Dorothy will go into the West and remain Dorothy.
I mean honestly, she could probably get away with some borax and steel wool. Just throwing a bar of soap up her bag isn’t gonna do a lot of good.
Just remember to not mix ammonia and bleach.
Um, I’ll make chlorine gas in my Minnesota mineshaft if I want to? Don’t kink shame me, and besides that I’ll have you know my boyfriend loves to roleplay as a beleaguered miner, with his dick painted yellow like a canary.
Y’know what, I’m immediately sorry for this one.
that’s how you know it’s good!
Good, because it killed me lmao
“Dear Penthouse: No shit, there I was…”
Dorothy’s credibility on sex ed dropped down a lot when she advised Joyce to pee BEFORE and after sex/masturbation. (there’s no reason to do it before) (also why the hell was she telling Joyce to pee after non-penetrative masturbation? useless)
Here’s she’s making the same mistake as before: saying the thing one should do without explaining why.
Sex ed tips are not magic charms to ward off the eye of evil: they come from evidence-based medicine and there’s an explanation that goes with each of them. I wish Dorothy would give the reason instead of taking the “because I said so, trust me” attitude.
Counterpoint: Dorothy’s hot and can say as much or as little as she wants about fingering Joyce.
There are definitely reasons to pee before sex/masturbation. UTI prevention, though, which Dorothy gave as her reasoning, isn’t so much a reason.
what reasons are these?
You ever try to fuck on a full bladder? It’s no good. Screws up the whole rhythm.
I remember reading through “The Joy of Sex”. (The original version, the one that used drawings of hippies that looked like they were sketched at woodstock.)
It mentioned that some people (not all, but a few) actually get pleasure/have a fetish for having sex with a full bladder. (Hey, not my thing, but there are a lot of fetishes there that don’t quite make sense to me.)
There are some people (largely those with vulvas) whose bits are set up in such a way that a full bladder can help press on things, which can feel physically good. That’s not a kink thing, that’s a plain ol’ “this is stimulating some nerves really nicely” thing. There are /also/ people who have kinks either around the idea of a full bladder and potentially around the theoretical denial of being allowed to empty it, and/or around pee itself. Those don’t necessarily overlap.
Works fine for guys. I’ve had some pretty great sex with morning wood.
So have I, but I didn’t have to piss at the time.
…Not having to pee during.
That part’s probably obvious– likely don’t want to stop to go urinate or be distracted by the sensation during.
For those new AFAB folks to orgasms (and possibly those experienced, this was just mostly covered in introductory stuff), a building orgasm can feel like having to pee. Because a major roadblock to orgasms can be having a hard time relaxing enough or getting in your head about things, knowing you peed shortly beforehand can be helpful in navigating these sensations.
Okay, so I put in the “AFAB folks” after, and not at the right spot. “For those AFAB folks new to orgasms”
Fun fact, if your body and brain don’t communicate about this shit effectively the beginning stages of having to pee can often feel kinda similar to your body being turned on in contexts that seem like they might go a sexy direction, probably for the same reasons. It is very annoying to say to your partner “hey I think if you wanna fuck that might be feasible right now” only to discover that the cuddles were nice but actually you just mildly needed to piss.
…I would love to know if this has ever been a problem for anyone who isn’t ace. Like I imagine if actually getting turned on prompts desire more directly and vice versa this isn’t really a thing. But maybe I’m wrong! One must wonder what the lives of normal people are like.
I can’t speak for normal people, but I’ve experienced exactly the sensation you described. It can get pretty frustrating, In The Moment™, and I’ve had it go several very annoying ways. Especially irritating is when my partner is definitively ready to go but I’m just not after pissing, even though I could have fucked my way out of a steel boulder just prior.
No, I’ve had that happen, best I can guess is the bladder area is sometimes putting pressure on the g-spot.
I guess I put that in the “well duh” category in the sense one should pee before any physically strenuous activity, not just sex. You’re correct, but Dorothy still gave the wrong reason.
points at this. And as someone wi a vagina I can say unlike penis’ theres no. Shall we say delicately. Shut down that means you CANT pee while aroused. Its harder to do. But it can happen, and it can SURE AS HELL happen AFTER when you’re REALLY RELAXED from being REALLY TENSE and had a big unusual body clench motion happen.
What’s this about a penis not letting you pee if you’re aroused? That’s definitely not true, it just makes aiming inconvenient.
It typically closes the urethra. This functions to keep semen from getting into the bladder.
Maybe I should see a doctor.
Only if your current significant other and you have already discussed and agreed upon adding another person into your polycule. Proper communication is crucial for healthy ‘cules.
Hi,
just wanted to point out that not all AFAB people have vagina’s; nor are they the only group of people that has one.
Well yeah, but does the entire thing have to be said every single time?
I mean it’s a fair point that it’s often more accurate to say people with vulvas or vaginas. In this case it might’ve been most accurate to say “certain plumbing configurations”, because it’s a question of what the urethra is doing. Or isn’t doing, heh.
There’re shorter ways of saying it, but they get less and less accurate, and it’s definitely fair of both post-op folks and intersex people to be frustrated with AGAB terminology being used in this instance.
I do think it’s a fair point; in this case, I’m not sure “people with vulvas/vaginas” would be more accurate because my information is based on perisex people who have not had bottom surgery, and its not meant to refer to experiences of all those in that category– it *can* feel that way for some, but doesn’t for all. “Certain plumbing configurations” could be part but might need more to not be overly vague.
I do agree that AFAB =/= someone who has a vagina, and my comment was leaning in to the use of this general shorthand, which I apologize for.
There’s a reason to pee before, it’s just not UTIs. (Though that was a very very common myth, and I don’t blame either Willis or Dorothy for believing it, tbqh.)
I also think there’s just a limit to how much dialogue one can reasonably expect to be spent on explaining the technicalities of something like that in what’s essentially a newspaper-format strip.
(I was thinking the same reason as Yumi.)
I offer that Dorothy has a reoccurring habit of trying to be more well informed than she actually is. Especially when it comes to more personal topics. This happened when Danny came out as bi, when Joyce learned she’s likely autistic, she’ll quote things she likely read online, so yeah maybe she just got it wrong.
This was my thought as well. She’s often more confident than correct
I realized it during the Joyce’s-atheism-outed story. Dorothy’s advice is medium quality and she doesn’t know it. I don’t know if that was Willis’ intention from the start and I didn’t pick up on it until this semester, or if the way they conceptualize the characters has changed that much.
Like when Danny’s reaction to her advice when he came out as bi. Was how he reacted in this chapter how Willis thought about her advice when writing the original strip?
Either way, Dorothy’s a more interesting and sympathetic character now.
Phrasing.
Are we not doing phrasing anymore?
The kids say “pause” now, last I checked
Pause the phrasing?
Panel 6: [Bernard]SHE KNOWS[/Bernard]
Why does Joyce look off-model in this one? Something is wrong, but the art looks completely fine.
We’ve seen her make that expression before. Not often, but we’ve seen it.
It might also be the lack of glasses!
No glasses + art evolution since she got them.
Doppelganger
Ooh, saucy. What are the ethics of fucking your crush’s doppelganger? Does the answer change if you know it’s not the real Shapiffany?
If you didn’t know, it’s no different ethically than if you fucked your crush. If you did know, it’s maybe ethical, but at least a little messed up. If you summoned the doppelganger, that’s not ethical, that’s like magical deep-fake shit.
If it’s your doppelganger, like I first read, then there’s no ethical dilemma.
I guess after a certain point, speculative fiction like summoning doppelgangers quits being applicable to real-world ethics and morality.
Briefly discussed in The Book of Erotic Fantasy. (DnD 3.5)
oh boy yeah no. no soap anywhere in the Area. Noooooooo.
Joyce: “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Took me a moment to understand why Dorothy said Joyce she shouldn’t use soap “up there”, wondering why she wouldn’t want Joyce’s face to smell nice, then it finally clicked.
Would’ve clicked faster if Joyce had said “down there” instead, though.
But Dorothy is right, do not use soap.
She doesn’t mean “down there” though. A little bit of external soap in the general region would be okay (as long as you don’t overdo it). She means inside, which is why Dorothy became so much more strident: do NOT, under any circumstances.
Do it, Dorothy! Just for be sure. Looks like Joyce is having a lot of fun talking with her best friend. Maybe even more than usual… suspiciously more than usual.
Not that you can. Unless.
But a little soap will never wash away the memory—
All the Joyce Looks she’s given Dorothy lately tells me that Joe told her and she’s trying to keep it friendly but there’s an obvious realization on the edges of her brain.
“My best friend is in love with me and I know but she doesn’t know I know and how do I keep our relationship the same when it’s so obviously changed drastically” is some peak ass college, ngl.
Not to mention only a couple hours ago Joyce was told by Jennifer (who she trusts to Know About Such Things) that you can bang your best friend at least once without changing the relationship.
That’s true but I don’t think Joyce is that person, she’s pretty into Joe and Christian woman monogamy habits die hard.
If that’s where Joyce is mentally, and she DOESN’T want anything to change between them or to give Dorothy ideas, “come show me how to have sex” was a novel response.
A true power move, one might say.
While those habits do die hard (personal experience), Joyce has been seen contemplating polyamory on panel since at least before the time skip.
And one thing we know about Joyce is that when she makes a decision that something is the right choice, she goes all in.
Either Joyce is still largely oblivious to Dorothy’s feelings towards her, or she had actually been aware for a VERY long time. In hind sight, it is suspicious how little of Joyce’s reaction or processing of the boob selfies we actually saw, which leaves the wiggle room needed for these alternate theories. But i think this is just DW being DW. I find it very unlikely that Joyce is about to drop some Bond Villain-level reveal. The more likely and realistic (to me) explanation is that Joyce is still in the dark about Dorothy’s feelings, and all these looks and jokes she is making are surface teasing. That her jokes work on the unintended deeper layer is also DW being DW.
SHE KNOOOOOOOWWSSSSS
…but you could
Annnd cue Gilligan Cut.
As someone who pays to see tomorrow’s strip, I’ll be a dickhead and confirm your theory. Yes, tomorrow we will see Joyce and Dorothy dressed up like 1973 Chicago street toughs, in a filthy alley, cutting up Gilligan of ‘s Island fame while they quote the intro to the show in menacing ways. In their defense, he was making the mugging difficult and needed to be taught a little lesson. He’ll live.
Explain dot, please. If anything at least tell her it’ll smell worse if you use soap in there :/ if joyce don’t like her own regular, mild cooch smells she is NOT ready for a yeast infection or BV
I can’t tell if Joyce’s expression in panel 6 is “Joe said you were crushing, but man you are just confirming it” or “*butthead laugh* heh, you said ‘come in there’.”
I’m guessing Joyce isn’t aware. She is reveling in her hanky pankyness and a playing with an idea that she considers funny. Lots of subtext floating around but it remains unexamined by Joyce.
The coochie already smells nice, Joyce!
Beginning to think this storyline is Willis’ attempt to see if he can explode the heads of multiple readers.
Umm….so to speak.
Also since a bunch of other folks have put in their $0.02 on what Joyce’s last expression means, here’s mine:
She’s absolutely teasing Dorothy for saying something so Accidentally Suggestive, but not because she knows and certainly not because Joe told her*.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/weirdest-2/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/meepbeep/
She and Sarah have a bit of a running joke at this point. There’s more examples but more than 3 links gets moderated lol.
* I don’t think Joe would say anything more than “you should ask Dorothy what’s been bothering her”, honestly. Not after the conversation he had with her. Whatever some of the commentariat might feel about Dorothy, Joe seemed nothing but empathetic.
It would be pretty shitty of Joe to have told Joyce after talking to Dorothy, honestly.
I tend to agree.
It might be different if JOE thought the photo had been an actual deliberate play for Joyce, or if he thought it counted as cheating the way some of the readers seem to; but I’d say he clearly doesn’t, so.
But whether or not it would be within his rights to tell Joyce, I can’t imagine he’d feel like it was.
Honestly I don’t think he’d even give Joyce a nudge to talk to Dorothy without more prompting. For example, if he noticed her looking miserable during group hangouts, or if Joyce told him she was worried about Dorothy?
Right or wrong, I think Joe currently feels like Dorothy’s feelings (and her sexuality) aren’t his business, and I don’t think he’d want to out her to anyone.
I think it’d be different if he saw the picture and then talked to Joyce about it before going to Dorothy– “I think Dorothy might seriously have a crush on you” seems to me like it’d be fair to say in that case. (I do prefer the approach he went with, though.) If he came away from his conversation with Dorothy feeling like she had been making a deliberate play for Joyce, I still think the topic of a following conversation with Joyce should focus on deliberate discussion about what the bounds of cheating are in their relationship, which wouldn’t require outing Dorothy to her.
Yeah…
I guess I’m just saying, I not only think it would have been wrong of him, I can’t imagine him doing it.
It would be strange on multiple levels.
I think Joyce figured it out all on her own at the beginning of class, or a little bit earlier, and I think Joe would be okay with verifying what Joyce asked him about directly.
Dorothy was literally biting her lip while looking into Joyce’s eyes. She’s a pretty smart cookie. And she’s fond of shenanigans.
But I don’t think she would have begun shenanigans without discussing it with Joe first – they recently had frank discussions about relationship boundaries after the party where Joe was sober.
That’s possible.
I go back and forth on it myself! The kinda-smirky panel here definitely is a potential “Joyce Knows” panel.
Honestly the MAIN thrust of my comment should’ve been “Joe didn’t tell her”.
I still lean “she doesn’t know”, but I have admitted elsewhere that the only reason I could see for Willis not to show us Joyce actually figuring it out on-panel would be to subvert expectations here by having Joyce fully aware of and playing into Dorothy’s crush for purposes of (flirty) shenanigans.
…but if she’s not planning on telling Dorothy “I know and it’s okay, I like you too”, then I can’t imagine she’s doing all of this on purpose, because it starts to get a little mean.
So yeah: back and forth.
I think either Joyce DOESN’T know but DOES think “gay stuff with Dorothy” is a harmless source of self-deprecating teasing, OR Joyce DOES know….. and is trying to get Dorothy to tell her through gentle flirting, with plans to tell Dorothy the feeling’s mutual (but, as Taffy put it a day or so ago, “tonight’s all about Joe, so hold that thought”).
(Also, yeah, in this scenario, Joe has been looped in and is already on board.) (If anything THAT big happened off-panel, Willis will certainly do flashbacks so that we can watch it happen.)
What I don’t think could be the case: Joe told Joyce and/or Joyce knows, doesn’t return Dorothy’s feelings, and is still teasing her like this on purpose.
“the commentariat” is such a good word holy shit
I cannot take credit for it, but I am happy to spread its use!
Honestly, the only way I can see Joe ACTUALLY telling Joyce is if he was 100% certain Joyce already knew, in a “hey, Dorothy came out to me” way.
They’re not really that serious a couple yet for people to think of them as a single informational unit, though.
Oh, like, accidentally outing Dorothy because he was sure Joyce knew? Yeah, that could happen. :|a I think he’d be at least as careful as Ethan was wrt Jocelyne, but as that scene proves, being careful doesn’t always prevent a thing from happening, haha.
I also realized I missed a word: I could only see Joe saying it if it were intended as a “Dorothy came out to me, too“.
I really like Dorothy’s pose of determination in the last panel. She looks like she could be on an inspirational poster or something.
Dr Bronner’s would be ok, right? It’s made by a doctor.
Seems reasonable. I mean, they’re a doctor and all. A professional.
No.
I’m assuming Joyce’s expression in the second-to-last panel is her finding Dorothy’s phrasing kinda funny. I doubt she knows about Dorothy’s feelings for her.
She was about to make a “That’s what she said!” joke, I’m convinced. Autistic, yes, but not otherworldly.
just think this all started becuase amber thought sending a boob pic back would be funny ……
Nah, Joyce would probably still be doing this. There just wouldn’t have that second layer of awkwardness on Dorothy’s end.
Dear god Joyce, how bad was your sex ed that that was even a question? I say as though my own sex ed on the subject wasn’t from people on the internet saying not to do that.
Dear God is US sex education garbage
She had no sex ed. She was homeschooled. I imagine her parents never even brought up the subject other than to say that even thinking about discussing the topic would mean you’re a hussy.
The closest thing USA “education” gets to sex ed is telling kids about all the diseases and the nightmares of pregnancy, and a stern warning “Don’t do it! Unless you’re married! And even THEN, don’t do anything you might enjoy!”
I got better sex ed than that in the 80s. It just shows how badly the whole thing has fallen apart.
I meant the 70’s.
Yep, it’s garbage. And she didn’t even get that.
I think Joyce is getting ready for sex with Dorothy. She’s already spent a night of hanky panky with Joe. Joe knows Dorothy has the hots for Joyce. Joe is openminded about sex, and may actually the idea of Joyce getting it on with Dorothy appealing. My guess at this point is that Joe told Joyce, told her to go for it, and this is Joyce getting Dorothy to help her get sexy for Dorothy.
Seems far-fetched. I feel like Joyce would be open about that.
My brain is going places that could very well be wrong.
I really don’t get how people think Joe is open minded about sex. He’s got a trauma response where he’s so afraid of hurting people that he refused to ever get in a real relationship because he didn’t want to hurt people like his dad hurt his mom. He used sex as band aide for his loneliness and his attitude as a 80’s jock horndog was a cover.
He would let joyce find her happiness with dottie, but it would break his heart, and he’d probably never open up again, and would probably revert into 80’s horndog mode forever.
Joe has trauma connected to hurting people like how his Dad hurt his Mom. He did create a facade to cope. He still really likes sex and is more open to the mechanics of relationships than Joyce by virtue of less moral indoctrination. What’s got him tense nowadays is not monogamy, but combining actual emotional investment in a relationship with sex. I honestly could be seeing things that aren’t there because it’d be fun to see them, but I certainly don’t think Joe is close-minded about sex.
Okay, I was agreeing with you until “He’d probably never open up again.” He’s an adult, he’s shown enormous growth over the last year, he can handle a little heartbreak without reverting into a sex-crazed misogynist.
I could not possibly disagree more. I do not see any reason why you would think Joe would be open-minded about sex, especially with somebody who he’s actually in love with like Joyce.
And unless I missed something, they did NOT have a “night of hanky panky”, they slept in the same bed and she, while he slept, touched his junk. She specifically states that she is un-hankypankied and thats what this prep is for.
I think that if Joyce and Dorothy did do anything it would break Joe.
I think you could make an argument for the handjob (which did get its own pornographique of some description, though I don’t think it took a whole night…), but Joyce definitely doesn’t count that as hankypankying her.
Kiiiinda doubt that.
OK, nobody, NOBODY can tell me Joyce didn’t catch that double-entendre and wasn’t going to say anything. She may be autistic, innocent and naive, but she’s heard enough “That’s what she said!” jokes by now, hasn’t she?
Joyce clearly did catch the double-entendre? Look at her face in the penultimate panel. Is anyone trying to say she didn’t?
Gonna be honest, it may be my shipper’s heart talking, but I’m having a hard time conceiving of a heterosexual explanation for that penultimate panel.
In the defense of anyone who didn’t read all the other comments people have already made before leaving one of their own: 313 comments and counting.
I’m just confused at the point of the comment– like, I didn’t read all the comments, but I didn’t see anyone saying that. Was someone saying that? Otherwise it just seems kind of odd. (And I don’t love the way autistic was thrown in if it’s not in response to something, but that might be a personal issue.)
Oh, I was assuming Buck Ripsnort hadn’t read all the other comments and was just kinda shootin’ from the hip so to speak.
You’ve definitely got a point on that second thing tho.
also I feel I should stress, all I was trying to do was make a self-deprecating joke about the comment section being too big to read. (I’m at like 33 comments myself here.
…
*)
sob
So…. what are the odds Joyce saw the photos that Joe saw on her phone?
Considering she saw them and commented about it, 100%.
Oh, right, I should probably link the damn thing. Apologies for the discourtesy.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/regrettably/