Her scale is gonna start sliding depending on whether or not she’s around Joyce or Alice. This will make Alice decide Joyce is her enemy. Joyce won’t realize this. Alice’s preferred method of attack is looking better in a leather jacket.
The kitchen pedant in me has to point out that a true bechamel sauce only contains butter, flour and milk. Perhaps some nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. No cheese!
I know you are joking, but I still want to nitpick and say the Bechdel test says that the discussion shouldn’t be ABOUT a guy, not that no guys should be mentioned ever.
This conversation would pass either way, because the actual original Bechdel test, as explained in the comic by Allison Bechdel, was about how alienating mainstream media is for lesbians.
The idea is that to pass the test, your movie has to contain even one scene where a lesbian doesn’t feel completely alienated, because she can at least pretend the two female characters in question might not be completely 100% heterosexual.
This strip would pass even if Joe was the main topic of conversation for a few panels, because the last panel reaffirms that Joyce and Jennifer have both had sex with women.
Theory: Joyce considers things with Joe mostly wrapped up. Sure, she said they’ll talk, but she meant it more in a “we’ll see each other in bio class and can continue this conversation then” sort of way, or in a “I dumped you but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t see me ever again” sort of way. She did not mean to take back the “I have to break up with you”. As far as she is concerned, her and Joe are over. She is curious about polyamory but that doesn’t mean the dumping didn’t happen.
I agree her being clearer in response would have been better, but she did literally say they were breaking up and didn’t take that back. Does she have to reject every variant of “what if we didn’t break up” Joe proposes to keep her Morality Meter full?
I will not do it as a couple,
I will not do it as a throuple,
I will not date you in the rain,
I will not date you in Fort Wayne.
With Dorothy I’m all aglow,
I’ve broken with you, Joe, just go!
Worse theory: Joyce is going to be completely blindsided by how devastated Joe was by her actions, because last time she spoke to him he seemed to be fine with it.
I honestly don’t know why anyone thinks this or why the consensus view in these comments is that that’s all done and wrapped up. I certainly believe that Joyce is *avoiding* it because it’s painful and difficult to have that conversation (no matter what direction it ends up going) but that’s not at all the same as “Joyce thinks it’s all done and wrapped” and certainly not the same as anyone *else* thinking it’s all done and wrapped.
Honestly, I hope it’s Joever because I dread the prospect of a polyamory plotline. Much better to have a clean break and see Joe get with someone who actually fucking cares about him.
Honestly, I’m glad that she still seems to have hangups about Joe. My biggest worry was that Willis was intentionally ditching that plotline entirely, but I think it’s clear looking at her expressions, how she’s phrasing things, that she subconsciously feels bad about the way she treated Joe, but doesn’t want to confront it.
Possibly related to her cognitive dissonance? We can only hope.
She desperately wants to stay in her happy horny fairy tale where she gets to have lots of great sex with her True Love, the future Mrs. Dorothy Keener-Brown.
Just looking at her face and the phrasing in that panel though, I think Joe is someone she really does want to talk to about this. There’s something more complex going on there than even in the panel where she mentions Becky.
Go talk to Joe and become polyamorous and then talk about sex with Dorothy. Hearing about your partners having experiences with other people is such a wonderful thing because you get to see a version of them that they aren’t when they’re with you. And it’s very special having that kind of access.
Probably don’t talk to Joe about it if you plan on breaking up with him though, yeah. That would be in poor taste.
I know. It keeps weirding me out. It’s also a little depressing, in what it says about us in general. People really see what they want to see in works like this.
Which is fine, but then stating it in full confidence is another matter.
Not necessarily. This is a thing she wants to talk about, but can’t talk to Joe about, possibly because of the other things she needs to talk to Joe about. Or because she realizes she’s burnt that relationship to the ground.
Thats my read. She wants to talk to Joe about this but she’s worried if she goes to talk to him
A) he will do something sweet and her complete lack of impulse control will mean they hook up again
Or
B) Joe will try and follow up on their previous conversation and she is trying to avoid that.
Or
C) She finds out that Joe is actually hurt by being cheated on and isnt big on listening to Joyce talk about the hot sex with the woman she dumped him for.
As long as she avoids him she can convince herself there aren’t actually any problems
Yeah I mean prior to them dating he kinda… WAS the person she went to about a lot of stuff she was uncomfortable processing. But now things are messy because whether or not they’re still dating is in limbo and if they’re not, they don’t go back to having the same dynamic they had before. When you cheat on someone and leave them for someone else your friendship and specifically your ability to talk about sex and romance with them is pretty damaged, even beyond normal breakup space.
at least she’s not talking to leslie about it, tho i imagine it’d be quite inappropriate to do so with a teacher tho i can imagine robin bragging to her students about past hookups
Aww, Joyce! It sucks when you’re excited about something and don’t have anyone to talk to about it. Maybe Jennifer would be more open to talking about it if Alice had put her cooch on her cooch recently.
It’s possible, but that’s not really the vibe I’m getting from her here. I think it’s more that she hasn’t gotten laid for awhile and she’s already on edge from having to put up with Lucy & Jacob canoodling in her room all the time and she’s just not up for hearing about yet another of her friends’ sex life.
Joyce, for heaven’s sake! Joe is actually NOT off the table.
He would desperately want to be there for you during this important milestone of your life. Whyyyyyyy do you not seeeeeeeeeee???? *frustrated laughter*
At least, if she was taking the idea of dating two people the slightest bit seriously.
I think I’ll just assume the answer is no, unless otherwise stated.
Yeah, sadly I think this is a correct take. I had all my fingers crossed for “this is going to turn into a delightfully messy polycule” but I think I have to give that up now. Joyce clearly didn’t take that offer seriously, which is her right, I just wish she had.
It’s not really a tease of anything, if we assume Joyce did not take the poly talk serious. All it did is show how pathetically desperate Joe was to save a failed relationship
She needs to talk to Dorothy about Joe. But her relationship with Dorothy is so new, she doesn’t want to throw anyone else into it. She wants to keep it her sapphic bubble
Either way, there’s other stuff that she needs to talk to Joe about before she talks to him about this. Which is probably why she doesn’t want to talk to him.
Even if she’s taking the poly idea seriously, she want to talk about the lady sex now and she couldn’t just go and talk to Joe about that without dealing with the poly thing first and that would mean talking to Dorothy about it as well.
It’s a whole complicated thing and none of it involves how she feels about being a sex-haver now.
Amber/Amazigirl have had too much sorta tension with Sal and Dorothy (complete with Dorothy and Amber having a faux breakup “it’s not you it’s me” talk) for me to think she’s 100% straight. Sal, she’s been pretty straight so far BUT I’m not against it changing. After all, even Amber and Jennifer thought Dorothy was straight (as well as the readers) and we’ve obviously learned otherwise.
Amber (everyone’s potential 3rd) implied that, while girls were not off the table, there had to be at least a, er, boy-part involved.
AG has hinted she might have a girl crush on Sal. And she came likity split when the drank girls were on their way home. In case they needed help with something.
…There’s a layer of comedy somewhere in the idea that AG allows Amber’s attraction to Walky because of an unspoken attraction to Sal—and that Danny hate-on of Walky is exacerbated by the fact that he finds both twins attractive.
I was going to headcanon that Peter might turn out to be trans, but when checking the archives to confirm his name, I noticed he hasn’t been seen since Mary’s Hell House on Halloween.
Not sure there’s any point to this comment, then, other than as schadenfreude fuel for Mary haters. Which is merit enough, I suppose.
I had heard this, but my understanding was that this was a facetious bit, not actual canon. Did I misunderstand? If so, would someone mind pointing me to the posts?
I feel as though “every character is queer except for Roz” was said in jest — it feels rather flippant/glib to make such a bold overarching statement. EVERY character? Including everyone’s parents, Dean McHenry, and Fuckface the iguana? But not Roz? That just seems a tad absurd.
Obviously a joke, but also Willis explicitly followed it up with something like, “There! Now you can’t complain when more characters come out later!”
They’re just trying to head off more “bUT jOyCe wAs cANNOniCALLY sTRaiGHT” whining at the pass, that’s all. It won’t work, but it was an understandable attempt.
Roz has threatened to “kiss girls on stage” wayyyyyyy back when Robin was trying to wrangle her into being Good Optics For Conservative Re-Election, so that might be what you’re thinking of?
I once attended a wedding where a groomsman used the word “detrimental” instead of “beneficial” to talk about the happy couple’s effect on their friends.
A REAL tense moment followed before he kept talking and context made it clear he’d just goofed and said the wrong word.
When you consider the prophecy Joyce received in Book 12, “before Joyce dies” may not be too far off. She has been throwing up some death flags, these last few chapters.
a bit sad, both of them grimaced at the thought of beating Roz in the matter of sex when her entire information campaign is based on the acceptance of this area
No Joyce, you should definitely tell Joe all about this. Make sure you include ever emotion and physical sensation you felt with Dorothy last night. I’m certain this could only end positively for you.
As a probably autistic person (and confirmed ADHD person), I am relating to Joyce a little here. The infodumping and the inability to register Jennifer’s lack of interest/enthusiasm feel so painfully familiar, even if the subject matter is a little more risqué than I would usually be comfortable with. I only realise what’s happening when someone points it out or retroactively a couple of months later.
It’s not an excuse, but it also is making me a little more lenient to Joyce re. not talking to Joyce about Joe. I could see her mind getting completely sidetracked by the sight of her special interest (Dorothy) that the important discussion faded into the background of her mind. It’s never happened to me in a relationship, thankfully, but I can think of dozens examples of times when I’d been distracted by something and the important discussion fell by the wayside.
Joe is mentioned, but the idea of continuing the conversation she left him hanging on doesn’t occur to her
“I have to do something important, Joe, I promise I’ll be back soon to finish this conversation!”
*proceeds to talk to Daisy for 30 seconds, then has sex with Dorothy five times, bothers Lucy and Asma over stupid shit, goes to bed, goes to class, still doesn’t talk to Joe*
Yeah, I mean, the fact that she hasn’t had *time* to see Joe is completely reasonable, and even that there’s been too much going on for that to be her primary concern, but I think it’s fair to argue that it’s a little weird that this is the first strip where she’s seemed concerned about it *at all*.
I mean, it does occur to her. That’s why he’s a no, right now. Cause that’s a conversation she’s scared of and doesn’t know how to approach so she’s avoiding it
yeah i relate to having something you want to talk about so much but no-one appropriate to talk to for various reasons. solution: joyce should talk to her sister about it. she’d be supportive, and she’s not in the messy pile of people this development has hurt, and while she’s not sapphic as far as i remember, she is under the queer umbrella.
or would that be weird? i mean, i’m not talking graphic details or anything. but if she wanted to talk through how it felt to be sexually active now after the whole… upbringing, and having a girlfriend etc i feel like that’s prime sister chat stuff.
Personally even tho it’s a topic that occassionally came up cuz my household is very sexually free (and my parents once threatened to turn a spare room into a bdsm chamber because we couldn’t stop arguing about who’d get said spare room as their new bedroom).
I wouldn’t really want to hear about my sibling’s active sexlife. Like their sexual awakenings and all that jazz, or even a quick joke I’m all about but I don’t need a an account of how good their partner is in bed.
I think there are some siblings where that kind of conversation would be fine, and honestly i think Jocelyn would be perfectly happy talking about it with joyce, but joyce would probably still be uncomfortable doing that
See, I used to think hearing that stuff wouldn’t bother me. My brother’s also into ladies, we like the same bits, shouldn’t be a problem right?
Nope. The instant he started talking about things in more than PG-13 terms I instantly nope’d out of the conversation- one of the few times my reaction to something can be described as “visceral”.
So yeah, I suspect Jay’s perspective on things is the more common one.
I once got stuck in a conversation that lead to my cousin telling some story about a girl leaving his neck covered in hickies. I wanted to spontaneously combust and take him out with me. 🤢
Just to note: Jocelyne mentioned that, since starting HRT, she’s “starting to like girls a bit” (which triggered Becky’s fears relating to sexuality being fluid).
I wonder if Joyce will realize that she actually doesn’t have to obnoxiously tell other people about her sex life. I’m sure lots of her friends and fellow students would be perfectly fine not hearing about that at all.
I’m glad she’s atleast self-aware enough to pick and choose her targets but that also lowkey makes me feel worse that she went out of her way to get a dig in at Walky cuz that means she fully just didn’t consider everything before that as a slight against him somehow
In a way I don’t think she ever did. Before all this occurred, Joyce was adamant that she simply didn’t approve of her best friend’s choice in partners. Walky has, from day one made it clear he knew Joyce’s intentions even if she herself didn’t (jokingly).
Now that things are where they are, it’s like she finally committed to the bit—but for lack of understanding why that’s kind of screwed up, since she was adamant that she was never “playing”. She even throws a “good game” his way. She arrived at the context of why she and Walky were prickly all this time
This was more or less my response! “Oh, hey, she does remember Joe exists!”.
I’m not following her thought process about him being off the table, after what he said about wanting her to have what she wants; having that great talk with him about this would be a great way of covering the topic (and fulfillling her previous promise to him to talk more about it after Becky urgency), unless her unconscionably ghosting him is the reason why he’s off the table for this (and everything else).
As a disclaimer, my current stance towards Joyce behaviour is “behaviour that I love to hate”: I do not criticise the strip itself and am eager to witness how matters develop! (Praise Be To Willis.)
I read this as she wants to go talk to Joe about how awesome sex with Dorothy was and how great it is to be a sex-haver now because Joe was a person she wanted to talk to about her interests, but she can’t do that now because of how she left that conversation.
She could go talk to him, but it would have to be about them and the poly idea and she should probably talk to Dorothy about that first if she’s interested and that’s all too much to deal with yet so she can’t go talk to Joe about how great having sex with ladies is.
She is right now just as unmoored as Becky, and neither of them have maps for where they’ve gone. Joyce in particular has had the things that used to help her focus her neurodivergence productively dismantled, and right now she genuinely does not have the mental bandwidth to deal with all the things she’s got going on. She has so many directions she can go in, and none of the people in her life are really giving her anything useful regarding how to prioritize them, not even Dorothy.
So she’s fixated on the one that felt the best.
Is it obnoxious? Yes. Is it exhausting? Most definitely, not just for those around her but for her as well. Running at this level is unsustainable.
And it’s unfair for us, who see all of this at a bird’s eye level, to expect her to put all that together in what is, in-universe, a 48-hour period. It’s even unfair of me, in particular, to expect Joyce’s friends, many of whom she’s unintentionally or even intentionally burned, to be the help she needs right now. They don’t necessarily know how, and in Dorothy’s case most of her solutions are manifestations of her own neurodivergence and even with the best of intentions often cause more harm than she intends.
I know it’s been stated that the school got this whole peer group from the kidnapping some therapy. We know, for example, that Jennifer and Dorothy at least made a show of attending, though they didn’t really let it work for them.
I wonder if Joyce has actually trusted a therapist when one was offered. Not that the ones the school offered were necessarily great, but it’s not nothing.
I don’t think there’s been anything about getting the kidnapped group therapy. Dorothy and Jennifer did that independently – Jennifer for her depression and drinking and Dorothy all along but we saw if after Ryan’s attack.
I think its like someone who comes home from college for Christmas and refuses to look at their final grades because they just want to enjoy the holiday break.
They might be poly, they might drift apart, he might be hurt, she might want to be with him but Dorothy is against the poly idea etc.
But as long as she doesn’t talk to him none of those things have happened yet and she can just enjoy the honeymoon
The problem is that this particular envelope has two people’s grades inside it, and she promised the other one she’d totally open it, and he’s still waiting for his grades.
Several commenters tell me that Willis has [joked?] that Roz is actually the only Kinsey 0 in the cast, but (a) I strongly suspect Walky and Joe, plus “law and order” Tony whom y’all are all in denial about being a Republican, and I’m not sure what the terminology is with the attractions of NB people but have we seen any evidence of who Booster likes and also (b) if there’s anybody who would in fact be a Kinsey 0 and *still* do an FFM just for the lulz, it’s Roz.
No way on earth I believe Walky is cishet. I’m big on the trans Walkie train, but even without that there’s been a lot of little things over the years that have pointed to him being bi.
There’s zero chance Walky is het at all. Nah. Way too many comments from him about how hot guys are and I think one about how he’d bang a guy under certain circumstances? Can’t remember.
Joe is bi, you can’t take this from me. I have no evidence, only hope.
Tony is a shitty person, I also have no evidence only strong suspicion.
The terminology would, I guess, be enby4enby but even then there’s a lot of variation that would make it tough to call hetero. Labels for sexuality get a bit weird when you’re nonbinary. Signed, an enby lesbian.
I’m still not sure about egg Walky, but he’s definitely bi. Besides the being willing to go down on a dude for pizza, he said to Danny at Joyce’s party that he’d definitely band Jacob. There was also a recent bonus strip where he was watching Ethan & Asher make out and bragging that he could do it better.
Joyce seems to be feeling that she’s “off the map” and wants to talk to someone that’s sailed these waters before.
I wanted use the metaphor that Joyce wants to share a wonderful new food but most of her friends won’t eat anything that comes from a taco truck. That spun out of control very quickly.
Yay, progress. Attempt at genuine conversation with someone who can probably give her some amount of good (or at least practical) advice. Maybe she’s not going to blow up all her relationships after all.
Maybe.
I think Joyce has at least… four reasons not to want to talk to Sarah specifically about this.
1. The specific flavor of sibling vibe these two have has involved a fair bit of Sarah teasing Joyce about her sexuality, most specifically her masturbatory habits, and while Sarah apologized for, you know, announcing to the whole friend-group that Joyce had started masturbating, and Joyce accepted the apology, she didn’t then take the opportunity to talk to Sarah about it or anything else sexual. I don’t think she generally views Sarah as someone to confide in about sex.
2. Like Roz, Sarah has never had sex with a lady.
3. More recently, Sarah has made her disapproval of how Joyce and Dorothy got together pretty clear!
4. And, oh yeah, they weren’t being as quiet as they thought they were, so Sarah already knows some of the things Joyce would want to talk about, and probably doesn’t want to hear any more about it.
If Jennifer sent Joyce to talk to Alice, i have no doubt that Alice would interpret that as a romantic gesture from Jennifer. “Oh my God! Jennifer sent me the gift of juicy lesbian gossip. She really does love me!”
Joyce, you don’t need to talk about your sex life, you want to.
And other people’s desires matter too, so if someone doesn’t want to chat about your six life with you, they don’t have to.
Joyce needs to learn that she has agency over her desires. Wanting really really bad doesn’t make what you do okay.
You wanted to kiss Dorothy at the protest… you didn’t need to kiss Dorothy. You wanted to sleep with Dorothy instead of having a conversation with Joe, but you didn’t need to do that.
That’s the thing. Wanting isn’t a sin, but that also doesn’t mean your personal desires are the most important thing in the world. That’s what Joyce needs to learn.
Exactly so! It was much the same with the “Wife i mean girlfriend” moment with Hank. She uses hyperbolic language because that’s always been what it takes to be taken seriously.
The only thing she NEEDS to do is die. Everything else that comes before is optional. But her mental and emotional well-being will benefit substantially from having a friend to discuss this major life event with. Does that suit you better than “just gotta”?
There are a lot of things people benefit from, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is obligated to give it to them.
I’m sure that Joyce would benefit from having someone to talk to about her sex life. She’s clearly excited about it and wants to share.
But that doesn’t mean it benefits Jennifer to help Joyce with that. Jennifer can choose to do this to help Joyce, but she isn’t obligated to.
And quite frankly I think Joyce needs to recognize that her desires don’t trump those of everyone around her. She could do with being a little less self-centered and a little more considerate.
Has she truly done something so awful by trying to engage one of her friends in a conversation? Does she have any reason to expect that her friends wouldn’t be willing to talk to her about it when they’ve all been perfectly willing to talk about her sex life when it made her uncomfortable? Jennifer would of course be well within her rights to tell Joyce that she doesn’t want to have this conversation, but she hasn’t. She just said something snarky and mean. Joyce’s responded here by just explaining where she’s at and asking for a little empathy. And I feel like you’re suggesting that it was wrong to have asked for her friends to care in the first place.
This argument would hold so much more water for me if we weren’t talking about a friend-group that has been quite happy to discuss Joyce’s sex life and masturbatory habits for months. Sometimes behind her back, sometimes to her face.
If these specific people are suddenly gonna claim to be uncomfortable with the topic now that it’s become a source of joy for her, then they’re jerks, and it really recasts the earlier glee with which they teased her about this stuff in a gross light.
And given that “Can people actually change?” is kind of the central question of Dumbing of Age, one of Joyce’s frustrations is that she feels she’s changed in some pretty huge ways, but her friend group doesn’t really acknowledge this.
(Lucy tries to call Sarah out on being mean to her friends in the next strip, but literally no one protests that this is a weird or gross topic of conversation, an this was far from the first time that Joyce’s sex life was treated as a perfectly normal topic of conversation over her protests.)
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Joyce is a catalyst that is slowly causing Dorothy and Jennifer to switch places on the Kinsey scale.
I give it 5 minutes before she slips back down that scale when she sees Alice again.
Her scale is gonna start sliding depending on whether or not she’s around Joyce or Alice. This will make Alice decide Joyce is her enemy. Joyce won’t realize this. Alice’s preferred method of attack is looking better in a leather jacket.
damn straight
well, not straight
Definitely straight.
Just likes girls sometimes. You know, like everyone does.
Not damn straight. Damn curvy!
joe mentioned!!! sadly this means the bechdel test is failed. rain of meteors
The Bechdel Test is when you admit men exist.
exactly, whenever anybody mentions men for any reason it summons a rain of meteors
I believe the Weather Girls released a song discussing that very subject.
That song and Bodies by Drowning Pool are about the same event.
So that’s why it’s been looking so apocalyptic lately.
I thought that was Homestuck.
Well I missed the geminid shower so should I just start yelling MEN from the top of my lungs tonight?
By contrast, the Bechamel Test is when you admit pasta exists.
And the Beck test is when you admit Experimental Alt Rock exists.
While the Beckham test is when you admit football exists.
If you make a movie with two ladies in it, and all they do is talk about men, your movie fails the Bechamel Test, which means it’s bland and cheesy.
The kitchen pedant in me has to point out that a true bechamel sauce only contains butter, flour and milk. Perhaps some nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. No cheese!
Fuck nutmeg. Delete that garbage from the planet ASAP.
Mmmm… Nutmeg…
You will take that back.
No, not a chance.
Yes! White sauce with cheese is Mornay, not Bechamel.
When the sauce hits your eye like a big 4-cheese pie, that’s a Mornay
Take it up with Lottie.
🤣👏
And the Baruchel test is when two named characters have a conversation about something other than dragons.
Allison Bechdel is really regretting making that comic right now, y’know more than usual.
The Bechdel Test is when you have a potluck bbq and it fails if everyone arrives with nothing but relish.
Deep ‘DTWOF’ cut.
So the Beckett Test is whether four guys can have a conversation without going off to kill the Archbishop of Canterbury?
Truley one of the worst sins a writer can make
I know you are joking, but I still want to nitpick and say the Bechdel test says that the discussion shouldn’t be ABOUT a guy, not that no guys should be mentioned ever.
This conversation would pass either way, because the actual original Bechdel test, as explained in the comic by Allison Bechdel, was about how alienating mainstream media is for lesbians.
The idea is that to pass the test, your movie has to contain even one scene where a lesbian doesn’t feel completely alienated, because she can at least pretend the two female characters in question might not be completely 100% heterosexual.
This strip would pass even if Joe was the main topic of conversation for a few panels, because the last panel reaffirms that Joyce and Jennifer have both had sex with women.
Joyce is just strangling the part of her brain that’s trying to remind her she has a conversation she needs to have with Joe huh
one brain fart later, she’s talkin to girl Joe. . . I mean Roz lol
Theory: Joyce considers things with Joe mostly wrapped up. Sure, she said they’ll talk, but she meant it more in a “we’ll see each other in bio class and can continue this conversation then” sort of way, or in a “I dumped you but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t see me ever again” sort of way. She did not mean to take back the “I have to break up with you”. As far as she is concerned, her and Joe are over. She is curious about polyamory but that doesn’t mean the dumping didn’t happen.
that’s even worse
If Joyce thought she and Joe were over, she would have said no to the polyamory idea.
Joyce is many things but not ambiguous.
I agree her being clearer in response would have been better, but she did literally say they were breaking up and didn’t take that back. Does she have to reject every variant of “what if we didn’t break up” Joe proposes to keep her Morality Meter full?
I will not do it as a couple,
I will not do it as a throuple,
I will not date you in the rain,
I will not date you in Fort Wayne.
With Dorothy I’m all aglow,
I’ve broken with you, Joe, just go!
Worse theory: Joyce is going to be completely blindsided by how devastated Joe was by her actions, because last time she spoke to him he seemed to be fine with it.
The whole conversation was broken off in the middle. You treat it as complete instead.
I honestly don’t know why anyone thinks this or why the consensus view in these comments is that that’s all done and wrapped up. I certainly believe that Joyce is *avoiding* it because it’s painful and difficult to have that conversation (no matter what direction it ends up going) but that’s not at all the same as “Joyce thinks it’s all done and wrapped” and certainly not the same as anyone *else* thinking it’s all done and wrapped.
It’s Joever, I fear.
Honestly, I hope it’s Joever because I dread the prospect of a polyamory plotline. Much better to have a clean break and see Joe get with someone who actually fucking cares about him.
I’m just glad we’re finally getting to see that! Feels like she’s needed moments like this
Honestly, I’m glad that she still seems to have hangups about Joe. My biggest worry was that Willis was intentionally ditching that plotline entirely, but I think it’s clear looking at her expressions, how she’s phrasing things, that she subconsciously feels bad about the way she treated Joe, but doesn’t want to confront it.
Possibly related to her cognitive dissonance? We can only hope.
She desperately wants to stay in her happy horny fairy tale where she gets to have lots of great sex with her True Love, the future Mrs. Dorothy Keener-Brown.
Just looking at her face and the phrasing in that panel though, I think Joe is someone she really does want to talk to about this. There’s something more complex going on there than even in the panel where she mentions Becky.
“Fine, you convinced me. I’ll fuck Dorothy with you.”
Dorothy arrives with Becky to ask for a big favor, and that’s how the campus gets a new polycule.
If this keeps up eventually campus will BE a polycule.
Everyone always promises this, but it never happens.
And yet Taffy fills me with hope.
inching ever closer to the fuck pile.
Plot Twist!!!
(after all Jennifer has expressed before that she finds Dorothy a hottie.)
Go talk to Joe about it, Joyce.
I mean, go talk to Joe, but not about having sex with Dorothy specifically. Talk about other stuff.
Maybe if he takes it well you can give him a few details as a treat.
Go talk to Joe and become polyamorous and then talk about sex with Dorothy. Hearing about your partners having experiences with other people is such a wonderful thing because you get to see a version of them that they aren’t when they’re with you. And it’s very special having that kind of access.
Probably don’t talk to Joe about it if you plan on breaking up with him though, yeah. That would be in poor taste.
She says Joe is off the table because she’s already broken up with him. 💔
No, it’s specifically because she’s afraid of how he’d react to that specifically.
That is a bizarre read clif.
Bizarre but nevertheless extremely common among the readership.
I know. It keeps weirding me out. It’s also a little depressing, in what it says about us in general. People really see what they want to see in works like this.
Which is fine, but then stating it in full confidence is another matter.
I refuse to keep this in a hater thread, and Joyce is currently acting like a dumbass even by college standards.
That’s not new, though…
Joyce dared to break bigot and oppressive rules and now she´s breaking common social rules such as “don´t talk about sex” and people is like STAHP!
kinda shows how common social rules are alse kinda oppressive
She’s having second thoughts about her sexuality. Third thoughts?
Fifth thoughts were a whole different thing.
Were I Jennifer, I’d have squirmed away by now.
She could leave at any time, yet here she is.
As a neurotypical, Jennifer is trapped by the social convention that you can’t just turn and leave an awkward conversation
Is she a neurotypical though?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/04-dont-stop-billie-ving/slipshod/
If you don’t have anything nice to say *bites tongue*
Surprised Joyce didn’t consider just rubbing it in Walky some more, just for kicks.
So this is all about sex certifications, then?
This is what she thinks she should talk to Joe about? Seriously? The proximity based memory stuff was a gag, right?
Not even a little bit.
Not necessarily. This is a thing she wants to talk about, but can’t talk to Joe about, possibly because of the other things she needs to talk to Joe about. Or because she realizes she’s burnt that relationship to the ground.
Thats my read. She wants to talk to Joe about this but she’s worried if she goes to talk to him
A) he will do something sweet and her complete lack of impulse control will mean they hook up again
Or
B) Joe will try and follow up on their previous conversation and she is trying to avoid that.
Or
C) She finds out that Joe is actually hurt by being cheated on and isnt big on listening to Joyce talk about the hot sex with the woman she dumped him for.
As long as she avoids him she can convince herself there aren’t actually any problems
Yeah I mean prior to them dating he kinda… WAS the person she went to about a lot of stuff she was uncomfortable processing. But now things are messy because whether or not they’re still dating is in limbo and if they’re not, they don’t go back to having the same dynamic they had before. When you cheat on someone and leave them for someone else your friendship and specifically your ability to talk about sex and romance with them is pretty damaged, even beyond normal breakup space.
She’s actively saying she knows she should not talk to Joe about this right now. She would’ve if they never dated
You thought it was Joyce being insufferable but really it was brain-crippling neuroses!
Por que no los dos?
It’s not like most people here can tell the difference.
A girl can multitask
Some really nice facial expressions here, especially panel 4.
Naaaah not really feeling the Tony grav
When you confuse “talking with someone” with “talking at them” and she’s doing a lot of talking at people.
Oh, I don’t know, I think she wants Jennifer to talk back, but is being so inadvertently offputting it’s not really happened.
Love Joyce but I would probably be having the same reaction as Jennifer if someone talked to me like this.
at least she’s not talking to leslie about it, tho i imagine it’d be quite inappropriate to do so with a teacher tho i can imagine robin bragging to her students about past hookups
Aww, Joyce! It sucks when you’re excited about something and don’t have anyone to talk to about it. Maybe Jennifer would be more open to talking about it if Alice had put her cooch on her cooch recently.
I think the bigger issue is that Billie is Walky’s friend and she knows how he had to be hurt in order for Joyce to get here.
Honestly, I’d love to see her snap back at Joyce about that. Might help Joyce realize that she doesn’t live in a Joyce-centric universe.
the ironic thing is, she actually does.
A lot of people bagging on Joyce for having Main Character Energy when she is literally the main character.
that would mean Jen having to admit publicly to caring about Walky which is always a bit of a cointoss
“What you did was wrong! Not like you wronged a particular person, or that I’d care about said person, just in principle!”
It’s possible, but that’s not really the vibe I’m getting from her here. I think it’s more that she hasn’t gotten laid for awhile and she’s already on edge from having to put up with Lucy & Jacob canoodling in her room all the time and she’s just not up for hearing about yet another of her friends’ sex life.
Joyce was a disaster before she was a disaster bisexual.
She’s a Disaster Sexual
Joyce, for heaven’s sake! Joe is actually NOT off the table.
He would desperately want to be there for you during this important milestone of your life. Whyyyyyyy do you not seeeeeeeeeee???? *frustrated laughter*
At least, if she was taking the idea of dating two people the slightest bit seriously.
I think I’ll just assume the answer is no, unless otherwise stated.
Yeah, sadly I think this is a correct take. I had all my fingers crossed for “this is going to turn into a delightfully messy polycule” but I think I have to give that up now. Joyce clearly didn’t take that offer seriously, which is her right, I just wish she had.
I’m still in the camp that she’s working through some cognitive dissonance right now. I didn’t take that panel as definitive.
I would like you to be right.
I hope so. Otherwise teasing the thread and then dropping it feels weird (narratively)
It’s not really a tease of anything, if we assume Joyce did not take the poly talk serious. All it did is show how pathetically desperate Joe was to save a failed relationship
It’s still a tease, especially with Joyce not clearly shutting it down then – and even hinting at it later.
This is a weird response to contribute to a thread of people hoping for polyamory here.
Like. C’mon. You’re harshing the vibe.
She just needs to see Joe again. He’ll do something nice for her again and she’ll suck his ween again.
That already happened, next time she’ll bang him all the way to get her ”certified bisexual” card ratified.
/s but only slightly
Idk it feels a little chekov to me. I saw that polyamory on the mantle like a whole act ago, if it doesn’t fire in the next one imma be upset
She needs to talk to Dorothy about Joe. But her relationship with Dorothy is so new, she doesn’t want to throw anyone else into it. She wants to keep it her sapphic bubble
Who drew your icon?
Either way, there’s other stuff that she needs to talk to Joe about before she talks to him about this. Which is probably why she doesn’t want to talk to him.
I don’t think this is definitive.
Even if she’s taking the poly idea seriously, she want to talk about the lady sex now and she couldn’t just go and talk to Joe about that without dealing with the poly thing first and that would mean talking to Dorothy about it as well.
It’s a whole complicated thing and none of it involves how she feels about being a sex-haver now.
Huh, could’ve sworn Roz was with at least one girl.
I remember being surprised when some strip before this implied she hadn’t been. I mean, given everything, you’d think maybe once, but, well
IRONY: Roz is the only Kinsey 0 on campus
Sal is also firmly straight.
Amber too I believe?
That we know of. And possibly that they know of.
Also, I’m not really speaking of now, I mean by the end of the strip. End of the strip, everybody’s >0 except Roz.
Amber/Amazigirl have had too much sorta tension with Sal and Dorothy (complete with Dorothy and Amber having a faux breakup “it’s not you it’s me” talk) for me to think she’s 100% straight. Sal, she’s been pretty straight so far BUT I’m not against it changing. After all, even Amber and Jennifer thought Dorothy was straight (as well as the readers) and we’ve obviously learned otherwise.
Kinda want Amber to be str8 but AmaziGirl to be very pan once she figures it out.
Hell yeah!
Amber (everyone’s potential 3rd) implied that, while girls were not off the table, there had to be at least a, er, boy-part involved.
AG has hinted she might have a girl crush on Sal. And she came likity split when the drank girls were on their way home. In case they needed help with something.
Sal… Sal says she’s not into girls.
…There’s a layer of comedy somewhere in the idea that AG allows Amber’s attraction to Walky because of an unspoken attraction to Sal—and that Danny hate-on of Walky is exacerbated by the fact that he finds both twins attractive.
I had forgotten about Amber saying that tbh, though if Walky’s egg ever cracks I guess that would fix the issue for Amber.
Sal on the other hand I do get straight girl vibes from, despite her dating the other obvious egg in the cast.
Willis has mentioned on bluesky and tumblr that every character is queer except Roz
I did not see that 😀
Joe! Needs! a Boyfriend!
wait I just realised that includes Mary
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I was going to headcanon that Peter might turn out to be trans, but when checking the archives to confirm his name, I noticed he hasn’t been seen since Mary’s Hell House on Halloween.
Not sure there’s any point to this comment, then, other than as schadenfreude fuel for Mary haters. Which is merit enough, I suppose.
until he shows up again imma say Mary killed and ate him
Oh wow. I need to check bluesky more often.
I had heard this, but my understanding was that this was a facetious bit, not actual canon. Did I misunderstand? If so, would someone mind pointing me to the posts?
I feel as though “every character is queer except for Roz” was said in jest — it feels rather flippant/glib to make such a bold overarching statement. EVERY character? Including everyone’s parents, Dean McHenry, and Fuckface the iguana? But not Roz? That just seems a tad absurd.
I wouldn’t take that too seriously.
Obviously a joke, but also Willis explicitly followed it up with something like, “There! Now you can’t complain when more characters come out later!”
They’re just trying to head off more “bUT jOyCe wAs cANNOniCALLY sTRaiGHT” whining at the pass, that’s all. It won’t work, but it was an understandable attempt.
My heart won’t allow it to be true. Amber can be straight if she wants, but Sal and Amazi-Girl need to have a messy hook up
Roz has threatened to “kiss girls on stage” wayyyyyyy back when Robin was trying to wrangle her into being Good Optics For Conservative Re-Election, so that might be what you’re thinking of?
Probably.
‘Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand’ (Yeats Poetry 76).
My favorite poem. All too relevant in 2025.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Very 2025 indeed.
Joe is definitely off the table, he’s sitting in the unfortunate chair still.
I’ll bet that Joyce is more experienced than Roz in cheating too. That’d be a fun conversation to witness.
A conversation with Roz would be interesting. I imagine she’d get straight to that point.
Preview panels show a Joyce/Roz interaction in February, (probably March now with the added strips.)
RE: using wrong word
I once attended a wedding where a groomsman used the word “detrimental” instead of “beneficial” to talk about the happy couple’s effect on their friends.
A REAL tense moment followed before he kept talking and context made it clear he’d just goofed and said the wrong word.
Kind of a stone cold move to wait until the wedding speech to tell the happy couple how much you hate them, though. You would have had to respect it.
I would be on the edge of my seat, peering through my opera glasses like a scandalized (but interested) Victorian lady.
Exaaaactly, there’s very little as fun to watch as drama you’re not actually involved with.
breaking my silence to say that i am manifesting more roz in 2026. book 17 year of the desanto !!
you fool, she’s awoken now, you’ve doomed us all..
Me too, roz is fun I love when she’s on page
Don’t worry Jennifer the second you see Ruth or Alice you’ll be on that idea again.
Hey, Joyce could talk to Ruth or Alice about it! Ruth’s definitely experienced with lady-sex. Alice, too, probably.
She could, but I feel like she sees Ruth more as an authority figure than a friend, and she barely knows Alice.
Oh god, she’s on an Autistic Spiral. I’ve had those before. Based on my personal experiences of having them, she might get strangled by the end of it
Good thing you survived then.
i hope Dorothy talks to Joe before Joyce does, it’ll be really funny
I’ll give you that, it REALLY would.
I misread that as “before Joyce dies” implying Joyce will not speak to Joe again for as long as she may live.
When you consider the prophecy Joyce received in Book 12, “before Joyce dies” may not be too far off. She has been throwing up some death flags, these last few chapters.
I’d be down for that. Would mean less Joe in the strip
Jesus Christ
It’s especially rich considering that Liara complains about the hater threads.
I’d be down for that. Would mean MORE Joe in the strip
Aaaay
a bit sad, both of them grimaced at the thought of beating Roz in the matter of sex when her entire information campaign is based on the acceptance of this area
Joyce, how DARE you put Jennifer off the idea!
…how ELSE are we supposed to get her with Ruth again?
I ship Ruth with literally anyone else.
Ruth/Joyce coming in with the steel chair
…. Actually ….
Fuck, I may have a new crack ship. That would be …. interesting.
Ruth x Becky would be truly something
No Joyce, you should definitely tell Joe all about this. Make sure you include ever emotion and physical sensation you felt with Dorothy last night. I’m certain this could only end positively for you.
As a probably autistic person (and confirmed ADHD person), I am relating to Joyce a little here. The infodumping and the inability to register Jennifer’s lack of interest/enthusiasm feel so painfully familiar, even if the subject matter is a little more risqué than I would usually be comfortable with. I only realise what’s happening when someone points it out or retroactively a couple of months later.
It’s not an excuse, but it also is making me a little more lenient to Joyce re. not talking to Joyce about Joe. I could see her mind getting completely sidetracked by the sight of her special interest (Dorothy) that the important discussion faded into the background of her mind. It’s never happened to me in a relationship, thankfully, but I can think of dozens examples of times when I’d been distracted by something and the important discussion fell by the wayside.
I love that this is how Jennifer is possibly going to deal with the fact that she is bi.
I guess it was that or Ruth
Joe is mentioned, but the idea of continuing the conversation she left him hanging on doesn’t occur to her
“I have to do something important, Joe, I promise I’ll be back soon to finish this conversation!”
*proceeds to talk to Daisy for 30 seconds, then has sex with Dorothy five times, bothers Lucy and Asma over stupid shit, goes to bed, goes to class, still doesn’t talk to Joe*
She specifically didn’t say when.
You’re also leaving out how she had to deal with her dad and keep Jocelyne from outing herself under duress.
Or how she had to go rub her victory in Walky’s face.
Yeah, I mean, the fact that she hasn’t had *time* to see Joe is completely reasonable, and even that there’s been too much going on for that to be her primary concern, but I think it’s fair to argue that it’s a little weird that this is the first strip where she’s seemed concerned about it *at all*.
I actually think that’s exactly what she’s realizing here, and I’m not someone who’s been a Joyce defender.
I mean, it does occur to her. That’s why he’s a no, right now. Cause that’s a conversation she’s scared of and doesn’t know how to approach so she’s avoiding it
yeah i relate to having something you want to talk about so much but no-one appropriate to talk to for various reasons. solution: joyce should talk to her sister about it. she’d be supportive, and she’s not in the messy pile of people this development has hurt, and while she’s not sapphic as far as i remember, she is under the queer umbrella.
or would that be weird? i mean, i’m not talking graphic details or anything. but if she wanted to talk through how it felt to be sexually active now after the whole… upbringing, and having a girlfriend etc i feel like that’s prime sister chat stuff.
Talk to Alice about it. She would be rapt.
That’s actually a great idea.
Personally even tho it’s a topic that occassionally came up cuz my household is very sexually free (and my parents once threatened to turn a spare room into a bdsm chamber because we couldn’t stop arguing about who’d get said spare room as their new bedroom).
I wouldn’t really want to hear about my sibling’s active sexlife. Like their sexual awakenings and all that jazz, or even a quick joke I’m all about but I don’t need a an account of how good their partner is in bed.
I think there are some siblings where that kind of conversation would be fine, and honestly i think Jocelyn would be perfectly happy talking about it with joyce, but joyce would probably still be uncomfortable doing that
See, I used to think hearing that stuff wouldn’t bother me. My brother’s also into ladies, we like the same bits, shouldn’t be a problem right?
Nope. The instant he started talking about things in more than PG-13 terms I instantly nope’d out of the conversation- one of the few times my reaction to something can be described as “visceral”.
So yeah, I suspect Jay’s perspective on things is the more common one.
I once got stuck in a conversation that lead to my cousin telling some story about a girl leaving his neck covered in hickies. I wanted to spontaneously combust and take him out with me. 🤢
Just to note: Jocelyne mentioned that, since starting HRT, she’s “starting to like girls a bit” (which triggered Becky’s fears relating to sexuality being fluid).
The sex is no longer continuing. Of course you’d want to commiserate.
*sips beer* wasn’t life so much better back when I wasn’t sipping this beer and commiserating with you, and instead I was in the act of coitus?
I wonder if Joyce will realize that she actually doesn’t have to obnoxiously tell other people about her sex life. I’m sure lots of her friends and fellow students would be perfectly fine not hearing about that at all.
I assume she’s just fixation rambling with that fixation by chance being the hot sex she just finished having
but yeah, hopefully she’ll at some point learn to filter
I would destroy the entire world before i let that happens.
Or she could find some friends who are actually willing to talk to her about important events in her life.
“But Jenny, you are my Bestie-to-talk-about-sex by default!”
“BY DEFAULT!”
“C’mon, I burned all my other closest relationships to have the sex, so you’re at the top of the list now!”
I’m glad she’s atleast self-aware enough to pick and choose her targets but that also lowkey makes me feel worse that she went out of her way to get a dig in at Walky cuz that means she fully just didn’t consider everything before that as a slight against him somehow
In a way I don’t think she ever did. Before all this occurred, Joyce was adamant that she simply didn’t approve of her best friend’s choice in partners. Walky has, from day one made it clear he knew Joyce’s intentions even if she herself didn’t (jokingly).
Now that things are where they are, it’s like she finally committed to the bit—but for lack of understanding why that’s kind of screwed up, since she was adamant that she was never “playing”. She even throws a “good game” his way. She arrived at the context of why she and Walky were prickly all this time
Oh, so she DOES remember Joe exists, she’s just an asshole.
This was more or less my response! “Oh, hey, she does remember Joe exists!”.
I’m not following her thought process about him being off the table, after what he said about wanting her to have what she wants; having that great talk with him about this would be a great way of covering the topic (and fulfillling her previous promise to him to talk more about it after Becky urgency), unless her unconscionably ghosting him is the reason why he’s off the table for this (and everything else).
As a disclaimer, my current stance towards Joyce behaviour is “behaviour that I love to hate”: I do not criticise the strip itself and am eager to witness how matters develop! (Praise Be To Willis.)
I read this as she wants to go talk to Joe about how awesome sex with Dorothy was and how great it is to be a sex-haver now because Joe was a person she wanted to talk to about her interests, but she can’t do that now because of how she left that conversation.
She could go talk to him, but it would have to be about them and the poly idea and she should probably talk to Dorothy about that first if she’s interested and that’s all too much to deal with yet so she can’t go talk to Joe about how great having sex with ladies is.
She is right now just as unmoored as Becky, and neither of them have maps for where they’ve gone. Joyce in particular has had the things that used to help her focus her neurodivergence productively dismantled, and right now she genuinely does not have the mental bandwidth to deal with all the things she’s got going on. She has so many directions she can go in, and none of the people in her life are really giving her anything useful regarding how to prioritize them, not even Dorothy.
So she’s fixated on the one that felt the best.
Is it obnoxious? Yes. Is it exhausting? Most definitely, not just for those around her but for her as well. Running at this level is unsustainable.
And it’s unfair for us, who see all of this at a bird’s eye level, to expect her to put all that together in what is, in-universe, a 48-hour period. It’s even unfair of me, in particular, to expect Joyce’s friends, many of whom she’s unintentionally or even intentionally burned, to be the help she needs right now. They don’t necessarily know how, and in Dorothy’s case most of her solutions are manifestations of her own neurodivergence and even with the best of intentions often cause more harm than she intends.
I know it’s been stated that the school got this whole peer group from the kidnapping some therapy. We know, for example, that Jennifer and Dorothy at least made a show of attending, though they didn’t really let it work for them.
I wonder if Joyce has actually trusted a therapist when one was offered. Not that the ones the school offered were necessarily great, but it’s not nothing.
I don’t think there’s been anything about getting the kidnapped group therapy. Dorothy and Jennifer did that independently – Jennifer for her depression and drinking and Dorothy all along but we saw if after Ryan’s attack.
I think its like someone who comes home from college for Christmas and refuses to look at their final grades because they just want to enjoy the holiday break.
They might be poly, they might drift apart, he might be hurt, she might want to be with him but Dorothy is against the poly idea etc.
But as long as she doesn’t talk to him none of those things have happened yet and she can just enjoy the honeymoon
The problem is that this particular envelope has two people’s grades inside it, and she promised the other one she’d totally open it, and he’s still waiting for his grades.
Several commenters tell me that Willis has [joked?] that Roz is actually the only Kinsey 0 in the cast, but (a) I strongly suspect Walky and Joe, plus “law and order” Tony whom y’all are all in denial about being a Republican, and I’m not sure what the terminology is with the attractions of NB people but have we seen any evidence of who Booster likes and also (b) if there’s anybody who would in fact be a Kinsey 0 and *still* do an FFM just for the lulz, it’s Roz.
Yes, including but not limited to asking for a date with Amber.
No way on earth I believe Walky is cishet. I’m big on the trans Walkie train, but even without that there’s been a lot of little things over the years that have pointed to him being bi.
There’s zero chance Walky is het at all. Nah. Way too many comments from him about how hot guys are and I think one about how he’d bang a guy under certain circumstances? Can’t remember.
Joe is bi, you can’t take this from me. I have no evidence, only hope.
Tony is a shitty person, I also have no evidence only strong suspicion.
The terminology would, I guess, be enby4enby but even then there’s a lot of variation that would make it tough to call hetero. Labels for sexuality get a bit weird when you’re nonbinary. Signed, an enby lesbian.
I used to be a big Walky/Jason shipper.
Walky should fuck joe, like now. Put on a wig. Be this man’s bisexual awakening.
I’m still not sure about egg Walky, but he’s definitely bi. Besides the being willing to go down on a dude for pizza, he said to Danny at Joyce’s party that he’d definitely band Jacob. There was also a recent bonus strip where he was watching Ethan & Asher make out and bragging that he could do it better.
Joyce seems to be feeling that she’s “off the map” and wants to talk to someone that’s sailed these waters before.
I wanted use the metaphor that Joyce wants to share a wonderful new food but most of her friends won’t eat anything that comes from a taco truck. That spun out of control very quickly.
I get the distinct feeling that Roz has indeed tried it.
“Look at me, I’m the alpha female now”
Yay, progress. Attempt at genuine conversation with someone who can probably give her some amount of good (or at least practical) advice. Maybe she’s not going to blow up all her relationships after all.
Maybe.
I rather like this one. We get to see a little about what is going on in Joyce’s head.
Gonna give myself credit for basically listing the same list as people Joyce SHOULD be talking to about this, yesterday.
(even if I did pick “Sarah” instead of “Roz” as next in line for potential confidant)
I think Joyce has at least… four reasons not to want to talk to Sarah specifically about this.
1. The specific flavor of sibling vibe these two have has involved a fair bit of Sarah teasing Joyce about her sexuality, most specifically her masturbatory habits, and while Sarah apologized for, you know, announcing to the whole friend-group that Joyce had started masturbating, and Joyce accepted the apology, she didn’t then take the opportunity to talk to Sarah about it or anything else sexual. I don’t think she generally views Sarah as someone to confide in about sex.
2. Like Roz, Sarah has never had sex with a lady.
3. More recently, Sarah has made her disapproval of how Joyce and Dorothy got together pretty clear!
4. And, oh yeah, they weren’t being as quiet as they thought they were, so Sarah already knows some of the things Joyce would want to talk about, and probably doesn’t want to hear any more about it.
Joyce more sexually experienced in a thing than Roz is.
Mind blown.
(“DM, I roll to disbelieve.”)
Joyce. Go talk to Joe. PLEASE.
Seconded. At least she remembered he exists, for a brief moment here.
Yes.
If Jennifer sent Joyce to talk to Alice, i have no doubt that Alice would interpret that as a romantic gesture from Jennifer. “Oh my God! Jennifer sent me the gift of juicy lesbian gossip. She really does love me!”
Joyce, you don’t need to talk about your sex life, you want to.
And other people’s desires matter too, so if someone doesn’t want to chat about your six life with you, they don’t have to.
Joyce needs to learn that she has agency over her desires. Wanting really really bad doesn’t make what you do okay.
You wanted to kiss Dorothy at the protest… you didn’t need to kiss Dorothy. You wanted to sleep with Dorothy instead of having a conversation with Joe, but you didn’t need to do that.
When you’ve spent the majority of your life being told that wanting things is sinful, there’s going to be some pushback.
That’s the thing. Wanting isn’t a sin, but that also doesn’t mean your personal desires are the most important thing in the world. That’s what Joyce needs to learn.
She’s couching things in drastic terms because that’s the only way it seems important enough that she’s allowed to have it.
Exactly so! It was much the same with the “Wife i mean girlfriend” moment with Hank. She uses hyperbolic language because that’s always been what it takes to be taken seriously.
Exaggerating somethings importance so that other people will disproportionately favor your desires isn’t something commendable.
Joyce has been exclusively focused on her own wants for a very long time, and the result is that she acts like an asshole.
And sure, her behavior is ultimately a product of her biology and biography, both of which are out of her control.
But that is true of absolutely everyone. We can still say someone’s behavior is messed up and we hope they improve.
I’m not saying this is good or sustainable.
I’m saying it’s understandable given where she’s coming from. She will learn healthier ways to own her wants, but it’s a process.
The only thing she NEEDS to do is die. Everything else that comes before is optional. But her mental and emotional well-being will benefit substantially from having a friend to discuss this major life event with. Does that suit you better than “just gotta”?
There are a lot of things people benefit from, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is obligated to give it to them.
I’m sure that Joyce would benefit from having someone to talk to about her sex life. She’s clearly excited about it and wants to share.
But that doesn’t mean it benefits Jennifer to help Joyce with that. Jennifer can choose to do this to help Joyce, but she isn’t obligated to.
And quite frankly I think Joyce needs to recognize that her desires don’t trump those of everyone around her. She could do with being a little less self-centered and a little more considerate.
Has she truly done something so awful by trying to engage one of her friends in a conversation? Does she have any reason to expect that her friends wouldn’t be willing to talk to her about it when they’ve all been perfectly willing to talk about her sex life when it made her uncomfortable? Jennifer would of course be well within her rights to tell Joyce that she doesn’t want to have this conversation, but she hasn’t. She just said something snarky and mean. Joyce’s responded here by just explaining where she’s at and asking for a little empathy. And I feel like you’re suggesting that it was wrong to have asked for her friends to care in the first place.
Insane opener, brought it back around quickly tho. Had us in the first half, ngl
This argument would hold so much more water for me if we weren’t talking about a friend-group that has been quite happy to discuss Joyce’s sex life and masturbatory habits for months. Sometimes behind her back, sometimes to her face.
If these specific people are suddenly gonna claim to be uncomfortable with the topic now that it’s become a source of joy for her, then they’re jerks, and it really recasts the earlier glee with which they teased her about this stuff in a gross light.
And given that “Can people actually change?” is kind of the central question of Dumbing of Age, one of Joyce’s frustrations is that she feels she’s changed in some pretty huge ways, but her friend group doesn’t really acknowledge this.
I mean, I’m not gonna pretend that the context I brought up is the only context that matters.
It would be fine if Jennifer doesn’t want to talk to Joyce about this because of Walky and how Joyce and Dorothy hurt him.
But the idea that Joyce is suddenly violating boundaries with THIS group?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/glowin/
It strains credulity.
(Lucy tries to call Sarah out on being mean to her friends in the next strip, but literally no one protests that this is a weird or gross topic of conversation, an this was far from the first time that Joyce’s sex life was treated as a perfectly normal topic of conversation over her protests.)
Idk i think Billie is a little rusty on that part by now
Not if Alice jumps Jennifer’s bones soon.
I mean. Honestly? Joyce’s logic tracks here. Absolutely valid thought process.
Ah, the trains of thoughts of an AuDHD mind, often leading to tactical TMIs while trying to be not too weird about the latest hyperfixation…
Classic.