David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net ⋅ 1d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social ⋅ 2dDavid M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9d
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social ⋅ 22d
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*the monkeys paw curls*
Years of teasing this ship only for it to come in at the wrong time and in the wrong way. Couldn’t ask for a better disaster
Oh I knew from the moment I started shipping them that it was only gonna happen with a monkey’s paw curl. The only question was when, and in what direction it would curl in.
Monkey’s Paw Curling of Age
What, you think the monkey had EDS?
Very much the curse of Dorothy’s love-life throughout the entire series
I mean, it’s practically the exact same thing as with Walky here:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/projects/
Oh wow that’s almost exactly the same!
Amazing catch!
But are they going to do whites, colours, or just throw it all in together? Honestly, I wasn’t expecting segregation-kink story-lines outside of Linda’s head.
they are somehow backpedaling forward? bold move Cotton, let’s see how this works out. ~<3
That only happens when Danny remembers he’s had that hat for ages and it’s time to wash it.
*plays “Filthy/Gorgeous” by Scissor Sisters on hacked muzak*
I feel like you could set that last question to music.
Don’t you put that evil on us.
420+ comments!!! blaze it!!!! XD
wow, great rationalizations guys! let’s go jill off together
you just described the life of every lesbian couple i’ve known, and in so few words. poetic
thanks! i came into this knowledge through many years of interacting with and studying lesbian couples in the wild
You are a very brave person! Wild lesbian couples can be dangerous. Mind you, not as dangerous as single wild lesbians. (*shudders)
“I’m not gay,” and you’re already making out and pulling off each other’s clothes.
My mind is screaming yes and no simultaneously
Silence the part that screams no. It doesn’t know what it wants.
You’re so right
Most of your comments remind me of my granny watching telenovelas and screaming at the scream for the single most drama creating event to happen lol.
Some days, I am that grandma.
Is that not what telenovelas are for?
MY MIND IS TELLING ME YES
BUT MY MI-IND
MY MIIIII-IIIIIIND IS ALSO TELLING ME NO!!!
YOOOO
inb4 the laundry room is full b/c there was some mess in the dining hall or some after party of ppl cleaning up booze and pizza stains lol
All I know is my mind says “maybe”
Joining the war on the side of the sickos
Welcome to the sicko side of the force. We have chocolate covered cheese and gravy and bean sandwiches.
This feels like it’s gonna be an issue.
Yesssss
Nooooo. (And by that, I mean, yesssss.)
listen to your uterus, dorothy!
No, Dotty’s uterus says go back to Walky
Her clit is what’s telling her to go with Joyce
Her uterus? Is Joyce gonna get her pregnant or something?
She’s eager to try.
Y’know what? Valid.
Just lookup egg fusion for lesbians. I wrote a porno about a post-apocalyptic future with one male and millions of women living with their girlfriends and kids and some wanted to be straight and get pregnant the old-fashioned way. There is the possibility of another male child if they’re lucky.
Like, yeah that’s what I’m saying – also your pfp is gorgeous (though she looks a lot more like her mom like that)
this is fine
Now this, THIS is cheating. Joe deserves better than this from you, Joyce.
And probably Walky deserves better too
Walky at least deserves to watch, like in that other-patreon pic
Walky deserves better but he doesn’t know it, so Dorothy can, ironically, probably get away with this.
Joyce? I don’t know if Joyce can get away with this, with Joe.
Walky has shown a surprising amount of self-respect before, hasn’t he?On the other hand, Joe is a horn-dog, and even if he’s trying to do better the lure of being cucked by a hot chick might outweigh the “being cucked” part.
My biggest fear this whole time has been an outcome where “Joe and Walky actually aren’t super comfortable with a Joyce/Dorothy polycule situation, but neither of them have the spine to admit it to themselves, because what kinda man puts a stop to hot girls banging?” You’re right that maybe they’ve grown past that, but that’s like long-term the worst thing for everybody, were that to happen.
Biggest fear #2 is just that Joe or Walky is really crushed for the obvious justifiable reason. But that outcome almost doesn’t feel MESSY ENOUGH for how this might go.
I honestly feel like, while Joe might be legitimately up for it, he’s going to be devastated, and a loooooot of people are going to be mad at Dorothy enough that one of them might try to do something to her. (Like socially, not like violently. Ar least none of the main cast.)
Whew! At first I thought you meant one of US might snap
Always a possibility.
What could anyone do to Dorothy socially? I guess they could ostracize her, but frankly it’s not like she hangs out with most of the group anyway. She’s already kinda seen as Joyce’s definitely-not-gay hanger-on, to some extent.
I really think Joe might have been up for a polycule. His statements that he just wants Joyce to be happy and his total lack of posturing or anger when trying to get Dorothy to acknowledge being attracted to Joyce make me think compersion is a concept he gets. What I do NOT expect him to be okay with is being cheated on, and this …is cheating. By Joyce’s own definitions of sex, after she defined them.
Wally I’m less sure about. He’s already experienced caring about Dorothy more than she was willing to show him back. Not a good position to make agreeing to a polycule feel healthy. I think he could do casual where cheating wouldn’t matter either, but not with her. Question is how much he thinks he deserves.
I am so tired of the joe is horn dog thing. Joe has trauma where he felt he couldn’t be monogamous because his father is a cheating ho, and he carries his father’s sin.
He has not been horn dog Joe since before the doughnut thing.
Joe might be up for a poly situation, though I’m far from convinced of that.
He’ll react really badly to being cheated on. That’s his big thing.
It’s the cheating yeah. He’s already shared Danny with Dotty, though they were heterosexual life buds. Well… Het and Bisexual life buds.
But the cheating? His entire sexual history is wrapped around NOT being a cheater, and now the first time he steps out of the man ho bubble this happens? And you know he’s getting no support once this hits and the spiral starts.
He’s already what?
Since I can’t reply to the other one:
Joe and Danny were friends first. Dotty was basically the hanger on, because she had a terrible case of Lisa Simpson Syndrome.
We’ve seen nothing of her having any friendships outside of Danny, with Joe being part of the Danny Package. So to remain friends with Danny, Joe had to share him with Dorothy, and since she is SO antagonistic towards him, that infers Joe gave them couple time where he wasn’t part of the “Group.”
So Joe is already used to sharing people he loves (platonic wise at least) with Dotty.
It would be interesting if Willis someday reveals that Joe’s dad cheating was also the result of trauma.
Like, legitimately, his cheating ruined his marriage, and it could just be that he was a jerk and Joe’s expressed certainty that his dad was going to cheat on Amber’s mom and break her heart any day now is only the (completely understandable!!!) reaction of a son who’s still feeling the hurt of his dad breaking up the family as a child.
But it might also speak to a pattern of behavior where Joe’s dad was a compulsive cheater, which is self-destructive, and could speak to deeper issues for the man himself, too.
It’s at least strongly implied that Richard is a compulsive cheater (or at least a regular and frequent one).
I doubt we’ll see any deep look into why, anymore than we’ll get deep looks into why the other parents are the way they are. They’re not the main characters. They’re important because of how they affected the protagonists, not for their own histories.
Totally true and totally fair! And I think I was also forgetting at least one comic where Richard (Joe’s dad) acknowledges that he has problems staying faithful, so drop that possibility; it had just occurred to me while typing that maybe Richard’s problems were something Joe was distorting in his own mind, the way we sometimes do when our parents have a messy divorce.
Not like “Joe is wrong about his dad” so much as “it would actually be fair and reasonable for Joe to mistrust his dad even if his dad only ever had the one affair”. “Cheating on your mom” is the kind of thing that most people don’t forgive easily, especially if it happened when you were young
But yeah, again, pretty sure Richard has acknowledged his problems with his attention span shall we say before. Lotta comic!
Imagining Booster telling Walky that and my left eye did an involuntary squintch
Booster ponders for a moment if they should include “probably”.
Dorothy: This… this is not cheating! It’s… just.. two friends.. helping each other reach orgasm!
Joyce: *turns beet red*
I was going to comment on the next comic, but we got a shift from Joyce to Joe.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/cheating-2/ that strip and the one after it might confuse Joyce into thinking “doing laundry (with or without Dorothy) isn’t cheating. Pair that with Jennifer saying it’s normal for gal pals to get into some subversive hanky panky and Joyce might not realize it is cheating. She’s trying to course correct from being abstinent to all forms of sexual exploration to trying to figure out what morals and ethics are okay or not ok for her personally. And that’s what a lot of young adulthood is, figuring out what our own boundaries and desires are. Hormones plus mixed messages she might tell Dorothy Joe said it wasn’t cheating. How Joe feels about them doing it again since they are dating we’ll have to find out.
Okay well Jennifer specifically said “Once” and this would be a clear second incident. Joe cleared masturbation but uhhh… Yeah so Joyce defined this as a form of sex she’d be having with Dorothy
I just have a lot of empathy for them. I remember being so sad that It’s Walky verse Joyce and Joe didn’t get together. And coming from a sexually conservative background I know what it’s like being a young adult figuring it out. I broke up a friendship because a friend of mine cheated on their partner and I was enraged. By the time I got out of high school and into college it seemed less unforgivable and things would be better if people could talk about their feelings for others.
But I grew up to be a big, queer, pan poly trans guy and just want my imaginary characters to resolve their 20 year drama and have a happily ever after. Even if “cheating” happens/happened, it can be discussed and worked through. I just love them all so much and want the best for them.
Yeah that’s true I just think it’s OOC for Joyce to be this blasé about it. Dotty seems to be struggling withe her feelings but Joyce doesn’t even seem a little bothered. Which would be fine if she was like “hey I think I have a crush on you” but when she’s just as casual about referring to them having sex (by her definition) it just doesn’t feel accurate to me. Now obviously I’m not saying no one has ever acted like Joyce but it is making me question how good a person she is. Compared to if she was more worried about it.
But yeah I also like to see couples and friends work things out. I just don’t like how this is going down.
they are gonna do
so
much
laundry
ALL the laundry
all of it
Ah, two very rational women coming to logical conclusions and taking action not motivated by anything sexual. Yes. Just gals being pals.
Smartening of Age proceeds ever onward!
Pals helping each other out. No biggie.
They’re not having sex, they’re gal-ing out in a totally non-sexual way that is not gay at all!
TRULY THIS IS NOT SMARTING OF AGE
Friends! I return from the future (where Willis’ buffer is now into its second century) to bring you this exclusive preview on DoA to come!
Danny: So what did you get them off their registry?
Amber: A washing machine. How about you?
Danny: Weird, I got them a washing machine too. And so did Joe. Why do they want like a dozen washing machines?
Somebody could get them a dryer too, and they could wash and dry some smelly tennis shoes. Should do the trick just as well.
So in comic time, they’re getting married next month.
They’re already best friends, they didn’t see the need for an extended courtship.
They go through a lot of detergent and fabric softener. And dryer sheets, they have to buy dryer sheets by the case.
Well, we’re certainly living up to the name of the comic
YES… HAHAHA YES!!!
Dun-dun-duhhhhhhh! (Tell Joe first)
And the boos in the audience could be heard all the way to the restaurant at the end of the universe.
The boos can keep their dirty fucking mouths shut.
I can’t hear them over the “woo!”s
They don’t deserve to be heard at all.
this restaurant wouldn’t happen to have yakiniku would it? o3o
Man, seems like doing the laundry is only making things messier.
I approve, let’s get after it.
Sorry, Joyce. Dorothy’s excuse was way better than yours.
This whole plot has me just… remembering that I am not young anymore. Like, dang, the only action I am waiting for is from a fully developed prefrontal cortex, and I do not think it’s gonna happen. I’m so nervous for the fallout from this.
What action would only be made from a fully formed prefrontal cortex? I am really curious now
Literally anything but this? Talking it over with Joe? Going to therapy? Getting some sleep and rehydrating before doing something they’ll regret?
or just having lesbian sex in their dorm, and not in the public laundry!
Really? None seem like things adults typically do.
What Pinkie said. Just some curbing of the impulsiveness.
I like Joe and Joyce as a couple, but I’m not gonna go down with a ship. If Dorothy is who she ultimately ends up with, I’ll be neutral to it. I am going to be very, very disappointed if Joyce decides to do something she views as sexual with Dorothy without talking to Joe first. Cheating isn’t cool, and it’s going to hurt so many people. I’ll also be very disappointed in Dorothy, to be fair.
I guess for me it would be “I’m disappointed in Dorothy, too, but boy is she having a much harder time right now.” Dorothy doesn’t get a pass, but like, I do hold horrible mistakes against otherwise good people less, when their mental health and self-image are literally in shambles.
Joyce’s only excuse is the paper-thin veneer that her other bisexual friend said this was not weird behavior, but I’m beginning to suspect that deep down, she just knows better, but is horny.
I’m always disappointed in Dorothy. there was a glimmer of hope before the backslide, now she’s just worse then Horn Dog era Joe.
You are an idiot
I mean, maybe? Doesn’t change the fact she’s the human equivalent of an Eggo waffle.
Fucking delicious and in dire need of warm blueberry syrup?
what in the sam hill are you talking about
There’s a myth that the prefrontal cortex isn’t finished developing until 25 (we’re not that good at mapping the brain), but like, some people are absolutely using it to try to justify incursions on bodily autonomy, and we shouldn’t let them because that will go nowhere good.
The actual study that’s from never said that prefrontal cortex development is finished by age 25. They *only measured up to the age of 25*, and found that the brain is still changing throughout that entire time.
Nobody has checked what happens after. Probably none of us are done developing. Which sounds about right tbh.
There’s also the issue of “do we even know what that would look like for sure”, and “are we even sure what it would mean if that part of the brain stopped visibly changing”, so on and so forth. Many issues with both the study and the concept.
Also are all changes necessarily development? At some point, even without specific old age diseases, the brain does deteriorate. People slow down.
Yep!
This whole thread of scientific literacy and accurate information has soothed my nerdy little heart
AKA yes agreed
That’s very useful to kmow, thanks! I have been thinking lately about development… do we really expect someone not to mature any between, say, age 60 and 80? Why would I stop? I hadn’t really dived into that specific claim before so if you have reference links I would love to read them.
Hey, I’m seventy mumble (they keep changing it every year) and I’m practically positive I’m going to mature some any day now.
JSYK this comment was a joy to read. Here’s to all of us still nerding out in our 70s and beyond.
https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html
This looks like a fantastically thorough write-up of the myth and the debunking, including lots of links to different places on the internet where people used it to justify nonsense.
Including some Q&A with the poor scientist whose original article has been so thoroughly distorted!
Hi Li,
Would you tell me more, please, about the incursions on bodily autonomy? I haven’t seen anything about that online, and I searched just now. What kinds of incursions are being justified or promoted by the evolving thinking around prefrontal cortex development rates?
Thank you for educating me!
Currently a Trans Thing. I am entirely too sad about it to willingly go looking for it again but there was definitely at least one bill that specifically tried to ban gender-affirming care and puberty blockers for people under 25.
Got it. Thank you so much!
There’s a LOT of other references to the myth with lots of people believing it and using it to suggest wild things, like not letting people get married before they’re 25, in the Slate article I just linked above from 2022.
Ooh, thank you for the article! Gonna go read it right now!
Pretty much nothing. People really overestimate how much more ‘mature’ a typical 28 year old is than a typical 18 year old. The main difference between those two age ranges is how much shit you’ve seen, not necessarily how much you’ve grown from it.
Ha GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
Hey now, they both have boyfriends!
It’s clearly BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Hey now, you’re an all-star!
No! None of that! Bad.
Every party needs a pooper, that’s why they invited you – party pooperrrrrrrrrrr
Team Four Star
Naaaaaiiiiiiillll. I saw a bird. it was pretty…
Kick its ass.
Cultured and civilised people in the readership, I see.
Get your show on, get paid!
Joyce needs to do laundry, Dorothy needs to do laundry, they use the same laundry room, so it just makes sense that they do laundry together at the same time. It’s just practical time management.
It’s economical and good for the environment.
If they use the same washing machine, it’s even better for the environment AND makes it easier to hold hands.
Might as well use the same machine. Very pro-social.
might even save electricity and handwash their laundry!
Joyce, girl, you actively believe what you two did with the washing machine to be a kind of sex. If your going to go through with it again you need to have a conversation with Joe and a deeper conversation with Dorothy about what your relationship is atm.
Even if it technically doesn’t count as Sex by the literal definition, by YOUR definition your about to cheat on Joe if you do this without having that conversation with him first. Joe doesn’t deserve that and you are BETTER then that. As much as I believe that Joyce and Dorothy are soul mates, this ain’t the way to do this.
Unironically, this is all Jennifer’s fault. Or does this count as Billie’s fault? Which of her names gets jurisdiction of this misconception?!
Woah! Don’t let my girl Amber be forgotten. Arguably, she’s the only one who’s known what she’s doing the whole time.
What if I told you that Joe already gave Joyce explicit permission to masturbate and told her it’s not cheating, and while he did not specifically mention Dorothy’s participation, it was immediately after understanding that Joyce had masturbated with Dorothy?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/touchedmyself/
It’s the emotional part that’s problematic. They each know or are in denial that while it *might* *technically* be okay, they have underlying feelings which cause an issue.
Oh, interesting point! I had forgotten that comic. I bet that set up all kinds of confusion!
wow, and even more directly regarding Dorothy
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/doinglaundry/
The conversation where there is a very clear distinction between just masturbating and masturbating with Dorothy? This isn’t Jennifer’s fault. It’s not some honest confusion about what Joe said. This is Joyce’s fault. Be for the drama, but you don’t have to pretend Joyce is so naive she doesn’t know when she’s crossing boundaries.
Joe: “What is ‘doing laundry’ a euphamism for, why were you doing it with Dorothy, [and] why is it emotionally cheating on me?”
…
Joe: “Wait, you masturbated with Dorothy?”
Joyce: “Not since we got together! I have been faithful!” [Page break here. Were there more words said between pages or does this continue directly on? The world may never know.] “I promise you, since we started dating, I have not touched myself one time.”
Joe: “Look, Joyce, that’s not cheating on me. That’s just masturbation. … Joyce, I don’t care if you masturbate. This is me giving you my express permission.”
Where exactly is this clear distinction you speak of?
I think they’re talking about a page or two before that where Joyce treated masturbation and masturbation *with Dorothy* verbally as different things. They may have gotten folded into each other over the course of that conversation.
Wow, I can’t believe I had forgotten about that! This does reintroduce some nuance…
Yeah the emotional cheating here is a bit of a squick for me
Joyce and Dorothy, you both know better than this
God forbid women feel anything
There’s a difference between women feeling something and women feeling something while cheating on their partner…
Yeah, the fuckin’ difference is, these characters aren’t doing the goddamn second part. You just want that to be the case so you can get up someone’s ass about it and feel bigger for a few minutes.
This certainly unfaithfulness/emotional cheating.
What Joyce is suggesting is also going to lead to physical cheating by Joyce’s own definition of sex (which by the way isn’t a completely awful definition).
That they’re women is irrelevant. If two people in separate supposedly exclusive relationships, male or female, have romantic/sexual feelings for each other, and also perform sex acts with each other, the partners aren’t not going to feel betrayed just because there was no actual touching involved.
Cheating is not about acts. Cheating is about betrayal. And this is 100% betrayal whether or not J/D actually go do laundry together.
By your personal standards for your personal relationships, it qualifies as a betrayal and “cHeAtInG”. Let’s see if that same standard applies to the characters in the fiction we’re all reading. I bet if Joe finds out Joyce is masturbating with Dorothy, he’ll have something to say about it, and then we can know for sure what standards are in play.
Now who’s putting words in who’s mouth.
There’s no point arguing with Taffy, they can’t be reasoned with.
Well, that’s just blatantly untrue. I’m an exceptionally reasonable person.
They disagree with you so they “can’t be reasoned with” lmfao. Yeah, totally checks out.
I don’t think it’s really unfaithfulness yet. They’re dancing right up to the line and definitely flirting with it. If they go through with “doing laundry” together, that’s a big step across.
Being horny for someone else isn’t actually cheating. Even emotional cheating. That they’re both relying on massive denial about it complicates things
+1
i’m also very careful with the term “emotional cheating”. I’ve seen it used by jealous toxic people trying to isolate their partner because them having FRIENDS got labeled as emotional cheating. Having friends is not emotional cheating. Having romantic or sexual tension with them can definitely go in that direction though, but depends a lot on what you’re doing with it.
Yeah, it can definitely be abused to isolate people, but it’s also a real thing that can be a problem. A way that problems can sneak up on you. Build up this completely “innocent” romantic/flirty relationship that doesn’t cross any physical lines until suddenly you realize you’re in love with this other person and where do you go from there?
It’s more a thing to watch out for in yourself than to monitor your partner for. Dorothy and Joyce could definitely go that direction, though it involving a bisexual awakening for both of them mitigates at least the blame, though not the problems. Neither even realized or admitted it was a possibility until recently.
Joyce and Jacob, back in that arc, was more a classic example of emotional cheating, even though Jacob was oblivious to it happening until it was too late.
Why do you ramp things up to 11 and get so rude immediately Taffy?
Why do people read something I said, add a bunch of extra words to it, and fling the resulting nonsense at me with the expectation I’ll agree with their brand-new delusion and reply with something polite and patient that carefully examines all aspects of what they said, as if it wasn’t incoherent gibberish?
I’m responding to what’s been said to me, and that’s called a conversation. Y’all say rude and demanding shit to me all the time, but can’t handle it in the slightest when I’m even a teeny bit impolite back.
I see. I’ll just pretend to have successfully muted you.
You keep playing the same troll cycle, and pretending not to see what you are doing. Good day.
And you keep hallucinating things I’m not doing so you can upset yourself. At least have the courtesy not to make that my problem from now on.
Asking someone to have a wank with you is cheating if you’re in a monogamous, closed relationship. There has been no indication at all the Joe or Joyce have agreed to anything else. Even if Joe turned out to be fine with it, that doesn’t excuse Joyce asking this sort of thing when she hasn’t asked him about it.
Yeah, i think that’s a good point!
it’s not about “it’s not cheating if [no penetration / no longer than 5 minutes / i keep my shirt on / we only masturbate together]“, it’s about what you and your partner have stated as personal boundaries and mutual agreements.
Rule of thumb: if you have the slightest doubt that what you are about to do might break those agreements or cross your partner’s boundaries, don’t do the thing. Talk to your partner honestly about it first. If this results in a “yes this is working within our agreements“, THEN go do it (while you’re at it, also think about whether it’s a good idea at all, not just whether it’s allowed, tbh).
Communication is always the best route
Also hi5 on your other comment on emotional cheating, I got all up in my feelings about it and made a top-level lol
Only THEN to remember that Joyce herself awkwardly and inaccurately called masturbation while in a relationship emotional cheating, so folks might be working from that definition.
Mr. Willis, ya gots a misspelling in panel 3. Ya wants “initiated”.
I had popcorn. I literally had a bag of leftover kettle corn from an art market I went to earlier today. And I finished the bag about 10 minutes before coming to read this strip. And I now have no popcorn to dig into for what is going to be a very thickening of the plot.
You’d have to eat it very slowly to go along with the daily updates anyway.
You have to instead eat it along with the comments section. There’s always one person causing that drama pot to boil over.
Of course, then you need popcorn just about every night… Oh no! Anyway.
I ask this of you kindly and with all the courtesy in my heart: Please stop outing, intentionally or not, those of who may or may not be planted dissenters generously sponsored by Big Popcorn. For some of us, it’s the only income we have, and exposing us in this way jeopardizes that income.
Yikes. The Dorothy falling apart arc hasn’t even reached its nadir.
Nice to see she’s not just Mary Sue-ing it up, though.
We’ll hit the nadir when Joe catches Dorothy and Joyce naked together. I’m going to go put on the popcorn.
I kinda get the impression Joe isn’t that fussed about it. I wonder if Walky would be though. He’s the one who won’t even see it coming, or at least less so.
I think he’s aware of their closeness, but is under the impression that they wouldn’t bang because that would be cheating, and he has more respect for both Dotty and Joyce for him to think they’d do that.
Because Joe’s entire sexual hang up issues are based on his father’s cheating. That’s the main flavor of his sexual trauma.
And for all of Joe’s revenge of the nerds grade antics, even Dorothy admits he never cheated on anyone.
Hasn’t Walky clocked the sapphic attraction from the get go? He’s immature about it, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise.
Walky doesn’t have the issues Joe does.
I’m pretty sure so long as Dorothy keeps patting his head and giving him treats he’s just happy to be along for the ride.
If she neglects him for Joyce it’ll cause issues, otherwise Dotty can do no wrong in his eyes.
Finding out that Dorothy is bi and attracted to Joyce might not be a surprise (though most of his sapphic attraction comments were targeting Joyce’s attraction to Dorothy, not the other way around), but Dorothy cheating on him would be more of an issue than just admitting her attraction.
I also suspect he’d have problems with it because of his own “Dorothy’s too good for me” thing. He might see Dorothy coming back to him as just part of her denial of her bisexuality/attraction to Joyce and want to step aside to make way for them. And honestly, he might be right.
Boooooooooooooooooooooooo
“So this is the strange thing that’s called two-timing…?”
“Uhm…not really…”
-Sailor Moon SuperS
Dorothy, you need to stop. Like, full stop.
theyre gonna scissor in that university common area
sorry that wasnt meant to be a reply!! lol
It was a great reply and you’re so correct.
Dorothy needs to keep going at any cost.
I believe this calls for a “I called it”, for it appears I did.
Now that I’m home with a keyboard and somewhat reliable internet connection, lets speculate.
So, I think the best option for these two goes something like this: They, together, send a double boob-shot to Joe.
Walkie can join, but he needs a wig, and pretend to be Sal.
Joe gets picture of four boobs.
RIP Joe.
DOA delivering the toxic yuri that I crave
Joyce, you just had sex with Joe, last night!
The more you do it, the more you crave
I’ve think Dorothy is assuming the refractory period for women is identical to the refractory period for men. When Joyce says Dorothy is full of crap sometimes, it’s in reference to this particular advice.
The female refractory period is significantly shorter than that of men – on average, a male’s refractory period is about 15 to 30 minutes, while women’s ranges from seconds to a few minutes.
refractory period and general horniness level aren’t really linked.
Even if she was thinking in terms of the refractory period for men, a half hour is still way to short for how she’s thinking it about it. This is more about just getting generally hornier over time without relief, which is also kind, but not completely bullshit.
I AM TOO WINE DRUNK FOR THIS
Okay, NOW it’s cheating.
That word has lost all meaning, if this counts.
I don’t think so? She’s going with someone else with the implication of achieving an orgasm, when she’s in a committed relationship. Not discussing it with Joe before to know if he would be okay with it is def cheating.
Absolutely not.
Do you not think masturbating with your friend is cheating??
Not inherently.
So if Joe finger banged a female friend that would be okay?
Is that what you think I said?
Clearly you don’t think it’s what you just said, so why is it different? Is it not the same thing for Joe to help a friend of his orgasm?
Like I don’t think what they’re doing is sex. But it is sexual, and Joyce JUST called it sex by her definition- it’s as much such as what she’s done with Joe, in her own words. And the point is about trust and respect. It’s safe to assume that both Joyce and Joe would have boundaries about not doing sexual things with other people, and if they are okay with that they still need to discuss it first. Even poly people have boundaries that usually involve communication and have some things off limits. I think it’s weird that you don’t think there’s anything inappropriate about it.
Like yeah it may not be the worst possible cheating, it’s more gray than if she had penetrative sex with a another dude but it’s still weird to say “the word has lost all meaning” to call it cheating.
You’re putting a lot of really stupid words in my mouth that aren’t actually anything I said.
I said the act of Joyce and Dorothy jacking off in the same room together isn’t inherently cheating, not all that extra bullshit you added on your own.
whatever man if you don’t think that Joyce doing something she considers to be sex with her best friend is cheating that’s your opinion to have
A better comparison would be if Joe jacked off in the same room as a female friend who is also masterbating
That said Joyce has clearly been shown to think of the laundry room incident as sex, which is more relevant to the “is this cheating?” question
Joyce has also told Joe that she would not be masturbating with Dorothy again. In a conversation that feels like there’s going to be some people imagining it like there’s not a distinction between masturbating and masturbating with Dorothy.
Look, when you make things up to get mad at me for saying, it’s not my responsibility to play along with your hallucinations. Getting pissy with me for not playing along and then disguising it as “whatever man, opinion opinion opinion” is pointless and adds nothing to anyone’s life.
Taffy doesn’t argue in good-faith, this happened a few strips ago with someone else – don’t engage with them.
I know I know
>Someone says something
>I reply with disagreement of any scale
>They pretend I said things I didn’t
>I don’t magically start agreeing with their original premise somehow
>”Taffy argues in bad faith”
No, I just continue to disagree but this time I cussed. Not my responsibility for you to find the difference.
Genuine question but do you think mutual masturbation is not cheating, or do you think it’s not cheating because you ship the two women? A lot of people seem to think it’s fine because it’s queer, it’s women, or because they ship it.
Because while it may not be penetrative woohoo it is sexual and emotional cheating — especially when Joyce considers “someone helps you to achieve an orgasm” to be sex, and when BOTH women here have just confessed that they shouldn’t have done the thing.
To go with what the person below me said… what would make it different if Joe and Danny did an equivalent for penis havers? Same situation — both sides in a relationship, mutual masturbation.
Shipping has nothing to do with anything I said, and it’s a self-report that you went there at all. The dichotomy is built on faulty assumptions. I said the words “not inherently”, but they’re being read as “under no circumstances whatsoever”. Fix the discrepancy yourselves.
Myself and others have asked you simple questions and you haven’t actually answered any of them
I actually answered your question right away, and you just don’t like my answer. You added a bunch of extra stuff and I replied to it, but that doesn’t erase the answer I gave you. I get accused of arguing in bad faith sometimes, but the fact is I just simply disagree with you about what behavior inherently counts as cheating. Making up things I didn’t say and demanding I answer for them, that’s what feels like bad faith.
It’s honestly wild to watch Taffy get piled on this hard and then accused of being the one arguing in bad faith. Sometimes Taffy is sarcastic and funny, sometimes they make a point that disagrees with someone, I think people conflate the silly sarcasm with the genuine disagreement and think they’re being taunted or mocked.
Taffy’s just disagreeing with you, but the conversation went:
You: Rabbits are obviously the best pets.
Taffy: Not necessarily.
You: OH WOW SO YOU HATE RABBITS AND YOU’D NEVER OWN ONE.
Taffy: Not what I said.
Other You: Taffy’s not arguing in good faith.
Like, ofc they’re sounding annoyed after being treated that way. Wouldn’t you?
What Nymph said.
I get that tone is hard.
But Erica, Taffy answered your first question, and your second question — while technically simple — was also, like, already pretty hostile? “So if Joe finger-banged a female friend, that would be okay?” just doesn’t at all follow from the idea that masturbating in the same room together isn’t inherently cheating.
You should have just stuck with, “Joyce has decided it was sex, so by her definition doing it again would be cheating,” instead of trying to argue that everyone ought to agree with Joyce’s definition in all situations.
(Also, like, if Taffy didn’t immediately think of the common pop culture debate of “two straight guys watching porn together”, well. Definitely not for lack of trying on the part of Hollywood for like the last 30+ years.)
You and Taffy would still disagree but it would’ve involved a lot less putting words in their mouth.
I’m on the side that, until we see Dorothy and Joyce on-screen literally mutually masturbating together, the last panel is likely just a joke panel and isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Especially not ‘these two have committed a cheating’ levels of seriously. That’s where I’m at with this.
Same – I’m just taking it as a joke. They may “want” to go “do laundry”, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re gonna sprint off to the laundry room together.
Actually, want shouldn’t be in quotes here. Whoops
Not even necessarily a joke. Dorothy wants to and admitting that might be an important character bit, but like you said, that doesn’t mean they’re actually going to do it.
It’s “definitely cheating” by your definition of cheating. Maybe by theirs or their partners, we don’t know. Relationships have different boundaries and different allowed behaviors. They come in all shapes and sizes. This is ~maybe~ going to be ~maybe~ cheating, because right now they haven’t done a single thing together but admit they’re horny. Which I personally wouldn’t consider cheating lmao
Isn’t it possible to accept that different people have different opinions on a. how some words are interpreted and b. what is moral and what is immoral? Like, we are all different people, with different brains, upbringings, developmental stages, etc etc. We don’t have to actually agree, or disagree, about the morality of what 2 imaginary characters do, or don’t do, intend to do or don’t intend to do…
Some of us just read the comic and don’t feel any need for judging. Judging may happen internally, but we may not feel any need to express it!
It’s fine to have conversations.
Yes. It is. I think I’m having one.
Yup, standing in public, feet away from each other, not doing anything, is definitely cheating.
Joyce has established that, in her worldview, masturbating together is a type of sex – “doing laundry” is Joyce and Dorothy’s euphemism for masturbating – “cheating on your partner” is defined as “having sex with someone other than your partner without their permission” – with all this in mind, asking “Do you want to go do laundry?” could be implying doing it together, which would be Joyce inviting Dorothy to cheat on their respective partners by Joyce’ own definition of sex.
Asking someone if they want to do something is not the same as doing that thing. Admitting you want to do something is not the same as doing that thing.
I want to go rock climbing, but I never will. I am not suddenly a rock climber.
That’s very much a tone thing though and it’s very open to interpretation.
Is the “Do you want to go rock climbing?” question an invitation or an abstract question about your interests?
Bearing in mind that Joyce considers their previous laundry time as “having sex”, it’s very easy to read this question as “Do you want to have sex?” and few people would interpret that as an abstract “are you interested in sex in general” rather than an invitation.
Now, you’re right that it’s not the same as doing it: Dorothy could clarify that she wants to, but won’t because it would be cheating. Joyce could clarify that she was just thinking maybe Dorothy needed to masturbate on her own. They could head off to do it, but get interrupted by shenanigans.
It’s still not at all surprising that people are interpreting it as an invitation.
It’s still not at all s
It’s almost certainly an invitation, but that isn’t cheating yet. Doing it is cheating, talking about it is potentially stupid, potentially a risk of cheating, but talking isn’t doing.
Mostly agreed, but it does raise an interesting side question: Would an invitation itself qualify? If you try to have sex with someone else, but they turns you down, is that really morally different than doing it? Attempted cheating, if you will.
An invitation to cheat isn’t cheating, but it’s risking cheating which is, while not as bad as cheating, is still bad and worthy of feeling hurt over it by the offended party.
I just think that we’re all getting lost in the sauce. When my ex was building up to cheating on me it’s not like I couldn’t tell he spent a month “not cheating” it was horrible. I could feel the betrayal and his interest in the other person. It was obvious. So yeah if I caught my partner having this sort of convo I’d be outta there. Maybe Taffy was right and “cheating” has lost all meaning, I’m just going to call Joyce’s invitation, joke or not, selfish and hurtful. Simply because she has not explicitly asked Joe if they have an open relationship.
Joyce might be remembering this conversation:
Joyce: I don’t know, it FEELS like cheating, doesn’t it?
Joe: Joyce, I DON’T CARE if you masturbate. This is me giving you my EXPRESS PERMISSION.
*All Caps is Bold in this example*
Now, did Joe mean this in context to Joyce and Dorothy “Doing Laundry” together? That’s a question to ask, though he did say this right after Joyce admitted to doing so with Dorothy.
Maybe it’s not an issue for Joe, or maybe it is…maybe Joyce and Joe talked more about this off screen. Maybe they didn’t and Joyce is just mixing up moments in the conversation.
Walky’s potentially more of an issue…or maybe he’ll wave it off for the sake of being able to brag that he called it months ago. Walky’s hard to read at times.
But yeah, they absolutely SHOULD VERIFY that this is all cool before going forward with this.
It’s absolutely not cool and they both know it’s not cool. That’s why they’re both making excuses in this very strip (trauma response/surplus misdirected horny) rather than just saying “No, it’s cool. Let’s do it.”
I am a happy sapphic drama llama
Joyce. Last time, I kept suspecting you had talked to Joe off-panel.
This time, you have had time to think this through.
You have had time to talk to your boyfriend about your thoughts and feelings for Dorothy.
This time, please have done so!
If she talked things through with Joe, she should talk them through with Dorothy too.
I’d like to hope she did but prior evidence of her being uncomfortable discussing sex with Joe suggests no. Obviously the solution here is consenting polyamory but that’s still something Joyce needs to learn… and key — needs to be discussed with all parties, yeah. This isn’t fair to Joe or Walky
Also, if she has talked about this with Joe, that’s an important thing to bring up to Dorothy (Who would still need to talk to Walky about it). Otherwise, she’s letting Dorothy think it would be cheating.
And how she’s approaching this by dismissing what she did last night as just “surplus misdirected horny” doesn’t really suggest that she’s worked anything out with Joe.
Well, sounds like these two have a plan
Sounds like they have a laundry list
Joyce you just said this counts as sex. This is cheating. You gotta go find Joe and talk to him and Walky *now.*
But Jennifer totally said it’s, like, pretty normal to carnally enjoy your bestie. Like that’s just gal pal behavior. Jennifer is an authority on Cool Adult stuff, so she has to be on to something, here.
Joyce would have to be really willfully oblivious to take Jennifer’s explanation as authoritative. She knows Jennifer is a bit of a fuck up and in denial about her own feelings.
I’m not sure Joyce has fully internalized that yet, no.
Then again, “willfully oblivious” may also be an apt description, here. Maybe she doesn’t have Jennifer on such a high pedestal anymore, but…well, it sure is convenient to trust her here.
That said, Joyce is clearly also pushing it. She was clearly told you could bang your bestie “like, once.” This is not once XD
Talking about sex (even about wanting to have it) isn’t having sex. This is not cheating yet.
Encouraging people to commit a crime is, itself, a crime – solicitation.
While cheating on your partner isn’t a crime, it’s still a bad thing to do – soliciting someone to do that bad thing, while not as bad as the thing itself, is still bad.
You feel that way, and I feel differently. IDK what to tell you buddy.
What the fuck
Not yet.
Oh boy.
Ahahahahaha fishhook theory ftw I guess
Well. Happy pride month, I guess?
I love how the comments have split into Relationship Paladins demanding the characters do the right thing and the other half are pressed against the window wearing “SICKOS” shirts.
See the thing is, if they were real people, yes I’m on the side of the Relationship Paladins! But these are fictional gifted kids with mental illness! I’m pretty sure the Sickos are the ones reading the comic right. They’re the ones having more fun.
None of them are married. Shit happens. Nothing has happened or is likely to happen that is sick, either.
We all know it’s not cheating if there’s no legally binding marriage.
I can do both at the same time. I contain multitudes.
see this is the way i’m here for reading the comic, too. After all, [hokey reuse of the “It’s Not Called Smarting Of Age” punchline]
It’s not called Jammy Dodgers Stole My Car, either. It’s not called most things.
I would read a comic called Most Things. At least binge it and then decide if I liked it.
Wish the characters would be less dumb, but enjoy the mess they cause.
I enjoy their triumphs!! I love their growth!!
Their disasters wouldn’t be motherfucking trainwrecks otherwise.
*high-fives you
More like you contain multi-dudes – happy pride month!
There are definitely some die-hard relationship paladins and some die-hard trash goblins, but I think whether or not you ship it does impact which way your heart goes. It’s a lot easier to be a relationship paladin for a ship you care about and have wanted to see happen for 10+ years, and it’s a lot easier to be a trash goblin for that ship, too.
(Both Joe/Joyce and Joyce/Dorothy have fans who have been waiting at least that long, haha.)
Again, not saying some folks aren’t genuinely devoted to one side or the other on unwavering principle, just saying that I know it helps (or hurts, depending) a lot when you want (or don’t want) a given pairing to get together.
I was much more neutral about Joyce/Jacob/Raidah than I am here, just to own that.
Frankly at this point I just want everyone to kiss.
Why would you say something so brave and yet so true meme dot gif
Mmmmmmmmm, I love it when a character thinks they’re going to be the one to hurt someone in a relationship only for them to end up being the hurt party. It’s so twisted.
Oh my god just DATE ALREADY
Ahhh, such a world we would have, if people were required to start dating just ’cause multiple friends told them to.
I could not be trusted to use that power for good.
I did not say anything about it being a “good” world. Just that it would be such a world.
I am not their friend, I am a scientist studying them in a microscope slide
It’s darkly comedic that Joe spent so much time desperately terrified of breaking Joyce’s boundaries by being too sexually desperate or corrupt, desperately terrified of hurting her in an irreparable way due to his own perversion…and Joyce is the one who’s gonna hurt him, break his most precious boundaries, and get herself into trouble by thinking with her clit. A+ story arc to be sure.
Honestly I like this a lot better now that you’ve pointed out the irony in the story line
I look forward to Joe’s utter breakdown and villain arc. He deserves one. then let the *healthy* polycue adopt him and teach him positive ways to deal with his sexual trauma.
Joe had his villain arc; it’s how he started in the series – granted, he was an Anti-Villain, but still. External factors caused him to become an Anti-Hero, and Joyce helped him get onto his redemption arc to becoming a true Hero, but this may be what turns him into a full-on Super Villain
I just want Walky’s villain arc.
I dream of it.
Wow it’s so much better than I expected. I don’t know why but I didn’t expect Joyce to openly admit anything had happened on her side. What next?? Is she going to tell Dorothy that she was thinking about her when Joe was putting her laundry through a rinse cycle manually? Dorothy also has that power, handily. So far nothing has happened that didn’t happen to my college friends who were dating completely different people later that year. It’s a crazy time.
I YELLED. I YELLED. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD????? WHAT IS GOING ON???
The goblin side of me that craves mess is cackling, full on sicko.jpg
Your joy continues to be a delight.
Thank you :’33 I’ve been summoned back by this Sapphic Drama of Epic proportions (on Pride month!) How are you?
I’ve been okay
I am enjoying the wend of the narrative here. But gosh darn is it nice to see your infectious positivity 
YAY SAPPHIC MESS DURING PRIDE MONTH!
As it should!
Seriously thinking of photoshopping Booster with a Sickos shirt for a Gravatar tbh
I did it for you (two different ways) if you wanna use these, feel free!
Booster looking through the window
Booster taking pics
zxvhsdlkBHGÑDGSH OHMYGOD
You’ve got no idea of how much joy you brought me, I broke into actual laughter. Seriously. Equipping it now!!! ♥ ♥ ♥
Aww YAY!!
they are gonna do so much laundry
But at what cost?
About $3.75“Listen, there’s a totally rational trauma-based explanation for everything that happened.”
“I was just really horny and trying to do stuff with you, but sure.”
this is truly the lesbian courtship experience, in a nutshell
Everyone has fears and needs, not all of us almost accidentally finger bang the wrong person because of them. I guess phrased that way I have, not sure how accidental it was but uh theoretically I could have just not.
Am I the only one that doesn’t think this very needed conversation is going to end in them going off to do laundry together? They have places to be and their own bunks. I’m expecting a deep hug, some renewed confessions of love, and a promise to circle back later with an understanding of the fact that they both need a hall pass and maybe don’t actually want one.
I mean I kinda hope you’re right, but your way of thinking also sounds suspiciously smart and wise, and thus, may not be likely XD
Actually having this convo is already dialing the dumbing down a notch. A second ago Dorothy was trying to sneak by while overhearing Joyce describing their tryst, that was dumb. This is less so.
So, as always, Carla saves the day, but not entirely, and in the messiest way possible.
I wanna go back to Sarah, please…
Watching her sleep her life away is infinitely much better than witnessing this… unfortunate event.
This part isn’t unfortunate, this part is finally talking about what happened in those previous fraught events.
What are you even taking about?
I’m imagining Sarah coming in and findin Joyce and Dorothy in bed together. Naked. Would she freak? Or would she just turn around, leave, and quietly freak somewhere else?
She’d walk out, say “Called it” and walk back to Tony’s room, still holding like 4 of the pillows from before.
Sarah slept in the tiniest bit late and she’s suddenly “sleeping her life away”. Goodness.
Hovertext is the title of the next Slipshine?
(… probably not a good idea.)
I’m hoping for “Surplus Misdirected Horny”.
:/
All hands on station! We have a code B! I repeat, we have a code B!
Maybe they could do each other’s laundry?
Well, let’s not get crazy now. That might start to get a little iffy.
And they were doing LAUNDRY together
oh my god they were doing laundry together
Happy Pride month y’all
What I’m most surprised about is Joyce admitting so quickly that her actions with Dorothy last night weren’t just intended as platonic affection
Joyce’s filter is defective. She’s right up front about pretty much everything.
It’s not defective, just different.
joyce no D:
I mean, if anyone’s gonna be kinda cool with *this* it’s Joe, but still, Joyce no D:
“Do you want to do laundry… with me?”-my initial thought.
Then I read all of the comments of people jumping the gun like the next strip might be them deciding to go talk to the fellas. I mean, probably not, but uh, I’m here for where ever the story goes next.
*also* Didn’t Joyce already tell Joe about the first time that Dorothy did laundry with her and he was like, “Oh, that’s not bad!”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/doinglaundry/
That’s basically how it went. I’ll note that the exchange did not actually involve Joe asking Joyce not to crank it with Dorothy anymore. He was surprised she’d done it at all, but that’s as far as the thought went. In fact, there’s a fairly decent case to be made that she interpreted the following “This is me giving you express permission” to cover Dorothy being involved in the activity. Go back and look at the scene with the face touching and the Paramore lyrics, you’ll see Joyce is barely hesitating to initiate things at all, which I doubt would be the case if she thought Joe would mind. It’s an interesting thought.
It’s possible, but she did say “Not since we got together. I have been faithful.” and then it shifted to just being about masturbation and Dorothy got dropped from the conversation.
I’d say it would be a lot more likely if she hadn’t had that revelation that she’d “had sex” with Dorothy. (Or for that matter, if Dorothy hadn’t stopped last night with the whole “You’re with Joe. I’m with Walky. We can’t …”)
….oh my BEEPing gods.
The machines on the Enterprise?
“it’s not called Smarting of Age, it’s not called Smarting of Age,” I murmur again and again to myself like a Madness Mantra, as I try to shelve all my feelings about cheating plotlines before it’s entirely clear if that’s happening or not
(bc, now that we know Joyce defines that as sex, it would 100% be cheating if it happened again. and I’m not going to be hypocritical and act like it’d be okay just bc it’s queer when it wouldn’t be okay if it wasn’t)
but tbh, if they did end up cheating together, it would entirely ruin any investment I had in this ship (and while I enjoy JoJo greatly, I definitely would enjoy to see Joyce and Dorothy happen in very different circumstances). I know it’s a personal thing and plenty of people won’t agree with me–nor are they required to–but I cannot ship anything that starts with cheating, when that’s something that gives people trust issues for literal decades
Yep
*when that’s something that gives people trust issues for literal decades*
This is *literally* why Joe started his horn dog era. His dad’s cheating, and the pain it gave his mom, is WHY HE NEVER TRIED TO HAVE A REAL RELATIONSHIP.
He thought if everyone knew he was a man slut, no one would put emotional investment in him. so when he eventually cheated, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.
He didn’t realize he was still hurting people until he was passing out donuts and Joyce pulled his head out of his ass.
Pouring bitterant all over Joyce+Dorothy.
Well I will be hypocritical and said that it is okay, awesome even.
I mean, at least you acknowledge it, I guess? maybe don’t say it’s awesome in a reply after someone talks about how cheating is always bad bc it fucks up people who are cheated on for the rest of their lives tho?
I will do it again.
To be fair, Joe has given Joyce explicit blanket permission to masturbate, declaring it not cheating: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/touchedmyself/
Now perhaps he should have specified “alone”, particularly since she had just said it was with Dorothy in the previous strip, but. *shruuuuuuug*
There’s no way this ship can ever set sail without making me angry. Stuff like this, with how awful they’re being to their respective partners, will forever taint it for me.
Can we see some more Danny and Sal? I think I need their adorableness as a palate cleanser.
Logging in solely to yell IAWTP as loud as I can…
It would be nice to see some actual relationships working out.
Cos… you know… it happens.
No no no
I would love to see Joyce and Dorothy become a couple, but maybe they could break up with the guys they’re already dating first.
The comments section has not learned from the last time Dorothy and Joyce were together, clearly. Last time people were quick to pick up the pitch forks and scream CHEATING CHEATING CHEATING because Joyce changed her shirt in front of Dorothy, then they listened to music and Joyce touched Dorothy’s cheek.
I know this is a magical concept, guys, but just because they said “let’s go do ‘laundry’ together”, that doesn’t literally mean that next time we see them, Joyce and Dorothy are going to be flicking their beans, or even each others’ beans. More likely, they’re going to scatter off in two different directions, and get around to doing laundry separately while thinking of the other.
Is that cheating? I don’t think so. But clearly, there are some people in the comments who think Joyce and Dorothy making eye contact means they’ve ruined the sanctity of monogamous relationships for everyone, so honestly I’m gonna pull a Charles and say I hope everyone just has a nice consensual fuck pile.
As we all know, having confused feelings about someone else is the same thing as Actually Doing Something. Thougtcrime is real and they will go to jail. sad.
Thought jail, million thought years
Incredibly sad. I understand the concern about cheating, but there’s a mile long gap between two people navigating confusing feelings for each other, and two people actually partaking in an act of sexual impropriety.
It’s such a frivolous and luxurious mindset to have, and a completely alien one at that.
We’re only saying it’d be cheating *if* they did that together because Joyce has now explicitly defined when she and Dorothy last “did laundry together” as sex. Generally, having sex with someone else when in a monogamous relationship (or doing anything sexual) qualifies as cheating
But it isn’t sex.
I know Joyce has decided it is because “Dorothy made her orgasm” but this is also Joyce. Does that mean that if she thought of Walky while masturbating, that Walky made her orgasm and thus they had sex? Do you think Joyce telling anyone else “I had sex with Dorothy because she said ‘hey you should sit on a washing machine and masturbate’ therefore we fucked” would mean the person would respond “oh my god I can’t believe you cheated on your boyfriend”?
I should also clarify, she didn’t even THINK of Dorothy while masturbating. She was reading one of Amber’s fanfics, I think. So, seriously, is the logic here that since Sarah’s grandma bought her dildo for her, that Sarah’s having sex with her grandma?
this is saying *if* they went and did it *together* now. not what happened last time. *if* they went to the laundry room and intentionally got themselves off together while holding hands, *that* would qualify as cheating to most people
I’m talking about the fact that you said such a thing is sex because Joyce said it is sex. I’m just gonna shelve the cheating thing but I am addressing the fact that you said laundry has been explicitly defined as sex and therefore if repeated it is absolutely sex. It isn’t sex. Sex-adjacent? Maybe? But if you’re telling me that two people in a parallel instance of mutual masturbation, the most touch they have being MAYBE a hand hold, is sex? I mean, I don’t think so??? I’m ace, mind you, but…
I’m ace too. I’m not saying *I* would define it as sex, because tbh that’s a silly way to define it, but I’m saying that, in *Joyce’s* mind, her intent if they did this would be her having sex with Dorothy. Personally, I don’t think it’s sex but it would definitely be *sexual*.
Since it’s pride month and as a show of respect for a fellow ace, I’m just gonna stop commenting. Have a good day.
It would actually be really, really cool if they did cheat, awesome even .
Who can do laundry with all this edging?
you’ll pay for the whole washing machine but you’ll only need the eDGE
Joyce might be pansexual and polyamorous and just doesn’t have the knowledge and self-understanding to deal with that yet.
I guess Dorothy thinks PTSD stands for “Please Try Sexing Djoyce”.
If at first you don’t sex-ceed…
Once again I state that cheating is actually very cool and everyone should do it all the time and not cheating should be illegal.
We get it, you’re rage-baiting. I’m sorry it’s not working out for you to the point of having to try it ten different ways. Fingers crossed!
I am.not, I just do this because I think it’s funny to do in response to the amount people pearl clunching about cheating. It is entirely to amuse myself and not other reason. I think rage baiting is stupid and a waste of time.
Fair enough, carry on.
Agreed. Besides, baiting rage on purpose is a bit redundant when people already make things up to get mad about and blame you for it. Dissent at all and the rage comes to you on its own, no need to put in extra effort.
A if anyone actually gets enraged towards these ridiculous comments I made that say more them that about me.
Preachin’ to the choir, innit. Even direct, unambiguous honest responses are apparently so upsetting, a few folks dissolve into rabid dogs and fabricate new realities to justify filling their diapers.
Wow I can’t believe you’d call me, personally, a rabid dog.
So. If they are off to do laundry now (which they may not be), what does that entail? They go to the laundry room, separately or simultaneously, and sit on vibrating machines reading porn on their phones. Then when one feels close to orgasm, the other goes out and minds the door while that private moment happens? And hopefully for both of them eventually. After which they both feel release…?
One machine, mixing the undies, each on a separate corner holding hands like the heathen degenerates they are.
Here we go… I won’t lie and say I’m not far more invested in Joyce and Dorothy as characters than Walky or Joe. And I DO want to see them together and happy.
But this kind of thing is definitely going to put some obstacles in their way. But what’s a story without hardships to overcome?
You both have boyfriends. There is no excuse for this, other than you don’t want to bang them.
In which case, there’s no excuse for this pretext.
Women must never be aware of other women masturbating, not even while masturbating themselves.
Goddamn puritans
Hello? Ladies? Hello?!
Or for fucks
Exactly.
For how the characters was worries Joe was gonna cheat, it is interesting that it is more likely Joyce is going to be the one.
The question was “Do you want to go do laundry?” The answer was “yes” (with a face!!!). That might be an honest answer.
I mean “Do you find that person sexually attractive?” “yes.” Have I just wrecked a marriage of 26 years? Well, I’d hope not. The question wasn’t “Do you intend to go and carelessly bang that person who is not me, without so much as a by-your-leave?” And if it had been, I’d give a different answer!
But she said she wants to, which means it’s already happened 57 times between her saying it and the end of the strip. Joyce and Dorothy are fingering each other right out in the lobby, and nobody’s stopping them. Joyce shot a man between the eyes for objecting slightly, and now they’re fucking in top of his corpse.
Did this happen in Reno, by any chance?
They travel quickly, these adult women.
Your mom is an adult woman.
If 54 counts as “adult”, sure.
I was kinda kidding the last time I mentioned it, but we really are full into Brokeback Mountain, there.
“We’ll always have laundry together”
We’ve always done laundry in the castle.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Laundry is “Laundry”.
“Have fun laundrying the castle.”
Oh no.
Dorothy internally “I’m gonna talk to Joyce, describe it as a ptsd response and then everything will go back to normal”
*1 session in the laundry room later*
“Fuck”
I read that “1 session in the laundry room later” in a French accent btw
Voulez vous couchez avec moi, dans…
What’s French for “laundry room?”
I learned this one a couple weeks ago, actually. It’s “Denny’s parking lot”.
Chambre de laundre, probably. And if it’s not, it’s probably comprehensible enough that a French person would know what you meant. (Luckily, the French are renowned for their extreme tolerance of foreigners speaking their language badly.)
I feel like the French aren’t unique in that attitude. That, or I’ve been confused into imagining a bunch of English speaking people loudly yelling “speak english!!” at someone with an accent.
Americans at least are absolutely all-time reigning champions of being assholes to people about the speaking or not speaking of English. And racist about which accents we consider “acceptably exotic and cool” and which accents we don’t.
Oh, absolutely. But the French thing (stereotypically) is that they’d rather you didn’t speak French at all. Most French people speak better English than most English-speakers speak French, so why are you wasting everyone’s time butchering their language?
la buanderie
oo la la
whereas I am now imagining “1 session in the laundry room later” as a Spongebob title card.
Same thing.
Smash cut, pun intended.
No. Just… no.
They’re being a bit silly, aren’t they?
Joyce slowy getting closer to Dorothy is… :O
Do the laundry!!!
“… Do you want to go do laundry together?”
“That would be DANGEROUS.”
*insert darkwing duck reference here
(lifts opera glasses) good heavens I believe the adolescence may be engaging in unwise emotional processing techniques! teehee.
I literally facepalmed reading this.
Joyce and Dorothy should go fuck and send Joe photos afterward, with a message like “So, this seemed like a good idea in the moment, but now that we’ve settled down it feels important to double-check. Did you want us to stop doing this?” Just cut directly to the point, and if a line is crossed, it can be clarified immediately and with no room for ambiguity. It’s the only sensible way.
“Unclear, please send more pics”
Coming from the shower, hey hey, Joe’s boxer button puts a hole in the wall.
Er, girls. Are you ok?
“Wanna go break up with our boyfriends together?” would work just as well. . .
I’d prefer that at this point.
If they’re serious about “doing laundry” together, which Joyce has defined to herself as sex, then I think they should break up with their boyfriends first. Because, despite what over half the commenters here seem to think, that would be cheating if they do it without breaking up with their boyfriends beforehand.
I don’t think I’ve seen many people arguing that if they actually go through with this then it’s still not cheating. A couple of them, sure, but HALF? Seems exaggerated.
Apparently you missed the poll on the top right of the page where (as of right now) 72% of people seem to think it’s fine for Joyce and Dorothy to cheat on their boyfriends with each other.
That’s not what the poll says. You’re living in fairyland.
/chooses “sickos” because I had to pick one, continues to not even actually want any cheating, only honest communication and either breakups or polyamory, over the long term!
Same. What I want them to do is different from what I want to read.
It also varies from day to day whether I even want to read the sickos version of this comic, haha! Sometimes I just want everyone to be happy. I think we all contain multitudes tbh.
Apparently it’s arm&leg day because you’re out here moving goalposts like a champion. That poll has nothing to do with whether they cheat or not and you said “half the commenters”, nothing about the poll-takers. Tut tut, try harder.
CHOOSE A SIDE, NO COWARDS
RELATIONSHIP PALADINS (27%, 132 Votes)
SICKOS (73%, 349 Votes)
This reads as if it is polling whether the readers put themselves in the ‘sickos’ category of wanting the J/D sex whatever, or the paladins category of wanting the storyline to follow trad morals. It says nothing about whether it is ‘fine to cheat’, in fact, I’d say it works on the assumption that it is not.
SQUEEEEEEEE~
^^
Didn’t Joyce bring up last time this happened with Joe, and he didn’t care?
It was before they were together. And immediately derailed into masturbating at all being cheating.
I took a break from DoA due to the last laundry session. Got a feeling another one is incoming if we’re just gonna go for a second helping of controversial strips. x.x Not trying to make waves here, just hate that set of strips.
The last time Joyce had a laundry day with Dorothy she swore to Joe it wasn’t cheating because they weren’t dating yet. What does THIS mean then?
I miss Walky and his pajama jeans.
No, he swore it wasn’t cheating (for that reason). The link is in this thread.
He swore it wasn’t cheating to masturbate in general if I recall correctly. Not to any specific scenario unless I am misreading some context. Though the lines Joyce says in those strips are pretty damning when she is trying to initiate a laundry day herself:
If I… did laundry without you, I feel like that’d be, like… Emotionally cheating on you?
Not since we got together! I have been faithful!
In other news, I have found out Walky is currently getting a 20-piece chicken nugget during these strips. I am glad Walky is happy, and well-fed.
I can’t help but think how much this “trauma response” argument sounds like something a deeply conservative parent or even politician might come up with.
Like, if Dorothy said that shit to Becky or Danny, they’d have none of it. Hell, Becky just might slap her.
Why would Becky slap her instead of be concerned & drag her to Leslie or something? She’s genuinely not a very violent character like, at all.
Joyce rapidly approaching ‘cheater’ territory right now
How can I be the first to point out where Dorothy’s last speech bubble comes from?
Okay, but now this is consciously starting trouble.
Oh boy. Joe is going to walk in on them doing laundry together, isn’t he?
Ok, I’ve conferred with my sister and we both agree that if Dorothy and Joyce actually go through with that last sentence they will both be cheaters by Joyce’s own definition. I’m personally hoping they don’t as I’m quite fond of Joece and I don’t want joe to be hurt, but I understand this is fiction and people are allowed to like messy situations in fiction that they wouldn’t necessarily like in real life. Hope everyone in the comment section is enjoying themselves!
Oh my god
In my experience, “doing laundry” rarely gets me rid of extra horny
Just two friends, jilling off one dryer apart cos they’re not gay
“Mutual masturbation is cool, but I draw the line at fingering!”
I can’t believe Willis is trying to hold me at gunpoint to give him another $5
Yesss. Get your wallet outtt. Join usss.
I hear the thruple coming,
it’s coming ’round the bend,
and I ain’t seen a thruple since
I don’t know when
I think Joe will make us proud no matter how things go.
(Reads the second line to the beat of the song still)
It could end up a quad with Walky,
But there’s no way to knooooow…
I said some time ago that this is going to end up in a slightly complicated four-peeps polycule, and nothing that has happened in the strip since then has even remotely convinced me otherwise.
I want to be clear that I fully support them cheating on their boyfriends with each other, narratively and morally.
Seconded. I think it would be good and healthy for everyone.
excuses excuses
Everything is an “excuse” to a scold.
me watching baby’s day out: “I can’t believe this shit what kinda sicko makes a movie about infants being endangered?”
*the baby barely dodges an anvil or whatever tf i never actually watched baby’s day out*
“He’s gonna FUCKING DIE somebody HELP HIM!”
“we can’t do this”
“you’re right, it’s wrong”
>proceeds to do so anyway
You just summarized about half of human history
The start of every entertaining fictional relationship. including Walky/Amber!
“Chat, I’m not gonna finger Dorothy in the laundry room.”
Sometimes talking about how wrong it is makes it better. I think the first step to not falling into this trap is not mentioning how wrong it is before you bang someone.
Doing laundry will not fix this situation. Honestly, it’d probably make it worse.
FYI folks this is not emotional cheating, because emotional cheating isn’t “wanting to cheat” or “fantasizing about cheating”.
Emotional cheating is a kind of nebulous thing that dovetails somewhat with toxic monogamy, but the idea is that you are having a Relationship (capital R) with someone not your significant other in every way except having sex.
It’s an idea that requires a couple to have an agreed-upon level of emotional intimacy outside their own relationship.
(I don’t think emotional cheating is completely impossible or anything? I think there’s probably a point at which you’re texting someone else at all hours and completely neglecting your romantic partner, or something like that. But I also think that it’s hard to separate the concept of emotional cheating from how much American society for example normalizes the idea that a cis straight man just should not have deep friendships at all; that it’s effeminate for him to be emotionally open with ANYONE other than his girlfriend or wife.)
Anyway, it’s fine to be uncomfortable with what seems a lot like Joyce and Dorothy’s mutual interest in going off to do more laundry together right now, but emotional cheating is not the term you want.
(Also it should go without saying, but the concept of emotional cheating is really really amatonormative. It obviously encounters problems as soon as a couple (or polyamorous relationship) is asexual or aromantic.)
Pff I have been reminded by links elsewhere that this confusion is at least partly JOYCE’S fault because she called masturbation emotional cheating. She was wrong, but like, it makes sense that she’d fumblingly come up with that term while trying to explain that she feels like masturbating is somehow being unfaithful to Joe in her mind.
Mental cheating maybe but it’s like literally just thoughtcrime at that point.
That term is so goddamn weird to me. It feels possessive to the point of childishness, like “You can’t feel things about anyone but ME!”. It gets launched at fictional characters from a catapult, with all the earnest severity of a murder victim’s ghost pointing at their killer and saying “Yoooouuuu kiiilllled meeeeee”, and then you look at what the character is actually doing and it’s like, mild flirting with their BFF.
I did try to construct a version of it in my head that I’d personally at least feel was an okay or understandable relationship boundary to set, but. Yeah, it’s hard. Very hard to separate from toxic monogamy to the point where I’m not at least half-convinced it’s just a feature of the concept.
I’d go as far as saying it’s impossible to separate two concepts. Feelings are allowed to be messy, and it’s worthless to appoint yourself (nonspecific you) the Emotion Police and dictate who’s allowed to feel what in a relationship before it becomes A Feelings Violation. “Oh! Thou hast betrayed me with’st thine internal emotions! ‘Tis precisely as if thou had’sth participated in carnal effigy with’sth’d another!”
Basically.
I guess maybe if for like eight months you’ve been sneaking around to talk to this person behind your partner’s back??? Or maybe that one AITA story where OP’s husband demanded that she make double portions of lunch for him every day, and one day she sacrificed her own lunch to do so, only for it to turn out that he was sharing his lunch with a female coworker and they were both laughing about his wife being stupid enough to do that for him.
But that’s about it, lol. And the first scenario still makes me wonder whether the partner in that situation might not have set a super unreasonable/toxic boundary about talking to other people?
I think the difficulty is anything can be toxic. People can express boundaries in a toxic way.
I would hesitate to call someone else’s relationship emotional cheating (except in fiction where I have more knowledge of people’s personal feelings) but it can happen. It happened to me. The real issue is they start treating the other person as more like their partner than they do you (prioritising their needs, not spending time with you, showing disinterest). It’s not about someone having a bestie or being flirty or whatever. It’s just one way to slowly break up with someone and it sucks because it makes you feel loopy.
But yeah I don’t think Joyce is doing that. She is crossing a line I would be upset with if I was Joe though. This could easily turn into cheating (emotional or otherwise).
It’s not emotional cheating- it’s just regular cheating.
Something I keep seeing cause confusion and arguments where maybe there otherwise wouldn’t be:
This conversation is not CURRENTLY cheating, even by Joyce’s definition of sex.
I agree that actually “doing laundry” together would at least be crossing a line.
And I would also agree with that.
My read on emotional cheating is that it’s when you’re building up an emotional/romantic relationship outside your (or their) existing exclusive relationship. Having close friendships doesn’t count. The key is that it’s the same kind of relationship as the existing one, except that sex isn’t happening. Yet.
Since it’s the same kind of emotional relationship, it’s easy to intensify to the point where you also want the sex part – leading to cheating or a breakup, but here the cheating or breakup didn’t come out of nowhere. It came out of building up the romantic, sexually charged relationship, while still thinking it was fine because you weren’t doing anything physical.
I guess I just fall back on… “is this a relationship YOU want to put a capital R on? If yes, maybe that’s emotional cheating”.
But. Fuzzy gray area stuff by definition, I think.
Still: wanting to cheat or fantasizing about cheating != emotional cheating. It’s not…. great? Depending on how it makes you and your partner feel.
Communication!! These two should talk to their respective boyfriends if they want to pursue anything here. I think we can all agree on that much, at least if they were real people with feelings.
But “emotional cheating” and “emotional affair” are something else, at least by definitions other than Joyce’s heh.
I’d put it like this: if the first person you turn to for emotional support/validation is someone who isn’t your partner, that’s probably an emotional affair.
Like, absolutely people misuse the term and claim that any sort of closeness with someone not your partner is cheating (also recently I’ve seen some people talk about “microcheating”, can anyone tell me what the fuck that is?), but I think it’s pretty easy to pin down as a concept.
People, I’m starting to believe that Joyce is having a platonic relationship. But nobody told me she and Dorothy aren’t the platonic one
Happy Pride Month!
It’s so funny to see who does and doesn’t take cheating or just like, general mistreatment of their partners seriously if its women/sapphics/feminine ppl doing it lmaooooooooo. I’m a butch lesbian so i already knew this but I wish I didn’t have to see it reflected in these comments constantly
Wild interpretation of what other commenters are saying that entirely fails to take into account the context of literally years of people who ship Joyce/Dorothy being screamed at about how horrible it would be if they hurt Joe and or Walky like that, even when no one who shipped it was suggesting anyone cheat on anybody — resulting in some of us now aggressively cheering for cheating out of spite.
Oh also they’re fictional characters, and it’s ridiculous to assert that anyone who’s okay with soap opera drama “doesn’t take cheating or mistreating their partners seriously”.
Like, yeah, there is in fact a Real Life problem with the patriarchal assumption that only men can Do Violence (and also the virulent anti-masculinity and bioessentialism that is definitely a thing in sapphic spaces, where all men are evil = all evil stems from men = no woman can do any harm ever) leading to increased unwillingness to recognize or acknowledge abusive dynamics between two women, especially by the women themselves (both the abuser, failing to recognize her own capacity for violence because that’s a Man Thing, and the victim, either in denial or not in denial but afraid to speak out, lest she and her partner reflect badly on lesbianism as a whole…)
but that genuinely has nothing to do with shipping. At all.
I’d also actually be fine with people having double standards for sapphic ships and just wanting The Gay by any means necessary because we still make up a teensy tiny little fraction of characters and relationships in media across the board, but I don’t even think it’s true that people are disproportionately okay with sapphic cheating.
I think people are just disproportionately okay with fictional cheating when the cheaters are a ship they prefer to the current relationship, regardless of the genders involved, and that if you think otherwise, it might just be because you seek out fandoms where there are more sapphic ships and pay more attention to those sapphic ships.
Long ass thread about me taking fiction too seriously as if stories that occasionally dip into serious topics are not allowed to be engaged with on any serious level, ever, under any circumstances.
Reply guys insistently telling other commenters this scenario is not or would not be cheating and calling them puritans is not “spitefully cheering it on” though lmao. Nobody is required to feel badly about the development but jesus be fucking for real and cheer it on then instead of trying to “um actually its not cheating” everyone else bc they’re just straddling the line of it if you don’t anticipate the foreshadowing or story direction present here.
And if you dont think gender has anything to do with it, fine! I disagree but fine! I absolutely think if this were Joe or Walky in their shoes that the same people would be this reluctant to let others call a spade a spade. I also think them being *white* women plays a role, if you’d like to continue criticizing me for thinking audiences have biases that bleed into fiction they create or their comprehensions of it.
that the same people wouldn’t*
I personally don’t think anyone should cheat. Anyone. I remember being in the Harley Quinn fandom and seeing people cheer about LGBT rights and sapphic women’s rights because Harley and Ivy repeatedly hooked up sexually while Ivy was about to be married to a man. People will often root for queer relationships even or despite cheating sometimes because they have very little other relationships to cheer for and they’ll take what they can get.
However, as a sapphic woman myself, I think there’s a middle road here between “omg these cheating harlot hussy slut whores” and “monogamy was a lie anyway let’s ruin the sanctity of marriage”. All I am personally stating in my comments here is that some commenters show a repeated pattern of, anytime Joyce and Dorothy interact since realizing they have feelings for each other, means the two are going to say “fuck men, fuck Joe, fuck Walky, we’re women and men are stupid anyway. Let’s have passionate lesbian sex for five weeks” while Joe and Walky cry outside their doors. Can we, at least, judge the comics and the characters based on what actually happens, instead of fanfiction people are concocting in their heads? That’s all I’m asking for. Seriously.
I also wanna state that part of the reason I do bristle with cheating is because I am biromantic and a common insult and negative stereotype is that they ‘can’t help but to cheat’ as if having an attraction to more than one gender means they cannot commit. That’s a very harmful stereotype and Harley and Ivy doing such a thing in the Harley Quinn show, when both are bi, is what made me personally uncomfortable.
Also, my grandfather cheated on my grandmother. A lot. And my grandma was the last person in their town to know. I understand that cheating is bad, and how damaging it can be. I’m just taking the comic strip for what it is, which is two disaster bisexuals recognizing they have feelings and trying to deny it. They’re not going to actually go do laundry together. And I think when we broach on the topic of things like “if Joyce/Dorothy masturbate alone later and happen to think of the other during it, that is cheating” is approaching thought crime levels of ridiculousness. Because I don’t care that Joyce thinks masturbation is sex, it isn’t sex. It is factually, objectively, not sex with another person.
Of course fiction can be engaged with seriously.
I think you misread my comment if you think I was complaining about you taking the comic too seriously.
“It’s so funny to see who does and doesn’t take cheating or just like, general mistreatment of their partners seriously”
But this is what you said. If you only meant that you think readers have a double standard about whether or not they cheer on fictional cheating, and not that you think any of us are treating our partners badly in real life… then I apologize, but that is an accusation that has been leveled over and over and over and over again in this comment section, about this ship and other ships, every time a cheating storyline comes up. Anyone who’s not upset about fictional cheating must also be okay with real life cheating. Anyone who’s not upset about fictional bullying must also be okay with real life bullying.
Anyway, of course them being white affects readers’ willingness to assume the best, but in this comment section specifically I have seen very little grace extended to any of the sapphic characters with the exception of Dina.
It feels much more like Becky / Carla / now Dorothy in particular just can’t do anything right by a huge chunk of the readership, rather than that their misbehavior is getting swept under the rug because they’re sapphic.
I have genuinely never seen that from any fandom, ever, but hey, I’m an Old at this point, so I’m not in modern fandoms, and I know that queer audiences are getting increasingly entitled and belligerent, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it sometimes happens these days.
It just definitely doesn’t happen around here.
Go back to the Joyce/Jacob vs Raidah storyline and you will see that the exact same arguments happened in the comic back then: some people said Joyce was a horrible person and they were so disappointed and cheating is always wrong, so on and so forth; and other people said no, who cares, I don’t like Raidah, etc. At least around these parts, it’s not because they’re two girls.
Clarification: “increasingly entitled and belligerent” to the point where we sometimes almost match the entitlement abd belligerence of non-queer fans.
It was never that we were inherently nicer or more patient or whatever heh, it was only that we collectively expected nothing after getting nothing for decades of mainstream media. Now, we sometimes get some queer characters and relationships, and some of us have definitely started feeling entitled to such from creators, to the point of engaging in Twitter brigades and other forms of harassment over ships, like that one Voltron ship, or Supergirl/Lena Luthor.
Of course from outside “years of people who ship Joyce/Dorothy being screamed at about how horrible it would be if they hurt Joe and or Walky like that, even when no one who shipped it was suggesting anyone cheat on anybody — resulting in some of us now aggressively cheering for cheating out of spite” just looks like the people who were screaming at you being proved right.
Also frankly bold of you to assume the people who have been saying that for years don’t think that, like, one (1) person on Patreon wasn’t already more proof than they needed five years ago.
This sentiment is ridiculous.
I love your (completely unsupported) idea that people don’t think this is cheating because it’s two women.
If Joe and Danny and Walky and Ethan and Asher talked about jacking off together in a big circle and got all hot under the collar– that’s still not cheating. It’s literally just talking (like in the comic above).
If Joe and Dorothy or Walky and Joyce or Billie and Jacob talked about masturbating together or “that time we masturbated together boy that sure would be fun to do again” it would still just be talking about a thing. Not cheating.
It’s literally nothing to do with having different rules for sapphic couples and everything to do with some people having the opinion (and some having the opposite opinion) that ever even thinking about doing something is morally the same as having done it.
If your s/o was dming someone else about all the sexual hijinks they’d like to get up to together that would not be cheating in your mind because they haven’t physically done anything, then? Or are we pretending some outlandish circle jerk hypothetical scenario is equivalent to a mutual masturbation thats already occurred once that is verbally being discussed in the current strip itself?
God forbid someone reads the story and connects the dots of whats being foreshadowed here lol. I don’t have to wait until characters are fucking onscreen to come to the conclusion that we’re most likely entering cheating territory here without that people hemming and hawing and jumping down your throat about “assumptions” and how “its technically not cheating YET” good fucking god. Be for real.
People were 3,000,000% sure Joyce and Dorothy were gonna bang them and there on Joyce’s bed, too. Sometimes, you people are just wrong about your assumptions and way too defensive of them. Like now.
A) No, I don’t think that’s cheating.
B) The circle jerk thing was intentionally outlandish because I find the accusation you made outlandish. So I’ll try again: If Danny and Ethan (who do have romantic feelings for one another and also partners) talked about how they really want to jerk off in front of one another I wouldn’t consider that cheating.
C) Oof that second paragraph really got away from you, huh? I didn’t say you “had to” do anything. The problem I had was your assumption that the reason some people disagree with you on whether this counts as cheating or not is a difference in opinion and not (in my case and as far as I can tell in the comments) anything to do with them being sapphic. I argued that I wouldn’t consider this cheating under any version of a relationship (though, admittedly, I did leave Malaya and Booster out who should also talk about wanting to bang and it would be fine).
What I specifically said about your opinion (re: this is cheating) was actually nothing! I suppose it could be argued you were included in the “some people feel this way and other people feel the opposite” but your aggro response seems a lot for that kind of factual statement.
I’m so for real
Slight correction because I mixed up a sentence:
“The problem I had was your assumption that the reason some people disagree with you on whether this counts as cheating is not a difference in opinion but (despite zero evidence in text) actually because this is a sapphic couple and people are more lenient with those.”
try to get people here to dispense with the “cheating bi” stereotype
Challenge Level: IMPOSSIBLE (-_-)
I’m not sure who this is aimed at, tbh.
passive-aggressive bi-phobes
these cheating allegations are not only prejudiced but frankly annoying
Eugh.
I agree, it COULD always come out that Joe doesn’t have an issue with it, or that Walky thinks it’s hot, and it’s all a big to-do about nothing. But we don’t know, because neither has spoken to their SOs, and that’s kind of the problem.
I think that we can all agree, that if you enter into a physical relationship with someone else, while you’re in a relationship with someone else, you are at least *risking* cheating on your SO, if not flat-out cheating.
I say that, with the definition of ‘cheating’ being ‘breaking a relationship’s agreement on exclusivity.’ And that can be different for different people. Some couples might find that close personal, emotional connection with someone they’re attracted to might be ‘emotional cheating.’ Others might feel like full-on intercourse is fine, as long as they communicate beforehand.
I’m not passing judgement on what’s right and what’s wrong. I mean, I have my definition, and that might be different than yours, but what’s important is what the other person perceives is wrong, and respecting those boundaries. If you’re in a relationship with someone, and you know their expectations, and you choose to stay in that relationship while breaking those expectations, that’s cheating.
Joyce has, on one hand, acknowledged twice that what she and Dorothy did could constitute as sex. She’s also heard Jennifer say multiple times that a little fooling around between friends is fine. Now… she’s naive, sure, but I don’t believe that she’s so naive as to honestly believe that Jennifer’s totally right about this and this is some sort of universal relationship rule.
More like, it’s something she WANTS to be true, and is ignoring any conflicting thoughts.
And it’s true that she and Joe haven’t talked about boundaries and expectations, and so maybe he’s perfectly fine. But in our culture, I believe the vanilla, baseline expectation for a relationship is “don’t sleep with other people,” so this really isn’t something that she can later go, “Oh, I didn’t *realize*, we never talked about this, I didn’t know you drew the line *there*, Jennifer told me this was OK.”
I’m with Danny on this. It’s a baseline human decency thing. Joyce knew before that she shouldn’t keep doing laundry with Dorothy, and it doesn’t suddenly make it OK because she really, really wants to do it.
… kind of a shame, honestly, because if there’s one person who I think would be A-OK with giving his blessing, it’d be Joe.
“I think that we can all agree, that if you enter into a physical relationship with someone else, while you’re in a relationship with someone else, you are at least *risking* cheating on your SO”
I’ll agree with this, aye. The risk is there, even if it hasn’t inherently crossed the line just yet.
The risk is definitely there. They came close to crossing the line it last night, as I think they’ve both acknowledged, though not quite explicitly. And this appears to be an invitation to at least go dance on the edge of the line again – though obviously either of them could alter that in the next strip.
If they keep trying to skirt the line though, they’ll inevitably cross it.
I’ll say though – it really depends on where that line is, and at this point, neither knows what their SO thinks.
It could be that both Walky and Joe feel otherwise unthreatened by this. Or, hell, they could even encourage it. They wouldn’t be the first straight cis males to think it was awesome for their girlfriend to have a thing with another chick.
Even if that’s the case, though – the fact that there is no communication that this is happening, has to at least be hurtful, once found out. Sort of a, “You knew this had the potential to seriously hurt me, and you didn’t trust me enough to talk to me about it, or respect me enough to let me know so I could make my own decisions.
In short – the longer they don’t communicate, the more they’re going over *a* line of some sort, and the more trust is going to be broken.
I love this comment section. Keep going guys, if you yell at the fictional characters long enough they’re bound to see the error of their ways, and then we can finally have the conflict-free, 100% reasonable and rational comic we all crave!
Not to be too mean but it seems like the desire for some is what questionable content is right now, wholesome hangouts the comic
Before Willis posted the poll, it was relatively quiet. But once he kicked the anthill, we’ve heated up a wee bit.
It genuinely amazes me how many people in these comments seem to think it’s fine for Joyce and Dorothy to cheat on their boyfriends. According to Joyce’s current definition of sex, her and Dorothy “doing laundry” together counts as sex, and therefore the two of them would be cheating on Joe and Walky if they did that again. I wonder how many of you all cheering Joyce and Dorothy on would be fine with them cheating on their boyfriends with other men. I tend to think cheating is wrong regardless of the genders of the people doing it.
Well that is you I for one think cheating is awesome and should be mandatory.
What amazes me is how fast people are to assume it has anything to do with their gender. “What if they were doing this with men instead?” Okay, well what if the ocean became pineapple Jell-O?
Literally the only people mentioning the cheating as related to their gender are the people saying “this is cheating and it’s wrong”. I haven’t seen a single comment saying “This isn’t cheating because it’s two women and that’s not the same”. You’re literally just making something up to be upset about.
Yeah babe subconscious biases are subconscious for a reason
Let’s talk about the subconscious biases of looking at two bisexuals interacting and deciding that they’re actually having passionate cheating sex against their partner’s backs.
*behind but you know what, against their backs would be pretty spicy
Well, all bisexuals are cheating sluts, don’t ya know? Joyce and Dorothy being bi, attracted to each other, and interested in masturbating together means they’re automatically violating a boundary we’ve never seen set.
/SARCASM
Yeah the series of comic strips that started this storyline confirming that Joyce has romantic and sexual feelings for Joe and sealing it with a sexual experience don’t mean anything and she’s just waiting for the first opportunity to fuck another person in front of him and laugh at him as she does so. Just like last night when Joyce and Dorothy committed the sin of laying in a bed together, which we all knows mean they FUCKED LONG AND HARD.
If a bisexual person even knows another, it is exactly equivalent to extracurricular sexual behavior, 1:1 ratio, + L + No Maidens.
+1. I have definitely seen more of this, as well as a ton of folks hypersexualizing Dorothy’s every interaction with Joyce and consistently assuming the worst about her intentions, almost as if Predatory Lesbian is a more common subconscious bias than Pure Sapphic Love Conquers All.
Right, sure. But do all subconscious biases also have invisible evidence?
If we’re just throwing out random accusations of subconscious bias with nothing to base it on, then frankly I can’t believe the horrific things you’re not saying right now. Vile, immoral, terrible things not being typed that I just know you feel in your heart. You can’t argue with me, because it’s actually a subconscious thing that only I’m aware of.
I respect everyone in the comments who doesn’t like cheating but this is THE relationship bomb I’ve been dreaming of
The potential chaos is beautiful
Round up your favorite hit songs from the 1940s and put on your denim jumpsuit, because this shit’s got the potential to go nuclear.
We’re gonna need a bunker, and not a basic one, one of them fancy bunkers with a bar
can it also have a grill o3o
that way we can have yakiniku, and sausage sizzle! :9
One of y’all getting up on your soap boxes to preach about the morality of enjoying soap opera drama ought to at least bother tallying up the number of commenters and dividing that by the number of people who have even expressed positive feelings about this development, much less who are actively saying “yes cheating haha good”.
It’s a higher percentage now than it would’ve been in the past, but some of us are doing it out of exhausted spite at this point lol.
Yes cheating haha good.
Like, for example, if anyone’s taking you seriously, that’s a them problem. You’d think “cheating should be mandatory” would be a tip-off!
It should, I am a prophet for a new world order.
My mean instinct grows stronger every time I see these nonsense comment
I’m resisting it but some of these comments
Let the meanest consume you! Join the mean side!
*whispering*
There are contexts where cheating is okay
OMG HOW DARE YOU
You’re right and you don’t need to whisper.
🫂
Lol the sickos stay winning.
Lmao they are SUCH disasters
now THIS is a comment section
It was getting too chummy around here.
The poll helped to heat it up.
HELL yeah, brother
If two guys jack it on the moon and as they climax they make eye contact, is that hot gay sex
Hmmm, I’m torn. On the one hand, I really like Joyce/Joe, but on the other hand, I really like Joyce/Dorothy.
This is a conundrum to be sure.
How about…Dorothy/Joe/Joyce/Walky?
Poor Joe…I’m enjoying the drama because why else are we reading it, but poor Joe. Not only is this going to hit all the notes of a cheating relationship, but we’ll likely see Joe regress into thinking he doesn’t deserve a wholesome relationship. That he’s somehow “tainting” things from his very nature/presence. Nevermind what Walky will react with.
That said….what a show this is turning into!!
jeepers, a lot of folks are sure talking like these folks are in long-term stable relationships that will last them the rest of their lives and not solidly in the fuck around and find out stage of being 17-19. i knew so so many people in college that were inseparable for a few weeks and then broke up or hooked up with other people or got into an unplanned drunken orgy in a dorm elevator (swimmers, yeesh) and it was *dramatic* but it wasn’t usually particularly *traumatic.* none of these couples are going to be together in a year, and that’s just fine
I know some people that met first week of school and stayed together as long as I knew them (approx. 2 years). There’s a lot of variance.
sure, but that’s massively the exception rather than the rule
or i suppose it was, i don’t know if college students these days get married the first month of school or not, but it seems… unlikely
SICKO SWEEP!!
As it should be.
love your profile picture
Well I feel extremely sorry for Joe.
Poor guy, his girlfriend is a cheating hussy with no respect for him and malice in her heart.
All fun with laundry shenanigans aside, this does really suck for him.
Poor Joe. We sacrifice his happiness for our entertainment.
It’s not *that* bad. She clearly still loves him and still doesn’t see this as cheating for some reason. But if I were in his shoes I’d feel pretty inadequate.
She is definitely doing the dumb, for sure, rather than intentionally doing something harmful. Same with Dorothy. Yeah, they both “should probably know better”, I suppose – but sometimes, people don’t, and I am unfortunate enough to know that from personal experience.
But, seemingly they are both on the spectrum (or at least that’s how I understand the implications of what Dorothy has been learning / failing to learn lately). Both of them understand the world through a series of rules they have created to explain it… and in this case, because of a particular river in Egypt (AND THAT’S ALL THAT IT IS), they’ve constructed a world in which this is just Gals Being Pals.
I do think they’ll figure it out sooner than later. (Or have someone walk in on them in the laundry room, because, ya know… it’s an extremely public space.). I hope both of their other relationships can survive their very, very silly (from the outside) (but uncomfortably plausible from a different, past inside) process of self-discovery. Because, if they were acting with more understanding and less bi erasure, and with the consent of their official partners, this could be a pretty healthy relationship for all involved, promoting significant personal growth for all 4 of them.
YES YESSSSSS
Dorothy PLEASE why did you phrase it like that