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Having been in one of those close one-way friendships for a long time, it really is hard to reduce contact or change the dynamic with a former bestie. Usually they cannot fathom that their behavior, that was acceptable to the person you once were, is now toxic to the person you’ve become.
In my case, our contact is now texting “happy birthday!” to each other on the appropriate day once per year, and that’s really the only contact I want at this point. I still care, but I know better than to put myself in that space again. :/
I know the comic’s been running for like, 7 years, but in-comic this has only been like… two months of Joe being an inattentive friend. That’s not one-sided yet, that’s, like, (mistakenly) getting overly excited about a new opportunity (drowning in new ladies, in this case) and being self-centered, to the exclusion of your old stable friends. I think everyone’s done that before for at least this long.
Like yeah after several more months of this and a failed attempt to reach out, we’d be approaching “one-way dying friendship” territory, but this has been a relatively short time and a fairly successful attempt to reach out, all things considered. Especially against the length of time they’ve been best friends.
Their ‘friendship’ does seem rather one way. Sometimes it takes people years to figure that out so I don’t blame Danny for not doing anything about it yet.
How about when Danny said he was upset that they only ever hang out when Joe needs something and Joe responded by being open and vulnerable with him (which is something Danny’s been asking from him since basically forever)?
It’s a step. A fairly small, but possibly important one. On the other hand, he’s fallen back into the old pattern almost immediately – showing here that he’s got no intention of listening to Danny on anything else.
Which shows Rachel’s point: Danny is just placating him – probably because he knows (or thinks he knows) Joe won’t listen to anything more.
I would have been disappointed if Joe didn’t fall back into old patterns. Change does not happen that quickly in the real world and Willis has been pretty good at portraying people realistically. Yeah, Joe had a realization that he needs to be a better friend. But that realization (in comic) just happened. Even best case scenario, Joe will still say and do things that he always has because of force of habit.
If this is a redemption arc, Joe will probably take the rest of the in-comic day to come to a full realization that he needs to change and will spend the next few in-comic months needing to be reminded when he does something stupid so that he can correct. And that is lightning fast for someone to make the kind of change that people are wanting from Joe. Realistically, as a mental health counselor, I would expect Joe to realize that he needs to change over the course of weeks, then spend some time making small changes and falling back into old patterns for the next few weeks or months. Then slowly making more changes as some of them become habit until he is a well-functioning and respected member of society by the time he is ready to graduate.
oh good god, four years?! That’s how long it’s supposed to take for me?! I don’t have either the time or (definitely not) the patience for that long? I get antsy and distracted if a project takes over a month. It’s official, my mental health is fucking doomed.
scar man: it’s three months for me plus I have some bizarre mental blocks that get in the way of a lot of what’s supposed to help. but I keep flailing about and making progress anyways
like, the latest war in my head makes even months sound like forever and why-even-try, but when I remind myself of how far I’ve come (and holy crap my brain has changed a lot in the last decade), that helps. trying anyways out of spite and stubbornness helps more
Scar man, I know you were joking, but I was talking specifically about Joe and the changes that people want to see. Joe’s sexism is basically a part of his personality. His character if you will. It’s made up of his patterns of thinking, his habits, and his values. Those things don’t change overnight. Yeah, he can have an epiphany and realize that he’s kind of a terrible person and make a decision to change, but it is really hard to break habits that have persisted for years. And so far, he doesn’t really want to change. He still wants to see women as sex objects and stereotypes.
If you are actively seeking change, you can achieve it, but, yeah, it still takes time. It depends on how major a change you are looking to make. If you are looking for a major overhaul of your personality: yep, years. Most people manage that as just part of growing up. If you are talking more minor changes like breaking a single habit or addressing anxiety or overcoming one character flaw, that can take a lot less time. Though it may still take a few months. And you can, of course, see progress pretty quickly. The key is to make little goals that build up into the change that you want. Make 20 little steps rather one gigantic one.
Joe’s sexism may also be a defense mechanism. He may have been hurt in thr past and uses it as a way of distancing himself from emotional attachment now. Joe seems to be a good guy underneath, which may still compel people like Danny and Joyce to be friends with him despite his behavior. But if there’s emotional damage underneath his facade it’ll take years to unravel it all.
I could actually see Joe and Joyce being a good endgame for each other. Joyce isn’t afraid to call Joe out on his bullshit, and his deep down respect for her and also fear of emotional attachment may be what rated her a negative zero on his scale. Because you know Joyce isn’t bad-looking, and even Joe was floored by her appearance on their date. She’s also the only one it seems Joe feels comfortable enough with to be real every once in a while. Maybe, once the shock of it all winds down, her reaction will be the one that ends up hurting Joe the most. Just a thought.
Joe has friends! There’s Danny, and Jacob. That’s plural! Even if you don’t count Joyce. And chasing everything metaphorically in a skirt counts as a hobby, I guess.
Everyone has a life. How they spend that life is up to them, and they may choose a life you don’t approve of, but disliking it doesn’t suddenly make it invalid. Even screaming schoolboys who spend all day flinging racism over Xbox LIVE have a life, after all.
To be honest the person who leaked the list may have done more harm than joe, I mean just take this into consideration
1) Joe never used the list against, or to harm anyone and likely just kept it to himself,
2) At no time is a list discussed or are ratings overtly used in commonality, likely he meant for no one to ever see this list.
3) everyone’s entitled to an opinion, joes rank list basically the same as a person having certain standards.
Ok, hear me out again, we don’t know how the ranking system works, for all we know it could be based on physically only or more nuanced than that, like, body, personality, hygiene, and humor.
Okay, I was wrong about that, but, I’m not expressly defending the guy just. Also, I don’t think anyone’s opinion is gonna be very high of someone who assaults them on a fist date.
While the List, and ranking, and all of that is entirely too much work to the point that it is really creepy, the basic idea behind it is rather common.
Simplified, it is something most people are guilty of, its just that most don’t go out of their way to make a list and specifically a rating. What am I talking about? simple, EVERYBODY thinks on simple, physical attraction terms. Everyody looks at someone and says “Yeah, I think that’s attractive” or “No, I don’t think that’s attractive”
[Should be noted, I’m not counting asexual people in this explanation because, well, they don’t really care about sexual attraction, right?]
Most people can look at people and view them as attractive/not attractive/etc, but what Joe was doing is stripping the person away and thinking of that person solely as a number on a scale of fuckability. There’s a difference between seeing attractiveness and reducing someone into a something based on ‘attractiveness.’
Also, I’m asexual, and it doesn’t keep you from seeing beauty or even sex appeal. I can look at a person and see that they’re conventionally attractive, I have my own ideas of beauty (I’ve been told it’s a broader range than most?), but the difference is the lack of…I guess, interest in engaging. I can see that someone’s attractive or sexy, but I don’t have any interest in doing anything with them based on that, if that makes sense.
My standards for physical beauty are . . . nigh-nonexistent. If I have a measurable scale, or another set of standards to go by, I can measure from them, but . . . all I ever really see is imperfections, at least physically. Put bluntly, no one is beautiful, some are just more ugly than others. There’s a reason I use “sexual creatures” as a term of disdain: I do not understand physical attraction, at all. That said, I understand that I’m in a severe minority.
You’ve made that assertion before, but…the other day, when people were accidentally rating women, I was going to comment too. Then I got all confused trying to figure out what I thought of the female cast members. My list changed several times, and in the end too much time had passed and I abandoned the comment.
Yeah, no, not everybody rates people’s attractiveness like that. I mean if I had a list like that I would have to update it at least daily, because whatever passes for “attractiveness” in my perception changes with a billion variables including their mood and my mood and how close we are and how much I like them as a person. So. The simples fact that Joe can have a list like that is weird to me, because it implies that his perception of people’s attractiveness is something that is defined at first sight? He thinking that his list matters at all to other people and offering them the password is just absurd.
I might just be ace, but nope. That is not a common activity and even if it was it would be wrong.
One is free to have specific things or attributes that drive you wild. But once you’re turning those people that excite you into objects and numbers and assumin others are all doing the same, you have turned it into something far removed from sexual taste.
Again, I did say that Joe takes it to extremes and my comment was that everybody has something much more simple: “I find this one attractive” and “I don’t find this one attractive”. No numbers, no ratings, no objects.
nope, my brain was failing at even that simple a level. occasionally I’ll notice something particularly attractive or unattractive, but the rest of the time it would take conscious effort to figure out (if I can figure it out at all).
this caused problems in school when I was expected to know my “favourite movie”, “favourite food”, etc.
It’s immature and stupid, but has the list actually hurt someone yet?
Aside Joe’s reputation, I guess, but that’s karma, and I think he is aware of it.
Yes. It gives targeting information to dangerous people, encourages harassment of “high numbers”, bullying of “low numbers”, is an open testamen to one’s dehumanization which makes one feel like rancid garbage and like a piece of meat that is uncalled in an institution of learning and that you are unsafe in your own living space (because he’s always creeping in the girl’s dorm).
On top of that, it adds an additional color to his instances of sexual harassment in the past knowing he’s been compiling this list on his fellow students, thus making those instances feel way more dangerous and like pushing back against him will result in being publicly shamed in a scary PUA guide.
Additionally it lends support to predators, helping to maintain their worldview that their dehumanizing and targeting activities are normative and just what guys do as well as a good list of people with low self-esteem or naivety to exploit in sexual assault.
Plus sexism feeds into and reinforces a number of marginalizations and violence that take a number of tolls on a large number of people.
This stuff has real consequences and does real harm even if that harm is not as obvious as a bigot curb-stomping someone and can be what encourages and supports those more obvious systems of abuse.
I think one thing some people aren’t seeing is that while Joe’s list might SEEM relatively harmless on its own, he’s been actively seeking others to join in.
It’s bad enough with just Joe, but if he’d actually found other guys interested in joining in, there would’ve been a whole group of Joe’s all reinforcing each other’s misogyny and worst behavior, competing with each other to see who can fuck the most, hottest women.
Those are the conditions where toxic masculinity becomes much more dangerous. Instead of Joe brushing off women’s rejections and criticism of his behavior simply out of stubborn pigheadedness, he’d also have bros piling on. It’s the sort of echo chamber that creates the assholes who grope women at conventions and concerts, and eventually much worse.
Joe’s not so far down that path already that he can’t turn back, but the sooner he changes course the better.
YES. Joe is actively advocating really toxic behavior. Just imagine if Danny in a moment of (extra much) weakness had decided he liked Joe’s idea of masculinity better than his own? Wouldn’t THAT have been fun for everyone involved.
When I think back to high school, I can’t help but imagine how easily I could’ve turned out a very different, much shittier person if I hadn’t been so incredibly socially awkward
Technically that would be the list being LEAKED hurting people’s feelings.
I was referring to Joe’s numbering people, I should have made myself more clear.
And I also honestly think that guys like Joe are not the norm. And while his numbering people is immature and stupid (and I can’t call it malicious, because it probably isn’t, it’s just stupid), I don’t think he’s ever going to physically hurt women.
I honestly can’t remember when he sexually harrassed someone.
And I can’t see how you made the connection to abuse again, either.
1) He offered the password to Raidah and Jacob. He mentioned within the first 50 strips of DoA that not only does he have this list, but it has an RSS feed and subscribers. He was definitely sharing it with people.
2) He discusses the list with Danny within the first 50 strips of DoA stating that he was adding Dorothy to it after their break up.
He mentions the list again to Danny by telling him he was going to upgrade Joyce from a 4 to a 10 by ‘breaking her in’.
He mentions the list to Amber when telling her he was going to put Billie with the ‘8’s though she is really a ‘6’ but her breasts are a ’10’.
He mentions the list again to Danny when adding AG to it.
He mentions the list to Roz and literally the entire Gender Studies class by saying he will upgrade her to a 10 if she lets them out of class early.
He mentions the list to Raidah and Jacob by offering them the password and said it was remiss of him to not do so earlier.
He references the list when meeting Rachel for the first time by calling her an eleven and saying not to tell the ‘ones’.
He referenced the list literally yesterday by calling Rachel ‘Eleven’ instead of her name which he didn’t even know because he never asked.
He mentions and references the list somewhat often, particularly when he feels he can use a high ranking on it as leverage to appeal to a female character or as a kind of boast to Danny about his ‘knowledgeable rankings’ as if Danny should think he is wise for them. He has at least enough decency to not insult people that are low rankings to their face about it but he still references it and mentions it to multiple different people completely unsolicited.
3) A preference or standards is different from systematically rating every female you ever encounter, including the ones you have no interest in yourself, offering the password to your list to someone clearly repulsed by the fact you have such a list at all (Raidah wanted nothing to do with that creepy list) and trying to use the offer of a high ranking to sway someone’s mind (as he tried to do to Roz then belittled her as definitely not being a 10 when she said not to rate women as that ‘isn’t what a 10 would say’).
4) We do know how the ranking system works in a sense, it works based on first impression regardless of whether that is just their physical appearance which is always the first factor and sometimes the only factor or if he actually talks with them during it which can add further factors that increase or decrease it but he always starts with physical appearance.
Physical appearance alone is what he used to rate Rachel and AG (extrapolating that AG must have issues and be ‘kinky’ as a result of what she was wearing and is therefore a ‘9’ despite being ‘too short’ to otherwise be a ‘9’), while Billie he rated both on appearance and the little personality he saw, Sal I don’t think he has ever spoken to but again physical appearance first as shown by the included note that she would be a 10 if she didn’t smoke, Joyce included both her appearance and the fact she talks a lot about her religion and beliefs.
The initial judgement is based on physical appearance then he adjusts for other factors that he can see. Traits he thinks will make sex better increase it while ones that he thinks won’t or just doesn’t like personally decrease it. While we know he went back to edit Joyce’s number, it seems he doesn’t actually edit and update the notes later on as by now he knows for certain that Sarah is Joyce’s roommate as there is a strip where that was clarified to him.
1. He used it against Roz to undermine her during class.
2. Already said but not true
3. He can think someone is attractive or unattractive this is not what he is doing. He is going out of his way to put every single woman on a scale they did not ask to be on( which is not how much are they hurting others) and judging men for liking women who are too low on the scale.
Imagine if someone went around judging every movie on how scary it is then judged others for liking non scary movies. They I guess have the right to judge movies by that standard but you why are they bothering to watch cartoons, do they even relies that scary is subjective. Maybe they would be able to get the horror in the movie better if they actually bothered with the other parts of the movie I mean would you properly feel the horror of Buzz brainwashing if you watched Toy Story 3 only looking for the scary parts.
One of Danny’s core character virtues seem to be his loyalty to the people he cares about. Unfortunately, I think that means that it’s going to take more than the soul-searching that encouraged him to take on a new (rockin’) outward persona for him to cut his best friend out of his life for his own sake.
Danny and Joe in panel four look to me like they also have that visual, and don’t hate it. I know that’s not actually what’s happening, but I can’t unsee it.
Look, Rachel has precisely zero need or cause to tolerate Joe’s shit. Duh. If she wanted to walk away, flip him off, call him a sexist pig, he’d deserve it and more.
But Danny’s (probably) doing the right thing here, and a hard thing: Being Joe’s friend, staying with him, without actually validating any of Joe’s actions.
Odds are that, if Joe’s outright abandoned by everyone that isn’t a sexist fuck, the only people he’ll be around are sexist fucks, who are not going to challenge him on his sexist douchebaggery.
Danny’s there as a lifeline, giving Joe a path to being a better person. There’s certainly a question to be had about when enough is enough and Danny should just stop trying, but if he still feels that Joe can be a better person, then he should be allowed to keep trying.
……..but I’m something of a hopeless optimist about this sorta thing >_>.
“……..but I’m something of a hopeless optimist about this sorta thing >_>.”
Well, yeah. That’s probably what Danny’s thinking, too, and a lot of Joe’s friends have enabled his shitty behavior.
There’s a big gulf between Danny outright abandoning Joe and actually saying “hey, that’s shitty behavior”. I’m usually actually like Danny, but, yeah, this is some overt shitty sexism and arguably harassment, and Danny’s “disapproving” response is to…not compliment Joe? There’s a problem there.
“But Danny’s (probably) doing the right thing here, and a hard thing: Being Joe’s friend, staying with him, without actually validating any of Joe’s actions.”
Nah, that’s what most enablers do, it’s actually really easy.
Could Danny be doing more to thwack Joe on the nose with a newspaper? Absolutely. Maybe he should be doing more. Or maybe Danny knows more about how to handle Joe than I do, and knows how get him to realize that stuff.
Danny’s known Joe for a long, long time. Maybe he’s just being a standard enabler, or maybe there’s something else going on here…
“Danny’s known Joe for a long, long time. Maybe he’s just being a standard enabler, or maybe there’s something else going on here…”
Yeah, that’s called being a bog-standard enabler.
The only way to not be an enabler is to *not enable*. Everyone wants to claim special circumstances, and it’s never actually true. It’s just excuses not to do the right and hard thing.
The right and hard thing to do here is to hammer home the point that Joe is doing a bad thing and he needs to stop doing that bad thing. Silent disapproval never fixed anyone’s poor behaviour.
And hammering things home can cause peoe to shut down. Joe has demonstrated several times that when he feels attacked he shuts down and doesn’t listen. It’s a bad tactic with him because he then doubles down on bad behaviour, as can be seen in mid to his scenes on Gender Studies. A more tactful response is required.
I was really hoping Joe was not this ****ing stupid but he really did believe women weren’t involved in computer programming like some sort of river of running water to keep out vampires. Yes, I watched the Netflix Castlevania show. Also, Danny isn’t an enabler. Joe has ignored every piece of advice Danny has given.
Walky’s previous immaturity spawned misogyny was too cartoony for DOA, so the excess implanted in Joe, filling in the space where his pornomancy used to be.
he has what he knows from lived experience, but he doesn’t see women as people so he would not have any insight into their lived experience. especially as he does not experience it himself.
he benefits from this system, so he has no reason to consider how it affects the targets of his sexism. or understand it as sexism.
honestly this is probably a lot of why he wasn’t super encouraging of danny’s bisexuality, despite being encouraging of his heteronormative leanings – for someone who perceives all sexuality as fundamentally aggressive in nature, seeing himself as a potential target of someone else’s sexual urges/objectification has got to be unsettling. he’s used to thinking of other men as bros, and that’s where he seeks most of his emotional validation. ironically, if this had worked out for him, most of his closest emotional bonds would be with other men – but no homo, right.
it’s this…physical/emotional/cognitive divide that has its roots in some pretty classical history/narratives. joe believes this shit with the fervor of a monk, and breaking it is like breaking his entire worldview.
Not really in this context though – whatever that is, since no one said “let me educate you” except Jess saying it creeps them out.
Assuming it’s a reference to Rachel’s “are you educating him on what he’s done wrong”, there’s no way to apply “wanna hear something cool”. Course, it’s possible Jess would consider that “brainwashing”.
The internet must be broken, you’re expecting serious, in context comments to appear next to a Deadpool Grav!
Where did I go wrong!
In all seriousness though… the only in context use that comes to mind is: “Hey, Joe, wanna know something cool? You can have sex without being a complete tool!” which wraps right back around to insulting intelligence, but Joe deserves it.
Then again, when there’s something disgusting in one’s brain, a good washing may not be the worst idea…
Then immediately turn around, and ascend the stairs and return to what it was doing.
What is The Shadow? Is it just a background character? Or, is it an in-universe manifestation of our comments in that only appears when there’s near-universal consensus that one of the named characters needs a good Gibbs slap?
I keep trying to think of why Danny should stick by Joe but it occurs to me that Joe treats Danny like shit, belittles him, doesn’t support any of his hobbies, isn’t there for him in times of emotional crisis, and generally is all take and no give.
… Damn it Joe I keep trying to climb aboard the “Joe gets a redemption arc and learns the error of his ways, thus becoming a better, less skeevy human being” because I know you have redeemable qualities and interesting elements to your character that could more thoroughly be explored if you were to cast aside your mask of toxic masculinity but you are making it real fucking difficult right now.
Everyone deserves a second chance but Joe has been really really throwing away the fifteenth hundredth. He is also deliberately ignoring the enormous signs from friends and strangers both that his behavior has been awful.
How many people overturn their lives and years of habits in a day, or even a few weeks? We get a strip a day, stretching over years; for Joe, it’s October or something of his freshman year.
But Joe hasn’t changed his behaviour in any way whatsoever regarding women even after it became unavoidably obvious that they fucking hated how he treats them. Like any decent person would at LEAST have the decency to not address someone by their rating on his fuckability scale when he learned that everyone hates it and thinks it’s disgusting and dehumanizing. Like that isn’t something that should require any length of time to change it shouldn’t even be something any reasonable human being does in the first place.
It’s been like an hour or two since he realized the list was leaked. That’s barely enough time to get through the initial panic and flailing he has clearly just been doing. Going from a habit bolstered by “I genuinely have no idea why women aren’t taking this as a compliment” to a change in behavior takes longer than one conversation with a woman, I am pretty sure.
Look how long it took Joyce to know a gay person and then change her behavior to outright acceptance instead of, uh, dating one to “make” him straight and refusing to let him have pink things just in case. It took a completely different person coming out, one she had a stronger emotional connection to, AND THEN an argument with her friend about her behavior, and learning some horrible shit in class, and being called out by Roz, and getting in a high-speed motorcycle chase ending with punching a gun-wielding dad and swearing AND a total nervous breakdown, before she was just happy for Becky and Dina to be smooching. And Joyce is already a more well-adjusted person (in, uh, well at least some regards) than Joe is.
We just see more of Joyce, and she’s a nicer person, and HER shitty behavior was of course SO well-intentioned, so of course we have more sympathy for her and her journey. But, stepping back, I don’t know if I can say that rating women is any morally worse than trying to date a gay dude into straightness. But we’ve given Joyce weeks/months of comic time to get HER shit together.
Is there a thing of being a good wingman by making your friend look good compared to your bad behavior? Because if so, Joe seems to be doing that unintentionally.
Except not, because Rachel’s calling him out for just placating Joe. That may be a thing, but it backfires when it hits “I’m going to avoid you because you’re his friend.”
I think overall I enjoy Rachel. Like yeah, she needs an ounce of chill occasionally and that whole “redemption isn’t real” speech is still deeply not okay, but that question in panel 4 is a good one. Naturally she doesn’t know Danny so it’s kind of out of place, but that responsibility is one all decent dudes have wrt their more misogynistic peers. Like, you personally, are you taking steps to make your fellow dudes* less awful, or are you sitting content in the knowledge that you are Less Bad?
*find-and-replace any other privileged group that applies to you personally, like being a cis white person in my case
I don’t know if you’ve noticed up there on your high horse, but “being a predator” is a pretty standard part of toxic masculinity. If the grand sum of your educating other people is, “Be more like me! The thing you don’t like!”, congrats on being Less Bad, I guess.
Yep. One is judged by the company one keeps, pitch soils, etc.
Hanging out with Joe might not make you a misogynist, but it shows you’re okay with misogyny.
…I am not at all sure what you’re trying to communicate here, but if not liking dudes who think of me as prey is being on my “high horse”, well, not sure I care about your opinion anyway.
Yeah, I found it hard to work out the point being made, too. What was “The thing you don’t like!” intended to refer to? Women? Shiro specifically? Dudes who aren’t predators? It’s a puzzle.
Apparently, it is. Also, openly disapproving of people being content with being “Less Bad” is apparently the same thing as patting yourself on the fucking back for it.
….The fuck are you even talking about? I swear, I’m seeing more and more conversations in which at least one party is talking about something the other person never even said. It’s starting to piss me off, so maybe cut that shit out and act like a rational goddamn human being.
Oh, what the fuck am I even saying? That’s too much to fucking expect from people online. If you think someone said/meant/implied something, clearly that’s the TRUE and HONEST situation, and your response can be nothing but fucking gold. This is life for us, now. Endless suffering.
Ruth will always be the person who physically assaulted multiple people and almost led another girl into suicide. She will never not be that person.
She has the ability to *learn* from that and improve in the *future*, but redemption in the sense of a clean slate absolutely does not exist and Rachel is 100% correct in that respect.
A whole lot of people are suffering from protagonist-centered morality here.
Ruth did not almost “lead” Billie to suicide. They were both suicidal already.
I can completely understand that you’re not willing to let it go. That’s reasonable. But I’m not “suffering” from anything because I’m willing to forgive her.
TBF, Rachel, the other two on your floor wouldn’t be interested. One is Carla, who is asexual, homoromantic and probably sex repulsed, and one is Amber, who has met Joe.
Is Carla more of a software-y or a hardware-y type of girl? Or are they both in the same building? I had her mentally categorized as mechanical engineering or something to that effect.
Are you sure it’s not mechanical engineering. It seems like that would fit better with the way she’s repeatedly built mechanical-type dohickeys and especially her “applied math” comment to Joyce.
Computer engineering would involve more electrical work and designing circuits.
He hasn’t said her focus area, but he’s previously said she was in computer science and this does have a computer engineering major. And I imagine Carla’s explored more than one area.
I don’t BLAME Danny for not dumping Joe. But friendships like this are never healthy and he should ditch Joe. Most people with shitty oppressive behaviors only learn to improve when their actions are met with negative responses. He doesn’t care enough about women to let their opinions change him. But if Danny leaves him to rot away in lonely isolation that may be for the better. Especially if a woman he can maybe view platonically is the one to help him out of being alone.
It would be understandable if Danny “dumped” Joe due his sudden unpopularity, but honestly, also kind of shallow and mean. Sticking with him means he cares about his friend, even if he knows how different they are and that Joe is still rather immature and stupid in some regards, and Danny probably doesn’t always agree with him.
Joe could have been a better friend, but I think it was indicated they would work on it. He could have also been less stupid and went and ranked women due to how attracted he is to them, but he’s getting the backlash now, and he’ll hopefully learn from it.
As for a female friend whom he views platonically… I think Joyce might fit that already?
If Danny dumps Joe because of his unpopularity, that’s shallow. If Danny dumps Joe because he’s finally forced to confront how sleazy Joe’s behavior actually is, that’s a different story.
I think that would be horrible for both of them at this time. Aren’t they roomies at the moment? If Danny were to make such a move, at least make it clean.
And I think in that case they would just wallow in self-inflicted anguish about it (Danny) or double down on their current behavior (Joe).
I dunno. I feel like Joe might be really excited for Danny. Like, way too excited to the point it sabotages any hope the relationship might have of getting off the ground.
Obviously Joe’s being a terrible person, but Rachel honestly does not seem to be that far out from Mary to me. Like, obviously Mary’s way worse, but Mary is taking behaviours that I see in Rachel and amplifying them, judging people based on proximity to other people, for example, and her whole “there’s no such thing as redemption” speech.
Rachel is a very caustic personality, judgemental, and lashes out at everyone. In Joe’s case, though, it seems entirely justified as he’s treated her awful from the beginning as well as acted like a predator.
We don’t really know that she’s especially judgemental at this point. Both of the people she’s judged harshly had behaved in a way that would merit harsh judgement. What she said about redemption to Ruth was excessive, but the judgement and hostility behind it was understandable.
And Joe has fully earned both her judgement and how she’s reacted to him so far.
Like, maybe she IS always this cranky, and is judgemental towards people who don’t deserve it, but until we see her react like this to someone who hasn’t done something to provoke it, it feels a bit off to say she’s caustic.
I agree, the way she lashed out at Ruth was completely over the line.
I’m only saying that the anger she felt was justified, not the way she expressed it or acted on it.
Given Ruth’s abusive and problematic behavior, and Rachel’s limited knowledge of how Ruth and Billie had been faking their physical altercations for weeks to cover up their relationship, Rachel was completely justified in feeling as angry as she did.
But Rachel isn’t unlikable for her anger. Joyce has that anger, and we love her. Sarah, too, kind of. Rachel’s unlikable because she literally gave a 90s cartoon villain monologue about the impossibility of self-improvement to a woman who just got out of the hospital while she was attempting to make amends, and because we haven’t seen enough backstory or her acting like a normal human being to balance that out. At least for the people who don’t like Rachel, I believe that is the problem here.
Is she unjustified? Like, I GUESS not. Is she a person I would avoid in real life? Oh dear god yes.
Abusers fake suicide attempts all the time though as a means of control through guilt and it’s to exploit this exact mentality and trap people further often with the unwitting assistance of the people in their victim’s life that react like you.
I said it before but if I got a buck for every story I heard about abusers apologizing with kneeling and flowers and shit I’d be able to emulate Scrooge McDuck and his money swimming pool.
Trouble there is that you can’t just assume someone you’ve personally deduced to be “an abuser,” with whom you have nothing even resembling a close enough relationship to reliably tell – i.e. with Rachel and Ruth – is faking their suicidal tendencies just so you can give them a piece of your mind. Especially not a needlessly broad piece of your mind clearly directed at people that definitely aren’t them against whom you have a probably-justified but altogether personal vendetta. Like, it’s easy to say “abusers are never sorry,” I’ll admit, since I have a fair amount of experience dealing with their manipulative bullshit, but it’s probably not a good idea to let that mentality colour how you deal with anyone even tangentially related to you who’s ever done something shitty.
I don’t really think either of them was in the right. Ruth for her incredibly fucked up RA behaviour (bordering on caricature) and Rachel for her needlessly aggressive handling of the situation well after the fact – like, literally accomplishes nothing but self-satisfaction aggressive.
From Rachel’s perspective Ruth could have faked suicidal thought when caught drinking to keep her job, which is power over Rachel. I highly disagree with how general she got in calling Ruth out, everyone else in that room didn’t deserve to hear that and question whether it would be a good idea in the situation she was describing anyways. But the thought that Rachel should have to suck it up to Rachel’s abuser when she is given no good method of escape seems wrong to me.
I know at least one case where people assumed a suicide attempt was faked…and they succeeded in the second. So, no, people don’t get a pass when they assume it’s faked.
Oh yeah that too. People accused Rachel of kicking Ruth when she was down and when she was vulnerable and powerless.
But from Rachel’s point of view Ruth was still in power and have also suffered NO consequences for her actions. Basically Ruth was free to continue abusing her power. I have a strong suspicion that Rachel or someone close to her had a very nasty experience with an “apologetic” abuser and that has coloured her perception and reactions.
Rachel reminds me of how I (and honestly a whole bunch of other tumblr users) was in late high school/early college. She’s (usually) not technically wrong, but her standards of judging people, refusal to give people any possibility of a second chance or redemption, and ruthlessness when going after people she thinks have done wrong pretty much reframes her from someone who probably does genuinely mean well into someone who kicks someone down whenever they have higher ground.
((This isn’t to say that Joe isn’t deserving of the treatment he’s been getting because really rating every girl you see even if you don’t even bother with their learning their names is *actually* gross, but Danny literally just introduced himself and Ruth was already having a hard enough time before Rachel stepped in))
Yup. Danny seems to be handling it well, though, so I’m interested to see whether this turns into a productive conversation or if Rachel gets into another no-redemption rant…
(and I just noticed the irony of her mention of “educating him” when she doesn’t believe in redemption. huh.)
I don’t think she doesn’t believe people can learn from their mistakes. Or at least, mistakes that fall short of abuse. She just doesn’t think it absolves them of making them in the first place.
Yeah and I think the biggest thing that points to Rachel being more interested in kicking people with her moral high ground than helping, is the fact that she did dick-all to help Billie when she apparently knew and felt strongly about how Billie was being abused by Ruth. And I don’t mean standing up for her in the moment, because sure maybe she was afraid like the rest of the floor. But not once, ever, did we see her come to Billie at a different time and offer her support or anything. She must have been very concerned for Billie’s well-being.
Honestly, he’s better off saving his breath. Joe wouldn’t listen anyway, and Rachel would probably write it off as performative, so speaking up wouldn’t do any good.
I’d just like to note a particular irony in case Cerb doesn’t show up tonight. From Panel 2 on, Rachel and Danny practically IGNORE Joe. Yes, they’re talking about him, but they do so in the third person, while he’s there, without ever looking at him. Joe “contributes” in Panel 5, but gets no acknowledgement from them.
If anything, it’s Joe that’s turned invisible.
Also, good “game”, Danny. You learned her name within seconds of speaking to her AND actually remembered it. You spoke to her like a human being and are being interacted with as such DESPITE having the worst possible wingman on campus. You’re light years ahead of where Joe would be at this point in the conversation, and you got there, as near as I can tell, without even TRYING to be flirty. Which… is probably a good thing. Danny shouldn’t be playing the “game” either, and he isn’t, but there’s an added irony in noting that he’d be “ahead” of Joe if he were.
(And I’m not entirely certain whether I’m putting quotes around the right words there to get the point across, but basically I’m highlighting the bankruptcy of Joe’s world view from WITHIN that world view while emphasizing that the world view is shit, so just assume I’m quote-sarcasming the right words for that.)
I think you did a pretty decent job by sticking mostly to putting “game” in sarcasm quotation marks. I personally would also have put “wingman” in them as well, but that’s just personal preference and not necessary for the point you’re trying to get across.
Drawback: the attempted-friendly-introduction completely ignores what Danny’s just watched happen right in front of him.
If he’d opened with, say: “Uh, I’m sorry. He’s taking a gender studies class but it doesn’t seem to be working yet, and we’re trying to get through to him why every woman on campus wants him thrown out a window. Oh and hey, I’m Danny.”
… yeah, that’d have something going for it. But expecting that of him just now’s sadly still premature. Until he’s there? I’m with Rachel.
I think I get what you’re saying, a little less cheer is definitely called for given the situation, but I doubt that would help. I don’t really see why it would be appropriate for Danny to open with an apology for or comment on Joe’s behavior though. He isn’t really responsible for Joe, and hasn’t (afaik) enabled Joe’s problematic behavior for some time.
Maybe he should have a difficult conversation with Joe regarding said behavior, but not knowing all that much about their history or even Joe as a person I can’t say when the right time for that would be. Or if that should come from Danny at all. Friendships have their own rhythm and protocols, and in any case feeling like you have no support system doesn’t generally lead to growth. It tends to lead to looking for support with the lowest risk of rejection: unsavory groups containing even worse influences…you know the kind.
Apologising for Joe? Nah, that’s not called for. Apologising for being with Joe, a rampant predator who outright admitted it in panel 1, and suggested a fantasy of hanging around where he can find more Rachels to be a sex pest to? Yep, that.
But who knows, this could be the catalyst for Joe and Danny having that talk. OTOH: what’s the Ryan news? ‘Cos if Joe knows of the predator stalker (hopefully-only-would-be-) rapist and this mess up top is still how he carries on, then there’s possibly no hope for him at all in the foreseeable future.
Yahbut, how does Danny hanging around with Joe harm anyone? If anything, it might provide a normalizing influence on Joe’s life and a role model to make Joe’s redemption arc easier (if he ever has it). You know, good egg and all that.
There seems to be a general idea that decent people should never associate with assholes, under any circumstances. I guess positive influences don’t exist, to some people. The only way anyone can ever influence anyone is negatively, so hanging around an asshole will invariably turn a decent person into another asshole, rather than the decent person making the asshole more decent.
It doesn’t, necessarily, but it certainly calls into question their judgment, if not whether they are a decent person.
“Hi. I’m a creepy predatory PUA”
“And I’m his best friend, but I’m a good egg, really. You can trust me, even though the only thing you know about me is that I’m this creep’s best friend.”
He doesn’t have to apologize for Joe. Or for staying friends with him. But he’s got some work to do if he wants to not be seen as like Joe.
And Rachel does give him some benefit of the doubt – challenging him on whether he’s trying to educate Joe, rather than assuming he’s just another “bro”. Which, to be honest, he really hasn’t been.
Ok Joe I still have faith in your ability to change but if I might just make a small suggestion, don’t say fertile hunting ground to well anyone
Also take note of what Danny is doing here as its pretty good, I’m not sure about offering the hand shake though but apart from that hes doing pretty well
No, Danny is a fucking misogynist and he’s treating Rachel like subhuman scum. Can’t you see the writing on the wall? Joe is hopeless and should be abandoned forever, Danny has to join him now because he’s just being a Nice Guy to score with Rachel, and Rachel isn’t much better off, because she literally stabbed Ruth in the eye with a fork.
And all the good will from a few days ago when heart-to-hearting with Danny is gone. I will now never believe Joe is experiencing actual character growth ever again. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, there will be no third chance to fool me because I will no longer be naive enough to listen to you without preparing to put a knife in your throat at the first sign of trouble. And panels 3 and 4 are where Danny learns that if he says he’s Joe’s friend, then it’s guilt by association. Now is the time to request a room transfer and or wack him upside the head with your ukulele Danny. Do it.
What growth he’d already shown is probably still there. It’s just that so far, he’s only really learned to treat Danny better. I don’t think he’s realized yet that he needs to treat women better too.
It’s not, however, something that should be dismissed out of hand. Any amount of growth is still growth, no matter how small. Not every change has to be a massive shift.
I mean, it sure would be great if we could just tell a person to stop doing something deeply-ingrained in their mind and behavior, and have them just stop doing it right then and there. But that’s not reality, it hardly ever happens, and when it does happen, it’s often met with suspicion and hostility anyway, so there’s not really much incentive to pull a 180, all at once.
And he hasn’t really learned that yet either. He’s taken a step, but right after he was back to dissing Danny’s major and now reinforcing that he’s not going to listen to Danny on anything serious.
That can fall under growth is hard and backsliding inevitable and we should expect change to be slow, etc.
But if he’s got a ton of work to do before he can even treat his best bro decently, we’re never going to see him even budge on women.
You know that the concept of “shipping” didn’t originally refer to exclusively a romantic/sexual relationship right? I honestly feel it would be better to have Joe having to witness these two becoming close friends without any sexual or romantic element. Also, neither seems, from where I sit, all that interested in a romantic/sexual relationship in general at the moment.
I would really like it if you could stop burying Joe deeper.
I mean, is he supposed to be unlikable for life? Cause if so, stop giving him reasons to want a redemption. Just make him a sleaze bag and have Danny cut his losses.
Obviously there’s a reason for you making Joe be open, and maybe in the September/October pages we finally get somewhere, but at this point it seems like you’re trying to get us to NOT like Joe.
It looks more like they’re expressing frustration with Joe’s constant, unrelenting unlikability, with no signs of relief. Most of the other characters with this much negativity aimed at them are painted as villains and their negative qualities are amplified until nothing is left.
I think I get what you’re saying. Like, there’s “I’d love to watch this awful character stop being awful; when is the redemption arc?” unlikable. There’s also “I’d love for this awful character to go away forever” unlikable. I think if I’d never met Joe before Dumbing of Age he’d be in the second category for me right now, and as it is I’d still like him to go away and not be on my screen for a couple of days.
I’ve been in the camp of the former since the beginning, but now even I’m slowly sliding into the latter. The redemption needs to happen soon, cuz Joe’s unrelenting awfulness is hitting critical levels and it’s hard to root for anything other than a swift punch to the face
but like this isn’t so much about joe being unlikable, as it is about what he’s doing. and, idk – sometimes there are people you like, or want to like, who turn out to have really toxic worldviews and opinions and attitudes. and the subjective experience of liking can’t take precedence over that, i think.
but like – that doesn’t make them evil, necessarily, either, although they might do evil things
…idk i think it’s pretty clear now that this list was an unsubjectively evil thing. and so joe needs to be told no, again and again and again, until he learns to say no to himself
…….idk i think there’s something compelling about the desire to be better, undercut by the drive to be worse
An objectively evil thing? The do-list was not the ring of Sauron meant to bind people to his will in darkness. Joe never meant to hurt anyone and most of this arc is him confused about how he ended up in this situation. His intentions were pure as can be, live and love.
It didn’t turn out so great for him, but it’s not a noble thing to crucify fools.
You don’t get to say we can’t like Joe, regardless of his fuck-ups.
Yes, he wants to fuck people. Yes, he wanted to promote the list. No, he didn’t want everyone to know his opinion.
He’s not evil for wanting to advocate a list something he thinks is awesome at best and useless knowledge at worst. He also said he doesn’t tell the people with low numbers their ratings, so he didn’t want the do-list to become fully public or to hurt anyone.
His intentions remain pure.
If you want to shit on Joe, at least do it properly. There’s plenty of other ammo for you guys.
actually, I’m not sure whether you think the list was harmless, or you just think “evil” is too strong a word. If it’s the former, Cerberus has addressed that quite well in another thread. If it’s the latter, then you guys are probably arguing semantics at this point.
…oh, and you went from saying the list wasn’t evil to saying joe wasn’t evil. nobody said joe was evil.
No, the list wasn’t harmless, or we wouldn’t have the current arc. No, evil isn’t too strong a word, it’s just a stupid thing to attribute to an item outside of fiction or fantasy, hence the comment about LoTR.
I don’t know what Cerberus said about the list. Her comments are very long, and they are plentiful.
Yes, it would probably be useless to continually discuss the semantics of evil in regards to objects, if I thought it was too strong a word. However, my only comment on the list’s good-evil alignment is that it’s an entirely foolish notion to begin with.
Yes, I said “Joe wasn’t evil” in response to thejeff. Thejeff’s comment was not about the list, but about Joe’s intentions, which thejeff challenged as not being pure. I took that as meaning Joe’s intentions were bad or even malicious, which are “evil things”.
It’s pretty obvious Joe isn’t evil, but I felt a reminder would help as a foundation of my case because “pure” was seen as too strong a word for his intentions. Also, I feel it’s pretty easy to think Joe is evil with all this other stuff being thrown around.
In my eyes, Joe just wanted simple pleasures and joy. That’s about as pure as can be. “Pure” is not something that ensures it’ll actually do good.
There is a helluva long distance between “not evil” and “pure as can be”. Joe is on the skeevy side of that.
I suppose it’s possible that he thought there was no harm in it. Even so, his intentions were selfish at best. And before the list became public, he had been informed by several women that they found the list (or even just a rating by itself) offensive – Rachel, Roz, Raidah at least. I think Dorothy as well. I don’t recall anyone, male or female, reacting positively to the list or his ratings – though some could have offstage, I suppose.
And while he certainly didn’t want all of his targets to see it, he also wasn’t keeping it private – RSS feed and all.
Well, if I was an idiot, I’d probably guess those examples were cases of “I strongly do not want to date you, so I hate everything you do to show disinterest” or something similar. We already know he’s dense. Which is basically the core of it.
Stupidity, not malice. I know this excuse for Joe must be getting really stale at this point. It certainly is for me. He’s acting like an idiot who seems incapable of learning and it just goes on and on. I see it as the reason why even those positive on Joe, such as Josh Spicer and myself, am getting annoyed with it all. However, I still stand by it.
Selfish intention. Yes, he benefited, but in his mind it was a win-win for everyone involved. However we can compromise and call his intentions “not impure nor with malicious intent” if you’d rather?
yes. yes this list was joe’s One Ring to rule them all. THE CASE FOLLOWS:
1) the point of this list was to document all of the women he met and sort them by fuckability, demonstrating his perceived power over them as determiner of fuckability
2) every woman on that list (and some who were not) is left feeling attacked in some crucial intangible horrific way
3) he turns the women on this list into objects for the furthering of his will (i.e. sex); where sauron wanted mostly dominion over the world of middle earth, his desire here is dominion over women. fortunately it is temporary dominion over women and only in the realm of sex, but it really could be so much worse
4) this list has sucked away joe’s time and attention, so that he loses much of what he was once into someone defined by this list
5) his id is utterly exposed to anyone with eyes to see it
Yeah, I feel like taking a break for a while and just getting over this arc in a single go. At this point it’s not even possible to defend Joe anymore. Any redeeming qualities and the parts of Joe that were cool, likable, or interesting is just dwarfed by this constant barrage of hate.
No diss on Willis’ work though. I’m still enjoying it, and I’m still as invested as ever. It’s a good story, and it probably needed to be told. It’s just disheartening.
See you get it. It’s not like I hate Joe or think he’s pure evil or even Willis or the comic, it’s just the arc seems full of “stop and go” moment for Joe, and while I don’t expect a sudden change, there reaches a point where even a redeemed character becomes too much of a shitlord to be liked by anybody anymore.
I had a really sober and measured response to this that I wanted to write tonight because there’s so much interesting stuff here that goes in so many directions especially with regards to Danny and Rachel’s interaction here, but I’m not really in a good headspace to deliver that at the moment as I got sexually assaulted today, so it’s going to have to wait for morning. Sorry about that everybody.
Oh christ, I’m sorry honey DDD: Are you all right? I hope you’re okay and that the asshole responsible is getting some comeuppance, and please let me know if there’s anything whatsoever I can do.
Oh my god I’m so sorry that happened to you. Take care of yourself first. Don’t worry about this comment section at all. We completely understand. And if there’s anything at all we can do just ask. Remember, we care about you and your well being. And that will always take priority over any old comic analysis.
*hugs tentatively offered*
Holy shit that’s terrible! Please take care of yourself, and don’t worry about us! I don’t have the words to express how awful it is that shit like this can happen to anyone, much less someone as wonderful as you.
Oh my god, I am so sorry, Cerberus. I hope you have a speedy recovery and all the appropriate gestures of support. You have my email if you need to talk. Take good care of yourself. I hope you’re (physically) okay and whoever did it gets some form of consequences, and that even if absolutely nothing else happens to the asshole responsible, they step on a lego brick every night of their life.
OMG. Take care of yourself first – you don’t need to apologise to any of us, your insight is a gift when you have the time, don’t push yourself to do it though, look after yourself first.
Take care of yourself and please be well Cerberus. You obviously have no obligation do give us your thoughtful commentaries. All the appropriate gestures of comfort.
Oh hell, I am so so sorry. Look after yourself with every self-care resource you’ve got to hand, please, and know that the bunch of weirdo internet strangers who know how much you matter for the kids you work with also care a hell of a lot for you. You are amazing and special and mighty, and if there’s anything we can do you know where we are, right?
While nany to most of us look forward to your analysis posts, none of us, I’d hope, expect you to write them daily nor at the expense if other aspects of your life. I personally appriciate the small gesture of even letting us all know what’s up, but also feel taking care of yourself is wsy more important than even stopping it to do that. Also, whatever specifically happened, I hope it gets taken care of as quickly and as painlessly for you as possible.
I appreciate it. This analysis is one I really wanted to write, I just needed to get in the right headspace for it and wanted to give people a head’s up in case I ended up going MIA for a week or so.
Honestly, all of you who’ve commented on this were exactly what I needed to wake up to this morning and I greatly appreciate it.
COMMENT SECTION:
Honest question, as most of you seem more savvy on these whole gender/Sexual things than I am:
Do you think it is right to judge a person based on his/her porn preferences?
[Caveat: this assumes Porn preferences do not include any person/animal being hurt or exploited]
Do you have a statistical study on the correlation between various porn preferences and real-life personality traits or actions? If so, you can at least make a rough guess based on someone’s porn preferences.
There’s a reason I asked “Do you think?”, I’m asking for opinions, not scientific documents.
I mean, sure, documents would gie me a hard answer but not what I’m looking for.
That is a very situationally-specific question imo–like usually no, but like, if I find a dude has a porn blog 100% composed of snuff/dismemberment porn with super hateful misogynistic captions (even if it’s just drawn art and not real people), I am going to stay the everloving fuck away from that dude.
That’s a tough one, because they may have perfectly innocent reasons for those preferences, or they may have bigoted reasons. For example: Two people prefer cis porn actors over trans actors. One prefers them because that person actually dislikes trans people as a whole. The second prefers cis actors for purely aesthetic reasons, such as not being as turned on by women with dicks.
The first person, sure, you could judge them for that preference. The second, though, I don’t think would be fair to judge.
Hm, yes. If someone loved porn I find repulsive (and watched/read lots of it) I would get the hell out of any relationship with them.
Is this judging them? Not necessarily. But it’s keeping an energy out of my life I don’t want to have in it.
And you don’t need any knowledge about gender for that one.
my own personal opinions is simple.
I don’t judge people based on their porn preference.
I mean, yeah, sure, there are limits. Actual Beastiality, CP and Rape porn I find sickening.
However I’m willing to accept that people do like fantasy versions of such [Drawn or animated zoophilia, Lolicon hentai, Rape-play], as those allow them to have an outlet for urges, while not hurting anyone. Sure, personally I find them distateful and I’d probably rib the watcher, but I can accept it.
I mean, human mind and sexuality is kinda fucked up. What someone finds hot on a base, emotional level doesn’t necessarily reflect who they are as a rational, intelligent person. One can be a staunch feminist and still really, really, really enjoy Power Girl’s traditional outfit, just to name one example that totally isn’t me at all.
*cough*
I think it’s about how they react towards their fetishes. Two people can have the same fetish (say, FinDom, because that’s one of the “funny” fetishes), but react to it in different ways (indulging in it gleefully vs feeling guilty about it).
Basically: Don’t judge people for the weird and fucked up ways their mind might be wired. Judge them for how they react to it as an intelligent person.
TW: sexual assault, rape and sexual abuse mentions.
I think it DEPENDS on whether it is literally just based on a kink/turn on or if it is stemming from other more harmful lines of thought in the first place. Like if it turns them on because of fantasies that is one thing, if it turns them on because they genuinely believe things like sexual assault/rape for instant are okay, that is another thing entirely and is much more seriously alarming.
I would also be skewed for more leniency for people that have been previously sexually abused, sexually assaulted or raped at minimum because the trauma could impact what turns them on and what doesn’t in ways they cannot control.
Generally though if it is disturbing but still not based on actual desires for those things happening in reality, then I would honestly say to just not watch it with them and leave them to it. It is likely just like horror movies where yeah some people like them, but they wouldn’t want any of the things to actually happen in reality – like that time people tried to organise a Purge in real life then ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED because literally no one wanted that in reality even if they liked it in the movie.
The relationship with porn, especially during adolesence, may be a sticking point which goes beyond the type they have.
Metaphorically, if all one knew about how to drive was learned thru video games, would you want that person driving your car? Or in your town? Or anywhere?
I would not get into a car with a driver who doesn’t know how to drive. And I don’t believe anyone should learn about sex from porn and I certainly wouldn’t want to have sex with someone who believes that porn is a realistic representation of what sex is supposed to look like.
I don’t think either would tell me anything about the person except that one doesn’t know how to drive and the other doesn’t know how to have sex.
OTOH, an awful lot of people find porn long before they actually have sex. Even back in my youth before porn invented the Internet.
Barring introducing kids to sex at a much younger age, I don’t see a way to avoid having them learn about sex from porn.
Sure, they won’t know how to have sex, but the question then is more the “Are they convinced porn is realistic” or are they willing to learn how it works with an actual person? And I suspect that’s more a matter of personality than of exposure to porn.
Sex ed, even at its best, rarely teaches anything about how to actually have sex. It may teach about consent and about the basic mechanics and about contraception and disease prevention.
You’re not going to get demonstrations or practice. It’s not a lab.
…I don’t think I got the same US sex ed as you. Definitely made me very ashamed about adolescent me’s hormonal urges and bodily function. Eventually I got better, but still. And it’s especially bad for young girls because it still largely is focused on abstinence only and in some cases (by some women), using a piece of tape being put on and pulled off something repeatedly as a metaphor for what happens to a woman’s body if she has sex with multiple people and actively saying that girls actually decrease their worth every time they have sex. And this is coming from some women in addition to men. It’s really bad, and in some cases traumatic.
I admit that I am slightly confused by your question. You ask if it’s wrong to judge a person for their porn interests and then specify that it’s porn that doesn’t involve people or animals getting hurt. So I’m not entirely certain of what you mean by ‘judging someone’.
If you mean, is it right to assume that what a person looks for in porn is also what they look for in real life, then my personal opinion is no. That could be the case, but based on nothing else than a person’s browser history, it’s just as possible that it isn’t. Porn is fantasy. What gets someone horny in a scripted fantasy between consenting adults, or for that matter, to fictional characters in a story or a comic can make them feel sick if they hear about it actually happen to real living people.
If you mean that you’d be very uncomfortable in the presence of someone who gets turned on by things that freak you out just thinking about them, then that’s fine. It might be shallow, but I don’t think it’s wrong to avoid contact with people you feel would make you uncomfortable.
Like most I’m going to say it depends. Honestly, I treat it like a yellow flag, a head’s up to see if those behaviors are coming through or not and to be wary and firm on boundaries. I’ve seen a lot of friends hurt because their partners were misogynists who watched misogynist porn and then punished and hurt them when they were unable to recreate the acts that got them off to the level they had built up in their head.
But sometimes it’s just a preference or a means of figuring oneself out or something they’d like to explore in a consensual fantasy. It all depends on the partner.
Though if it’s child porn, burn their car down, call the police and posion their tea.
“Caveat: this assumes Porn preferences do not include any person/animal being hurt or exploited.”
Even without this caveat, in most cases, because people can enjoy very Dark Fiction without wanting any of that to ever happen to a real person. Because the human psyche is complicated and a good number of people drawn to rapefic, to stories that even romanticize abuse, are people who have been victims of those things. They create and consume media as part of the processing, and I don’t even slightly feel able to sit in judgment of those people.
So. No. You can’t tell ANYTHING from someone’s “porn preferences”, and the only study that has ever attempted to specifically prove violent porn caused violent real life behavior had myriad methodology problems and couldn’t have proven the earth was round. (Attempts to prove that violent video games and TV shows cause violence all run into the basic correlation / causation problem. How do you even study a human being young enough to prove they don’t enjoy violent media because they enjoy violence, and do we just assume there’s no nature component at all?)
Tooootally inconsequential, but the grammatical disagreement between singular and plural in the first panel is really bugging me. “There are three,” not “there is three.”
There. Got it out of my system. Carry on.
Sure, it sounds wrong when you take out the contraction, but “there’s three” sounds totally natural to me. People aren’t always grammatically perfect when they speak
huh, it sounds natural to me too. contractions are weird like that ‘s can substitute for all kinds of things. you’d think “there’re” would make more sense but it sounds really awkward to me.
I’m going to call it, Rachel’s first solo comic is going to be her alone in her room feeling disgusted with herself for feeling slightly, all but imperceptibly flattered by Joe calling her an Eleven, and possibly even finding him attractive on some level.
(do not take this as a defense of Joe’s behavior. I believe “jag” is the term you kids use for that sort of thing? Emotions are just more complicated than we all wish they could be.)
One would argue that that might be the point. Sometimes the story has to be gross or there’s no impact. Though I imagine it being more about reconciling her worldview, the person she wants to see herself as, with the reality of her own emotions. In this case, Joe’s not so much the center of her story as he is a prop that shakes her out of her comfort zone and leads her to further character growth.
Or, if not a prop, maybe we could describe him as a “tool”.
I think Leslie would have a lot to say about that in her gender studies class. I wish I knew how to say it myself. It’s creepy. It undermines her and women in general. Because of sexist cultural bullshit.
If we lived in a magical world without any of that bullshit, it might not be creepy. I’m not sure.
I’d argue that it’s a bit more complex than all that. People feel attractions that they don’t have full control over for people they logically shouldn’t all the time. It’s a natural thing that doesn’t have to be tied to gender politics at all, or even dominate the character.
Lots of things are natural. Being gay is natural. That doesn’t stop people from making a mountain of issues out of it that complicate the lives of those completely natural people.
You say “doesn’t have to” as if the people pointing out the issue are the ones creating it. They’re not. They’re just drawing attention to something that already existed.
I don’t know what the connection between your scenario and gender studies is exactly, but I feel confident that there is one. My brain is noticing something I don’t have words for yet.
It’s because the people pointing it out are creating the issue in this case. It’s simply a question of a person feeling something for someone that they otherwise have reason to dislike.
The notion that this would weaken her as a female, or somehow diminish women in general? Poppycock. Roz felt enough of an attraction to sleep with Joe (maybe twice, don’t recall for sure), and she knew from the beginning what he was all about. Didn’t weaken womankind.
This hypothetical would be entirely about Rachel developing as a person. Maybe even opening up to the idea that a person isn’t all bad or all good. That just because a person does something awful doesn’t in turn automatically make them an awful person. Growth.
I dare say the notion that there should be some sort of stigma over a woman’s natural urges, that it would be gross if she found him attractive, that’s far more a gender studies topic than the idea that she might feel a tiny bit of attraction for him.
I think that it is natural to feel things that you don’t want to feel. Its also natural to feel like your feelings you don’t want to feel undermine your position. The thing is they don’t change why you made the decision that makes them uncomfortable, but they can be used to undermine it.
I meant more like… it’s not her having the feelings that would be creepy… but someone writing her as having those feelings would be creepy. kinda like how some people were upset that the character who probably has DID also has anger issues. it reinforces some ugly untrue stereotype.
like… Rachel has made it pretty clear she’s not interested in dating him. Showing her having any complicated feelings around that might encourage the assholes who think a woman doesn’t really know her own mind and needs to be “fixed” with his penis. :/
maybe someone could write it in a way that avoids that, but they’d need a lot of skill and awareness of the pitfalls and such.
I think I get what you’re saying.
We definitely have enough stories where the woman initially hates the man but over time falls madly in love with him to the point where whatever she hated him for doesn’t matter, or the man grows and get her as a reward. Ugh that’s exactly the story Robin thinks she’s in.
We have less stories where woman hates a man but has some feelings anyways acknowledges them but it turns out she still knows the cons outway the pros and the man needs to leave her alone.
Still stories where the woman’s dislike of the male jerk is really not complicated by other feelings is in short supply.
I mean, she knows that he’s an asshole. I thought she treated him rather well, all things considered. I mean, she’s still in his general vicinity, and not on the other side of campus by now.
She doesn’t know anything about him being content to ignore Joe’s behavior. She assumes that part. She does know that he’s best friends with a disgusting mysogynist, because he admitted it. And if her assumption of the second is due to her confirmation of the latter, then it’s not difficult to understand why she’d make that assumption. I can’t tell if I’m agreeing with you or disagreeing.
Joe literally has spent this entire interaction being terrible to her and women in general and Danny hasn’t addressed that in any meaningful capacity. He hasn’t even said so much as a “Dude, not cool” towards Joe addressing Rachel by her fuckability rating even though it is outrageously uncool.
I think she has every right to condemn him for awful things she knows he’s actually done.
I mean, yes, she seems judgemental just in general. She tends to see the worst in people and outright indicated that she doesn’t seem to think people can change. But here, right now? She’s reading the situation pretty well.
I assume you are referring to Danny and completely agree with you that she would probably have a stronger point here if she didn’t nearly bite his head off 5 seconds after he introduces himself with no further knowledge on the situation.
Why should she assume the guy who was with the predatory creep is anything but another predatory creep?
Not that she really does, even when Danny claims to be his best friend. She challenges him on whether he’s just enabling Joe’s behavior by supporting him when he’s upset about the list leaking or trying to educate him on why it’s wrong.
How’s she supposed to react to him? “Oh hi Danny. Nice to meet you. I’m sure you’re nothing at all like this creepy best friend of yours.”
I actually really like Danny’s reaction and handling of this situation. Granted Rachel seems to feel differently, and plenty may agree with her, but the reality is Joe isn’t a dog Danny’s training or a child he’s responsible for. Danny is pretty spot on in his reaction to Rachel I feel. What’s he supposed to do, bop Joe with a rolled up newspaper? Joe’s situation doesn’t seem one in which a friend and peer’s efforts to “educate” really aren’t going to have any kind of drastic effect. He needs to be spoken to by someone he sees as superior or an authority figure, which is the sort of person he got his attitude towards women from in the first place. Or better yet a woman he respects. I thought despite their issues that Joe’s burgeoning friendship with Joyce was having a positive effect on him, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside with all that’s been going on. Although Joyce probably isn’t really the best conduit for the level of awareness Joe needs.
I dunno why, but I’ve kinda always liked Joe for being upfront and as a person I see some definite potential for growth there. Don’t get me wrong, I think Joe’s behavior is pretty awful, and I recognize that I’m probably not as exhausted with his sort of behavior as many of the commenters are because I haven’t been on the receiving end or adjacent to it. Most guys like Joe don’t see me as a potential sexual conquest. Which I recognize as a sort of privilege. I’ve had much worse experience with the angry belligerent sorts, “nice guys,” or edgy geeks than guys like Joe. I’ve known more guys kind of like Joe who’ve grown out of his behavior in a positive way than I do any of the other types, and have certainly been able to have more frank friendly sort of conversations about why such behavior isn’t useful. He doesn’t seem to have gone down the “it’s all these horrible women’s fault” road that plenty of people do when faced with the consequences of similar behavior, which is a bright point. The fact that he seems to be looking at the whole situation as “I have angered the NPCs and must now hide” isn’t. Although I don’t really see any other paths he would take right now. It’d be more concerning to me if he did just suddenly change his behavior because all these women were mad at him. I think such a turn around would suggest willful objectification that he is fully aware of and in control over, which is far more predatory and dangerous.
I get the sense that Joe behaves the way he does because he doesn’t recognize the harm as long as no one is being lead on, and I don’t remember having seen much in the way of educating him. Esp. if women have been having sex with him despite his behavior, which I get the impression they have. He certainly isn’t looking for a relationship, so as far as he knows his behavior is appropriate for the response he wants. By and large most of the women who have reacted negatively to him outside of the current arc were never going to have sex with him, and he doesn’t seem to be looking for friendship from either gender. He wants a bro, not a friend. He doesn’t much seem to know what to do with a friend outside of what he’s seen in movies. I think its important to remember that as far as we’ve seen Joe’s biggest experience with friendship seems to be with Danny, who only this semester is learning to define himself outside of who he is dating. Joe’s interpersonal skills as a whole seem to need work, although I’m curious as to how he acts with or around male authority figures. Or female ones, given the fact that Leslie doesn’t seem to command a whole lot of respect from anyone.
Maybe I give Joe too much leeway, but his behavior doesn’t seem significantly worse than half the cast’s immature flailings. He just seems to have a larger footprint (which I don’t necessarily understand) and less character development.
I like what you said in the second paragraph about the implications of an instant complete turnaround. It’s going to help whenever he acts like an ass in the future.
There’s no need to apologize for something that is thought provoking with a lot of interesting perspectives.
Yep. If I meet a guy who hangs out with someone who’s sexually harassed me before, I’m going to keep my guard up until I’ve ascertained he won’t do the same.
Friend’s responsability is a pretty delicate matter.
Am I responsible for my shitty friend’s actions? OK but if I am, what if this shitty friend hurts me, does that make me responsible for what he did to me? No but if I am not, will keeping my shitty friend by my side make people not want to see me anymore? The only solution seems to let shitty people go, clean your relationships and all that.
I’ve seen that in a “viral” video, I can’t remember what it was called, “If Movies Were Feminists” or something ? A bunch of guys are asking their friend about a girl ; one of them goes : “Did she put up a fight ?” and all the others reply : “Wow, what? If she fights she does not want, if she does not want then having sex with her was rape, I can’t believe you’re asking such a thing, this is predatorial behavior man, get out, you can’t be our friend anymore”.
Watching this, I was like : “So, you think this guy is a rapist… And you’ll let him go unchecked? Like, you think not being able to hang out with you cool guys will somehow fix him? Or just “not being affiliated with rapist” is your one and only feminist good deed ?”
So yeah, delicate question.
(Personnally I’m done with the “this guy is cool but only if his friends check on him”, for I’ve too long been the “friend that checks on this guy” and paid the price. But I still know no other way of dealing with this kind of situations).
Delicate question indeed. Do you boot the “missing stair” out to be someone else’s problem or keep him close and try to keep an eye on him and wait for the consequences to hit close to home when you inevitably fail?
I don’t know. It’s probably highly dependent on the circumstances of each case. Either approach remains better than the one where the group laughs along or tacitly condones the behavior, which is far too common.
In the case of Joe & Danny though, Danny isn’t doing either. He’s not trying to keep Joe in line or warning girls off or anything that checks on Joe.
How does the science/magic of the “feelings and accountability” spell work?
Specifically, can Joe see the ukulele right now? What if Danny plays it while talking about feelings and accountability–does the cloaking power diminish?
The more rules you apply to magic, the easier it becomes to break your own rules later on. It’s better to keep it simple, like in Harry Potter; point wand, say (or think) words, magic happens.
Why does always someone have to be the Terrible Person (TM)?
I don’t dislike Joe OR Rachel. Rachel’s point was understandable (even if I think she is wrong about a few things) and the way I see it Joe is an idiot, but not one that would harm people like a certain other characer (“Ryan”) has nor would. He obviously has a few lessons to learn, and with his reputation basically destroyed, this seems like the point where it starts.
The thing is, Joe HAS done harm, even if it’s not as much harm as someone like Ryan. I enjoy him as a character, and think he’s completely capable of growing out of his current behavior, it’s still harmful behavior.
Even though Joe would never assault anyone, he’s very persistently making them feel unsafe and demeaned. However much potential he may have to be better than he is now, he is very much in the wrong here.
My money is on “she hasn’t thought through the implications of anything she’s said on the subject and is just generally pissed at a variety of people” as a charitable interpretation.
I feel that Rachel had a very strong point. In a vacuum.
In the story of Rachel’s life, Joe is (yet another) misogynistic piece of shit that may be a predator too (we, the audience, know better but look at the way he talks). Danny may appear nice, but he immediately introduces himself as Joe’s best-friend-for-life. Cheerily even, like the social shit – storm surrounding Joe isn’t happening. Instead of being visibly upset with Joe or leaving him to deal with the consequences of his actions, Danny is here with Joe in a place Joe obviously has never been. It’s not a difficult leap to make that Joe is hiding and Danny is providing emotional support. So, to Rachel Danny is helping Joe to avoid learning any lessons and thus continue his atrocious beliefs and behavior.
In the story of Danny’s life however… Danny knows Joe. Danny considers him his “best-friend-for-life”. I’d be shocked if Danny hasn’t expressed disapproval for Joe’s behavior before, only for Joe to brush off his concerns. And since Joe has been apparently popular enough with the ladies for Danny to honestly believe that Joe has been in multiple threesomes, I’m not surprised Danny has given up on that argument. Because Joe for all his faults IS Danny’s best friend. Joe, who, regardless of the fact that he seems to belive that 80’s movies jocks and frat boys are an example to aspire to when it comes to being attractive to women, calmly and immediately accepted Danny’s surprise announcement of his newly discovered sexuality. Joe who opens up to Danny and I would bet NO ONE else. And who else does Danny have? Dorothy who literally ran from her relationship from him? Amber/Amazing-Girl? That’s enough of a quagmire that even Danny, for all of his social ineptness, realizes it. Ethan? Ethan is literally “guy I can talk to about Amber that I find attractive” to Danny. Sal? I would hope to God that Danny has learned his lesson about running into relationships and we all know Sal would just leave if Danny tried to treat his aquantenceship with her with the kind of intamency that Danny needs in a friendship. Joe may have been ignoring Danny a lot in the past few weeks, but he’s been the only person who hasn’t REJECTED Danny. For Danny, this whole situation is aggravating, but to him it isn’t an opportunity to “improve” Joe. Danny has known Joe long enough to be able to make that kind of judgement. It’s an opportunity for BOTH Joe and Danny to realize WHY they’re best friends. They’re the only ones willing to put up with the other’s shit in the end.
Now you could say that by being willing to put up with the other like this is just perpetuating each of their flaws, but that kind of self-awareness, even if the accusation is true, is a pretty heavy thing to expect of anyone, much less a couple of 18 year olds.
So, real talk here. By Rachel’s stated philosophy, there are good people, neutral milktoast people and bad people in the world and which is which is a static constant. If this is true, then no amount of admonishment or training will turn a misogynist creep (her words, but true) like Joe into a good person.
So why is she mad at Danny for not trying to make Joe learn his lesson? I can see being mad at him for hanging around with someone like Joe, but why specifically is she admonishing him for not trying to explain accountability to him? Her philosophy says he will never learn.
The fact that Danny isn’t making the attempt to punish Joe for his behavior is proof to Rachel that Danny accepts his behavior as not needing punishment.
Rachel believes people can’t change. That doesn’t mean she has to accept people she disproves of. Since Danny apparently approves of Joe and thus his behavior, Rachel is deciding that Danny is a “bad” person too.
But she isn’t saying “why are you associating with him”, she’s saying “why aren’t you educating him”. Does she, like, think that change is impossible but it’s our duty to try to fix people anyway, knowing it’s futile? Or what?
What is the purpose of punishment if people can’t change? “So I can enjoy their suffering” isn’t a great look, even if it is pretty mainstream American.
1. By pestering him Danny can find out where Joe lands between Ryan and Roz.
2. She see’s calling people on their shit as inherently a good thing even if its impossible for it to actually change them.
3. Attempts at education lets people know he already broke social contract.
4. Her philosophy is inconsistent.
Oh, that’s a really great contradiction in her character. My kudos to you. It is seemingly irreconcilable.
However, if Rachel only argues about people’s innate character and not their behavior, then it’s possible that she might allow for people like Joe to “learn” how to behave while still being a sleazebag inside.
Sort of like house-training a pet. The trained pet is not suddenly morally superior, but it acts more in line with our morals (doesn’t piss on the carpet). He cannot change his alignment, but he can be civilized as to not bother anyone.
Now I want to find out. I actually hope she’s simply unaware of her contradicting belief and has to own up to it to Ruth.
I do feel like you might be simplifying Rachel a bit here. Rachel’s belief might be more complicated than, “Redemption is a fantasy.”
What we should keep in mind is that in the cases she’s addressed so far, she’s been calling out abusers. And trust me, there’s a big difference between “abusers can’t change” and “normal jerks can’t learn to not be jerks”.
Joe isn’t abusive. He’s shitty and mysoginist and prone to harassing people, but he’s never been shown to really wear on his friends or loved ones. He’s a sexist, uneducated jerk, but Rachel may see a difference between that and someone like Ruth, who deliberately made people miserable. It’s the one thing we can really say for him right now.
And yes, I know I just compared Joe favorably to Ruth. I think I have to go walk into a furnace now.
I like Rachel. She’s just run out of fucks to give when confronted with yet another piece of fuckery. Mainly men giving her grief and hitting on her when she is just trying to get through college. She would react much better if the first thing out of Joe’s mouth wasn’t calling her by a number, but he is probably typical of what she encounters several times a day.
The emotional tax that women pay, especially in CS and business/science classes, is more immense than men can comprehend. She looks like she is willing to give a “good egg” a chance, but Joe just needs to be smakced down for his own good.
Until we find out otherwise, I believe that the grey shape coming down the stairs is the ghost of Ryan, destined to wander the CS building in punishment, watching an increasing number fo women accomplish more than he ever did in his life.
I’m severely bothered by the “fertile hunting grounds” comment from Joe. I’m a guy but that’s just no way to treat women or anybody really. Joe’s whole immature attitude bothers me, treating women like sex objects and not people. It bothered me when I saw it in other guys when I was around the DoA casts’ ages and like Danny was just invisible when I tried to say things to correct their behavior.
Yup, it basically reduces women to beasts that contain the “sex” instead of meat. And the methods of acquisition are the same, instill fear, trap, and then take.
Okay, let’s do this. Cause wow is this good. (Thanks by the by for the well-wishes everyone, I greatly appreciate it. I’m still dissociating super numb and letting my least connected to emotions alter run the show for a bit, but I’m in a lot better headspace than I was last night. So I just wanted to say I appreciate you all <3 ).
Panel 1: Joe… I still hope for his recovery from being a complete scum sucker, but man is him letting go of this mask going to be super hard for him and man is he doing a lot of damage with his toxic masculinity in the meantime.
Like holy shit, just look at the layers of invalidation that pour off of him here, the unchecked bigotries that ooze like toxic sludge. Like, there's the invalidation of the gender of those who are not conventionally attractive, labeling them "not real women".
Which, that's a thing. A lot of MRAs use specific shorthands for specific groups of women and labeling those they find unattractive as "feminist" is a big part of their mythology and allows them to regard the "feminist" creature as a distinct organism to the mythical "good girl" creature they want to bang, something altogether inhuman or secretly male.
And it has consequences. Those types of fatphobia and so on have effects when men like Joe are on hiring committees and "just has a bad feeling" about Candidate number 1.
Then we have that ugly ugly little phrase, "fertile hunting ground". Like every part of it seems perfectly designed to make one's bits retreat in sheer horror into the arctic wilderness and reveal so much badness that he's internalized or at least sought to imitate.
Like, first up "fertile" should never ever be brought up in any discussion about women ever unless you are literally talking the logistics of having a kid or pursuing IVF. Like, it's such a reductivist thing, reducing women to their role as baby makers and in this usage, it evokes the idea of the "Great White Hunter", which is a problematic trope in and of itself. Making women the animals he is "bagging" on behalf of rich shitty dentists and presidential sons.
And "hunting grounds". We've already talked a lot about Joe's PUAness and how bad that is, how harmful and dangerous and how he could easily become a rapist if he doesn't learn how to check this shit.
But man is "hunting grounds" scary. That thing where aggressive men dominate your time and space and don't take no or a complete panic attack for an answer is what makes public spaces often a dangerous game of Russian Roulette for a lot of women and those read to be women.
And it's not as far of a step than Joe might think between doing what he's doing and being a guy like Ryan or the chaser who assaulted me on the way home last night.
Joe needs to change. He's already hurting people with his words and actions and he needs to stop before he crosses a line he can't ever uncross.
So I might be totally off on this since I haven’t had opportunity to test it myself, but an infographic told me yesterday that chewing something spicy like ginger can help dissociation. Be well and take care of yourself ♥
glad you’re feeling better I think of that as my Emergency Backup Personality. (and yes, I wish I could find a way to make the acronym EMH… although, after getting distracted by wikipedia, ECH seems more appropriate )
and a useful diagnostic tool; multiple perspectives on my mind help with debugging it sometimes. I’m not sure how much of that conversation-between-selves thing NTs can do.
otoh, one of them is so upset about recent things that there’s a veto on discussing them with my therapist (the last session went… badly), which is really not convenient :/ but she seems to really need some alone time and processing-things-myself time, and I can afford a few weeks of that. Especially since it feels like there’s incredibly important information tangled up in there. Something so painful she’s scared to even share it with the rest of me :/
(sorry, I seem to keep talking about myself, you’ve got enough of your own stuff already. I just… sometimes things don’t show up if I’m only talking to myself. sometimes I learn things by letting myself talk about it here. feel free to let me know if it’s too much..?)
I love hearing about it! And I strongly support you and your alter going through her rough patch. I think she’ll have a lot to talk about with the rest of you when she’s ready.
I’m so glad you have the energy to comment, and fudge the scumbag who assaulted you. *Hugs and sympathy via light touch*
Yeah, Joe REALLY ups the PUA bullshit, and that’s no coincidence. As soon as he feels insecure and has something to prove, that is what he falls back to. Poor sod. Toxic masculinity at its “finest”.
Panel 2: But that’s never mind, because the way more interesting interaction is Rachel and Danny. Like, I said earlier that Danny loses cred simply for being with Joe, especially against his desire to be seen as a good egg and his approach here I think hints that Danny is not fully aware of that yet.
Like, he’s all super friendly and warm and positive. In another context, this could have been a short interesting conversation. But it’s not out of context.
He’s continuing Joe’s interruption of her morning routine and mad dash to class with no awareness or realization that she might have a schedule she is trying to keep to. He’s ignoring Joe’s awful comment about fertile hunting grounds, thus reinforcing the idea that is normal and non-objectionable (though I doubt he realizes that). And he’s being directly associated with Joe, a person that Rachel is far beyond having the spoons to deal with right now.
This all colors his interaction and ensures it ends up leading to an argument rather than the pleasant interaction he imagined he would have.
A good egg can be spoiled by a foul sauce… OK, that metaphor needs work.
Danny may not fully understand how being “best friend” with Joe makes him seem to the rest of the campus, but that wouldn’t matter. He is loyal to a fault. At least he seem to understand Rachel’s reaction.
And I must say, I love how open and friendly he is. This is the same Danny who invites Sal to do laundry with him and tells Ethan he has the Hotz for him. Honest and open and a good egg.
Panels 3-4: Oh man is this good. Because it gets into a major thing that many cis men spaces don’t fully realize, that how they react to their bros bouts of sexism matter.
Like, a lot of the time, a feminist-leaning cis guy, especially if they are straight, assume that their requirement as allies begins and ends with showing respect to partners and women in their lives. And all of that is super important and appreciated, but there’s often a balking to call out sexism in other men.
And there’s a lot of reasons for that. One is that sexism has been heavily normalized in our culture and is seen as something to be ignored. It’s just “boys being boys” after all. Another is the bro code.
Like, there’s heavy pressure on men growing up to respect the “bro code” not realizing the real extent and damage it does. It sells that being a good friend doesn’t mean just simple things like respecting them, but viewing their exes as property that belongs to them, overlooking instances of sexual assault or sexual harassment, keeping one’s tongue when overhearing rape apologia or sexist worldviews, and siding with your “bros” over any woman who might talk about sexual assault or harassment.
And having been raised as if I was a guy, I know this pressure well. I know how strongly it is reinforced in movies and on the playground and the bruises you acquire when you think it’s bad and criticize it or want no part of it.
So I don’t fully blame Danny, but I feel this is his education behind the curtain of what his “polite overlooking” of Joe’s sexism and casual enabling of his creepy invasive behavior says about his own character. That he, to a much lesser extent, has also fucked up and has some growing to do.
And this is known. Joe brings out the worst in him, especially when he gets into big brother protective mode. Let us not forget how shitty he was acting towards Roz when he blamed her for Joe and her’s sex tape.
Which is a thing. Which is why I, like Rachel, don’t fully trust seemingly nice guys who hang with shitty sexist friends. Because I’ve seen too many times that supposedly nice man become increasingly more dangerous, dropping sexist conspiracy theories out of nowhere, becoming super defensive about issues like harassment or assault (because they know their buddies have done it), getting pressured by their teasing into being worse to their romantic partners, and just have giant blind spots to sexism in general and being frequently highly dismissive.
And that’s the thing. Rachel’s response is warranted under the context she knows which is that this creeper who waited outside her unlocked door to hit on her and refer to her only as a number and is now harassing her again has a person who openly calls himself that man’s best friend and seems far more concerned with supporting Joe through his self-pitying martyrdom than standing up for most any of the women in the hall.
And it’s understandable that Danny would not be able to do that. He really doesn’t like confrontation and fights and wants everyone to get along peacefully and he’s had especially bad interactions with Joe when he’s pushed back even to the minimal amount.
But that’s going to be a major part of his and so many other feminist men’s arcs. Learning how to speak up in those men-only spaces and make it so sexist bullshit is seen as not tolerated in the group. Because a lot of the worst behaviors are really a performance for men. Something to brag about with the bros. Removing that incentive, making them realize not everyone is thinking the way they are thinking?
I like how Rachel phrases it all as questions there. It gives Danny a chance to save face instead of instantly condemning him. And it lets her make it clear what the appropriate behaviour would be without her telling him what to do. For a moment there, they’re almost having a conversation about how hard it is to deal with guys like Joe, instead of a lecture about everything Danny’s not doing right.
It’s super hard and it’s super important. As feminist men, we try so hard to not be “those other men” – but “those other men” are our friends, work mates, class mates.. .We know them and enable them.
Panel 5: And Danny’s response here is also valid and I love it. Because yeah, Danny has tried to push back against the sexism as best as he’s been able to (not great), but Joe has been waging a war against feelings at him for the better part of the year and even the slightest conversation in that direction got shut and shouted down.
And that’s one of the tactics Joe has consistently used to avoid growing as a person and stop hurting people. Be loud, be aggressive, make it way too much of a deal to fight, make it cost huge amount of spoons and microaggressions to do so and at the end he’s still going to do what he does.
And much like with current political parallels, it breeds a sort of weariness in people. Like, it’s bad, but you feel powerless to change it and no one else seems to care enough to speak up, and you’re just so tired of fighting.
And we see that in Dorothy’s weariness when she talks to him, in Sarah’s exasperated frustration when he tries to ask him not to be a dick to Joyce, in Danny only getting his shots in as tiny asides and moments.
And that’s what Joe has had. Folks who out of loyalty have entered a state of wearied eye-rolling disapproval but don’t have the strength to keep hammering their heads against the iron skull of Joe. People he has broken in their ability to call him out on this crap and the damage it does.
So that he can keep clinging to his dangerous fantasy and believe he can be part of some objective hunting simulator instead of dealing with real people, real emotions, real experiences of lust and love.
And yeah, at the end of the day, no one can be saved who does not want to be. If Joe is committed to being an asshole, there is no amount of spoons and effort that Danny or Dorothy or Joyce could throw at him to make him change from that.
His growth will start occurring when he’s ready to start redeeming himself and making up for bad behavior. When he wants that more than he wants the false illusions that this mask provides.
But that said, he is going to reflect on the company that keeps with him while he’s being unapologetically like this. On the company that ignores the worst of his comments and supports his self-induced crises.
Like, I said back at the beginning of this arc, Danny’s in a shitty situation where he’s going to get some reflected crap that hurts his image simply for being loyal to “that asshole” and being by his side during all this.
And this is the next phase of his “good egg”-ness. How to use his privilege to fight for the marginalized even when they are being targeted by his friends.
And it’s a hard skill. A lot of tireless, dedicated good men have trouble with this last step. But I believe in Danny. I think he’ll get there in the end.
Gosh dang these analysis’s are always fantastic, to the point where I can’t imagine reading dumbing of age without your insight. Just bravo applause and all the praise.
Danny is a good egg – and I think this conversation actually goes through to Joe. If nothing else because Danny manages what Joe can’t – have a normal conversation with Rachel.
How does Danny know her name? She didn’t mention it, and I’m pretty sure that when she was rushing past when she initially insulted Joe she didn’t say it either…
And she doesn’t live on Danny’s floor so he doesn’t really know.
Does he just learn the names of everyone in his classes? ARE they in the same classes?
Does he just know everyone and they just never notice him?
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 5d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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Joe, I don’t know how you could neglect a building that doesn’t exist yet
Joe’s very good at not seeing things, and even better when they’re not actually there.
A very nice floating hat, but a floating hat nonetheless.
SOMEONE GETS IT!
You mean: “Ha vary nize floatink hat, but schtill a floatink hat”.
-sorry, my Jaeger accent isn’t vorking vell today.
Panel 1: Fuuuuuuuuuck yooooooouu Joe
Yeeeeeeeeah.
Seconded.
Let’s not advocate for sexual assault, please.
Third.
Yeah, wow. You can be a promiscuous, womanizing scumbag, and yet not also be intensely creepy and euphemistically rapey, Joe. THANKS.
danny ought to cut his losses and stop being friends with joe.
He can leave the hat dangling on a string hanging from a pole attached to Joe’s back. Then Joe will never even notice he’s gone.
This isn’t Joe’s best moment, but you don’t cut close friends out of your life that easily.
Having been in one of those close one-way friendships for a long time, it really is hard to reduce contact or change the dynamic with a former bestie. Usually they cannot fathom that their behavior, that was acceptable to the person you once were, is now toxic to the person you’ve become.
In my case, our contact is now texting “happy birthday!” to each other on the appropriate day once per year, and that’s really the only contact I want at this point. I still care, but I know better than to put myself in that space again. :/
I know the comic’s been running for like, 7 years, but in-comic this has only been like… two months of Joe being an inattentive friend. That’s not one-sided yet, that’s, like, (mistakenly) getting overly excited about a new opportunity (drowning in new ladies, in this case) and being self-centered, to the exclusion of your old stable friends. I think everyone’s done that before for at least this long.
Like yeah after several more months of this and a failed attempt to reach out, we’d be approaching “one-way dying friendship” territory, but this has been a relatively short time and a fairly successful attempt to reach out, all things considered. Especially against the length of time they’ve been best friends.
Their ‘friendship’ does seem rather one way. Sometimes it takes people years to figure that out so I don’t blame Danny for not doing anything about it yet.
Joe’s been making a genuine effort to fix that this last arc though.
He fell on Danny to evacuate him and has continued to put down everything so not much.
How about when Danny said he was upset that they only ever hang out when Joe needs something and Joe responded by being open and vulnerable with him (which is something Danny’s been asking from him since basically forever)?
It’s a step. A fairly small, but possibly important one. On the other hand, he’s fallen back into the old pattern almost immediately – showing here that he’s got no intention of listening to Danny on anything else.
Which shows Rachel’s point: Danny is just placating him – probably because he knows (or thinks he knows) Joe won’t listen to anything more.
I would have been disappointed if Joe didn’t fall back into old patterns. Change does not happen that quickly in the real world and Willis has been pretty good at portraying people realistically. Yeah, Joe had a realization that he needs to be a better friend. But that realization (in comic) just happened. Even best case scenario, Joe will still say and do things that he always has because of force of habit.
If this is a redemption arc, Joe will probably take the rest of the in-comic day to come to a full realization that he needs to change and will spend the next few in-comic months needing to be reminded when he does something stupid so that he can correct. And that is lightning fast for someone to make the kind of change that people are wanting from Joe. Realistically, as a mental health counselor, I would expect Joe to realize that he needs to change over the course of weeks, then spend some time making small changes and falling back into old patterns for the next few weeks or months. Then slowly making more changes as some of them become habit until he is a well-functioning and respected member of society by the time he is ready to graduate.
Or at least functioning and well respected enough to get women again.
oh good god, four years?! That’s how long it’s supposed to take for me?! I don’t have either the time or (definitely not) the patience for that long? I get antsy and distracted if a project takes over a month. It’s official, my mental health is fucking doomed.
scar man: it’s three months for me
plus I have some bizarre mental blocks that get in the way of a lot of what’s supposed to help. but I keep flailing about and making progress anyways 
like, the latest war in my head makes even months sound like forever and why-even-try, but when I remind myself of how far I’ve come (and holy crap my brain has changed a lot in the last decade), that helps. trying anyways out of spite and stubbornness helps more
Scar man, I know you were joking, but I was talking specifically about Joe and the changes that people want to see. Joe’s sexism is basically a part of his personality. His character if you will. It’s made up of his patterns of thinking, his habits, and his values. Those things don’t change overnight. Yeah, he can have an epiphany and realize that he’s kind of a terrible person and make a decision to change, but it is really hard to break habits that have persisted for years. And so far, he doesn’t really want to change. He still wants to see women as sex objects and stereotypes.
If you are actively seeking change, you can achieve it, but, yeah, it still takes time. It depends on how major a change you are looking to make. If you are looking for a major overhaul of your personality: yep, years. Most people manage that as just part of growing up. If you are talking more minor changes like breaking a single habit or addressing anxiety or overcoming one character flaw, that can take a lot less time. Though it may still take a few months. And you can, of course, see progress pretty quickly. The key is to make little goals that build up into the change that you want. Make 20 little steps rather one gigantic one.
Joe’s sexism may also be a defense mechanism. He may have been hurt in thr past and uses it as a way of distancing himself from emotional attachment now. Joe seems to be a good guy underneath, which may still compel people like Danny and Joyce to be friends with him despite his behavior. But if there’s emotional damage underneath his facade it’ll take years to unravel it all.
I could actually see Joe and Joyce being a good endgame for each other. Joyce isn’t afraid to call Joe out on his bullshit, and his deep down respect for her and also fear of emotional attachment may be what rated her a negative zero on his scale. Because you know Joyce isn’t bad-looking, and even Joe was floored by her appearance on their date. She’s also the only one it seems Joe feels comfortable enough with to be real every once in a while. Maybe, once the shock of it all winds down, her reaction will be the one that ends up hurting Joe the most. Just a thought.
“He fell on Danny to evacuate him”
For like 30 seconds I thought you were talking about anal glands and was really grossed out.
I am rather interested in your life such that that was your first thought.
Sorry, he said for life. Can’t take it back.
But can Danny really claim to have a life?
Compared to Joe, he probably can
Unlike Joe, Danny actually has both friends and hobbies, so yes. Yes he can.
Joe has friends! There’s Danny, and Jacob. That’s plural! Even if you don’t count Joyce. And chasing everything metaphorically in a skirt counts as a hobby, I guess.
Everyone has a life. How they spend that life is up to them, and they may choose a life you don’t approve of, but disliking it doesn’t suddenly make it invalid. Even screaming schoolboys who spend all day flinging racism over Xbox LIVE have a life, after all.
Yeah, otherwise they’d call it XBox DEAD.
You think this a game, Other Mike?
You lose.
Obviously the only out is to kill him.
To be honest the person who leaked the list may have done more harm than joe, I mean just take this into consideration
1) Joe never used the list against, or to harm anyone and likely just kept it to himself,
2) At no time is a list discussed or are ratings overtly used in commonality, likely he meant for no one to ever see this list.
3) everyone’s entitled to an opinion, joes rank list basically the same as a person having certain standards.
Ok, hear me out again, we don’t know how the ranking system works, for all we know it could be based on physically only or more nuanced than that, like, body, personality, hygiene, and humor.
*sigh*
another That Guy who forgot Joe hands out the list password like candy, and talks about it quite regularly.
Nah fuck that, Joe’s list is garbage
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/boyspizzaretreat/
Yeah not at all
Okay, I was wrong about that, but, I’m not expressly defending the guy just. Also, I don’t think anyone’s opinion is gonna be very high of someone who assaults them on a fist date.
I dunno, if you go on a fist date with someone, you should probably be expecting it :V
why would you expect to be assaulted? (Okay precausion is ALWAYS good but, really.)
I’m making a joke, because you left the “r” out of “first date”
*FACEPALM*
No, you need to curl your fingers around for it to work. A facepalm is the wrong kind of date.
if you go on a fist date, remember to wear gloves for safety!
You don’t know where that fist has been.
No glove, no… um… shove?
Hey Koms, if you go on a fist date, you know EXACTLY where that fist has been.
So what’s his excuse for literally every other girl on that list? The low rating isn’t the problem, it’s that the rating exists at all
While the List, and ranking, and all of that is entirely too much work to the point that it is really creepy, the basic idea behind it is rather common.
Simplified, it is something most people are guilty of, its just that most don’t go out of their way to make a list and specifically a rating. What am I talking about? simple, EVERYBODY thinks on simple, physical attraction terms. Everyody looks at someone and says “Yeah, I think that’s attractive” or “No, I don’t think that’s attractive”
[Should be noted, I’m not counting asexual people in this explanation because, well, they don’t really care about sexual attraction, right?]
Most people can look at people and view them as attractive/not attractive/etc, but what Joe was doing is stripping the person away and thinking of that person solely as a number on a scale of fuckability. There’s a difference between seeing attractiveness and reducing someone into a something based on ‘attractiveness.’
Also, I’m asexual, and it doesn’t keep you from seeing beauty or even sex appeal. I can look at a person and see that they’re conventionally attractive, I have my own ideas of beauty (I’ve been told it’s a broader range than most?), but the difference is the lack of…I guess, interest in engaging. I can see that someone’s attractive or sexy, but I don’t have any interest in doing anything with them based on that, if that makes sense.
Yeah, i agree that oe takes it to an extreme that it ecomes uncomfortable for all involved except him.
Also, fair enough on the asexuality front, was just trying to cover my bases.
Another asexual adding to the conversation:
My standards for physical beauty are . . . nigh-nonexistent. If I have a measurable scale, or another set of standards to go by, I can measure from them, but . . . all I ever really see is imperfections, at least physically. Put bluntly, no one is beautiful, some are just more ugly than others. There’s a reason I use “sexual creatures” as a term of disdain: I do not understand physical attraction, at all. That said, I understand that I’m in a severe minority.
You’ve made that assertion before, but…the other day, when people were accidentally rating women, I was going to comment too. Then I got all confused trying to figure out what I thought of the female cast members. My list changed several times, and in the end too much time had passed and I abandoned the comment.
So maybe not everybody thinks that way.
Everybody doesn’t think this way, I’ve never assigned a numerical rating to a person’s attractiveness once in my entire existence
Yeah, no, not everybody rates people’s attractiveness like that. I mean if I had a list like that I would have to update it at least daily, because whatever passes for “attractiveness” in my perception changes with a billion variables including their mood and my mood and how close we are and how much I like them as a person. So. The simples fact that Joe can have a list like that is weird to me, because it implies that his perception of people’s attractiveness is something that is defined at first sight? He thinking that his list matters at all to other people and offering them the password is just absurd.
I might just be ace, but nope. That is not a common activity and even if it was it would be wrong.
One is free to have specific things or attributes that drive you wild. But once you’re turning those people that excite you into objects and numbers and assumin others are all doing the same, you have turned it into something far removed from sexual taste.
Again, I did say that Joe takes it to extremes and my comment was that everybody has something much more simple: “I find this one attractive” and “I don’t find this one attractive”. No numbers, no ratings, no objects.
nope, my brain was failing at even that simple a level. occasionally I’ll notice something particularly attractive or unattractive, but the rest of the time it would take conscious effort to figure out (if I can figure it out at all).
this caused problems in school when I was expected to know my “favourite movie”, “favourite food”, etc.
It’s immature and stupid, but has the list actually hurt someone yet?
Aside Joe’s reputation, I guess, but that’s karma, and I think he is aware of it.
Joyce seemed incredibly hurt, and for the women on it there’s probably a sense of indignity and dehumanization to deal with.
The girl (sorry I don’t remember her name) that walked up to him and said “A three?” and called him a pig seemed pretty hurt
She’s Rachel’s roommate, also named Rachel. (Tagged as other rachel.)
It’s cruel and dehumanizing, and most institutions I know of would consider it cyberbullying.
Yes. It gives targeting information to dangerous people, encourages harassment of “high numbers”, bullying of “low numbers”, is an open testamen to one’s dehumanization which makes one feel like rancid garbage and like a piece of meat that is uncalled in an institution of learning and that you are unsafe in your own living space (because he’s always creeping in the girl’s dorm).
On top of that, it adds an additional color to his instances of sexual harassment in the past knowing he’s been compiling this list on his fellow students, thus making those instances feel way more dangerous and like pushing back against him will result in being publicly shamed in a scary PUA guide.
Additionally it lends support to predators, helping to maintain their worldview that their dehumanizing and targeting activities are normative and just what guys do as well as a good list of people with low self-esteem or naivety to exploit in sexual assault.
Plus sexism feeds into and reinforces a number of marginalizations and violence that take a number of tolls on a large number of people.
This stuff has real consequences and does real harm even if that harm is not as obvious as a bigot curb-stomping someone and can be what encourages and supports those more obvious systems of abuse.
I think one thing some people aren’t seeing is that while Joe’s list might SEEM relatively harmless on its own, he’s been actively seeking others to join in.
It’s bad enough with just Joe, but if he’d actually found other guys interested in joining in, there would’ve been a whole group of Joe’s all reinforcing each other’s misogyny and worst behavior, competing with each other to see who can fuck the most, hottest women.
Those are the conditions where toxic masculinity becomes much more dangerous. Instead of Joe brushing off women’s rejections and criticism of his behavior simply out of stubborn pigheadedness, he’d also have bros piling on. It’s the sort of echo chamber that creates the assholes who grope women at conventions and concerts, and eventually much worse.
Joe’s not so far down that path already that he can’t turn back, but the sooner he changes course the better.
YES. Joe is actively advocating really toxic behavior. Just imagine if Danny in a moment of (extra much) weakness had decided he liked Joe’s idea of masculinity better than his own? Wouldn’t THAT have been fun for everyone involved.
When I think back to high school, I can’t help but imagine how easily I could’ve turned out a very different, much shittier person if I hadn’t been so incredibly socially awkward
Technically that would be the list being LEAKED hurting people’s feelings.
I was referring to Joe’s numbering people, I should have made myself more clear.
And I also honestly think that guys like Joe are not the norm. And while his numbering people is immature and stupid (and I can’t call it malicious, because it probably isn’t, it’s just stupid), I don’t think he’s ever going to physically hurt women.
I honestly can’t remember when he sexually harrassed someone.
And I can’t see how you made the connection to abuse again, either.
Literally every part of that is wrong, as generously demonstrated by Joe in this very strip.
1) He offered the password to Raidah and Jacob. He mentioned within the first 50 strips of DoA that not only does he have this list, but it has an RSS feed and subscribers. He was definitely sharing it with people.
2) He discusses the list with Danny within the first 50 strips of DoA stating that he was adding Dorothy to it after their break up.
He mentions the list again to Danny by telling him he was going to upgrade Joyce from a 4 to a 10 by ‘breaking her in’.
He mentions the list to Amber when telling her he was going to put Billie with the ‘8’s though she is really a ‘6’ but her breasts are a ’10’.
He mentions the list again to Danny when adding AG to it.
He mentions the list to Roz and literally the entire Gender Studies class by saying he will upgrade her to a 10 if she lets them out of class early.
He mentions the list to Raidah and Jacob by offering them the password and said it was remiss of him to not do so earlier.
He references the list when meeting Rachel for the first time by calling her an eleven and saying not to tell the ‘ones’.
He referenced the list literally yesterday by calling Rachel ‘Eleven’ instead of her name which he didn’t even know because he never asked.
He mentions and references the list somewhat often, particularly when he feels he can use a high ranking on it as leverage to appeal to a female character or as a kind of boast to Danny about his ‘knowledgeable rankings’ as if Danny should think he is wise for them. He has at least enough decency to not insult people that are low rankings to their face about it but he still references it and mentions it to multiple different people completely unsolicited.
3) A preference or standards is different from systematically rating every female you ever encounter, including the ones you have no interest in yourself, offering the password to your list to someone clearly repulsed by the fact you have such a list at all (Raidah wanted nothing to do with that creepy list) and trying to use the offer of a high ranking to sway someone’s mind (as he tried to do to Roz then belittled her as definitely not being a 10 when she said not to rate women as that ‘isn’t what a 10 would say’).
4) We do know how the ranking system works in a sense, it works based on first impression regardless of whether that is just their physical appearance which is always the first factor and sometimes the only factor or if he actually talks with them during it which can add further factors that increase or decrease it but he always starts with physical appearance.
Physical appearance alone is what he used to rate Rachel and AG (extrapolating that AG must have issues and be ‘kinky’ as a result of what she was wearing and is therefore a ‘9’ despite being ‘too short’ to otherwise be a ‘9’), while Billie he rated both on appearance and the little personality he saw, Sal I don’t think he has ever spoken to but again physical appearance first as shown by the included note that she would be a 10 if she didn’t smoke, Joyce included both her appearance and the fact she talks a lot about her religion and beliefs.
The initial judgement is based on physical appearance then he adjusts for other factors that he can see. Traits he thinks will make sex better increase it while ones that he thinks won’t or just doesn’t like personally decrease it. While we know he went back to edit Joyce’s number, it seems he doesn’t actually edit and update the notes later on as by now he knows for certain that Sarah is Joyce’s roommate as there is a strip where that was clarified to him.
1. He used it against Roz to undermine her during class.
2. Already said but not true
3. He can think someone is attractive or unattractive this is not what he is doing. He is going out of his way to put every single woman on a scale they did not ask to be on( which is not how much are they hurting others) and judging men for liking women who are too low on the scale.
Imagine if someone went around judging every movie on how scary it is then judged others for liking non scary movies. They I guess have the right to judge movies by that standard but you why are they bothering to watch cartoons, do they even relies that scary is subjective. Maybe they would be able to get the horror in the movie better if they actually bothered with the other parts of the movie I mean would you properly feel the horror of Buzz brainwashing if you watched Toy Story 3 only looking for the scary parts.
One of Danny’s core character virtues seem to be his loyalty to the people he cares about. Unfortunately, I think that means that it’s going to take more than the soul-searching that encouraged him to take on a new (rockin’) outward persona for him to cut his best friend out of his life for his own sake.
Anyway, now have the visual of Danny liking Joe in my head.
Wow, liking and licking are only one letter apart, just noticed that and not licking the implications…
Lick like lik
Maybe Danny likes licking Joe, I don’t know.
Danny and Joe in panel four look to me like they also have that visual, and don’t hate it. I know that’s not actually what’s happening, but I can’t unsee it.
Like lick lik
She has a good point, tho.
…does she?
Look, Rachel has precisely zero need or cause to tolerate Joe’s shit. Duh. If she wanted to walk away, flip him off, call him a sexist pig, he’d deserve it and more.
But Danny’s (probably) doing the right thing here, and a hard thing: Being Joe’s friend, staying with him, without actually validating any of Joe’s actions.
Odds are that, if Joe’s outright abandoned by everyone that isn’t a sexist fuck, the only people he’ll be around are sexist fucks, who are not going to challenge him on his sexist douchebaggery.
Danny’s there as a lifeline, giving Joe a path to being a better person. There’s certainly a question to be had about when enough is enough and Danny should just stop trying, but if he still feels that Joe can be a better person, then he should be allowed to keep trying.
……..but I’m something of a hopeless optimist about this sorta thing >_>.
“……..but I’m something of a hopeless optimist about this sorta thing >_>.”
Well, yeah. That’s probably what Danny’s thinking, too, and a lot of Joe’s friends have enabled his shitty behavior.
There’s a big gulf between Danny outright abandoning Joe and actually saying “hey, that’s shitty behavior”. I’m usually actually like Danny, but, yeah, this is some overt shitty sexism and arguably harassment, and Danny’s “disapproving” response is to…not compliment Joe? There’s a problem there.
“But Danny’s (probably) doing the right thing here, and a hard thing: Being Joe’s friend, staying with him, without actually validating any of Joe’s actions.”
Nah, that’s what most enablers do, it’s actually really easy.
Could Danny be doing more to thwack Joe on the nose with a newspaper? Absolutely. Maybe he should be doing more. Or maybe Danny knows more about how to handle Joe than I do, and knows how get him to realize that stuff.
Danny’s known Joe for a long, long time. Maybe he’s just being a standard enabler, or maybe there’s something else going on here…
“Danny’s known Joe for a long, long time. Maybe he’s just being a standard enabler, or maybe there’s something else going on here…”
Yeah, that’s called being a bog-standard enabler.
The only way to not be an enabler is to *not enable*. Everyone wants to claim special circumstances, and it’s never actually true. It’s just excuses not to do the right and hard thing.
The right and hard thing to do here is to hammer home the point that Joe is doing a bad thing and he needs to stop doing that bad thing. Silent disapproval never fixed anyone’s poor behaviour.
And hammering things home can cause peoe to shut down. Joe has demonstrated several times that when he feels attacked he shuts down and doesn’t listen. It’s a bad tactic with him because he then doubles down on bad behaviour, as can be seen in mid to his scenes on Gender Studies. A more tactful response is required.
Annnnnnd a place where women can be found is a “fertile hunting ground.”
Rachel, give him ALL the deathstares. They won’t be enough, but don’t worry, he’s getting them from us as well.
May I never read or hear that phrase ever again.
I’m kinda okay with the thought of scorching it into the gravestones of MRAs. Otherwise? Yup.
Except in the context of actual hunting.
The heart is a lonely hunter.
Probably because it says stuff like “fertile hunting ground”.
Fertile ground is for farming or gardening. Unless the ground in question is a sentient earth construct looking to sire a half-elemental heir.
……..it’s so gross
I like that Danny’s clothes turn invisible, but Joe refuses to acknowledge the hat as part of Danny
I was really hoping Joe was not this ****ing stupid but he really did believe women weren’t involved in computer programming like some sort of river of running water to keep out vampires. Yes, I watched the Netflix Castlevania show. Also, Danny isn’t an enabler. Joe has ignored every piece of advice Danny has given.
Walky’s previous immaturity spawned misogyny was too cartoony for DOA, so the excess implanted in Joe, filling in the space where his pornomancy used to be.
It’s actually kinda weird and jarring how Joe flips between competence and absolute stupidity. There’s no middle road with this guy.
He can make total sense to Walky or Joyce about some of their behaviors, but we turn around and he doesn’t know women do software engineering?
personal bias!!!
he has what he knows from lived experience, but he doesn’t see women as people so he would not have any insight into their lived experience. especially as he does not experience it himself.
he benefits from this system, so he has no reason to consider how it affects the targets of his sexism. or understand it as sexism.
honestly this is probably a lot of why he wasn’t super encouraging of danny’s bisexuality, despite being encouraging of his heteronormative leanings – for someone who perceives all sexuality as fundamentally aggressive in nature, seeing himself as a potential target of someone else’s sexual urges/objectification has got to be unsettling. he’s used to thinking of other men as bros, and that’s where he seeks most of his emotional validation. ironically, if this had worked out for him, most of his closest emotional bonds would be with other men – but no homo, right.
it’s this…physical/emotional/cognitive divide that has its roots in some pretty classical history/narratives. joe believes this shit with the fervor of a monk, and breaking it is like breaking his entire worldview.
I see a little silhouette-a of a man…
Scaramouche! Scaramouche! Will you do the fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me.
Galileo!
Galileo! Figaro?
Magnifico~o~o!
I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me.
HE’S JUST A POOR BOY FROM-A-POOR FA-MI-LY
SPARE HIM HIS LIFE FROM THIS MON-STROS-I-TY
Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
BISMILLAH, NO! We will not let you go!
He’s just a poor boy from a poor family
Galileo!
Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening me
I’m sorry but whenever I hear the phrase “let me educate you” I hear “let me brainwash you”
Probably bad past experiences but still creeps me out
It’s not just you, I feel that way too, but I know it’s bad experience for sure in my case.
I hear it more as “let me talk down to you”, but I guess I have had more luck with past experiences.
I mean technically all education is “brainwashing”. Hell telling someone a fun fact is “brainwashing”. Brainwashing has a very loose definitoon.
That seems fair. Usually when somebody wants to teach you(not insult your intelligence) they’re more like: “Wanna hear something cool?”
Not really in this context though – whatever that is, since no one said “let me educate you” except Jess saying it creeps them out.
Assuming it’s a reference to Rachel’s “are you educating him on what he’s done wrong”, there’s no way to apply “wanna hear something cool”. Course, it’s possible Jess would consider that “brainwashing”.
The internet must be broken, you’re expecting serious, in context comments to appear next to a Deadpool Grav!
Where did I go wrong!
In all seriousness though… the only in context use that comes to mind is: “Hey, Joe, wanna know something cool? You can have sex without being a complete tool!” which wraps right back around to insulting intelligence, but Joe deserves it.
Then again, when there’s something disgusting in one’s brain, a good washing may not be the worst idea…
OMINOUS PERSON WALKS DOWN STAIRS!
Plot twist: That ominous shadow is coming down to kick Joe in the crotch.
Then immediately turn around, and ascend the stairs and return to what it was doing.
What is The Shadow? Is it just a background character? Or, is it an in-universe manifestation of our comments in that only appears when there’s near-universal consensus that one of the named characters needs a good Gibbs slap?
See Joe that’s how you interact with women, let Danny teach you. Also go Danny, he might be the best wing man.
Joe…no…just…no. Stop. Stop being Joe. Maybe start being Danny for a while, see how that fits. Even old Danny would be an improvement.
Danny x Rachel. Let’s go.
She’d eat him alive. ……..I’d still be down.
it would be interesting. Like the Spanish inquisition, because no one suspects either.
Oooh this is gonna piss of the Danny X Ethan shippers
Those people are insufferable. Not that I should throw stones, what with my glass houses.
Not the first time I’ve been called that… and knowing me, not the last.
They’re fine as long as they weren’t the ones who begged for Danny to cheat on Amber.
Which happened a lot.
No it’ll just mean we get more polyshipping.
I keep trying to think of why Danny should stick by Joe but it occurs to me that Joe treats Danny like shit, belittles him, doesn’t support any of his hobbies, isn’t there for him in times of emotional crisis, and generally is all take and no give.
Joe is a crappy friend, Danny, dump him.
Well that’s what we’ve seen of them in college, it may have been different in high school which this hasn’t been going on all that long
Well, we know Danny has enabled Joe a bit. He helped code the list.
Guess it seemed like a fun project to do back in middle schools
Love that half-beat where they exchange a look.
Gotta say I wouldn’t mind a Rachel backstory
Yes. That would help us know her as more than one of the other background girls.
She’s an eleven. That is literally everything there is to know, right?
You know, Joe, when you’ve dug yourself as deep a hole as you have, you should really stop digging.
“a flying evil dapper hat. do yourself a favor and become totally invisible”
well, I actually like the hat, despite what joe says, so fight me
… Damn it Joe I keep trying to climb aboard the “Joe gets a redemption arc and learns the error of his ways, thus becoming a better, less skeevy human being” because I know you have redeemable qualities and interesting elements to your character that could more thoroughly be explored if you were to cast aside your mask of toxic masculinity but you are making it real fucking difficult right now.
Everyone deserves a second chance but Joe has been really really throwing away the fifteenth hundredth. He is also deliberately ignoring the enormous signs from friends and strangers both that his behavior has been awful.
How many people overturn their lives and years of habits in a day, or even a few weeks? We get a strip a day, stretching over years; for Joe, it’s October or something of his freshman year.
But Joe hasn’t changed his behaviour in any way whatsoever regarding women even after it became unavoidably obvious that they fucking hated how he treats them. Like any decent person would at LEAST have the decency to not address someone by their rating on his fuckability scale when he learned that everyone hates it and thinks it’s disgusting and dehumanizing. Like that isn’t something that should require any length of time to change it shouldn’t even be something any reasonable human being does in the first place.
It’s been like an hour or two since he realized the list was leaked. That’s barely enough time to get through the initial panic and flailing he has clearly just been doing. Going from a habit bolstered by “I genuinely have no idea why women aren’t taking this as a compliment” to a change in behavior takes longer than one conversation with a woman, I am pretty sure.
Look how long it took Joyce to know a gay person and then change her behavior to outright acceptance instead of, uh, dating one to “make” him straight and refusing to let him have pink things just in case. It took a completely different person coming out, one she had a stronger emotional connection to, AND THEN an argument with her friend about her behavior, and learning some horrible shit in class, and being called out by Roz, and getting in a high-speed motorcycle chase ending with punching a gun-wielding dad and swearing AND a total nervous breakdown, before she was just happy for Becky and Dina to be smooching. And Joyce is already a more well-adjusted person (in, uh, well at least some regards) than Joe is.
We just see more of Joyce, and she’s a nicer person, and HER shitty behavior was of course SO well-intentioned, so of course we have more sympathy for her and her journey. But, stepping back, I don’t know if I can say that rating women is any morally worse than trying to date a gay dude into straightness. But we’ve given Joyce weeks/months of comic time to get HER shit together.
Is there a thing of being a good wingman by making your friend look good compared to your bad behavior? Because if so, Joe seems to be doing that unintentionally.
Except not, because Rachel’s calling him out for just placating Joe. That may be a thing, but it backfires when it hits “I’m going to avoid you because you’re his friend.”
I think overall I enjoy Rachel. Like yeah, she needs an ounce of chill occasionally and that whole “redemption isn’t real” speech is still deeply not okay, but that question in panel 4 is a good one. Naturally she doesn’t know Danny so it’s kind of out of place, but that responsibility is one all decent dudes have wrt their more misogynistic peers. Like, you personally, are you taking steps to make your fellow dudes* less awful, or are you sitting content in the knowledge that you are Less Bad?
*find-and-replace any other privileged group that applies to you personally, like being a cis white person in my case
Also, great use of the phrase “hunting ground” there Joe, totes makes you seem like not a predator at alllllllllllll
The shallowness of Joe is shocking as well given Rachel has so far not shown any sign of anything but raw hostility.
Well, neither had Sarah. He just can’t stop digging
I don’t know if you’ve noticed up there on your high horse, but “being a predator” is a pretty standard part of toxic masculinity. If the grand sum of your educating other people is, “Be more like me! The thing you don’t like!”, congrats on being Less Bad, I guess.
I dunno, if you hang around with a sleazbag don’t be surprised if people think you’re a sleazebag.
Yep. One is judged by the company one keeps, pitch soils, etc.
Hanging out with Joe might not make you a misogynist, but it shows you’re okay with misogyny.
…I am not at all sure what you’re trying to communicate here, but if not liking dudes who think of me as prey is being on my “high horse”, well, not sure I care about your opinion anyway.
Yeah, I found it hard to work out the point being made, too. What was “The thing you don’t like!” intended to refer to? Women? Shiro specifically? Dudes who aren’t predators? It’s a puzzle.
calling out shitty behavior is being on a high horse now?
Apparently, it is. Also, openly disapproving of people being content with being “Less Bad” is apparently the same thing as patting yourself on the fucking back for it.
Cool it’s still dangerous and perpetuates rape culture so excuse me if my sympathy isn’t directed at men on this issue.
….The fuck are you even talking about? I swear, I’m seeing more and more conversations in which at least one party is talking about something the other person never even said. It’s starting to piss me off, so maybe cut that shit out and act like a rational goddamn human being.
Oh, what the fuck am I even saying? That’s too much to fucking expect from people online. If you think someone said/meant/implied something, clearly that’s the TRUE and HONEST situation, and your response can be nothing but fucking gold. This is life for us, now. Endless suffering.
If someone wants a comment fight, don’t give them one. Can’t say it’s a silver bullet, but it saves you a lot of grief. Always stay calm.
Been in a bit of a combative headspace, lately.
thanks for reminding me, it’s gym day. or shopping, which is a workout too. … I need to pick one before I end up with neither.
Oh, I know that feeling all too well. I’ve been guilty of the same on many occasions.
woo! I did a shopping.
two weeks in a row.
But if she thinks redemption isn’t real, doesn’t she think Danny trying to educate Joe is inherently futile?
There’s a huge difference between redemption and improvement.
Tell that to her speech about how Ruth will always be a terrible person regardless of what she does.
(I’m implying she doesn’t seem to believe in either)
Yeah I’m seriously not a fan of Rachel. Kicking people when they’re down is really shitty.
Rachel thinks Ruth is a terrible person forever because she was an abusive monster.
But Joe isn’t?
Ruth will always be the person who physically assaulted multiple people and almost led another girl into suicide. She will never not be that person.
She has the ability to *learn* from that and improve in the *future*, but redemption in the sense of a clean slate absolutely does not exist and Rachel is 100% correct in that respect.
A whole lot of people are suffering from protagonist-centered morality here.
Ruth did not almost “lead” Billie to suicide. They were both suicidal already.
I can completely understand that you’re not willing to let it go. That’s reasonable. But I’m not “suffering” from anything because I’m willing to forgive her.
‘Hunting ground.’
Fuck you, Joe.
joe, i’m gonna need some character development ASAP!
…..
…. is there a Danny/Rachel ship yet? Because if not, I’m hereby launching Rachcox.
….. and yes, I know, she’s not going to be interested in him. But I like the idea of Danny dumping Joe and to date Rachel at this very moment.
“Rachcox” just sounds painful…
It sounds like something Nurgle would bestow on people…
If it’s pronounced “ragecocks” I ship it.
If it’s not pronounced “ragecocks” I still ship it.
TBF, Rachel, the other two on your floor wouldn’t be interested. One is Carla, who is asexual, homoromantic and probably sex repulsed, and one is Amber, who has met Joe.
Is Carla more of a software-y or a hardware-y type of girl? Or are they both in the same building? I had her mentally categorized as mechanical engineering or something to that effect.
IIRC, she’s in computer engineering.
Thanks for enlightening me on the other two girls. I thought Carla was in engineering. And I momentarily forgot Amber because she’s MIA.
Although…Rachel acknowledges Amber is still around so she can’t be out of the picture just yet.
Carla’s in Computer engineering and Amber is in computer science. If one isn’t Carla, I’m not sure who it is.
Right right, computer engineering. I’m definitely losing brain cells just rethinking all this.
Are you sure it’s not mechanical engineering. It seems like that would fit better with the way she’s repeatedly built mechanical-type dohickeys and especially her “applied math” comment to Joyce.
Computer engineering would involve more electrical work and designing circuits.
Yes. Word of Willis is this is her major: https://www.engineering.indiana.edu
He hasn’t said her focus area, but he’s previously said she was in computer science and this does have a computer engineering major. And I imagine Carla’s explored more than one area.
I don’t BLAME Danny for not dumping Joe. But friendships like this are never healthy and he should ditch Joe. Most people with shitty oppressive behaviors only learn to improve when their actions are met with negative responses. He doesn’t care enough about women to let their opinions change him. But if Danny leaves him to rot away in lonely isolation that may be for the better. Especially if a woman he can maybe view platonically is the one to help him out of being alone.
It would be understandable if Danny “dumped” Joe due his sudden unpopularity, but honestly, also kind of shallow and mean. Sticking with him means he cares about his friend, even if he knows how different they are and that Joe is still rather immature and stupid in some regards, and Danny probably doesn’t always agree with him.
Joe could have been a better friend, but I think it was indicated they would work on it. He could have also been less stupid and went and ranked women due to how attracted he is to them, but he’s getting the backlash now, and he’ll hopefully learn from it.
As for a female friend whom he views platonically… I think Joyce might fit that already?
If Danny dumps Joe because of his unpopularity, that’s shallow. If Danny dumps Joe because he’s finally forced to confront how sleazy Joe’s behavior actually is, that’s a different story.
I think that would be horrible for both of them at this time. Aren’t they roomies at the moment? If Danny were to make such a move, at least make it clean.
And I think in that case they would just wallow in self-inflicted anguish about it (Danny) or double down on their current behavior (Joe).
I obviously don’t know enough about US colleges to say whether changing dorms or whatever is easy.
Just seems like an unnecessarily bad idea to end the friendship if they would be reminded of it every day.
Since this is “New Danny”, I kind of want to see him and Rachel pair up – if only because it would drive Joe INSANE.
That WOULD be a suitably messy relationship for Danny. I can see that happening.
I dunno. I feel like Joe might be really excited for Danny. Like, way too excited to the point it sabotages any hope the relationship might have of getting off the ground.
I… don’t like Rachel very much.
Obviously Joe’s being a terrible person, but Rachel honestly does not seem to be that far out from Mary to me. Like, obviously Mary’s way worse, but Mary is taking behaviours that I see in Rachel and amplifying them, judging people based on proximity to other people, for example, and her whole “there’s no such thing as redemption” speech.
Rachel is a very caustic personality, judgemental, and lashes out at everyone. In Joe’s case, though, it seems entirely justified as he’s treated her awful from the beginning as well as acted like a predator.
We don’t really know that she’s especially judgemental at this point. Both of the people she’s judged harshly had behaved in a way that would merit harsh judgement. What she said about redemption to Ruth was excessive, but the judgement and hostility behind it was understandable.
And Joe has fully earned both her judgement and how she’s reacted to him so far.
Like, maybe she IS always this cranky, and is judgemental towards people who don’t deserve it, but until we see her react like this to someone who hasn’t done something to provoke it, it feels a bit off to say she’s caustic.
Deliberately lashing out at someone who just came off suicide watch is never excusable. As far as I’m concerned that was attempted murder.
I agree, the way she lashed out at Ruth was completely over the line.
I’m only saying that the anger she felt was justified, not the way she expressed it or acted on it.
Given Ruth’s abusive and problematic behavior, and Rachel’s limited knowledge of how Ruth and Billie had been faking their physical altercations for weeks to cover up their relationship, Rachel was completely justified in feeling as angry as she did.
But Rachel isn’t unlikable for her anger. Joyce has that anger, and we love her. Sarah, too, kind of. Rachel’s unlikable because she literally gave a 90s cartoon villain monologue about the impossibility of self-improvement to a woman who just got out of the hospital while she was attempting to make amends, and because we haven’t seen enough backstory or her acting like a normal human being to balance that out. At least for the people who don’t like Rachel, I believe that is the problem here.
Is she unjustified? Like, I GUESS not. Is she a person I would avoid in real life? Oh dear god yes.
Abusers fake suicide attempts all the time though as a means of control through guilt and it’s to exploit this exact mentality and trap people further often with the unwitting assistance of the people in their victim’s life that react like you.
I said it before but if I got a buck for every story I heard about abusers apologizing with kneeling and flowers and shit I’d be able to emulate Scrooge McDuck and his money swimming pool.
Trouble there is that you can’t just assume someone you’ve personally deduced to be “an abuser,” with whom you have nothing even resembling a close enough relationship to reliably tell – i.e. with Rachel and Ruth – is faking their suicidal tendencies just so you can give them a piece of your mind. Especially not a needlessly broad piece of your mind clearly directed at people that definitely aren’t them against whom you have a probably-justified but altogether personal vendetta. Like, it’s easy to say “abusers are never sorry,” I’ll admit, since I have a fair amount of experience dealing with their manipulative bullshit, but it’s probably not a good idea to let that mentality colour how you deal with anyone even tangentially related to you who’s ever done something shitty.
I don’t really think either of them was in the right. Ruth for her incredibly fucked up RA behaviour (bordering on caricature) and Rachel for her needlessly aggressive handling of the situation well after the fact – like, literally accomplishes nothing but self-satisfaction aggressive.
From Rachel’s perspective Ruth could have faked suicidal thought when caught drinking to keep her job, which is power over Rachel. I highly disagree with how general she got in calling Ruth out, everyone else in that room didn’t deserve to hear that and question whether it would be a good idea in the situation she was describing anyways. But the thought that Rachel should have to suck it up to Rachel’s abuser when she is given no good method of escape seems wrong to me.
I know at least one case where people assumed a suicide attempt was faked…and they succeeded in the second. So, no, people don’t get a pass when they assume it’s faked.
I don’t quite remember but did she Know that Ruth was on suicide watch?
I believe so.
I think, more than that, she had Ruth come back and explain that she’s suffered no consequences for her actions, but she’s really really sorry.
Oh yeah that too. People accused Rachel of kicking Ruth when she was down and when she was vulnerable and powerless.
But from Rachel’s point of view Ruth was still in power and have also suffered NO consequences for her actions. Basically Ruth was free to continue abusing her power. I have a strong suspicion that Rachel or someone close to her had a very nasty experience with an “apologetic” abuser and that has coloured her perception and reactions.
Rachel reminds me of how I (and honestly a whole bunch of other tumblr users) was in late high school/early college. She’s (usually) not technically wrong, but her standards of judging people, refusal to give people any possibility of a second chance or redemption, and ruthlessness when going after people she thinks have done wrong pretty much reframes her from someone who probably does genuinely mean well into someone who kicks someone down whenever they have higher ground.
((This isn’t to say that Joe isn’t deserving of the treatment he’s been getting because really rating every girl you see even if you don’t even bother with their learning their names is *actually* gross, but Danny literally just introduced himself and Ruth was already having a hard enough time before Rachel stepped in))
Yup. Danny seems to be handling it well, though, so I’m interested to see whether this turns into a productive conversation or if Rachel gets into another no-redemption rant…
(and I just noticed the irony of her mention of “educating him” when she doesn’t believe in redemption. huh.)
I don’t think she doesn’t believe people can learn from their mistakes. Or at least, mistakes that fall short of abuse. She just doesn’t think it absolves them of making them in the first place.
Oh no she was quite clear that she believes people don’t actually become better people.
Well she was clear in the case of abusers. I’m not sure if that speech was meant to apply to literally everyone.
Mind you that kicking a person who is suicidal and depressed makes Rachel an abuser.
alla this
Yeah and I think the biggest thing that points to Rachel being more interested in kicking people with her moral high ground than helping, is the fact that she did dick-all to help Billie when she apparently knew and felt strongly about how Billie was being abused by Ruth. And I don’t mean standing up for her in the moment, because sure maybe she was afraid like the rest of the floor. But not once, ever, did we see her come to Billie at a different time and offer her support or anything. She must have been very concerned for Billie’s well-being.
I like that Danny still has his own issues with casual misogyny and the bro-code.
As in, genuine like. I was worried he would get too perfect eventually.
Yeah, I don’t think there are any men who don’t have issues with that lol. He would be good perfect haha
Unfortunately, thats not true. Stuff like Redpill is actually based on the assumption that women secretly want to be treated this way.
How is Danny being misogynistic, here?
He’s abiding by Joe’s rampant sexism with no comment.
Honestly, he’s better off saving his breath. Joe wouldn’t listen anyway, and Rachel would probably write it off as performative, so speaking up wouldn’t do any good.
I’d just like to note a particular irony in case Cerb doesn’t show up tonight. From Panel 2 on, Rachel and Danny practically IGNORE Joe. Yes, they’re talking about him, but they do so in the third person, while he’s there, without ever looking at him. Joe “contributes” in Panel 5, but gets no acknowledgement from them.
If anything, it’s Joe that’s turned invisible.
Also, good “game”, Danny. You learned her name within seconds of speaking to her AND actually remembered it. You spoke to her like a human being and are being interacted with as such DESPITE having the worst possible wingman on campus. You’re light years ahead of where Joe would be at this point in the conversation, and you got there, as near as I can tell, without even TRYING to be flirty. Which… is probably a good thing. Danny shouldn’t be playing the “game” either, and he isn’t, but there’s an added irony in noting that he’d be “ahead” of Joe if he were.
(And I’m not entirely certain whether I’m putting quotes around the right words there to get the point across, but basically I’m highlighting the bankruptcy of Joe’s world view from WITHIN that world view while emphasizing that the world view is shit, so just assume I’m quote-sarcasming the right words for that.)
I think you did a pretty decent job by sticking mostly to putting “game” in sarcasm quotation marks. I personally would also have put “wingman” in them as well, but that’s just personal preference and not necessary for the point you’re trying to get across.
I would have put flirty in quotation marks, human being as well.
…Why would you put “human being” in quotation marks? Is Danny not treating Rachel like one in this situation? What am I missing, here?
Drawback: the attempted-friendly-introduction completely ignores what Danny’s just watched happen right in front of him.
If he’d opened with, say: “Uh, I’m sorry. He’s taking a gender studies class but it doesn’t seem to be working yet, and we’re trying to get through to him why every woman on campus wants him thrown out a window. Oh and hey, I’m Danny.”
… yeah, that’d have something going for it. But expecting that of him just now’s sadly still premature. Until he’s there? I’m with Rachel.
I think I get what you’re saying, a little less cheer is definitely called for given the situation, but I doubt that would help. I don’t really see why it would be appropriate for Danny to open with an apology for or comment on Joe’s behavior though. He isn’t really responsible for Joe, and hasn’t (afaik) enabled Joe’s problematic behavior for some time.
Maybe he should have a difficult conversation with Joe regarding said behavior, but not knowing all that much about their history or even Joe as a person I can’t say when the right time for that would be. Or if that should come from Danny at all. Friendships have their own rhythm and protocols, and in any case feeling like you have no support system doesn’t generally lead to growth. It tends to lead to looking for support with the lowest risk of rejection: unsavory groups containing even worse influences…you know the kind.
Apologising for Joe? Nah, that’s not called for. Apologising for being with Joe, a rampant predator who outright admitted it in panel 1, and suggested a fantasy of hanging around where he can find more Rachels to be a sex pest to? Yep, that.
But who knows, this could be the catalyst for Joe and Danny having that talk. OTOH: what’s the Ryan news? ‘Cos if Joe knows of the predator stalker (hopefully-only-would-be-) rapist and this mess up top is still how he carries on, then there’s possibly no hope for him at all in the foreseeable future.
Yahbut, how does Danny hanging around with Joe harm anyone? If anything, it might provide a normalizing influence on Joe’s life and a role model to make Joe’s redemption arc easier (if he ever has it). You know, good egg and all that.
There seems to be a general idea that decent people should never associate with assholes, under any circumstances. I guess positive influences don’t exist, to some people. The only way anyone can ever influence anyone is negatively, so hanging around an asshole will invariably turn a decent person into another asshole, rather than the decent person making the asshole more decent.
It doesn’t, necessarily, but it certainly calls into question their judgment, if not whether they are a decent person.
“Hi. I’m a creepy predatory PUA”
“And I’m his best friend, but I’m a good egg, really. You can trust me, even though the only thing you know about me is that I’m this creep’s best friend.”
He doesn’t have to apologize for Joe. Or for staying friends with him. But he’s got some work to do if he wants to not be seen as like Joe.
And Rachel does give him some benefit of the doubt – challenging him on whether he’s trying to educate Joe, rather than assuming he’s just another “bro”. Which, to be honest, he really hasn’t been.
And advertising his own position as “best friend for life” to someone who definitely knows the Ryan score? Danny, you done Danned up.
Ok Joe I still have faith in your ability to change but if I might just make a small suggestion, don’t say fertile hunting ground to well anyone
Also take note of what Danny is doing here as its pretty good, I’m not sure about offering the hand shake though but apart from that hes doing pretty well
No, Danny is a fucking misogynist and he’s treating Rachel like subhuman scum. Can’t you see the writing on the wall? Joe is hopeless and should be abandoned forever, Danny has to join him now because he’s just being a Nice Guy to score with Rachel, and Rachel isn’t much better off, because she literally stabbed Ruth in the eye with a fork.
Both these guys a lot to learn about women.
And all the good will from a few days ago when heart-to-hearting with Danny is gone. I will now never believe Joe is experiencing actual character growth ever again. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, there will be no third chance to fool me because I will no longer be naive enough to listen to you without preparing to put a knife in your throat at the first sign of trouble. And panels 3 and 4 are where Danny learns that if he says he’s Joe’s friend, then it’s guilt by association. Now is the time to request a room transfer and or wack him upside the head with your ukulele Danny. Do it.
No matter how many times someone fools you it is always their fault for betraying your trust. Always blame Joe.
What growth he’d already shown is probably still there. It’s just that so far, he’s only really learned to treat Danny better. I don’t think he’s realized yet that he needs to treat women better too.
Learning to treat your best friend for life somewhat better is scarcely anything to proud of. The only way that bar could be lower would to trench it.
It’s not, however, something that should be dismissed out of hand. Any amount of growth is still growth, no matter how small. Not every change has to be a massive shift.
I mean, it sure would be great if we could just tell a person to stop doing something deeply-ingrained in their mind and behavior, and have them just stop doing it right then and there. But that’s not reality, it hardly ever happens, and when it does happen, it’s often met with suspicion and hostility anyway, so there’s not really much incentive to pull a 180, all at once.
And he hasn’t really learned that yet either. He’s taken a step, but right after he was back to dissing Danny’s major and now reinforcing that he’s not going to listen to Danny on anything serious.
That can fall under growth is hard and backsliding inevitable and we should expect change to be slow, etc.
But if he’s got a ton of work to do before he can even treat his best bro decently, we’re never going to see him even budge on women.
I still support Danny and Joe. Joe should just learn that there is someone who will always love him unconditionally and cater to his whims.
It’s like Gaston and his sidekick.
Only with more sex. Joe can be Dannysexual.
I think it’s safe to assume that as long as Danny’s wearing that hat, the chances of this are cap-ut.
….
(Cue slashfic wherein the hat stirs deep longing and lust within Joe, that express themselves as denial.)
Amazing he can see that floating hat without even looking at it.
What am I doing
Why am I doing this
I HAVE A HEADACHE AND WORK TO DO
http://i.cubeupload.com/ddYFs9.png
Hahahaha I love Rachel so much
Is this going to be Danny’s new girl?
I know he’s not looking, but….
Can I ship it anyway?
Not looking for a relationship, I mean.
Focusing on himself and the ukulele.
The ukulele is an euphemism for his penis.
I ship it!
Also she will kick Joes ass to booth!
You know that the concept of “shipping” didn’t originally refer to exclusively a romantic/sexual relationship right? I honestly feel it would be better to have Joe having to witness these two becoming close friends without any sexual or romantic element. Also, neither seems, from where I sit, all that interested in a romantic/sexual relationship in general at the moment.
I would really like it if you could stop burying Joe deeper.
I mean, is he supposed to be unlikable for life? Cause if so, stop giving him reasons to want a redemption. Just make him a sleaze bag and have Danny cut his losses.
Obviously there’s a reason for you making Joe be open, and maybe in the September/October pages we finally get somewhere, but at this point it seems like you’re trying to get us to NOT like Joe.
Careful, if you ask questions, you may be attacked as a horrible person by Willis and Co.
Normally, I’d ask for citation. Normally.
Sure, if you ask them as condescendingly as you possibly can, while accusing people of lying about being sexually harassed.
(Hint: this because that is a fucking horrible way to behave)
He’s only becoming unlikeable to you now?! To me he’s just coming out and saying what he’s been implying all along, like the GOP last election cycle.
It looks more like they’re expressing frustration with Joe’s constant, unrelenting unlikability, with no signs of relief. Most of the other characters with this much negativity aimed at them are painted as villains and their negative qualities are amplified until nothing is left.
Yeah that. Joe’s been portrayed as a “protagonist”, or at least someone who WILL get a redemption arc.
So long as he doesn’t have a daughter at some point, Joe should be fine.
I think I get what you’re saying. Like, there’s “I’d love to watch this awful character stop being awful; when is the redemption arc?” unlikable. There’s also “I’d love for this awful character to go away forever” unlikable. I think if I’d never met Joe before Dumbing of Age he’d be in the second category for me right now, and as it is I’d still like him to go away and not be on my screen for a couple of days.
I’ve been in the camp of the former since the beginning, but now even I’m slowly sliding into the latter. The redemption needs to happen soon, cuz Joe’s unrelenting awfulness is hitting critical levels and it’s hard to root for anything other than a swift punch to the face
idk like
being unlikable is not The Worst Thing Ever
everybody is unlikable sometimes
but like this isn’t so much about joe being unlikable, as it is about what he’s doing. and, idk – sometimes there are people you like, or want to like, who turn out to have really toxic worldviews and opinions and attitudes. and the subjective experience of liking can’t take precedence over that, i think.
but like – that doesn’t make them evil, necessarily, either, although they might do evil things
…idk i think it’s pretty clear now that this list was an unsubjectively evil thing. and so joe needs to be told no, again and again and again, until he learns to say no to himself
…….idk i think there’s something compelling about the desire to be better, undercut by the drive to be worse
Something doesn’t have to be “The Worst Thing Ever” for a person to express frustration with it.
An objectively evil thing? The do-list was not the ring of Sauron meant to bind people to his will in darkness. Joe never meant to hurt anyone and most of this arc is him confused about how he ended up in this situation. His intentions were pure as can be, live and love.
It didn’t turn out so great for him, but it’s not a noble thing to crucify fools.
You don’t get to say we can’t like Joe, regardless of his fuck-ups.
“as pure as can be” => Fuck the high rated women and make sure others know his opinions of them by spreading the list around.
Yes, he wants to fuck people. Yes, he wanted to promote the list. No, he didn’t want everyone to know his opinion.
He’s not evil for wanting to advocate a list something he thinks is awesome at best and useless knowledge at worst. He also said he doesn’t tell the people with low numbers their ratings, so he didn’t want the do-list to become fully public or to hurt anyone.
His intentions remain pure.
If you want to shit on Joe, at least do it properly. There’s plenty of other ammo for you guys.
pure? *facepalm*
actually, I’m not sure whether you think the list was harmless, or you just think “evil” is too strong a word. If it’s the former, Cerberus has addressed that quite well in another thread. If it’s the latter, then you guys are probably arguing semantics at this point.
…oh, and you went from saying the list wasn’t evil to saying joe wasn’t evil. nobody said joe was evil.
No, the list wasn’t harmless, or we wouldn’t have the current arc. No, evil isn’t too strong a word, it’s just a stupid thing to attribute to an item outside of fiction or fantasy, hence the comment about LoTR.
I don’t know what Cerberus said about the list. Her comments are very long, and they are plentiful.
Yes, it would probably be useless to continually discuss the semantics of evil in regards to objects, if I thought it was too strong a word. However, my only comment on the list’s good-evil alignment is that it’s an entirely foolish notion to begin with.
Yes, I said “Joe wasn’t evil” in response to thejeff. Thejeff’s comment was not about the list, but about Joe’s intentions, which thejeff challenged as not being pure. I took that as meaning Joe’s intentions were bad or even malicious, which are “evil things”.
It’s pretty obvious Joe isn’t evil, but I felt a reminder would help as a foundation of my case because “pure” was seen as too strong a word for his intentions. Also, I feel it’s pretty easy to think Joe is evil with all this other stuff being thrown around.
In my eyes, Joe just wanted simple pleasures and joy. That’s about as pure as can be. “Pure” is not something that ensures it’ll actually do good.
Joe handed that list out like candy so “pure” is definitely not an appropriate word to use.
There is a helluva long distance between “not evil” and “pure as can be”. Joe is on the skeevy side of that.
I suppose it’s possible that he thought there was no harm in it. Even so, his intentions were selfish at best. And before the list became public, he had been informed by several women that they found the list (or even just a rating by itself) offensive – Rachel, Roz, Raidah at least. I think Dorothy as well. I don’t recall anyone, male or female, reacting positively to the list or his ratings – though some could have offstage, I suppose.
And while he certainly didn’t want all of his targets to see it, he also wasn’t keeping it private – RSS feed and all.
Well, if I was an idiot, I’d probably guess those examples were cases of “I strongly do not want to date you, so I hate everything you do to show disinterest” or something similar. We already know he’s dense. Which is basically the core of it.
Stupidity, not malice. I know this excuse for Joe must be getting really stale at this point. It certainly is for me. He’s acting like an idiot who seems incapable of learning and it just goes on and on. I see it as the reason why even those positive on Joe, such as Josh Spicer and myself, am getting annoyed with it all. However, I still stand by it.
Selfish intention. Yes, he benefited, but in his mind it was a win-win for everyone involved. However we can compromise and call his intentions “not impure nor with malicious intent” if you’d rather?
yes. yes this list was joe’s One Ring to rule them all. THE CASE FOLLOWS:
1) the point of this list was to document all of the women he met and sort them by fuckability, demonstrating his perceived power over them as determiner of fuckability
2) every woman on that list (and some who were not) is left feeling attacked in some crucial intangible horrific way
3) he turns the women on this list into objects for the furthering of his will (i.e. sex); where sauron wanted mostly dominion over the world of middle earth, his desire here is dominion over women. fortunately it is temporary dominion over women and only in the realm of sex, but it really could be so much worse
4) this list has sucked away joe’s time and attention, so that he loses much of what he was once into someone defined by this list
5) his id is utterly exposed to anyone with eyes to see it
Yeah, I feel like taking a break for a while and just getting over this arc in a single go. At this point it’s not even possible to defend Joe anymore. Any redeeming qualities and the parts of Joe that were cool, likable, or interesting is just dwarfed by this constant barrage of hate.
No diss on Willis’ work though. I’m still enjoying it, and I’m still as invested as ever. It’s a good story, and it probably needed to be told. It’s just disheartening.
See you get it. It’s not like I hate Joe or think he’s pure evil or even Willis or the comic, it’s just the arc seems full of “stop and go” moment for Joe, and while I don’t expect a sudden change, there reaches a point where even a redeemed character becomes too much of a shitlord to be liked by anybody anymore.
I DO enjoy how Rachel and Danny talk over Joe’s head like a not-quite-house broken pet.
Me too. Panel 5 Rachel’s expression hints Danny’s “invisible” bit was the right thing to say (if I’m not reading too much into her there).
It also seems to me Danny has prepared for this conversation with Joe, realizing just papering over the holes is not going to work.
Panel 1 Joe and Panel 5 Joe are radically different.
Panel 1 Joe is an unaware asshat, while Panel 5 Joe has a soupcon of self-awareness and humor.
I had a really sober and measured response to this that I wanted to write tonight because there’s so much interesting stuff here that goes in so many directions especially with regards to Danny and Rachel’s interaction here, but I’m not really in a good headspace to deliver that at the moment as I got sexually assaulted today, so it’s going to have to wait for morning. Sorry about that everybody.
*all the hugs*
I’m so sorry, Cerberus. If there is anything a bunch of strangers on the internet can help you with, we are here for you.
That’s awful. I’m sorry. I hope you get the rest and space you need.
Oh christ, I’m sorry honey DDD: Are you all right? I hope you’re okay and that the asshole responsible is getting some comeuppance, and please let me know if there’s anything whatsoever I can do.
That’s terrible.
Please take good care of yourself tonight, whatever that means to you.
oh cereberus :(((
please take good care of yourself
-offers gentle good feelings in yr direction-
take all the time you need, we value your continued health over your comments any day
Oh my god I’m so sorry that happened to you. Take care of yourself first. Don’t worry about this comment section at all. We completely understand. And if there’s anything at all we can do just ask. Remember, we care about you and your well being. And that will always take priority over any old comic analysis.
*hugs tentatively offered*
Holy shit that’s terrible! Please take care of yourself, and don’t worry about us! I don’t have the words to express how awful it is that shit like this can happen to anyone, much less someone as wonderful as you.
Oh my god, I am so sorry, Cerberus. I hope you have a speedy recovery and all the appropriate gestures of support. You have my email if you need to talk. Take good care of yourself. I hope you’re (physically) okay and whoever did it gets some form of consequences, and that even if absolutely nothing else happens to the asshole responsible, they step on a lego brick every night of their life.
That’s horrible, I’m so sorry.
Please take care of yourself.
*hugs*
Would it help if we snuffed a dolphin?
OMG. Take care of yourself first – you don’t need to apologise to any of us, your insight is a gift when you have the time, don’t push yourself to do it though, look after yourself first.
No need to apologize, I’m sure we all want you to be safe and healthy above everything else.
Don’t feel that you have to go out of your way for us. I just hope that you’re going to be okay.
Take care of yourself and please be well Cerberus. You obviously have no obligation do give us your thoughtful commentaries. All the appropriate gestures of comfort.
*TO give us DAMMIT
Oh hell, I am so so sorry. Look after yourself with every self-care resource you’ve got to hand, please, and know that the bunch of weirdo internet strangers who know how much you matter for the kids you work with also care a hell of a lot for you. You are amazing and special and mighty, and if there’s anything we can do you know where we are, right?
Holy crap, I’m so sorry. All the hugs in the world and all the appropriate gestures of support/comfort.
*any and all desired support*
What they all said
*hugs*
Take care of yourself. You come first. *appropriate gesture of support*
Holy crap. As everyone else said, please take care of yourself.
… no words, sorry.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. Take care of yourself, okay?
*hugs*
Everyone else has said it, but all the supportive hugs. Or at least sympathy through heavy Internet contact.
Self-care definitely is the way more important thing. Bad headspaces suck. *appropriate gesture of support*
While nany to most of us look forward to your analysis posts, none of us, I’d hope, expect you to write them daily nor at the expense if other aspects of your life. I personally appriciate the small gesture of even letting us all know what’s up, but also feel taking care of yourself is wsy more important than even stopping it to do that. Also, whatever specifically happened, I hope it gets taken care of as quickly and as painlessly for you as possible.
I appreciate it. This analysis is one I really wanted to write, I just needed to get in the right headspace for it and wanted to give people a head’s up in case I ended up going MIA for a week or so.
Honestly, all of you who’ve commented on this were exactly what I needed to wake up to this morning and I greatly appreciate it.
I have nothing to say except *hugs* and I hope that bastard gets their day in court. Take your time, we can analyze while you heal up
Oh my God, I’m so sorry.
Hugs and prayers.
My God Cerberus! I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Support and hugs from me.
I’m so, so sorry
Oh no! I am so sorry.
Jesus.
STOP. TALKING. JOE. STOP.
COMMENT SECTION:
Honest question, as most of you seem more savvy on these whole gender/Sexual things than I am:
Do you think it is right to judge a person based on his/her porn preferences?
[Caveat: this assumes Porn preferences do not include any person/animal being hurt or exploited]
Do you have a statistical study on the correlation between various porn preferences and real-life personality traits or actions? If so, you can at least make a rough guess based on someone’s porn preferences.
There’s a reason I asked “Do you think?”, I’m asking for opinions, not scientific documents.
I mean, sure, documents would gie me a hard answer but not what I’m looking for.
So you’re asking for prejudice, not science.
I thought that was pretty explicit from the start, but what do I know?
That is a very situationally-specific question imo–like usually no, but like, if I find a dude has a porn blog 100% composed of snuff/dismemberment porn with super hateful misogynistic captions (even if it’s just drawn art and not real people), I am going to stay the everloving fuck away from that dude.
That’s a tough one, because they may have perfectly innocent reasons for those preferences, or they may have bigoted reasons. For example: Two people prefer cis porn actors over trans actors. One prefers them because that person actually dislikes trans people as a whole. The second prefers cis actors for purely aesthetic reasons, such as not being as turned on by women with dicks.
The first person, sure, you could judge them for that preference. The second, though, I don’t think would be fair to judge.
Hm, yes. If someone loved porn I find repulsive (and watched/read lots of it) I would get the hell out of any relationship with them.
Is this judging them? Not necessarily. But it’s keeping an energy out of my life I don’t want to have in it.
And you don’t need any knowledge about gender for that one.
my own personal opinions is simple.
I don’t judge people based on their porn preference.
I mean, yeah, sure, there are limits. Actual Beastiality, CP and Rape porn I find sickening.
However I’m willing to accept that people do like fantasy versions of such [Drawn or animated zoophilia, Lolicon hentai, Rape-play], as those allow them to have an outlet for urges, while not hurting anyone. Sure, personally I find them distateful and I’d probably rib the watcher, but I can accept it.
…depends?
I mean, human mind and sexuality is kinda fucked up. What someone finds hot on a base, emotional level doesn’t necessarily reflect who they are as a rational, intelligent person. One can be a staunch feminist and still really, really, really enjoy Power Girl’s traditional outfit, just to name one example that totally isn’t me at all.
*cough*
I think it’s about how they react towards their fetishes. Two people can have the same fetish (say, FinDom, because that’s one of the “funny” fetishes), but react to it in different ways (indulging in it gleefully vs feeling guilty about it).
Basically: Don’t judge people for the weird and fucked up ways their mind might be wired. Judge them for how they react to it as an intelligent person.
TW: sexual assault, rape and sexual abuse mentions.
I think it DEPENDS on whether it is literally just based on a kink/turn on or if it is stemming from other more harmful lines of thought in the first place. Like if it turns them on because of fantasies that is one thing, if it turns them on because they genuinely believe things like sexual assault/rape for instant are okay, that is another thing entirely and is much more seriously alarming.
I would also be skewed for more leniency for people that have been previously sexually abused, sexually assaulted or raped at minimum because the trauma could impact what turns them on and what doesn’t in ways they cannot control.
Generally though if it is disturbing but still not based on actual desires for those things happening in reality, then I would honestly say to just not watch it with them and leave them to it. It is likely just like horror movies where yeah some people like them, but they wouldn’t want any of the things to actually happen in reality – like that time people tried to organise a Purge in real life then ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED because literally no one wanted that in reality even if they liked it in the movie.
The relationship with porn, especially during adolesence, may be a sticking point which goes beyond the type they have.
Metaphorically, if all one knew about how to drive was learned thru video games, would you want that person driving your car? Or in your town? Or anywhere?
Careful, there.
I would not get into a car with a driver who doesn’t know how to drive. And I don’t believe anyone should learn about sex from porn and I certainly wouldn’t want to have sex with someone who believes that porn is a realistic representation of what sex is supposed to look like.
I don’t think either would tell me anything about the person except that one doesn’t know how to drive and the other doesn’t know how to have sex.
OTOH, an awful lot of people find porn long before they actually have sex. Even back in my youth before porn invented the Internet.
Barring introducing kids to sex at a much younger age, I don’t see a way to avoid having them learn about sex from porn.
Sure, they won’t know how to have sex, but the question then is more the “Are they convinced porn is realistic” or are they willing to learn how it works with an actual person? And I suspect that’s more a matter of personality than of exposure to porn.
Ideally, kids should be kept ignorant about sex for as long as possible.
Yeah, cause that works so well
You never can tell with bees.
If a person watches porn, that does not tell you that it’s where they learned about sex, even if they watch porn before they ever have sex themselves.
I mean, sex ed in the US really isn’t much better than watching porn, but at least it won’t try to shame kids for their natural urges
Sex ed, even at its best, rarely teaches anything about how to actually have sex. It may teach about consent and about the basic mechanics and about contraception and disease prevention.
You’re not going to get demonstrations or practice. It’s not a lab.
…I don’t think I got the same US sex ed as you. Definitely made me very ashamed about adolescent me’s hormonal urges and bodily function. Eventually I got better, but still. And it’s especially bad for young girls because it still largely is focused on abstinence only and in some cases (by some women), using a piece of tape being put on and pulled off something repeatedly as a metaphor for what happens to a woman’s body if she has sex with multiple people and actively saying that girls actually decrease their worth every time they have sex. And this is coming from some women in addition to men. It’s really bad, and in some cases traumatic.
That’s actually what I meant to say. That at least the porn wouldn’t try to shame you, not the sex ed.
Oooohhhh. Ok, yeah that makes more sense.
im honestly not sure i even got sex ed
I admit that I am slightly confused by your question. You ask if it’s wrong to judge a person for their porn interests and then specify that it’s porn that doesn’t involve people or animals getting hurt. So I’m not entirely certain of what you mean by ‘judging someone’.
If you mean, is it right to assume that what a person looks for in porn is also what they look for in real life, then my personal opinion is no. That could be the case, but based on nothing else than a person’s browser history, it’s just as possible that it isn’t. Porn is fantasy. What gets someone horny in a scripted fantasy between consenting adults, or for that matter, to fictional characters in a story or a comic can make them feel sick if they hear about it actually happen to real living people.
If you mean that you’d be very uncomfortable in the presence of someone who gets turned on by things that freak you out just thinking about them, then that’s fine. It might be shallow, but I don’t think it’s wrong to avoid contact with people you feel would make you uncomfortable.
Like most I’m going to say it depends. Honestly, I treat it like a yellow flag, a head’s up to see if those behaviors are coming through or not and to be wary and firm on boundaries. I’ve seen a lot of friends hurt because their partners were misogynists who watched misogynist porn and then punished and hurt them when they were unable to recreate the acts that got them off to the level they had built up in their head.
But sometimes it’s just a preference or a means of figuring oneself out or something they’d like to explore in a consensual fantasy. It all depends on the partner.
Though if it’s child porn, burn their car down, call the police and posion their tea.
No.
“Caveat: this assumes Porn preferences do not include any person/animal being hurt or exploited.”
Even without this caveat, in most cases, because people can enjoy very Dark Fiction without wanting any of that to ever happen to a real person. Because the human psyche is complicated and a good number of people drawn to rapefic, to stories that even romanticize abuse, are people who have been victims of those things. They create and consume media as part of the processing, and I don’t even slightly feel able to sit in judgment of those people.
So. No. You can’t tell ANYTHING from someone’s “porn preferences”, and the only study that has ever attempted to specifically prove violent porn caused violent real life behavior had myriad methodology problems and couldn’t have proven the earth was round. (Attempts to prove that violent video games and TV shows cause violence all run into the basic correlation / causation problem. How do you even study a human being young enough to prove they don’t enjoy violent media because they enjoy violence, and do we just assume there’s no nature component at all?)
Tooootally inconsequential, but the grammatical disagreement between singular and plural in the first panel is really bugging me. “There are three,” not “there is three.”
There. Got it out of my system. Carry on.
Written dialogue dude, it’ll drive you mad.
Sure, it sounds wrong when you take out the contraction, but “there’s three” sounds totally natural to me. People aren’t always grammatically perfect when they speak
huh, it sounds natural to me too. contractions are weird like that
‘s can substitute for all kinds of things. you’d think “there’re” would make more sense but it sounds really awkward to me.
I’m going to call it, Rachel’s first solo comic is going to be her alone in her room feeling disgusted with herself for feeling slightly, all but imperceptibly flattered by Joe calling her an Eleven, and possibly even finding him attractive on some level.
(do not take this as a defense of Joe’s behavior. I believe “jag” is the term you kids use for that sort of thing? Emotions are just more complicated than we all wish they could be.)
I feel like her firsr solo comic revolving on how she feels about a slime dude would be a little gross.
One would argue that that might be the point. Sometimes the story has to be gross or there’s no impact. Though I imagine it being more about reconciling her worldview, the person she wants to see herself as, with the reality of her own emotions. In this case, Joe’s not so much the center of her story as he is a prop that shakes her out of her comfort zone and leads her to further character growth.
Or, if not a prop, maybe we could describe him as a “tool”.
I think Leslie would have a lot to say about that in her gender studies class. I wish I knew how to say it myself. It’s creepy. It undermines her and women in general. Because of sexist cultural bullshit.
If we lived in a magical world without any of that bullshit, it might not be creepy. I’m not sure.
I’d argue that it’s a bit more complex than all that. People feel attractions that they don’t have full control over for people they logically shouldn’t all the time. It’s a natural thing that doesn’t have to be tied to gender politics at all, or even dominate the character.
Lots of things are natural. Being gay is natural. That doesn’t stop people from making a mountain of issues out of it that complicate the lives of those completely natural people.
You say “doesn’t have to” as if the people pointing out the issue are the ones creating it. They’re not. They’re just drawing attention to something that already existed.
I don’t know what the connection between your scenario and gender studies is exactly, but I feel confident that there is one. My brain is noticing something I don’t have words for yet.
It’s because the people pointing it out are creating the issue in this case.
It’s simply a question of a person feeling something for someone that they otherwise have reason to dislike.
The notion that this would weaken her as a female, or somehow diminish women in general? Poppycock. Roz felt enough of an attraction to sleep with Joe (maybe twice, don’t recall for sure), and she knew from the beginning what he was all about. Didn’t weaken womankind.
This hypothetical would be entirely about Rachel developing as a person. Maybe even opening up to the idea that a person isn’t all bad or all good. That just because a person does something awful doesn’t in turn automatically make them an awful person. Growth.
I dare say the notion that there should be some sort of stigma over a woman’s natural urges, that it would be gross if she found him attractive, that’s far more a gender studies topic than the idea that she might feel a tiny bit of attraction for him.
I think that it is natural to feel things that you don’t want to feel. Its also natural to feel like your feelings you don’t want to feel undermine your position. The thing is they don’t change why you made the decision that makes them uncomfortable, but they can be used to undermine it.
I meant more like… it’s not her having the feelings that would be creepy… but someone writing her as having those feelings would be creepy. kinda like how some people were upset that the character who probably has DID also has anger issues. it reinforces some ugly untrue stereotype.
like… Rachel has made it pretty clear she’s not interested in dating him. Showing her having any complicated feelings around that might encourage the assholes who think a woman doesn’t really know her own mind and needs to be “fixed” with his penis. :/
maybe someone could write it in a way that avoids that, but they’d need a lot of skill and awareness of the pitfalls and such.
Halpful, I think we could trust Mr. Willis to handle it will if he decides to go that route.
I think I get what you’re saying.
We definitely have enough stories where the woman initially hates the man but over time falls madly in love with him to the point where whatever she hated him for doesn’t matter, or the man grows and get her as a reward. Ugh that’s exactly the story Robin thinks she’s in.
We have less stories where woman hates a man but has some feelings anyways acknowledges them but it turns out she still knows the cons outway the pros and the man needs to leave her alone.
Still stories where the woman’s dislike of the male jerk is really not complicated by other feelings is in short supply.
I would kinda want to see such a story end with Rachel telling Joe, “There’s something sweet in you somewhere, but, no.”
Rachel really needs to learn to be less confrontational with complete strangers and hesitate to condemn people about whom she has no knowledge.
I mean, she knows that he’s an asshole. I thought she treated him rather well, all things considered. I mean, she’s still in his general vicinity, and not on the other side of campus by now.
She knows nothing of the sort about Danny.
See? He’s right! He’s invisible!
She knows he’s best friends with a disgusting misogynist and is content to largely just ignore his horrible behaviour.
She doesn’t know anything about him being content to ignore Joe’s behavior. She assumes that part. She does know that he’s best friends with a disgusting mysogynist, because he admitted it. And if her assumption of the second is due to her confirmation of the latter, then it’s not difficult to understand why she’d make that assumption. I can’t tell if I’m agreeing with you or disagreeing.
Joe literally has spent this entire interaction being terrible to her and women in general and Danny hasn’t addressed that in any meaningful capacity. He hasn’t even said so much as a “Dude, not cool” towards Joe addressing Rachel by her fuckability rating even though it is outrageously uncool.
that…is a very good point.
Danny, you don’t deserve your hat and you are not a good egg
I like Danny but I am disappointed in him here.
He is being a bad egg.
It’s extra-harsh seeing Danny himself saying this, but it’s true. Danny, you are not a good egg.
I think she has every right to condemn him for awful things she knows he’s actually done.
I mean, yes, she seems judgemental just in general. She tends to see the worst in people and outright indicated that she doesn’t seem to think people can change. But here, right now? She’s reading the situation pretty well.
How can she be ‘reading the situation well’ when she knows nothing about Danny?
How about by accurately summing up their interaction?
All Rachel has done is ask Danny if he’s tried to do anything about his best friend’s very awful behavior towards women.
The fact that she’s just had to interact with Joe is plenty of reason to be grouchy
I assume you are referring to Danny and completely agree with you that she would probably have a stronger point here if she didn’t nearly bite his head off 5 seconds after he introduces himself with no further knowledge on the situation.
Why should she assume the guy who was with the predatory creep is anything but another predatory creep?
Not that she really does, even when Danny claims to be his best friend. She challenges him on whether he’s just enabling Joe’s behavior by supporting him when he’s upset about the list leaking or trying to educate him on why it’s wrong.
How’s she supposed to react to him? “Oh hi Danny. Nice to meet you. I’m sure you’re nothing at all like this creepy best friend of yours.”
Right, that’s Sarah’s job.
I actually really like Danny’s reaction and handling of this situation. Granted Rachel seems to feel differently, and plenty may agree with her, but the reality is Joe isn’t a dog Danny’s training or a child he’s responsible for. Danny is pretty spot on in his reaction to Rachel I feel. What’s he supposed to do, bop Joe with a rolled up newspaper? Joe’s situation doesn’t seem one in which a friend and peer’s efforts to “educate” really aren’t going to have any kind of drastic effect. He needs to be spoken to by someone he sees as superior or an authority figure, which is the sort of person he got his attitude towards women from in the first place. Or better yet a woman he respects. I thought despite their issues that Joe’s burgeoning friendship with Joyce was having a positive effect on him, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside with all that’s been going on. Although Joyce probably isn’t really the best conduit for the level of awareness Joe needs.
I dunno why, but I’ve kinda always liked Joe for being upfront and as a person I see some definite potential for growth there. Don’t get me wrong, I think Joe’s behavior is pretty awful, and I recognize that I’m probably not as exhausted with his sort of behavior as many of the commenters are because I haven’t been on the receiving end or adjacent to it. Most guys like Joe don’t see me as a potential sexual conquest. Which I recognize as a sort of privilege. I’ve had much worse experience with the angry belligerent sorts, “nice guys,” or edgy geeks than guys like Joe. I’ve known more guys kind of like Joe who’ve grown out of his behavior in a positive way than I do any of the other types, and have certainly been able to have more frank friendly sort of conversations about why such behavior isn’t useful. He doesn’t seem to have gone down the “it’s all these horrible women’s fault” road that plenty of people do when faced with the consequences of similar behavior, which is a bright point. The fact that he seems to be looking at the whole situation as “I have angered the NPCs and must now hide” isn’t. Although I don’t really see any other paths he would take right now. It’d be more concerning to me if he did just suddenly change his behavior because all these women were mad at him. I think such a turn around would suggest willful objectification that he is fully aware of and in control over, which is far more predatory and dangerous.
I get the sense that Joe behaves the way he does because he doesn’t recognize the harm as long as no one is being lead on, and I don’t remember having seen much in the way of educating him. Esp. if women have been having sex with him despite his behavior, which I get the impression they have. He certainly isn’t looking for a relationship, so as far as he knows his behavior is appropriate for the response he wants. By and large most of the women who have reacted negatively to him outside of the current arc were never going to have sex with him, and he doesn’t seem to be looking for friendship from either gender. He wants a bro, not a friend. He doesn’t much seem to know what to do with a friend outside of what he’s seen in movies. I think its important to remember that as far as we’ve seen Joe’s biggest experience with friendship seems to be with Danny, who only this semester is learning to define himself outside of who he is dating. Joe’s interpersonal skills as a whole seem to need work, although I’m curious as to how he acts with or around male authority figures. Or female ones, given the fact that Leslie doesn’t seem to command a whole lot of respect from anyone.
Maybe I give Joe too much leeway, but his behavior doesn’t seem significantly worse than half the cast’s immature flailings. He just seems to have a larger footprint (which I don’t necessarily understand) and less character development.
Wow. This is more than a little embarrassing in length. The reply box really masks that before you post. My apologies.
HOW DARE YOU (it’s fine lol)
No need to apologize and its always good to have fresh/different perspective
I like what you said in the second paragraph about the implications of an instant complete turnaround. It’s going to help whenever he acts like an ass in the future.
There’s no need to apologize for something that is thought provoking with a lot of interesting perspectives.
1) It’s not Danny’s responsibility to fix Joe.
2) If Danny’s going to hang out with the “predator”, he has to expect the prey to treat him like one too.
Yep. If I meet a guy who hangs out with someone who’s sexually harassed me before, I’m going to keep my guard up until I’ve ascertained he won’t do the same.
Friend’s responsability is a pretty delicate matter.
Am I responsible for my shitty friend’s actions? OK but if I am, what if this shitty friend hurts me, does that make me responsible for what he did to me? No but if I am not, will keeping my shitty friend by my side make people not want to see me anymore? The only solution seems to let shitty people go, clean your relationships and all that.
I’ve seen that in a “viral” video, I can’t remember what it was called, “If Movies Were Feminists” or something ? A bunch of guys are asking their friend about a girl ; one of them goes : “Did she put up a fight ?” and all the others reply : “Wow, what? If she fights she does not want, if she does not want then having sex with her was rape, I can’t believe you’re asking such a thing, this is predatorial behavior man, get out, you can’t be our friend anymore”.
Watching this, I was like : “So, you think this guy is a rapist… And you’ll let him go unchecked? Like, you think not being able to hang out with you cool guys will somehow fix him? Or just “not being affiliated with rapist” is your one and only feminist good deed ?”
So yeah, delicate question.
(Personnally I’m done with the “this guy is cool but only if his friends check on him”, for I’ve too long been the “friend that checks on this guy” and paid the price. But I still know no other way of dealing with this kind of situations).
Delicate question indeed. Do you boot the “missing stair” out to be someone else’s problem or keep him close and try to keep an eye on him and wait for the consequences to hit close to home when you inevitably fail?
I don’t know. It’s probably highly dependent on the circumstances of each case. Either approach remains better than the one where the group laughs along or tacitly condones the behavior, which is far too common.
In the case of Joe & Danny though, Danny isn’t doing either. He’s not trying to keep Joe in line or warning girls off or anything that checks on Joe.
How does the science/magic of the “feelings and accountability” spell work?
Specifically, can Joe see the ukulele right now? What if Danny plays it while talking about feelings and accountability–does the cloaking power diminish?
The more rules you apply to magic, the easier it becomes to break your own rules later on. It’s better to keep it simple, like in Harry Potter; point wand, say (or think) words, magic happens.
poor choice of words there, Joe
Focus, Joe. You almost started to make a little progress there, until seeing
Rachel“a hot chick” set your compass needle spinning.Lesson one: her name isn’t “You!” or “11” it’s Rachel.
Why does always someone have to be the Terrible Person (TM)?
I don’t dislike Joe OR Rachel. Rachel’s point was understandable (even if I think she is wrong about a few things) and the way I see it Joe is an idiot, but not one that would harm people like a certain other characer (“Ryan”) has nor would. He obviously has a few lessons to learn, and with his reputation basically destroyed, this seems like the point where it starts.
The thing is, Joe HAS done harm, even if it’s not as much harm as someone like Ryan. I enjoy him as a character, and think he’s completely capable of growing out of his current behavior, it’s still harmful behavior.
Even though Joe would never assault anyone, he’s very persistently making them feel unsafe and demeaned. However much potential he may have to be better than he is now, he is very much in the wrong here.
Just re-reading the last panel and an odd thought occurred to me. Is Joe trying to wingman for Danny with Rachel?
Joe has expressed the desire to get Danny laid before.
Wait, why do you care about him knowing what he did wrong, Rachel? I thought people can’t ever change or become better
HAH. OWNED.
I wasn’t trying to “own” her. I was actually curious why she asked that if that’s what she actually believes.
My money is on “she hasn’t thought through the implications of anything she’s said on the subject and is just generally pissed at a variety of people” as a charitable interpretation.
College students hold strong, mostly unexamined beliefs?
*shocked Joyce face goes here*
I feel that Rachel had a very strong point. In a vacuum.
In the story of Rachel’s life, Joe is (yet another) misogynistic piece of shit that may be a predator too (we, the audience, know better but look at the way he talks). Danny may appear nice, but he immediately introduces himself as Joe’s best-friend-for-life. Cheerily even, like the social shit – storm surrounding Joe isn’t happening. Instead of being visibly upset with Joe or leaving him to deal with the consequences of his actions, Danny is here with Joe in a place Joe obviously has never been. It’s not a difficult leap to make that Joe is hiding and Danny is providing emotional support. So, to Rachel Danny is helping Joe to avoid learning any lessons and thus continue his atrocious beliefs and behavior.
In the story of Danny’s life however… Danny knows Joe. Danny considers him his “best-friend-for-life”. I’d be shocked if Danny hasn’t expressed disapproval for Joe’s behavior before, only for Joe to brush off his concerns. And since Joe has been apparently popular enough with the ladies for Danny to honestly believe that Joe has been in multiple threesomes, I’m not surprised Danny has given up on that argument. Because Joe for all his faults IS Danny’s best friend. Joe, who, regardless of the fact that he seems to belive that 80’s movies jocks and frat boys are an example to aspire to when it comes to being attractive to women, calmly and immediately accepted Danny’s surprise announcement of his newly discovered sexuality. Joe who opens up to Danny and I would bet NO ONE else. And who else does Danny have? Dorothy who literally ran from her relationship from him? Amber/Amazing-Girl? That’s enough of a quagmire that even Danny, for all of his social ineptness, realizes it. Ethan? Ethan is literally “guy I can talk to about Amber that I find attractive” to Danny. Sal? I would hope to God that Danny has learned his lesson about running into relationships and we all know Sal would just leave if Danny tried to treat his aquantenceship with her with the kind of intamency that Danny needs in a friendship. Joe may have been ignoring Danny a lot in the past few weeks, but he’s been the only person who hasn’t REJECTED Danny. For Danny, this whole situation is aggravating, but to him it isn’t an opportunity to “improve” Joe. Danny has known Joe long enough to be able to make that kind of judgement. It’s an opportunity for BOTH Joe and Danny to realize WHY they’re best friends. They’re the only ones willing to put up with the other’s shit in the end.
Now you could say that by being willing to put up with the other like this is just perpetuating each of their flaws, but that kind of self-awareness, even if the accusation is true, is a pretty heavy thing to expect of anyone, much less a couple of 18 year olds.
well said
Well put, made me consider some things I hadn’t before
So, real talk here. By Rachel’s stated philosophy, there are good people, neutral milktoast people and bad people in the world and which is which is a static constant. If this is true, then no amount of admonishment or training will turn a misogynist creep (her words, but true) like Joe into a good person.
So why is she mad at Danny for not trying to make Joe learn his lesson? I can see being mad at him for hanging around with someone like Joe, but why specifically is she admonishing him for not trying to explain accountability to him? Her philosophy says he will never learn.
DISCUSS
Rachel is happier assigning faults to people than she is thinking consistently about the rules she applies to everyone else.
It really is so much easier. Sticking labels on people is fast and requires much less thought than serious introspection.
The fact that Danny isn’t making the attempt to punish Joe for his behavior is proof to Rachel that Danny accepts his behavior as not needing punishment.
Rachel believes people can’t change. That doesn’t mean she has to accept people she disproves of. Since Danny apparently approves of Joe and thus his behavior, Rachel is deciding that Danny is a “bad” person too.
But she isn’t saying “why are you associating with him”, she’s saying “why aren’t you educating him”. Does she, like, think that change is impossible but it’s our duty to try to fix people anyway, knowing it’s futile? Or what?
What is the purpose of punishment if people can’t change? “So I can enjoy their suffering” isn’t a great look, even if it is pretty mainstream American.
1. By pestering him Danny can find out where Joe lands between Ryan and Roz.
2. She see’s calling people on their shit as inherently a good thing even if its impossible for it to actually change them.
3. Attempts at education lets people know he already broke social contract.
4. Her philosophy is inconsistent.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/milquetoast
Milk toast is a semi recognized spelling but I suspect this is an issue where people hear it out loud and don’t see it written?
Oh, that’s a really great contradiction in her character. My kudos to you. It is seemingly irreconcilable.
However, if Rachel only argues about people’s innate character and not their behavior, then it’s possible that she might allow for people like Joe to “learn” how to behave while still being a sleazebag inside.
Sort of like house-training a pet. The trained pet is not suddenly morally superior, but it acts more in line with our morals (doesn’t piss on the carpet). He cannot change his alignment, but he can be civilized as to not bother anyone.
Now I want to find out. I actually hope she’s simply unaware of her contradicting belief and has to own up to it to Ruth.
I do feel like you might be simplifying Rachel a bit here. Rachel’s belief might be more complicated than, “Redemption is a fantasy.”
What we should keep in mind is that in the cases she’s addressed so far, she’s been calling out abusers. And trust me, there’s a big difference between “abusers can’t change” and “normal jerks can’t learn to not be jerks”.
Joe isn’t abusive. He’s shitty and mysoginist and prone to harassing people, but he’s never been shown to really wear on his friends or loved ones. He’s a sexist, uneducated jerk, but Rachel may see a difference between that and someone like Ruth, who deliberately made people miserable. It’s the one thing we can really say for him right now.
And yes, I know I just compared Joe favorably to Ruth. I think I have to go walk into a furnace now.
yikes
I like Rachel. She’s just run out of fucks to give when confronted with yet another piece of fuckery. Mainly men giving her grief and hitting on her when she is just trying to get through college. She would react much better if the first thing out of Joe’s mouth wasn’t calling her by a number, but he is probably typical of what she encounters several times a day.
The emotional tax that women pay, especially in CS and business/science classes, is more immense than men can comprehend. She looks like she is willing to give a “good egg” a chance, but Joe just needs to be smakced down for his own good.
Until we find out otherwise, I believe that the grey shape coming down the stairs is the ghost of Ryan, destined to wander the CS building in punishment, watching an increasing number fo women accomplish more than he ever did in his life.
I’m severely bothered by the “fertile hunting grounds” comment from Joe. I’m a guy but that’s just no way to treat women or anybody really. Joe’s whole immature attitude bothers me, treating women like sex objects and not people. It bothered me when I saw it in other guys when I was around the DoA casts’ ages and like Danny was just invisible when I tried to say things to correct their behavior.
Yup, it basically reduces women to beasts that contain the “sex” instead of meat. And the methods of acquisition are the same, instill fear, trap, and then take.
Comic Reactions:
Okay, let’s do this. Cause wow is this good. (Thanks by the by for the well-wishes everyone, I greatly appreciate it. I’m still dissociating super numb and letting my least connected to emotions alter run the show for a bit, but I’m in a lot better headspace than I was last night. So I just wanted to say I appreciate you all <3 ).
Panel 1: Joe… I still hope for his recovery from being a complete scum sucker, but man is him letting go of this mask going to be super hard for him and man is he doing a lot of damage with his toxic masculinity in the meantime.
Like holy shit, just look at the layers of invalidation that pour off of him here, the unchecked bigotries that ooze like toxic sludge. Like, there's the invalidation of the gender of those who are not conventionally attractive, labeling them "not real women".
Which, that's a thing. A lot of MRAs use specific shorthands for specific groups of women and labeling those they find unattractive as "feminist" is a big part of their mythology and allows them to regard the "feminist" creature as a distinct organism to the mythical "good girl" creature they want to bang, something altogether inhuman or secretly male.
And it has consequences. Those types of fatphobia and so on have effects when men like Joe are on hiring committees and "just has a bad feeling" about Candidate number 1.
Then we have that ugly ugly little phrase, "fertile hunting ground". Like every part of it seems perfectly designed to make one's bits retreat in sheer horror into the arctic wilderness and reveal so much badness that he's internalized or at least sought to imitate.
Like, first up "fertile" should never ever be brought up in any discussion about women ever unless you are literally talking the logistics of having a kid or pursuing IVF. Like, it's such a reductivist thing, reducing women to their role as baby makers and in this usage, it evokes the idea of the "Great White Hunter", which is a problematic trope in and of itself. Making women the animals he is "bagging" on behalf of rich shitty dentists and presidential sons.
And "hunting grounds". We've already talked a lot about Joe's PUAness and how bad that is, how harmful and dangerous and how he could easily become a rapist if he doesn't learn how to check this shit.
But man is "hunting grounds" scary. That thing where aggressive men dominate your time and space and don't take no or a complete panic attack for an answer is what makes public spaces often a dangerous game of Russian Roulette for a lot of women and those read to be women.
And it's not as far of a step than Joe might think between doing what he's doing and being a guy like Ryan or the chaser who assaulted me on the way home last night.
Joe needs to change. He's already hurting people with his words and actions and he needs to stop before he crosses a line he can't ever uncross.
So I might be totally off on this since I haven’t had opportunity to test it myself, but an infographic told me yesterday that chewing something spicy like ginger can help dissociation. Be well and take care of yourself ♥
glad you’re feeling better
I think of that as my Emergency Backup Personality. (and yes, I wish I could find a way to make the acronym EMH… although, after getting distracted by wikipedia, ECH seems more appropriate 
)
It uses up a lot of energy, but it gets me through the days I would be too wrecked to function if I wasn’t DID.
I’m honestly really grateful for them being willing to tackle this kind if stuff.
yeah, it’s a coping mechanism for a reason.
and a useful diagnostic tool; multiple perspectives on my mind help with debugging it sometimes. I’m not sure how much of that conversation-between-selves thing NTs can do.
otoh, one of them is so upset about recent things that there’s a veto on discussing them with my therapist (the last session went… badly), which is really not convenient :/ but she seems to really need some alone time and processing-things-myself time, and I can afford a few weeks of that. Especially since it feels like there’s incredibly important information tangled up in there. Something so painful she’s scared to even share it with the rest of me :/
(sorry, I seem to keep talking about myself, you’ve got enough of your own stuff already. I just… sometimes things don’t show up if I’m only talking to myself. sometimes I learn things by letting myself talk about it here. feel free to let me know if it’s too much..?)
I love hearing about it! And I strongly support you and your alter going through her rough patch. I think she’ll have a lot to talk about with the rest of you when she’s ready.
I’m so glad you have the energy to comment, and fudge the scumbag who assaulted you. *Hugs and sympathy via light touch*
Yeah, Joe REALLY ups the PUA bullshit, and that’s no coincidence. As soon as he feels insecure and has something to prove, that is what he falls back to. Poor sod. Toxic masculinity at its “finest”.
*hugs back* Yup, it’s a system really good at getting its meaty claws into young mens’ insecurities.
And thanks.
Panel 2: But that’s never mind, because the way more interesting interaction is Rachel and Danny. Like, I said earlier that Danny loses cred simply for being with Joe, especially against his desire to be seen as a good egg and his approach here I think hints that Danny is not fully aware of that yet.
Like, he’s all super friendly and warm and positive. In another context, this could have been a short interesting conversation. But it’s not out of context.
He’s continuing Joe’s interruption of her morning routine and mad dash to class with no awareness or realization that she might have a schedule she is trying to keep to. He’s ignoring Joe’s awful comment about fertile hunting grounds, thus reinforcing the idea that is normal and non-objectionable (though I doubt he realizes that). And he’s being directly associated with Joe, a person that Rachel is far beyond having the spoons to deal with right now.
This all colors his interaction and ensures it ends up leading to an argument rather than the pleasant interaction he imagined he would have.
A good egg can be spoiled by a foul sauce… OK, that metaphor needs work.
Danny may not fully understand how being “best friend” with Joe makes him seem to the rest of the campus, but that wouldn’t matter. He is loyal to a fault. At least he seem to understand Rachel’s reaction.
And I must say, I love how open and friendly he is. This is the same Danny who invites Sal to do laundry with him and tells Ethan he has the Hotz for him. Honest and open and a good egg.
Panels 3-4: Oh man is this good. Because it gets into a major thing that many cis men spaces don’t fully realize, that how they react to their bros bouts of sexism matter.
Like, a lot of the time, a feminist-leaning cis guy, especially if they are straight, assume that their requirement as allies begins and ends with showing respect to partners and women in their lives. And all of that is super important and appreciated, but there’s often a balking to call out sexism in other men.
And there’s a lot of reasons for that. One is that sexism has been heavily normalized in our culture and is seen as something to be ignored. It’s just “boys being boys” after all. Another is the bro code.
Like, there’s heavy pressure on men growing up to respect the “bro code” not realizing the real extent and damage it does. It sells that being a good friend doesn’t mean just simple things like respecting them, but viewing their exes as property that belongs to them, overlooking instances of sexual assault or sexual harassment, keeping one’s tongue when overhearing rape apologia or sexist worldviews, and siding with your “bros” over any woman who might talk about sexual assault or harassment.
And having been raised as if I was a guy, I know this pressure well. I know how strongly it is reinforced in movies and on the playground and the bruises you acquire when you think it’s bad and criticize it or want no part of it.
So I don’t fully blame Danny, but I feel this is his education behind the curtain of what his “polite overlooking” of Joe’s sexism and casual enabling of his creepy invasive behavior says about his own character. That he, to a much lesser extent, has also fucked up and has some growing to do.
And this is known. Joe brings out the worst in him, especially when he gets into big brother protective mode. Let us not forget how shitty he was acting towards Roz when he blamed her for Joe and her’s sex tape.
Which is a thing. Which is why I, like Rachel, don’t fully trust seemingly nice guys who hang with shitty sexist friends. Because I’ve seen too many times that supposedly nice man become increasingly more dangerous, dropping sexist conspiracy theories out of nowhere, becoming super defensive about issues like harassment or assault (because they know their buddies have done it), getting pressured by their teasing into being worse to their romantic partners, and just have giant blind spots to sexism in general and being frequently highly dismissive.
And that’s the thing. Rachel’s response is warranted under the context she knows which is that this creeper who waited outside her unlocked door to hit on her and refer to her only as a number and is now harassing her again has a person who openly calls himself that man’s best friend and seems far more concerned with supporting Joe through his self-pitying martyrdom than standing up for most any of the women in the hall.
And it’s understandable that Danny would not be able to do that. He really doesn’t like confrontation and fights and wants everyone to get along peacefully and he’s had especially bad interactions with Joe when he’s pushed back even to the minimal amount.
But that’s going to be a major part of his and so many other feminist men’s arcs. Learning how to speak up in those men-only spaces and make it so sexist bullshit is seen as not tolerated in the group. Because a lot of the worst behaviors are really a performance for men. Something to brag about with the bros. Removing that incentive, making them realize not everyone is thinking the way they are thinking?
Saves women’s lives.
I like how Rachel phrases it all as questions there. It gives Danny a chance to save face instead of instantly condemning him. And it lets her make it clear what the appropriate behaviour would be without her telling him what to do. For a moment there, they’re almost having a conversation about how hard it is to deal with guys like Joe, instead of a lecture about everything Danny’s not doing right.
It’s super hard and it’s super important. As feminist men, we try so hard to not be “those other men” – but “those other men” are our friends, work mates, class mates.. .We know them and enable them.
Panel 5: And Danny’s response here is also valid and I love it. Because yeah, Danny has tried to push back against the sexism as best as he’s been able to (not great), but Joe has been waging a war against feelings at him for the better part of the year and even the slightest conversation in that direction got shut and shouted down.
And that’s one of the tactics Joe has consistently used to avoid growing as a person and stop hurting people. Be loud, be aggressive, make it way too much of a deal to fight, make it cost huge amount of spoons and microaggressions to do so and at the end he’s still going to do what he does.
And much like with current political parallels, it breeds a sort of weariness in people. Like, it’s bad, but you feel powerless to change it and no one else seems to care enough to speak up, and you’re just so tired of fighting.
And we see that in Dorothy’s weariness when she talks to him, in Sarah’s exasperated frustration when he tries to ask him not to be a dick to Joyce, in Danny only getting his shots in as tiny asides and moments.
And that’s what Joe has had. Folks who out of loyalty have entered a state of wearied eye-rolling disapproval but don’t have the strength to keep hammering their heads against the iron skull of Joe. People he has broken in their ability to call him out on this crap and the damage it does.
So that he can keep clinging to his dangerous fantasy and believe he can be part of some objective hunting simulator instead of dealing with real people, real emotions, real experiences of lust and love.
And yeah, at the end of the day, no one can be saved who does not want to be. If Joe is committed to being an asshole, there is no amount of spoons and effort that Danny or Dorothy or Joyce could throw at him to make him change from that.
His growth will start occurring when he’s ready to start redeeming himself and making up for bad behavior. When he wants that more than he wants the false illusions that this mask provides.
But that said, he is going to reflect on the company that keeps with him while he’s being unapologetically like this. On the company that ignores the worst of his comments and supports his self-induced crises.
Like, I said back at the beginning of this arc, Danny’s in a shitty situation where he’s going to get some reflected crap that hurts his image simply for being loyal to “that asshole” and being by his side during all this.
And this is the next phase of his “good egg”-ness. How to use his privilege to fight for the marginalized even when they are being targeted by his friends.
And it’s a hard skill. A lot of tireless, dedicated good men have trouble with this last step. But I believe in Danny. I think he’ll get there in the end.
After all, he’s a good egg.
I can’t like your posts so let’s just pretend this praying smiling is applauding.
Gosh dang these analysis’s are always fantastic, to the point where I can’t imagine reading dumbing of age without your insight. Just bravo applause and all the praise.
Second that. In college I had certain classes I really looked forward to? Like that.
I’m in a hurry but absolutely THIRDED.
Danny is a good egg – and I think this conversation actually goes through to Joe. If nothing else because Danny manages what Joe can’t – have a normal conversation with Rachel.
<33
How does Danny know her name? She didn’t mention it, and I’m pretty sure that when she was rushing past when she initially insulted Joe she didn’t say it either…
And she doesn’t live on Danny’s floor so he doesn’t really know.
Does he just learn the names of everyone in his classes? ARE they in the same classes?
Does he just know everyone and they just never notice him?
She introduced herself in panel 2
She actually told him her name right after he introduced himself.
Acceptable post-edits aren’t challenging.