I can see someone thinking their being funny/wise putting it up with a ‘let’s stop pretending your not having sex’ mindset which ironically just reinforces the old school view that there can only be one reason for the pill.
I think it just falls in the general theme – “you don’t have to hide it or pretend”, which is good.
Of course, not everyone is even for the pill.
OTOH, while there certainly are other reasons for being on birth control, it’s still the main purpose and an important one. I’m not fond of attempts to justify keeping it available by focusing on the other reasons. Birth control is health care.
Most of the posters fall into that theme but the “we know why your really here one” comes off as a bit shaming, like I can imagine Mary using that phrase to straight up bc shame other women even if that’s probably not the purpose here.
Pharmacists and pharmacy techs work at the pharmacy. The red and white clothing thing are candy stripers, aka hospital volunteers. They wouldn’t be at a pharmacy dispensing drugs.
Not at regular pharmacies, but if this is the pharmacy at the campus clinic (which would explain the decor) then maybe? I know ours has student volunteers and workers
Not actually working for the pharmacy as pharmacists/techs, but definitely might have volunteers (either for the pharmacy or (more likely) for a third-party probably-charitable organization partnering with the pharmacy) to give out free condoms and do safer sex education
Yep. Pharmacy techs in the US require certification, which takes weeks of classes, an exam, and then waiting forever for the certificate. (Or at least it did when I did it a decade ago.) Not something that a college freshman is likely to do.
Even if you could, you can’t legally handle the drugs without proper certifications
I’ve worked in the medical field before, as a nursing aide, they were very strict about only the nurses/doctors being allowed to even touch the medication
Roz actually already had her moment. She somehow clocked Joyce was going on BC almost instantly and gave her some advice. I can’t imagine her being awful about this. Safe sex and women’s sexual freedom and autonomy is kind of her whole deal.
See, that’s my thinking, too, I’m just irrationally paranoid when it comes to Roz’s characterization, which sometimes seems a little inconsistent. Plus, I’m not the only person guessing this.
I don’t think it’s inconsistent. I think Roz is a minor antagonist. She’s meant to make people upset. Sometimes it seems like maybe she lacks common sense though, like arguing the silver lining of a fraction of her dorm mates being kidnapped is that her sister lost her congressional campaign, in a room full of those kidnap victims, two of which’s father’s died.
I feel like we’re supposed to draw parallels to her and Robin, the irony being that she hates Robin’s traits but shares many of them, including the lack of common sense, and ability to read the room and generally being self absorbed.
I don’t think we’re supposed to view her as a good or bad person, she’s just a person who has decent views but is also kind of a dick. She’s a human. People tend to forget that just because a character has decent views doesn’t mean they should automatically be a good person too.
Roz and her sister are two characters who were kind of out of Willis’ hands these past five years. The political events have dramatically changed the perspective of, “Activist who seems alarmist at danger to women’s rights by the Religious Right” and “Crooked right wing politician who, nevertheless, serves the status quo.”
Yeah, now more than ever I hope Roz will halt her transformation into one-note Becky punching bag. She’s a really important foil for Dorothy and her “nerfing” has come at Dorothy’s expense.
This is bringing back memories of when I fell asleep in the Sex Ed talk during freshman orientation and then woke up when they started throwing condoms into the audience and one hit me in the face.
“we know why you are here”
What kind of fool puts that up to make people feel better?
that’s like saying that you’re gonna put it in your discreet non S shaming bag, and you put it in a large cloth bag with the words “I HAVE S E X AND NEED BIRTH CONTROL” in large RGB lights.
Seems a bit over the top/draws unnecessary attention unless they’re handing out free condoms and an extra months’ worth of prescription to make up for it lol
though it would make me curious if we’ll actually get to see joyce hook up with anyone within the run of this comic
Except for the part where they didn’t say they were going to put in the discreet non S shaming bag.
I think the point is that it shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of and keeping it discreet actually reinforces the shaming part.
I’m not sure this is the best way to go about it.
This whole display with all the posters and decorations and stuff is a good way to embarrass the fuck out of lots of people, no matter whether they’re going to the pharmacy for a prescription of birth control or something else.
I think it’s “your (sic) lite and easy favorites”, akin to what happened to all the Beautiful Music stations in the 1980s.
The fascinating thing is there are streams and uploads of the real thing from Muzak, Seabury, Woolworth’s, and others everywhere. You can hear this in the 2020s much more easily than, say, the mid-aughts.
huh some scene jumps
Joyce is angry and in pain and telling Dorothy to fuck off -> Joyce is happily showing Dorothy her comics on the student paper -> Joyce is upset again and being somewhat forced into getting the pills though she’s highly uncomfortable
I really have trouble following how much time has elapsed between each of these jumps, and why they seem so random
I suspect that the authorial intent here is that Joyce isn’t actually all that mad at her friends for fussing over her as she woke (at least, not nearly as mad as the comments section was).
Joyce understands that they really do all care about her, even if they were a little much today. So we don’t get panels of her shifting her mood and understanding. She’s already over it.
This is either someone Joyce knows who works there and is trying to make things even harder for her, OR it’s some religious fucknugget who is intentionally trying to shame women into not getting their birth control pills.
I don’t know, despite being weird as hell, the messages seem to indicate this is made by people who believe in sex before marriage. We all know that kind of thinking doesn’t go well with many religious people across the world.
Except for “we know why you’re here” this seems pretty typical for a sexual health awareness setup. Well, that and it being at the actual pharmacist’s counter.
Amazing that the one that sent me is not “time for your dental dam” but Garfield with “Stick it in”. Who let Fatal Farm in, along with the posters above?
Guess this answers some people’s questions. Joyce stuck in some of the pain.
Trying to make sense of all the signs, clockwise, from top left, outside in:
-“what time is it? / time for your dental dam”
-“safe sex / it can be a mouthful”
-“a pill a day / keeps the babies away”
-“no slut shaming / not even you”
-“Sexual Activity Awareness Month”
–(very unintelligible)
-“–y mot–” / ashamed my action”
-“PRESCRIPTION / pick-up / SAFE SEX IS BEST SEX”
-“STICK IT IN”
-“sex all the time / consequence free”
-“PRACTICE SAFE SEX / SAFE SEX IS BEST SEX”
-“cover your cough / and your genitals”
-“WE KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE
Okay, so I basically assumed that panel three (and the words carried over to panel four) were more “what Joyce is seeing” than what’s actually there? But it seems like many people are thinking this is, in fact, what’s being displayed. I get how people might have that reading, the “character sees something else” hasn’t been done a lot here (maybe once?). But I don’t think what’s show is what’s actually happening. Guess we’ll find tomorrow.
That’s what I’m figuring (the first part, not the Roz thing). The “No Slut Shaming” banner doesn’t feel like something that Joyce would imagine, and every one of those bits feels, on the whole, like an earnest and honest, if trying way too hard, effort at being welcoming and non-judgmental.
Joyce is just taking it all in the worst way possible, and it’s WONDERFUL :D.
The “we know why your really here” banner was probably someone’s idea of playful but ironically does come off as judgemtal since it implies anyone who says their not there to avoid pregnancy is a liar.
Yeah, if this was just Joyce’s imagination, it would be much more shaming, instead of the opposite. The “we know why you’re here” one would fit, but none of the rest could come out of her upbringing.
Yes, I can believe someone thought this was a good idea.
In fact, I’m specifically reminded of a video I was shown in school sex ed, which showed an embarassed teenaged boy trying to buy condoms but chickening out, and captions showing that the chemist shop assistant was thinking “He wants to buy some condoms”. And as with an awful lot of safe sex PSAs of the time, my reaction was “And this is supposed to make me feel less embarassed about condoms how, exactly?”
I don’t know, the framing of the comic doesn’t really support that read. The entire strip is written as a joke, with Dorothy’s insistence that it won’t be a big deal (set-up) being immediately subverted by panel 3 (punchline). The joke doesn’t work if Dorothy isn’t also seeing this and thus being proven wrong.
irl there might be a one or two posters saying “safe sex is dope” with a picture of a smiling couple or whatever which would still freak someone like Joyce out.
If I’m putting myself in Joyce’s shoes, this is when I’m just gonna start laughing. Though she may be mortified in the actual comic right now, I feel she’s going to be “I can’t take this day seriously anymore.”
I was struggling to put this into words while the discussion was going on for the 27th of August, so hopefully this makes sense:
Birth control pills, as used to regulate cycles rather than just preventing pregnancies, do NOT go into effect right away. You’re not going to see the desired effects of reduced pain and reduced flow until at least the next cycle (for the record, for the effect of preventing pregnancies you might want to wait TWO menstrual cycles while taking the pills consistently for maximum effectiveness) [also for the record, I am not a doctor nor a pharmacist, always consult your healthcare provider with questions about this, etc]
This is all to say that no matter what, Joyce was going to be in pain for this menstrual cycle. There was nothing to be done about that except taking over the counter pain medication.
So Joyce’s friends’ insistence (particularly Dorothy’s) to get this medication RIGHT NOW RIGHT AWAY, strikes me as cruel an unnecessary. Why? What’s so important about doing it right now? Why do it when Joyce is physical pain AND having mental anguish about the implications of taking medication that she was taught was literally evil? What is it going to solve?
There’s perhaps an argument to be made of “ripping the bandaid off” in the sense that it’s sometimes better to take the plunge on these painful (heh) decisions than to keep agonizing over them eternally without making progress. But that’s certainly NOT Dorothy’s decision to make, especially about a body that’s not her own.
There were a few commenters saying that forcing Joyce is the ONLY way to get this done (as shown with the glasses arc), and this was for her own good. Given that the comic has started the conversation on Joyce’s possible neurodivergence, that’s something that’s fucking uncomfortable to hear: that a neurodivergent person needs to be FORCED to acquire and take medication they are not comfortable with “for their own good”. That it’s correct for a neurotypical person to make this decision and force it, because the ends justify the means.
Today, Joyce has made a federal issue out of 1) taking pills, 2) the immorality of “the very concept of anything related to sex” up to and including birth control, and 3) getting out of bed. That she still HAS any friends is pretty impressive.
I will say as long as people are willing to even talk to her, I can cut them some slack in how they deal with her neuroses. Arguments such as “it might teach her better if she has to deal with this while she’s still in pain from trying to not deal with it” will pass through their minds, though it’s really probably post hoc justification for being cruel just because she’s annoying and they want her to stop.
Ultimately it’s a question if you give a shit. I’ve been in Joyce’s place, largely, but my friends didn’t bother; they just left me instead. Whatever bad and ineffective and quasi-abusive ways they go about helping you, I will say it’s better than the alternative of being alone and having to deal with all your own bullshit alone. I think it matters more that people care about you at all; then they will still have time to figure out the nuances of effective and respectful support.
Wait, I should have specified her problems are BOTH the physical sensation of swallowing pills and the vague idea of “drugs are bad” holding a lot of power, AND BOTH the vague idea of “sex is bad” and the fear random people will judge her because they might think she is having sex.
So more like five federal cases. That are just the ones judged in court SO FAR TODAY, beyond like a hundred others they’ve dealt with in the past. You can see why it’s really hard being Joyce’s friend right now.
I’m not talking about anyone deserving anything. That seems to be a common problem with how people misunderstand things I post here, so let me say this as clearly as possible: I never talk about what anyone deserves. I don’t care about what people deserve. I don’t believe any person, living, dead or imagined, deserves anything, besides living in a cave, eating dirt and dying at 25 from a minor infection.
I care about what people can do for each other, and what we need from each other. Everyone needs friends, especially people like me and Joyce who have a hard time figuring out how they work. How you managed to get the idea I think her friends should ditch her from my post about how her friends are bravely but cluelessly trying to help her, I have no idea, but I really don’t think I can have been that unclear.
a podcast i follow called “Philosophize This” had a recent episode about the ethics of care (i’m going somewhere with this). and it described how it was theorized by Carol Gilligan in the 70s in response to questionable conclusions drawn by another psychologist who was trying to test the moral sense of children, and he found that, woopsie, girls tend to be less moral than boys on average? and she was like, “bro, your framework is the issue here”.
the host of the podcast gave this typical example, where to the question “would you steal a drug in a pharmacy in order to save someone’s life?” a boy said, yes, absolutely, if it’s life and death yeah (and the psychologist graded that as displaying advanced morals), and a girl said, “no, i would try to figure out another way, i would ask friends for money, or i would plead with the pharmacist” etc, and when the interrogator made the conditions more and more stringent (no one has money to lend you, etc) she was like “look i don’t know what to tell you, i think stealing is wrong” and she stuck to that stance, which the guy ranked as her having low moral autonomy.
and Gilligan said, that’s because girls and women are encouraged to think of practical solutions that involve caring for interpersonal relationships, they don’t tend to reason quite as much in terms of individual rights and wrongs and kantian imperatives and such. she made it clear that this was socially constructed, and it’s not a strictly gendered dichotomy, but the fact that western ethical theory had been dominated by dudes explains, according to her, why no one had had that insight before.
Now my point is, i found this illuminating because i have been bogged down in exactly this kind of disagreement on this board several times. with folks like Spencer typically (love you bro, pls come back <3) who whip out should's and deserve's all the time and i'm like "listen i just don't think in those terms???" but that message never came across.
(and i don't think one way of reasoning is good and the other bad, yeah, i'm just saying it's useful to have ways of naming the ethical frameworks we use so that we can understand one another, if only to agree to disagree.)
(anyway, here’s a hilarious Slate advice column where a parent asks their toddler the trolley problem and takes their (buckwild) answer way too seriously)
The Trolley Problem is actually pretty easy to solve.
First, find out if these are people you actually want to bother keeping alive. I don’t know about you, but if Kissinger is lying on the tracks, my question is if after I run him over I can reverse. Just to make sure.
Second, presuming these ARE people you want to keep alive, flip the switch a couple of times so you can get a notion of how fast the tracks switch.
Third, when the trolley is coming up to switch, pull the lever so that when the trolley reaches the switching track that piece is in the process of moving and therefore not connected to either track, thereby derailing it.
Congratulations, you’ve solved the Trolley Problem.
That’s a trolley that’s about to make a curve, if it’s going fast enough that people can’t just jump out of it safely then it’d either derail when curving or when running over bodies anyway.
Thanks, I often worry I judge myself too harshly but having other people judge me for being too judgmental gives me a nice clear area in which to work to improve myself, if I can untangle the paradox.
IIRC Joyce doesn’t feel this sort of crippling pain and discomfort every period, it comes every few months or so (remember Becky counting down how many months it’s been?) so while the pills can’t sort out anything CURRENTLY, better she start now and get the ball rolling so that a few months down the line when the crippling would return, it won’t, because the pills have already started working.
Also, as someone who is neuroatypical in some way: getting me to do something as soon as possible is beneficial because the longer I leave it the less likely it is to get done.
Because the sooner you start them, the sooner they’ll be effective. Nothing’s going to help her this cycle but as you said, it can take a bit for them to kick in – sometimes a couple months. Joyce’s period seems to be really bad every second or third month so getting it started quicker means a better chance of relief for next time.
As for people forcing her to do things she’s uncomfortable with – Joyce, herself, has said it is sometimes necessary for her friends to do this. People noting something Joyce herself says is necessary and saying maybe her friends should get her to do the unpleasant but necessary thing she doesn’t want to do are going by something Joyce herself said.
Also, I’d be worried that with the immediate crisis behind her, it’d be easier to just keep putting it off, resulting in her not ever going to get them.
That conversation ended with Joyce telling them to back off, and Dorthy saying, “Sure”. Sarah and Becky don’t really take her anger seriously but no one continues to argue with her about it.
Joyce changes her mind when she follows up with “I don’t need help” but then has to ask for a pad.
But THIS is Sexual ACTIVITY Awareness Month. Which might just be an educational effort by local health professionals rather than any sort of national movement. The two are different, even if they sound a bit saamy.
But chances are that Roz will be working behind the counter, as a volunteer; informing people about sex/sexuality is her thing. And I doubt that you need to be a Pharmacologist to ring up, and hand out prescriptions, you just need to be one to fill out the prescriptions.
Why do you get a month for awareness when we only get a week, and the other eleven months of the year you won’t let us forget how gross you are anyway?
I thought she was letting out a horror-ghost shriek of ‘We know why’ until I realised that was not Joyce, that was literally what was put up on the wall. It goes so well with her expression that I am pretending she shrieked that.
well duh, you live in a college town, OF COURSE the pharmacy is going to be a huge participant in safe sex awareness. I was afraid that we’d run into the situation where the CVS employees refuse to sell contraceptives to women “for religious reasons” (which is like a vegan mcdonalds employee refusing to sell burgers) but though the potential for commentary would be great it wouldn’t fit in with this comic’s universe.
This seems a little… much. Especially since doing the oingo-boingo isn’t the only thing these pills are for.
*GASP* Maybe it’s a scare tactic to ward away subconscious women so they won’t have to answer questions they’ve probably heard over a billion times?! /s
All this shit is actually why I think the majority of these products should be termed “menstrual control” since that is what it does and it’s what a lot of people use it for unrelated to sexual activity. Look at how global warming is now referred to as climate change because “global warming” doesn’t match the expectation of the common person.
No amount of “well no one should be shaming people for sexual activity” changes the fact that a. people judge and b. these medications are often taken by people regardless of sexual activity. The implication is unfair to the actual function of the medication and the person taking it.
@david m Willis: I am having a tough time of it with my mum in hospital with double pneumonia and lots of disability service stress. Thank you for another wonderful comic
by last thing, Dotty of course means “the most recent thing”
I would try to add that to the gif but idk
I forgot Sarah got a panel. Who’s next, Dorothy?
I think Jennifer. This really seems like her book.
“WE KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE” ?!?!?!
OK, what I wanna know is, who’s the idiot who decided to spell that out on the front window?
With big, CAPITAL letters?!?!
??????
You know it’s Roz.
I thought that was just in Joyce’s head, but now I’m not sure.
Maybe it’s the actual background behind her, but the full sentence is something different?
No, it’s in the previous panel.
Ah thanks! I didn’t see it because it was tiny.
Yeah, I thought that too until I saw people commenting and went back to see it visible itty bitty in the panel before her amazing reaction face.
I can see someone thinking their being funny/wise putting it up with a ‘let’s stop pretending your not having sex’ mindset which ironically just reinforces the old school view that there can only be one reason for the pill.
I think it just falls in the general theme – “you don’t have to hide it or pretend”, which is good.
Of course, not everyone is even for the pill.
OTOH, while there certainly are other reasons for being on birth control, it’s still the main purpose and an important one. I’m not fond of attempts to justify keeping it available by focusing on the other reasons. Birth control is health care.
Most of the posters fall into that theme but the “we know why your really here one” comes off as a bit shaming, like I can imagine Mary using that phrase to straight up bc shame other women even if that’s probably not the purpose here.
Laughed at “NO SLUT SHAMING – NOT EVEN YOU”
The pharmacist shows up, and it’s Rich Mullins.
omg now i want this to be true xD
[Hammered dulcimer intensifies]
so what’s the over/under on how many strips before Roz shows up? 0.5?
I was just wondering that. Can you volunteer at a pharmacy? Like America has some at hospitals right? They wear red and white clothing?
No.
Pharmacists and pharmacy techs work at the pharmacy. The red and white clothing thing are candy stripers, aka hospital volunteers. They wouldn’t be at a pharmacy dispensing drugs.
Instead of Candy Striper, it Randy Stripers?
Randy Strippers!
Pretty sure I bought a used car from him in Arkansas one time.
Not at regular pharmacies, but if this is the pharmacy at the campus clinic (which would explain the decor) then maybe? I know ours has student volunteers and workers
Twist:
Roz DID do the decorating. The actual Pharmacy Techs and Volunteers are about to tear her a new one for breaking in again.
Not actually working for the pharmacy as pharmacists/techs, but definitely might have volunteers (either for the pharmacy or (more likely) for a third-party probably-charitable organization partnering with the pharmacy) to give out free condoms and do safer sex education
Regardless, we know full well that this drive is Roz’s brainchild.
Deffo. This absolutely has Roz’s fingerprints all over it.
Yep. Pharmacy techs in the US require certification, which takes weeks of classes, an exam, and then waiting forever for the certificate. (Or at least it did when I did it a decade ago.) Not something that a college freshman is likely to do.
Even if you could, you can’t legally handle the drugs without proper certifications
I’ve worked in the medical field before, as a nursing aide, they were very strict about only the nurses/doctors being allowed to even touch the medication
Off topic, but apparently there’s extra training for those handling chemo pills.
Too soon.
We know you’re fucking month!
Irrationally afraid this is going to be another episode of “Roz is cartoonishly awful now and basically exists to spark trashfire comments sections”.
Roz actually already had her moment. She somehow clocked Joyce was going on BC almost instantly and gave her some advice. I can’t imagine her being awful about this. Safe sex and women’s sexual freedom and autonomy is kind of her whole deal.
Yeah, it’s more her tendency to make everything about that (and thus about her) that’s toxic.
In this situation, I imagine she’d actually be respectful/useful.
See, that’s my thinking, too, I’m just irrationally paranoid when it comes to Roz’s characterization, which sometimes seems a little inconsistent. Plus, I’m not the only person guessing this.
I don’t think it’s inconsistent. I think Roz is a minor antagonist. She’s meant to make people upset. Sometimes it seems like maybe she lacks common sense though, like arguing the silver lining of a fraction of her dorm mates being kidnapped is that her sister lost her congressional campaign, in a room full of those kidnap victims, two of which’s father’s died.
I feel like we’re supposed to draw parallels to her and Robin, the irony being that she hates Robin’s traits but shares many of them, including the lack of common sense, and ability to read the room and generally being self absorbed.
I don’t think we’re supposed to view her as a good or bad person, she’s just a person who has decent views but is also kind of a dick. She’s a human. People tend to forget that just because a character has decent views doesn’t mean they should automatically be a good person too.
Unsolicited, tone-deaf advice while also casually revealing stuff that Joyce was obviously hesitant to talk about in public, yes.
Roz and her sister are two characters who were kind of out of Willis’ hands these past five years. The political events have dramatically changed the perspective of, “Activist who seems alarmist at danger to women’s rights by the Religious Right” and “Crooked right wing politician who, nevertheless, serves the status quo.”
Yeah, now more than ever I hope Roz will halt her transformation into one-note Becky punching bag. She’s a really important foil for Dorothy and her “nerfing” has come at Dorothy’s expense.
Is that not just half the cast?
i-is that garfield
Yes, I do believe that is Garfield. I didn’t know they made birth control posters with Garfield.
Garfield is actually perfect for this.
???? fuckin killing me!!! ????
….I have questions about Jim Davis’ grasp of biology.
I know a Garfield poster would be highly effective at stopping *me* from reproducing…
You might be surprised:
https://youtu.be/KK3Yr80lPOY
Anyone familiar with “Sexy Garfield” from MBMBAM?
stick it in
i hate mondays
I NEED a high res of this omg
I think Garfield is the state animal of Indiana.
I never realized how deep Garfield runs in Indiana until I watched this lost media road trip documentary by Quinton Reviews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxiwjaUSYJM
This is bringing back memories of when I fell asleep in the Sex Ed talk during freshman orientation and then woke up when they started throwing condoms into the audience and one hit me in the face.
I honestly did not see this coming, can we just go back to Danny and Sal? They give me life with how cute they are together.
I admit I am much more into Joyce and Dorothy on this.
“we know why you are here”
What kind of fool puts that up to make people feel better?
that’s like saying that you’re gonna put it in your discreet non S shaming bag, and you put it in a large cloth bag with the words “I HAVE S E X AND NEED BIRTH CONTROL” in large RGB lights.
It’s not even true. Most people at a pharmacy are there fore very different reasons.
Is this just in Joyce’s head?
Who the fuck starts a conversation like that? I just sat down!
Seems a bit over the top/draws unnecessary attention unless they’re handing out free condoms and an extra months’ worth of prescription to make up for it lol
though it would make me curious if we’ll actually get to see joyce hook up with anyone within the run of this comic
Except for the part where they didn’t say they were going to put in the discreet non S shaming bag.
I think the point is that it shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of and keeping it discreet actually reinforces the shaming part.
I’m not sure this is the best way to go about it.
This whole display with all the posters and decorations and stuff is a good way to embarrass the fuck out of lots of people, no matter whether they’re going to the pharmacy for a prescription of birth control or something else.
But you shouldn’t be embarrassed! So we’re going to talk VERY LOUDLY about the thing until you stop being embarrassed about it!
Helping!
/s
*actual Muzak is playing, for once*
…Damn, that’s good.
You’ve been waiting your whole life for this joke, haven’t you
Actual, actual, capital M Muzak?
I think it’s “your (sic) lite and easy favorites”, akin to what happened to all the Beautiful Music stations in the 1980s.
The fascinating thing is there are streams and uploads of the real thing from Muzak, Seabury, Woolworth’s, and others everywhere. You can hear this in the 2020s much more easily than, say, the mid-aughts.
DID YOU KNOW: September actually is Sexual Health Awareness Month?
Wait is February actually Sexual Activity Awareness Month?
I’m confused LOL ?
No, I don’t think that’s a real thing.
https://nationaltoday.com/sexual-health-month/
In fact, yes, it is SEXUAL HEALTH MONTH
What? Yeah?
Sorry, badly phrased, “No, Yumi is entirely correct. This is a real thing.”
huh some scene jumps
Joyce is angry and in pain and telling Dorothy to fuck off -> Joyce is happily showing Dorothy her comics on the student paper -> Joyce is upset again and being somewhat forced into getting the pills though she’s highly uncomfortable
I really have trouble following how much time has elapsed between each of these jumps, and why they seem so random
Not the first time Joyce’s excitement at being a published cartoonist helped her power through the pain for a bit
I suspect that the authorial intent here is that Joyce isn’t actually all that mad at her friends for fussing over her as she woke (at least, not nearly as mad as the comments section was).
Joyce understands that they really do all care about her, even if they were a little much today. So we don’t get panels of her shifting her mood and understanding. She’s already over it.
This is either someone Joyce knows who works there and is trying to make things even harder for her, OR it’s some religious fucknugget who is intentionally trying to shame women into not getting their birth control pills.
Alternatively, Roz is doing a stunt.
I don’t know, despite being weird as hell, the messages seem to indicate this is made by people who believe in sex before marriage. We all know that kind of thinking doesn’t go well with many religious people across the world.
Except for “we know why you’re here” this seems pretty typical for a sexual health awareness setup. Well, that and it being at the actual pharmacist’s counter.
Joyce you’re gonna wanna get that green condition checked out. good thing you’re already there.
“hi, do you sell anything for debilitating sexual shame?”
Amazing that the one that sent me is not “time for your dental dam” but Garfield with “Stick it in”. Who let Fatal Farm in, along with the posters above?
Guess this answers some people’s questions. Joyce stuck in some of the pain.
Trying to make sense of all the signs, clockwise, from top left, outside in:
-“what time is it? / time for your dental dam”
-“safe sex / it can be a mouthful”
-“a pill a day / keeps the babies away”
-“no slut shaming / not even you”
-“Sexual Activity Awareness Month”
–(very unintelligible)
-“–y mot–” / ashamed my action”
-“PRESCRIPTION / pick-up / SAFE SEX IS BEST SEX”
-“STICK IT IN”
-“sex all the time / consequence free”
-“PRACTICE SAFE SEX / SAFE SEX IS BEST SEX”
-“cover your cough / and your genitals”
-“WE KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE
i think “sex all the time, consequence free” is my favourite
is it completely inappropriate? hell yeah
Okay, so I basically assumed that panel three (and the words carried over to panel four) were more “what Joyce is seeing” than what’s actually there? But it seems like many people are thinking this is, in fact, what’s being displayed. I get how people might have that reading, the “character sees something else” hasn’t been done a lot here (maybe once?). But I don’t think what’s show is what’s actually happening. Guess we’ll find tomorrow.
I mean, I just assume this is an incredibly misguided attempt to be progressive.
Either that or Roz is the girl at the pharmacy counter.
That’s what I’m figuring (the first part, not the Roz thing). The “No Slut Shaming” banner doesn’t feel like something that Joyce would imagine, and every one of those bits feels, on the whole, like an earnest and honest, if trying way too hard, effort at being welcoming and non-judgmental.
Joyce is just taking it all in the worst way possible, and it’s WONDERFUL :D.
The “we know why your really here” banner was probably someone’s idea of playful but ironically does come off as judgemtal since it implies anyone who says their not there to avoid pregnancy is a liar.
Yeah, if this was just Joyce’s imagination, it would be much more shaming, instead of the opposite. The “we know why you’re here” one would fit, but none of the rest could come out of her upbringing.
Doubt she’d even know to imagine a dental dam.
Yes, I can believe someone thought this was a good idea.
In fact, I’m specifically reminded of a video I was shown in school sex ed, which showed an embarassed teenaged boy trying to buy condoms but chickening out, and captions showing that the chemist shop assistant was thinking “He wants to buy some condoms”. And as with an awful lot of safe sex PSAs of the time, my reaction was “And this is supposed to make me feel less embarassed about condoms how, exactly?”
I also think this is Joyce’s perception, as when we saw a panel full of Ryans who were really just people walking around campus.
I don’t know, the framing of the comic doesn’t really support that read. The entire strip is written as a joke, with Dorothy’s insistence that it won’t be a big deal (set-up) being immediately subverted by panel 3 (punchline). The joke doesn’t work if Dorothy isn’t also seeing this and thus being proven wrong.
I’m with you on this, but yeah we’ll find out tomorrow.
It’s right above the counter where you can see it with your own eyes.
i mean, it’s comedic hyperbole i think?
irl there might be a one or two posters saying “safe sex is dope” with a picture of a smiling couple or whatever which would still freak someone like Joyce out.
Garfield is the crowning jewel on a crowning jewel of a comic.
I applaud you, Willis, you magnificent bastard.
…okay, I know the smiling woman with glasses in those two posters looks familiar, but I can’t quite place her.
Until I noticed that the hairstyle is different, I thought Joyce was seeing herself in those images.
Looks a bit like roz.
The signage (especially Garfield’s) is giving me strong Sex Criminals vibes.
“Sexual Gary says having sex is ???!”
Roz is responsible for this somehow, isn’t it.
Wow, I can FEEL the ‘How could this happen to me’ energy.
Joyce is mortified because Garfield is the inferior orange sassy cat.
If I’m putting myself in Joyce’s shoes, this is when I’m just gonna start laughing. Though she may be mortified in the actual comic right now, I feel she’s going to be “I can’t take this day seriously anymore.”
okay. that’s it. willis, it’s time to retire, you’re never going to top that garfield poster.
I do not enjoy Stick-It-In Garfield.
STICK IT IN
That avatar is just PERFECT BTW ?
Wow. subtle
I was struggling to put this into words while the discussion was going on for the 27th of August, so hopefully this makes sense:
Birth control pills, as used to regulate cycles rather than just preventing pregnancies, do NOT go into effect right away. You’re not going to see the desired effects of reduced pain and reduced flow until at least the next cycle (for the record, for the effect of preventing pregnancies you might want to wait TWO menstrual cycles while taking the pills consistently for maximum effectiveness) [also for the record, I am not a doctor nor a pharmacist, always consult your healthcare provider with questions about this, etc]
This is all to say that no matter what, Joyce was going to be in pain for this menstrual cycle. There was nothing to be done about that except taking over the counter pain medication.
So Joyce’s friends’ insistence (particularly Dorothy’s) to get this medication RIGHT NOW RIGHT AWAY, strikes me as cruel an unnecessary. Why? What’s so important about doing it right now? Why do it when Joyce is physical pain AND having mental anguish about the implications of taking medication that she was taught was literally evil? What is it going to solve?
There’s perhaps an argument to be made of “ripping the bandaid off” in the sense that it’s sometimes better to take the plunge on these painful (heh) decisions than to keep agonizing over them eternally without making progress. But that’s certainly NOT Dorothy’s decision to make, especially about a body that’s not her own.
There were a few commenters saying that forcing Joyce is the ONLY way to get this done (as shown with the glasses arc), and this was for her own good. Given that the comic has started the conversation on Joyce’s possible neurodivergence, that’s something that’s fucking uncomfortable to hear: that a neurodivergent person needs to be FORCED to acquire and take medication they are not comfortable with “for their own good”. That it’s correct for a neurotypical person to make this decision and force it, because the ends justify the means.
Re: neurodivergence, ableism ahoy ?
Today, Joyce has made a federal issue out of 1) taking pills, 2) the immorality of “the very concept of anything related to sex” up to and including birth control, and 3) getting out of bed. That she still HAS any friends is pretty impressive.
I will say as long as people are willing to even talk to her, I can cut them some slack in how they deal with her neuroses. Arguments such as “it might teach her better if she has to deal with this while she’s still in pain from trying to not deal with it” will pass through their minds, though it’s really probably post hoc justification for being cruel just because she’s annoying and they want her to stop.
Ultimately it’s a question if you give a shit. I’ve been in Joyce’s place, largely, but my friends didn’t bother; they just left me instead. Whatever bad and ineffective and quasi-abusive ways they go about helping you, I will say it’s better than the alternative of being alone and having to deal with all your own bullshit alone. I think it matters more that people care about you at all; then they will still have time to figure out the nuances of effective and respectful support.
Wait, I should have specified her problems are BOTH the physical sensation of swallowing pills and the vague idea of “drugs are bad” holding a lot of power, AND BOTH the vague idea of “sex is bad” and the fear random people will judge her because they might think she is having sex.
So more like five federal cases. That are just the ones judged in court SO FAR TODAY, beyond like a hundred others they’ve dealt with in the past. You can see why it’s really hard being Joyce’s friend right now.
People going through a rough time and having trouble handling it, they don’t deserve friends, you’re so right and you’re so brave to say it.
I’m not talking about anyone deserving anything. That seems to be a common problem with how people misunderstand things I post here, so let me say this as clearly as possible: I never talk about what anyone deserves. I don’t care about what people deserve. I don’t believe any person, living, dead or imagined, deserves anything, besides living in a cave, eating dirt and dying at 25 from a minor infection.
Jesus, that’s bleak.
I care about what people can do for each other, and what we need from each other. Everyone needs friends, especially people like me and Joyce who have a hard time figuring out how they work. How you managed to get the idea I think her friends should ditch her from my post about how her friends are bravely but cluelessly trying to help her, I have no idea, but I really don’t think I can have been that unclear.
YES
a podcast i follow called “Philosophize This” had a recent episode about the ethics of care (i’m going somewhere with this). and it described how it was theorized by Carol Gilligan in the 70s in response to questionable conclusions drawn by another psychologist who was trying to test the moral sense of children, and he found that, woopsie, girls tend to be less moral than boys on average? and she was like, “bro, your framework is the issue here”.
the host of the podcast gave this typical example, where to the question “would you steal a drug in a pharmacy in order to save someone’s life?” a boy said, yes, absolutely, if it’s life and death yeah (and the psychologist graded that as displaying advanced morals), and a girl said, “no, i would try to figure out another way, i would ask friends for money, or i would plead with the pharmacist” etc, and when the interrogator made the conditions more and more stringent (no one has money to lend you, etc) she was like “look i don’t know what to tell you, i think stealing is wrong” and she stuck to that stance, which the guy ranked as her having low moral autonomy.
and Gilligan said, that’s because girls and women are encouraged to think of practical solutions that involve caring for interpersonal relationships, they don’t tend to reason quite as much in terms of individual rights and wrongs and kantian imperatives and such. she made it clear that this was socially constructed, and it’s not a strictly gendered dichotomy, but the fact that western ethical theory had been dominated by dudes explains, according to her, why no one had had that insight before.
Now my point is, i found this illuminating because i have been bogged down in exactly this kind of disagreement on this board several times. with folks like Spencer typically (love you bro, pls come back <3) who whip out should's and deserve's all the time and i'm like "listen i just don't think in those terms???" but that message never came across.
(and i don't think one way of reasoning is good and the other bad, yeah, i'm just saying it's useful to have ways of naming the ethical frameworks we use so that we can understand one another, if only to agree to disagree.)
(anyway, here’s a hilarious Slate advice column where a parent asks their toddler the trolley problem and takes their (buckwild) answer way too seriously)
The Trolley Problem is actually pretty easy to solve.
First, find out if these are people you actually want to bother keeping alive. I don’t know about you, but if Kissinger is lying on the tracks, my question is if after I run him over I can reverse. Just to make sure.
Second, presuming these ARE people you want to keep alive, flip the switch a couple of times so you can get a notion of how fast the tracks switch.
Third, when the trolley is coming up to switch, pull the lever so that when the trolley reaches the switching track that piece is in the process of moving and therefore not connected to either track, thereby derailing it.
Congratulations, you’ve solved the Trolley Problem.
Oopsie you’ve killed or maimed a good deal of the passengers!
The passengers were Nazis.
That’s a trolley that’s about to make a curve, if it’s going fast enough that people can’t just jump out of it safely then it’d either derail when curving or when running over bodies anyway.
I’m mostly just picking up on you being really judgmental. 🙁
Thanks, I often worry I judge myself too harshly but having other people judge me for being too judgmental gives me a nice clear area in which to work to improve myself, if I can untangle the paradox.
Joyce is really nice as a general rule? I hope that helps you sort it out.
I really must emphasize the part of “why must this be done RIGHT NOW, RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT”
I’m seriously asking: what’ the benefit of doing this TODAY instead of three or five days from now, when Joyce symptoms have subsided a bit?
I’m sorry your friends didn’t help/left, Amelie.
IIRC Joyce doesn’t feel this sort of crippling pain and discomfort every period, it comes every few months or so (remember Becky counting down how many months it’s been?) so while the pills can’t sort out anything CURRENTLY, better she start now and get the ball rolling so that a few months down the line when the crippling would return, it won’t, because the pills have already started working.
Also, as someone who is neuroatypical in some way: getting me to do something as soon as possible is beneficial because the longer I leave it the less likely it is to get done.
Maybe friends are thinking: if you don’t start today or tomorrow, you’re going to go through this again next month before the med.s start helping?
I really must emphasize the part of “why must this be done RIGHT NOW, RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT?”
I’m seriously asking: what’ the benefit of doing this TODAY instead of three or five days from now, when Joyce symptoms have subsided a bit?
Because the sooner you start them, the sooner they’ll be effective. Nothing’s going to help her this cycle but as you said, it can take a bit for them to kick in – sometimes a couple months. Joyce’s period seems to be really bad every second or third month so getting it started quicker means a better chance of relief for next time.
As for people forcing her to do things she’s uncomfortable with – Joyce, herself, has said it is sometimes necessary for her friends to do this. People noting something Joyce herself says is necessary and saying maybe her friends should get her to do the unpleasant but necessary thing she doesn’t want to do are going by something Joyce herself said.
Also, I’d be worried that with the immediate crisis behind her, it’d be easier to just keep putting it off, resulting in her not ever going to get them.
Nobody forces Joyce to do this.
That conversation ended with Joyce telling them to back off, and Dorthy saying, “Sure”. Sarah and Becky don’t really take her anger seriously but no one continues to argue with her about it.
Joyce changes her mind when she follows up with “I don’t need help” but then has to ask for a pad.
She should have just had the prescription sent to Walgreens or something
Joyce: YES I AM HERE FOR MY DENTAL DAM (…that’s just a tooth hygiene thing… right Dorothy?…) OH GOD
The look on her faaaaace….priceless!
Dorothy, quick! Hold Joyce’s hands as you’ve promised.
Of course we know why: It’s for your health!
“no slut shaming? not even YOU”
“W E K N O W W H Y Y O U ‘ R E H E R E”
I’m getting some mixed messages here
oh no
who is there
A pharmacist, hopefully.
Also maybe Roz is there helping with signage and messaging.
Mary and Peter could be there too, with their own signage and messaging.
lol you’d think this s a thing dorothy would know about a head of time lol xD
Dorothy, you should really know better by now than to set yourself up for an ironic reveal moment like that.
I for one think Dorothy did a stellar job with the comforting. Not her fault the universe loves to joke at Joyce’s expense.
I can just imagine Willis cackling wildly while storyboarding this sequence. Drawing it must have felt like playing Bugs in Duck Amuck.
One cannot die of embarrassment, but Joyce is going to give it the old college try.
Oh no! The shock was so huge that Joyce died and suddenly became a zombie! Dorothy, RUN! She wants your brain now!
“We know why you’re here”
hormones make for whore moans
we all know the horniest molecule is DNA helicase,
…cause it wants to unzip your genes
Well, this is a very unfortunate coincidence…
Hah! New Joyce reaction image just—*reads alt text* hey
Yeah, Willis and Ana beat me to it, too.
I feel so seen, man.
The slogan “No Slut Shaming…Not Even You” (and the illustration) could have used a second draft.
I would love a hi-res of those posters.
“Safe sex – it can be a mouthful” is genius, though.
That made me laugh too, but that only applies to pregnancy. ;P
Don’t worry, Joyce! That poster up there says “no slut shaming”!
Which doesn’t rule out shaming someone who ISN’T a slut, so Joyce still has to worry.
In other words ” FOOOOOOOORNICATION! JUDGEMENT! WHOOOOOOORE!”
Great, now I want to see a Joyce’s-perspective view of this scene with all the posters changed to that effect.
This road to hell sure is nice. I wonder what it’s paved with?
Whatever you want, because hell doesn’t regulate infrastructure. That’s part of why it’s hell.
Unless you ran a construction company in your life, then the regulations constantly change but must be strictly adhered to anyway.
I don’t know, but whatever material they’re using, it’s got to have high tensile strength. At least, I’ve heard that it’s good in tension.
Reltzik.
that was devilish ?
Actually, if Joyce could have bulked up a little while turning green, she would have won the lead role in She Hulk after all…
On another note, Sexual Health Awareness Month is apparently in September. But I assume there was no way to fit that joke in that month.
Feels a bit counterproductive to call it something that acronyms to SHAM, though.
haha well spotted XD
But THIS is Sexual ACTIVITY Awareness Month. Which might just be an educational effort by local health professionals rather than any sort of national movement. The two are different, even if they sound a bit saamy.
Is there a higher resolution of that Garfield “Stick it in” poster? Because that’s hilarious XD
For added hilarity, I found myself imagining “We know why you’re here” as delivered by Roderick Spode.
I am a fan of the Garfield poster.
But chances are that Roz will be working behind the counter, as a volunteer; informing people about sex/sexuality is her thing. And I doubt that you need to be a Pharmacologist to ring up, and hand out prescriptions, you just need to be one to fill out the prescriptions.
WOW. HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Joyce’s face gives me life
…Roz is behind the counter, isn’t she?
In fact, I’m willing to go as far as saying Roz owns the whole clinic.
The woman on the poster at the bottom left of panel 3 looks kinda like Joyce with curly hair.
Why do you get a month for awareness when we only get a week, and the other eleven months of the year you won’t let us forget how gross you are anyway?
I thought she was letting out a horror-ghost shriek of ‘We know why’ until I realised that was not Joyce, that was literally what was put up on the wall. It goes so well with her expression that I am pretending she shrieked that.
well duh, you live in a college town, OF COURSE the pharmacy is going to be a huge participant in safe sex awareness. I was afraid that we’d run into the situation where the CVS employees refuse to sell contraceptives to women “for religious reasons” (which is like a vegan mcdonalds employee refusing to sell burgers) but though the potential for commentary would be great it wouldn’t fit in with this comic’s universe.
yeah this is not ideal??? question mark? but it is way better than some alternatives.
Can we get an close up of panel 3? I’m trying to read all of the posters and signs.
The top row:
‘What time is it? Time for your dental dam.’
‘Safe sex. It can be a mouthful.’
‘A pill a day keeps the babies away.’
‘No slut shaming. Not even you.’
The bottom left corner poster which is cut off at the start: ‘- all the time. Consequence free.’
The poster next to that, blurred: ‘Stick it in.’
The words at the very back: ‘We know why you are here.’
The red sign with the bottom part partially blurred: ‘Practice safe sex. Safe sex is best sex.’
Everything else is too cut-off, small or blurred to be read.
Ask and you shall receive!
https://twitter.com/damnyouwillis/status/1566481572781588480
Is the last panel diegetic or not?
…nevermind, just picked up on the penultimate panel. Nonetheless, we’ve established that literally everyone thinks Joyce wants to boff Dorothy.
it’s Feelings For Your Best Friend Awareness Month!
Dorothy: *surprise Pikachu face*
This seems a little… much. Especially since doing the oingo-boingo isn’t the only thing these pills are for.
*GASP* Maybe it’s a scare tactic to ward away subconscious women so they won’t have to answer questions they’ve probably heard over a billion times?! /s
high-res of panel 3 just dropped on Dumblr of Age!
“my mom is ashamed of my actions ?”
well, not panel 3 exactly, just the background
“no one cares”
but accuracy
All this shit is actually why I think the majority of these products should be termed “menstrual control” since that is what it does and it’s what a lot of people use it for unrelated to sexual activity. Look at how global warming is now referred to as climate change because “global warming” doesn’t match the expectation of the common person.
No amount of “well no one should be shaming people for sexual activity” changes the fact that a. people judge and b. these medications are often taken by people regardless of sexual activity. The implication is unfair to the actual function of the medication and the person taking it.
@david m Willis: I am having a tough time of it with my mum in hospital with double pneumonia and lots of disability service stress. Thank you for another wonderful comic
so sorry to hear that Florence! ?
I hope she comes out OK.
these are the worst best signs