Becky is going to feel really betrayed, after threatening Dorothy most of the semester.
Zaxares
I’ve always said that my biggest worry against the Dorothy/Joyce ship was that it would absolutely DESTROY Becky, because Joyce’s reason at the time for turning down Becky was simply “I don’t swing that way.” So now she does have feelings for Dorothy, which to Becky will seem like a “Oh, so you’ll be gay for Dorothy but not for ME? Your bestest friend since childhood?” Becky’s handled things very well given everything that’s occurred, but she very clearly still carries a torch for Joyce and this news will be devastating for her, I’m sure.
TerribleTransit
Joyce’s reason at the time was simply ‘I really don’t feel the same way about you’, not ‘I don’t swing that way’. That’s mostly a pedantic, point, though, because no matter what Joyce said, Becky heard ‘I’m not into girls’
Sharizard
Side note, but boy how Becky has changed since her earlier appearances.
But yeah, 100% that some part of Becky’s mind thinks that if Joyce was gay they’d be together.
This new favourite couple better not destroy my actual favourite couple.
Notably Joyce is still not saying she’s not into girls there. Becky makes that assumption and uses that as framing for her question about Dorothy, but Joyce only really answers the “why were you hiding her” question without engaging with the “not into girls” bit.
Ed Callahan
But at that point of the strip, Joyce was straight. Willis was following his original route guideline that sexual orientation of characters didn’t change from the previous strips. Still, Willis designed his characters carefully enough that when he decided to drop that particular guideline it didn’t seem arbitrary when Joyce’s girl crush on Dorothy turned into physical love/romance. But I’m going to miss Joe/Joyce.
And Dexter/Monkey Master.
Joyce has never been straight. (Well, maybe back in the beginning when she was being written by Baby Fundie Willis…) She was just making use of her bisexual invisibility powers because her designated OTP in the Walkyverse was a dude. But Anti-Joyce didn’t come out of nowhere…
Li
I’m like 90% sure Willis has said that readers should feel free to interpret Anti-Joyce’s interest in women, from back in IW, as evidence that she’s bi.
It wasn’t intended that way when they wrote the original story, but like? I could swear there was commentary on the strips NOW to that effect, on the IW site.
Kazuma Shouri
which is to say that Becky’s always seen this coming
like her friendly animosity with Dotty hasn’t been purely for show
Morrison
Willis said “oh god oh god i’m so sorry becky i’ll make joyce gay if it makes you stop crying oh god please stop don’t be sad” so since he made Joyce gay Becky better not cry.
Yarrr
Delicious, delicious drama!
Adam Black
Another Gay couple cant get together because it would hurt the feelings of 3rd person who has sexual entitlement ? Very Tired Trope. already done to death with Danny Ethan.
Becky is the most stably partnered person in the entire strip. Shes planning on getting married. It will be fine. shes had 7+ years of comics to accept this.
Being Gay doesnt mean you will automatically have attraction and sex with every person who asks. ( Some people , experimenting straights seem to think this is how it works. )
“it would absolutely DESTROY Becky” Like Joyce becoming Atheist ?
“because Joyce’s reason at the time for turning down” Nobody needs a reason. Thats incel logic.
“So now she does have feelings for Dorothy”, ( YES )
“which to Becky will seem like a “Oh, so you’ll be gay for Dorothy but not for ME? ” ( the answer to that is yes )
“Your bestest friend since childhood?” and sister is a GOOD Reason not have sex with someone. Backed up by science. Incest taboo is real.
Most people naughys bits dont light up for childhood chums. Jocelyne adopting her as a “real ass sister” should have put a stake thru this ship.
“Becky’s handled things very well” has she tho? She hasnt given Joyce room to change.
You think her acceptance of Joyce is based on Incel and Friendzone Logic, or entitlement to sex ?
Shes been a toxic roommate to Dorothy despite Dorothy getting kidnapped by her father and sharing that trauma. Her continued passive aggression to Dorothy suggest otherwise.
Plus it turns out Becky was right, and Joyce might have same sex feelings. and she would probably never get there without dating men and loosening up about sex ( which both Joe and Dorothy helped her ).
‘My crush likes someone else’ is something everyone has to learn sooner or later. The Truth is she would feel worse if Joyce dated her then suddenly dumped her with no warning for Dorothy.
I think Becky will be upset for a day. But more annoyed Dorothy swooped in and interfered with Joyce getting with Joe, a project she has spearheaded to help Joyce get over her sexual inhibitions purity culture training. or for Walky who she is also friends with. But then be Thrilled she can share being girl loving with Joyce. She lost pastime as a hobby. besides Becky has a Much better chance NOT being the girl Joyce experimented with, and. Unfortunately its Dina, Joe and walky wil be the ones getting hurt.
Hexx
I’m genuinely worried about Joe. He’s been trying so hard to be better, and he’s done such a good job. He’s either going to be completely devastated or be weirdly okay with it if Joyce decides on both…
Tofusmith
Hot take–I actually think Becky will be fine with this. Like, yeah, it’s an emotional gut punch, but she’s got a thing going with Dina that she’s very into now
Joe, on the other hand, is going to be absolutely wrecked, while pretending he’s not
Especially when you realize they’ve been out without their cell phones for hours. Odds are there’s gonna be like everybody relevant waiting for them altogether. Sarah, Becky, Walky, Dina, Joe. Maybe even ruth or Billie as well. (Ruth’s first reaction might be to try to dump walky on Dorothy’s behalf and finally get the chance she’s been waiting for).
Aha! So it has occurred to them that Becky is going to be upset.
I feel like this is going to strain Becky’s and Dina’s relationship a bit when Becky finds out Joyce is into ladies, and Dina feels like she’s just Becky’s second choice.
I feel like Becky will react well immediately unless they try to hide it, then she’ll be hurt. Tbh I can even see her just being happy to support sapphics, Becky is absolutely a hype woman.
At whatever point she has to think it over and make the connection between lifelong sexuality being fluid, she’ll react very poorly.
very true, even if Becky is a little bit “are you fucking serious” she’s also going to be very much “it’s ok if we had been together I wouldn’t have met Dina and the universe would be wrong” ~<3
Jerach
I think that’s definitely an interesting take. It makes sense that she might actually be more upset having to so directly confront the reality of fluid sexuality than any of the other aspects of this.
I visualize Becky saying, “I have the best dinosaur girl in the world, and we have a little two-person pool on when you two would give in and admit your love. Bone whom you please.” Except Becky wouldn’t say “whom.”
Dina and Joe have a solid friendship, and him getting hosed by these two specifically (Dotty’s fumbling the book smarts and babying Joyce during the autism, and Joyce herself for being diagnosed so easily) ALONG with them hurting Becky?
I’m not remembering Dina and Joe’s friendship and might now have to teach myself how to do the thing where you look up strips that two specific characters are in…someone explained it a while back but I never actually did it…
BBCC
It’s super easy! Click on a character tag and add a “+othercharactername”.
Meagan
Thank you.
Yotomoe
You type in the character’s tag you wanna search and then do “+’additionalcharacter'” (no spaces)
Jay
They have a very simple but I think very deep friendship where Joe gets on Dinas level of communication and doesn’t talk down to her or make her feel less than because of how she communicates.
Uh-oh. Now I’m imagining Becky going clear off the deep end and Dina and Joe rebounding together.
Throwatron
I mean I think that would probably be good sex for Joe, but I don’t recall if Dina is actually bisexual. But, we’ve seen the evidence that Dina tends to know what she wants and how she wants it, sexually speaking, and Joe would really benefit from some sex with someone who’s secure like that.
Airyu
Dina told Becky when they first got to dating that gender/expression doesn’t matter to her
I think Becky might be hugely upset to find out Dorothy “is gay now” (Becky doesn’t know about bisexuality) even before she finds out who Dorothy’s gay now with.
Alongcameaspider
Becky does know about Bisexuality, she mentioned it when calming Joyce down when she freaked out about Ruth dating a guy
Proxiehunter
Yeah, Dorothy/Joyce being “gay now” is mostly coming from the comment section.
GholaHalleck
*Stage whisper* It’s the Biphobia inherit in the system.
Throwatron
Honestly, for me, I keep calling them lesbians, because their relationship slow-burn has been, from my perspective, tons and tons and tons of lesbian romance tropes as I understand them. The rapid platonic codependency, the not being able to tell they have feelings for one another, all that stuff is usually specifically lesbian-coded.
I think it is more likely that both of them are bi, and that it’s a bi girl relationship. But, every single named character in the strip has been clocking that their friendship scans extremely lesbian, since longer than I can possibly remember. That doesn’t mean they are lesbians, but it is why I (and I assume other people) keep invoking that kind of language.
Like I’m pretty goddamned bi, I don’t think I’m erasing anything when I point out that the two bi girls are speedrunning every lesbian romance trope from tumblr in lieu of retaining their own individual personalities.
Psychie
I was under the impression that even if both women involved are actually bisexual, the *relationship* would still be a lesbian relationship even though neither of the participants are actually lesbians. Like, I would expect you’d need at least three involved parties for the relationship to be bisexual.
Like a descriptor applied to the relationship just describes the relationship, not necessarily the participants.
Adeptus
Throwatron put a finger on it. It does feel like Joyce and Dorothy are speedrunning tropes rather than being themselves. It’s jarring to me.
BringTheBeetIn
As opposed to all the bi WLW romance tropes? lol yes that is the nature of the erasure. You don’t have to pull out your bisexual card to uno reverse the sin you’ve been accused of. It’s not personal, it’s systemic, and what you describe is the nature and mechanics of relevant system.
Proxiehunter
@Psychie So, by that standard a bisexual woman in a relationship with another woman is in a lesbian relationship while a bisexual woman in a relationship with a man is in a heterosexual relationship. Meaning that the only way to be in a bisexual relationship is to be part of a triad.
Yeah, that sort of denial of a person’s bisexuality is exactly the bi-erasure I was pointing out. A bisexual person in a relationship is in a bisexual relationship. It’s one thing to look at two women in a relationship and assume it’s a lesbian relationship when you don’t know the women. But it’s been pretty clear for a while now that Joyce and Dorothy are bi not lesbian.
Psychie
@Proxiehunter
How is it denial of a person’s bisexuality or erasure to refer to a relationship dynamic as distinct from the labels of the individuals? Is a relationship between two women that are bisexual any different from a relationship between two women that are lesbians, what would we call it if one woman was bi and the other a lesbian? Or a man/woman relationship, how is that different from a relationship between two straight people, is it different if the man is straight and the woman is bi, is the reverse configuration different from that? If I, a straight man, got a bisexual girlfriend, does that make our relationship bisexual, or straight, and if the former, does that mean I am no longer straight even though I am still a Kinsey 0 and therefore exclusively attracted to women?
If someone with a marketing degree gets a marketing job doing marketing work for an engineering company, do they suddenly become an engineer? Or does the company suddenly become a marketing company? What if an engineer with an engineering degree gets an engineering job doing engineering work for a marketing company, do they suddenly become a marketer? Or does the company suddenly become an engineering company?
Or can we accept that a descriptor applied to a group does not necessarily apply to every individual member of that group? Like, I think it’s just as ridiculous to say that a bisexual in a lesbian relationship is not a bisexual anymore as it is to say that a marketer working at an engineering firm is not a marketer anymore.
Amara
Optics wise, it doesn’t matter what someone’s actual orientation is. It’ll appear as a lesbian relationship purely because it would be tagged as f/f by Amber, and we all know that slash ficcers are the ones who make the rules.
Heatth
This strip made me realize that Joyce and Joe where not on the same pace regarding their relationship at all. Joe loves Joyce, he really does. He is doing his best to do Right by her, he is taking this relationship extremely serious.
Joyce though? I think she is just having fun. She is overcoming her sexual hangups by casually dating a friendly manwhore. This is probably the first time she ever even considered a relationship that doesn’t have marriage as the ultimate goal. I think she figured they would eventually break up later and that would be fine. So, for her, cheating on him is not that much of a Big Deal. She knows it is wrong, but I doubt she considered it would actually hurt him for real. She probably figured they would break up, bicker for a couple and then go back to being friends.
In other words, I don’t think Joye loves Joe and that makes their relationship very uneven. This, to me, is a big indication that polyamory would be a bad idea even if Joe was up to it.
Heatth
Oh, shit, I made that a reply somehow, by accident.
Li
I’ve said something along these lines a few times now. I definitely don’t think Joyce would call Joe that specific word, or anything insulting. But I do think on some level she and Liz may have had a similar view of him…?
Idk. She’s also said he’s “trying to be good” for her — what does that mean? Does she think he’ll be relieved to not have to “try” anymore? What does “be good” mean in that sentence?
kepod
I read their sentence as (be) (good for her) rather than as (be good) (for her), so an emphasis on supporting Joyce as she begins exploring sexually more, showing her tenderness, and acting in ways that benefit her by helping to allay her anxieties.
783 thoughts on “Catch”
NGPZ
… OH NO.
FaerwenOfValenwood
OH YES
Opus the Poet
Becky is going to feel really betrayed, after threatening Dorothy most of the semester.
Zaxares
I’ve always said that my biggest worry against the Dorothy/Joyce ship was that it would absolutely DESTROY Becky, because Joyce’s reason at the time for turning down Becky was simply “I don’t swing that way.” So now she does have feelings for Dorothy, which to Becky will seem like a “Oh, so you’ll be gay for Dorothy but not for ME? Your bestest friend since childhood?” Becky’s handled things very well given everything that’s occurred, but she very clearly still carries a torch for Joyce and this news will be devastating for her, I’m sure.
TerribleTransit
Joyce’s reason at the time was simply ‘I really don’t feel the same way about you’, not ‘I don’t swing that way’. That’s mostly a pedantic, point, though, because no matter what Joyce said, Becky heard ‘I’m not into girls’
Sharizard
Side note, but boy how Becky has changed since her earlier appearances.
But yeah, 100% that some part of Becky’s mind thinks that if Joyce was gay they’d be together.
This new favourite couple better not destroy my actual favourite couple.
Steamweed
Emotionally that could be what she heard.
But she also heard this, like, two minutes later:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/forever/
TerribleTransit
Notably Joyce is still not saying she’s not into girls there. Becky makes that assumption and uses that as framing for her question about Dorothy, but Joyce only really answers the “why were you hiding her” question without engaging with the “not into girls” bit.
Ed Callahan
But at that point of the strip, Joyce was straight. Willis was following his original route guideline that sexual orientation of characters didn’t change from the previous strips. Still, Willis designed his characters carefully enough that when he decided to drop that particular guideline it didn’t seem arbitrary when Joyce’s girl crush on Dorothy turned into physical love/romance. But I’m going to miss Joe/Joyce.
And Dexter/Monkey Master.
John Campbell
Joyce has never been straight. (Well, maybe back in the beginning when she was being written by Baby Fundie Willis…) She was just making use of her bisexual invisibility powers because her designated OTP in the Walkyverse was a dude. But Anti-Joyce didn’t come out of nowhere…
Li
I’m like 90% sure Willis has said that readers should feel free to interpret Anti-Joyce’s interest in women, from back in IW, as evidence that she’s bi.
It wasn’t intended that way when they wrote the original story, but like? I could swear there was commentary on the strips NOW to that effect, on the IW site.
Kazuma Shouri
which is to say that Becky’s always seen this coming
like her friendly animosity with Dotty hasn’t been purely for show
Morrison
Willis said “oh god oh god i’m so sorry becky i’ll make joyce gay if it makes you stop crying oh god please stop don’t be sad” so since he made Joyce gay Becky better not cry.
Yarrr
Delicious, delicious drama!
Adam Black
Another Gay couple cant get together because it would hurt the feelings of 3rd person who has sexual entitlement ? Very Tired Trope. already done to death with Danny Ethan.
Becky is the most stably partnered person in the entire strip. Shes planning on getting married. It will be fine. shes had 7+ years of comics to accept this.
Being Gay doesnt mean you will automatically have attraction and sex with every person who asks. ( Some people , experimenting straights seem to think this is how it works. )
“it would absolutely DESTROY Becky” Like Joyce becoming Atheist ?
“because Joyce’s reason at the time for turning down” Nobody needs a reason. Thats incel logic.
“So now she does have feelings for Dorothy”, ( YES )
“which to Becky will seem like a “Oh, so you’ll be gay for Dorothy but not for ME? ” ( the answer to that is yes )
“Your bestest friend since childhood?” and sister is a GOOD Reason not have sex with someone. Backed up by science. Incest taboo is real.
Most people naughys bits dont light up for childhood chums. Jocelyne adopting her as a “real ass sister” should have put a stake thru this ship.
“Becky’s handled things very well” has she tho? She hasnt given Joyce room to change.
You think her acceptance of Joyce is based on Incel and Friendzone Logic, or entitlement to sex ?
Shes been a toxic roommate to Dorothy despite Dorothy getting kidnapped by her father and sharing that trauma. Her continued passive aggression to Dorothy suggest otherwise.
Plus it turns out Becky was right, and Joyce might have same sex feelings. and she would probably never get there without dating men and loosening up about sex ( which both Joe and Dorothy helped her ).
‘My crush likes someone else’ is something everyone has to learn sooner or later. The Truth is she would feel worse if Joyce dated her then suddenly dumped her with no warning for Dorothy.
I think Becky will be upset for a day. But more annoyed Dorothy swooped in and interfered with Joyce getting with Joe, a project she has spearheaded to help Joyce get over her sexual inhibitions purity culture training. or for Walky who she is also friends with. But then be Thrilled she can share being girl loving with Joyce. She lost pastime as a hobby. besides Becky has a Much better chance NOT being the girl Joyce experimented with, and. Unfortunately its Dina, Joe and walky wil be the ones getting hurt.
Hexx
I’m genuinely worried about Joe. He’s been trying so hard to be better, and he’s done such a good job. He’s either going to be completely devastated or be weirdly okay with it if Joyce decides on both…
Tofusmith
Hot take–I actually think Becky will be fine with this. Like, yeah, it’s an emotional gut punch, but she’s got a thing going with Dina that she’s very into now
Joe, on the other hand, is going to be absolutely wrecked, while pretending he’s not
Andrusi
OH MAYBE
Ado
You win.
True Survivor
They’ve created to worst timeline. Now they have to get back, back to the past. Samurai … Joyce?
Ed Callahan
Joyce the Barbarian.
Amara
Especially when you realize they’ve been out without their cell phones for hours. Odds are there’s gonna be like everybody relevant waiting for them altogether. Sarah, Becky, Walky, Dina, Joe. Maybe even ruth or Billie as well. (Ruth’s first reaction might be to try to dump walky on Dorothy’s behalf and finally get the chance she’s been waiting for).
NGPZ
720+ comments?!?!??!!
HOLY SHIT
The 25th
Nah it’s chill. Everyone knew it would happen eventually. The pool is just on how long it would take.
not someone else
The faces. My god, the faces. I want them in the banner.
Tequila Mockingbird
That snarky raised eyebrow Joyce going “no,” that entire expression gives me life.
The Queer Agenda [frog memes]
The smug Joyce faces are too good.
ZombieKyrik
Aha! So it has occurred to them that Becky is going to be upset.
I feel like this is going to strain Becky’s and Dina’s relationship a bit when Becky finds out Joyce is into ladies, and Dina feels like she’s just Becky’s second choice.
ZombieKyrik
How badly do we think Becky is going to react?
It’s not a matter of *if* she gets upset it’s a matter of how upset she gets.
I would love for Becky to have a complete non-reaction like Sal.
Bittersweet
I feel like Becky will react well immediately unless they try to hide it, then she’ll be hurt. Tbh I can even see her just being happy to support sapphics, Becky is absolutely a hype woman.
At whatever point she has to think it over and make the connection between lifelong sexuality being fluid, she’ll react very poorly.
DJTsurugi
very true, even if Becky is a little bit “are you fucking serious” she’s also going to be very much “it’s ok if we had been together I wouldn’t have met Dina and the universe would be wrong” ~<3
Jerach
I think that’s definitely an interesting take. It makes sense that she might actually be more upset having to so directly confront the reality of fluid sexuality than any of the other aspects of this.
BarerMender
I visualize Becky saying, “I have the best dinosaur girl in the world, and we have a little two-person pool on when you two would give in and admit your love. Bone whom you please.” Except Becky wouldn’t say “whom.”
Michelle J Caboose
Yeah, she’d say “whomsoever”.
Bash
I think Becky is going to absolutely melt down. Remember how she freaked out when Joyce and Dorothy were hugging to prove touch can be non-sexual?
Needfuldoer
She’ll be crushed. Then she’ll be enraged.
tunasammich
I hope Becky will be like, well I have a really good girlfriend now that I love and not ruin all of that
jeffepp
It’s quite possible that Becky has seen this coming, though. Dottie having that midnight episode, and all.
mommert
I feel like Dorothy being into Joyce wouldn’t phase her much. It’s the other way around that’ll send her spiraling
Steamweed
Becky has seen this coming:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/forever/
S. Harriet
Well the alt-text a little further back did suggest making Joyce gay, but only if it made Becky *not* cry so uhhhhh xwx;
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/hindsight/
GholaHalleck
Also Joyce hurting Joe is going to set Dina off.
Dina and Joe have a solid friendship, and him getting hosed by these two specifically (Dotty’s fumbling the book smarts and babying Joyce during the autism, and Joyce herself for being diagnosed so easily) ALONG with them hurting Becky?
Meagan
I’m not remembering Dina and Joe’s friendship and might now have to teach myself how to do the thing where you look up strips that two specific characters are in…someone explained it a while back but I never actually did it…
BBCC
It’s super easy! Click on a character tag and add a “+othercharactername”.
Meagan
Thank you.
Yotomoe
You type in the character’s tag you wanna search and then do “+’additionalcharacter'” (no spaces)
Jay
They have a very simple but I think very deep friendship where Joe gets on Dinas level of communication and doesn’t talk down to her or make her feel less than because of how she communicates.
HueSatLight
https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/dina+joe
It’s around https://www.dumbingofage.com/simulation, page 4 of their appearances together. Joe’d gotten along with Dina pretty well before that.
BarerMender
Uh-oh. Now I’m imagining Becky going clear off the deep end and Dina and Joe rebounding together.
Throwatron
I mean I think that would probably be good sex for Joe, but I don’t recall if Dina is actually bisexual. But, we’ve seen the evidence that Dina tends to know what she wants and how she wants it, sexually speaking, and Joe would really benefit from some sex with someone who’s secure like that.
Airyu
Dina told Becky when they first got to dating that gender/expression doesn’t matter to her
deliverything
More specifically:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/item/
At the time, she didn’t have any male subjects she was interested in testing that hypothesis with.
Yumi
Putting this here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/tedium/
Thag Simmons
I do not think Joe is Dina’s type
Proxiehunter
I don’t know, she did sugest doing some rather memorable things to him in the name of figuring out what leads to pants feelings for her.
Astariel
On the other hand, she touched his butt and reported no reaction.
Proxiehunter
@Astariel Yeah, I think I mixed up that scene with the scene where Dina said the hottest thing any character has ever said on panel.
DJTsurugi
Dina is good friends with very few people, and Joe is one of them, I expect Dina teeth coming out. ~<3
Alongcameaspider
Yeah this plays into two of Becky’s big anxieties
1: that Dorothy is going to take her place in Joyce’s life (she’s gotten more chill about this one but this bring it back for a bit)
And 2: sexuality is not necessarily fixed and can change over time (I suspect this will be the bigger sticking point as its the more recent anxiety)
And thats without even touching any lingering feelings she might still have for Joyce or feelings on the cheating
ESM
I think Becky might be hugely upset to find out Dorothy “is gay now” (Becky doesn’t know about bisexuality) even before she finds out who Dorothy’s gay now with.
Alongcameaspider
Becky does know about Bisexuality, she mentioned it when calming Joyce down when she freaked out about Ruth dating a guy
Proxiehunter
Yeah, Dorothy/Joyce being “gay now” is mostly coming from the comment section.
GholaHalleck
*Stage whisper* It’s the Biphobia inherit in the system.
Throwatron
Honestly, for me, I keep calling them lesbians, because their relationship slow-burn has been, from my perspective, tons and tons and tons of lesbian romance tropes as I understand them. The rapid platonic codependency, the not being able to tell they have feelings for one another, all that stuff is usually specifically lesbian-coded.
I think it is more likely that both of them are bi, and that it’s a bi girl relationship. But, every single named character in the strip has been clocking that their friendship scans extremely lesbian, since longer than I can possibly remember. That doesn’t mean they are lesbians, but it is why I (and I assume other people) keep invoking that kind of language.
Like I’m pretty goddamned bi, I don’t think I’m erasing anything when I point out that the two bi girls are speedrunning every lesbian romance trope from tumblr in lieu of retaining their own individual personalities.
Psychie
I was under the impression that even if both women involved are actually bisexual, the *relationship* would still be a lesbian relationship even though neither of the participants are actually lesbians. Like, I would expect you’d need at least three involved parties for the relationship to be bisexual.
Like a descriptor applied to the relationship just describes the relationship, not necessarily the participants.
Adeptus
Throwatron put a finger on it. It does feel like Joyce and Dorothy are speedrunning tropes rather than being themselves. It’s jarring to me.
BringTheBeetIn
As opposed to all the bi WLW romance tropes? lol yes that is the nature of the erasure. You don’t have to pull out your bisexual card to uno reverse the sin you’ve been accused of. It’s not personal, it’s systemic, and what you describe is the nature and mechanics of relevant system.
Proxiehunter
@Psychie So, by that standard a bisexual woman in a relationship with another woman is in a lesbian relationship while a bisexual woman in a relationship with a man is in a heterosexual relationship. Meaning that the only way to be in a bisexual relationship is to be part of a triad.
Yeah, that sort of denial of a person’s bisexuality is exactly the bi-erasure I was pointing out. A bisexual person in a relationship is in a bisexual relationship. It’s one thing to look at two women in a relationship and assume it’s a lesbian relationship when you don’t know the women. But it’s been pretty clear for a while now that Joyce and Dorothy are bi not lesbian.
Psychie
@Proxiehunter
How is it denial of a person’s bisexuality or erasure to refer to a relationship dynamic as distinct from the labels of the individuals? Is a relationship between two women that are bisexual any different from a relationship between two women that are lesbians, what would we call it if one woman was bi and the other a lesbian? Or a man/woman relationship, how is that different from a relationship between two straight people, is it different if the man is straight and the woman is bi, is the reverse configuration different from that? If I, a straight man, got a bisexual girlfriend, does that make our relationship bisexual, or straight, and if the former, does that mean I am no longer straight even though I am still a Kinsey 0 and therefore exclusively attracted to women?
If someone with a marketing degree gets a marketing job doing marketing work for an engineering company, do they suddenly become an engineer? Or does the company suddenly become a marketing company? What if an engineer with an engineering degree gets an engineering job doing engineering work for a marketing company, do they suddenly become a marketer? Or does the company suddenly become an engineering company?
Or can we accept that a descriptor applied to a group does not necessarily apply to every individual member of that group? Like, I think it’s just as ridiculous to say that a bisexual in a lesbian relationship is not a bisexual anymore as it is to say that a marketer working at an engineering firm is not a marketer anymore.
Amara
Optics wise, it doesn’t matter what someone’s actual orientation is. It’ll appear as a lesbian relationship purely because it would be tagged as f/f by Amber, and we all know that slash ficcers are the ones who make the rules.
Heatth
This strip made me realize that Joyce and Joe where not on the same pace regarding their relationship at all. Joe loves Joyce, he really does. He is doing his best to do Right by her, he is taking this relationship extremely serious.
Joyce though? I think she is just having fun. She is overcoming her sexual hangups by casually dating a friendly manwhore. This is probably the first time she ever even considered a relationship that doesn’t have marriage as the ultimate goal. I think she figured they would eventually break up later and that would be fine. So, for her, cheating on him is not that much of a Big Deal. She knows it is wrong, but I doubt she considered it would actually hurt him for real. She probably figured they would break up, bicker for a couple and then go back to being friends.
In other words, I don’t think Joye loves Joe and that makes their relationship very uneven. This, to me, is a big indication that polyamory would be a bad idea even if Joe was up to it.
Heatth
Oh, shit, I made that a reply somehow, by accident.
Li
I’ve said something along these lines a few times now. I definitely don’t think Joyce would call Joe that specific word, or anything insulting. But I do think on some level she and Liz may have had a similar view of him…?
Idk. She’s also said he’s “trying to be good” for her — what does that mean? Does she think he’ll be relieved to not have to “try” anymore? What does “be good” mean in that sentence?
kepod
I read their sentence as (be) (good for her) rather than as (be good) (for her), so an emphasis on supporting Joyce as she begins exploring sexually more, showing her tenderness, and acting in ways that benefit her by helping to allay her anxieties.
Li
That would make sense to me!