383

Mrs Degree
Posted on January 18, 2017 by David M Willis

383 thoughts on “Mrs Degree”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    whoa wait validation, what’s that =o

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      It’s what you need so you can continue to park in certain places.

      1. nothri

        Groooooooooooan.

      2. Bickendan

        Parking license revoked.

        Well done.

        1. Janine

          …But I’m behind the wheel! HOW DO I STOP

        2. Deanatay

          Try that tree up ahead!

        3. Dark

          Tried that. Didn’t work.

          Free Christmas tree, though.

        4. Clif

          Them’s the brakes.

        5. SgtWadeyWilson

          Nonono these are, were they supposed to be inside the car?

          I’m not very good at otto-motives.

        6. Orion Fury

          Who is driving car!?

      3. BagFaceMan

        You’re my new favourite person

  2. Doctor_Who

    I’d break a bottle of champagne over this newly launched ship, but Admiral Joyce does not approve of alcohol consumption, so I’ll use Sprite.

    1. TheAnonymousGuy

      just don’t get it mixed up with sierra mist.

      1. EvilMidnightLurker

        My experience with Sierra Mist tells me that it tastes like Sprite with a little dirt mixed in.

        1. Orion Fury

          I have a feeling I’m the only one here that likes Mist Twist.

      2. Stairmasternem

        I wonder if Sierra Mist triggers bad memories for Joyce now?

    2. professordetective052996

      *grabs a bottle ofWelch’s Sparkling Grape Juice* I dub this the ‘S.S. Joycecob!’ *bottle finally breaks after seven whacks* Oh, that’s not good.

      1. Reltzik

        It’s “Joycob”, and it doesn’t launch until Jacob’s single again, because if he’d dump or cheat on his girlfriend just to satisfy this ship then he’s not right for this ship.

        1. Doctor_Who

          Ha! Shipping does not depend on both characters being available. Or having compatible personalities or sexual preferences. Or even being on the same plane of existence.

          Somebody somewhere ships Snake Eyes with Rita Repulsa, guarantee it.

        2. TheAnonymousGuy

          I get the feeling Willis is setting up a joyce and joe (you know, for real this time.)

        3. NotPiffany

          Hooray! I’m not the only one!

        4. Deanatay

          Joece was always for reals! It’s just a long-term part of the story, is all. Those two still have a lot of growing to do before they can admit their love for each other.

        5. Godfather

          Actually I could see it. And I kind of want to see it happen. It’ll be a long process, fraught with perils, but I want to see the Joyce/Joe ship float.

        6. Socks in Sandals

          If it fits, it ships.

        7. Reltzik

          Doesn’t fit. Joe wants sex primarily, and Joyce primarily does not want.

        8. Killjoy

          Sorry shippers… yesterday’s strip is probably the last and only time Joyce ever tells Joe “In with it… shove it right back in”.

        9. Deanatay

          Have to disagree, Reltzik. Joe is in denial, and Joyce is severely repressed. They are drawn to each other – just because neither of them understands why, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

    3. Taellosse

      Good luck with that. I don’t think Sprite comes in glass bottles, so it’ll be a bit of a challenge to actually break it.

      1. Benjamin Geiger

        Sprite hecho en Mexico does. 12oz bottles, but glass.

      2. TheGrammarLegionary

        Not sure about where you are, but from one end of British Columbia to the other, glass bottles of Sprite are pretty easily obtained.

    4. Schpoonman

      Actually, she went on the record as being fine with of-age alcohol consumption. Check the party where she was assaulted, her only real stopping point is that she’s underage, and I assume once she turns 21 she’d at least try beer or wine before tapping out entirely.

  3. butts

    …Huh.

    That’s really the first I’ve heard of anyone supporting what Joyce was doing. I sort of thought that was weird anyway.

    1. Foxhack

      He’s not describing Ethan and Joyce’s situation though.

      Ethan did it to hide / deny his sexuality and Joyce did it so she could “fix” him. They went into that… relationship for all the wrong reasons.

      1. Najaru

        It was also because Joyce needed someone to walk around with in order to feel safe after being assaulted. At least that’s what Amazi-Girl discovers.

        1. Kitty

          I think it may have turned into companionship without sex, at least for Joyce. Ethan was very much trying to “play” straight and be there for Joyce. But I think after the party, Joyce largely enjoyed Ethan because it did give her a relationship with the worry of sexual affection.

        2. Wraithy2773

          Right up until the marriage, maybe.

          Not to be (overly) crass, but Joyce wants boning. That’s been demonstrated multiple times in previous strips. She is not asexual, unless those previous strips have been MASSIVELY misinterpreted.

          Two people being in a relationship with incompatible sexual and/or romantic orientations? That’s a recipe for what’s colloquially termed “a complete and utter bloody mess”.

          And, as a side note? One of the more interesting parts about Joyce as a character is that she’s this straight-white-cis-christian character surrounded by a mess of characters on the LGBT spectrum. Her attitude as a “Stock Issue White Female Fictional Character” is part of what allows the strip to function as well as it does.

          I honestly think it’d lose something if Joyce turned out to not be totes-straight. Not that it’s wrong for a person to not be straight, but just in terms of this character, with this role, with these interactions, being straight gives it far more power and relevance than other orientations.

        3. CoMa

          I think you’re totally right!
          I mean, she probably either always supressed her interest in sexuality, or wasn’t that interested in it back home (also because there probably wasn’t much in her strict catholic background allowing her to experience that) + she could also simply be a late bloomer (I was like that – never really interested in sex as a teenager, just wanted a boyfriend for “emotional connection”, if one, and then in college times it slowly started creeping up to me) – so there’s that too.

          I think the only people who really know about Joyce and Ethan’s intention during the relationship were Amber, Dorothy and Sarah? So it could be that Jacob just misinterpreted the situation. But I agree, it could have been positive what Ethan and Joyce had, if it weren’t for Joyce (seemingly) discovering sexuality right now/weeks back (e.g. remember how she looked at Walky, after Dorothy told her that his upper body was muscular), and battling them out with herself on her already shaken religious ideals and beliefs.

          “Good” could have been if they’d agreed on being there for each other in platonic ways – so that Joyce could open up and get to know more about other sexualities as well as guys in general, taking her time figuring out what she really wanted and not, dealing with acceptance and tolerance + protection, and for Ethan to be there for someone, and maybe being able to rely on a female friend who wasn’t his ex and who wasn’t completely emotional unstable + his outward appearance outward, if he still wanted to not be that open about it.
          That said – all this could also simply happen when they displayed openly a close friendship without the drama.
          But for that to happen, Joyce would have already needed to have grown much more as a person regarding tolerance etc., because what they did was just brief and toxic.

        4. Kamino Neko

          her strict catholic background

          How many times does Willis have to say she’s not Catholic before people actually remember? (And how many times does she have to use specifically Protestant/Evangelical terminology? Does she have to outright call someone a papist?)

        5. Norah

          Yes, this! Many Protestant Evangelicals like Joyce barely consider Catholics as Christians!

        6. CoMa

          Whooops, sorry, I thought I wrote “religious”…

          I’m sorry, I grew up in a catholic country in Europe (so maybe that’s why I wrote “catholic” instead) and never in my life met someone with Protestant/Evangelical background – so I don’t know about the terminology, and I personally don’t read every note from the author, or can remember every part of the comic. I appreciate being corrected, thanks.

        7. BBCC

          For future reference

          Amber, Roz, Marcie = Catholic

          Joyce, Mary = Nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant

        8. CoMa

          Thank you very much!!! It’s very much appreciated!

        9. Lou

          Just to get academically nitpicky, calling them “Protestant” implies “Protestantism”, which is an actual thing, and is a bit of a stretch since it implies Joyce and Mary actually belong to a much, much larger structure of belief than they necessarily do.

          The entire point of being “non-denominational” is that you don’t have to subscribe to Protestant principles.

        10. thejeff

          I’d thought “Protestant” was a very broad umbrella grouping pretty much all the Western non-Catholic traditions. Everything descended from the Reformation basically.
          Which, non-denominational or not, includes essentially all the US fundie evangelicals types.

        11. trlkly

          My understanding is indeed that anything stemming from the Protestant Reformation counts as Protestant. Non-denominational churches, despite the name, are still directly descended from the Evangelical movement, which does trace its roots back to American Protestantism, and thus the Reformation. They just didn’t want to pick one particular branch of Evangelicalism.

          This is different from such Christian sects as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which both define a clean break from Protestant tradition. They both hold themselves as going back to a version of Christianity that predates the Reformation. The Mormons are practicing Christianity as Jesus revealed to the Native Americans (and again through Joseph Smith translating ancient documents). The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe they have rediscovered the Christianity that Jesus taught and the Apostles practiced.

          You might think that Fundamentalism would similarly consider itself separate. But, unlike the JWs, they didn’t really start over. They kept a lot of stuff from the Evangelical Movement, which was part of the Protestant Movement. They still hold on to beliefs about heaven, hell, the end times, etc, which are not actually mentioned in the Bible. What they did was get rid of what the modernist aspects, not actually start over.

          I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this stuff since starting this comic. In fact, I now know my upbringing was not Fundamentalist, but Pentecostal. And not the more fundamentalist parts of Pentecostalism. My great-grandmother was a full out female pastor.

        12. BBCC

          @ Lou – I’m using Willis’ words here.

        13. Clif

          Joyce has no strict catholic background.

        14. Clif

          By now I should know to read the replies before replying.

        15. Kitty

          I wasn’t trying to imply that Joyce isn’t straight. I was referring to the trauma she experienced after she was drugged. She clearly developed a fear of sexual contact while still simultaneously desperately needing the security that Ethan provided. She started having nightmares about it. The trauma combined with her own repressed sexuality led Joyce into a really fucked up headspace and, on some level, being with Ethan seemed to make her feel a little better about it.
          Not saying I agree with what she did or think it was right, but I think this is where Jacob is coming from.

        16. Syngraphea

          Remember when Joyce said Ethan was “safe”? I think that’s what Jacob is talking about here (not that he knows Joyce said that, but he picked up on that motivation). So being “safe” from the pressures of a boyfriend who wants sex with you (in addition to Joyce’s other original motivation of wanting to “fix” Ethan) was indeed part of Joyce’s reasons for dating Ethan. It would make it infinitely easier to follow her beliefs on waiting until marriage. I relate to Joyce so strongly about this; before and in fact at the beginning of my first ever relationship in college, I was so scared of my own sexuality that I kind of avoided boys, or thinking about boys, or admitting attraction entirely. I sought out female friendships because I thought they were “safe” (joke was on me; turned out 2 of my best friends were bi :D, though that never changed their relating to me as a friend), and never sought out a romantic partner. I had to wait for one to approach me first. At the beginning of my first relationship, I wasn’t so much scared of my boyfriend’s attraction to me as I was of my own inability to control my body’s feelings. I could no longer trust myself to stick to my principles. Joyce didn’t have to worry about her own desires betraying her with Ethan, because he would never *want* her to challenge her principles. But that was ultimately a very harmful point of view, of course, since he was never *going* to be attracted to her and he wasn’t going to magically start to want her once they got married. Seeing Joyce break out of her “safe” comfort zone at some point would be a powerful moment of character development for her.
          (Also, if you’re wondering, things are much better for me now :).

      2. Foxhack

        (… also sorry if you already know this. which you probably do already. i’ll shut up now)

      3. Lawzlo

        Yeah, something tells me that Jacob might be projecting a little.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          to be fair, who doesn’t–it’s not like we’re omniscient or anything

        2. Emperor Norton II

          You may not be, but We certainly are.

          For example, all humans are weird and peculiar and not to be trusted.

          I’m certain none of you knew -this- before We just told you right now!

        3. Orion Fury

          Except for you sir, you’d never steer us wrong.

        4. Shade

          Hmm I wonder if Jacob is a nymphomaniac in this universe. Might explain his perspective. He did have that problem back in Shortpacked.

        5. boop

          I’m half hoping he’s hypersexual disorder + asexual and craving some sweet sweet queerplatonic cuddles.

        6. Orion Fury

          I believe I saw that the issues he had back in Shortpacked happened to him in his mid-twenties, and what with the sexuality carry-over, may happen again, just not within the scope of the comic.

        7. Maxine

          I for one am ready for ace Jacob

        8. BloodLily16

          I was wondering if anyone else thought that. Jacob’s actions and dialogue in this panel screamed ‘ace’ to me.

        9. Gwen

          Yeah, I was wondering about that too.

        10. Cerberus

          Yup, that was my impression. He’s stating what his ideal relationship right now would be like and is ignoring the rather nasty implications in Ethan and Joyce’s relationship.

        11. trlkly

          Ignoring, or does he just not know? Is he just assuming the best possible interpretation? That’s what I try to do, as I’m naturally very judgmental if I don’t.

        12. Temperaryobsessor

          Well Ethan at least liked Joyce as a friend and would leave off the more problematic bits, like her thinking she can make him attracted to her, for her sake. Ethan also wanted someone he could be friends with and possibly have a baby with and likely told himself Joyce wanted the same thing.
          Between Ethan telling the best interpretation and Jacob’s life experiance. Sounds nice.

        13. Fart Captor

          Plus he only knows what Ethan told him, and I doubt Ethan included that part of it

  4. AnvilPro

    Don’t enable her Jacob

    1. Najaru

      I don’t know, Jacob as a member of the ace community in DOA would be an interesting curveball from Willis, as a contrast to his Shortpacked! counterpart.

      1. Derek

        doubtful, since Willis has said sexualities are consistent across universes and original Jacob was so very straight

        1. Najaru

          Hmm, interesting. Can an ace still be “straight” as a romantic orientation?

        2. BBCC

          There are heteroromantic asexuals, yes, though I’d avoid calling them ‘straight’ – some are okay with it, some are not because ace phobic fucks like to say that to invalidate their ace identity.

          Plus, there ARE aces with high sex drives, just no sexual attraction. Libido and attraction are different. I can see Jacob still ending up sex addicted even if he’s ace (and wouldn’t that be some unique representation).

        3. Rose

          …if ur heteroromatic ace, ur straight. It’s not ace phobic to point that out. Aces can be gay, and they can be straight, and they can be neither, but a het ace isn’t /not/ straight.

        4. BBCC

          Pretending there isn’t a difference between a heteroromantic asexual and a heteroromantic heterosexual cisgender person (which is usually what people mean by ‘straight’) is ace phobic because it basically treats asexuality as a blank slate filled in by romantic orientation, rather than as a valid orientation by itself. A heteroromantic asexual is not straight in that they are not heteroromantic, heterosexual, and cisgender, and yes, ace people suffer for being ace even when they’re heteroromantic.

        5. Emily

          If being subjected to prejudice for your sexual orientation is the only metric by which we determine straightness than kinksters aren’t straight either and I refuse to live in that world. If your partners are exclusively of the “opposite” sex you are straight. There’s nothing wrong with that and it doesn’t mean hetero ace people don’t still face persecution and deserve solidarity and acceptance it’s just what words mean.

        6. Killjoy

          As a side note, how did the word “phobic” come to mean a bunch of stuff other than, and unrelated to, clinically significant overwhelming fear or anxiety regarding a specific trigger?

        7. Fart Captor

          Killjoy: The root word refers to an aversion, not specifically fear or anxiety.

        8. BBCC

          A kinkster can still be 100% heterosexual, heteroromantic and cisgender straight. An asexual person is not. And by and large straight people will see anyone different from a heterosexual, heteroromantic, and cisgender person as ‘other’ and definitely not straight.

          A kinkster isn’t getting shit for the gender(s) of people they are or are not attracted to. They get shit for the kinds of sex and/or relationships they want to have. Still shitty, but different kinds of shitty.

          Also, in this context, straight describes a privileged position on an axis of oppression (the same way white people do regarding race, or men regarding gender). This is not a position ace people occupy, and saying they do is not just incorrect, it erases the ace phobia they experience.

          By your own admission, hetero ace people are still marginalized – ergo, they’re not occupying the privileged position straight people do.

          It also continues the issue that saying an ace person is ‘still straight’ or ‘still gay’ or ‘still bi’ etc. erases the asexual part of their identity and treats it as a blank slate, which numerous ace people have said is ace phobic.

          Here’s a pretty good (and lengthy) reading list on ace phobia if you’re interested in further reading:http://blenderbender1811.tumblr.com/post/155439875225/the-aphobia-masterpost

        9. Orion Fury

          So…many…boxes…

        10. Griffin

          …Nah. You don’t get to tell people who are othered by straights based on their sexuality that THEY are straight. It’s definitely acephobic.

        11. Rose

          If you’re het, you’re straight. It doesn’t matter if its -romantic or -sexual (I’m not even gonna go into how separating attraction like that is problematic), If you are het, you are straight. That’s the end of it. I’m not saying there is no difference between a straight person who experiences sexual attraction, and a straight person who doesn’t, but they’re both still straight. Also, I’m a lesbian so I think I might know what it’s like to be “othered” by straights, and I’m “othered” by het aces just as much as I am by het “non-aces” :////////////

        12. BBCC

          Tell that to the heteroromantic aces who get stuck in reparative therapy, get abused, denied for jobs and housing, or god forbid raped or murdered. The reason it’s considered ace phobic to lump them all as straight is because it usually A) Requires treating asexuality as a blank slate for whatever their romantic orientation is, rather than treating asexuality as its own valid orientation, and B) It usually comes before some variant of ‘and straight people aren’t marginalized!” which ace people definitely are.

          Lesbians get othered by straight people – so do aces, heteroromantic or not. The fact some are shitty to lesbians does not make them not othered, much the way a gay person being shitty to a bi person doesn’t make them not othered.

        13. Jason

          I find it interesting that someone who identifies as a lesbian- and therefore presumably finds their sexual and romantic interests align- is saying that it’s problematic to separate the two.
          It works for you. Hooray for you! You fit into a widely recognised single word box. For some of us, it isn’t simple.
          For example, I’m primarily physically attracted to women. Very, very occasionally my eye might be caught by a man- if I list the things that turn me off men they’re all masculine traits. (Mostly biological but a few social.) So my sexual attraction is “mostly straight”- or, as works better, heteroflexible.
          But my romantic attraction is basically “whoever I connect with, regardless of physical sex, gender identity, or immediate physical attraction.” So I’m potentially romantically attracted to anyone I share an appropriate connection with, with nothing mattering but what we share. I’m panromantic.

          You can’t call me straight, because I’m NOT. (The husband sleeping next to me attests to that.) You can’t call me bisexual, because I’m not that either. Nor am I pansexual.

          I have found identities that work for me, for what I feel. Why should someone with no idea what that’s like decide what I “should” identify as? Why should you, or anyone else, take control of my identity and definition away from me?
          And that same question can be about aces. Why should someone else define them for them? Maybe we should listen to people and let them choose for themselves.

        14. Positron

          Heteroromantic ace here – treating us the same as heterosexuals ignores the fact that we’ve got a smaller realistic dating pool then even yourself as a lesbian, with the only real estimates pointing towards a total ace population of roughly 1% (not all of whom are even heteroromantic). Not to mention the various issues already mentioned by BBCC.

          And similar to BBCC’s comment re your being othered by heteroromantic aces in the past – feels bad, but doesn’t invalidate the identity any more than aces being written off as having hormonal issues or told that they don’t have real issues by other LGBT groups invalidates yours. Someone from a minority group being nasty towards you does not invalidate the entire group.

        15. Aletheia

          Re: “If you’re het, you’re straight.”

          I’m… interested to see how you apply that to other romantic/sexual combinations. How would you classify a heteroromantic bisexual, for example? :/

        16. Kryss LaBryn

          I have to say, as a panromantic asexual married to a more-or-less aromantic heterosexual, we are definitely of different sexual alignments. What we each want from sex (even if it’s between us, a biological man and a biological woman) is pretty different from each other, and from what I gather other straight cisgender women seem to want.

        17. Griffin

          Nope. You still don’t get to call aces straight no matter what you think. Acting like you have the authority to do that strikes me as extremely unethical. As a nb bi person, I’m tired of people in the LGBTQA+ community shouting over the smaller groups and shoving us
          out of the spaces we need to feel safe, then insulting us when we try to defend ourselves. Whether you mean it to or not calling aces straight against their will contributes to that fu kery.

        18. Sam

          The key point of why they identify as demi, gray or plain old asexual on the asexual spectrum is because they feel very very little or no sexual attraction at all. So presenting them in a manner which suggests or implies otherwise is definitely erasure and is therefore acephobic. It is as simple as that.

          If they are asexual, the accepted label for them is ‘ace’ and labeling them otherwise because of their romantic attraction is both implying sexual attraction they don’t have and erasing the identity they do have for your own convenience. It is not something you are allowed to ‘simplify’ for them like that because it doesn’t mean the same thing to people when you do that.

        19. Cerberus

          Holy frickballs, that didn’t take long.

          All right, I’m gonna lay it down like this.

          Heteroromanitc aces are not straight. They are ace and they are heteroromantic, but they are not straight because straight people are sexually attracted to people of another gender exclusively.

          Any deviation from that means you’re not straight. Heteroromantic aces and aromantic aces aren’t “practically” straight, because they do not experience sexual attraction and so cannot by definition be straight. To claim otherwise is to act that asexuality is some meaningless quirk that can be overlooked as far as it impacts one’s life.

          Also, there are straight people in the queer community. Heterosexual trans folks are heterosexual, but nonetheless a key part of the queer movement and its rise, with some of its most fierce activists being straight trans women of color.

          And it ignores that there are issues that face queer folks in relationships with partners that would be read from an external perspective as “heterosexual” that are persistent and real. Bi folks are much more likely to experience abuse and sexual assault in relationships. Ace folks have a terrifyingly high corrective rape and sexual assault rape, especially from partners. They do not get to experience the type of life an actual heterosexual cisgender person does.

          Passing lessens some forms of oppression, but leaves you with others, and if we cut off folks who “pass” from the support of their fellow community, we are doing them a disservice and blaming the victims for the brutality we experience at the hands of our common oppressors.

          And yes, romantic and sexual attraction are different. It may not seem that way for someone who’s always experienced them intertwined and connected, but trust me when I say they are not one and the same in the same way that one’s sex assigned at birth is not one and the same as one’s gender.

          I actively tried to when I was younger, but I am ace. I’ve never once experienced sexual attraction in my life and I feel fairly confident in saying I never will. And when I was young I had no words, only the “knowledge” from society that everyone had sexuality and only broken people did not. So I tried. I tried a lot to find my lost sexuality. Because I internalized the messages that I was broken. Because I had no community and no words to describe what I was experiencing.

          And I assumed that because I still fell in love. That because I could feel that emotional longing, it must have meant there was something there but hidden. And I twisted myself in knots trying to find something that fundamentally is not there.

          These days, I have two loves in my life. A wonderful girlfriend and my fiancee. And I love them just as much as any other queer person in love. But I will never be able to lust after them the way my girlfriend is able to lust after me. I only get one of those experiences.

        20. Orion Fury

          I’m trying to comment here, cause your comments are always helpful to me, and really, this is all I’ve got right now…

          [Insert Non-Offensive Platitude Here]

        21. Tan

          Unless a label is a scientific term with a precise scientific definition (which ‘straight’ isn’t) and the person you are talking about unambiguously fits into that scientific definition (which a heteroromantic asexual person doesn’t UNAMBIGUOUSLY fit into common definitions of ‘straight’ (and again, there is no scientific definition)), placing a label on someone that they don’t want for themselves is being a dick.

          Similarly, unless a label is a scientific term with a precise scientific definition and the person you are talking about unambiguously differs from that scientific definition, denying someone a label that they DO want for themselves is also being a dick.

          Let people make their own calls about their own labels and don’t be a dick.

        22. TheKelliestKelly

          I don’t understand the difference between libido and sexual attraction. Do you think I’d find meaningful resources if I Googled that? I’m fascinated and confused by the idea of someone who’s ace having a sex addiction

        23. BBCC

          Hopefully I am explaining this correctly, and if not, someone please let me know:

          Sexual (or romantic) attraction is the gender(s) or lack thereof you’re attracted to.

          Libido is the amount of sex drive you have.

          An asexual does not experience sexual attraction. They are not sexually attracted to anybody. That said, they can still have sex – those organs work. And some of them can enjoy it and want to have sex a lot. They just are not attracted to anybody. Sometimes this means masturbating, sometimes it means they’d enjoy it if a partner asked.

        24. MoonLord

          I hang out on ace forums, as I’m ace. People can vary quite a bit, but I’ve yet to hear of an ace person being sex addicted. The closest to that I’ve heard are folks that are willing to have sex when their partner initiates, and can enjoy sex. I’ve never read someone’s experience wherein they are seeking sex.

        25. That One Weirdo

          The libido is, for lack of a better term, the sex drive. The impersonal need for sexual release that often culminates in self-pleasure (at least it does for lonely fucks like yours truly). More of an urge than a choice that all of us, as living beings, have to endure or revel in, as your disposition allows. The sexual attraction is looking at a particular individual and going “Oh yum I wants me some of THAT!”, if I may be a bit crass. An asexual individual will likely still get sexual urges, but probably have no preference for a partner to sate them with, as opposed to a heterosexual individual who would seek out a partner of the opposite sex or a bisexual individual who would probably have little issue with their partner’s sex (I realize the wording of this sentence may be off-putting so I’d like to say I am NOT accusing bisexual people of being promiscuous, simply that physical sex is less an issue for them than it is for people of other orientations. All people are selective about their partners in their own manner, with different criteria in each individual case).

          Bottom line is, libido is the urge to engage in a sexual activity, while sexual attraction is who we look for as an ideal partner to sate said urge. I’d also like to point out that the above paragraph is a result of some research but by no means is it an absolute truth, nor can I be 100% certain I am correct on all points, as I am, myself, not asexual. If anybody would like to add something or correct me about any statements I made, please do so. Knowledge is my drug of choice, and I get a hit whenever I get the chance. And if I offended anybody, I sincerely apologize, as it was not my intention. I attempted to approach the topic with as clinical an eye as possible, but I realize it can be a sensitive subject for many, and the last thing I want is to make anybody feel bad about who they are.
          We’re all human beings and worthy of the same respect. Our differences should be celebrated and discussed so we can better understand each other and ourselves, not shunned and attacked.
          At least that’s what I think.

        26. ladyking

          First off, I learned a lot from your explanation of libido vs. sexual attraction. Thanks for laying it out so clearly! But as far as bisexuals seeing physical sex as less of an issue… you’re still implying that bisexuals are more open to sex, which while it maybe true for some, is definitely not the case for others, including myself. I appreciate that you included the bit about different criteria per individual (a lot of people think bisexuals will jump anything that moves) but I think you might have crossed your wires a bit somewhere along the way and ended up equating gender with sexuality. You were laying out a scenario where a heterosexual person is seeking release from a partner. In this case either way they’d be choosing someone of the opposite sex because they’re heterosexual. That partner might also be bisexual, but that doesn’t necessarily affect their willingness to have sex with the heterosexual in your example.

          Again, thanks for explaining this topic further and I really appreciate your openness to learning more about this stuff!

        27. Fart Captor

          If you’re going somewhere, then sexual attraction is where you want to go, and your libido is how badly you want to get there.

        28. Positron

          Basically, sexual attraction boils down to that feeling you get when you look at someone and think, usually automatically, that you’d like to do something sexual with them, while libido is craving an orgasm. You can want to orgasm without particularly wanting to do it with any given person, through physical stimulation (which can be via sexual, but reasons for choosing a partner would not be driven by sexual attraction), sexual fantasy and such. The fact that, particularly for guys, many aces experience libido but not sexual attraction is the source of much confusion trying to figure out identity, particularly since in the absence of sexual attraction it’s easy to mistake libido and other forms of attraction for sexual attraction.

        29. Killian

          As an ace, the way I’ve found to explain the difference best is relating to food. Libido is your appetite and sexual attraction is the kind(s) of food you like to eat in this metaphor. Sometimes you eat food even though you aren’t hungry, and some people with large appetites will eat food they don’t necessarily like.

        30. ObiKemnebi

          https://www.google.com/amp/s/theacetheist.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/differentiating-sexual-attraction-and-sexual-desire/amp/?client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us

          This is what I used to try and help my mom understand my non-straightness

        31. TheKelliestKelly

          Yes! Someone could be asexual and hetero romantic. Girls with slingshot has a character like that except she’s homo (or bi?) romantic. Pretty sure her name

        32. TheKelliestKelly

          Pretty sure the character’s name is Erin. It’s been a little while since that strip ended though so I’m not sure

        33. Dellaran

          Yup, it’s Erin. And she rocks.

        34. CoMa

          Yep it is Erin, she’s asexual and homo romantic (could also be pan romantic, or demi romantic because we don’t get to know her dating history, and only know she likes Jamie in a romantic-cuddly way, and is definitely asexual).

          NOW SPOILER (please only read if you’ve only also remember all the confusion about Jamie’s sexual identity):
          The interesting thing is that her girlfriend Jamie always thought she was straight, then turned out not to be lesbian in a sexual way but hetero, but fell in love with Erin, so she probably is possibly bi or pan romantic, but mostly heterosexual, as she did not enjoy lesbian sex, one time trying sex with Erin felt emotionally very weird (but also physically nice), and she later on finds one guy very sexually attractive. So she could also be not heterosexual but demisexual. At one point I think she said “I’m upper waist kinda lesbian because I love boobs, but down there I’m attracted to a guy.” – or something similar. So she’s in a loving relationship with Erin, but Erin understands her sexual needs and even supports her following her sexual desire, because she loves her and wants her just to be happy!

          It’s very difficult to wrap my head around it, since it’s also some time ago I last read the newer comic strips, and I’m also not completely comfortable labelling the two, but I hope I’m forgiven any confusion I built in the description if I misunderstood something.

          But Gosh, I SO LOVE that comic.

        35. Drazisil

          http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/blog/virginity-polyamory-being-ace-and-sprinkles-on-top/

          I might have had this already bookmarked for reasons

        36. CoMa

          The link didn’t work for me, so I googled (with help of the title you provided in the link) and here it is http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-1370/

          For anyone working through my gibberish of a post: The author herself states that IF the characters were to be labelled, the most likely labels would be “romantic asexual” for Erin, and “bi-romantic heterosexual virgin” for Jamie.

          So thankfully I wasn’t that far off, but just complicated matters, shame on me!

        37. MythDancer

          As an ace – yes. Some of us are aromantic as well as asexual. For those (like me) who are only asexual, we can have preferable orientations for our romantic relationships, the same as anyone else. I’m a straight ace. There are gay, bi, pan, any other kind of aces as well =)

        38. Killjoy

          It seems to me that this effort to categorize and label and divide people up into smaller and smaller slots by their individual sexual and romantic and relationship preferences, is largely counter to the goal of making it just plain not a big damn deal and not something that some people judge some other people for at all. As long as it’s consenting adults engaged in non-abusive, non-damaging behavior, why do we have to have 1001 pigeonholes?

          It’s especially jarring when it’s happening between members of different “small population” orientations to label and exclude and maybe even shame each other. Example, the history of some homosexuals dismissing the validity of bisexuality. Or the phrase I’ve seen off and on, “you’re not a real _______”. In general, those who would rage against being “othered” turning around and “othering” other people.

          But then, we live in world where people of certain minorities will be accused of “acting white” (or “acting straight”) or “not being ______ enough” by others within that same minority group.

        39. Spaz

          I can understand the reasoning to this argument, but I would disagree.

          For a long time, I thought there was something wrong with me because I never had much of a sex drive, and never really had much of a romantic drive.

          It’s only been in the last few years as I dove into the various sexualities (and lack thereof), that I’ve finally been able to understand myself.

          It was someone putting the labels out there that let me realize who I was and what makes me tick.

          I consider myself mainly demi across the board. sexual, romantic and, for a large part, social. Though maybe the last bit is my (medically diagnosed) Asperger’s kicking in.

          It wasn’t until I started reading about asexuality that I realized that this is who I was. Not, you know, pure ace, but grey ace.

          It’s helped me come to terms with my sexuality, and finally letting me admit that I’m a Kinsey 1-2X demi-heteromantic demi-bisexual being with sapioromantic/sexual overtones.

          Or in non-Tumblr speak–I don’t have much of a sex drive nor do I find lots of people attractive in a general or sexual sense, and I might be convinced to do a same-sex threeway on an anniversary or something.

          But if I hear you talking about a book series I’m into or one of my fandoms my head will whip around so fast I’ll give everybody in the place whiplash, and I’ll be in crush with you super fast.

          TL:DR–the effort to categorize and label everything helps some people who might otherwise go their entire lives without realizing who and what they are.

        40. Kryss LaBryn

          Hear, hear!

          I grew up in the Seventies in a very small town, and was only very vaguely aware of gay men (probably thanks largely to the Blue Oyster Club in the Police Academy movies–although I’m not sure I fully grasped the concept). I had absolutely no concept that women could also be gay, nor of trans people, nor of anything other than straight, heteroromantic, heterosexual, cisgendered people. Which apparently was everybody.

          Except me.

          My life would have been very, very different if I had known that there were any other possibilities out there at all. It’s a very lonely, alienating, depressing, and often scary existence, knowing there is something fundamentally different with you, that you are on the outside, that there is an invisible box around everyone else that you not only can’t get past to join everyone else, you can’t even see to describe or understand it.

          Labels, in all their infinite variety and details, allow us to more precisely consider ourselves, to see where we fit, and to find others like ourselves. They give us the words to understand the concepts; they give us an anchor.

          Without them, the default of “perfectly normal, likes and wants to bang the opposite sex, nothing to see here” is assumed, and then not discussed at all, because even that statement implies that there might be something else as well.

          And then you get a lot of lonely, depressed, too-often suicidal kids growing up wondering what the fuck is wrong with them, and why they have to be the only ones who don’t work right.

          And then, also, again, too often, you can get well-meaning adults trying to “fix” what is “wrong” with them. Because no one is going to try to force a blonde to start growing red hair, are they? They’re a blonde. They could dye it and pretend to be a natural redhead if they really wanted to, but it’d be an ongoing charade they’d have to work to maintain so their roots didn’t show.

          But no amount of shock treatment nor counselling nor any of the myriad ways humans have tried to force others to change is going to force the hair growing in to change colour naturally–because they aren’t actually redheads. They’re blondes. It’s just who they are; it’s the natural way their body functions.

          But if you were apparently the only blonde in a society of redheads, and you weren’t aware that hair came in different colours, because even the people who weren’t natural redheads dyed their hair and never discussed it–if the terms for “hair colour” and “red hair” were synonymous, then you’d go through life unhappily broken, instead of just being a blonde.

          TL;DR: Labels matter and the absence of them can hurt a lot.

        41. Cerberus

          This.

          I put it this way with labels.

          Labels thrown on you by others are almost always worthless and frequently offensive. And we see that in the weird dividing lines racists make to decide who’s white enough, the weird dividing lines truscum make to decide who’s trans enough, and in the slurs and designations that exist for any marginalized person whose pushing against the status quo.

          But labels chosen for yourself?

          Those are critically important. Because they give voice to one’s identity, one’s community, allows people of similar life experience and oppressions to find each other and gain strength by that connection. We see that in the beauty and strength of the queer community and all its amazing diversity.

          And it’s important to have the words, because I have spent a large part of my life lacking words for important parts of myself and it was miserable. I just felt broken and lost and suffered a lot in silence assuming I was the only one who was like me. In high school, I even called myself utis, because so many universal statements of what “every person was like” felt like blades against my skin for how poorly they fit.

          Finding the words for asexual and homoromantic (and now queerromantic) gave me a community and people to talk to. Gave me a means of synthesizing my experiences and life for others to understand. Gave resources I could give to partners so they could understand what I was going through.

          Finding the words for transgender helped me stop feeling miserable and in emotional pain all the time and allowed me to finally be myself instead of cutting myself all the time.

          These labels are mine and were hard fought, hard won, and critical to me being able to survive in this world. I would not trade them for the world.

        42. Spaz

          New word I have never before heard: “truscum.”

          Interesting, and a good word to have in my vocabulary, though I don’t expect to ever need to use it. At least I know what it means.

        43. Cerberus

          Yeah, I wish I could be ignorant of them, but my fiancee has been targeted by them a lot because they identify as non-binary.

        44. Seregiel

          I’ve read so many terms and still havent been able to find the right words to find the ones to concisely and accurately explain to people what I am or how I identify and work. It’s uncomfortable, not because I think it’s owed but because I feel like I’m an approximation of what’s actually “real” even if logically that’s not the case. Labels help quantify. I remember reading in another comic that someone wished they could state “I’m ______” and people would understand where you were coming from whether they like you or not. Labels don’t just unite and divide, they come with a huge amount of positive and negative connotations that have shaped those words to mean more in our shared experiences to reflect built communities. TL; DR – as others stated the labels you choose mean the world. Sorry if there’s some rough transitions, writing on a phone is horrendous.

        45. Gwen

          Labels can be problematic when they are used in the way you describe, to divide and conquer. But they can also be incredibly powerful tools for describing our identities and claiming our truths. Words matter, and are needed.

        46. Killjoy

          Instead of replying several times, I’ll put my reply here.

          All these replies have given me some things to think about.

          Whether we’re talking about ethnicity, or gender, or sexuality, or religion… I’ve long seen labels and categories along these lines as a way to divide people and set them against each other, both by sticking labels over individual faces, and by setting an ever-larger number of ever-smaller “tribes” against each other. When we’re arguing over who is and is not a “real ______”, and every little group sees other groups as “the problem”… we’re distracted from our common humanity, and the threats to all our rights and liberties. I feel like we’re divided up and isolated and categorized so that we can be targeted, with political messages and advertising alike.

          And labels have always seemed to be to carry all this excess baggage. I can’t really say “I’m a libertarian” because people will infer things about me that aren’t true or accurate, for example. I can’t say I’m a democrat or a republican or a conservative or a liberal or whatever, either.

          But… if people are going to use labels as something they CLAIM, as part of finding out who they are as individuals, then… that’s a different thing, isn’t it?

        47. Spencer

          This. Labels are a way for people to name their feelings.

          We’re different. It’s okay that we’re different. Difference should be celebrated.

        48. Kamino Neko

          Yeah. It’s also important for figuring yourself out.

          For most of my life, I had no idea genderfluidity was a thing. I just thought I was doing gender wrong…I wasn’t really trans, but I wasn’t ‘normal’ (thank god someone coined ‘cisgender’ in the meanwhile). It was…not the greatest for my self-esteem. Then I learned about it, it helped me understand, and accept myself. I stopped trying to force myself into boxes that didn’t fit, because I’d discovered the one that did.

          Quoting myself while discussing EGS (There’s a reason Tedd’s my gravatar):

          That ‘there’s a name for it’ moment…it’s important. That there’s a word means there are other people who are the same way. It wasn’t just me. I wasn’t a weirdo who was having feelings nobody else did.

          All the ‘be true to yourself’ in the world doesn’t carry as much weight as ‘you are not alone’.

        49. spriteless

          But he was also compulsive and collected pizza boxes. It could be just another compulsion in his makeup.

          I don’t know what that sort of compulsion feels like, unless it feels like collecting pokemon but more so. I also don’t know a lot about how typical straight people think to compare the two. I do know that typical mind fallacy means everyone thinks their way is normal, and so the labels associated with normal are about themselves, and so the most common labels often mean unexamined.

        50. Cerberus

          I think SP! Jacob said he had an addictive personality, so pretty much anything can be abused in service to that. It’s basically a compulsion for using a thing to the degree that it becomes unhealthy and harmful to one’s life or health and beyond the point where it is emotionally satisfying.

          At the school, we have a kid struggling with addictive personality and it can be hard to support them, because even something like schoolwork or caffeine can end up becoming an unhealthy compulsion.

        51. Ravian

          Yeah, I think it’s more likely that Jacob in this universe has realized he may have a sex addiction (possibly from experiences in high school) and is now worried about it starting up again should he enter another relationship. In essence, he admires a relationship that can sustain itself without sex, possibly because he’s seen his addiction ruin his past relationships.

          Joyce and Ethan’s relationship definitely wasn’t healthy though, and Ethan’s admiring it for the wrong reasons.

        52. UltraKyrie

          That’s the impression I got too – especially with how Jacob says Joyce is strong for making that decision. Sounds like he doesn’t think he has it himself.

        53. Cerberus

          My thought too!

          And yeah, that might also be the reason he’s willing to look on Ethan and Joyce’s unhealthy relationship with rose-colored glasses, because to him, a relationship where he wouldn’t be “tempted” to lapse into bad habits is really good for him.

        54. Ivy

          Jacob was straight but wanted to be abstinent, which would explain why he thinks a relationship like Joyce and Ethan’s, with zero sexual pressure, is desirable

        55. Ivy

          Oh damn look Ruth said the same thing goodbye

  5. shadowcell

    so who’s gonna tell Joyce that she’s instrumental in even this very strip’s punchline

    1. Doctor_Who

      Hmmm. Blonde, perky, reads (D&MM) comic books, suspiciously triangular smile.

      If Joyce discovers that she’s a character in a comic book, she might actually become Gwenpool.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        I keep seeing her crop up. I take it her comic is good? What even is her powerset? What does she have to do with Gwen Stacy and Spider Gwen?

        1. Tacos

          She’s just a person from “our world” named Gwen Poole who got sucked into the Marvel universe. Her skill is that she knows everybody’s secret identities cuz she’s read all the comics.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          …Seriously?
          That’s… simultaneously magnificent and underwhelming. I’m not sure whether you’re messing with me or being honest.

        3. Doctor_Who

          Let me put it this way: she defeated a Sentinel be realizing that they have the same attack patterns as in the X-Men arcade game.

        4. Tacos

          More or less. Also she goes around killing a lot of people and destroying things because since she’s in a comic book, it’s all cool.

        5. Fart Captor

          She’s awesome. I picked up the first trade recently and it’s amazing.

        6. Doctor_Who

          Yeah, she’s actually incompetent in a fight (though slowly getting better).

          Basically her “power” is that she knows this is fiction (or at least thinks it is) so she will do literally anything because she doesn’t think it matters.

          She became a superperson because it’s the only way to get her own comic, which is the only way anyone in the real world will learn she’s trapped the the Marvel Universe. Also, nameless extras get killed all the time, but superpeople always survive or come back.

        7. Jhon

          The knowledge that gives her power has a shelf life. She’d better learn to fight for real by the time the New 52 + 1 comes along…

        8. Orion Fury

          Um…

  6. LisaN

    Jacob just dropped some truth!

  7. Opus the Poet

    Joyce can’t handle the truth. Cue Jack Nicholson.

  8. SUGauthor

    Huh, looks like Jacob still has some sex struggles in this universe too…

    1. Disloyal Subject

      It’s been hinted at before, but iirc it was bumped to the background because Sarah was distracted by lusting after him.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Wait what
        Where did my aggressively grinning Brody go
        Why am I Ruth – you know what I am okay with being an aggressively grinning Ruth in a hoodie, Brody’s had his run anyway

        1. Deanatay

          I seem to have lost my Gravatar, too. (The fact that I also became Ruth is just a fantastic coincidence.) Do those things expire, or did something happen?

        2. thejeff

          I see both of you as your usual Gravatars – Some kind of dragon head thingy and whatever kind of black and white hashed circle burger thing Deanatay always is.
          Certainly not Ruth.
          So it might be user side problem? Browser or something?

    2. Shiro

      That’s what it looks like to me, too.

  9. Emma

    Ok ok ok everything else aside: Is that like. Joe’s single eyebrow hovering above his head because that what I thought it was.

    1. Jay Eff

      Yes. That’s exactly what it is.

      i have proof.

    2. Melonge

      Yeah, that looks like one eyebrow. God knows what the other ones up to.

      1. Foxhack

        It’s already escaped, the single eyebrow we can see is just about to jump out the window.

    3. Tacos

      Yes. Yes it is.

  10. Cheshrin

    No, Joyce, that would be Danny.

  11. Just Me

    I think it’s cool what Jacob said. Way too much peer pressure as is.

  12. Thevoiceoftreason

    “Because he’s black I’ll seem racist if I dismiss his wisdom.”

    1. Mr D

      I hace actually been afraid of this case happening before.
      “He’s saying stupid shit, but if I tell him that he’ll think I’m racist? Maybe?”

  13. Larkle

    So, I guess that Joe was told about this before but he still looks kind of surprised. I suppose the concept of seeking non-sexual companionship over sexual companionship is odd to him.

    1. CoMa

      Maybe he just said “I think it’s smart” and left it at that

      OR Joe just as soon as he heard about the relationship tried to “think” about what he heard and since it was beyond his capacities of understanding, or beyond his attention span after hearing “Ethan is gay”, just shoved in the back of his brain for later

      OR He did hear what Jacob said, but simply forgot (this one happens to me occasionally. Someone tells me something, I continue life, then read something about it, find it interesting, tell my friends about it and they tell me they already mentioned it like weeks ago. I go with I have a shitty memory. I try to work on it, but it’s simply hard, and my friends do know that and know I don’t mean anything bad by that.)

    2. Cerberus

      It goes against everything he stands for.

      Heck, the idea of non-sexual relationships or people are often really hard for a certain type of “sex-positive” hypersexual man to accept (it’s not always men, but in my experience, men have always been the biggest dicks about it). Often it is assumed it is being done for unhealthy repression reasons and that once someone is less repressed, they will no longer see that as a good thing. Which in the case of Joyce and Ethan, it was.

      But that often leads to a lot of shitting on things like queer-platonic relationships, relationships between aces, and ace people in general, because it’s assumed we’re just repressed celibates like Joyce. Often times, this is when the douchebag decides that he and his penis are the cure for this repression and starts non-stop harassing you and assuming things about you until you are able to escape.

      This sometimes leads to hilarious things like being accused of being sex-negative and repressed about sex and unable to handle people’s sexuality in the social area of a dungeon of people doing sexual stuff that you have just been patrolling for the previous hour as a DM (dungeon monitor).

      Creepers are weird sometimes.

  14. Tacos

    Quick, somebody do the exact opposite of what the alt-text says.

    1. 3oranges

      As in, hide how many punchlines Joyce has been instrumental in by emerging from the strip into our exterior reality? I’m not sure, I sort of like thinking Blaine and Mary are stuck in there.

      Anyway, the walls of our reality remain secure, because so many elected leaders are only too ready to shoo away non-white, non-heteronormative, neurodivergent people. (This is an unhappy joke about Shortpacked!, for the record).

  15. Stephen Bierce

    *looks for some Sheryl Crow in the record collection*

    1. Stephen Bierce

      I’ll just pretend that the Dire Straits from yesterday is still playing in the meantime.

  16. Vinny

    If you don’t want sex hanging over your head, don’t date a girl who owns a trapeze.

    1. Sunny

      I actually looked up sex swings yesterday, sooo many varieties, but none looked like what Joyce imagined.

  17. tim gueguen

    Hmm, does this mean Raidah is in for a surprise when she makes a move on Jacob?

    1. neeks

      I seem to recall jacob saying he and raidah had agreed to put off physical stuff till they’d gotten to know each other better. (this statement was ignored by sarah who was too busy fantasizing about jacob tearing his shirt off to pay attention to what he was saying.)

      1. Cerberus

        Yup, both seem to be taking a break from physical stuff to just focus on schoolwork and hanging out being romantic. It’s not entirely clear Raidah’s reasons, but Jacob states that both parties are happy with that decision and that it’s working for them:

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/physical-2/

  18. Scoops

    Joe’s doing the thing where he has to lean into the panel to look at Jacob even though in-universe there’s nothing blocking his view.

  19. AeroQC

    I love that Joyce Face in the last panel.
    [n.n]: Yeah, she’s all: Mind. Blown.

  20. BBCC

    Ooh, ooh, ooh! I finally get to break out a new “Character is Misbehaving but I Still Like Them” spray bottle!

    *spritzes Jacob*

    1. Disloyal Subject

      How, exactly, is Jacob misbehaving by validating celibate romance? If Ethan told him about their relationship, he likely left out the ‘fix the gay’ aspect.

      1. BBCC

        A) The ‘fix the gay’ aspect, in case he does know about it.

        But mostly

        B) Outing Ethan to Joe. Dick move, Jacob.

        1. vlademir1

          Knowing Ethan it’s quite possible he came out fairly readily to Jacob upon first meeting because he wanted to be up front about it with his roommate and the manner in which he did so unintentionally suggested he was just generally out.

        2. BBCC

          We know Ethan wasn’t out to Jacob already, because he came tout to him here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/traumatizing/

          Not much room to assume ‘generally out’ either. I’m sure he wasn’t thinking much about it, but still, Jacob, yikes. Careful with that knowledge.

        3. thejeff

          I guess maybe technically Jacob might have outed Ethan, but Joe starts the strip by saying Joyce dates gay dudes. It’s a reasonable (and correct) assumption for Jacob to make that he’s talking about Joyce & Ethan.

          Where Joe found out about Ethan I don’t know offhand. Could have been from Jacob, I suppose, but not here.

        4. thejeff

          Never mind, I misread and focused on the wrong bit when I reread it.

        5. n0z3k1ll3r

          Strictly all the conversation says is that Jacob told Joe that Joyce and Ethan were dating, it’s entirely possible Joe already knew Ethan was gay.

        6. Cerberus

          Joe knows Ethan’s gay, because Danny has asked for Joe’s help in finding someone for him.

        7. Spencer

          He didn’t know he was referring to Ethan. Jacob outed Ethan to Joe.

        8. Fart Captor

          Also, his “that jerk was me” response makes it seem like even if Joe knew, Jacob didn’t know that, and is just now realizing it

        9. Spencer

          I took it as Jacob telling Joe that Ethan was gay while talking about Joyce’s relationship.

        10. Inspector Hound

          It’s also entirely possible that Jacob knew they knew also. I can imagine (because I’ve had that conversation myself) Jacob asking Ethan who else knows.

          Although even with that information, I wouldn’t be the one who opened with that detail in a restaurant conversation.

        11. Greenygal

          The thing is, Joe already knew that Ethan and Joyce were dating, and Jacob knows that he knows because he was sitting right there. So “I told him” would seem to refer to Ethan being gay, and yeah, bad Jacob.

  21. Rocketboy1313

    I disagree. Because the motivations behind the “relationship” were conforming to social pressures, not the seeking of sex neutral companionship. The fact that Joyce had confused sexual dreams illustrates that.

    They already have sex free companionship in the form of a half dozen friends that surround them near constantly. Look at the 4 of them here. Not F.U.C.K.ING.

    So Jacob’s position is just him assigning some kind of noble label to two people who were bullshitting each other, themselves, and all the people around them.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Jacob doesn’t have the full story, though, only whatever Ethan (and/or whoever else) may have told him, and I think Ethan would be inclined to paint things in a more positive light, if only for Joyce’s sake. He also seemed a bit oblivious to Joyce lusting after him.
      Also, romantic companionship, with or without sex, isn’t necessarily the same as friendship.
      And, by the way, there’s no wordfilter on f-bombs. You don’t have to tiptoe around profanity like ‘fucking,’ we can be mature adults about things here.

      1. Rocketboy1313

        I have had “bongo” turned to “Bongos” before.
        So the profanity filter seems to be a crap shoot.

        1. the final pam

          bongo is the only exception to the word filter because when Roz was yelling at Joyce in class, the comments were flooded with that and other misogynistic insults

          other than that, everything’s fair game

        2. thejeff

          There are, or were, a couple of others. If it’s still in place SJW is my favorite.
          There was also an election related one, but I don’t remember it.

        3. thejeff

          It’s not. Sad.

        4. thejeff

          The percussive instrument is a filter put in place due to overuse in a specific incident.

    2. lia47

      I basically agree, but i think its gonna be important to note that this probably has something to do with Jacob’s alt-universe history with sex-addiction

  22. Natalie

    Is Jacob asexual?

  23. Tomas

    One of those evil genies who grant wishes in an accurate but damaging way was listening when Sarah wanted other people to carry the conversation.

  24. JessWitt

    Wowsers, so many curveballs thrown in this strip.

  25. UltraKyrie

    You dropped your eyebrows there Joe

    1. UltraKyrie

      Wonder if Joe’s so surprised because the concept of non-sexual companionship is so foreign to him, or whether he’s surprised to hear this coming from Jacob. I wouldn’t be surprised if Joe assumed Jacob shared his concepts of sex and relationships.

      1. Cerberus

        My suspicion is the former. He’s been shitty to Danny in the past for being in a space where he didn’t feel like sexual companionship.

        1. trlkly

          I’d actually say both. The idea didn’t occur to him, AND, if anyone was to come up with it, he was not expecting it to be Jacob.

  26. Arianod

    Joe’s eyebrow was spotted by a NASA satellite later that day, shooting past the orbit of Mars.

    1. StClair

      Love it.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      Joyce’s eyebrows look like they’re well on their way into orbit too.

    3. Orion Fury

      I lol’d.

  27. Skizz

    Never thought I would say this, “I’m with Joyce.”

    1. Clif

      Mind blown?

  28. River

    -slides in-
    Asexual Jacob? Please?

    1. UltraKyrie

      Seeing as sexualities hold over from Walkyverse, I’m pretty sure he’s straight. His alt-universe counterpart did struggle with sex addiction, however.

      1. KSClaw

        Maybe he likes sex, but doesn’t like having it with Raidah for some reason? Sometimes you can feel pressured by an S.O and that’s no fun for anyone.

      2. ConfusedServal

        You can be straight AND asexual though, and ace people can still be on some level interested in sex. Maybe leaning into asexuality is how he deals with his addiction in this universe? I dunno, I feel like he’s definitely got some issues with sex that he’s projecting a little bit here.

        1. Rian

          Asexuality is an orientation like hetero/homosexuality you can’t really ‘lean into’ it. You’re probably thinking of being celibate, which is when you’re [insert sexuality] but deliberately not having sex for personal/health/religious reasons.
          And Jacob could definitely be practicing celibacy to try to deal with a sex addiction.

        2. Skizz

          You are all assuming that refraining from having sex in their relationship is a decision that didn’t involve Raidah. Seems to me it could just as easily be a mutual decision or one she insisted on as Jacob’s sole purview.

        3. Rian

          If two people (who like sex) are in a relationship and only one of them has decided for both that they’re never having sex that relationship will probably get rocky really quickly, so Raidah definitely had something to do with it.

          That being said Raidah isn’t here and Jacob has just made a positive comment on sex-less relationships, so we’re trying to guess where his feelings on the matter come from (informed by the fact that in another universe he was addicted to sex.)

    2. Cerberus

      I’m willing to cross a few fingers on that one, but I suspect he’s going to end up being straight with an addictive personality that sometimes makes sex unhealthy for him.

      1. Clif

        Agreed. In the absence of other evidence, cross-universe consistency suggests that Jacob is a potential sex-addict who simply hasn’t had an opportunity to develop an addiction, posibly by virtue of still not having experienced it. This bomb may not explode however during the course of the comic unless Willis feels that he has something new to explore with it.

  29. Dave

    uh so… is Jacob really saying what HE wants? I know he was a sexaholic in Shortpacked, has DoA inverted that and he’s asexual here?

    1. 3oranges

      The Jacob in Shortpacked! did a reasonable amount of avoiding sex, not because he wasn’t straight, but because he didn’t feel capable of working it into a functioning relationship.

      I think this Jacob probably is talking about himself but not as an inversion of that.

    2. BenRG

      I think that it’s too early to say what Jacob ‘wants’. We can only take this at face value – that a non-sexual intimate relationship is something that he admires and thinks is healthy.

      FWIW, I think that it’s something that Becky could use hearing: That it is possible that she can love Joyce on a deep level without desiring her sexually.

      1. thejeff

        Not really. It’s possible to love someone on a deep level without desiring them sexually, but when you do desire them it’s not trivial to turn that off. The approach Becky’s taking, of staying Joyce’s best friend while still moving on romantically and dating someone else is almost certainly better than trying to form some romantic, but non-sexual relationship with Joyce. Which isn’t what either of them want.

        And while it’s too early to be sure, this is an interesting hint to where Jacob’s coming from.

  30. Solenoid

    Joyce seems pleasantly surprised. Not what I thought that face would be when Willis posted the preview way back when.

  31. Shiro

    So, uh, thought I’d share a cool thing with a cool group of people! Last Saturday, a tattoo shop in Bigger Neighboring City an hour and a half from me had a benefit event for Planned Parenthood, $20 for any of the 11 flash designs on their flier. You could choose from a peace sign, a heart with an equal sign in it, a lotus, a coathanger, a safety pin (open or closed), a heart with an infinity sign intertwined, an anchor, a female power fist, a dove, or a justice scale. So, a couple friends and I decided to roadtrip it and make a day of it.

    In the end, people were much, much more enthusiastic about it than expected, and the artists selflessly agreed to stay an hour after closing so everyone who’d stayed til the end could get their tattoo. (All of them volunteered their time, and when I tried to tip my artist, she put it straight into the donations.) They did 165 tattoos in the end, and made $5400, which if my math is right means $2200 of that was straight donations.

    1. Loki

      They did a polyamory symbol? That’s cool.
      Also, lol @ the coathanger.

      1. BBCC

        Which is the polyamory symbol?

        1. Shiro

          The one I got! Heart with infinity sign. Initially I just wanted it because universal love, but then found it stood for polyamory too, which works for me.

        2. BBCC

          Ahhh, neat! I did not know that was a polyamory symbol. Cute!

    2. Dana

      Thanks for sharing. That is indeed a cool thing.

    3. Annika

      That’s so cooll! Would you mind offering the name of the tattoo shop? It sounds like a neat place.

      1. Shiro

        Not at all! It was Black Rabbit Tattoo in Richmond, VA. 😀

  32. Skizz

    Sarah’s reactions to the last two strips would be really helpful here. And, by helpful, I mean I am dying to know how she reacted.

    1. Rukduk

      I believe she’s got cartoonishly shocked face including dropped jaw and huge eyes. After all, she knows that part of that relationship was Joyce initially trying to “cure” Ethan of being gay. So she probably is not in agreement on this point.

  33. TrueVCU

    I noticed that curl above the bench in the last panel and I can only assume that is Joe’s eyebrow on its way into Low Earth Orbit

  34. kater

    oop! Jacob has a fault!
    (he also doesn’t have the full storyl, since much of it took place in Joyce and Ethan’s own brains,) but still… ugh.)

    1. DaveM

      I’m sorry, but everyone knows that Jacob is perfect and without flaw. So you’ll have to be burned at the stake as a heretic (but don’t worry, it’s for your own good and for the sake of your immortal soul, etc).. 🙂

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      He has a fault? Is he still under warranty?

      1. Orion Fury

        Well for some people upon seeing him the ground may appear to move…

  35. Mandy

    *whispers* please let Jacob be ace

    1. vlademir1

      Sorry. He, unlike his other universe counterpart, is not the absolute opposite but also seems not to be ace (cf here )

      That said he seems to be much more romantically and relationship driven that sex driven, which is a nice counterpoint to Joe.

    2. Cerberus

      Even if he doesn’t turn out to be ace, this is definitely a very common ace experience, finding a lot to envy about a relationship where there’s no pressure to sexually perform for one’s partner.

      So there’s definitely a reason it’s resonating with a lot of us aces.

      *ace hugs offered*

  36. newllend(Henryvolt)

    I’m all for a relationship that’s more about being emotionally intimate than physically and I think it’s important to pick a partner for other reasons than just fitting your sexual preference. But that’s not the type of dynamic you got with Joyce and Ethan, I mean yeah they did kind of have a few touchy feely moments here and there but I don’t know if Companion ship is the only element for full blown romance but you also need something more than sex too.

    I don’t all this is more newly form speculation than a long thought out opinion that I usually have.

  37. Keulan

    Jacob is trying to make their eyebrows escape their faces.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      He is an agent provocateur for the Eyebrow Liberation Front.

  38. Rukduk

    Ok. Jacob has even surprised Joe with that response. Now, I get where Jacob’s coming from, but as many people have said that is not the dynamic that Ethan and Joyce had.

  39. Paradoxius

    Punchline

    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/strength-2/

    1. Ana Chronistic

      don’t forget http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/smash/

      1. Leorale

        This is an excellent line of punches.

  40. AKP

    Did not have any significant opinions about Jacob til now. Do now. Jacob is great.

    —

    As a sex-neutral/positive ace person, I was not always aware I was OK with sex or physical intimacy, only that it wasn’t a need or want for me and it seemed to be for other people. I know now that I’m OK with these things, or rather, that I’m okay with these things so long as they are accompanied by a certain degree of emotional intimacy. But without a supportive group of friends and a boyfriend who knew from the get-go our relationship would likely never involve sex and was okay with it, I don’t think I ever would have eventually become comfortable enough to look into experimenting with things.

    Additionally, the idea that completely platonic partnerships can be just as emotionally intimate if not more so than romantic ones is an idea that I place an incredibly high value on.

    So yeah. Hadn’t paid much attention to Jacob til now. But Jacob has my attention now.

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah. All of this.

      And so much on the lack of pressure. It’s a large part of why I’m poly. When there’s no pressure on me to be the sole sexual provider for my partner, it’s a lot easier to do sexual stuff and be intellectually and emotionally satisfied by their pleasure. But if I didn’t have that, I think it’d be a lot harder and more miserable.

  41. Emperor Norton II

    Awww, Jacob. So beautiful, so mature in his view on relationships in general, so utterly not aware of the whole “trying to convert Ethan into a properly god-fearing heterosexual” part of that relationship. You sweet child of summer, Jacob.

    And if it turns out he is in fact aware of that part and still meant what he just said… Man, he’d better have a really, really, really good explanation.

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah. He’s definitely getting lost in the fantasy of it and is ignoring the uglier bits of it, because the fantasy is very very satisfying for him and what he ideally wants right now.

      1. Temperaryobsessor

        Plus if Shortpacked is to go by, he is in a situation where having his SO trying to change his might be a good thing.

        1. Spencer

          I can’t see how. The only time Jacob was “changed” by someone was when Roz took advantage of hm.

          Jacob and Raidah’s low stress “it’ll happen when we feel like it but for now let’s talk about feelings” is good for him.

        2. Cerberus

          It really is what’s healthy and good for him at the moment and I think Sarah’s arc is going to be recognizing that more and more and supporting it even though it feels off because it’s her crush and the woman who harassed her.

  42. Danni

    i think shes been instrumental in like 10 punchlines

  43. BenRG

    Unfortunately, Joyce, you have been many people’s punchline for some time. That’s unfortunate but, let’s face it, your approach to people has sort of been inviting it. Suddenly, I find myself wondering if Jacob’s words might help Sarah – He’s looking for platonic friends; does she have the will to become one for him?

    Meanwhile, it looks to me that the thought of a relationship without sex is about as alien to Joe as the atmosphere of Titan!

    1. thejeff

      Nah. Sarah’s after him for his body.

  44. Ivy

    Joe that was excellent advice you are very wise

  45. Sabrina

    Holy SHIT I LOVE this new development with Jacob!!! Wowwwwwww

  46. Bagge

    Not pictured: Sarah’s face when Joyce ask if she is everyone’s punchline.

    Not pictured: Sarah’s face when Jacob talks about not wanting sex.

    1. Bagge

      Also not pictured: Becky’s face when Joyce ask if she is everyone’s punchline.

      1. JBento

        Also also not pictured: Becky’s face when she finds out Joyce has dated gay people, and it wasn’t her.

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Probably something like Amber in panel four here.

        2. Bagge

          At this point I think it might be closer to Doroty’s expression here

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/beard/

        3. Orion Fury

          [Insert Joke About X Character Not Giving Me A Lap Dance Here]

  47. BenRG

    Note: Joyce is still pretty sensitive about the whole ‘Ethan’ thing (even though Jacob seems to indicate that Ethan is not). It’s probably best not to bring up the subject with her unless absolutely necessary.

    1. Cerberus

      It’s hard to be reminded of bad mistakes, even if you’ve fixed them and there wasn’t as much damage as there could have been. So yeah, I understand her defensiveness about it.

      Plus, it seems part of the teasing she’s getting has been in the form of “lol, you dated a gay guy” and that whole weird way of viewing partners coming out as a statement about you rather than “you tried to practice a form of conversion therapy unknowingly”, which is definitely something to snap about. Because fuck that noise and that culture as it leads to a lot of freshly out people getting hurt by former romantic partners eager to protect their sense of manhood or their sense of their sexuality.

  48. Lulu88

    Relationship without sex?
    Blasphemy!

    1. Bicycle Bill

      For me — par for the course.

    2. StClair

      I come at this sort of thing from a sort of odd place. (Which is why I put this by itself, rather than on some other thread.)
      I’m not ace myself, like other commenters on this thread, but I’m absolutely in favor of seeing more close, long-term, intimate relationships (between persons of any and all genders) with no sex involved… because I feel that such relationships tend to be dismissed and devalued, especially in fandom, where the default assumption seems to be that the only acceptable ‘ship is one where both/all of those involved are having sex, or want to. No one can ever seem to be just friends, unless it leads to bangin’.

      1. StClair

        (… well, I thought I did, but first I thought about putting it here, and I guess that works too. :p )

  49. Lulu

    Relationship without sex?
    Blasphemy!

    1. Orion Fury

      Double Posting?
      Double Blasphemy!

  50. Zaxares

    And today Joyce learns about asexuals. 😀 (And possibly also recovering sex addicts.)

  51. UltraKyrie

    All the ace folk coming out of the woodwork tonight, huh? 😀

    1. Cerberus

      It’s very resonant isn’t it?

      I swear, there needs to be a term for the way little resonant moments in works bring out all the hopeful people with that identity thirsting for representation. And it can’t be dog-whistle because that’s been corrupted by its political definition.

      1. boop

        Eectric can opener?

        1. Orion Fury

          Fish!

  52. Wraithy2773

    I… hesitate to call it an asexual romantic relationship, because I’m not asexual and I have no idea what being asexual is like?

    But here’s the thing: For most people, sexual drive is a thing that isn’t simple to turn off. It varies, certainly, but there’s a reason that Abstinence-only Education is a less practical concept than Communism: Our brains are wired to fuck.

    It’s not always reproductive sex, but that’s where it came from. Basic evolution: The genes that were passed down were those in favor of fucking, because fucking is the only way to pass down genes. A doy. Nuance and complications come up, because human sexuality is this giant fractal puzzle, but that’s the high-level, basic version of it: People want to fuck, because fucking is how genes are passed down.

    …I like the word fuck.

    If you can turn it off, and so can your partner? Awesome. If your partner can’t, but you don’t mind them getting a little somethin’-somethin’ on the side, sans commitment? Also awesome.

    But you need to find an equilibrium where things work.

    What Joyce and Ethan had? Joyce wanted to jump Ethan’s bones. Ethan wanted to jump Jacob’s bones. To state the completely and utterly bloody obvious, THAT’S NOT A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP.

    1. Wraithy2773

      Quick note: “because fucking is the only way to pass down genes” refers to reproduction-sans-technology. Obviously there are pieces of technology that alter that, but that’s, generally speaking, pretty recent technology.

      In terms of 99.999% of humans over 99.999% of time that humanity has been a thing, the only way to create new humans is to insert Tab A into Slot B.

      (okay, you can argue about the percentage of pre-historic humans that were the result of “questionable consent”, but I’ve had enough alcohol for the day as it is, I really don’t want to hate the species any more than I do already…)

    2. Doopyboop

      You are absolutely right. As an asexual, I can confirm that what Ethan and Joyce had was…pretty much the both of them denying their bodily desires. Now, if people wanna do this on their own or something, sure go ahead. But Ethan is gay, Joyce is straight. They are downright incompatible and Joyce sure as fuck thought Ethan was attractive. I guess I can appreciate Jacob’s sentiment here, but he is wrong. Companionship without sex, for Ethan and Joyce that would be a friendship. And they are very good as friends!

      But to shove them both into a sexless relationship is bad for both of them. Ethan is gay, pure and simple, and trying to make himself be straight by dating a straight girl…not one of the best ideas. Joyce is wrong for wanting to ‘make’ him straight, but it is also wrong to dangle that possibility over her head with it likely never happening. They would both wind up unhappy because neither of them are ace. They still have needs and they cannot satisfy each other’s needs. In conclusion, pretty damn unhealthy.

      1. Doopyboop

        *was wrong and *was also wrong. Since that stuff is technically in the past and Ethan/Joyce did the right thing and broke up!

      2. Cerberus

        Yup, this. If this was an ace relationship or something queer-platonic, then yeah, it would have been a healthy dynamic. But it wasn’t.

        Ethan was feeling miserable about his romantic and sexual attractions to men and was mostly trying to fake it until he made it with Joyce so his mom would love him again and he could stop receiving all the oppression that comes with being gay. And Joyce was looking for someone to help protect her going out and was feeling intense sexual lust for Ethan and was heavily bothered that he didn’t experience sexual or romantic attraction with her.

        That was always doomed to fall and it’s lucky it did in the way it did before it got super toxic and allowed them to both remain friends afterwards.

  53. OnyxIdol

    I’m astounded that asexuality is apparently such a big deal.

    1. BenRG

      One of the things that the sexual revolution did (especially into the 1970s and recurring in a new generation around the time of the Millennium) was make not being sexually active seem somewhat odd on a social and cultural level. The emergence of the understanding of asexuality as an inborn inclination rather than a social choice has shaken a few assumptions about human nature in a few sociology departments, I think.

      1. OnyxIdol

        Seeing it as “somwhat odd” I can understand, but someone above (BBCC) mentioned that aces are supposedly subject to the same discrimination as gays/transgenders. That’s what baffles me.

        1. Chris Phoenix

          I think a lot of discrimination comes from narrow-minded people going “You don’t fit my categories! That makes me uncomfortable! So you must be bad!”

          To that kind of person, the category “man” probably has connotations of “Wants to have sex with (only) women” and “woman” probably has connotations of “Should be available for sex with men.” An ace man, or an ace woman, does not fit their assigned connotation. Thus, discomfort… and so, hatred… and so, discrimination.

        2. OnyxIdol

          Hmm. I think my surprise stems from the fact that aces are persecuted for something that they don’t want to do. I mean, afaik in some circles there is the notion that homosexuals are predators/pedophiles and what not, so that is one reason for persecution. I just don’t see how aces could be considered a threat in a similar regard, considering that sex is not something that they’re interested in. Also, religious and/or conservative groups tend to view sexuality negatively, so you’d think someone who doesn’t care for it wouldn’t be singled out so much.

          This is a bit convoluted, but I hope it makes sense.

        3. Jengoci

          While sex is ser it as something negative, it is alzó ser it as a reproduticve porpuse that you need to fullfil, so people will attack on asexuals like “how dare you not to fullfil god’s life assigment for you!” especially if you are percieved as female

        4. thejeff

          There’s also a decent level of “You don’t want to have sex with me? Oh, you don’t want to have sex at all? Having sex with me will fix that!”

        5. neeks

          to say nothing of your life being a never-ending FAQ, usually to tactless people who start the questions with a tone of “so you’re a freak, tell me more about it! man, why are you being so defensive????”

          (BECAUSE I DON’T ENJOY BEING INTERROGATED ABOUT MY SEXUALITY WHILE I’M ON MY LUNCH BREAK, RITA.)

          seriously, the number of people who react to my coming out to them as ace with casual acceptance are in the vast minority.

        6. OnyxIdol

          I know something similar from the time I was vegetarian/vegan.

        7. CoMa

          I don’t know if it’s that much of a good analogy…heck, why not? (unless someone feels insulted, then sorry, it’s not intended that way)

          Speaking from personal experience, people feel kind of threatened or alienated when you tell them you stopped eating meat, because they think you now judge them for eating meat, and then feel the need to get with you into an argument of possible malnutrition, and why meat is good for you etc. I never was much of a meat eater, I felt sick when handling raw meat, and only ate specific types of meat (bones, gristles and visible fat made me feel sick as well). When a friend of mine wanted to try out meatless meals 3 years ago (we regularly cook together), I was like, yes, why not! And I never missed meat since, though I do eat fish, so I’m not strictly speaking vegetarian but pescetarian.
          Still, people had a difficult time understanding my decision, because they enjoyed meat and couldn’t understand how I didn’t want to eat meat! It only helped when I told them that I just don’t enjoy the taste and a few ethical reasons, but with “taste” they can somehow cope better, because everyone has something they don’t like to eat.

          Now with regards to sexuality – maybe that’s similar. People trying to argue with you on your own sexuality might somehow feel insulted or attacked in their personal sexual identity themselves, or something like that, like e.g. people labelling other people as “slutty” because they have a high sex drive and many one night stands that hurt nobody but their own ethical ideas they imprint onto others. There are also a bunch of human emotions, insecurities etc. come into play, but that’s just a POSSIBLE reason for it (persecution). As if saying “I like Pokémon blue more” invalidates their liking “Pokémon red” in any way (yeah, stupid unnecessary reference I know).

          A friend of mine is asexual. As she told me, she explained it to me and I was simply telling her “I still love you as if you’re family, no matter as what you identify yourself as” – and that’s true, so though I might logically be able to reason my way into the heads of people thinking they have the right to interfere with other peoples personal sexual identities, when it shouldn’t interest them for shit.
          Thanks to her and my own research I even discovered that I’m very possibly on the demi-scale (I always wondered why I hardly fell in love, seemed to be a ‘late bloomer’ and rather yearned for emotional connection everyone seemed to have than sexual intercourse – basically only finding people attractive when I got to know them, never having a “type” etc.)

        8. CoMa

          And just an addition: With “no matter as what you identify yourself as” I of course told my friend I accept her as what- and however she is, not intending to devalue her sexual identity or something. It was meant (and received as) “Doesn’t matter to me, I’ll support you and love you with it”

        9. Orion Fury

          She just needs to leave you alone and go make some monster grow.

        10. the final pam

          One of the main things too is just having their entire identity invalidated. “Oh, no, asexuality isn’t a /thing/. You’re just straight/gay without a sex drive.” And that can come from people on all sides of the scale.

        11. Killjoy

          Is their “entire identity” really based on or defined by their sexuality?

        12. Cerberus

          My gender and sexuality are a key part of my identity. As are my mental illnesses. They are critical to understanding major parts of how I grew up, the struggles I’ve had to overcome, and sadly, they were major parts of awful parts of my life.

          Me being trans alone cost me at least one job, my family, and a romantic partner, and is largely responsible for my PTSD stemming from several people threatening my life to my face about it.

          Me being ace has… colored relationships in the past and I suspect was partially a factor in some of the abuse I sustained. It was certainly, I’ve come to realize, a major factor in why I was targeted in my rape.

          So yeah, it’s a bit important to my identity.

        13. the final pam

          Yes? Their entire identity may not be wholly defined by their sexuality, but it plays a huge part in it.

          If I had phrased it as their “entire existence” would you have understood it better?

        14. Killjoy

          Can’t reply directly to either of you, nesting limit hit.

          I apologize if I in any way came across as dismissive, that wasn’t my intent.

          It’s just difficult for me to get my head around this. The only time I really pay attention to someone’s “group identity” is when it’s being made “a thing” by them or someone else. My mental “image’ of Cerberus is of someone who writes interesting comments, and is passionate about helping people, and sounds like a good teacher, and has constructive replies even when someone’s a jerk, and so on. In my mind, what makes you YOU is that stuff, not the categories and labels.

        15. Spencer

          I sort of see where you’re coming from, so I hope I can help out.

          Like, I think you’re coming at “labels” by viewing it as something used by an opposition to dehumanize their target as The Other and boil them down to a single concept, and that for everyone to be truly happy we have to cast off labels and just Be People.

          It just doesn’t work that way. Labels are a way to give a name to the feelings inside us. That it’s not just this big cloud of weirdness that separates you from the crowd, but something that is real and valid and that you belong to.

          For a while I was convinced I was gay due to my attraction to men despite still being very obviously attracted to women, because bisexuality was a thing I didn’t have much exposure to. It wasn’t until I started calling myself bisexual that I started to feel more confident in those feelings.

          To be sure labels can get boiled down to stereotypes, I’m keenly aware of that, but I think that’s a separate problem to needing labels for groups.

        16. Cerberus

          Killjoy- Nah, it makes sense.

          It can be hard to understand why a label can be something precious and important when you don’t have the experience of having to search for years to find one or being heavily marginalized because of who you are for reasons you don’t have words to explain.

        17. Cerberus

          But more directly to the final pam’s main point:

          Yeah, the invalidization hits hard. The way it’s treated like something fictional we made up to feel special or is easily discounted or assumed to be just not a big deal. Like, I’m remembering Dan Savage’s little dismissals of the ace community in the documentary (A)sexual and its the open-faced dismissal like we and our life experiences and labels we fought hard to find or create are somehow meaningless because we don’t have the numbers to loudly proclaim our life experiences and oppressions to the world.

          And yeah, it leads to garbage where heteroromantic and aromantic aces are treated as if they were “practically straight” and where ace issues are safely hidden from sight so no sexual feels put on the spot.

        18. the final pam

          You know asexual invalidation is bad when there are so many people who honestly think that the ‘a’ in LGBTQA+ stands for ‘allies’, or people who believe that allies should replace asexuals in the acronym simply because they don’t think that it’s really a thing.

        19. Spencer

          Allies are the real heroes. If it wasn’t for straight people being kind enough to maybe stop labeling us criminal deviants and sex perverts, where would we be now

        20. Orion Fury

          I know Spencer, right? All the tireless work we do, tolerating their existence, helping them to have the same rights as us. They could be a bit more grateful about it. I wouldn’t say no to a muffin basket.

        21. Cerberus

          It’s cause we’re “deviants” in that we have a sexuality that is not like the majority of people’s sexualities and that means that people who hate gay people and hate trans people and so on hate us just as much.

          So, yeah, religious bigots who rant about all sex being sinful are quick to flip to “be fruitful and multiply” and rant about how sex is a duty a dutiful wife performs for her husband as an admonishment to an ace person who comes out to their pastor.

          And yeah, there’s a lot of nastiness that we get. There’s the association of asexuality with pedophilia, because pretty much every marginalized sexual and gender identity is assumed to secretly be pedophiles. There’s the “ice queen” stereotype and the idea that someone who is uninterested in sex is doing harm to men or otherwise hates all men.

          There’s a terrifying level of sexual assault numbers because predators frequently view us as a) a challenge that will earn them double points and b) haughty (slurs for assertive women) who need to “be put in their place”. And also because well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning partners feel justified in pressuring us in relationships because there’s a cultural expectation that being in a relationship means you are sexually active with each other. Additionally, our partners are often judged for our asexuality and us not being sexually attracted to them is treated as a commentary on their attractiveness or gender or value as a person. There’s also a strain of corrective rape that views our asexuality as a trick of repression that will be fixed once we’re “revved up” as it were… against our will.

          This also means we’re heavily at risk for abuse as well. Both from partners who feel our identities are a comment on their masculinity or a deliberate act of sabotage as well as from strangers who are just angered by our existence and see us as a thing to be stopped.

          Some because they see us as gay, some because they’ve had bad experiences with repression and see us as a good straw man for those experiences, some just because.

          And that first aspect, where we’re read as queer by bigots, means a lot of us experience a lot of homophobic bullying growing up. I certainly did.

          There’s also the assholes who are against “anything tumblr” and views our identities and words as “trying to be special” and thus worthy of being harassed, sent death threats, sent angry mods, doxxed, etc…

          Fuck, I ended up on one bigots radar because I was ace and it lead to an avalanche of death threats that knocked me off writing for a few things I was writing for at the time.

          As a community, we’ve been through some shit. And if we were really to pinpoint the biggest reason why, it’d probably simply be, we’re small, we’re different, and thus we’re an ideal target for the type of people who need to view a group beneath them in order to feel powerful.

        22. Ciritus

          Or (as a transexual boy but still being percieved as a female), having to gave up in friendships or meaningful mom sexual relationship with the opposite sex; because everybody stars “assuming” and teasing and even forcing the romance factor and you and your friend, to the point you can’t even be physical affectionate with them in fear of being hollered or something

        23. Elisto

          Religions don’t entirely view sex as negative though. Plenty of fundamentalist Christians and other religions are kind of obsessed with sex – the “right” kind, that is.

          Being sex-repulsed ace as a teenager in the Bible Belt, it’s unsettling and hard to miss. Relationships are all about eventually having approved sex and adults tell you all about how wonderful God-approved sex is…sexual “purity” as a teen is all about how much better it supposedly makes sex as an adult, so to be asexual in that context is to reject what God supposedly designed us for. A lack of sexual attraction can let you easily pass when you’re younger since it just looks like you’re succeeding at their purity teachings, but once you’re older and God wants you to want and enjoy sex at the approved times (it’s natural!) or else there’s something “wrong” with you.

        24. Cerberus

          This.

          People have roles in a lot of those cultures and the expectation that one is to “perform” in one’s “godly duties” upon marriage is a common one.

          Also, huge *hugs* for you going through that.

      2. thejeff

        OTOH, what the sexual revolution also did was set the ground for bringing all of this out in the open. Likely before it, the asexuals just went along with the social traditions and had sex. Especially women, since women weren’t really supposed to like sex anyway. So maybe the guys didn’t seek out sex before marriage, but they still mostly got married and had sex at least occasionally because you were supposed to. It was your duty.

        1. Cerberus

          Yeah, just like queer folks, we existed but mostly in secret, leaving only a few written records here and there to mark our existence. Maybe a journal or a letter, something small. And we married and blended in or worked hard and happened to never marry, but we’re in the records, here and there. Hell, Tesla was very likely ace and aro.

        2. OnyxIdol

          This isn’t an answer to this particular post, rather to the thread and answers at large.

          Well, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. People will take any excuse to prey on outsiders/minorities, and it only will gets worse the more restrictive a society is. That agent K quote comes to mind: “a person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.”

        3. Rukduk

          Yep. There are actually some really interesting examples from history as well. For example, T.E. Lawerence is now debated to have been either gay or, and this is slowly gaining traction, ace homoromantic. This is based on evidence like his personal correspondence and letters with one of Faisoul’s aides, and his own described appreciation homosexual love between Bedouin rebels he served with. I generally go with the latter position, as he had no apparent sexual partners throughout his life. Of course, his social circumstances meant that he fit into cultural norms. As an illegitimate child it would have been very hard to marry if he wanted to, and the fact that he didn’t get married was seen as being perfectly logical in British society. At the same time he was incredibly patriotic and very enthusiastic about traditionally masculine activities, so no one back then assumed him to be gay. It also helped that he was the celebrated “Lawrence of Arabia”, and was sometimes considered more legend than actual human.

        4. Chris Phoenix

          Tesla said that he loved a particular pigeon “as a man loves a woman.” So maybe he wasn’t completely a- a-, but just not oriented toward humans.

          I’ve wondered, reading these threads, whether part of being ace is being mostly not attracted to humans, in the same way that a gay man mostly isn’t attracted to women and a gay woman mostly isn’t attracted to men. Your comment about Tesla got me to ask if this model is usefully congruent with reality. (The question is intended for whoever knows and wants to answer.)

        5. Fart Captor

          what.

        6. Orion Fury

          seconded.

        7. Chris Phoenix

          Not kidding. https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/quotes/13

          “I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me.
          I loved that pigeon as a man loves a women, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.”

        8. Fart Captor

          Yeah, and it sounds like you’re basically implying that asexual people are actually just sexually/romantically attracted to animals.

          I’m trying to give you the benefit of a doubt, but I can’t see any other way to read your comment.

          Even if Tesla’s meant his comments about the bird as literally has suggested, that is not what is going on.

          It’s very simple: Imagine someone you are not sexually attracted to. Now imagine that’s how you react to everyone. That’s how being asexual works.

          Any sexual or romantic attraction to other species is a completely separate thing, and I really shouldn’t need to explain that.

        9. Chris Phoenix

          Yeah, I realized some time after I wrote my response that my question had probably been taken wrong. Sorry about that. I thought at first you were just reacting to the info about Tesla.

          And I didn’t realize HOW wrong it could be taken until I read your second response. I certainly did NOT mean to suggest that ace people in general are attracted to animals.

          My question was just: Are ace people not wired to feel attraction at all, or are they simply not attracted by most humans? This is separate from whether any particular ace person is turned on by any particular other thing. I’m sorry I didn’t make that more clear. There’s no reason why an ace person would be more likely to be attracted to animals than any other person.

          For the record, I don’t suspect that Tesla was pigeon-sexual. But from what he wrote, I do wonder if he was maybe a bit pigeon-romantic. (Just a bit, if at all; out of thousands of birds, he only claimed to love one.)

        10. Fart Captor

          Don’t worry about it. I was mostly confused, rather than upset. I remember seeing your username around enough that I figured you wouldn’t have lasted so long if that was what you meant, but I couldn’t figure out what the not-horrible interpretation would be.

          As for your question, I’m not ace myself, but my understanding of it is that sexually/asexuality is a spectrum, so an asexual person can be wired either way.

          Someone who’s completely asexual will never feel sexually attracted to anyone, while others might if they have enough of an emotional connection (I believe the term there is “demisexual”).

    2. BBCC

      I knew they got shit for it, but the amount and the flavours of shit they got for it stunned me.

      I found a reading list here if you’re interested in reading more. A lot of it is testimonials on tumblr, but some of them are newspaper articles and there’s at least one scholarly study. http://blenderbender1811.tumblr.com/post/155439875225/the-aphobia-masterpost

  54. Joe Covenant

    “So, Sarah… all this making you feel any less awkward?”

  55. FantasyFreakVI

    I’m putting $20 down on Jacob being asexual.

    1. Doopyboop

      I’m gonna put down fifty for the same! Asexual Jacob ftw!

      1. Vi

        It’d be a really interesting turn and I’d be excited for the ace representation, since the last Jacob (in shortpacked) was a sex addict, but Willis DID say that the sexualities stay the same across universes. Hmmmmmm.

        1. NotPiffany

          Maybe Jacob’s a sex addict who’s trying to kick the habit?

        2. StClair

          Yeah, my money’s on “recovering addict following, or trying to follow, the ‘can’t have any EVER’ regimen”.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Picturing DoA guest week on Jeopardy. “I’ll take Confusing Sexualities for $20.”

  56. ischemgeek

    …

    I think Jacob is showing the fact that he doesn’t have the whole story here. If he did, he’d probably feel differently.

    On the other hand: What Joyce really, genuinely needs right now is companionship without pressure for sex. And Ethan did give that to her.

    On the other other hand, what Ethan wanted was not companionship without sex, it was a straight beard. Joyce gave that to him.

    Joyce was being shitty by encouraging Ethan’s self-hatred and homophobia (it is possible to be gay and homophobic and Ethan is an excellent case study in it – grow up around enough homophobic messaging and you’re bound to internalize it). Ethan was using Joyce. They both were being kind of shitty to each other. Joyce moreso than Ethan because Joyce’s actions caused Ethan genuine harm, whereas Ethan’s seem to have been a net positive overall for Joyce.

    1. ischemgeek

      Also, FYI: I’ve discovered I’m having a bad language day with my autism and I can’t tell if the above has any tense issues or assorted fuckups, so 1, please ask me to clarify if it does because I might not have meant exactly what I wrote and 2, please expect it to take a while for me to reply.

      I can still do commenting when that’s acting up, but it’s hard. And I’m just going to refrain from non-essential comments today because I don’t trust that I’ll be able to make them without unintentionally being an asshole by blundering straight into a bad implication that I can’t see or fucking up tense/pronouns in a bad way.

      1. Annika

        1. I’m sorry you’re having a bad day. I have autism too; it can be really rough sometimes.

        2. I really like your analysis! It seems accurate, given what we’ve seen so far. I think Ethan and Joyce’s relationship was really sweet, and she didn’t mean to hurt him, but the whole thing fueled a lot of self loathing for the two of them.

        1. ischemgeek

          1. Got better as the day went on, but I was having one of those “How does pronouns and verb tenses?” mornings. Also a “what are implications?” morning.

          So it was a lot of writing and/or saying something, fucking it up, getting people looking at me weird or being upset, rinse and repeat.

          I tend to get into this loop with it where I wake up on a bad day and I screw something up and get social backlash which makes me anxious which distracts me from communication so I have a harder time being effective in communicating which means I screw up more and it just snowballs unless and until I put a stop to the cycle by going off alone until I decompress and also solve whatever is causing the language problem (in this case, a migraine that I was not able to figure out I was having because bad body awareness.

          (The migraine actually started yesterday around four when I think back on when I started feeling “off” and how the trajectory of my language issues have happened – pain usually makes words harder for me. Why yes my body awareness is bad enough it is entirely possible I will not notice I’m having a migraine because I often experience non-injury pain without registering it consciously)

          I can’t figure out I’m having a migraine in the middle of one until 18 hours after it starts, only after I do a detailed body inventory to figure out why I can’t social right, and I just now realized I haven’t eaten in 12 hours… sometimes I wish the paaarents who insist I don’t count as autistic because I’m “So highfunctioning!” could see me on a day like this.

          And then I remember the last time I let a non-trusted allistic see me like this I set my career back four years and nope never again.

      2. Cerberus

        Seemed fine to me and I largely agree with your analysis. It did what both were looking for at that moment, but it was not healthy and there were elements about it that needed to end sooner rather than later.

  57. Wraithwalker

    Oh my god, an adult who respects peoples choices without trying to influence or change them. What a novel concept.

  58. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Is Mrs. Degree the vengeful widow of Mr. Freeze?

    1. JBento

      I have no idea. I think it’s isn’t the first time I’ve seen the expression, but I can’t recall where, and I thought it was a MRS degree. O_o

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        As a semi-joke it goes back at least decades, likely all the way back to the first co-ed universities.

        1. JBento

          Er… I know it’s not funny when you have to explain it, but, uh… explain it?

        2. zerotkatama

          Essentially the joke that some women were there not for their degree but to find their future husband.

        3. NotPiffany

          When a girl goes to college with the intent to leave as soon as she finds a nice boy to marry… as in Mrs. [Nice Boy]….

        4. JBento

          Thanks to the both of you.

        5. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          [I’d already typed all this earlier but then couldn’t get to the site.]

          An “MRS degree” is a joke based on sounding like an acronym for a course of study, like EE for Electrical Engineering, or ENG for English, or MBA for Masters in Business Administration.

          But what it really means is finding a husband at school.

          A woman who is “getting an MRS degree” is someone who is not going to the school because she wants to learn something, or to get qualifications for a job.

          She is there to meet an eligible and compatible man to get married to. Thus the real reason Miss Mary Jones is coming to the university is to meet Mr. Right and marry him, and thus become “Mrs. Right”. A university is a good place for that, as there are lots of unmarried young men around, and necessarily from a middle-class background or aspiring to become middle class.

          See?

          In DoA both Joyce and Becky were going to their schools to get degrees in Childhood Education, and would have gotten those degrees, because it helps keep the authorities off your case when you home school your children.

          But the real reason they were there was to meet their future husbands. Note that Joyce’s parents met that way. We don’t know about Becky’s parents.

          That was how things were supposed to go, assuming they were obedient good little girls. Turns out they aren’t. Drama ensues.

      2. the final pam

        It’s also been mentioned in the comic before, though not by name iirc. But the comments section did name it: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/02-uphill-from-here/stupid/

      3. JBento

        My thanks to everyone for the explanations.

  59. Agnes Nitt

    Joe obviously tends to lose his eyebrows from time to time…
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/dress/

    1. ValdVin

      Is there a term for that?

      Cap’n Crunch was the first drawn figure I remember whose eyebrows wandered up to places they couldn’t possibly really exist.

      Until someone else comes up with better, I’d like to call it “Cap’n Crunching”.

    2. ValdVin

      Oh, and I forgot to include this link about many comic terms in the visual vocabulary:

      http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BriffitsAndSqueans

      1. Orion Fury

        I see you like to live dangerously. I, too, also like to live dangerously.

  60. CoMa

    Can’t wait to see where this is continuing!

    On a side note, I don’t what it is, but especially today, this site crashes on my computer, not only when I’m trying to comment, but also when it’s just open in the background. Anyone experiencing similar problems?
    Or is it just my computer/network? :/

    1. Spaz

      Have you tried closing *all the porn* in the other, incognito, window?

      >.>

      1. CoMa

        XD I’d wish to say “Damn, why haven’t I thought of that!”, where it not for the fact that I don’t watch porn…

        Honestly, though, yes, it’s the only site I’ve got open, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I think that because someone uploads a comment or reply while I’m on the site, possibly trying to write a reply myself, the website just crashes for me.
        It’s a bit annoying because it also crashed down a few times as I just had the site open ‘in the background’, while I wrote in a word document or did something else on my PC. And right now I lost a comment I wanted to post, because it crashed again *sig*

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Having trouble also.

  61. smooti

    And then Joyce and Joe learned about asexuality!!!! …I hope that’s where this is going. Also I’m glad that someone in story is mentioning that sexual attraction ain’t the end all at least. Cuz I… found Ethan andJpyce cute together. In it for the wrong reasons and definitely not a long lasting romance, but cute.

    1. smooti

      Did icons rotate again? I’m Ruth!

      1. ValdVin

        I could see the value in Joyce learning about ace. However, the phrase “sex hanging over (her) head” does seem to describe a lot of what she’s going through internally. (The two times she imagined a nude male torso, once while hugging Ethan, once while in the shower, loom large.)

        I am very intersted in what will happen to the clash going on within. While that is up in the air I don’t know what kind of dating would be good for her.

        (And I was not religious when I was her age, so my mess-ups were all my own. I recognize she has more factors to deal with.)

        BTW: The icons rotate? On a daily basis? (I literally don’t know.)

        I’m new to the commenting, and I was given Jocelyn as an icon yesterday. That’s pretty cool; I’m trying to keep it.

        1. Smooti

          They can change when Willis adds a new one or changes one I believe. But yes hopefully if asexuality is about to be explained, I hope Joyce is able to separate that from the trauma and fear she has about sex and her own feelings right now. And that Joe gets over his manliness = lots of sex mentality.

      2. thejeff

        I don’t think so. Everyone else seems the same.

        They change with different email addresses – even if the only difference is capitalization.

      3. Spencer

        nooo my Knockout grav

        How can I post without a pic of my favourite gay robot person?

        1. Spencer

          Ha! Take that, separate outdated e-mail address!

  62. Heather

    Jacob no. You are (hopefully unwittingly) being a proponent for gay conversion therapy.

    Kind of random/only tangibly related but I kind of wish people we’rent so dickish about people who weren’t sexually compatible breaking up sometimes in society. It’s a perfectly valid reason to break up. Like you’ll get people throwing out bullshit about asexuals being ‘selfish’ or those who aren’t and unhappy without sex in a romantic relationship being ‘disgusting’ or worse.

    Like if you don’t want sex and the other does and really has to have some level of that to be happy in a relationship, (or vice versa) it isn’t a bad thing to break up. You’re being adults about it. You have different needs! The person uninterested in sex isn’t being ‘selfish’. The person who needs it isn’t either. Both members in a relationship have to be happy after all. It’s only if you pressure or guilt someone into having sex they don’t want you /are/ a piece of shit. If you guilt someone/insult someone who feels unhappy for any reason into staying into any relationship you are /also/ a piece of shit.

    Sometimes people can work out other ways and things can work out for them- but can’t for everyone. But sexual incompatibility shouldn’t be something people are ashamed of. Shit just happens.

    There doesn’t always have to be a bad guy. Some people just won’t work in a romantic relationship even if they are great friends otherwise.

    1. Tikitori

      I think Jacob was speaking more about himself than about Ethan when he said that. Problems with Raidah, perhaps?

      Also, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have a relationship without the sexual component-whether temporary or permanent. To want intimacy without all that.

      Just not in Ethan’s case. He was totes looking for a beard.

      1. trlkly

        It’s not as if having a beard is wrong, either. It’s up to you if you want to be out.

        The beard, however, needs to be clear that what they have is not a sexual relationship and will never become one. But Joyce did seem to want a sexual relationship. She was interested in trying to convert Ethan, treating his sexual urges towards men as wrong.

        I’m reading a webcomic right now about a closeted trans man who has a beard so that no guys will hit on him. Though, admittedly, the reasons he’s not out have to do with magic–see, he used to be a cis man, but reality was changed to where he’d been born female, and only he, his girlfriend, and the guy who did it remember otherwise.

        Still, point is, I can’t see that what he is doing is wrong.

        1. trlkly

          The comic’s name is Misfile, BTW. And, if you go to the forums, be prepared that pretty much everyone calls the trans man character “she,” since he’s closeted. Bugs me, but no one else seems to care.

          http://www.misfile.com

        2. thejeff

          It was pretty screwed up on both sides. Joyce both strongly wants a sexual relationship and strongly wants to avoid one. At least avoid any actual sexual activity due to her repressed upbringing, but she’s still strongly tempted. With the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) partner, I suspect she could be seduced or work herself into being seduced pretty easily. It would need to be somebody a lot less overt about it than Joe. She would be horribly screwed up by it afterwards though. Probably applies to any actual sexual activity, even if they didn’t go all the way.
          Ethan was good for her in that he was safe – even if she succumbed to temptation, he wouldn’t be interested. Obviously this wouldn’t work in the long run – she’d want marriage and then plenty of sex, which he still wouldn’t be interested in.

          Ethan on the other hand, while he liked her, was nowhere near as invested in her as she was with him. She was a beard, a cover, not an actual relationship. He wasn’t going to last that long. Wasn’t going to actually stay closeted. Witness him flirting hard with Jocelyne.

    2. trlkly

      I disagree. Gay conversion therapy is about conversion. They want to make you attracted to women instead of men. It’s not the same thing as those who choose to be in a celibate marriage.

      The main problem with Joyce and Ethan was that Joyce was attempting to convert Ethan. She was having sexual thoughts about him, and hoping to eventually have sex with him. That’s definitely a bad relationship.

      But if it had actually been just a gay man dating a straight woman, neither who are ready for sex yet? I can’t see it being any more of a problem than two ace people dating. Sure, the former is almost inherently temporary, but that’s okay.

    3. ObiKemnebi

      Speaking as a gray-ace who leans more towards homosexuality dating a heterosexual male with an almost ridiculous sex drive, I’m going to put my two cents in. I’ve been in a relationship where the guy guilted me into letting him do what he wanted with my body because “sex doesn’t hurt me as much as blue balling hurt him” and yes, it was absolutely abusive and I’m glad I got up the guts to leave him. But the guy I’m with now doesn’t do that. He wants and enjoys sex, but does not expect it or ask for it. My insecure self checks with him at least once a week if it bothers him, and every time he says that no, being with me at all is well worth the physical frustration. He hasn’t tried to change me or get me to do anything outside my comfort zone, and while I’ve given him permission to go find a sex buddy to satisfy himself with, he has decided not to (at least for the time being). My point is that yes, differences in sexuality can be a viable reason to break up and one shouldn’t be ashamed of that, but it doesn’t have to be and one shouldn’t be ashamed for staying, either. And I think that’s kind of what Jacob it’s going for; he’s not addressing Joyce’s reasons for dating a gay guy, just saying that the act of dating someone with opposing sexuality isn’t inherently wrong or something Joe should be putting her down for.

  63. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions (delayed):

    Panel 1: I’m a little bothered by Joe here. Especially as this seems to be following the last strip and so this feels like him doing his usual shtick of getting defensive and throwing out a distracting accusation or non-sequitur when he feels guilty or is called on his shit.

    And especially since it feels like using Ethan’s sexuality as an accusation, placing it more on the level of “you dated a gay person” than actually getting to the meat of what was actually problematic about her relationship with Ethan.

    And that just feels like more of that macho culture that leads to folks getting hurt after coming out to a partner or an ex because the partner/ex views it as a commentary on their sexual identity that leaves them open to ridicule (which I’m extra sensitive about of late cause I’m 99% sure the kid at work got targeted by his ex for assault because of this shit and because he thought the kid coming out as trans was somehow a comment on his sexuality and masculinity he “needed to make right”).

    Also, oh Joyce you forgot the perfect rejoinder in follow-up to that: “Unless there’s something you want to tell me, boy I’ve dated?”

    Panel 2: I love Jacob here. It’s such a humanizing moment. He sees this brewing argument and he’s just “yeah, nope, we’re not doing this” and refocuses the humanity of the person that Joe is using to snipe at Joyce’s weak points. Like it’s such a soft important moment and shows that he really is a good egg.

    Panel 3: And this might be why it feels like a distraction, cause here Joe grabs another sore point and throws it out.

    I dunno, I don’t trust people who find it really easy to go for sore points in arguments. It makes it hard to trust them with any vulnerable information lest they later use it if there’s a falling out or you anger them.

    Also, I love Joyce not having any patience for Joe’s shit and calling him out. And her defensiveness on behalf of Ethan. Like, you can say shit about her, but don’t you dare bring the people she loves into it.

    And ah, Mrs. Degree. The sexist expectation on white middle class evangelicals that they should go to college, cause that’ll help give them a thing they can use to feel emotionally superior to poor folks who can’t afford to get their degree, but not actually learn anything (because of how sinful and full of liberals it is) and instead just find a good man to serve for the rest of their days.

    And yeah, this is a large part of why a lot of fundies are targeting colleges and ranting a lot about “intellectual diversity” and are trying to ban all the ethnic studies classes and gender studies classes and so on. Because they want to turn colleges into basically this “clean” place they can send their kids where they won’t use the freedom of it to figure out if they still believe what their parents believe and if they even want to be in the type of relationships they want for them and figure out things like whether or not they are the gender they thought they were or the sexuality they were told they had to be.

    And instead where they’ll be kept safely ignorant until they are ready to do “their part for the white race” (might be unique to the particular strain I grew up with) and raise a new generation of holy warriors to stand against the Antichrist and his demonic minions (basically almost all POC, queer folks, non-christians, etc…).

  64. Cerberus

    Panel 4: And on that day Jacob learned a valuable lesson about not outing his gay roommate even to folks who seem chill about it. Cause in the hands of a fucker, that knowledge can be used to hurt people.

    Panel 5: Well, now.

    Is this super resonant for ace folks? Hell yeah. Wanting a relationship where sexual expectation wasn’t the focal point is a common ace experience and so yeah, envying someone in that, even if the circumstances weren’t exactly healthy is a not uncommon thing.

    And I think that’s why all us aces are looking up like dogs that just heard something. Cause it is a very ace experience.

    But yeah, he’s also speaking positively about an experience that was, at its heart, essentially a form of reparative therapy. And that’s why Sarah was so initially appalled by it.

    But I feel Jacob isn’t thinking about that, either now or when he first made the statement, because it doesn’t matter the specifics, just the structure. That’s what he’s longing for. Something where sex isn’t even a thing on the table and where it’s just companionship and, I’m sure he presumes, romantic connection (even though there wasn’t, Ethan is homoromantic as he is homosexual).

    And the reasons are interesting. Is this Jacob ace and feel pressured by the way sexual activity is frequently presumed in relationships or is it, as is sadly more likely, that he struggles with an addictive personality that he recognizes can manifest with sexual activity and is terrified that the equivalent of one drink will become 5 or 12 or 20.

    And well, even if that’s the case, his fear is real. He doesn’t want a sexual relationship, he’s enjoying that him and Raidah are not physical yet, but I suspect a major part of him would prefer if him and Raidah weren’t ever physical and he can enjoy the romantic and companionship aspects to a relationship without dipping into the sexual stuff he views as potentially unhealthy.

    And I think that’s why it resonates so strongly with a lot of ace folks, because we’re the ones who’ve frequently been there, albeit for much different reasons.

    Panel 6: It’s worth noting that Joyce has gotten a lot of backlash for her beliefs. Like, a lot of it is warranted, because she is saying wrong or harmful things, but still, we know she was raised to believe that as a Christian she would have to battle against the heathens at University like Mary and stand up for what’s “right”.

    So she’s absent a lot of positive statements about what she’s doing, especially the more out there religious aspects and especially this relationship which everyone and their mother has noted was toxic because of the whole “reparative therapy” angle.

    This is really the first time someone has looked at that and gone, yeah, wow, that sounds really great and I’d probably really like a structure like that.

    And it’s going to be especially interesting, because maybe by seeing other perspectives, she’ll be less defensive on the parts that are bad, because she sees other people seeing what initially blinded her to how awful what she did was and the positive memories she has of that relationship, which was to date the longest one she has ever been in.

    Also, Joe… oh boy, Joe, please don’t go on an acephobic rant right now. I know the idea of someone not gaining strength from constantly pursuing sex is anathema to your whole… thing, but just… don’t do to Jacob what you did to Danny.

    But on a serious note, maybe this will get through to Joe that his way isn’t the only way. Like, he doesn’t respect Danny as a person, so of course he looks down on Danny not really liking casual sex and preferring long-term romantic relationships. But Jacob? He respects Jacob. He even looks up to him and wants to impress him. So if Jacob says it, maybe it will get through in a way it didn’t coming off of Danny or “some chick”.

    1. Wraithy2773

      …I don’t think Jacob is Ace. Assuming that Jacob of Shortpacked and Jacob of DoA have the same sexuality and addiction (…which has generally been the case with other chars, I think? Biggest deviation is Danny being explicitly Bisexual, instead of “never came up if Danny was Bisexual”, AFAIK), this feels more like a recovering alcoholic not wanting to drink beer.

      Which is kinda what bugs me a bit, because what that was? Was the opposite of smart. Ethan’s gay, that’s… not going to change. It’s been fairly well established that the only reason he’s trying to date women is because that’s the societal expectation, and he believes it’d be “easier” to be a closeted gay man.

      …not to mention issues with parents, how it affected his relationship with Amber, like 50000000 other things I bet…

      …but Jacob telling a guy that feels himself getting pushed back into the closet by just about the entire world that “hey, maybe you can make the I’m-totally-heterosexual-we-just-don’t-have-sex plan work” is… it’s a pretty awful idea, no matter the good intentions.

      In the end… it’s another hand pushing him back into the closet. 🙁

      Oh: And yeah, there’s no way Joe’s not going to shove his foot back into his mouth. I think the only thing that’s going to stop it at this rate is if women stop having sex with Joe…….. or if Joe explicitly crosses the line when it comes to consent.

      (horrible person as I am? I’m kinda curious how Willis would do the latter, especially if it’s not going the easy “douchebag that rapes becomes an even bigger, unquestionable douchebag)

      1. thejeff

        What I’d like to see with Joe is to actually have him confronted by someone he had sex with under questionable circumstances – maybe not actually legally crossing the line, but someone where he’d kept pushing till she consented or where there was alcohol involved. Someone to shatter his illusion that it’s all mutually pleasurable with no regrets. Or someone who thought she was getting into more than a one night stand.
        Maybe multiple someones, a whole “I had sex with Joe” mutual support groups.

        1. Spencer

          I don’t believe we’ll ever see something like that.

        2. thejeff

          I don’t either. It may be lack of faith in Willis, but I think we’re going to see Joe evolve without ever having to deal with ever really confronting his creepiness.

        3. Chris Phoenix

          He has a view of his creepiness. When his father put the moves on Sarah, Joe apologized to her: “I wish I could say he was like that only after he got divorced.” (or similar words)

          So he knows it’s creepy. He just hasn’t looked in a mirror yet. (He did almost exactly the same thing to Becky.)

    2. Temperaryobsessor

      Even if Joe suddenly realized he shouldn’t ridicule others for wanting different things out of relationships, I think he is actually a long way from having a chance at keeping Jacob as a friend long term. Joe’s life revolves around sex and while that might be fine for him but would a recovering alcoholic really want to hang out with someone who’s life revolves around alcohol and wouldn’t see the problem with being an alcoholic until it stops you from being able to afford alcohol.

      1. Cerberus

        Very true. That friendship is probably doomed long term.

    3. Orion Fury

      Well Joe did realize that he’s Danny when Jacob is around, thus carrying the implication that Jacob is Joe when is around. It’s just gonna rock his world, that a cool dude like JAcob doesn’t need sex to be cool, that sex isn’t the ‘be all, end all’, or something like that..

  65. Exilon1

    You know Jacob I think the thing you think you’re defining there is simply friendship

    1. Spencer

      As terrible and wrong as Joyce and Ethan’s relationship was, noooooooo.

      Jacob has anxiety relating to sex, and he’s worried that because of this he’s going to be denied a relationship because there’s something wrong with him. Sex isn’t this massive concern for him but he’s been told that not wanting sex with a beautiful lady all the time makes him less of a man.

    2. Cerberus

      Not really. Relationships don’t necessarily need sex or mutual sexual attraction to be relationships.

      Think of everything you get that’s lovely in a relationship that isn’t the sex. That’s a pretty beautiful awesome thing and even more so for me as an asexual and is a long way away from simply being a friendship.

    3. Rukduk

      What Jacob is describing seems awfully familiar to “romantic friendships”, which were quite popular in the West until about the 1890s. These were relationships that didn’t involve sex but did seem quite like the individuals involved were dating in the sense that we would understand. Hand holding, going on dates (and yes they were actually called dates), etc. And these “romantic friendships” were often with people of the same gender, and were seen as perfectly normal for both men and women to have, being seen as a source of emotional fulfillment. It was actually seen as such a part of modern western society that the Meiji Restoration (or Renovation if you want to be more accurate) actually encouraged it in Japanese society as a means of modernization, and because “romantic friendships” were seen by the Japanese ruling class as a sort of practice relationship that would help emotionally prepare youth for “real relationships”. A side affect of this is that some conservative sections don’t view gay relationships as being real, just a sort of stage that one will eventually graduate from when they’re ready to have a “real relationship”, ie get married and have kids. However, in the 1890s and 1900s, as the industrial revolution became more mechanized, produced more products, and used more labor and factories, these relationships were called into question, and sectors of Western society began to view them as dangerous to the stability of the family unit, which was necessary for the economic survival of the working class in their eyes. They also were increasingly labeled as homosexual even if sex wasn’t involved, and thus put under the jurisdiction of harsh “Anti-Sodomy” Laws. Sorry, history major, substitute history teacher, and hopefully one day history professor.

      1. Spencer

        That was a really interesting read. Thanks for sharing!

      2. Orion Fury

        8/10, would read again.

  66. trlkly

    I’m just glad Jacob said something. It was starting to seem like Joyce and Joe forgot anyone else was there.

  67. Amazi-Stool

    I applaud Joe for advising Joyce against a relationship with a guy who want’s to get man-married!

    How should such a relationship ever work!

  68. fishie

    I get the feeling that Jacob’s commentary says a lot more about Jacob and his personal sphere than about his philosophical stance on the ins and outs (or specifically lack thereof) in Joyce and Ethan’s relationship.

    1. Spencer

      Yeah, he pretty obviously does not have the full picture. Very few people actually do except maybe Amber, while Dorothy and Sarah know the “dating a gay dude to change him” part. Jacob sees two people who are attached to one another having a significant relationship that doesn’t involve sex.

  69. BBCC

    Panel One: See, Joe, that’d be a fair thing to point out if I believed you were at all concerned about the reparative therapy aspect, and not about just throwing out embarrassing things. And Joyce…..yeah, that’s a thing I’d not want to mention ever either.

    Panel Two: Thanks for trying to help that out, Jacob, but nothing was saving that mess. Though that makes me wonder if he was saying this to Joe or if he was texting Ethan and passing along a message to Joyce. He didn’t expect to see Joyce here when he left, after all. Unless Jacob is psychic.

    Panel Three: Ha, I mentioned Mrs. degrees last night! Thanks, Joe. And yeah, that’s kind of a ‘no shit, Sherlock’ which basically lets in to the others that more was going on. And it’s a fair question from Joyce. That’s potentially dangerous information being spread, it’s important to know who blabbed.

    Panel Four: Again *spritzes Jacob* very bad! No biscuit! We do not out gay roommates without knowing the entire situation and their permission.

    Panel Five: I think it’s nice Jacob tried to stand up for Ethan to Joe. On the other, Jacob, no, don’t stand up for reparative therapy. If he doesn’t know the full story, I’ll accept that he’s likely projecting his own reasons onto them and not be too upset. If he knows, I’m spritzing him again.

    Panel Six: And yeah, it is new that this received any support from people – because it was a shitty thing in context, and Joyce knows it. But this is also a point that not wanting sex doesn’t make Joyce stupid and it’s a valid decision. It’s sweet that Jacob means well! It’s just because we know the larger context that this relationship was horrifying.

  70. BrokenEye, True False Prophet

    And some people—like Sarah—want companionship without social interaction hanging over their head. And when I say they want companionship, I mean that they’ll begrudgingly accept companionship if it’s given to them.

    1. Scar Man!!!

      companionship without social interaction. that is cool

  71. Scar Man!!!

    Asexual Jacob

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