For her noticing : pretty high.
As for telling them to get a room : I think it’s more likely she encourages them to consummate right there in the lecture hall.
Robin, whose career was upended because she was outed by an anonymous person? This seems like the kind of thing she’s pretty thoughtful about, even while exuding chaos energy. I’m for she says nothing.
Having increased attraction to one person of the same gender doesn’t increase your number on the spectrum. It’s if you have interest in the same gender broadly.
Like Dorothy could be bi… but she could also be demi or pan, both of which would still fall under her crushing on Joyce.
this is the ONLY form of bi erasure i will tolerate in this comments section! lmao
Envy
I wouldn’t call being demi bi-erasure, you can still be bi-romantic and demi-sexual or bi-sexual and demi-romantic. Imo, demi works more as an explanation of *how* you experience attraction, rather than what groups you’re attracted to.
Sharizard
The only bi-erasure i will tolerate are the ones that make things exponentially more complicated!
Reltzik
So… quadratically more complicated isn’t good enough?
Embe13
NEVER!
Delavan
Gotta be a 3rd-degree polynomial at least.
Embe13
minimum Dodecatricaly (doubt i spent it right)
(miss hit enter too early)
Marianne
Does the 80s synth pop duo Erasure count as collectively bi? One being gay and the other being straight or at least married to a woman, so if you average their Kinsey score it’s at least three and under six. Because if so, I’m a big fan of that form of bi Erasure, their song “Sometimes” frequently gets stuck in my head.
I mean I’m gonna be honest here. I don’t fully understand the Kinsey scale. I don’t really believe a person’s sexuality can be scaled to begin with. Too many variables. One person can be a super mega lesbian and then one day their gf wears a suit and suddenly they’re questioning. What’s the Joycey Scale rate Dotty at then?
not someone else
It’s science. They gotta oversimplify shit that nobody’s been allowed to study for hundreds of years because The Sin, because without someone throwing something at the wall, there’s nothing to build on.
But to answer your question, I’m looking at about three sevens.
Gigafreak
A slot machine? Must be getting leftover residual readings from her contact with Joe, the recovering slut machine.
Auroki
Recovering Slut Machine will be the name of my Mindless Self Indulgence cover band
Benjamin Geiger
X Is The Name Of My Y Cover Band is the name of my Paul And Storm cover band.
Frelance
Kinsey needs context. It was like inventing calculus compared to normative sexuality views of its time. *Newton* was wrong, too, but he was a lot closer than Copernicus.
Deanatay
Like, 100, I’m sure.
Rose by Any other Name
Like many scales, it’s meant to be a rough estimation. Where, generally, does one fall:
Straight. Bi-curious straight. Straight-leaning bi. Dead center bi. Lesbian leaning bi. Bi-curious lesbian. And Lesbian.
When I was in college, I was a 3 – full on bi with no lean.
When I started dating my (future) wife, I bumped over to a 4, cause bi girl in serious lesbian relationship.
During the pandemic when over 50% of the “men” I had dated came out as trans girls, I reevaluated to a 5.
As that demonstrates, it’s a scale best used to identify how you feel about yourself, not to try to hang other’s on.
Finally, there are far better, far more precise scales. For example, technically speaking, what I actually am is: bisexual and homoromantic. I enjoy men and women equally as sex partners, but I only seriously date other women. However, that’s a huge mouthful, whereas saying a single kinsey number is very fast, so convenience over accuracy.
Jamie
The essential point of the Kinsey scale is that there are degrees of in-between between heterosexuality and homosexuality. The actual numbers are irrelevant, just like with “five star” ratings.
Think of it like moon phases. We say there’s new moon, full moon, crescent, and gibbous, right? Well… it changes literally day by day, waxing and waning, but having actual terms is hard unless you start talking numbers like “5% lit” or whatever.
It’s kinda outdated and oversimplified in this day and age where enbies and transfolk have some visibility in pop culture and there are a panoply of medical procedures, but it was a bit of a big deal in its day to say, “Well, a person can be both interested in guys and girls.”
Groove
5% lit sounds like a great gen z insult.
Throwatron
it sounds like i’m going to use that as my own personal slang for %ABV from now on
The original kinsey document that introduced the scale also included the fact that someone’s place on the scale can change, so you understand better than you think.
eh, whatever
Originally, the Kinsey scale was not for orientation but for actual past behavior, so your place on it was both objectively calculable at any given moment (by anyone who knew all your past sexual encounters) and very easy to change.
thejeff
But weird as hell for that same reason. Most people lack the statistically significant number of sexual encounters that would give a proper reading. Just one new partner could drastically change your score.
For someone who had a lot of sexual partners, it would eventually stabilize, but most people just don’t have enough.
Thing2
As someone who came to this late in life, due to being born in the 50s, repression has a lot to do with actual partners, too. Looking back, it was clear right back at highschool that I was bi, but a large number (I lost count, it was the era of “free love”) of encounters with the opposite genitalia, and none with the same, I’d Kinsey out as straight.
yak
It’s a variable, which I think most people would agree is well-defined and carries some kind of meaning. That is the kind of stuff you have to use if you want to do any kind of science. Like “what is the average Kinsey number in this sample” is a question that, theoretically, does have an answer. “What is the average sexuality” does not. All models are wrong, some are useful.
crow
This comic is the only place I ever hear about the Kinsey Scale. It’s like a character in the webcomic.
HueSatLight
Kinsey Scale is the name of the character in Leslie’s class that had a line, but no name.
superglucose
this may be hard to understand but a woman in a suit is still a woman
Heavensrun
The intent is just to qualify that sexual attraction is more of a spectrum than a binary choice.
Why? There’s a good chance Joyce likes her too romantically.
Keldas
I trust Joyce at her word (when Becky came out to her) that she’s 100% straight. I think Dorothy is misreading the situation. To Joyce, Dorothy has been an extremely helpful hetero friend.
Abdomino
I feel a little bit bad for Joyce tbh. Having two of your friends go gay for you sounds like a good way for one to lose their trust in the true intentions of people claiming to be friends.
Sure, we know Becky & Dorothy care about Joyce more than “juat” romantically or sexually, but her two best friends she previously thought were straight becoming attracted to her?
I dunno. I’m a dude, so maybe it’s different, but I’d definitely be a bit more gun shy about showing affection to friends for fear of giving the wrong message.
Joyce isn’t even my favorite, but it would be cruel for her to go through that again.
Dorothy is still my favorite in the comic, but what I’m worried about is that my perception of her will change abruptly because of this whole mess she’s going through.
Jamie
Agree. I think she can handle it, but it’s a thing to deal with eventually.
It will be funny if she turns to Sarah and demands to know if she’s also into her, though.
The answer is obvious, and it’s even funnier to see Raidah suffer than to see Sarah happy with Tony.
Matt
I don’t get it, I feel like I’d be more likely to respond with “of course my best friend is attracted to me: they love everything about me, and I’m attractive”.
That doesn’t mean anybody needs to do anything about it
Normalize thinking your friends are hotties
Doopyboop
I don’t read Joyce as straight, honestly.
Throwatron
I can’t wrap my head around how anybody could. She has repeatedly professed an immense attraction for nearly every female friend she is close to, directly in the strip. She simply hasn’t had the language to describe, or the impetus to interrogate, those feelings at all, at least until very recently.
She’s constantly talking about how sexually interested she is in multiple girls in this comic; she just doesn’t flat-out say it directly, because she genuinely hasn’t reckoned with the fact that the weird feeling she has for some other girls, is her hanky-panky feeling.
Like, she’s just barely coming to terms with her hanky-panky feeling where BOYS are concerned. She literally still utilizes the phrase “hanky-panky” to label her own sexuality.
She’s ultimately all but come out and said, in her own words, that she wants to do very-obviously-sexual-things with at least Sal, Dorothy, and Jennifer; she just did so in Joyce language. It’ll be another 20 years in comic time before she can actually say the phrase “Fuck she’s hot, I wanna suck her tits” about another woman in plain terms, I assure you all, if you read between the lines, she has said just about that several women in the strip. She merely hasn’t reckoned with the fact that that feeling, is what it is.
348 thoughts on “Tardy”
Doctor_Who
What’s the over/under on Robin immediately noticing this and loudly telling them to get a room?
Rose by Any other Name
At least 50%. Possibly more.
clif
Seems kinda high for Robin. I’d say more in the 20 to 30 percent range.
Embe13
80% her adhd brain is going to pickit up and fixate
Throwatron
oh no oh fuck oh gosh
Jamie
That’s a hope!
Opus the Poet
Are we talking order of operations?
Steamweed
First you nope, then you fuck, then you gosh. (or in goofy’s case, gawrsh)
butting
“… have you two been banging every weekend, or was it just this last weekend?”
Aquila
For her noticing : pretty high.
As for telling them to get a room : I think it’s more likely she encourages them to consummate right there in the lecture hall.
Opus the Poet
It didn’t involve Roz, so she doesn’t notice anything.
Reltzik
How do you do over/under on a binary option like that?
Embe13
las vegas loves to do it
HueSatLight
Robin, whose career was upended because she was outed by an anonymous person? This seems like the kind of thing she’s pretty thoughtful about, even while exuding chaos energy. I’m for she says nothing.
Rose by Any other Name
That lower lip bite thou.
Bryy
Tardy…. to being straight.
Taffy
Better late than straight, I always said just now.
purblebirb
read this in stoned Ragatha’s voice lol
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Yup, Dotty’s gone on Joyce now.
And I am so friggin’ HERE for that! ^^
Reltzik
Usually lip-bites are with incisors. Here, it’s being done with bi-cuspids.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Is it though? I thought Dotty’s lip bite was with incisors here – or maybe a canine.:)
Sirksome
So like a 4 then?
Nono
Having increased attraction to one person of the same gender doesn’t increase your number on the spectrum. It’s if you have interest in the same gender broadly.
Like Dorothy could be bi… but she could also be demi or pan, both of which would still fall under her crushing on Joyce.
Throwatron
this is the ONLY form of bi erasure i will tolerate in this comments section! lmao
Envy
I wouldn’t call being demi bi-erasure, you can still be bi-romantic and demi-sexual or bi-sexual and demi-romantic. Imo, demi works more as an explanation of *how* you experience attraction, rather than what groups you’re attracted to.
Sharizard
The only bi-erasure i will tolerate are the ones that make things exponentially more complicated!
Reltzik
So… quadratically more complicated isn’t good enough?
Embe13
NEVER!
Delavan
Gotta be a 3rd-degree polynomial at least.
Embe13
minimum Dodecatricaly (doubt i spent it right)
(miss hit enter too early)
Marianne
Does the 80s synth pop duo Erasure count as collectively bi? One being gay and the other being straight or at least married to a woman, so if you average their Kinsey score it’s at least three and under six. Because if so, I’m a big fan of that form of bi Erasure, their song “Sometimes” frequently gets stuck in my head.
Sirksome
I mean I’m gonna be honest here. I don’t fully understand the Kinsey scale. I don’t really believe a person’s sexuality can be scaled to begin with. Too many variables. One person can be a super mega lesbian and then one day their gf wears a suit and suddenly they’re questioning. What’s the Joycey Scale rate Dotty at then?
not someone else
It’s science. They gotta oversimplify shit that nobody’s been allowed to study for hundreds of years because The Sin, because without someone throwing something at the wall, there’s nothing to build on.
But to answer your question, I’m looking at about three sevens.
Gigafreak
A slot machine? Must be getting leftover residual readings from her contact with Joe, the recovering slut machine.
Auroki
Recovering Slut Machine will be the name of my Mindless Self Indulgence cover band
Benjamin Geiger
X Is The Name Of My Y Cover Band is the name of my Paul And Storm cover band.
Frelance
Kinsey needs context. It was like inventing calculus compared to normative sexuality views of its time. *Newton* was wrong, too, but he was a lot closer than Copernicus.
Deanatay
Like, 100, I’m sure.
Rose by Any other Name
Like many scales, it’s meant to be a rough estimation. Where, generally, does one fall:
Straight. Bi-curious straight. Straight-leaning bi. Dead center bi. Lesbian leaning bi. Bi-curious lesbian. And Lesbian.
When I was in college, I was a 3 – full on bi with no lean.
When I started dating my (future) wife, I bumped over to a 4, cause bi girl in serious lesbian relationship.
During the pandemic when over 50% of the “men” I had dated came out as trans girls, I reevaluated to a 5.
As that demonstrates, it’s a scale best used to identify how you feel about yourself, not to try to hang other’s on.
Finally, there are far better, far more precise scales. For example, technically speaking, what I actually am is: bisexual and homoromantic. I enjoy men and women equally as sex partners, but I only seriously date other women. However, that’s a huge mouthful, whereas saying a single kinsey number is very fast, so convenience over accuracy.
Jamie
The essential point of the Kinsey scale is that there are degrees of in-between between heterosexuality and homosexuality. The actual numbers are irrelevant, just like with “five star” ratings.
Think of it like moon phases. We say there’s new moon, full moon, crescent, and gibbous, right? Well… it changes literally day by day, waxing and waning, but having actual terms is hard unless you start talking numbers like “5% lit” or whatever.
It’s kinda outdated and oversimplified in this day and age where enbies and transfolk have some visibility in pop culture and there are a panoply of medical procedures, but it was a bit of a big deal in its day to say, “Well, a person can be both interested in guys and girls.”
Groove
5% lit sounds like a great gen z insult.
Throwatron
it sounds like i’m going to use that as my own personal slang for %ABV from now on
Risky
The original kinsey document that introduced the scale also included the fact that someone’s place on the scale can change, so you understand better than you think.
eh, whatever
Originally, the Kinsey scale was not for orientation but for actual past behavior, so your place on it was both objectively calculable at any given moment (by anyone who knew all your past sexual encounters) and very easy to change.
thejeff
But weird as hell for that same reason. Most people lack the statistically significant number of sexual encounters that would give a proper reading. Just one new partner could drastically change your score.
For someone who had a lot of sexual partners, it would eventually stabilize, but most people just don’t have enough.
Thing2
As someone who came to this late in life, due to being born in the 50s, repression has a lot to do with actual partners, too. Looking back, it was clear right back at highschool that I was bi, but a large number (I lost count, it was the era of “free love”) of encounters with the opposite genitalia, and none with the same, I’d Kinsey out as straight.
yak
It’s a variable, which I think most people would agree is well-defined and carries some kind of meaning. That is the kind of stuff you have to use if you want to do any kind of science. Like “what is the average Kinsey number in this sample” is a question that, theoretically, does have an answer. “What is the average sexuality” does not. All models are wrong, some are useful.
crow
This comic is the only place I ever hear about the Kinsey Scale. It’s like a character in the webcomic.
HueSatLight
Kinsey Scale is the name of the character in Leslie’s class that had a line, but no name.
superglucose
this may be hard to understand but a woman in a suit is still a woman
Heavensrun
The intent is just to qualify that sexual attraction is more of a spectrum than a binary choice.
Adam Black
It’s starts with .. ONE
jonathan young
i agree with this 100% her being attracted to Joyce is Pan /Demi behavior not indicative of her being bi
Amós Batista
I’m glad I’m a late voter
DJTsurugi
that was my vote on the Kinsey, but everyone else was a nonbeliever. ~<3
mindbleach
This would be the worst moment to just up and kiss her.
Which means it might happen.
Rose by Any other Name
Consult with the Doctor above concerning the spread.
You know, the over/under.
All the gambling terms I know sound like sexual euphuisms.
tyersome
That makes sense since almost everyone who gambles ends up getting fucked …
Disastroid
Hit me.
Steamweed
What’s your spread?
eh, whatever
euphemisms
Qube
wouldn’t be the first time though
Doopyboop
Oh Dorothy…
Bobcat
I can only foresee more heartbreak for her 🙁
Akane
Why? There’s a good chance Joyce likes her too romantically.
Keldas
I trust Joyce at her word (when Becky came out to her) that she’s 100% straight. I think Dorothy is misreading the situation. To Joyce, Dorothy has been an extremely helpful hetero friend.
Abdomino
I feel a little bit bad for Joyce tbh. Having two of your friends go gay for you sounds like a good way for one to lose their trust in the true intentions of people claiming to be friends.
Sure, we know Becky & Dorothy care about Joyce more than “juat” romantically or sexually, but her two best friends she previously thought were straight becoming attracted to her?
I dunno. I’m a dude, so maybe it’s different, but I’d definitely be a bit more gun shy about showing affection to friends for fear of giving the wrong message.
Coatl
Joyce isn’t even my favorite, but it would be cruel for her to go through that again.
Dorothy is still my favorite in the comic, but what I’m worried about is that my perception of her will change abruptly because of this whole mess she’s going through.
Jamie
Agree. I think she can handle it, but it’s a thing to deal with eventually.
It will be funny if she turns to Sarah and demands to know if she’s also into her, though.
Coatl
The answer is obvious, and it’s even funnier to see Raidah suffer than to see Sarah happy with Tony.
Matt
I don’t get it, I feel like I’d be more likely to respond with “of course my best friend is attracted to me: they love everything about me, and I’m attractive”.
That doesn’t mean anybody needs to do anything about it
Normalize thinking your friends are hotties
Doopyboop
I don’t read Joyce as straight, honestly.
Throwatron
I can’t wrap my head around how anybody could. She has repeatedly professed an immense attraction for nearly every female friend she is close to, directly in the strip. She simply hasn’t had the language to describe, or the impetus to interrogate, those feelings at all, at least until very recently.
She’s constantly talking about how sexually interested she is in multiple girls in this comic; she just doesn’t flat-out say it directly, because she genuinely hasn’t reckoned with the fact that the weird feeling she has for some other girls, is her hanky-panky feeling.
Like, she’s just barely coming to terms with her hanky-panky feeling where BOYS are concerned. She literally still utilizes the phrase “hanky-panky” to label her own sexuality.
She’s ultimately all but come out and said, in her own words, that she wants to do very-obviously-sexual-things with at least Sal, Dorothy, and Jennifer; she just did so in Joyce language. It’ll be another 20 years in comic time before she can actually say the phrase “Fuck she’s hot, I wanna suck her tits” about another woman in plain terms, I assure you all, if you read between the lines, she has said just about that several women in the strip. She merely hasn’t reckoned with the fact that that feeling, is what it is.
Adam Black
I see Walky getting a boy before Joyce.