368

Wife
Posted on January 5, 2016 by David M Willis

368 thoughts on “Wife”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “so which of us wants to be in charge of the divorce papers” – Walky and/or Joe

    1. Ana Chronistic

      I BELIEVE JOTTY CAN MAKE IT WORK DAMMIT

      1. MM

        They’re doing better than Joyce and Dorothy so far.

        1. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          Um, I’m pretty sure that Joyce + Dorothy = Jotty.
          Joe + Walky would be Jolky. Or possibly Woe.

        2. Kamino Neko

          Woe is good. Woe works for me.

        3. SgtWadeyWilson

          Seconded, wait… nooo. Humor is not enough reason to board a ship… right?

        4. IRL Name TBD

          Sure it is!

        5. SgtWadeyWilson

          Okay, confirmation from someone that sounds like a Future Gadget. I don’t think I can get off this boat now. Woe they are.

        6. IRL Name TBD

          We sail into the great unknown.

          Watch out for icebergs. Those bastards hurt.

        7. Clif

          Woe fears no stinkin icebergs.

        8. A5PECT

          Board? Ships have been built on less.

        9. Mindlink

          That depends on how “Jokey” you are!

        10. Heavensrun

          It’s how I first got on board Jotty, and now I wish they would get married and have gay babies.

        11. IRL Name TBD

          I second that

        12. Adam Black

          WHOA!

        13. SgtWadeyWilson

          *The horses stop, the cairrage clatters to a halt behind them.*

        14. Led

          Isn’t there some song called “Love Like Woe”? That’s their ship song, then.

        15. Chris

          Sounds like an Aly and AJ song “Like Whoa” but that might be because I’m thinking of the stopping horses in front of the clattering carriage.

        16. Captain Button

          I am thinking of woe, the Didonian composite intelligence from The Rebel Worlds, but I am weird that way.

        17. MutantSentry

          So Keanu Reves is a Time Traveling Dumbing of Age shipper?

      2. gkheyf

        joyce really isn’t putting in the effort. quoting verse and shirking responsibility are on dorothy’s list of major turn-offs!

        1. Lurlock

          I don’t know. If she didn’t like people who shirk responsibility, she wouldn’t be dating Walky. And he may not quote verse, but he was in that religious kids’ show way back when…

        2. Peduncle

          I agree with Lurlock. Dorothy must have a major tolerance for feckless.

        3. Reltzik

          Dorothy has a “I wanna have some fun” side. She’s drawn to “I wanna have fun” people, which by their nature are prone to shirking not-fun stuff.

          …. Joyce isn’t that person right now. Joyce is the “I’m going through crap and don’t want to bother with this assignment, you don’t want to have a nuclear showdown religious discussion with me, so we’ll do it this way and everyone will emerge with the neck-implanted-drama-grenades unexploded” person.

        4. Loki

          Wow, thanks for that analysis, that was genuinely insightful (I realize I probably sound like I am being sarcastic, but I am not).

        5. Briny

          +10 points for “neck-implanted drama-grenades”

        6. Captain Button

          When disarming NIDGs, do you cut the red wire or the blue wire?

        7. SgtWadeyWilson

          Whatever you do, don’t pull the drama pin.

        8. TheNinthShader

          Dont pull the drama tag, you mean.

        9. Captain Button

          First shalt thou take out the Drama Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

        10. Reltzik

          Cutting either wire sets off the NIDGs in excitingly different ways.

        11. Clif

          Just like real life.

        12. Skizz

          I dunno, using scipture to shirk responsibility for outdated attitudes does seem to be a basic step in a career towards right wing politics. Dorothy has never said she was a Democrat.

          I really hope I am joking.

      3. SgtWadeyWilson

        Wait, if we’re throwing ship names around, should Roz Aside be mentioned?

        1. Reltzik

          Are we allowed to ship characters with posters?

          …. not counting insertion fics?

        2. SgtWadeyWilson

          Jen/Sue was technically inserted by Willis in the page titled Teams. Since Roz opted to team with A side character Roz and Sue/Jen are now ‘married’ off-panel.

        3. Deanatay

          Does that make Roz Jen’s ‘waifu’ now?

          Never really understood that word.

        4. Disloyal Subject

          A fictional character idealized by any given sad, strange little being on the internet, who will typically shun human romance and in optimal cases dedicate themselves to physical and mental self-improvement in hopes of becoming worthy of their waifu. Some will also refuse to masturbate to images or thoughts of their waifu, preferring that she remain ‘pure,’ while others will refuse to masturbate to any other character, preferring to remain faithful to her. Some choose both and give up sexual pleasure altogether.
          There are probably better definitions out there. Urban Dictionary no doubt has a wealth of amusing ones.

        5. Nate

          It’s “wife” in katakana (but represented here in romaji).

        6. Amazi-Stool

          should Roz Aside be mentioned
          But for suroz!

        7. Jen Aside

          waitaminute

          more importantly

          I QUALIFY AS A CHARACTER FOR THE PATREON BONUS COMIC VOTING???

          [that’s actually a little scary]

        8. Captain Button

          You have no way to survive. Make your time.

        9. Jen Aside

          WHAT YOU SAY!

          [no CHANCE]

        10. Spencer

          hahaha

  2. ThunderDork

    “Hello Dingus” has gotta be the funniest thing I’ve heard Joe say this entire comic.

  3. Captain Button

    Whoops! Walky used the safeword, Joe, stop at once!

    1. inqntrol

      Imagine if his safeword was this one(warning,masochist level):Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. I tried to say it 3 times fast once, ended bitting my tongue…and lost 1 euro, that was the bet.

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        It helps if you try to sing it.

      2. modulusshift

        And anyone who actually works with this phenomenon calls it silicosis. Don’t breathe ash, guys.

      3. Cthulhu's Intern

        Or better yet: http://www.sarahmcculloch.com/luminary-uprise/2009/longest-word/

        1. inqntrol

          Thank God that in high school we weren’t required to remember this monstrosity’s IUPAC name.

    2. Tenn

      But he didn’t say “saltines”…?

  4. Spencer

    I’m still half convinced Walky’s gay bravado is him fishing around being bi.

    1. Cerberus

      So, so on board for this. Kid makes a few too many jokes at times. I could definitely see that being a genuine discovery down the line.

      1. Spencer

        Yeah, that’s how it comes off to me too. He occasionally loudly announces how he’ll do super gay stuff, blow dudes for free gay pizza and slot himself into the role of Joe’s wife, and it reminds me of how I used to act. Saying increasingly homoerotic jokes louder and louder until it suddenly started to become a lot more real.

        1. Damned Scholar

          Walky called /Joe/ “wife”.

        2. merbrat

          Except, in this case, Walky pronounced Joe “wife”.
          (’cause of all Joe’s shoes, of course)

        3. Spencer

          Oh right.

          Either way, he’s still jokey about it in a markedly different way than Dorothy, like, he needs to reinforce how much of a farce “being married to Joe” is to him; the ultimate macho dude.`

        4. DarkVeghetta

          So to you Walky going into the wife role points to him being closet bi and stating Joe is the wife also hints towards closet bi?
          That sounds more like self-insertion then anything else.

        5. Spencer

          Oh wow there’s a such difference between “married to Joe” and “married to Joe”.

          Have you ever interacted with another human being in your entire life?

        6. Adam Black

          Hold up, she raises a good Double_entendre with ‘self-insertion”
          , after the Ho-yay

          So do you Top er , Self-insertion Walky or Joe ?

        7. Spencer

          The assertion that the only reason I can theorize Walky as being bi is because I’m projecting myself onto him is fucking ridiculous. It doesn’t deserve to be treated with dignity.

        8. Clif

          That’s okay. We weren’t treating it with any dignity anyway.

          In this case, I’m inclined to believe Walky is generally trying to make Joe uncomfortable and is mostly failing, but succeeding just enough to irritate him.

        9. Captain Button

          Also:

          Oh yeah, pretend you’re not into Jacob. That’s convincing. Dude, we’ve seen that guy.

          C’mon, everyone’d hit that, right?

        10. Adam Black

          If he wanted to convince people he wasnt “Questioning”
          offering to blow guys for free pizza probably isnt it.

          Do you recall the first Clue?

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/snipped-2/

          Checkin out the uncut cock in the bathroom

        11. DarkVeghetta

          To be fair, this would then indicate most males on the planet are such. So, not really. Everyone’s curious about the other side’s stuff, and circumcised/non are no exception.

        12. Adam Black

          Most straight males on the planet arent so curious, they offer to give blowjobs.
          But ive met a few.

        13. Cerberus

          To be fair to this point, I’m of the opinion that the percentage of “some flavor of bi” in society is WAY more than people think and may even be more common than 100% straight sexuality. I mean, the sheer number of people I’ve known who’ve laid out their “exception” celebrity crush or relate “that one time in college” or describe interactions in ways that just don’t make sense if they weren’t experiencing attraction to multiple genders…

          I’ve also known so many individuals who’ve rounded down their bi-ness to because they’re scared of facing the social stigma of admitting it. Most dramatic version was a guy I knew who was sleeping with men and women at about a 50/50 rate, but insisted on calling himself “heteroflexible” because he was afraid, and I quote, “no one would want to date someone who was bi”. His primary partner and the majority of people he was dating and sleeping with were all bi.

        14. Buhzim

          From what I’ve seen on the internet, the level of misinformation on the subject is huge. I’ve read posts of uncut guys who thought the process consisted of lopping off the glans, and cut guys who weren’t aware that the skin retracts during an erection. It’s similar to how some men assume a vasectomy leaves you unable to have an orgasm or impotent. Walky isn’t the most wordly person around so I think he genuinely had no idea how an “unmodified unit” looked like and had to stare a little, not in a sexual way (at least that was a pretty calm reaction for someone having lusty thoughts)

        15. Disloyal Subject

          Heck, I didn’t know the foreskin peeled back until I lost my virginity. Having it get forced back past the glans is painful if you’re unused to it.

        16. Adam Black

          You are supposed to practice sliding it as a teen whens its growing
          so it doenst get stuck, and keeps growing with it.

          The bands that hold it are supposed to separate at puberty, but sometimes need a little help

          Be gentle dont rip it, you dont want scar tissue.
          They have steroid creams which can gently loosen it if its too tight.

          In a more perfect world, Dads would teach this to their sons at puberty

        17. Buhzim

          My mom just demanded I washed myself down there or she would tan my hide if she had to take me to the doctor because of an infection.

        18. Disloyal Subject

          Indeed.
          Sliding it while flaccid is one thing, though; during coitus is another entirely.

          Granted, my dad is circumsized (and a little bitter about it) or he’d probably have known to teach me. At least school taught the importance of washing, though I’d think that would be common sense.

      2. CoffeeBurps

        Or, you know, hes extremely comfortable with his straight sexuality. There are completely straight guys I know that that will say “I love you” to another guy in a sexy way or dress in ladies lingerie all because they’re just having fun with friends.

        1. Cerberus

          And there are a lot of “totally comfortable in their sexuality guys” who do that who come out as gay or bi two years down the line or come out as trans women (especially on the women’s lingerie). It’s not all the time, but it’s enough to pique hopes of representation when we see it in fiction.

        2. Emily

          That’s pretty much my progression: Totes straight dude -> Okay fine bi dude -> Bi woman.

        3. Adam Black

          Except its not socially acceptable for ‘totally straight guys’ to admit occasional hookups with male friends.
          and most Bi men are closeted and dont even identify as such.

        4. weirdquark

          I don’t know if I would call Walky extremely comfortable in his straight sexuality; remember this is the guy who when he was doodling pictures of himself and Dorothy riding a dinosaur before they hooked up insisted that both figures were dudes and that they were going to get man-married.

          So for all of Walky’s issues with gender and masculinity, he doesn’t seem to associate male homosexuality with being non-masculine, which means that doing gay stuff doesn’t make him less of a man, but owning more than one pair of shoes or dressing nicely does.

          But I don’t think Walky is bi-curious so much as heteroflexible. Blowing another dude doesn’t interest him, but for pizza? Sure, no big.

    2. Reltzik

      But this isn’t how WALKY would go about being bi-curious. Nonono, Walky’s casually joking attitude about gayness his him NOT CARING because he’s got no skin in the game. If he was giving man-love serious consideration, he’d be going into meltdown and doing things like throwing toys at people and eating his tests.

      1. Barf Ninjason

        Yarp! K’zactly!

      2. Rezby

        Which is why it’s all subconscious so far. He’s not aware he’s actually into men, most like.

        1. Mindlink

          Yeah, just like gay men are not aware that they are actually into women…. :-p
          But seriously, jokes like these do kind of remind me of how conservatives tend to say that gay people are merely “confused” and doesn’t realize they are straight. “He just hasn’t met the right woman yet, etc.”
          It’s problematic at best.

        2. Spencer

          That’s kind of a false equivalence, though. People generally don’t “learn” straight attraction because it’s treated as the single most natural thing ever. Queer attraction manifests differently for everyone.

        3. Cerberus

          What Spencer said.

          Queer attraction isn’t modeled, expected, or socially favored in society in the same way hetero-normative attraction is. As such, it is a common queer life experience to be completely unaware of your attractions (or even gender identity) or not know how to interpret them and to thus be obliviously closeted from one’s own self.

          It is not however a common experience that individuals are having only queer experiences and are kept wholly in the dark of heteronormative experiences or not have a framework of applying it to themselves.

        4. Mindlink

          “Queer attraction isn’t modeled, expected, or socially favored in society in the same way hetero-normative attraction is.”

          It is where I live, we try to let people discover their own sexuality instead of trying to force them into a role we think is correct for them.
          Seriously, this all reads as a bit disrespectful, and even hurtful, towards both gays, straights, bi and ace.
          “I know better than you what your sexuality is. No, no you are simply mistaken, you do not have sexual attraction towards that woman, you just don’t know the difference because you are not strong enough to stand up against society, like me” Isn’t this EXACTLY what your conservatives are doing ? And before you say “But we live in USA, where everything is upside-down and we still live in the fifties, you don’t know how it is over here”, don’t YOU live there ? Aren’t YOU a part of that society ?
          Even if the percentage of population that has evolved their thoughts is lower than Norway, it’s still significant enough to be noted as a major part of your society, judging by what media and culture you export. Especially today with the Internet and globalisation.
          Just try to treat people like how they want you to treat them is usually a good rule, and don’t presume ANYTHING that is not told explicitly to you.

        5. Rutee

          Yeah, it’s not like there’s societal pressure to deny queerness, or internalized heterosexism or anything.

          Puh-lease.

        6. Mindlink

          Right in this very thread the pressure seems to be the other way around, which is my point here, it’s an TRUE equivalence (not that there are many “false” equivalences anyway, ANYTHING can be compared to anything basically, it’s the beauty of language)
          And, ” societal pressure to deny queerness, or internalized heterosexism” depends ENTIRELY on where you live!
          Where I live there is no such thing, and kids are encouraged to experiment with their sexuality. And yes, there are sometimes pressure to out people who “just don’t know it themselves yet”. Usually as a joke, sure, but what good does that do ? Either they are really straight and will experience that their sexuality is not taken seriously, which can be very hurtful when you are in that age, (I’ve experience this myself many times as a teen), or they really are in the closet and the “joking” can make them stay there, afraid to confirm other peoples assumptions.
          Think a little on how others are affected by your words and actions, sexuality is an important issue for all types.

      3. Spencer

        Robin in Shortpacked! did the same thing. She’d joke more and more about being into ladies and how she totes wants to make out with Amber, while loudly rejecting any actual acknowledgement of her attraction even years into dating Leslie.

        Besides, Walky doesn’t need to deal with every problem the exact same way. If he were bi, I don’t think he’d be at a point where he even recognizes it.

        1. Cerberus

          Especially since he’s really only getting comfortable with himself as a sexual being who gets to express that sexuality in the last few months. Remember after all that at the beginning of the comic, he was super committed to being a life-long bachelor… wait, no, he was totally getting man-married to Gary to avoid girl cooties… and he’s still making jokes about being gay… even though everyone totally accepts him and Dorothy and he’s mellowed out majorly about dating women…

          Yeah, let’s just say there’s enough on the ground there to justify a headcanon.

        2. Reltzik

          While I’ll concede that the possibility of Walky being able to be mellow about it because he’s not consciously self-aware of a latent bisexuality, I feel compelled to point out that “enough ground to justify a headcannon” is the lowest bar EVER.

        3. Spencer

          That would be why I said “I’m half convinced” and not “this is objective fact and everyone who disagrees with me is clearly a raging bigot and deserves to be kicked in the face by a horse.”

        4. Adam Black

          You convinced me…

        5. Adam Black

          Every Human being I’ve known in life who was comfortable enough to turn Homsexuality into a joke and enact it , ( especially the ones who obsessively do seeming anti-gay camp impressions ) Have actually gone and enacted it all the Ho-Yah. Its a performance, then its actually performed.

          “His name is Gary and we are going to get married”

    3. Buhzim

      I think Walky is just trying to make fun of the whole exercise because to him the idea of getting married at all is still ludicrous (it would mess with his plans of living in a lego castle). He was doing it while Dorothy was his partner too.

  5. Jupiterror

    Joe got smart this time

    1. John

      All of Joyce’s antagonism has his brain working.

      1. Needfuldoer

        That’s what happens when all the blood returns to it.

    2. Viktoria

      Nah, the trick is why you divvy things up. Joe’s trying too hard, just take the jobs you don’t hate and then negotiate the rest to what you can live with.

    3. Kamino Neko

      No, I think Joe’s walking into the trap. Since she allowed people to pair up as they liked, without explaining what the exercise was (and, of course, the class is certainly going to be female-heavy to the point most of the pairs will be f/f), there’s necessarily something else being addressed.

      1. Cerberus

        It turns out this whole segment is really about establishing drift compatibility for Jaegers.

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          Where’s the Monkey Master Jaeger fanart?

    4. Gangler

      Not really.

      It’s pretty obvious that this assignment is about gender roles. They are after all in a gender and sexuality class. Sort of like being handed a trigonometry assignment and being like “Hold on a tic, I think this professor expects us to do math.”

      It’s weird that he thinks this assignment is some sort of trap. He’s probably not gonna be docked any marks if his answers are PeeCee enough or whatever’s going on in his head.

      The resolution to divvy things up equally also ultimately amounts to nothing. Pretty much everybody’s idea of marriage has what they consider an equal distribution of duties/obligations. The revealing moment is when we get to what exactly he considers equality within this context.

      1. Cerberus

        He’s learning in baby steps. Considering his main mode is straight up trying to shut down the class or fade off into lesbian fantasy mode, him engaging enough with the assignment to view it as a “trap” and take it somewhat seriously means he’s starting to actually grapple with the issues presented, even if he’s still a bit resistant to viewing it simply as education rather than a punishment (too be fair though, most individuals learning about an axis of privilege for the first time tend to treat it like they’re being punished or forced through it).

        I’m very hopeful that this is the first steps of some genuinely positive character growth for him.

      2. Reltzik

        But if the whole point of it was to discuss gender roles, wouldn’t Leslie have had to specify that each group contained one wife and one husband and (at least for the same-gendered pairings and maybe for all of them) to choose who was which? If you’ve got a whole bunch of gay marriages then gender roles don’t get deconstructed anywhere remotely like the same way.

        1. Captain Button

          Maybe she expects* that some same sex teams will work on the assumption that they are a same sex marriage while other same sex teams will work on the assumption that they are a heterosexual marriage. Then she can ask why this happened and what it means.

          * Or knows from experience when she did this in previous courses.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          I assumed that was a major purpose of the exercise.

        3. Fred Garber

          1. “Well, we’re a gay couple, so clearly we can’t fall into traditional breadwinner/homemaker roles…” is just as much “falling into the trap” as a het couple going traditional Western roles.

          2. How do you split the laundry and dishes when both spouses have a 9-5 job? Who cooks dinner? What does student X consider “women’s work?”

          And that’s not involving dependant (child/pet) care at all.

        4. Cerberus

          1. Yeah, but it’s a trap that really undercuts a lot of toxic assumptions that people don’t traditionally recognize. And your number 2 really hammers that home.

          And I think that might be one of the angles that Leslie is working at. That these skills of figuring out what one wants and what works best for both partners should always be a dance rather than just turning to common social structures regardless of how well they fit.

    5. Shade

      Or perhaps he’s fallen into the trap. Leslie may very well ask for justification why each person was given what.

      1. thomas wrobel

        Wouldn’t make much difference. There is no definitive “correct” way to divide things, Joe just excluded the only wrong way.

        1. Tan

          Disagree. Joe’s read seems far too shallow. I would put forward that Leslie would be absolutely fine with traditional-gender-role division of duties IF that particular pair justify their reasons and make sense, while simply switching traditional gender roles for its own sake or completely random assignment without actual thought would get far less credit.

          It’s a show-your-work situation, is what I’m saying.

        2. Adam Black

          agreed.

  6. John

    No, Dorothy stop disengaging from conflict! This way leads to madness!

    1. John

      BLah, I meant Joyce not Dorothy. I hate not being able to edit comments.

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        Me two.

        1. DarkVeghetta

          Heh “two”. I see what you did there.

        2. TheNinthShader

          I htae not bineg albe to eidt my cemomnsts.

        3. Adam Black

          Cemomnsts are teh wrsotes!
          ist lykie , waht octDor Who dide adn mdae yuo teh
          cemomonster oves teh ewek , right ?

  7. Romanticide

    Who would think about the day that Joe is taking the asignment seriously and Joyce is truly and completely unmotivated…

    1. Jupiterror

      it was inevitable

      1. inqntrol

        The world is going upside down.

      2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        Joyce cancels think, interrupted by religion?

        1. modulusshift

          A Dwarf Fortress player?

        2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Yup.

  8. Captain Button

    I wonder if the twins will get stuff on all of their hypothetical birthdays as well as the real one.

    1. John

      It took me a minute to figure out that you weren’t talking about Sal and Walky.

      1. Captain Button

        Only by confusing you can I force you to learn.

        1. John

          I’m pretty autodidactic, really.

    2. Ana Chronistic

      That’s any kid, tho

    3. Peduncle

      December 3rd. I hope they like Transformers.

      1. JustCheetoDust

        If they don’t, that’s just more for their old man.

  9. DarkoNeko

    As expected, Joe is taking the lead. But damn, Joyce.

  10. Mada

    In a really really weird way I almost feel like Joe’s the only one actually trying here. Dorothy suddenly looks more concerned with Joyce, who’s off in her own little world at the moment. Walky’s trying so hard to play along but probably just praying this will all end.

    1. neeks

      “Walky’s trying so hard to play along but probably just praying this will all end.”

      isn’t that his approach to math as well?

      1. Betty Anne

        Pretty sure that’s Walky’s approach to college entirely. 😐

  11. Cheshrin

    Obviously the answer is to figure out who’s best at what and assign them that task accordingly.

    If someone’s better at cooking and enjoys it more, they get to make the fucking lasagna. If someone’s better at mowing the lawn, they get to push the heavy ass lawn mower.

    Shit, we should have figured this out ages ago, why are domestic gender roles even a thing.

    1. Peduncle

      Cooking gets old. And some people are better at everything.

      1. Captain Button

        What is the household version of the Law of Comparative Advantage?

        1. Peduncle

          It contains the word “whining”.

        2. Professor Snugglesworth

          Ricky Ricardian Theory?

        3. Captain Button

          Excellent!

          [/Mr_Burns]

    2. Cerberus

      Because hierarchal oppression is a great way to get free labor out of a class of people. Treat a human being as a possession who “owes” their owner a specific task, then you get the benefits of having someone complete that task while being able to put all your effort into things that are valued in society, thus allowing more justification for the oppression.

      Really, the modern gender divisions are part of a long series of attempts by that old system to avoid having to admit that people are people who are good at lots of different stuff that all should be valued, by arguing that its men or women’s “natural roles” to do this task or that or argue that the man-tasks are somehow equal to the woman-tasks (see fundie culture with the idea that a woman is to do all the work and be left out of all decisions but its somehow balanced because the man has the “hard job” of maintaining moral order in the household).

      1. altalemur

        i grew up in a household with my grandma, my dad, a male cousin, and two sisters (i am afab). my grandma was a huge sexist when it came to household chores. she insisted that my sisters and i do all the “girl chores.” yet when it came to the traditional “boy chores” like mowing the lawn, she still insisted that we “do our share.” which always always meant we do the whole thing ourselves. i still have a weird complex about doing household chores when someone else is watching, because that’s what my male cousin would do all dang day. so basically my grandma just used the “traditional gender roles of chores” as an excuse to make my sisters and i do all the work in the house.

        1. Peduncle

          Dono what “afab” is (I’m stone age), but we’d all be better off if the whole male/female chores thing died forever immediately.

        2. Cerberus

          Assigned female at birth.

          It’s basically a way to refer to the sex that appears on one’s birth certificate and is especially favored by trans individuals that want to be accurate about what the doctor guessed their gender to be without lending inaccurate credence to the idea that one’s genital configuration is somehow more “biological” than one’s actual gender.

        3. Peduncle

          Thanks. Always something new to learn.

        4. Derek

          Assigned Female At Birth, meaning the doctor chose a gender for this person based on genitalia; but this person’s gender might be something that doesn’t match what the doctor (or society) thought was correct

        5. Dellaran

          Assigned Female At Birth, with the implication of “but now identifying as male or some other gender identity”

        6. Jupiterror

          afab?

        7. Captain Button

          Acronym Finder is your friend:

          afab

          AFAB Assigned Female at Birth (gender identity)

          (Or maybe altalemur is Haitian.)

        8. Palamdrone

          absolutely fabulous

        9. Captain Button

          That was my first thought too.

        10. altalemur

          and you, my friend Palamdrone, get a gold star!

          yeah, i was using the acronym in a sneaky “the people who need to know will get what i mean” way. basically i wanted to get across that i was a “girl” in my grandmother’s eyes, and that is how she treated me. but i also don’t want to have to give a Gender Studies Lecture on what afab means or even what my real gender or my preferred pronouns are, since i have one of those super complicated genders. irl i have a manual i hand out, as if i’m an IKEA entertainment center.

        11. Cerberus

          *hug and support* I’ve got romantic partners and students with “complicated genders” to borrow your vernacular and they face a lot of societal garbage for it. So… *extra hugs*

        12. StClair

          ALTALEMÜR

        13. Cerberus

          Yeah, that type of crap incenses me.

        14. ischemgeek

          Kind of my family. Dad… half-assed the bathrooms. Once in a while. When he felt like it. If he wanted justification to throw a tantrum over the fact that the entire place wasn’t magically cleaned up to his (ever-changing) specifications in the time it took to clean two toilets. Soon as I was big enough to take on yard work, guess who it fell to? The eldest, of course. Because “we don’t do sexism in this house, there’s no such thing as ‘girl chores’ and ‘boy chores,’ there’s just chores.” Y’know, except for the part that the people doing all of the house work are women and girls, and the boys get out of it because they’re “too young” (even though all of the girls were younger when we were made to help out) and Dad gets out of it because he works a real job and shouldn’t have to work all day to come home and do housework (but somehow it doesn’t count for school, his protestations that school is a kid’s job not withstanding). So basically “no girl and boy chores, just chores” worked out in practice to “all chores are girl chores.” And yeah God help me if I wanted to, y’know, finish a school assignment or something while someone else was working on something, as the eldest I had to “set an example” which basically meant relaxing never, taking on all of my chores and half of the chores assigned to each of my siblings (effectively, because if any of them threw a fit over having to do chores my folks would just tell me to do it because I didn’t throw as big fits) and somehow still working a part-time job, doing at least two club activities and three extra-curriculars, having only parentally-approved interests, never screwing up ever (if I did, it wasn’t a genuine error, I had to have done it on purpose because being smart apparently means I have to be perfect) and getting straight As.

          Finally I got a full-time job one summer and he still wanted me to help out despite working as much as him and I actually got him to admit in so many words that it was because I was a girl. I called him sexist to his face. The resulting blowup was not pretty and resulted in me spending a night under a pier because I had nowhere else to go and hadn’t had the forethought to grab like a blanket or a change of clothes or something so I could make shelter and stay warm. Thankfully, it was summer. But yeah.

          Moral of the story: Don’t call abusive parents on their sexism unless you already have a go bag and a place to stay arranged. Which I did after that, and used it a few times.

          (not to say I was perfect on the sexism front – I drank the Libertarian bootstraps Kool-Aid hard throughout high school and at the time honestly believed it was entirely my mother’s fault she’d never been able to fulfill her ambitions, never mind that Dad ensured the family was never in one place long enough for her to go back to school until she’d given up on it, and that my fragile health meant I genuinely needed a 24/7 carer in the early years and that someone needed to be able to come pick me up from school at any time because the school flat-out refused to call an ambulance even if I was blue from hypoxia because “we don’t have the training to recognize a medical emergency so we shouldn’t be expected to deal with it.” Whiiich I did as a reaction to being scapegoated on that front, but yeah as an adult I recognize that her not being able to do what she wanted wasn’t my fault, but speaking frankly, neither was it really hers.)

          So, yeah. I wasn’t as big on the religious fundie side of things in my upbringing, but there’s a lot in my upbringing that parallel’s Joyce’s so I relate to her a fair amount.

        15. altalemur

          i offer you an internet fistbump for having totally survived your toxic family.

        16. Cerberus

          *Hugs and support*

        17. Disloyal Subject

          Holy shit.

          It’s a shame that happened, but I’m glad you made it through. The knowledge that shit like this happens is the best possible incentive to be better, I think. Thanks for sharing.

        18. DinaWho

          That is a thing that has been studied and actually has a specific name for it! It’s called the chores gap (I think).

          They found that not only were girls given a heavier chore load than their brothers, but that in households compensating kids for chores, boys were paid more – namely their work was valued more than the girls.

        19. Adam Black

          I read that as Ab-fab. Not necessarily wrong.
          ( So good for you!)

      2. thejeff

        It’s not just that though. Or at least it’s not just based in that. These days it is based in holding on to traditionally dominant roles and equally traditional devaluing of “womens’ work”.

        But historically, going back far enough, there are reasons behind gender based division of labor. There is biology going on here. Basically rooted in women spending much of their adult lives pregnant and/or nursing. Not things a man could do. If the mother has remain close enough to the youngest child for nursing, it makes sense for the rest of the childcare to fall on her and the rest of the closer to home work follows.

        It’s also worth remembering that prior to modern times and all our gadgets, keeping house really was a full time job. And that full time job didn’t mean 8 hours, either housework or paid work, more like 12+. Both parents didn’t work outside the home because you really couldn’t, unless you were desperate.

        1. Cerberus

          Not as much biological basis as you would think even with pregnancy (after all women were expected to work through most of the stages of pregnancy historically). Hell, a lot of hierarchal oppression of women only really took off as a common practice starting with agriculture and permanent settlements because before that there was just no value in enforcing strict gender lines on tasks because it just restricted the tribe’s ability to be effective.

          A lot of what we now see as “natural roles” arose as this enforcement of women as property spread and especially as things improved for women and thus we needed justification for women to be restricted to the same roles as before.

          After all, remember on a farm, everyone is working, even the 8 month pregnant people and in the industrial revolution in the factories, poor women and children were often forced into the more dangerous jobs but were still very much expected to work regardless of pregnancy.

        2. thejeff

          Everyone was always working, back in the day. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t division of labor. That was part of my point.
          Even what we see from the archaeological record and from surviving non-agricultural tribal societies has a strong gender division – not always the same roles and not always as oppressive as traditional western culture.

          I’m not at all defending keeping those gender roles now, but it’s worth remembering that what we’re doing with gender these days really is revolutionary. It’s an experiment with very little precedent.

        3. altalemur

          i agree that in modern society that women’s work is hugely devalued. to the extent that when someone is paid for women’s work (childcare workers and household cleaning services) those are the most underpaid working positions you can find. compare a daycare worker’s wages to a plumber’s wages or a landscaper/gardener.

          however, trying to figure out the division of labor and how that labor was valued is hugely complicated and varied across time periods and geographic location. in modern times Japan and Viking age Scandinavia, for example, women are expected to do all the money management. and in colonial era New England, women’s jobs of turning flour into bread or wool into textile was basically magic. nor it is all that “natural” to say women take care of kids and men work outside the house. the more “natural” human social configuration would have grandparents and other infertile family members (whether gay or too young) do most of the nurturing, while those at their physical peaks did all the labor.

      3. Adam Black

        Growing up, My sisters had a Board Game they wouldnt let me play, because it was “only for girls” . Theyd play for hours too

        Their players got to grow up and choose a profession, … but oddly the only options were schoolteacher, nurse, stewardess ( prob not gender-neutral Flight attendant ) secretary … and Housewife!
        ( in retrospect this is funnier because my uncle was househusband and my mother was jealous ! ) .

        They liked the game. Nobody pushed it on them. ( My mother prob found it ina yard sale and didnt realize it was toxic. ) .

        They were always trying to put makeup on me or rope in to playing barbies, but NOPE , I was banned from the Stewardess game—
        and my mother even agreed. “Its for girls”

    3. The_bionic_doctor

      It’s not that simple: having been raised in a household that makes you participate in specific chores and in a society that emphasizes specific skills and attributes (patience, cleanness etc.) makes women effectively more efficient at certain tasks, both out of shear experience and lack of stereotype threat. This just means conditioning and training work very well, and to reverse the trend you need to change education or, one it is too late, allow some space for learning, even if it is temporarily less efficient :-/

      1. ischemgeek

        Consider also: Women and girls are generally brought up with the knowledge of how much work goes into maintaining a household, while men and boys are genarally insulated from it (it’s changing a bit but let’s just say in my first year at uni there was a good 10% of boys in my residence who had no clue how to even do their own laundry, and honestly expected that girls in the residence would do if or them. Which, typically, after we finished laughing in their face because no, dude, I’m not your mommy, I’m not going to wash your jock straps for you, some of us would take pity on them and teach them laundry. Whereupon they would act like it was the worst thing in the world to have to spend two hours a week washing their clothes. Because it was the most house work they’d ever had to do.

        Whereas, I don’t know about many others, but generally between all of my chores, I was spending 15-20 hours a week on house work growing up (an hour every day for dishes – because as much as the others were supposed to help out, they never did – an hour a week on the yard, and 7-8 hours a week on house cleaning, plus an additional 4-5 hours on meal prep and laundry, as mom felt like i should be doing).

        Contrast that with most dudes I know, who if they had to do chores at all, generally did less than five hours a week of them. In total. Like, dishes 2-3 times a week and mowing the lawn or shovelling the driveway and that’s it.

        So dudes put in what they were expected to in high school and genuinely think they’re contributing equally to household chores. Even though they really, really aren’t. And if you tell them they aren’t, they feel like they’re getting attacked for laziness, when it’s like, no I don’t think you’re lazy but frankly you’re not pulling your weight right now and I’d like that to change.

        It was only when I had my partner actually time me at all the shit I was doing around the house that he didn’t even notice that he admitted I was doing more than him for house work, by close to a factor of 5. Whereupon he then went into a guilt spiral about how “I feel bad that you are doing so much more than me!” and it’s just, “so stop feeling bad and take some of it on FFS” but dudes aren’t taught 1, how to recognize when something needs cleaning and 2, the time management inherent in getting all of the cleaning done without other stuff suffering. And as much as I sound like I’m aggravated as all hell (and I am), house work skills are not easy and especially the time management is a very hard adjustment to make if you weren’t raised with it.

        So what I’m saying is, men generally don’t pull their weight around the house, but it’s not entirely their fault because most of them weren’t taught how much work goes in to maintaining a household and how the tasks and time management work. Do I let them off the hook, though? No. I shouldn’t have to be your mommy and nag you to do your chores. But I’m not entirely without sympathy for them, because it must be a total mind-twist to realize this think you’ve never even considered before exists and is a huge amount of work that your family systemically insulated you from so well that to a large extent, you didn’t even know it exists and genuinely thought you were pulling your weight.

        1. Cerberus

          This. When equality isn’t modeled, people assume inequality is either “natural” or a form of equality (see dudes who take over childcare one day out of the month and feel they are participating equally in the childcare duties).

          And this leads to all sorts of social pressure for a lot of reasons you underline.

          And the worst part is that a lot of people assume this has some basis in something other than patriarchal expectations and social enforcement.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          You’re absolutely right about skills one hasn’t learned being hard to pick up.
          I have a hard time processing the concept of being helpless to do one’s own laundry, though. That’s just pathetic. Laundry and dishes are about as basic as chores get, assuming one has access to a sink. And a washing machine, I suppose.

        3. yomi

          Hm. Actually, my boyfriend is much tidier than I and as a result he does a bit more in our household than I, but I don’t trust him to wash my clothes. He would probably wash my white blouses with some dark t-shirts or something.

        4. LiamKav

          There’s lots of little rules that lots of my friends (male and female) don’t know… Seperating glasswear and crockery keeps the former from getting scratched, not putting stainless steel and regular steel in the same wash, using a slower spin cycle if you’ve got gym stuff in the wash, doing an occasional high temperature wash to prevent a build of of bacteria in your washing machine, not putting heavy clothes (like jeans) in with more delicate stuff. Hell, half of them don’t make any effort to seperate dark and light colours.

    4. Reltzik

      Adding to what everyone already said regarding gender inequality’s role in who got practiced at (and better at) doing chores in the first place, there’s also the fun factor. Maybe one person’s better at cooking and the other’s better at cleaning bathrooms, but both find a degree of creative expression in cooking. What happens when bathroom-person says “dammit, I’m sick of just cleaning all the time, I want a turn cooking even if you’re better at it”?

      And what about personal responsibility for the EXISTENCE of a chore? Let’s say one person wanted a lawn, and the other person had this neat idea for a stone garden instead that would be cool and low maintenance, but the first person INSISTED on a lawn. Should the second person be required to take turns mowing it? That’s a serious question, BTW, you could argue it lots of ways.

    5. Random832

      What about just eliminating tasks?

      “No-one washes the dishes. We’ll just use paper plates.”

      “No-one cooks. We’ll just buy fast food everyday with Walky’s trampoline park money.”

      1. Random832

        Er that was meant to be a new top-level comment.

  12. Stephen R. Bierce

    *looks for his Hank Williams jr albums, and remembers he had them recycled years ago*

    1. Peduncle

      I kept all my Serena Williams albums.

      1. JustCheetoDust

        If there was a Serena Williams album (definitely not plural) I’d imagine it was an awful rap album, the kind Kobe Bryant Roy Jones Allen Iverson Joaquin Phoenix Macho Man Randy Savage Ron Jeremy Rodney Dangerfield the 1985 Chicago Bears Shaq would put out.

        1. Peduncle

          I said I kept all MY albums, not all she released. Even so, given the choice between Serena and Hank Jr., I’d take Rodney Dangerfield.

        2. JustCheetoDust

          I just didn’t think that she would put out more than one. Usually when you hear about an athlete’s foray into music (usually rap) it doesn’t go beyond one album.

          Also:
          Rappin’ Rodney

        3. Peduncle

          The instant after I posted that, I thought PLEASE, don’t let there be an embarrassing Dangerfield track.

  13. Mr. Mendo

    Joyce is all like, “Everything’s ruined forever!”

    1. TheNinthShader

      Nananananana batman! I mean, this comment isn’t relevant, I just felt like this comment section needed more batman. Joyce needs batman. We need a batman bible.

      1. Captain Button

        Which household chores require the ability to breathe in space?

  14. tim gueguen

    An apathetic Joyce isn’t a good thing.

    1. Spencer

      I wonder if depressed Joyce has triangle frowns.

      1. JustCheetoDust

        Yes because Photoshop.

      2. Valkyr

        here is a sloppy mspaint experiment that worked fairly well

        I tried.star

  15. Cerberus

    Heh, Joe can be taught. Good on Joyce for switching. Now we just need Dorothy’s perfectionism and empathy to force Joyce to take this seriously and start examining some of her toxic views on relationships.

    1. Adam Black

      Funny I took the opposite view.
      By switching Joyce is non-engaging with it completely .
      If she had stayed with Joe she would have engaged and been an equal partner in the decision making process.
      She would have disagreed with Joe and they would have had to do an honest negotiation.
      Being paired with Joe, would have been the perfect example of why the text she quoted was wrong.

      1. Emily

        Or they may have just bickered for the entire class and had nothing to show for it. Like a real world failed marriage.

        1. Cerberus

          Which would have restrengthened Joe’s worldview that a marriage means fighting and yelling and neither side ever being happy.

        2. Adam Black

          I doubt that would make a difference either way.
          For perspective
          Thats all *Ive* ever seen.
          or ( Ive only seen ) happiness means having a lover on a the side and taking separate vacations ;

          About 100% of the families I knew growing up were eventually divorced: my parents were the exception, and they chose misery …for the economic benefits.

          I think successfully indoctrinating Joe into the belief-system of successful heteronormative marriage falls far outside the boundaries of this class.

          Last time I checked, the odd of successful happy firstime marriage , where no one cheats , lasting 20 years, is small.

          Stats: http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/iowa-has-higher-divorce-rate-than-u-s-census-data/article_df264559-df69-550a-b43b-28ad7cab501c.html

          **My solution**

          Now that we have equality in marriage, I’d really like the institution updated for the 21century.
          Ive given this some deep-thought.
          I think marriage ought to be hard to get into, but easy to get out of .
          If people have to put time and effort and making one they will be less likely to break one up for superficial psychological reasons.
          But if marriages are bad they ought to be very easy to get out of .

          I think there ought to be a separate prerequisite institution, like a contracted Engagement + PreNup+ Civil partnership.

          It ought to be a legal contract and as such it oght to be easy-peasy to make one— BUt hard to get out of. But the upside is they are made to expire. In otherwords you cant just “get married” .

          You can get Partnered and then turn that into full marriage once conditions are met. ( Like Taking a relationship, childrearing, parenting and conflicting resolution class : If a person wants and expect all of society to honor the sanctity of their personal sex-contract, a person ought to do some real damn work for it.

          I think a lot of people who arent ready for marriage but have a serious committed partner would opt for legal Partnership. Partnerships would have expiration built into them , but lack no-fault divorce. You break one you pay the financial penalties. But if they expire ( auto-annul ) without renewal or conversion, its simply over. Its an enhanced legalized engagment.

          This also has the benefits of letting people formalize semipermanent domestic arrangements even if they dont think they are necessarily going to last a long time.

          What my system does is restore honesty and integrity to relationship arrangements. It would also end the Ubiquitous farce of people treating marriages like tissue paper. ( No more Vegas Bullshit ) While dragging society through this never-ending TragiFarce Faux-sacred ceremony / Breakup/ DramaKing-DramaQueen Divorce.

        3. thejeff

          The stats are messy, but the odds aren’t that bad. At least of staying married. As far as I can tell, there’s about a 40% chance of a marriage ending in divorce. It seems to have fallen slightly in recent years, but never reached 50%.
          Obviously that doesn’t mean the marriage was happy the whole time or that no one ever cheated, but it’s better than some of the stats make it seem.

        4. Cerberus

          To be fair, I don’t think a heteronormative marriage is really for Joe or honestly, most people. I guess I’m mostly a romantic in that I believe a marriage can mean a lot of things and the most important of those is that it or the relationship should never be more important than the people inside of it.

          So, the structure should follow that. Maybe that means poly, maybe that means lifeplay kink, maybe that means whatever.

          I don’t necessarily think Joe should ever have a monogamous long-term relationship if he doesn’t want to, but he can definitely grow to be the sort of person who isn’t so scared of the notion of it that he can’t even really handle being fake-married for a class.

    2. BenRG

      IMHO, Joyce isn’t reacting to the assignment, she’s just too preoccupied and depressed to care about it.

  16. ThunderDork

    “Hello Dingus” has gotta be the funniest thing I’ve heard Joe say this entire comic

    1. Adam Black

      What about when he told Danny, That if Ethan were taking him on a date hed tell him to be bring him back late and use a condom.

      That was awesome.

      I think hes been funny this whole scene — especially when he whines. YMMV

  17. Captain Button

    Wait, is Joyce doing sign language with her left hand in panel 4?

    1. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

      Yes it’s sign language for “Fuck this I quit.”

      1. Peduncle

        Almost but not quite. “I had these dreams, but somebody named Meghan crushed them.”

        1. Dellaran

          Happens to all of us eventually… Meghan is a hard worker.

        2. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

          -shrugs- its a living

        3. DarkVeghetta

          *slow clap*

        4. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

          Wow who knew I had such influence over Joyce

        5. neeks

          your power transcends even the fourth wall. didn’t you get the memo?

        6. IRL Name TBD

          I certainly hope that came with a pay raise.

    2. buzzsaw

      Joyce is waving Dorothy off on that last panel so forcefully her left hand has Doppler-shifted.

  18. Kei

    Interesting that instead of considering that they’re gay and married or that she could be the husband, Joyce defaults to Dorothy being the husband and her being the wife.

    1. Shiro

      One life-changing revelation at a time

    2. Cerberus

      Well, she needs to maintain “proper gender roles”, after all, not following them is how one ends up gay… ohhhhhhh.

    3. Captain Button

      Dorothy seized the high ground first, preemptively labeling Joyce the wife.

      1. John

        They can both be wives!

        1. fogel

          And everyone can be spouses, isn’t it so?

    4. Larkle

      Not necessarily, she’s quoting the verse and then telling Dorothy to figure it out, so maybe she’s recognizing the bible isn’t giving her anything to go off of as a lady and lady couple.

      1. random832

        So in other words “None of my christian crap says what to do about this situation… you’re the atheist, can you do any better?”

        1. Larkle

          Basically yes.

      2. Larkle

        This was supposed to respond to something else…

        1. Larkle

          Wait, yes it was. I wish there was an option to delete your comments… -.-

    5. Lia47

      and so does walky, because even though he’s usually better at hiding it, he has some silly ideas about masculinity too

  19. Corvus

    Joyce seems to have accepted being Dorothy’s “wife” without any fuss, so that’s…good? Maybe? I’m hoping it isn’t that she’s just too far gone to care at this point.

  20. lime sheep

    joyce dorothy isnt your husband youre both wives come on think about this

    also if youre gonna make her do all the work youd be better off staying with someone who already couldnt stand you

    1. lime sheep

      (not that dorothy is going to hate her for this she knows what joyce is going through but its still a jerky thing to do to a friend)

  21. Lia47

    ahaha alt text

    1. Cypherfox

      Ya, that was my take! Bwahaha, you adorable alt text…you have no idea. 😉

  22. JessWitt

    Joe’s alias name is now “Pumpkin Ackbar”.

    1. TsunamiJane

      Yaaaassss!

    2. Adam Black

      ? http://flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?id=51939171&url=http%3A%2F%2Fflickrhivemind.net%2FTags%2Fackbar%252Cgeneral%3Fsearch_type%3DTags%3Btextinput%3Dackbar%252Cgeneral%3Bphoto_type%3D250%3Bmethod%3DGET%3Bnoform%3Dt%3Bsort%3DInterestingness%23pic51939171&user=&flickrurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54946336@N00/51939171 ?

  23. Edupoet81

    Joyce has come a long way, but it seems she still has a ways to go.

    Of course, there’s probably more to Joyce’s behavior in that last panel. Joyce seems to be descending into a depressive episode following certain recent events. That could be the real reason for her lack of motivation and aversion to making decisions in this situation.

  24. newllend(henryvolt)

    I guess the last panel shows that Joyce would be the perfect spouse for Dorothy ( not really though) since Joyce was just planning on getting a crapy school teacher job until she married herself off to someone that could take care of her financially.

    Also since Dorothy is going for the gold in politics so she can be president and since she has a thing for underachievers this relationship will work out perfectly. (Not really)

    1. Needfuldoer

      I think the implication was she’s an education major so eventually she can homeschool her own kids? Was that why her mother went to IU?

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Not just implied; I think she flat-out said it at one point, though that might have been Walky criticizing her.

        1. Cerberus

          Becky spelled out the expectation put on both of them about what their proper path was/is “supposed to be”:
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/aspirations/

        2. thejeff

          Becky said it of herself, so that’s probably what you’re thinking of.

          Joyce has implied she’s mostly there for her MRS. degree. Or at least was.

        3. ischemgeek

          Yes, but realistically speaking, how likely do you think it is that Joyce genuinely wants her Mrs degree, versus going after it mainly because she’s been brought up to think that’s what good (God-fearing) girls do so thoroughly that until she got to university, she genuinely never encountered a non-housewife female role model?

          She was home-schooled, so her folks completely controlled who she socialized with and which adults she encountered – i.e., who she could see as a role model. I wouldn’t be surprised if, except for rare trips to the doctor, she never saw any woman outside of other home school moms and the women at her church. She probably wasn’t allowed to socialize with any woman who so much as questioned the doctrine, let alone outright bucking it.

          To a large extent, in order to develop an ambition, you have to be able to see yourself in that role. If you control what role models someone can have, to a large extent, you control what ambitions they can develop.

  25. Cholma

    Oh, Mister Alt-text, if you only knew!

  26. Zaidyer

    I know it’s Joe who thinks marriage is an utter farce, but the text Joyce is parroting is nine tenths of the reason why. I’d like to find the guy that wrote it and sock him in the mouth.
    I’m prepared to invent a time machine if necessary.

    1. Rukduk

      That would be Paul. Or at least, someone impersonating Paul. Thing is, most of the bible letters are attributed to Paul, but most modern scholars think that there were different authors for the letters who knew Paul and wrote them. Which opens up a real big can of worms…

      1. Buhzim

        Does it matter who wrote them, if they were all inspired by God? Surely it’s all good stuff or it wouldn’t be there at all.

        1. Adam Black

          Nah, its there because Its in Pauls Name,
          and hes supposedly inspired by God.

          Its the earliest written part of the New Testament.
          Otherwise they are just forged Church Administration Policy Letters, by some liar.

      2. saltchocolate

        Paul was clearly never married.

        1. altalemur

          Paul was most likely asexual, according to his own writing… or someone impersonating him, as Rukduk says. he describes himself as having no sexual desire, and thinks any and all sex that doesn’t specifically make a baby to be really gross and yucky.

        2. Cerberus

          I don’t know, there’s that letter where he’s basically begging and needling his recipient to lend him his slave boy back on the cheap because of how “necessary” he was for an “old man’s care” that basically reads like some modern “luggage lifting” bit. So… prolly not ace.

        3. Adam Black

          Totes link to that.

  27. AnvilPro

    Walky can barely hold his laughter in

  28. random832

    “You figure this out and I’ll just watch or whatever”

    I think she caught something from sitting in the chair that Walky had been sitting in.

    1. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

      If Walky’s level of laziness has become contagious we’re truly doomed.

      1. Captain Button

        I saw that movie!

        1. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

          That’s beyond Walky levels. He’d never let himself get too lazy to enjoy 50 McNuggets!

  29. John

    Walky, Leslie said no points for role-play.

  30. Cerberus

    Here’s an interesting thing I notice with Walky and Joe. Together they both have the qualities of one of the best type of men and one of the worst.

    What I mean is, Joe minus some shit about emotions is more or less halfway decent on gender roles and not letting dumb toxic masculinity rules bog him down, but where he falls down is in having some murky areas with knowledge about consent and some creepiness with sexual aggressiveness.

    Walky on the other hand is absolutely fantastic on consent. Never is he shown pressuring Dorothy for sex and treats it like a cool thing that can happen even though he is clearly a sexual being. He treats it like a dance. He may be virginal and new to it, but it’s not a matter of predator and prey. But where he falls down is that he cottons to a lot of social gender roles and believes a lot of dumb shit about what makes one a man or what makes one a woman and has got some dumb femme-phobic crap like his early rant about skirts.

    Together, they are a respectful, awesomely supportive dude that’s really chill on gender roles with great experience to call on.

    And together they are a masculinity-obsessed sexually-aggressive dick-joke factory.

    It’s all kind of yin and yang.

    1. Captain Button

      So we should run them through the telepods to recombine them into a perfect enlightened guy and an MRA?

      1. Cerberus

        … I am always done for a proper spat of mad science. To the transmogrifier!

        1. NoHeart6265

          We’ll need to draw a few more settings in the spaces left blank before we begin. I’ll get the marker.

        2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          I think you’ll need some dipteran DNA. That always helps with fusions.

        3. altalemur

          … am i the only one who starts thinking about that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito movie “Twins”?

          in any case, i would prefer that Joe and Walky have a son and raise him to be the perfect man instead of recombining DNA to create one perfect man, and one terrible one.

      2. fogel

        Will one of them have a goatee?

        1. Captain Button

          Well, Joe already has 5 o’clock shadow at 1 pm…

      3. StClair

        the way these stories go, the “perfect enlightened guy” will be just as insufferable, just in a different way.

        1. Captain Button

          True.

    2. Shiro

      Y’know, you’re right, and that’s probably why I have good feelings towards Walky. He’s got the grounding right, now he just needs to mature a little* and he’ll be a really, really great guy.

      *I count the “men only own one pair of shoes” stuff as immaturity that one day he’ll take a closer look at and go “wait no why was that a thing I thought”. On second thought, I may be projecting a wee tad.

      1. Buhzim

        I reckon the shoes thing was not something he really believes in but a flimsy justification for why he dressed like a slob. See, I would try to look more presentable, but unfortunately I already own a pair (*points to busted up sneakers*) and buying another would be gay. I’ll think about it once they start to fall apart.

        1. Emily

          Nah, when I still was trying to be a guy I 100% believed men should only own 1 pair of shoes and 1 pair of winter boots. You pick up WEIRD rules about masculinity from media.

        2. Cerberus

          Totes.

        3. TheNinthShader

          I saw this comment as ¨Toes¨. Am I odd for thinking that fit?

        4. Captain Button

          I still have to stop and think whenever someone says “Totes”. And I always expect there to a ™ after it, for some reason.

        5. Spencer

          It does seem like the kind of thing an early 90s animal mascot character would say.

        6. Disloyal Subject

          I always had that expectation somewhere in my head, but for some reason it never really affected me. If a situation calls for a shoe I don’t have, I’m more than happy to find something appropriate.
          Boots, sneakers, and dress shoes cover pretty much everything, though. Maybe slip-ons for speed at security checkpoints, too.

      2. chris73

        Its one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard of,one pair of shoes…I mean how do you play sports for a start?

        1. Fellstrike

          You don’t sports are dumb.

          Though to be fair I have…5 maybe pairs of shoes counting dress shoes and slippers. So..(my girlfriend has about the same.)

          Why do people need so many shoes? Find a good pair and wear them to death.
          To be fair I’d say that for all genders so…

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Color coordinating, something easy to get on/off versus something that stays on even in hipdeep mud, different amounts of traction for hiking vs sprinting…
          Lots of reasons, but one or two pairs will do for most folks. One for daily wear, one for sporting hobbies, and one for dresswear, perhaps with two for hobbywear if they run or play a sport as well as hiking and two for dresswear if they have dressclothes they like but their default dress shoes clash horribly.

  31. Victor Riley

    I wonder if Joe will freak out if someone suggests they’re being the perfect gay couple by dividing everything perfectly equal. With them, there can’t be any “inherent female duties” (or some such drek), because in their relationship, no duty would be inherently female. They’re just duties. (Or all inherently male, I suppose.)

    But with Joyce… it’s interesting that she’s quoting the Bible and falling back on the subservient wife thing, but since she’s actually giving an order to Dorothy, she’s actually taking the traditional male role… while she “thinks” she’s just going to be the wife.

    This will go in interesting ways, and a nice exploration of gender politics. I’m actually kind of bummed I never had an opportunity for such a class when I was in college… I don’t think it was even offered, unfortunately.

    1. Adam Black

      Nah,
      I think Joe would just take Pride.
      But he didnt divide the decision making equally. I think thats the actual point of the exercise. To see how this process is unconscious and how their thoughts of gender cause them to equally collude.

    2. Emily

      I don’t see Joe as homophobic, just disinterested in it in general because it’s not really applicable to his lifestyle.

  32. ridtom

    Oh my god, Joyce’s hand is phasing out of existence! Somebody help her!

  33. Kraken

    “Hello, Dingus. This is Joe, Dingus. It’s so nice to have you back where you belong!”

    I like how Dorothy and Joyce are doing this assignment the most, that is to say, dividing stuff up how they think they would actually do it. Although, I dunno why Joyce decided there has to be a husband and why Dorothy is them. It’ll lead to interesting discussion, though!

    As for the other pair, Walky is joking around, which probably won’t last, cause I doubt his ability to hide his disdain for some of the tasks he’ll end up with. Joe is at least thinking about gender roles. It’ll be interesting to see how he’ll end up divvying stuff up. I don’t like that he’s sees the assignment as a trap rather than a chance to just discuss preconceived notions, but that stuff will become pretty obvious when asked why the tasks are divided as they are.

    1. Emily

      A LOT of straight people have this weird idea that same sex couples still function on the traditional “wife/husband” gender roles. I am not at all surprised that Joyce is one of them it’s completely in keeping with her worldview.

  34. kveale

    I’m wondering if Dorothy’s basically going to say “Isn’t there a part of the bible where as a husband, I am your rock and foundation? Is there anything we can talk about for what’s going on for you?” and basically bible-hack Joyce into an emotional unburdening catharsis.

    It seems unlikely to fix things because it’s too pat and short term, but I can’t rule out SOMETHING along those lines. A little incremental progress, somehow.

    Dorothy is both clever, empathetic and concerned. She’ll at least try something.

    1. Myerst

      Ha. “Bible-hack”, I like that phrase.

      1. TheNinthShader

        I thought of Bible Black when I saw that, dont google that.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          Pfft, Bible Black is relatively tame, and has some fun parts.

      2. Captain Button

        Of course, given my Gravatar, I am now picturing .hack//BIBLE as the anime equivalent of Hymmel the Humming Hymnal.

        Mimiru would need a lot more coverage, for a start.

        And Tsukasa’s gender issues would have to go, obviously.

  35. Derek

    I find it kinda funny that Joe thinks Lesley wants to trick him into being sexist or something. No, Joe, you have already revealed yourself to be sexist (at least in objectifying women and lesbians) since day one.
    If anything you’ll be “tricked” into thinking about your preconceptions of gender roles and where they come from

    1. Cerberus

      I dunno. The latter might be worse for him.

      In the former, he can play martyr. The mean old feminist trying to call him sexist just for having a healthy sex drive, blah de blah.

      But if he actually grows and learns more about the world, examining the systems he has grown up with and are surrounded by, then he runs the risk of actually feeling some of his behavior has been wrong and should change for the sake of his morality and his view of himself as a good person.

      Heck, this part about the growing pains of becoming a decent person and one’s own self as an adult really is the central theme of this strip. And perfectly mirrors what Joyce is going through. Learning new things that threaten to destroy what you thought the world was like and look at some of your previous actions in a negative light is a key part of growing up and growing wise. Both Joyce and Joe most need this class and have the most to gain from it and in this class, we see the smallest signs that they might be on the road to really start absorbing good from it.

      1. Captain Button

        Joe strikes me as someone who would never actually admit to error or wrongdoing, but still might change his behavior and positions as if he had.

        Like the old joke “I’ve never had the clap and I don’t want it again!”

    2. Emily

      Joe doesn’t really seem to have much in the way of gender role hangups it’s mostly commitment, sexuality, and emotional immaturity stuff.

    3. thomas wrobel

      I think people are oversimplifying hugely to call Joe Sexiest. I dont think ever, in any strip, has he inferred woman are inferior, cant do, or are not deserving of equally treatment.
      Yes, he has many things in common with sexiest people in terms of outward behavior, but the core of his wrongness seems different – He see’s HIMSELF as just a sexual object.

      As for this exercise; He probably see’s it as beneath him. “well, duh, of course gender roles are stupid what am I going to learn here” I think is more likely going on in his head then “secretly the roles are correct, but I am going to pretend to think otherwise.”

  36. NerdHerder

    TEAM DINGUS FTW

    1. Cerberus

      I’m so down for Joe/Walky’s ship name to be “Team Dingus”.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        I support this motion.

      2. Adam Black

        or “D’oh! & Jingus”

  37. Adam Black

    Joes ( half ) Right… It is a trap . Its a trick question.
    ( And Its a good one ) and he still fell right into IT!

    They are focusing on the results, on not on the process i.e.
    How the decisions are made to divide things up , and who decides.
    Joe is being egalitarian, buts hes dominated the decision process and Walky has submitted.
    Joyce is topping from the bottom, leaving and ceding responsibility to Dorothy.

    Joyce and Joe would have made a better pair, and Joyce would be unhappy with Joes decisions a priori , and would have exercised equal responsibility in decision making.

    1. brumagem

      That’s a good point! I was starting to wonder how teams would divide responsibility according to gender if about half the teams are two of the same gender, so Joe’s probably off.

      1. Emily

        One person would be designated the “wife” or “husband” regardless of gender like Joyce is doing with Dorothy.

      2. Adam Black

        Yes he seems to forget the room is mostly ladies.
        ( or maybe he doesnt really know how they think )

    2. Emily

      I mean enforcing “equality” in a relationship dynamic even if it goes against the grain and comfort of the people in the dynamic isn’t really any better than enforcing traditional gender roles. If one partner is more comfortable ceding responsibility and the other is more comfortable taking it than there’s nothing wrong with them just falling into an “unequal” dynamic that they both are happy with.

    3. thomas wrobel

      ” buts hes dominated the decision process”

      I dont think you can “dominant” just by declaring things shouldnt be split by gender.
      Whats Walky going to say to be assertive? “no they should be”?

      There is, imho, no real “right” answer, only a wrong one which he excluded, for whatever reason.

      1. Adam Black

        Dominance is more style than result.

        “Whats Walky going to say to be assertive? “

        Once you get that far tht you cant imagine what assertive looks like, its pure submission.

        What Walky could have done was actually say how he thought the assignment should be done, whether or not it agrees or disagrees with what Joe said.

        Joes isnt actually thinking it through or engaging with it, hes trying to second-guess Leslie so he doesnt have to.

        And Splitting everything 50-50 isnt usually practical at all times. People will naturally specialize in certain things at certain times.

        Are their Young Children? is someone working from home?
        Does Joe Build Robots to run Walkys Trampoline Park?

  38. A5PECT

    I get the feeling Dorothy would be in a very similar situation even if Walky hadn’t been forcibly switched out by Joyce (albeit for different reasons).

    1. A5PECT

      Just to elaborate, Walky would have had ended the comic on pretty much the same line as Joyce here.

      1. Adam Black

        probably but Dorky wouldnt be 50/50.

        Dorothys going to be President.

  39. doubleW

    Joe, if you’re going to be meta about the assignment, you’re going about it wrong. Splitting it evenly just means that you’re affording another man equal respect. One of you has to identify yourself as the ‘wife’ and then take on all of the traditional masculine roles, and vice versa for the other. Or assign everything by darts/dice roll.

    1. Buhzim

      That would just earn him a few questions from Leslie (“Why should it necessarily be your Walky-wife’s job to do the dishes?”). He expects to avoid that with a perfect split of activities. But I think Leslie already predicted that someone would pick up on the “trap” and has a few questions just for that.

      1. Betty Anne

        (Bias disclosure: I worked in the Gender Studies office in college, participated in/was an officer in/headed the LGBTQIA [how the alphabet soup was listed at that time] club on two campuses, and helped publish a feminist magazine on one campus, and my BA is in Humanities.)

        I would expect that’s the point of Leslie’s class/lecture here. She’s going to expect her students to be world-savvy enough that they know the dominant culture ‘expects’ household management to be divided ‘equally,’ she knows she has at least one fundie in class who was raised with ‘traditional’ influences and one liberal activist who rejects all of those influences, and she knows none of them have given extensive, serious thought to why they ‘know’ what they do about marriage and household management.

        I expect, that instead of telling them their various answers are “wrong,” or “right,” she’s going to ask them, “Why?” It’s much more difficult to explain your stance when you’re reciting out of someone else’s playbook than when you sit down and actually decide who knows what, who’s good at what, and what tasks each person actually wants to tackle.

        1. thejeff

          On the other hand, most of these couples don’t know each other well enough to know “who knows what, who’s good at what, and what tasks each person actually wants to tackle”. And they’ve got 15 minutes to sort it all out.

  40. neeks

    i’m not sure which role joyce thinks she’s taking here, to be honest. like, ok, “wives defer to their husbands”, but also there’s the “husband letting the wife do all the work” aspect…

    1. neeks

      and i know, i know, “not all men” blah blah, but my experience growing up–and even now (re:my dad, who is content to let his wife work basically three jobs AND do all the housework; i’ve never been married)–has been the latter.

      although i suppose it balances out, since between my dad being lazy and my mom hating housework, i never picked up especially awesome habits in terms of cleanliness, so if i ever cohabit (again), my hypothetical bf would have to at least pitch in or hardly anything would ever get done.

      1. Captain Button

        I suspect a disconnect that happens a lot is that a dispute about who should do task X is confused with a dispute about if task X needs to be done at all, and at what level. Expecting your partner to do all the cleaning is different from not caring if things are clean.

        In both cases you need to communicate to come to agreement, but they are different situations.

        1. neeks

          honestly i think my dad is an extreme case, considering the state of their house–and his personal health (73yo diabetic who uses unacknowledged alcoholism to compensate for his blood sugar). my stepmom and i are both of the opinion that if she hadn’t come into his life when she did, he would have been dead years ago. the guy just doesn’t take care of himself, and while i was living with him at the time that they met, i am by no means a caretaker (i don’t exactly take care of myself either, but that’s a derailed thread for another day.)

          but yeah, in general, tolerance for mess and a definition of what counts as “clean” can factor into chore distribution as well. neat freaks will by definition end up doing more work around the house than slobs, because the point at which they just can’t stand the mess comes sooner for them than their counterparts. when my ex and i were living together, he ended up having to make a list of tasks for me because our opinions varied on what a clean bathroom looks like. i’d clean the mirror and counter, sweep the floor, take out the trash, and consider the job done, and along comes the ex all “what about the toilet/bathtub/shower walls etc”.

        2. neeks

          to clarify, we took turns on chores like that, but had different definitions of what “clean” looked like sometimes.

        3. Disloyal Subject

          I feel you. An ex of mine was disgusted that I don’t scrub and bleach every tile, wall, and corner in the bathroom weekly, and while I maintain that that’s unreasonably thorough, I still default to ‘good enough’ when it comes to housecleaning.

  41. Vree

    Walky:”Would you like dinner? A bath? Or…me?”
    Joe: “Ewww.”
    Joe: “…I’m making a note of the line, though.”

    1. Zaxares

      As am I. That was a good one. 😀

      1. Bleeters

        It’s also from Monster Musume.

        1. Roborat

          I knew I recognized that line, but couldn’t remember from where. That is my favourite Anime/Manga right now.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          It’s weird. I always used to hear folks talking about how they read something before it was adapted to an anime, and now One Punch Man and MonMusu are on the air. It doesn’t quite make me feel old, but it’s a similar feeling.

  42. Bagge

    “Is there a bible verse about avoiding eye contact?”
    “Yes, they have to do with feeling guilty about your believes.”

    Poor, poor Joyce. This will happen a lot to her in the close future, confronting parts of her upbringing that suddenly don’t feel so great anymore.

  43. Wyze

    It’s kind of hilarious that Joyce thinks she’ll be the husband in the relationship instead of Dorothy.

    1. Arianod

      …it’s just the other way around, actually? What she’s saying is basically “you’re the ‘husband’, so according to the Bible you make the decisions and I say hamen to everything”.

      1. inqntrol

        I don’t believe it, my father behaved with my mom like a she was a living being and listening to her opinions! ”I have to tell him he was doing it wrong all these years.”

        1. Arianod

          Better not, the shock might be too much for him XD

  44. Tenzhi

    So the punchline on your children’s prophesied due date was an erstwhile husband telling their wife ‘you figure this out and I’ll just watch or something’? Meta-hilarity.

    1. Lord Stoneheart

      Actually it sounds like Joyce is saying she’s a “traditional wife” to Dorothy, and that means that Dorothy is the “traditional husband” so biblically Dorothy decides everything.

  45. Buhzim

    Since the”trap” Joe is talking about is pretty obvious, I think the real trap here is that 15 minutes is far too little time to make this kind of decision. Some couples will have it done in a hurry to meet the time limit and end up with an unfair division of tasks.

  46. BenRG

    I’m really worried about Joyce right now. It’s clear that she just doesn’t want to engage with the lesson. She didn’t just make a statement about how she thinks a family should function, she just issues a cop out that can be re-phrased as: ‘Do what you like, I’m not really interested in this’.

    Meanwhile, I think that some of Joe’s personal politics and, possibly, his view of modern Feminism is sneaking into his approach to this exercise.

    1. thejeff

      No, I think that’s her real take on the subject. Now, you’re partly right and she’s not really engaging. If she was, she might realize that it obviously isn’t Leslie’s or Dorothy’s take on it. But Biblical submission of the wife to the husband isn’t something she’s just spouting off to get out of the assignment, it’s what she’s been taught her whole life her role is going to be.

      And of course she’s not thinking that Dorothy is just as much the wife in the relationship as she, because she’s been groomed her whole life to be the wife.

      This by the way is a good part of what many religious conservatives find so threatening about same-sex marriage: Marriage isn’t an equal partnership to them, the roles are different and very much gender based. And that was the legal reality of marriage not that many generations back. The first question in a same sex marriage would have to be: “Who’s the husband? And who’s the wife?” Because those were different roles.

      1. Cerberus

        Yup, if gays can get married or have life-long “real” relationships without the house burning down in the process, then maybe this whole “natural” role thing is bollocks and the enforcement of it isn’t a requirement for a successful home.

        It’s also why they put so much effort in either arguing that the household is somehow “incomplete” or that one or the other must be being the “man” and “woman” of the relationship and phrase gayness as more of a deal of being confused by gender roles than anything else.

        Because to do otherwise is to give away the whole scam.

        1. Captain Button

          Also, if women can get married to other women, they’d all do that*.

          Where would all the men be then**?

          * Because being lesbian is something you can turn on or off, right?

          ** Implicitly acknowledging what a bad deal traditional marriage is for women.

      2. Formerly Glenn

        Are you sure about that being a widespread concern?

        I know a lot of people against same-sex marriage, but I have never heard that one before. Even the people I know who are generally bigots againt homosexuals are fairly egalitarian on male and female gender roles.

        Although I do know one guy who’s just a horrible person all across the board, I try not to talk with him much, because it almost always ends in an argument.

    2. Cerberus

      I don’t think she’s in a place where she wants to engage in any lesson. I remember the semester where my grandpa was really sick and how hard it was to focus even on subjects I loved simply because I was too busy worrying all the time.

    3. Kraken

      I think she’s being genuine. She’s just living according to the bible, possibly to avoid the emotional turmoil of dealing with the difficulties and complexities of life. Because she’s still faithful, she believes this will keep her from going awry like others she’s noticed. We’ve already seen her admonish Becky for going against biblical doctrine, and I wouldn’t be surprised if her interactions with her family will also follow that trend.

      I mentioned this before in an earlier comic before we found out why she was mad at Becky, and I think it continues to be at least partially true.

  47. Drakkin the Alien

    as a dweller of a country with a sizeable population still living out of the land, i should know that home/family tasks are distributed along age stages and hardships more than genders. The kids that can walk around and close a fist, cand feed the poultry, those that can run and hold a stick can shepperd the small cattle, the old hags can turn the wool into threads even blindly, the old crones provide entertaimente, etc. Family units were work labor forces, so a big family was a treasure. A couple without children were condemned to poverty. Now, industrial revolution has turned all that upside down. A childless couple lives the riches, a big family strugles to survive. And now there is some people that gets gender-offended when asked to turn on the “Roomba”. Ja-ja.

    1. Peduncle

      Hello, Mr. Alien. Perhaps English is not your first language? Just a pointer here: “hag” and “crone” are cruel and unpleasant words for “old woman”. I’m sure you didn’t mean them that way. Corresponding male terms like “geezer” and “codger” can be used humorously, but not the female terms. It’s another example of built-in bias in language and culture.

      1. Betty Anne

        Fair play for trying to educate, but I think Alien’s opening line (“as a dweller of a country with a sizeable population still living out of the land”) was a giveaway to being someone who lives in a country where it’s okay to use old-world words like “crone” and “hag.” Also, “shepperd” instead of “shepherd,” “poultry” instead of “chickens,” “entertaimente” instead of “entertainment,” and “Ja-ja” instead of “ha ha” or “LOL” are kind of obviously ESL. ^^;

        Just saying – “Perhaps English is not your first language?” is obvious and comes across as patronizing as a result. “Americans don’t like to use some of these terms” would be a better lead-in.

    2. Shiro

      “Gender-offended” is one of the worse inventions of the English language I’ve heard.

  48. TheNinthShader

    [Insert obligatory Clever Girl comment]

  49. ishaan

    I think the “trap” is that everyone assumes heterosexuality (that one person has to be the wife and the other the husband, even though the assignment says “spouse”.)

    1. Disloyal Subject

      “Everyone?” Both onscreen pairings were heterosexual, and then Joyce and Walky, the members of those two pairings with the most ingrained ideas of gender roles, decided that their partner was the opposite gender. I’ll be very surprised if every other team, particularly Roz’s, chooses to identify their component members as ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’

  50. Paul1963

    *DING* You unlocked a badge! BIBLICAL DICKISHNESS 500 points

    1. Rowen Morland

      How do the points work for those sorts of badges. Is it just whoever made its guess of how hard it was to do?

      1. cesium133

        Everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.

        1. Black

          Just like the DNA evidence at the O.J. trial!

  51. Beffers

    Ironically, based on this strip, Joe understands the class better than Joyce does. And would probably make a better husband, if Joyce took on that role.

  52. Lulu

    So two guys together will always manage to agree on something while two girls being together will always end in argument?
    So real life it hurts.

    1. Lord Stoneheart

      That’s not what’s happening here though.

      Walky hasn’t agreed to anything Joe has said yet. Dorothy hasn’t disagreed with Joyce yet. (I mean I expect she will but I also think she’s more concerned about Joyce’s lack of interest in things than Joyce defaulting to the Bible)

  53. Cacturne

    I’m worried Joyce will become a “second Mary” if this dickishness carries on.

  54. Peduncle

    Joyce, you should read one more chapter. Ephesians 6:5: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ.” This verse was quoted a lot in defense of slavery before the US Civil War.

  55. Willoughby Chase

    Someone’s been watching “The Maltese Falcon.”

    Brigid O’Shaughnessy: I haven’t lived a good life. I’ve been bad, worse than you could know.
    Sam Spade: You know, that’s good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we’d never get anywhere.

    1. Willoughby Chase

      A Hammett quote that describes this forum:

      “…I guess I can put two and two together.”
      “Sometimes the answer’s four,” I said, “and sometimes it’s twenty-two…”
      ― Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

  56. Emma

    I just love that Walky called Joe pumpkin. That’s so friggin’ cute. He’s really talking this to the next level isn’t he? Maybe he’ll let loose a schmoopsy-poo in the next strip.

    1. Captain Button

      I don’t like being called “Eddie-baby”!

      1. Roborat

        And no matter the subject, one can always make a Monty Python reference.

        1. Captain Button

          I have read that a hundred-odd years ago, constantly quoting Gilbert & Sullivan was a similarly annoying habit.

      2. Willoughby Chase

        Listen, Wilma.

  57. Psychotic Mantis

    Walky is having a huge fucking laugh with this, isn’t he?

    Joyce, though…
    Hmm.

    1. Bagge

      He sure does, pumpkin

  58. Tenn

    Aw, Walky is so cute. ^_^

  59. Black

    Wow, when she said they’d trade spouses, I didn’t realize she’d force them both into gay relationships.

    Is she too angry with Joe to realize that she’s in a pretend lesbian relationship, or is she just that angry with religion and god right now?

    1. Clif

      No.

      She’s in a pretend hero relation where she assumes Dorothy’s the guy. Whether Dorothy plays along remains to be seen.

      1. Clif

        Hetro relation. Obligatory damning of spell correct and lack of editing capability.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          well, Becky DID assume that Amazi-Girl was Joyce’s nickname for Dorothy 😉

        2. random832

          Meanwhile, Joyce’s actual nickname for Dorothy.

        3. Spencer

          Hero relation is a pretty solid definition either way.

  60. Rob

    i demand weddings

    1. Captain Button

      I demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.

  61. bryy

    oh ffffff

    Joyce is trying to make sense of religion by clinging on to anything.

    This will not end well.

  62. Wublub

    So anyways, why is Joyce’s hand blue in that last panel?

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