Grrl Power #1193 – Kiss monster’s gonna get ya!
Turns out succubi like sex. And also smooching all over people and stuff like that.
Parfait will eventually run out of mana while she’s projecting her lust aura out so far, so yeah, she’ll eventually wind down on her own. However, remember that succubus master/slave thing? It allows the master to use the succubus as a mana battery. The opposite is also true, but the succubus can’t pull from the master without permission. Thothogoth is an Archfiend and he’s doing pretty well for himself. He’s not the most powerful guy out there from the Infernal Empire, as he’s only about Dabbler’s age (remember they went to ‘Hell High’ together) but he’s still got a pretty significant mana pool. If Dabbler has, let’s say, 200 mana, Tom has around 300 (Dabbler spends as much time on tech and gizmos as developing her magic) and Parfait has like… 50? Tom, being the progressive kind of guy he is allows his ‘slaves’ access to a good chunk of his mana unless he knows he’s specifically going to need it for something.
Now if you’re wondering if Dabbler’s larger mana pool means she could do something like this to the Archon HQ, well, that may very well come up on a near-future page.
That’s why Parfait can manage something like this in the first place, and given her inexperience, wrangling her aura is really difficult when she’s super turned on. It’s like a teenage boy trying to get his erection to go down just after discovering he has superpowers, and that power is clairvoyance, but he can’t turn it off for an hour once activated, and it forces him to watch cheerleaders showering. (Don’t worry, it’s all consensual, because… uh… hmm, give me a moment… Oh! It’s part of the latest Japanese Game Show: The Superpower Prank Hour! That’s why the cheerleaders are really intent on soaping each other up and kissing and saying things like “Our totally normal sapphic byplay is greatly enhanced by the thought of someone peeping on us!”) Anyway, what I’m saying about her aura is that it’s far easier to go through than around. I mean, seriously, imagine a teenage boy willing his erection away while being made to stare unblinkingly at that.
The August vote incentive is up! Yeah I know it’s late, so hopefully I’ll manage to get some bonus (read: overdue) incentives up as I attempt to catch up.
Oh no! Sydney’s been injured! A Wampa may or may not have been involved, I’ll leave the exact nature of the incident up to you. It’s not relevant to the picture. And before you’re like “Dave, Bandaged Rei is one thing, but floating unconscious in a bacta tank is probably an even narrower fetish.” just check the picture out.
The Patreon version has nudes and variants, and a comic that reveals something interesting about the orbs.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
This page is giving me complicated feelings.
From a comic logic perspective: This is hot and funny, logically consistent with the succubi culture and mindset, and seems like a definite risk when interacting with a young succubus. If I discard any real-world concerns, I love it and I want more!
From a real logic perspective: This is, unfortunately, fairly rapey. It has consent problems both in terms of what’s happening on the page, and how we’re supposed to feel about it.
Obviously, Sydney did not consent, and any seeming consent was forced by emotional control magic. We’re supposed to feel bad for her (and we do), but we’re also supposed to think (at least unless the next few pages take a drastic tonal shift) it’s not that big a deal. I doubt Sydney and Parfait are going to seriously distance from each other, that Sydney is going to go through this in therapy (she doesn’t need to be traumatized, but she does need to be checked out for trauma/help her process), or that there’s going to be a major rethink of human/succubus relations due to the fact that this is a real risk.
More problematically, we’re supposed to feel bad for Parfait here, and in-universe that sort of makes sense. She might genuinely not understand consent, and might genuinely have little self-control in this situation. But this mirrors real-world rape apologism excuses where (lacking comic logic) they’re dangerous, untrue tropes that get people hurt and help terrible people get away with hurting people. I’m not a fan of the comic story being set up to provide a valid excuse here that mirrors an invalid excuse in real life on a serious issue.
I also think that the way this page ended is quite possibly a bigger problem. It’s heavily implied here that Parfait is unwilling to stop without significant further pushback. Just before Max and Dabbler arrive, Parfait is moving *forward*, not *backward*, while Sydney is giving very clear refusal. With Max and Dabbler here no doubt going to force an end to the issue, it leaves it on a note that Parfait was given a crystal clear “no” and was not willing/able to accept that. To consider the implications of that, we can imagine two possibilities – one in which Sydney is able to convince Parfait to stop, and one in which she isn’t.
I’d rather not consider the second one, and it’s the worst case, so let’s consider the better case: Parfait pushes Sydney further here, but Sydney does something more extreme than she already has to get Parfait to realize she needs to stop. In that case, we’re talking about a clear case of attempted forcible sexual assault. Something comics certainly can discuss, but something they should discuss with care. If we’re going to include something like that, then we’d need to look at the consequences – and they’d be dire. I doubt Dave wants the tonal shift required to do that.
The minimal change required, imo, is that Parfait needs to stop *before* third party intervention, and without pushing past Sydney’s clear no here. She can be confused, but she can’t hear the “no” and say “But I want to” and move closer to Sydney to resume the sex that Sydney has clearly not consented to. That allows us to take it as a misunderstanding, a case where things went too far, but they realized and pulled back before anyone got hurt. Then the comic can handle it with a lighter touch and address the concerns about how this could have gone worse, but young succubi are still capable of self-control. They’re not, by nature, a threat to the people around them.
That means a redo of this page.
Note, this alone is not a dealbreaker for me, but like, it just feels like a really bad look. We don’t need another Loss in the webcomic world. And I think that continuing this thread the way it’s been written is either going to make the comic a lot darker than it’s intended, or a lot less believable. Plus I’m sure you’ve got fans who are genuinely traumatized by this inclusion in the story. Sexual assault is not rare. It’s often a traumatizing event, and it’s bad when it’s portrayed for giggles in media.
Note that Parfait didn’t jump on her or kissed her again. I think she’s trying to stop and while not moving backward might cooperate with Sydneys plan to stop her. But yes, the point there were interrupted in, while funnier for the “this is not how it looks like” joke, is not ideal from the “would Parfait be able to stop herself” point of view.
Well, let’s be honest: No matter how horny you are, a lick to the eyeball DOES reset the whole moment and it even takes a succubus to ‘get back in the mood’ even though her lust aura is on full blast.
Yeah, I’ve been extremely concerned the last few pages about how this is being handled. Hopefully Dave has a damn good wrap-up here. I like the fact that Maxima’s involved, as she’s likely to take this with exactly as much gravity as it deserves, but he’s dabbling (heh) in some extremely weighty issues here that really can’t be laughed off without some extremely unfortunate implications – and ones all-too-common in IRL rape apologists. I think he’s very much at risk of losing much of his existing audience and gaining a large incel/rape apologist audience if he’s not extremely careful about how this goes down, and given the arc to this point I’m not confident.
Well, the thing is that Parfait is unable to control herself on a metaphysical level, not a metaphorical one. The problem here is clearly her lack of experience/knowledge rather than malicious intent. Most likely, the best outcome would be to have the characters conclude that she needs more training to keep her magic under control, and probably some classes on human culture before she’s allowed to visit Earth again.
I genuinely doubt he’d lose most of his audience. I’d argue he’d lose a tiny fraction from one and gain a tiny fraction from the other. Most people don’t comment. Most people don’t read real life issues so heavily into an extremely tropey fanservice web comic.
I think it’s clear from the comments over the years that the comic has a very broad audience… that already includes a number of incels and rape apologists. Some people might drop the comic over this, but I’d still wonder how this crossed any lines that haven’t already been crossed in the comic’s history.
I think DaveB clearly has a very sex-positive perspective, and that Dabbler’s perspective isn’t very difficult for him to imagine, or all that far from his own. For some people, sex is just some great and pleasurable thing, and even unwanted sex is still sex and therefore good, just not as good as sex that you really wanted. There’s some distant conception of sex you really, really don’t want, and a tendency to see ‘rape’ only in terms of physical violence.
Beyond just the topic of sex, people have varying ideas on how much they should interfere in other people’s lives, how much they should push their boundaries, try to get them to open up. I do think that extroverts in general tend to be more dismissive about boundaries, and think they should push people out of their comfort zone “for their own good”. Some people are more open to new experiences, others less. Some people value excitement more, others value security and safety. But what most people have in common is the conviction that their own perspective is superior to others.
Ye I imagine that if you’re still here after the borderline slavery apologia in the past you might be more pliable towards staying.
That said, I think a lot of users then might’ve given that borderline apologia a pass on the presumption that it’s mostly still rooted in more modern ideas of consensual bondage and all, but with the _aesthetic_ of slavery. Increasingly, these last few pages have pretty strongly dispelled it being mere aesthetic to me, and I’m not very impressed with its handling.
What we’re looking at here is a severe culture clash.
Remember that, not so long ago historically speaking, it was impossible, as a matter of law, and the general meaning of the term, to “rape” your spouse. Because marriage constituted a durable prior consent to have sex. You were supposed to understand that going into marriage.
Suppose that it is widely understood in galactic culture that summoning a succubus amounts to a similarly durable, at least for the duration of the summon, consent to have sex? Literally, they would think, why else would you have summoned her? So that you could starve her for a while? Remember, sex is as optional for them as eating is for us.
So, from the galactic perspective, it’s not within the definition of rape.
Now Parfait is having to come to grips with the fact that Earth doesn’t share that understanding, while Sydney is having to come to grips with the fact that it IS the universal understanding.
As they’re friends, if Parfait is able to refrain, she will. But she is a young succubus, who hasn’t had the years of training in self control somebody like Dabbler has had. So it’s not going to be easy, and it’s clearly very unpleasant for her.
I get your concerns. I don’t think there’s a scenario in which Parfait actually is able to force herself on Sydney. If the eye lick doesn’t work, there’s her Lighthook and forcefield as options (and we know that emotional control magic can’t pass through that field). The only real danger was that Sydney wouldn’t realize her libido was being amplified until after the fact, and Parfait clearly communicated that she couldn’t shut it off.
But, yeah, if you strip it if its in-world context and try to graft it onto real-world situations it’s not directly comparable to, it would be concerning. Or, rather, the thing it was turned into by changing the setting, context, and the way the world functions would be concerning.
In theory, Sydney should be able to beat Parfait in a fight with the orbs.
But that’s not what’s going on here, is it?
Sydney didn’t realize she’d have any reason to fight Parfait. She doesn’t have the orbs in reach, and she’d have a hard time getting to them with Parfait on top of her.
Instead Parfait’s ripped off Sydney’s clothes despite Sydney’s objections and lack of actual romantic interest.
Sydney probably could’ve fought back harder.
However, that would mean hurting Parfait and I’m not quite sure her brain has caught up to the situation yet. She hasn’t switched from viewing Parfait as a potential friend to viewing Parfait as a threat despite how Parfait is acting.
She… doesn’t have the orbs in reach? You can’t see her balls orbiting close to her head?
If she doesn’t have a hand free to grab one, she can use all seven to literally beat Parf back (or knock her out)
Too busy seeing what’s not there to see what is?
You try grabbing something above your head when you’ve got someone grabbing you Guesticules.
It’s not as easy as you seem to think, and last I checked Sydney can’t control the orbs telepathically.
The orbs would need to actually be near Sydney’s HAND.
She does control the orbs telepathically though – we see that when she wills the required orb(s) into her hand(s) and also when she has used them to fight people, mimic atoms, etc.
Right from the outset, she was seen in the bank trying to will the orbs to her while they were in the poster carrier
> last I checked Sydney can’t control the orbs telepathically.
It’s been established since way back that Sydney can telepathically control the orbs: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/gp0100/
There’s even an example of her directing an orb to her hand while paralyzed: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-804-the-hero-we-read/
She also, as Guesticules mentioned, can use her telepathic control to use them as weapons without touching them, and has done so multiple times:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-120-faceball/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-206-the-velma-reversal/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-500-bravery-in-the-faces-of-danger/
She doesnt have to grab for them. They can fly into her hand, like the lighthook did while she was paralyzed outside the nightclub fighting the spider vigilante girl or the shield did while she was boob hypnotized in Galytn.
Quick summary;
Parfait doesn’t understand human culture, thought Sydney was up for her kinds of games and apparently can’t conceive of someone being so receptive to her attention yet not wanting to have sexy times with her.
Sydney intellectually understood everything Dabbler explained while not understanding the reality of any of it, had no understanding of the situation – reinforced by having an afternoon of exactly the kind of fun she was looking for – and was in the process of giving Parfait her last chance when Maxima and Dabbler burst in.
Maxima and Dabbler is the best possible outcome before things escalated in a decidedly unsexy way. Yes, Syndey could just bubble. Her bubble has pushed people away before when coming up, and the situation would be dealt with. But people in emotional distress sometimes do not react with proportional force. Simply put; Sydney isn’t wanting what Parfait is doing and is going way out of her way to tell her no, explain no means no then is finally warning her off in her uniquely Sydney way. The last person that came at Sydney got lighthooked into the ground in cartoon fashion instantly break every bone on that side of his body.
Not saying anything for or against Parfait. She’s a Blue and Orange Morality alien that will may never understand Sydney’s issues with the situation. Just pointing out Sydney isn’t the one in danger. She [i]is[/] the danger. And she’s doing her very best to get her new bestie to back off before she has to put a cap on Parfait’s sexy-unicorn-and-rainbow-succubus-ass.
Using the lighthook would also not be the first time it was used to restrain someone whose libido is out of control for reasons not from anyone’s direct fault. Such as with Jabberwokky’s lust obsession for Dabbler after the kiss/fight in the parking lot which lasted a LONG time.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-546-meet-the-new-grrl-same-as-the-old-grrl/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-547-this-kiss-is-on-my-list/
This didn’t even occur to me before but you’re absolutely right. This page is set up in such a way as to heavily imply that Parfait may be actually incapable of refraining herself from committing sexual assault without outside intervention. I really don’t think Dan meant to do that but so far, that is what is happening. Or maybe Dan DID mean to do that and Maxima is about to go on along winded lecture and additional rules will be established for human/succubus interaction? It’d still feel kinda weird if we went down that route but I think less so. Anyway, it seems insane that Parfait didn’t learn to control this in succubus school. That feels like an extremely dire curriculum gap. Honestly at this point I’m really hoping we take a long, long, long break from succubi after this so comment discussions like this can be less frequent.
I’m not certain Parfait would have gone so far as to actually outright assault a protesting Sydney (at least if she realized she was protesting – prior to the eyeball lick I think she genuinely believed Sydney was into it, and I think is still confused now); her leaning forward suggestively here is probably on reflex, because she really wants to get some Vitamin T (and has even stated she won’t be able to dismiss the Lust Aura without it). If Sydney realized fully what was going on, she could probably just pick up Parfait with the lighthook and carry her near one of the offices with steamy windows so she could absorb some secondhand tantric energy (like how Decolette’s protege meets her own needs while underage) – normally that might not be enough for a full-fledged, collared succubus, but Dabbler noted that supers generate a lot more tantric energy (or at least more concentrated tantric energy), so it would probably be enough. Of course, if Sydney fully realized what was going on, she probably would have bubbled herself and Parfait to spare the rest of the base of the effects of the Lust Aura.
1) Dave not Dan. Had to just mention that.
2) Parfait likely has things to help prevrntbthis from happening normally. Such as:
2a) Tom to have sex with her when its needed;
2b) a Nmora salka, whatever that is, which she immediately asked for when she realuzed her lust aura was going out of control;
2c) second hand tantric energy like Amara gets (Decolette’s kid/student, although she doesnt biologically have a lust aura yet in the first place)
2d) a sleep potion or a sleep spell to be used on her which would also stop the lust aura, which people like Tom, Dabbler or even Gwen probably have access to or can perform.
These are things which she has probably leatned in Succubus finishing school, which she is still probably in or of which has just finished the basics
PS sorry for all the spelling errors. Was using my phone and the virtual keyboard on this thing SUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS.
It’s not the real world. It’s a world with magic, powers, demons. Not to mention, it’s Succubus culture.
In the real world there isn’t anything like this.
That said, I’d imagine many are going “HOT HOT HOT!” when if Parfait was a guy and Halo was a lesbian or just unwilling, they’d be all over him. :p
What if the point is that they are by nature a threat to other people around them. That it takes a tremendous effort of effectively self domestication over years before a succubus can even willfully be precise with their abilities. Is there a problem exploring the inter species relationships of such an issue?
Exploring them? Not a problem. Exploring them poorly or superficially? Big problem.
Over the years, there have been numerous instances where comics have reacted poorly to being told “You can’t make rape jokes.” They never seem to grasp that the issue isn’t censorship, it’s a matter of competence. Rape is to comedy what flaming chainsaws are to juggling. It’s impressive if you can pull it off (see: Wanda Sikes, and the Detatchable Vagina), but failure means that you are going to hurt a lot of people; “You can’t” means “You literally are not skilled enough to pull this off, so please stop trying”.
In Dave’s case, it’s not so much a matter of ‘competence’ as it is ‘inclination’. He has a clear desire to keep the comic mostly light-hearted and goofy fun. Inserting a conversation about a species that is biologically engineered to be potentially forced to commit sexual assault is… not that.
The best option would be to have Maxima go draconian, declaring that any succubus who has not demonstrated absolute control over their lust-programming is no longer allowed on base, and preferably not on Earth. While this would be seen as harsh on Parfait, it would at least prevent the comic from becoming way too gross, or just dropping the ball.
“it leaves it on a note that Parfait was given a crystal clear “no” and was not willing/able to accept that”
As readers, we have a very firm grasp on current Western views on consent and the meaning of another human saying “no” in a sexual situation.
If this comic were a reality instead, consider that we have almost no grasp of succubi culture and no grasp of what it would mean TO THEM of some alien saying “no” in a sexual situation.
Are humans even considered sentient by succubi? Probably but maybe not. Sentience could be measured by technological progress or by how sexually liberated the species happens to be rather than the measures we use.
Since human reactions can be so easily manipulated, would a culture of random aliens who can naturally and instinctively manipulate those emotions have any concept of accepting a firm “no”, on any subject, from a human?
Sure, it’s more than a little cringey if you’re thinking of this as a comic being written by a guy to entertain an audience.
But if thinking of it as a reality which is happening on its own and not existing for an audience, I could see aliens not understanding what we would consider to be “no”. (Hell, in our own world, someone saying no outside of a sexual situation often doesn’t mean a firm “no”. Real-world salesmen undergo training on what to do to overcome a potential customer saying “no”. And most kids understand that their parents saying “no” often doesn’t mean a firm “no”.)
And what the hell is taught in succubi finishing school? I highly doubt that it’s “restraint” and “making sure to ask for consent” (especially after seeing Dabbler keep a villain around the HQ to use as a sexual energy battery, a guy who may or may not have been asked for his consent before Dabbler started in on him).
It’s more likely that succubi are being taught to control and exploit their powers to the fullest…along with how to fix it if the target of your lust aura manages to say “no” against your will.
It’s really interesting that you’re making this argument because, and I understand that this is an uncharitable interpretation but what I’m basically reading here is “Guys, this is fine because it’s possible that the implication here is that succubi are way more monstrous and rapey than we’d ever previously expected but it’s ok because they don’t feel like they’re doing anything wrong.” The idea that you gave the idea of succubus finishing school basically teaching “don’t take no for an answer” for sex as a defense of Parfait and the actions of succubi in general is absolutely wild to me. However, I absolutely see where you’re coming from.
You’re invoking a philosophical school of thought called “moral relativism”. It’s not an invalid school of thought and one held by many but I personally disagree strongly with it. The premise is that ethics are determined by cultural consensus and no set of ethics is objectively right. There’s a lot of reasonable and appealing aspects to this but the reason I just can’t accept it is that it justifies everything from human sacrifice to child brides. In this case, the ideas you’re proposing suggest the “child bride” thing heavily. If you’re ideas are so, who’s to say the succubi who don’t see humans as people anyway wouldn’t throw themselves at thirteen year olds? Those guys are horny. They’d be a good source of tantric energy. And by your reasoning, the succubi wouldn’t see anything wrong with that. The issue is that it would still be wrong. This is because no matter what your culture says, having sex with thirteen year olds is still super messed up. If some thirty something woman was trying to get with my little cousin and her explanation was “oh, I’m from an island where everyone does that” I’d still call the cops on her without hesitation and feel extremely justified in doing so. My point is that even if everything you’re saying is true, that’s just a world in which succubi are evil rapists who don’t care about the autonomy of species they see as “lesser” and they need to be stopped regardless of whether they see themselves as ethical. Tolerance for the cultures of others is important but if you can’t draw a line somewhere, I simply can’t respect your ethics.
I actually would be surprised and disappointed if we don’t see a Sydney therapy session after this, and if there isn’t a fairly firm laying down of the law.
I expect that Sydney will be willing to forgive Parfait, under the condition that she can be reasonably certain that nothing like this will happen again.
And I expect Gwen to be in trouble for either not making sure the right precautions were in place, or helping Sydney summon a succubus without knowing what precautions should be in place.
Parfait should be made to see the consequences of her actions. That’s learning ethics the hard way.
But Parfait didn’t have any more control than Sidney did. You could just as easily blame Sidney for summoning a succubus in the first place.
You can complain that this is “emotional control”, but isn’t ALL sexual desire emotional control? Individual animals don’t have a logical, self-benefiting reason to reproduce. So genetics programs these desires to assure the species continues, even at the expense of the individual. The evolution of human intelligence hasn’t really changed this.
You’re falling victim to the “retribution fallacy.”
The purpose of punishment is to teach, to correct behavior. In this case, this is what can use as a “teachable moment,” mostly for Parfait, but also for Sydney to a somewhat lesser extent.
In Parfait’s case, it’ll probably come down to extra practice at managing her aura. Sydney will most likely get some very specific EMI, regarding summoning and succubi. Specifically in ways to help her friend from having another…um…”accident.”
Either way, I expect Dabbler, Zeph, and Gwen to be pulling extra shifts in order to design and deploy appropriate safety measures.
I suspect that cultures that deal with this type of situation will claim the summoner is responsible for the actions of the summoned. Which would put Sydney in the hot seat.
As for Parfait, she’s not going to learn to control her powers by taking a class, or by being told there’s a law against it. It’s a “you don’t know what you’re dealing with or how to deal with it until you experience it” situation. It’s like the first few times you make out; you might find yourself unable to stop, and you can stay in one stage or move forward, but you can’t get out of the situation on your own. Another example is that while we all like to think we will react in an heroic manner in a dangerous situation, the fact is that most of us will panic and try to save our own skin. There’s simply no way to prepare ourselves for dealing with the urges and emotions that come up except by experiencing them. And I seriously doubt that Parfait has been in this situation before.
> It’s like the first few times you make out; you might find yourself unable to stop
That’s… not how people work. Unless you have a mental disorder (or not mentally developed enough to do so), you CAN stop trying to engage with someone, no matter how horny you are.
I highly doubt that such cultures wouldn’t have a provision for cases where someone summons something unknowingly or is tricking into summoning something. trope is common as mud. Or hell, that they wouldn’t just have standard legal framework with the addition of it including magic.
that aside though, what’s normal in other cultures isn’t applicable here, as the story is set in usa, where inviting someone to a party doesn’t make you responsible for their actions.
unless the host has more money than the guest. see- who is liable for the damage done by a stolen car- often its the owner of the car not the thief. (owner has insurance)
While insurance does follow the car, and the resulting lawsuits will go after whoever has the money, you can also bet that the insurer will go after the thief. I think you are confusing ‘liable’ with ‘covered’.
Human ethics
Max: Not in my house!
Dabbler: Are ya winning Parfait?
Love the grin on Dabbler’s face, but doesn’t it look like her eyes are looking at Max?
Maybe the look is ‘Finally that look is not directed at me for a change!’
To qoute Futurama “Courts kinda fun when it’s not my ass on the line!”
While seemingly everyone these last few pages is focused on ethics in a supernatural scenario involving a predatory supernatural being who has dosed herself along with a building full of supers as well as regular humans.
I am more curious about Sunday who in Galtyn broke out of succubus mind control, and right now is pushing back while at ground zero of this lust aura spreading out through the building.
Just putting those in the maybe pile of evidence Sydney may not be entirely human, at least not on the spirit mana level or something.
I’ve been speculating that the orbs are functioning to augment her nervous system. That mental control over their locations, for instance, and the ridiculously detailed control over the shape of the light hook, says that they have a direct neural or spirit interface.
Which probably interferes substantially with mind control efforts, as a passive side effect.
Sydney both knows that there’s a lust aura, and doesn’t have easy access to an appropriate partner. And apparently no amount of lust aura will make Parfait count as an appropriate partner for her.
It’s too late for the “you DIDN’T call me for sex?” angle.
-_-
I hope this debacle at least results in a really spicy vote incentive. Sweat, juices, o-faces, the works.
Ok, it definitely did not.
Lame.
Is it really ever too late for an honest conversation about what your thoughts and feelings and motivators were, and why they led you to act in the way you did? It doesn’t have to excuse the behavior, just provide context that people can use in the future.
Come on, you can’t pretend Parfait thought they were supposed to fuck after the whole “I messed up! I can’t hooold it!!” page.
True.
This is the sort of explanation that warrants its own explanation.
Yeah, seriously. :|
You definitely can. She was expecting it to be a booty call, but wasn’t expecting the conversation to go to collaring and cause her to lose control. She thought “I’m a big girl and can do this.” but she couldn’t.
Some people have been calling what’s going on rape for the past three comics, and I agree, but Panel 4 . . .
. . . it sure looks like if Max & Dabbler didn’t step in Parfait was going to rape Sydney, KNOWINGLY now.
I’m not surprised that if you’ve been agreeing then you would see it in such a light now, but it seems more like Sydney and Parfait were negotiating her needs than Parfait just forcing herself on Sydney. And if Parfait literally needs it, that would rather count as an extenuating circumstance imho.
That’s, uh, that’s the same light, though?
I guess you could say that, but I reserve the right to split hairs a bit, as there are differences between the style of approach and how far one is considered to have succumbed to the lust aura, etc. so that can make the “light” in which it is seen slightly different.
You see, I like to be exact in my language. That’s why I prefer to use vague terms.
No, she was pleading, but she was still listening. Sydney was offering to hook her up with a willing guy/gal. This whole situation seems more like cultural unfamiliarity than deliberate offense.
Who exactly would be a “willing” partner at this point? Nobody is in their right mind anymore, even Sydney despite resisting for the moment.
They’ve all been influenced, NOT mentally dominated. They’re still able to think, they’re simply doing so through an unexpected wave of desire. Or did you think that drinking a single glass of alcohol, during a date, invalidates the ability to give consent? Or enjoying a particularly fine dessert during the meal? If the other person is wearing a particularly pleasant fragrance of perfume/cologne, does that invalidate consent?
“Who exactly would be a “willing” partner at this point?”
Math. Math is a willing partner. It wasnt even affecting him with Jabberwokky pulling her shirt off. He suspected a trick to win the spar until he discovered it was not a trick to win the spar.
(Also I do agree with several aspects of Archone’s post being plausible based on Decolette’s description of it being a nudge, not full control)
Oh someone was definitely gonna get raped. Syd said “willing partner” but there isn’t one. Nobody can really consent while Parfait is blasting out that aura.
There is a difference between non-consensual sex (which obviously has significant problems of its own) and flat-out rape, and there is a difference between non-consensual sex and sex you consented to under perhaps significantly impaired states of judgment. If you call it all rape, then you are trivializing the experiences of actual rape victims.
I spend a lot of time splitting metaphorical hairs, for fun, and even I think you’re making a distinction without a difference. I think you’ll have to elaborate, but I’m not entirely sure I want you to.
Rape is either violent, coercive, or forcing yourself upon on unconscious person. In all of these cases it is forcefully carrying out sex upon someone who would no doubt resist had they the opportunity and likely tried to reject the sex. Non-consensual sex (which technically covers rape but usually isn’t used to refer to rape) can cover everything from mistaken identity sex (where you technically consented to sex but perhaps mistook your lover in the dark for someone totally different who you intended to have sex with) to having sex with someone who is so wasted or drugged out that, while they are still up and moving and partying perhaps, they have no clue what they are actually doing (this is more extreme than mere impaired judgment as the capacity for judgment itself is virtually nonexistent, ie. black-out drunk, etc.) even if they generally accommodated the behavior, etc. Basically, the person wasn’t forced upon, but still did not consent to the activity proper. This is certainly still quite bad, but not the same as sexual assault.
The last one basically refers to having sex you decided to do while inebriated, on drugs, or severely hormonal for some reason. The severity of this problem really depends on the circumstances, but this is not rape. Sometimes this is very real, and sometimes this is simply used as an excuse, a form of irresponsibility, by blaming the substance and the other person for your own cognizant behavior, like if you merely smoked a single joint or had two shots of alcohol, had sex, and then screamed rape the next day because you went “I can’t believe I just did that – oh I know, it’s not my fault!” We’d like to pretend the latter case doesn’t actually happen (and we’d like to live in a world where the former does not happen either), but sadly it does. Misbehavior transpires on all sides of issues like these.
Honestly there’s a whole range of sexual misbehavior and I’m not really doing it justice here if you were looking for a comprehensive classification. Perhaps the most insane case of sexual coercion I’m aware of (this actually happened) was a girl who threatened to accuse a guy of raping her unless he had sex with her because he wouldn’t have sex with her. The threat worked.
I don’t know what to say to all that, other than that I’m sure you’re not the only person with those views, but that I’m also equally sure that many people define those boundaries very differently.
Well, and that most people think their views are obvious, reasonable, and held by the majority.
Legally? Most of those are rape, at least in the USA.
The smart thing to do is to not have sex with anyone who you think might change their mind after the fact. This does mean passing up on opportunities to have sex, which some people consider a huge loss, but is preferable to biasing the system towards encouraging people to take advantage of others.
>I don’t know what to say to all that, other than that I’m sure you’re not the only person with those views, but that I’m also equally sure that many people define those boundaries very differently.
Frankly, I agree with you on this.
>Well, and that most people think their views are obvious, reasonable, and held by the majority.
I honestly have no idea what the majority view is in the current day and age. A lot of the internet seems to operate in localized bubbles, so maybe it’s easy enough to tell what the majority view is in your neck of the woods, but society as a whole? Dunno.
>Legally? Most of those are rape, at least in the USA.
Legally the court of law splits hairs way more than I just did and has a whole host of different criminal and/or civil charges based on the type of events.
>The smart thing to do is to not have sex with anyone who you think might change their mind after the fact.
I agree, but alas, people are not psychic. You can’t always predict whether the lover who enthusiastically consents today will retract in a fit of self-loathing tomorrow. The same goes for people who unbeknownst to you were cheating on their lovers today and will claim it wasn’t consensual once found out.
>This does mean passing up on opportunities to have sex, which some people consider a huge loss, but is preferable to biasing the system towards encouraging people to take advantage of others.
Sometimes this “passing up” can flat-out destroy relationships, just so you know, especially when it comes to matters of “taking advantage of impaired consent.” A guy I know was flirting with a girl pretty heavily for a few days and one day the girl texts him late at night, saying “I’m drunk lol” and talks about how she wants him to come over. She was clearly indicating her desire to have sex (and indicating her desire to have sex by talking about being drunk and that she wants him to come over, no less), and it was clear enough that if he didn’t go, that’d be the end of that burgeoning relationship.
What happens when your prospective lover is really in the mood and you shut them down “because you wouldn’t want to take advantage of them” even though they clearly want it, know that they do, and know what they are saying? It’s not just passing on sex. It will also properly piss them off because you are infantilizing them, perhaps slut-shaming them, and shutting them down for stupid reasons, from their point of view, in addition to the obvious rejection of sex when they wanted you. That can be a turning point alright.
I think people forget how much making too much of a rule of things like these can push people into unnecessarily bad circumstances. That’s also how you end up with MGTOW, if men feel that invariably they will find themselves in “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” bad situations by entering relationships.
If not having sex with someone once is the end of the relationship, then that wasn’t a very healthy relationship to begin with. You’re trying to weigh “harm from not having sex” against “harm from having unwanted sex”, and while everyone’s going to feel differently about the matter, the law pretty clearly falls on one side over the other, and with good reason.
If impaired consent is treated as fully consenting for the purposes of determining whether rape has occurred, that incentivizes people to create situations where other people’s consent is impaired, and to seek out people whose consent is impaired and take advantage of them. If having sex with someone who’s ability to consent is impaired presents a risk of a rape charge, that encourages people to be more cautious, to develop better relationships before engaging in sexual activity, and to keep their partner’s state and feelings in mind, rather than just their own selfish desires.
>If not having sex with someone once is the end of the relationship, then that wasn’t a very healthy relationship to begin with.
Yeah, I fully expected you to go down this road. It’s basically saying that all girls who would take issue with your way of doing things are not worth dating and frankly I expect a lot of men would disagree.
>You’re trying to weigh “harm from not having sex” against “harm from having unwanted sex”, and while everyone’s going to feel differently about the matter, the law pretty clearly falls on one side over the other, and with good reason.
This is ridiculous. The entire issue is that in this case the girl is clearly soliciting sex and according to you we should treat her like she is incapable of consent anyway (which will, quite reasonably, offend her) and if she takes offense at that clearly it was a bad relationship not worth having. Frankly speaking, that is a rather unfair attitude, as a person’s moral integrity and ability to be a good romantic partner is not decided by this and your cavalier attitude towards relationships which are harmed by this nonsense is part of the problem.
No one is being harmed by sexual relations here, but we are implored to act as if it is necessarily harmful regardless, and that is absurd.
>If impaired consent is treated as fully consenting for the purposes of determining whether rape has occurred, that incentivizes people to create situations where other people’s consent is impaired, and to seek out people whose consent is impaired and take advantage of them.
This may shock you, but alcohol is often a big and intentional part of hook-up culture and even romance. In a lot of cases, alcohol is even intentionally used as a way of signaling a measure of openness. This gets even more absurd when you realize that in most cases both people will have been drinking alcohol so accusing someone of taking advantage of the other being intoxicated is extremely unfair. If a man were to drink and have sex with a woman who’s been drinking, is the man a rapist? Does he get to reverse-accuse her of raping him since he was under the influence too? It gets absurd very quickly.
Look, there is a real problem with taking advantage of people who are unable to give proper consent, there is no denying that. And that does require a solution. But the solution needs to be nuanced. This sort of solution willfully rejects nuance and in doing so makes a mockery of justice and freedom both. Some rules seem poised to toss the baby out with the bathwater or impose a certain puritanism that reaches all the way into people’s bedrooms for what they are doing with full consent of one another without harming anyone.
>If having sex with someone who’s ability to consent is impaired presents a risk of a rape charge, that encourages people to be more cautious, to develop better relationships before engaging in sexual activity,
It also presents a legal penalty for commonplace conduct that has no criminal or abusive intent and is not viewed as abusive either. When you create a law that is frequently broken without any harm done, what you are really doing is creating an arbitrary power to arrest and criminalizing a lot of harmless behavior alongside the harmful behavior you meant to curb.
If a behavior is commonplace in a harmless fashion and is criminalized alongside harmful behavior, then the rule is poorly thought out and needs to reworked. If you have a romantic dinner with a bottle of wine, and the night develops towards sex, do we say “no, this is abuse, she cannot consent!”? Of course not, but this sort of rule demands that we do and threatens punishment if we don’t.
This sort of law seems like it was cooked up by teetotalers or similar sorts.
>and to keep their partner’s state and feelings in mind, rather than just their own selfish desires.
Very sanctimonious, when I just pointed out that the entire issue is that this sort of rule often involves willfully neglecting a partner’s state (there is more to “state” than inebriation, to be clear, especially if you are looking to exercise empathy and consideration) and feelings. What you are neglecting is that the demand that people uphold this rule in such an unfitting context may just, in fact, be a selfish desire itself.
Ah, so we should allow the person whose consent was impaired to determine whether or not they were consenting. Glad you’ve come around on that.
The rule isn’t “It’s rape if you have sex with someone whose ability to consent is impaired”, it’s “the person whose ability to consent was impaired gets to determine whether or not it was rape”.
Torabi,
First off, no, people should not get to retroactively decide to revoke consent (with criminal consequences for the other person, no less). The only consent that matters is the consent that existed while the act transpired, not how people choose to look back upon the event. There really need to be some safeguards against the type of abuse this way of doing things opens people up to, because there are a lot of embittered people with hook-ups they look back upon with disgust even though they consented at the time.
Second off, you ignored the highly plausible scenario that when a guy has sex with a girl who is under the influence, the guy himself will have been drinking also, and let me point out that guys tend to out-drink girls (although blood alcohol intoxication levels can be a whole other question). If a guy has had sex with a girl while she had liquor in her system, and she later accuses him of raping her because she was “unable to give consent”, does he get to reverse accuse her because he was more intoxicated than she was? Does he still become the criminal for having sex with her?
There are some real problems with zealous attitudes towards sexual consent while intoxicated.
They are not retroactively revoking consent. They are expressing, at a time when their ability to consent is not impaired, whether or not they were consenting at the time. The appearance of consent is not the same as consent, and it is insane to allow one party to decide if the other party was consenting or not, rather than allow people to decide for themselves.
Again, the safeguard against a false accusation of rape, due to regret, is to only have sex with people you trust. If you have sex with a stranger, you’re taking a risk. Your desire to be immune from consequences is understandable, but not reasonable.
The alternative is a society in which some people are a risk of consequences for events they did not consent to, while some other people are immune to consequences for actions they chose to take. This is not remotely fair.
If both parties are unable to consent, then they have both been harmed, but neither one should be considered to have committed a crime.
Actuallyas a lefal definition in every state/federal jurisdiction, it literally is the first thing you said legally, not the second, as far as consent is concerned.
You might be confusing it with private college rules, which are often legally incorrrect and don’t pass jusdicial muster once the law is involved.
Lefal = legal. I hate this virtual keyboard.
I’m going off the definition on this page of the Department of Justice website, which “recognizes that a victim can be incapacitated and thus unable to consent because of ingestion of drugs or alcohol”.
I see the difference there. It’s a mostly nonsensical one though.
It seems to be claiming that those forced to have non-consensual sex are somehow more the victim than, say, a person who was roofied and therefore had less say over the matter and -might- have consented at some other time. Both are horrible, and I feel for any victims of either act. But claiming one version has more power or effect or importance than someone else’s similar experiences? That just makes you a bad person.
Parfait here might have not intended to lust-aura-roofie the entire facility, but she has. She clearly has less than spectacular control over her abilities and nature than Dabbler, though that’s sort of expected. She may physically/psychologically/supernaturally need the sexual contact, but options have been presented to her.
All of this mitigates the blame, but not the accountability, for these actions.
> But claiming one version has more power or effect or importance than someone else’s similar experiences?
The issue here is dissimilarity. If an asshole spikes your drink with a party drug and you uncharacteristically decide to have sex with another person (not the asshole) while you’re on that wild high, what happened to you is obviously bad. Is it the same as rape? No. Is describing it the same as rape appropriate? No. Is it unfair to actual rape victims to have the word rape be misused in overbroad fashion to the point that fewer people will take the phrase “rape victim” quite as seriously? Yes.
As for the lust aura situation here, just explaining the situation to whoever they solicit for sex would improve the consent issue considerably. Yes, people are obviously affected, but it’s not like people can’t think or decide for themselves here, so just being aware of the issue would make it easier to make an informed choice. Honestly, opting to have sex with the succubus who apparently has a legitimate Need for tantric energy would be a decision that some of them would do even if they were unaffected.
Of course, it occurs to me that Sydney can just block the person from the lust aura with her shield while they talk over the situation, which would fully negate the mentally compromising factor. But then again, we have no idea how immediate Parfait’s needs are either. How much time can Parfait spare?
Hey, just in that example, both the person who spiked the drink, and the person who took a spiked person home, are rapists. That poor person waking up in the morning going what happened? Where am I?
I feel you might be misunderstanding how bad DR drugs are, how high a dose a rapist might use, and how disorienting taking drugs without knowing can be. You would not “Decide” anything at that point, and if someone took you home, it would be rape.
You are acting like this is taking strict hardline stances that screw up human relationships, but half of your examples are about finding a complete stranger who cannot consent. The murky areas exist in learning and enjoying the company of people over time, to the point consent becomes obvious.
Now, if you want to distinguish between types of rape, you might say “drug assisted rape, violent rape, coercive rape.” but trying to soften the language “non consensual sex.” and repeatedly bringing up falsely reported regret, is the language of rape apology. I’m not saying you are knowingly doing that, but it is blaming the victims and trying to distribute responsibility, when often the rapist is the one making the decision.
Statistically, you are far more likely to be raped (whatever gender), than have a false report against you.
Yes, false reporting is bad. Yes, some poeple have commited suicide over false accusations. But the amount of sexual assaults is orders of magnitude higher.
That said, for this lust aura, yeah, shield up, get consent, bang the succubus. Then have Maxima put her foot down later.
> Statistically, you are far more likely to be raped (whatever gender), than have a false report against you.
Yes, false reporting is bad. Yes, some poeple have commited suicide over false accusations. But the amount of sexual assaults is orders of magnitude higher.
That statistic is very heavily flawed. Here’s a good writeup to start you off:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/17/lies-damned-lies-and-social-media-part-5-of-∞/
The rate of false accusations is very difficult to estimate, since in the vast majority of rape evidence is sorely lacking, but “orders of magnitude higher” is almost certainly overstating the difference. My best guess is somewhere around 30%, obviously with large error bars.
Slatestarcodex is not what I’d call a reliable source given the owner’s stance of “White men are the true oppressed in today’s SJW dominated world.”
‘Lack of evidence’, my left foot; https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44237/5
See also how little rape actually will get to be prosecuted (data from England and Wales, 2011); https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rape-a-lack-of-conviction/
> Slatestarcodex is not what I’d call a reliable source given the owner’s stance of “White men are the true oppressed in today’s SJW dominated world.”
The reliability of a source is not determined by their political stances, but by their honesty and the quality of their arguments. The good thing is, you can check his arguments for himself, and you’ll find out they hold up, so you aren’t even required to measure his reliability, only the specific case he’s making.
Although it shouldn’t matter, do note that it’s factually true that whites and men are discriminated against in the modern west. (I do not consider “who is discriminated against the most” a useful question, because any discrimination is bad, and I don’t think SSC does either.)
> ‘Lack of evidence’, my left foot; https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44237/5
In many rape cases, the question is not whether sexual intercourse happened, but whether it was non-consensual. A rape kit cannot determine the latter, so it’s not actually useful evidence in these cases.
> See also how little rape actually will get to be prosecuted
If you’re referring to the number of non-reported cases, note that (as SSC also pointed out) a false accusation also doesn’t need to be reported. To be fair, that’s the weakest part of his argument, as the data support is limited – but any “non-reported rapes” number should also be taken with a grain of salt.
>Hey, just in that example, both the person who spiked the drink, and the person who took a spiked person home, are rapists. That poor person waking up in the morning going what happened? Where am I?
Hi, no. Neither of them are rapists, *especially* the latter guy, The former guy is definitely doing something horrible, but he isn’t raping her. The second guy in this scenario, who is not associated with the first guy, is unaware that she has been involuntarily intoxicated. Calling him a rapist is frankly crazy.
>I feel you might be misunderstanding how bad DR drugs are, how high a dose a rapist might use, and how disorienting taking drugs without knowing can be. You would not “Decide” anything at that point, and if someone took you home, it would be rape.
Okay, it seems you misread me. I said party drug, not date rape drug. The dosage would obviously have an impact though.
Just to be clear, the scenario I established refers to the sort of thing that tends to happen at raves and the like, where some strangers do go around spiking the drinks of others with party drugs (like Ecstasy), and a good number of people voluntarily do the same drugs, so I was talking about that kind of environment.
>You are acting like this is taking strict hardline stances that screw up human relationships, but half of your examples are about finding a complete stranger who cannot consent. The murky areas exist in learning and enjoying the company of people over time, to the point consent becomes obvious.
You lost me here. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say of me or assuming about me. But obviously getting to know your romantic partners and developing a clear insight for the other party’s consent is a very good idea. I heartily recommend that.
>Now, if you want to distinguish between types of rape, you might say “drug assisted rape, violent rape, coercive rape.” but trying to soften the language “non consensual sex.” and repeatedly bringing up falsely reported regret, is the language of rape apology.
I’m not trying to soften up the language there. There is a group of behaviors I do not regard as rape proper even if they are sexual abuse and I’m saying they shouldn’t all be lumped in the same category because it undermines the issues rape victims suffer if they are lumped in with other sexual abuse cases. The phrase “non-consensual sex” was used for denotative not connotative purposes. If there is a better word for it (and I do not regard “rape” to be that better word), I simply do not know it.
>I’m not saying you are knowingly doing that, but it is blaming the victims and trying to distribute responsibility, when often the rapist is the one making the decision.
This isn’t victim blaming. At no point did I suggest that the victim should be held responsible for what happened to them, except in sufficiently mild cases of impaired consent (like the “single joint or two shots of alcohol” examples above).
In “non-consensual sex”, it is per definition literally clear that the victim is not consenting, so faulting them for that is wild. There is such a thing as behaviors that put you at risk of sexual abuse, I will say, but saying “this could have been avoided” is not the same as saying that it’s your own fault (and obviously a certain mindfulness must be exercised when broaching this topic with a victim).
>Statistically, you are far more likely to be raped (whatever gender), than have a false report against you.
I’m not sure how we got on this subject, but I’ll note that this sort of statistic is probably garbage because “false rape accusations” is not the sort of thing that is properly reported by either the accuser or the victim (and an indeterminate but significant amount of genuine rape is also unreported) so this sort of statistic is liable to be very poorly measured.
>Yes, false reporting is bad. Yes, some people have committed suicide over false accusations. But the amount of sexual assaults is orders of magnitude higher.
Okay, this is disturbing me a bit, because you seem to be putting the two in a sort of competition, like one group’s rights necessarily come at the expense of the other. I’m sure there are ways to curb false rape accusations without harming real rape victims. Don’t use the suffering of one group to justify injustices suffered by another. There are typically better solutions than that.
the point you were trying to make was harmed significantly by not understanding that the literal definition of rape fully includes non consensual sex. It’s like trying to say there’s a difference between squares and rectangles, and forgetting that all squares are rectangles.
In general, everyone’s consent is constantly being influenced, and there is a difference between someone who’s had a few shots and someone who is flat out insensate, which is the point you were trying to make.
That being said, seeing as an entire building of military people who are supposed to be on guard including against things like this were fully afflicted, with only the two people right next to a succubi having the object permanence to act on “it’s probably a succubi doing this”, pretty much no one was able to refuse, only being able to pick which they were going to town on if ariadne and the pink haired pirate are any indicators.
I remember looking up rape and it was ‘any use of coercion for sex.’ now that may be a term of art similar to ‘spring gun’ but, you are more correct in your interpretation. interestingly this brings the statutory rape back in and includes it as that oddity involves a lot of emotional, verbal, and even physical coercion. we usually think of it as lack of consent because its easier to understand. most people lack the self awareness to realize when they are pushing too hard at first- takes some experience and introspection to see it.
What a weird, rape-apologist take. There’s a word for “non-consensual sex” and that word is rape. That there are differing degrees of cruelty in rape doesn’t make any of it less so.
> If you call it all rape, then you are trivializing the experiences of actual rape victims.
Your entire take is literally doing just that, attempting to trivialize the experience of actual rape victims. Really weird rape apologism.
You make it sound like ‘knowing’ will mean that she can stop it. Think of it like a werewolf. They know that under the full moon they will change, regardless of whether they want to or not.
Parfait is a succubus. He entire reason for being is sex, everything in her is telling her “SEX”. I’m surprised she’s held out this long. It’s like starving for food, someone serves up a delicious banquet, sits you in front of it and says, “Not one bite.” There’s only so long you can resist the survival instinct and that’s what sex is to succubi, survival.
It’s also very much fun. Imagine that not only that you are starving for food but the very act of consuming food gets you off. This is what Parfait is dealing with. Dabbler is basically Spock.
Ok, yes but you understand how what you’re describing sounds like the perfect recipe for a serial rapist, right? Like, you compared this to werewolves… werewolves kill people because they don’t have control. That analogy is not helping Parfait beat the sexual assault allegations.
A werewolf killing you because they can’t control themself is still murder.
The same applies to a succubus and rape.
And werewolves are classic monsters that are widely considered justified in killing. At best its a tragedy of killing someone who is otherwise good, at worst its the righteous killing of a monster that is a threat to everyone around it. Because a ravenous monster that goes around killing people isn’t acceptable, no matter how little control they have over their actions.
If Parfait can’t control herself to the point of sexually assaulting Sydney, then she’s isn’t safe to be around. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Parfait should be executed, but she certainly shouldn’t be allowed around normal humans without supervision of someone who can immediately shut her down.
This is a reasonable take. You can like the Werewolf. You can even help the werewolf screw chains into his basement. But if the werewolf keeps “forgetting” to lock the door, you gotta put him out to pasture.
Succubi are also generally considered monsters. It seems like this is a proper exploration of a monstrous species and how relations with them would actually work.
It sounds like Parfait assumed Sydney would have a precaution that she in fact had no idea was necessary, that being having a particular potion on hand.
I think at minimum there will be new explicit rules on both sides about making sure that such precautions are in place in the future, and double checking assumptions like that.
Perhaps. Or perhaps Sydney would have managed to talk sense into her.
But Sydney seems to have resisted the lust aura, so she’d be able to fight back, and considering her super powers, likely successfully, so it would be more like attempted rape.
Yayyyyy a consent conversation! Explaining to one who does not know! I think if Dabbler takes over in the explaining part, we’ll be all good.
I’m wondering how many of the comments here are by people who read Aldus Huxley’s “Brave New World.” One of the big twists (and one of the big reasons why I found the protagonist to be an unlikeable twit) was near the end, when he confesses his love for a woman who was not only beautiful, but also kind, sweet, and completely innocent of malice.
Initially she’s confused by his poetry, not understanding what he’s talking about. Then when she realizes he’s talking about romantic love, she smiles warmly and cooes, “why didn’t you just say so?” Then this woman – who had been introduced when two coworkers had been discussing her merits as a sexual partner (“you simply MUST try her! She’s exquisite!”) casually disrobes and initiates sex.
The protagonist then begins screaming at her and calling her horrible things. Because he came from a culture where sex was horribly repressive. Whereas HER culture taught that sex was something to do for fun. The cultural dissonance caused a huge rift between them (and her later actions show her essential decency… while HIS later actions… erf…)
I’m wondering how many of the comment here are by people Joe Dudeson’s “How to Pick Up Drunk Chicks In 10 Easy Steps.” One of the big twists (and one of the big reasons why I found the antagonist to be a frigid hoe) was near the end, when the hero slips an uninterested woman a mickey who was not only beautiful, but also kind, sweet, and completely innocent of malice.
Initially she’s confused due to the drugs in her system, not understanding the full implications of they’re doing. Then when she realizes he’s fucking her, she gets angry and tries to push him off, he yells at her “Why did you let me!? You said yes!” Then this woman – who had been introduced when two coworkers had been discussing her merits as a sexual partner (“you simply MUST try her! She’s exquisite!”) puts her cloths.
The antagonist, that frigid bitch, then begins screaming at him and calling him horrible things. Because he came from a culture where consent is entirely binary. Whereas HER culture taught that you have to be in your right mind to consent. The cultural dissonance caused a huge rift between them (and his later actions show his essential decency… while HER later actions, IE calling the police… erf…)
100%
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Wow. Impressive. You not only rushed to create a straw caricature in order to depict yourself as opposed to sexual assault (in contrast to anyone who disagrees with the hot take of “Parfait is a demented rapist”), but you did so in regards to a book you clearly haven’t read – not even the Cliff notes version. To the point that your actual point is completely garbled, beyond a general theme of “look at me, look at how much I dislike cliched caricatures of misogynists, praise me for my virtue.”
Yeah I spent a while trying to decipher that.
Then I stopped bothering cause what? wut? Wtf was he trying to say.
The “protagonist” of BNW was definitely a twit, the kind woman was definitely kind…
Did you not also make a strawman, my guy?
Do you understand what a “strawman” is? It’s when you create a fake argument, wrongly attribute it to your opponent, and then demolish the fake argument.
All I did was to point out that a number of the comments here appear to be by people who don’t understand that cultural background can make a huge difference. Like belching and farting – some cultures consider farts and belches to be rude, while others feel that belching is how one shows appreciation for the delicious meal. In some cultures casual contact is frowned upon, while in others people greet even casual acquaintances with hugs and kisses.
In the case of “Brave New World,” the protagonist is reaffirming that the people around him are right to call him a barbarian, because – just like in Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” – he thinks that the customs of his tribe are natural law.
Much like how a number of commentators here seem to think that Parfait – the descendent of genetically engineered sex slaves, whose upbringing has involved being surrounded by lustful paramours, has been taught to take pride in her sexuality, and who is still learning to control her own physiology (something that most humans have trouble doing), is somehow committing “sexual assault” by experiencing the succubus equivalent to a teenager having an especially messy menstrual period and being unprepared for it.
Because she is committing sexual assault. When it comes to crimes, sins, and the like, the victim’s opinion on the matter is much more important then the ‘aggressor’. Even to something as simple as a hug. Because everyone should have the right to their own autonomy. That is; you don’t get to force anyone to do things ‘your way’. Because as soon as you cross that line, well, then why the **** would I respect your autonomy? Try to force me to do/be something I don’t want, and I will do all I can to force you to stop.
Misunderstandings can happen, sure. But typically they are small things. Like someone going for a hug, and me quickly backing up and rejecting said hug. A quick ‘please don’t touch me’, and the incident can be forgiven as the other person now knows better. Parfait’s situation is far beyond a misunderstanding. She didn’t make an advance and was rejected, she basically drugged everyone in the building, and then when Syndey tried to stop her, she continued to try and have sex with her. We are far beyond a simple misunderstanding, and solidly in ‘force is acceptable to make Parfait stop’ territory.
“When it comes to crimes, sins, and the like, the victim’s opinion on the matter is much more important then the ‘aggressor’.” No, it doesn’t – and that’s a GOOD thing. Because we’ve seen what happens when the “victim’s opinion on the matter is more important.” Witch hunts, including literal ones. People’s lives being ruined because a “victim” was extremely vocal about how much they suffered and whipped othres up into a self-righteous mob.
Yes, everyone has the right to autonomy, and other boundaries. But you don’t get to accuse someone of criminal behavior for mishandling a situation that you literally pulled them into.
Yes it does. There isn’t any arguing with me on this, in a court of law the physical, financial, and psychological damages the victim suffers very much does play a role in determining the punishment of the aggressor. The physical, mental, and financial state of the aggressor plays a much more minor role. It’s taken into account (ideally), but not nearly as much as what happened to the victim.
Morality wise, well that’s a lot blurrier because everyone has their own opinion on that. But typically speaking, again, yes, the victim’s opinion is held in higher regard.
Sydney may have invited Parfait over, but Parfait was the one to take things too far. And Parfait was in no way an unwilling summon. She gave Sydney the information to invite Parfait over, and gladly accepted the summoning when it happened. So you can’t really say she was ‘pulled into’ the situation. Parfait misread the situation. Then she lost control and yes sexually harassed Sydney. I know you don’t like the idea, but the literal definition of sexual assault is unwanted sexual contact. Sydney has very much expressed that she didn’t want Parfait to kiss, strip, and try to have sex with her. So yes, this is 100% sexual assault.
And yes, if I invite someone over to hang out, and they take it as a date, and then touch me in physically unwanted ways, I can very much accuse them of criminal behavior. Misunderstanding me, being from a different culture, things like this are mitigating factors, but they don’t negate the fact that a crime was comitted. Particularly if I (the victim) am traumatized by the other person’s actions.
And worse, she also bombarded everyone else in the building with a lust aura because she completely lost control. And while I know Dave has said its more like looking at something really sexy then mind control he’s done an absolute garbage job of showing that. That would be an awkward moment, perhaps. Feeling a little hot under the collar. Not drop everything and neglect your job to have sex.
” There isn’t any arguing with me on this, ” by which you mean “waah waah I don’t like it when people tell me I’m wrong about something reeeee!”
You’re one of the tiny percentage of very vocal complainers, that the rest of us are either trying to reassure, or just poke fun at. Meanwhile, we’ve got self-declared survivors of sexual assault posting comments to reaassure Dave that he’s doing a good job with the comic.
Yeah, a strawman.
You fantasized about your opponents taking exception to something completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
Sexual Assault is still SA even if the perpetrator can’t control themselves. At most it just lowers the degree of the crime.
You’re just in your own little world, aren’t you? I see you’ve also been comparing Parfait to a murderous werewolf. As opposed to… y’know… an adolescent who was literally pulled into a situation without her knowledge or advance consent, is still struggling with her own physiology, and who seriously misunderstood the extent of what “girl stuff” means.
But sure, keep on hurling those “sexual assault” accusations. I know, you think they make you sound super smart and not at all like a ridiculous nitwit…
Hey, someone else made that comparison first.
I just pointed out that, accident or not, it’s still not okay and not any less what it is.
And I’m just pointing out that, no matter how much you insist, this situation is NOT sexual assault. It’s far more analogous to the accidental spiking of punch at a party. People were mentally influenced without their consent – which IS wrong, but it’s not “sexual assault” and insisting so doesn’t make it so.
Which is why the next page shows Parfait looking extremely upset about what she accidentally did, and the others are being reassuring. And why Maxima (who is about as hardcore feminist as it gets) is sounding serious but hardly scandalized as she addresses the others.
That book was required reading in my high school.
I despised it.
I’d willingly nuke Huxley’s entire “Brave New World” if it was real.
That book is not a good model for social behaviour at any point.
I can understand why you’d feel that way. For my part, I didn’t see it as being nearly as bad as Orwell’s “1984.” Or even as bad as OUR OWN WORLD. Yes, the alterations of people into caste and all that is pretty icky… but everyone was provided for. Nobody went hungry, nobody had medical debt, and best of all: they had leaders who ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THE PEOPLE. They didn’t even punish dissidents, not really – they would send them to isolated communities where they could be happy (presumably they managed to continue technological advancements in such places).
Way to conveniently side step all the actual issues people had with the last 4 pages.
It isn’t something as simple as Par asking if Sydney wants to fuck.
I love this webcomic. I enjoy both the cheesecake and the beefcake and laugh out loud at the zany shenanigans that involve people mysteriously having their clothes vanish. Not to mention the Patreon support materials I get for donating.
I can appreciate that people are uncomfortable/upset/disturbed or more from Parfait completely misinterpreting the situation/screwing it all up (pun intended).
Despite that I’m ok with it all. This is a fictional story about superpowers, sex demons and polyamorous pansexual shapeshifting aliens from outer space. If there weren’t some hard conversations about sex, consent communication and personal growth…it just wouldn’t be the same and I wouldn’t enjoy it as much.
Basically if you can’t discuss such things safely in a cartoon with all of the above mentioned things, when/where can you?
I also really enjoy everyone’s comments and the different points of view they represent. This is only one of two comics where I routinely read ALL of the comments ALL of the time. You guys are amazing, and smart and funnny and I literally cannot remember all the posted links I have followed to learn new things. I believe it’s ok for us to disagree. We’re all different people with all different life experiences. My gratitude to you all and virtual hugs to any of you who might desire one.
Keep up the good work DaveB :D
Panel 5 has such a parents feeling.
And Parfait is a kid who’s in the middle of fucking up (pun not intended, but I’m leaving it there intentionally)
I don’t think I’ve ever commented on the comic before, even though I’ve been reading it for many years but it is honestly reaching a point where it is becoming very difficult to justify still reading it, much less recommending it to anyone who won’t justifiably misunderstand it. I wouldn’t say I’m asking for anything to change – as a writer and artist myself I strongly believe creators should not have to be limited by what fans want alone – but I still think fans/readers can and should voice their opinions and criticisms of a work.
Unfortunately, I do think the comic has been losing its strengths and good points lately. I could probably write a more thorough review but I also think that’s somewhat unnecessary (I’m just one reader out of countless more). I just wanted to share my discomfort with all this and my hope that things with the comic improve as a whole. I’d honestly be very sad to have to drop something I’ve followed for so long because it keeps making me uncomfortable.
Sometimes, a comic strip is intended to be just a comic strip. Even though it does trigger a lot of issues, the intent needs to be realized first and foremost, before the triggering starts. Personally, having dealt with SA personally, on a deeply emotional scarring level, yeah, the past few pages were severely triggering. At least, until I saw the humor, and even laughed quite a bit. Right now, I am just waiting for the lust-aura dousing via enchanted fire extinguisher from Dabs …
Also, the new incentive is up…with nekkidity involved. Is that the standard incentive or did a Patreon premium get uploaded? Also, dear God, giving Sydney access to THAT?!? Whooooooboy …
That vote incentive makes me realize that Dave could make an entire spinoff comic series where Sydney just bails out of Earth and goes on wild space adventures.
To everyone complaining about consent, can I say “I told you so”? Maybe give the medium a moment to show what’s happening, then I dunno, more than three seconds to address the issue itself? As you can see, consent is *clearly* in mind from the author’s perspective, and is a lesson that is now being taught. And it only took like, three pages. That’s no time flat in comic book speed. Seriously, let the scene finish before making judgements on how it’s going to play out.
I think most people had the concern that a person *can’t* give consent while under the influence. Whether Parfait deliberately manifested or not (and obviously “not”), her aura is like spiking the punch bowl. People don’t know they’re under the influence, number one, so they can’t take into account the effect it’s having on their judgement; and furthermore nobody consented to being influenced by a lust aura in any case. *That’s* the consent issue in my book. And it’s dangerous inasmuch as Parfait can’t control her own powers.
Now ‘scuse me, I must drink some coffee. (Really!)
You told us so what? Sydney said “I don’t consent”, Parfait said “I’m going ahead anyway”. If it hadn’t been interrupted there would have been a sexual assault – or rather, *more* of a sexual assault than has already occurred.
Is that what you were telling us?
Clearly Sydney should use her life support systems orb to create some tantric energy for Parfait and end up having to force-allocate a point again.
That’s a good plot device, but the question then becomes can the orbs produce tantric energy on demand for someone not in control of the orbs? We still haven’t seen any indication of the equivalent of “make food and drink” spell in D&D. OK they can make a breathable atmosphere inside the shield, but I don’t recall any water and certainly nothing edible even on the planet fighting kaiju when she was getting tired and hungry.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the orbs can already produce water and the rest I expect are a matter of upgrades.
If its producing earth breathable atmosphere, it can make water, it just depends on scale. The real question is can it make more complicated hydrocarbons and proteins.
The REAL real question is can she produce tantric energy, because that’s what’s currently needed, not hydrocarbons.
I don’t think she has a point available, but it would hardly be necessary, considering there are several people currently getting it on in the building, so she could top up on tantric energy by proxy.
Having Sydney’s hand on Parfait’s cheek (to push her away to the side when she goes in for another kiss) is such a great touch. I am fully expecting Parfait to get dragged out of the base by her ear, shortly…
someone clip dabblers smiley face in that third to last Pannel its hilarious!
Awwwwkwaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrd.
Elsewhere
“General Faulk, why are your glasses sitting on a cushion next to a wine bottle and flowers”
“It’s our anniversary”
Wow, it took me a few readings to realize those are the tattoos on Parfait’s sideboob at the bottom of panel 4 and not Sydney’s hand cupping it. I was wondering why Syd was still feeling her up and chalking it up to residual horniness aura.
Shows you where my mind goes I guess….
I must agree with the others in this comment section.
Parfait really can’t be around other people if she is actually, physiologically incapable of taking no for an answer. Or at least needs some kind of correction or training until she can.
The situation is this: Sydney wanted to hang out with her new friend, Parfait took as a booty call and lost control, Max and Dabbler returned to find the entire base personal NOT doing their jobs, Parfait stripped and took off Sydney’s top while smothering her with kisses, Sydney successfully stopped Parfait’s advances and is trying to explain to her what was wrong, Max and Dabbler burst into the room to see them in a compromising pose…
How long do you think it’s going to take for this entire situation is explained and put back under control? Max is beyond pissed, Sydney is embarrassed, ashamed, confused, and worried for her job. Dabs is loving the shear amount of sexual energy in the base, Parfait is too focused on Sydney to notice.
I have a headache putting this all in context, just imagine what Max will be thinking.
I LOVE the incentive by the way Dave! That could be a whole new story line, but she couldn’t be Halo anymore…
But for a 2 week leave? PERFECT!
“The Patreon version has nudes and variants, and a comic that reveals something interesting about the orbs.”
See, while I love it when the Patreon exclusives aren’t just sexy pinup pictures, I hate both how it artificially divides the community into people with inside knowledge and people left in the dark. Or more specifically, I hate feeling conflicted about talking about the information revealed exclusively on Patreon. It’s obviously supposed to encourage people to subscribe and support the creator, and I don’t want to diminish that, because I want the comic to continue.
Then again, some people can’t even remember information from the previous pages, or miss important information revealed in the current page, so there’s always a knowledge gap, but at least we can freely talk about it.
I do wonder if that particular plot point will ever come up in the main comic. If not, maybe it’s no big deal. If it does, well, then us Patreon subscribers just have some advance information. But eventually I imagine it will get difficult to keep the information correctly partitioned.
looking for the “I volunteer as tribute!” thread
On an unrelated note but workable for this comic as a whole I was thinking about the times I got hit by trucks and the amount of damage I did to the trucks. The problem is I either have insane levels of knockback resistance, or I can change my mass/density so that when hit I can weigh tons, because either or both would be required for the amount of damage I inflicted on all 3 trucks.
The first truck that hit me had a bent frame and the engine mount torn out of the block, plus an amount of sheetmetal damage concurrent with the other damage. At the time we just passed this off as being due to salt damage because it was an old truck in Utah.
Second truck had basically the front end folded around me before launching me across 6 lanes to the other side of the intersection. They spent way too much time looking for the victim when I was the only one with cuts, bruises, and torn clothing. I assume they didn’t believe the victim would just be standing there waiting to talk after seeing that much damage on the truck.
Third truck knocked me 100 feet away, but the passenger side of the cab was almost flattened against the bottom of the window, and all the windows shattered and the frame of the driver’s side door so warped that after the driver kicked his way out it never closed again. Again I took some damage mostly in the form of a leg broken in 4 places and some road rash from the landing. And I was temporarily blinded by the forces of the wreck.
The thing is, I’m a super, but what kind of super am I? If I have knockback resistance I should be able to fly, but my vertical leap is measured in fractions of an inch, not miles. The other possibility is mass/density control, but only when I get hit as an autonomous reaction, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone through life with a BMI that was “Morbidly Obese”. And I would be Super Pissed if I could fly but didn’t know how.
I am actually surprised by how many people in the comments are surprised by this and more so by how many are anthropomorphizing Parfait *yes I know that sounds weird when talking about a sapient character* and especially by those assuming this character’s views are the same as the author’s rather than what they have spelled out.
I commend DaveB for attempting one of the hardest things to write for a non-human sapient character, the Mental Uncanny Valley.
Its easy enough to have freaky aliens, or lean heavily into intelligence based ego/pride, or make them all evil due to some predatory behavior, or focus on biological differences like different forms of communication, different visual and hearing ranges and different processing speeds of information around them, but all these things also influence mental outlooks, as do instincts and passed down programmed behavior.
It has been spelled out a few times, including right before all this right now happened, that DaveB’s succubi despite looking human and being intelligent Are Not Human. Their entire mental process leans into a very specific direction, and requires education from their own elders and many years of practice to function among other species.
We have seen this a few times with Dabbler *comments raising pitchforks about sexual harassment each time* as yes as a human her behavior would be completely wrong, so would a Bonobo in Chimp society to make a comparison that actually falls short here.
Succubi in this setting are the descendants of Bio-androids designed to be sex slaves and then repurposed into Honeypot assassins. That can’t be a good mix mentally. Their go to expectations, solutions, and even as a food based drive is Sex. This is the kind of species that biologically, not just socially would make sense to having groping to mild sexual stimulation as a handshake *showing friendly intentions*.
Dabbler is a few centuries old, has experience around other species who don’t have sex as the primary go to solution hardwired into their neurology (which is what Parfait was talking about right before losing control, this isn’t just some human going all rapey because they were denied, her own biology is working against her own judgement, this is closer to an ant sprayed with the dead ant pheromone carrying its self to the graveyard area of the hive and waiting there till the pheromone wears off or is washed off.
When she said she was losing control of her lust aura. I didn’t read that as she was not expecting sexy times and is only now saying that as an excuse. But rather she was when she arrived, all their time together was causing her to anticipate it more, the discussion about her erogenous neurology not only brought those thoughts and expectation to the forefront causing her succubus biology to start flipping all those extra switches, but she visualized it a little too well and hit too many of the big switches and because of her inexperience lost control…even if she was still expecting this all to lead to sex chances are she intended the lust aura to be localized, and only being used as an aphrodisiac to heightened the sensations, going for the seduction…but due to her experience and build up way over did it and realized a moment too late she was going to lose control (hence asking for the sleep spell or other means to cool it down) not because she wasn’t expecting sex with Sidney, but because she wasn’t intending to turn everything for a hundred foot radius or so into an orgy field and not be able to control her own actions *rather than the slow seductive undress, lip licking, slow yet heavy breathing against her partner’s mouth, mingling their breath in anticipation for the mingling of tongues and saliva….instead she was forced by her own biology to go from (this is a friendly sex play with a friend) to (I am going this thing in front of me) and shoved her tongue down Sidney’s throat and was taking little tantric lamprey “bites” all over her.
A succubus needs to learn to be seductive, nor forceful. I could quite Asmodeus from Helluva Boss, something to be built up and enjoyed on that road to pleasure town. Parfait knows this, but due to her inexperience and lack of control has gone from that “pleasure town” to “devour the burger like a starved dog” mode. She on this page is clearly realizing this and its probably burning her up inside to hold back as much as she is, no hypnotic control over Sidney, no predatory gaze of “you are mine mortal, succumb to my will”, she is like a dog staring at a steak covered in sauce and just over exerted herself making herself that much hungrier.
Am I saying this is good or apologizing or victim blaming, no. Parfait’s inexperience also goes to that she didn’t think to clarify with her summoner what the full intentions and expectations were of being summoned, she assumed, worked herself up, and despite knowing her own nature and that the humans around her kept scratching at that itch. Like when Sidney asked about what its like to be a Succubus, Parfait should have known to say, “ask Dabbler, because I might lose control just thinking about it, its been hours since I had some tantric sex….or mention the little bit and pieces she had been getting from Sidney as they looked at shirtless men and dildos online tantalizing her and giving her predatory programming side a little too much of a taste for her to go leaning down into that thought process*
but again, she is inexperienced with being in situations where she has to restrain herself.
Which again, this isn’t just cultural, these aren’t Humans with an openly sexual society, these are sex based bio-android descended lifeforms, above human intelligence or no doesn’t change that.
Which is, the mental Uncanny Valley, so human, that when they do or say something that doesn’t sit right with how most human societies would think or perceive of things that it reminds you that you were not sitting on the couch talking to another “person” you were sitting on the couch talking to a non-human entity with a high intelligence.
-and that does go both ways, the non-human forgetting that the human doesn’t think like that them and may very easily misread a signal.
Heck imagine a cat living among dogs, their body language is instinctive but in many cases counter to each other *a dog’s happy play posture is an aggressive posture to a cat, and a cat’s very angry posture is a dog’s submissive posture*, now add social developments and expectations and intelligence to all that and the two will be accusing the other of being intentionally misleading like, “you know what this means, any intelligent life form would know what this means because we are intelligent and this is how we naturally behave, ergo we concluded ALL intelligent life forms think like us”
> her own biology is working against her own judgement, this is closer to an ant sprayed with the dead ant pheromone carrying its self to the graveyard area of the hive and waiting there till the pheromone wears off or is washed off.
An example to add to this that might be more relatable:
As someone who’s dealt with clinical depression, the only way I can describe it is “My own brain was attacking me.”
My brain, my thoughts, the core of who I am, was actively hostile to me. I was having to fight the core of my being every morning just in order to go to work.
(Living like that *sucks*, btw)
That’s a good point. People familiar with magical creatures might point out that Sydney knowingly summoned a succubus with very little experience in controlling her sexiness and mystical horniness powers, so what did she expect to happen?
Sydney might not have intended to spread a lust aura over everyone in the neighborhood, but it’s a thing that happens occasionally when succubi are around.
Parfait’s situation would be the coercive kind, in your categorization. She needs this, just as a human needs food or air.
Not really, she can top up by proxy.
Also, Parfait can’t give consent freely. Not only is she as affected by the lust aura as everyone else, she was genetically engineered to be very horny and thaumaturgically engineered to require this as sustenance. Sydney might just decide not to have sex at all, but Parfait doesn’t have that option.
Dabbler thinking “At last!” and maybe “Will she share?”
I’m sure this is a very common situation for adolescent succubi and Dabbler will be supportive… later.
damn seeing lore hidden behind patreon does make me regret that site only takes credit cards and my country has non
Seriously, at this point just call this the October incentive, forget August and September, and take the month to get November out during November.
If you absolutely insist on “catching up” then make September and October single panels.
Geeze, does anyone knock in this place? Boundaries, Max! Unless you have reason to believe someone’s dying, your squad’s private quarters are just that – private. And even if some criminality was suspected to be taking place, having the base MPs on hand is in order. Either she’s really got this “I’m the boss of literally everything” mentality stuck a bit too far up her hindquarters, or this comic just randomly disregards social/legal rules whenever it’s convenient. Case in point, the current subject matter. Don’t @me in either regard, because I’m former military and the shenanigans in this organization would at worst get it shut down and at best get several people in leadership positions removed and replaced with stuffy a-holes who had no sense of humor. Further, the “Well, Parfait is a succubus, so consent is irrelevant – she *needs* it!” argument that other commenters are using doesn’t [expletive] fly, especially given the other morals expounded upon by the author.
I know it’s “just a comic” but the flip-flopping between “this is a serious organization harumph harumph” and “lolzomgrotflmao its just a comic tee hee!” mentality is extremely distracting and disruptive to the narrative. But since this *massive involuntary orgy/security breach* will just be handwaved away and brushed under the rug by the right people in power protecting their interests, I guess it is relatable to the real military after all.
They literally KNEW that room was ground zero of a highly potent magical spell/energy that disabled an entire building of special forces agents that are supposed to be ready to ship out country wide at a moments notice. The two who came to the door? The people who are literally meant to deal with these issues.
We have seen no mention of Military Police so far in this comic, because ARCHON are a new, non military branch, they operate within the United States after all.
Sorry but this is NOT how female sexuality works. It goes against both left and right wing narratives, but it’s a settled science that’s consistently reproducible: there’s not such thing as a heterosexual woman. Based on genital blood flow (ie, actual not self-reported preference), the only gender that can be attracted to men only are… males! (Gays of course). Among females, there’s a small number of asexuals, but among those with an arousal response at all, there’s ~11% attracted to women only, and the rest responding to both; positive responses to men only are below the threshold of experiment error.
Of course, religious and social mores force people into denial. People hide their preference because of “sin” or because they desire to have children which would be blocked by monogamy laws/customs, etc. But Sydney doesn’t seem to be a religious person, thus that doesn’t apply.
Arousal responses can happen involuntarily, so this doesn’t necessarily imply sexual attraction.
You’re going to need to cite some studies for that massive pile of bullshite.
We don’t know that Sydney isn’t attracted to women. We only know that she states emphatically that she’s not attracted to women.
She could be telling the truth. She could be intentionally lying. She could be attracted to some women but not know it on a conscious level. She could just never have met a woman who she feels attraction toward.
Sometimes we’ve been given access to her inner thoughts. But not on this matter,
We do know that she’s not attracted to women, we have WoG on it:
“And just to be clear, Sydney’s not into girls at all” https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/gp0100/
Sydney said no. That’s all it takes.
Parfait continued on.
That’s called rape. Its that simple. If you argue its not, then fu get out of here.
I’m going to continue reading this to see where this is going.
I think this is being handled as reasonably as it can be. Aside from first loss of control, they are communicating, they are setting borders. And Sydney is clearly taking steps to not hurt her new friend so they can remain such.
Sexuality is complicated, and forced sex without consent is absolutely rape.
But that too is based on context, consent and taking offense. Or exploiting those that do not know better.
Sydney knows better, made sure there wasn’t consent, and took steps in the most reasonable ways she could think of… In her own way without going hard self defense. And now they were working on solutions to an issue, before aid arrived.
Since it has been established the aura itself is just arousal++ And not control. I see this sequence of pages as sex-positive, but also responsibility-positive. It’s a learning experience and a lesson for both characters.
It’s tricky territory, and I’m glad the comic exists.
This is why you don’t invite a literal alien to a slumber party without filling them in on the rules. Your everything is completely different to their everything, and expecting them to intuit the difference leads to awkward situations like this.
The trope name for that is Blue and Orange Morality, thought admittedly I am taking some liberties with interpretation.
You know, I think we may have misinterpreted the nature of Lust Aura. It doesn’t control or inhibit the self-control of anyone, encourage desire sure but in the same way that a short dress or tight pants do so grant you to a notable extreme. I bring it up because it explains Dabbler’s cavalier attitude, narrative consistency with Vehemence’s power, and his comment about how superheroes solve their problem with their fists, after all, you need people prone to violence for violence. This would explain both Sydney’s and Max’s resistance to the effects, one is mostly straight and the other is someone whom Max would never give the satisfaction. The only issue here is a combination of cultural differences, probably a very sheltered upbringing for Parfait and someone who’s just now coming down from an extreme succubus “Adrenaline rush” remember 15 pleasure centers vs 9.
I reiterate a previous post….
MAX: You! Both of you! Oh, what I’m gonna do to you. I’m so angry! First, I’m gonna tear your lips out. Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do. And then I’m gonna gouge your eyes out. Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do!.
SYDNEY:We don’t like this, Max.
PARFAIT: Yeah, you is scaring us.
MAX: Yeah, you’re scared, huh? Next, I’m gonna tear your arms out of the sockets. And you wanna know what else? I’m gonna hit ya, and you’re gonna fall, and I’m gonna look down, and I’m gonna laugh. But first, FIRST! I gotta take a whiz, don’t you go anywhere, you stay right here, right on this spot, I’ll be back.
Perhaps this may be waaaay out of character for Max?!?!?
Max can’t be too upset, or that door would have be flying out the other side of that wall.