Grrl Power #748 – Sharing is scaring
Not everyone had a bad night of sleep. Well, okay, maybe they didn’t quite get enough sleep, but it wasn’t a bad night. A little awkward in the aftermath. And the afterhiro. Hur hur.
Ug. That actually sounds kind of gross, now that I think about it.
It is a little odd that Math would be squicked out by a MFM. You’d think a guy like that would be down for anything short of crossing swords. Maybe it’s just weird cause it’s a teammate/friend, or maybe… well, we don’t actually know what went down last night. I’ll leave the particulars up to your imagination, but also remind you that Cora can turn her limbs into whatever she has schematics for >coughtentaclescough<.
Dabbler would be amusing to hang around if you could cut her off after the first 20% of whatever she’s up to. Hearing about how she took X, Y or Z to bed, or sometimes X, Y and Z, could be entertaining. The middle 50% of her tale would be increasingly TMI for most people, and the remainder would have most sensible people suddenly excusing themselves from the room. There are some details only other succubi would want to hear about.
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Transforming her limbs into tentacles among other things, you say?
Sorry for the shameless plug, but there’s only a few days left for the Impossible Jones kickstarter and I think there’s an audience here for not-overly-serious superhero stories.
This is tactless. At least ask for permission from the author before plugging something in his comment section.
Yeah, sorry. My apologies, I won’t do it again.
Meh, it’s strangely relevant to this page and is a superhero thing. It’s fine.
Impossible Jones, huh? The name evoked for me right away the character Stupefyin’ Jones, from Li’l Abner. Because I’m as old as dirt, apparently. But also Stupefyin’ Jones would be a great Grrl power superheroine. Or supervillainess, whichever.
It made me think of Halo Jones from good old 2000 AD
Only the name, which, you could substitute “Cleopatra Jones”, or even… “Indiana Jones”
when you think you are about to make out with a hot space alien only to realize that she brought you both because she likes seeing two straight male on male with a dash of tentacle bondage on the side. The only one not penetrated that night was the girl.
I don’t think she’d leave herself left out of the fun ;)
Who needs Viagra or any other pharmaceutical assistance tools to get you and your friend up, when you have a space explorer with multi-tool limbs and a history of having a succubus for a friend. And dedicated sex rooms in the spaceship. Best part, you’ll probably not need a proctological exam afterwards. :D
Feh. Ive done the MFM thing before and it’s not so bad. Youre both paying way more attention to the girl anyways.
Concur.
Now kiss. Oh, wait …
I’ve only done the FMF thing, and that only once. I’m not opposed to a MFM thing on principle, it’s just that it has never come up, just like the FMF thing only happened once. Even though I knew both girls for a decent amount of time after, and there was never any weirdness about it after the fact for anyone, it never happened again. At least no discomfort was ever expressed, but the general attitude on the part of both gals seemed to be that it was a really fun and special thing that we did, but that it should say that way and not become a habit.
And frankly, it was decades ago and I don’t think this particular lightning is ever going to strike again for me, in either alphabet configuration. And I’m ok with that.
Given math’s (Former?) horniness, I now can’t help but wonder just what happened. . .
Either a complete lack of limbs or whatever hard light contraptions she replaced them with could be massive game changers for the unexperienced. I believe she is a lot more into fetish and toys than Dabbler.
Who do you think Dabbles gets her ‘toys’ from? ;)
Relating back to episode 730, I guess the Major and Math are “Eskimo Brothers” now. I don’t know what it is like for you big city folk but if you grow up in a relatively small community such as in my case a small rural town and then a small university in a small town you tend to get a lot of that. Especially in those adventurous college years you get episodes of “We’re not gonna talk about that until 20 years have passed.” In a relatively small organization such as ARC-SWAT it is going to come up. I’ve lived that one. I worked in a relatively closed organization in a small rural community. If you were interested in dating a person of the same socioeconomic status as you self you had to look within the organization. I was a member of one of the half dozen “power couples” within the organization. For the most part everyone went out of their way to be very circumspect and cognizant of their roles in the organization. Wedding and divorces came and went and the place rocked on. The downside is that it only takes one disruptive couple to rattle the entire organization. I had the bad luck to supervise that couple as they were both on my management team. Not a thing I would wish on any manager. The point of the ramble is that there both spoken and unspoken rules for the interactions that come up in an isolated group. Those interactions are going to happen no matter what management says. As long as everyone plays nice management can kind of look the other way. Once somebody blows off those rules then the problems begin. Dabbler of course, looks around and says “What rules?”
https://youtu.be/DZw4CWQenJk
I feel Hiro and Math did things to each other they never would’ve normally done, but Cora was just the right woman to talk them into it, for a chance with her.
Also, I’d love to hear Dabbler’s stories. :p
Naa, probably not anything TO each other. It’s pretty clear there was a Devil’s Threesome (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Devil%27s%20Threesome) with the Hiro, Math and Cora the previous night.
A lot of straight guys are not too keen on the idea of being in a sexual situation which includes another guy. Even more so with a guy you are friends/work with. There’s a level of awkwardness afterwards, that is only intensified depending on how close the guys were before hand. Heck, there’s typically a set level of awkwardness DURING the goings on. Hence the various unwritten rules in place for this specific situation. The guys shall not make eye contact, no balls touching, and a few others during a D3S.
And that’s without going into the awkwardness due to executing the physical logistics of the situation. Especially for guys who’ve never been in a D3S before.
…The worst part of it all? It doesn’t have to be awkward at all, but yay for toxic masculinity, homophobia, & patriarchy poisoning how guys interact & interrelate to each other & to the women (and other genders) in their lives…
(Srsly, toxic masculinity + homophobia = guys who don’t even wipe their ass, or scrub it in the shower. That’s not only flat-out gross, but extremely unhygienic.)
So, it’s toxic to be intoxicated and have a general sense of regret about doing something you’d hesitate to do sober?
Of course people have the right to feel awkward, or to decide they enjoyed what happened.
Anybody sitting in judgement with such wide spread and careless opinion is simply adding to the heap of bigotry that they Claim they want to remove.
Please be better then that. Is there Really a reason to make this into an issue of “toxic masculinity” when a woman who woke up next to Anyone they’d not have chosen sober could have the same feeling of awkward regret? Do we Have to dehumanize each other?
Yay for deliberately misreading & twisting what the comment was about!
We are socially conditioned to respond to certain situations in certain ways. Some are moral absolutes (murder being evil, for instance; this one’s pretty clear & found in every functional society), while others are merely matter of conditioned opinion (corn & squid on pizza = disgusting in America, delicious in Japan).
Toxic masculinity is what makes the morning-after interaction between these two guys so awkward and “horrifying” that there’s a rule about not talking about it, and not being comfortable about it, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Toxic masculnity is an imposition on a culture or society that stifles the ability to discuss in rational, mature ways things that shouldn’t have to be considered shameful. If they were feeling awkward about it afterward, they should be free to say, “Let’s not do that again,” but not have to feel any embarrassment or shame over even the mere mention of it…yet they clearly do. All the comments in the Comments about “don’t cross the swords”, and “I’d only be comfortable with a FTF, not a MFM,” etc, is a symptom of this cultural repression & toxicity.
Toxic masculinity robs men of the ability to be comfortable with their discomfort–yes that seems like an oxymoron, but it’s not. Imagine a scene where guys are in the locker room, one of them (guy A) is lost in their thoughts and staring into space but that space is occupied by someone else (guy B) changing. In a situation where it’s socially comfortable to be uncomfortable, Guy B can say, “Dude, you’re staring at my butt,” and Guy A can say “Sorry, I was lost in my thoughts,” and look elsewhere. Guy B can accept that Guy A was telling the truth, and Guy A can rest easy knowing he’s not being considered a homosexual because they both accept that Guy B is uncomfortable with the stare, and that Guy A wasn’t actually staring. There’s no shame or embarrassment or slur on either man’s masculinity in this situation.
But toxic masculinity, coupled with its often-present side-dish of homophobia, will have Guy A fearing accusations of homosexuality from Guy B, and thus he’ll claim forcefully, “I wasn’t staring at your butt, dude!” and Guy B going “You totally were, you F**!” And the whole thing will get escalated, or at least end in bad feelings, BECAUSE they’re not allowed to express their discomfort comfortably, and have that discomfort accepted without shame & stigma attached to it–it’s the shame & stigma that make expressing discomfort even more uncomfortable. This, of course, is just one example, and you’re going to try to pick it to pieces, but that’s fine because I know it’s only going to be accepted by those who get it.
If they weren’t steeped in a culture where MFM intimacy is considered “unspeakable” afterwards, then it wouldn’t be awkward. In fact, there are several cultures here on Earth where that sort of thing is not unspeakable, is not awkward, and is not toxic. (Virtually none of them are dominant in Western or Westernized cultures, and many more were wiped out by colonialism.)
Not once did I say that they HAD to be comfortable with what happened. I just said it doesn’t have to be *awkward.* (Also, not once did I mention booze or other intoxicants, so I have no idea where you got that part.)
*Sorry, probably going to pick it to pieces. Y’all might get it, who knows?
Kudos for deliberately making it about toxic masculinity when anybody can find themselves in a situation they didn’t expect and feel awkward about it when sex is involved, and for thereby taking potshots at masculinity for funzies.
Yes social conditioning exists. Does that account for each Individual’s embarrassment triggers? No, it does not. Are we now assuming that social conditioning is the Only reason we make decisions? Because what you’re saying amounts to we’re nothing but how we’re raised. My issue with the presentation of your statement is it disregards the individual and assumes that All masculinity is toxic (I admit to generalizing with your words somewhat, because I’ve Never seen anybody who exposes this worldview ever talk about what Isn’t toxic about masculinity, nor do they Ever acknowledge that Femininity can be toxic; one way streets are So Lovely).
So, you’re postulating that feeling embarrassed afterwards is an aberration and nobody should ever feel embarrassed about a heat-of-the-moment decision or biting off more then they can chew? A guy who finds out a woman is into handcuffs, might find out the hard way she also likes riding crops and begging. A woman who finds a guy who likes sex in the shower, may find that they like it Because they can make Other messes…
You’re also Not taking into account a person in that situation may discover something about themselves and end up in an existential crisis. People are more complex then to be broken down so simply and so generically.. Isn’t that part of what’s being argued with the gender identity and politics things? Not to box people in and assume what’s visible is all that’s going on? If so, why wear the same boot? Or is it fine and fair when things are turned?
Wouldn’t toxicity be “I’d rather kill myself then have another man in the same room, let alone the same bed!” instead of “I’d rather exercise my right to choose and sleep with only whom I choose”? Why does embarrassment or even shame automatically translate to toxicity? Especially when moments of conflict lead to growth? Senseless shaming.
You’re also assuming that each and every man, in your scenario, is the Same. Has the Same thoughts, same actions, all because you believe there is a social underpinning that shapes us more then our own choices and cultivated personas. Perhaps not everyone is so weak to Allow social opinions to dictate their thoughts and actions?
You’re even projecting with what you Assume I’ll say, the Tone I’ll take and what you Expect to hear. Which is why I don’t normally engage with ideologues. They can’t see the forest for the trees.
Wouldn’t it depend on the Individual what embarrasses them? In the comic, it could Literally be (as others suggested) that Math and Hiro didn’t enjoy surprise tentacles. Or perhaps they were influenced to kissing or touching each other during the moment and felt embarrassed afterwards? Why isn’t assuming the reason behind a persons embarrassment and/or shame as important as the situation you see on the surface? Isn’t what’s below supposed to be more important? I don’t understand the mentality of declaring something to be X when one can only assume what’s going on below the surface, yet automatically labeling it is acceptable and fine.
We’re also not in a culture that reacts like that. You’re projecting college bro values as if they’re the gold standard and no man acts otherwise. Guess each and every other type of male is beneath consideration? I’d specifically cite the Greeks and Romans as being perfectly fine with homosexuality specifically, whom are both considered Pillars of Western civilization. I cede that not every culture is happy with anything other then M/F parings, but frankly isn’t that more the Church’s fault vs man and woman?
Token colonialism drop too. Check that box.
Saying that the Worst part of it is the fact that it’s awkward, implies that the idea of it being awkward is strange or suspect. That people should be always comfortable in every situation. Or to be more fair, at the very least that it’s strange that it Should feel awkward.
The unnecessary commentary on toxic masculinity is simply what drives home the point that the actions are Toxic and therefor the Way they React is “toxic” as well. Which is what leads into it Seeming that what you are saying is that they Have to be comfortable.
I mention intoxicants because the statement you began with read as if there is no scenario in which the embarrassed attitude is Acceptable to display, so I merely provided some examples in which it Would be reasonable to feel that way.
I will say this: it’s entirely possible I read too much into what you said, and it’s entirely possible you’re a reasonable individual who doesn’t tar everyone of a group with the same brush. It’s also entirely possible that you have a valid point about not everyone being tolerant, but I take a massive amount of exception to feeling you needed to take it to the “toxic masculinity” point when there’s no reason to dump on it like that.
You could’ve said “It’s a shame people feel they need to be embarrassed the day after” and it gets across exactly what you meant without resulting to insults. Especially making the extremely odd reference to men not washing their anus in showers for homophobia reasons.. Which I’ve Never heard of.
I also don’t understand why it’s right for somebody like you to say something like that, but if somebody said “you know, lesbians don’t shave their armpits it’s so gross!” I imagine you’d take offence on behalf of the people it applies to (I don’t believe such basic gross stereotype bs) and call for it to be struck down.
At the end of the day, if you’re not helping you’re hindering. Slandering people and groups purposelessly, to me, is a gross and pointless act unless the person is interested in needless inflammation.
Frankly I expect you to take this apart and not acknowledge half my points, that seems to be how it goes. Maybe you’ll surprise me with your decisions, who knows?
…but I woln’t hold my breath. People don’t change unless they actually want to deep down, and virtually nobody wants to take the effort, even if it means agreeing to disagree.
As it happens, I’ve been told I am masculine without the toxic.
Wanting to stick your dick in the orifices of other people who are interested in having your dick stuck in them is not toxic.
Expecting because you have a dick you can stick it wherever you want is toxic. Expecting that you can get around reluctance about receiving your dick by being muscular or wealthy is toxic. Expecting that because you have performed some particular service, you are allowed to stick your dick places, when that wasn’t explicitly agreed upon is toxic.
Wanting to not have your dick stuck various places, wanting to not touch your dick to various things, not wanting to touch other guys’ dicks, or or girls’ dicks, for that matter, is fine.
Feeling like you are less of a man because your dick has touched the dick of another man, or because it’s come within close proximity to another man, is toxic.
Taking charge because you’re the most qualified person around to take charge is fine.
Feeling like you can’t accept orders from a gal because you’re a guy is toxic. Feeling like the mere fact that you’re a guy means you have an inherent advantage in leadership competency is toxic. Feeling like a woman is required tell you what to do because you find it kinky is also toxic. (If you two agree you want that, it’s fine – but if her interest isn’t relevant to you, it’s not.)
Or, to put it all much more concisely:
If you feel your maleness gives you inherent rights and skills in interacting with others, and maleness requires certain behaviors and excludes other behaviors, that’s toxic.
Men aren’t all alike. Not adhering to a bizarre and unstated “guy code” does not make a man any less of a man. Women aren’t automatically your inferiors. Men who think differently aren’t automatically your inferiors.
—
It’s my impression that she’s not talking about every man, but Dave’s portrayal of these two. Both of whom are representatives of groups of men who are generally steeped in toxic masculinity.
She doesn’t seem to be thinking that every man must be disgusted with certain revelations, but that members of a toxically masculine culture will feel they need to behave like they are regardless of how they really feel. Math, according to his character so far, should have been completely enthusiastic about Cora’s interest, with no concern about Hiro’s involvement apart fro the logistic and pragmatic.
But instead he’s acting like he didn’t just score what he’s been hoping for for the past 650 pages or so. It’s something that is so shameful it can’t *ever* be mentioned.
That’s not “Oh, this turned out to be a little weird.” That’s either eldritch horror or toxic masculinity.
That having been said, Cora is one of Dabbler’s friends, so I personally think the eldritch horror option has some potential to be the real explanation.
Note that I’m not commenting on Hiro’s reaction, because I don’t feel like we know Hiro like we know Math. I didn’t expect Hiro to be involved in Cora’s night. Sure, he showed interest, but that doesn’t mean he’d actually go for a taste, let alone a full serving.
For what it’s worth, I don’t feel like I’ve gone as far as “taking your post apart”, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise I’m not trying to acknowledge everything. I’m merely addressing that which I feel I have some knowledge, and not addressing the rest. I do feel that you seem to have responded to a very different post than Ladyofthemasque actually wrote, and I feel like that was probably deliberate on your part. But you do you.
That, at least, is an interesting breakdown. I do feel like I asked for a definition though, not a what is and what isn’t. But I appreciate that you replied.
Expecting sex based on looks and wealth, or using them to get it, is inherently toxic? Good looking people expect to be popular and people who are rich draw crowds. Using these things to Compromise people and Force encounters, I agree, is toxic. But being born wealthy or beautiful isn’t inherently a crime (I acknowledge you didn’t say that explicitly) unless it’s also a crime to Desire the wealthy and beautiful.
There’s monsters inside all of us. We hardly need to be Beautiful or Rich to show the world how ugly human nature can be.
A lot of what you’ve said Isn’t toxic masculinity is just… common sense and common decency though?
I also disagree with the idea that an encounter where one feels lesser for it, ie the specific scenario you mention of genital proximity, Must be inherently toxic. People are Complex. What generate our emotions can sometimes run deeper then you’d imagine. A man who felt ashamed might be struggling to accept their sexuality, might’ve suffered from poor body image, or even felt anxious that they weren’t good enough or able to make the experience the best it could be for either.
It could even be that the “bro attitude” of “dude, it touched.. that’s GAY!” could be masking a fear that the Other person might reject them, especially in the original comic scenario of MFM. (Not calling Math or Hiro bro’s in the context I used).
“Feeling like you can’t accept orders from a gal because you’re a guy is toxic. Feeling like the mere fact that you’re a guy means you have an inherent advantage in leadership competency is toxic. Feeling like a woman is required tell you what to do because you find it kinky is also toxic. (If you two agree you want that, it’s fine – but if her interest isn’t relevant to you, it’s not.)”
-This I find no fault in. I agree completely, Because it’s Common sense and Common Decency.
Masculinity and Femininity are hardly the only issues where people believe they are superior for being. I believe the Church has played that tune out over a thousand years and people still seem to be onboard.. despite what it’s wrought and Continues to wreak and the lives that could’ve been different Without it’s influence. I mean.. after all. What made homosexuality a Sin?
My concern isn’t the original part of the jab. It’s the bigoted ideology that then insists that this is the image of the Other “a homophobe who’s so Terrified of the gay he wouldn’t even wash his anus to be sanitary” is an ugly thing to say when in the other breath condemning bigotry. Hypocritical even.
So, in your scenario nobody can change. Nobody is allowed to get cold feet or change how they feel once in the moment? I also don’t see how Hiro in particular is representative of toxic masculinity as you’ve given examples of. Math is a letch, because he was written as a letch.
It’s also being Assumed that the issue is the fact it was MFM. Perhaps they discovered together that they’re into Tentacles, but would be mortified if the team found out? That could be as simple as “I would rather not share a personal revelation with the world, and mentioning the situation makes me Flush right away!”
Instead it’s “Pfft. Look at those two toxic men. Bro’s who can’t even look in a guys direction make me sick” (hyperbolic, but you see my point?)
Interesting, because we seem to both feel the Eldritch side is the Most likely. Yet here we are, talking about toxicity when it didn’t even need to rear it’s head. See my point?
We also don’t know the circumstance, if alcohol was involved, if there were Others involved, ect. This whole discussion is predicated on an assumption. The assumption that Because two men were involved and they’ve expressed regret or embarrassment, that it’s “Clearly a textbook case of toxic masculinity” without any regard to the story, the people, the individuals, or emotions involved as if they cannot grow or change, or hope to be Better in any way! This Vexes me.
Since you’re choosing not to acknowledge everything, I feel as if many of my better points are dropped for a TL;DR scenario of just wanting to get your piece in. Which, without facetiousness, I say is Welcome. Just not Invited specifically, so… I guess I can’t be Upset if you don’t cover all my points even if to me it feels like misrepresentation Due to lack of coverage.
I didn’t respond to a different post. I explicitly make clear why I say what I say, leaving the only reason there could be miscommunication due to lack of reading my response or skimming because the points don’t matter (who’s line is it anyway?). The only deliberate things were the words I chose.
I appreciate that you commented, I bear you no malice.
Just going to have to disagree on some of that.
A guy feeling disgusted because his dick touch another guys dick, doesn’t make him toxic.
By your own theory on toxic masculinity and the previous commenters, if a woman had a MFF threesome, and felt guilty/disgusted by it, would you call it toxic femininity? Not likely.
In fact, you’d likely laugh it off.
Also, those two guys know each other. Likely a bit different than if one had a MFM threesome with a stranger.
I didn’t say a guy feeling disgusted because his dick touched another guy’s dick makes him toxic. Having that make him feel like “less of a man” does. I should’ve probably said more around that, because it’s a nuanced point, and there’s a lot of ways to take it wrong.
If a guy feels disgusted because his dick touched another guy’s dick, and he feels like less of a man because of the disgust, because he can’t be secure in his manhood despite that happening, even though there were circumstances around that, he’s not feeling like he’s less of a man because of the touch, but rather because of the disgust.
If he feels like less of a man because he had tried to keep it from happening and he failed, that’s not feeling like less of a man because of the touch but rather due to the failure it represents.
There’s probably hundreds of ways this could go down, and I’m only calling two of them toxic. The one I didn’t mention is if the guy feels like he’s less of a man from his dick touching another guy’s dick because that’s the way he’s been trained to feel.
Toxic masculinity is, however, less about how a guy actually feels, and more about how a guy portrays himself, and more about how society tells men they need to behave. The mention of the need to not talk about it because of some rule strongly suggests of toxic masculinity. An assertion that this is how men are supposed to behave is probably toxic masculinity. Calling an MFM threeway a Devil’s Threeway is toxic masculinity.
Note that a claim that guys should be able to work out disputes about things going differently than they’d intended in a civil manner, rather than fighting about it would not be toxic masculinity, even though that could fall under the penultimate assertion of my last paragraph. That sort of thing is why that assertion has to leave open the possibility for exceptions.
Toxic femininity is not a joke. But it tends to not occur as a mirror to toxic masculinity. It usually occurs as a corollary to toxic masculinity. Anorexia and bulimia are frequently due to toxic femininity. Following fashion for an honest desire to follow fashion is fine, but following fashion entirely out of some feeling that there’s a requirement to do so in order to be a real woman is toxic femininity.
While I can’t say that there no situations in which I’d laugh off a person feeling disgusted about something they felt was an inappropriate sexual contact, I feel most of that is pretty serious. Now, if Jeph draws a QC in which Roko has feelings of disgust with herself because she had a bit of sexual bliss, only to find that what she’d been having that reaction to was textured tofu rather than bread, I’d probably laugh at that. But even that would also be sad.
Grantz, it’s perfectly fair to “mak[e] it about toxic masculinity” when the comic clearly and unambiguously shows that Hiro and Math are both uncomfortable with their MFM activities of the prior evening. There would be no “We must never speak of this again” or “you’re breaking the rule!” exchange, and no curt greetings followed by awkward silence, if there was no feelings of discomfort or regret involved. And really the only possible reason* for these two to feel regret is that there was another man involved in the sexy times, making toxic masculinity the clear cause of whatever issues both of these men are obviously experiencing.
.
* Cue a dozen people making up other reasons which are just bullshit attempts to spin things differently from what was clearly communicated to all of the readers in the canon, because this is the internet.
Why hello Oberon. Midsummer comes by so quickly now it seems.
I would appreciate it if you would actually quote in context when addressing me. Choosing Not to do so tells me you cannot approach the points I’ve made before and therefor have to change the context. Or that you’ve simply skipped to the end. Which seems…popular lately.
To reintroduce Context, at no point did I claim it was “unfair to make it about toxic masculinity.” I had said that it was Unnecessary to make it about toxic masculinity and that the choice to do so is reflective of the beliefs of the individual whom had initially posted regarding it (which I feel is a venomous ideology that cannot be reasoned with logically).
I had Also said (Gonna quote myself for you here):
“You’re also assuming that each and every man, in your scenario, is the Same. Has the Same thoughts, same actions, all because you believe there is a social underpinning that shapes us more then our own choices and cultivated personas. Perhaps not everyone is so weak to Allow social opinions to dictate their thoughts and actions?”
Now, to Me..This means you’ve already made up your mind and you don’t want to hear anything to the contrary. It’s another person stuffing their ears full and screeching that they don’t want to hear what you have to say. It’s wasteful and it’s lazy and I Loathe how anyone can simply take up arms and apply labels, while in the same breath condemning such behavior. Using the tools you claim to hate isn’t Noble and saves Nobody.
It’s also dryly amusing that the author even hinted in the paragraph below the comic that the discomfort was related to “>coughtentaclescough<."
Yet despite that little tidbit it's So Obvious that it's Toxic Behavior at the root of it, it's Not Worth The Time It Takes To Think For Yourself If Anything ELSE COULD BE POSSIBLE.
Since when did they develop rose tinted glasses for this?
TL;DR:
The person who says "This is the ONLY way this is possible!" Is the one who cannot see past their own beliefs and isn't willing to Hear what you have to say. Clearly, they're not even willing to read back a few short lines to address what's already been discussed because the points don't matter. (Still Who's Line).
People who have already made up their minds like that only want to see their point of view congratulated. Others.. well maybe they would prefer to Actually inspire use of good reason and logic again, instead of this wasteful nonsense that's passing for discussion now. It's almost disheartening.
I quoted you. I’m not going to quote entire posts, and especially not walls of text, when what you’ve said is perfectly adequate and in context with your position. And if you’re going to claim that it was out of context then you’ll need to explain how. Claiming that you never said that it was unfair is an attempt to shift the goalposts.
You objected to Ladyofthemasque “making it about toxic masculinity,” and it is perfectly within the context for me to say that it was fair for her to do so regardless of you either using or not using the term fair.
You’ll have to do better if you expect to keep up.
@ “I quoted you. I’m not going to quote entire posts, and especially not walls of text, when what you’ve said is perfectly adequate and in context with your position. And if you’re going to claim that it was out of context then you’ll need to explain how. Claiming that you never said that it was unfair is an attempt to shift the goalposts.
You objected to Ladyofthemasque “making it about toxic masculinity,” and it is perfectly within the context for me to say that it was fair for her to do so regardless of you either using or not using the term fair.
You’ll have to do better if you expect to keep up.”
-Seems as if I cannot actually reply directly to your post O-Train. Ah well.
Wouldn’t expect you to quote the wall, just the sections you disagree with really. I’d have less issue with any of this if my opinions could be refuted instead of having people resort to childishness (not just aimed at you kid).
I didn’t say it’s “unfair” for a very good reason. I don’t feel it’s Unfair to shift things from the get-go to “toxic masculinity.” As I said, quite verbosely I might add, It’s intentionally inflammatory and based on a stereotypical asshat jock who’s usually young and stupid. Two things at least that can be Somewhat forgivable, some of the time.
I object to the idea of toxic masculinity used as if it’s the gold standard median for how men behave or to insinuate that Every bad behavior is automatically an example of the masculine force being toxic.
I also object to the fact that the definition is incomplete, lazy and encompasses only behaviors that violate the Already understood idea of Common Decency and usually Common Sense as well. It’s taking something that Already exists and is understood as bad behavior and insinuating Only men are capable of such behavior. I don’t see how stereotypes and bigotry is acceptable for one group to practice but not another.
Shouldn’t it be all bad? Shouldn’t we be grown enough not to call each other names? Not to jump right to Nazi when there’s a slew of things in between that people can be, before being the Absolute Worst of us? (not sayin’ Anybody here used the word Nazi. Consider it an observation on the behavior of the west and it’s regression to childhood).
Life is cruel. Life is unfair. It’s a beautiful lie that we tell for kicks. If society collapses, which it Seems a lot of people are interested in, you’ll get to see just how ugly and monstrous humanity is. Then people will realize that the world we had wasn’t so bad after-all, too late.. Far too late.
Only children think in terms of “fair and unfair.” Life is what you make of it. Life is often stacked against you. We should be learning to survive, strengthening ourselves and refusing to do things that weaken us (resolve, mind, body, spirit). Anything less is Surrender to the crushing weight of consciousness and the responsibility of both Will and Choice. Because Everything we do has Meaning. Everything.
Know what Obes? I think I’ll choose to agree to disagree on this one. Or better yet, you can call this your win. Feel good about it now, you woln’t hear from me again <3
So if it had been a male with magic seduction powers that coerced two intoxicated women into a sexual situation that they were uncomfortable with the next day. Their discomfort would have been a by-product of social conditioning and homophobia, right?
She isn’t a succubus, though. This was more a case of them just getting intoxicated together, and choosing to have fun while inebriated. There’s a particular claim that if a man and women both get drunk and have sex, the man has committed rape. That’s wrong and offensive on multiple levels. Among them, that they both chose to get drunk, knowing full well that their judgement would be altered. To wit: Dr Jekyll chooses to drink the potion, and therefore chooses to become Mr Hyde; thus Dr Jekyll is responsible for the actions of Mr Hyde.
This would be more like if, say… Halo and Maxima went to a party with Deus, drank more than they were used to, and woke up in bed with him the next morning. They’d have a few regrets (particularly Maxima). But it wouldn’t be fair to accuse Deus of coercion.
How about you get surprised by us not picking apart your diatribe and instead we just point out that your initial comment is still there and hilariously silly, so anything you say that isn’t “Oh, ok, I acknowledge that that isn’t at all what toxic masculinity is about, or related to why someone would decry those bad things and their potential effect on this situation” is not really required. Cos…no, complaining about toxic masculinity isn’t saying that all men act that way. It’s also not complaining about masculinity. Which is why your lesbian analogy there is stupid.
I’m sure we’ll all agree to disagree on that though, since you said those things in the first place.
Since you joined in that fact, by it’s nature, is a surprise. So consider me surprised.
Please explain why my initial comment is silly. I pointed out that embarrassment and realization doesn’t mean the person is toxic, or that it is a display of masculine toxicity. I even went as far to say that a woman could end up regretting in a similar manner a similar situation, since Individuals make Mistakes occasionally. Fancy that. People can also Learn and Grow from conflict, which nobody ever seems to acknowledge anymore as a Positive of conflict.
You’re not quoting anything or being specific. Just stating that I need to acknowledge…Something about this isn’t what toxic masculinity even is? I honestly feel confused by the way you’ve worded that and it makes no structural sense without clarification and Precision.
Honestly though. You’ve just said that if I don’t agree with you don’t respond. One can hardly shove my own words in my face if one isn’t willing to uphold the spirit in which it was spoken.
Shutting out dialogue and saying “agree or leave” isn’t agreeing to disagree. It’s stopping your ears and refusing to listen, calling things names like we’re on the play yard, and utterly missing the entire point.
I would believe what you’ve said, if you can both define masculinity (specifically how it can be Expressed) in a way that isn’t toxic and also satisfactorily explain why complaining about toxic masculinity isn’t complaining about masculinity as a general whole (Since you wanted to weight in, here’s your chance to give an opinion). I’ve yet to see or read about anybody reconciling these points, which is a huge problem. If you’re only willing to define a negative then that negative is all people see. It’s bigotry to call all of any group anything. What I was responding to was a comment I felt was reflecting a bigoted ideology stating that masculinity can only be toxic. (Not calling the OP a bigot. Ideology and Individual Are separate)
I actually wouldn’t mind hearing from the original person whom I was arguing/debating with, to see if the Individual understands why I take exception to what was said/written. They seem thoughtful.
The analogy Was stupid on purpose. The stupidity was the point. Which you’ve missed. Stereotypes are Stupid, which is Also the point. The comment the OP made, was a very strange straight male stereotype. It’s alright to stereotype and generalize in 2019 right? Thought so.
I agree to disagree with Ladyofthemasque, whom the words I wrote were intended. You get no such mercy or leeway, because it was not offered.
People shouldn’t assume what’s meant for others belongs to them.
I have to wonder how much of the awkwardness is due to toxic masculinity, and how much is due to masculine territoriality, actually.
There’s an aspect of ‘sharing’ a night with a woman that is a lot harder for a male to wrap his head around, I think, than just ‘no homo’. Related in part to the evolutionary and biological systems in place. It might be a little non-PC, but men are biologically more predisposed to harem or ‘herd’ forming, where a single male is ‘servicing’ multiple females who may be in various states of gravidity/fertility. As the King of Siam (in the musical, at least) said, “A man is like a bee, flying from flower to flower”.
Similarly, males tend to build heirarchies amongst themselves, which this sort of situation, where both of them clearly ended up subservient to Cora, would pull into question.
And neither of these things are particularly Toxic in terms of masculinity. They’re just one of the ways that guys are wired to act.
Honestly, I think they need to have a good fight, and then Hiro ought to pull Rank on Math, to help them re-center themselves to who’s where in the heirarchy. That should do for the awkwardness.
Reasonable.
May I also add, that if she also Penetrated both of them with surprise tentacles, some things might be ok in the moment that are Not ok afterwards.
I’d say if you need physical violence and abuse of military hierarchy to sort out your feelings on something, it in fact has drifted into toxic territory. You’re not making a great argument here.
Also, is it just me, or is “I feel awkard about the sex act we participated in last night, so lets fight each other and then I’ll remind you I’m boss” in fact coded more stereotypical homosexual than any act two men could do where there was also a woman involved? Which kind of masculinity are you promoting here? Cause we could save some time and just say “to sort things out, they gotta do something with each other, alone.”
Given that the only definition I can conceive for “toxic” is “ill-suited to society,” sure, that level of combativeness is ill-suited to our society. In some societies, it’s the organizing principle. Maybe people don’t want to live in those societies, given that we’ve produced this one. But I think some people are basically arguing that society should be tweaked to accommodate the behaviors that come naturally to us.
Also, I’m not sure where the homosexual idea came from. The above looks like alpha male be havior to me, per the norm among primates.
As opposed to when a woman feels uncomfortable with the drunken sex from the previous night. Then according to campuses across the US, it rape.
I think your ‘masculine territory’ is pretty closely related to toxic masculinity. Whether or not it’s related, it also feels like it denies the personhood of others. Cora isn’t territory. She’s a person.
You might be right about there being an aspect of sharing a woman that is harder for a male to wrap his head around than just ‘no homo’. But it sounds pretty similar to me. Also note that Cora isn’t remotely human, so the concerns that you bring up don’t really feel like they fit.
As it happens, I’m a man, and I’m not wired for harem building. I also remember that when I was a little boy, most of the other little boys around me didn’t seem to be wired like this. However, it was definitely something that our elders made a concerted effort to instill. That effort worked for most of them, and did so before puberty could’ve been a factor.
There are plenty of examples of mammals where in one Male mates with multiple females as part of the social organization of that species. There are zero mammals where those roles are gender reversed. The reason is simple, in a MFFFF herd/pride/pack everyone knows who each babies parents are. In a FMMMM situation, the father is an unknown and so the pregnant mother is abandoned. Darwin out-ranks Maury Povich, biological imperatives reject the “sharing” of a female, not because that female is property, but because the potential child must be protected, and certainty of paternity is vital to that child.
… if some men are so homophobic they don’t wipe their ass I’m starting to understand why it’s called “toxic”.
I don’t understand what homophobia even is anymore, people keep calling just about anything homophobia.
It’s sort of losing its meaning from abuse of use.
There are not such men, except the straw-men that the man haters invent.
There aren’t men like that. The poster simply has rectal-cranial inversion to such a degree that gross scat fantasies about ‘toxic’ men somehow seem plausible.
Honestly, it’s more likely to say something about the poster’s own hygiene than anyone else’s.
Yeah, that tidbit strikes me as being well over the hyperbolic line. Not that someone won’t be able to dig up an aberrant example or two, I’m sure, but in general I have a generous amount of skepticism that this is a thing.
It reminded me of my second week in boot camp, when one of the drill sgts gave us this weird lecture about showering daily, saying that some of us hadn’t been showering and that we stunk. And while I wasn’t doing any kind of a role call in the shower line as far as I could tell there wasn’t a single person hiding out in the barracks instead of taking the opportunity to take a shower every day. I just chalked it up to some standard spiel that they were forced to deliver even if it wasn’t necessary, and rolled on. But that would mean that there had been times when people wouldn’t take their opportunity to take a shower. Which boggles my mind since it was a way to relax and get clean and soak up some heat into tired muscles, but I guess in this case the exception really did make the rule.
It’s pretty clear you don’t actually understand what “toxic masculinity” is.
Here’s a hint, Math and Hiro feeling a bit awkward afterwards about being together in a sexual situation, is not it.
Even more so given, they were with a completely uninhibited alien chick who is freaky enough to give a literal succubus a run for her money.
This is simply a normal and innocuous straight up “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” moment. Trying to label it as anything more, is just twisting it into something it’s not for the sake of being preachy.
And you don’t know why there is such ‘toxic masculinity’ thinking, where it’s become common for two (or more) males to shout “No Homo” after every display of feeling: “Love you bro” “NO HOMO!”, two males touch hands in a non-sporting way “NO HOMO!”
MFM is not gay as long as the balls don’t touch and the males don’t look at each for a week
…They often do. Knowing Dabbler and Cora like we do. Cora Started off with ping-pong between the two of them, probably Math behind first.Then Hiro behind while Math… Neither one finishing …of course Cora wanted the 2 stroke engine next, followed up by a that rowdy golf game with two flags in the front nine. Dabbler might have gone farther playing two flags on the back nine. When things progress like this everything seems like just the next thing you should be doing, especially given the experienced female takes the lead. It is often the last two permutations that make guys uncomfortable afterwards. It isn’t exactly straight, nor is it something either guy would ask for One doesn’t talk about liking or disliking it, and it blows over, because it was ok in the heat of the moment, pun intended. I run in strange circles where people talk honestly about this stuff.
This is actually pretty much textbook toxic masculinity. It’s not as overt as driving around town looking for ‘fags’ to beat up, but things don’t have to be overt to still be toxic. Being uncomfortable during or after a sexual situation just because there was another man present is a form of homophobia. No one would feel uncomfortable with this if it was not, so there’s really no form of valid argument that can deny this. Telling the other man “We must never speak of this again” indicates a level of shame or embarrassment that would not be present if the encounter had been just one of the men with Cora, and so the only logical and rational conclusion is that the shame or embarrassment being felt by both of these men is solely because of the presence of the other man. I really cannot imagine either of these guys telling Cora the morning after “We must never speak of this again.” Can you? Well you don’t have to answer, because look, neither of them did that. So the canon speaks louder than anyone’s pet theory about things that never happened.
Hello Again Oberon! How Lovely to see you so.. active.
I’d like to weigh in on your thoughts here. I feel as if I have a few.. Corrections to make (towards wording not thinking naturally).
I disagree heavily. But I will also explain in detail why I disagree heavily. My main issue is the fact that this can be labeled as Only toxic masculinity. That, in the given scenario, there is No Other Possible reason why a man might be upset. Let me address what you’ve said, to be precise.
Driving around town looking for Anybody to beat up isn’t toxic masculinity. It’s a violent impulse that is either the product of an unsound mind or an unstable mind (sickness or depravity). Common Sense dictates that it is Foolish to wander around assaulting people. Common Decency shows us that it’s not Morally Right to wander around assaulting people. It goes Beyond the idea of masculine and feminine and it isn’t Unique to either alone. At this point it might as well be said that “toxic masculinity” is any behavior that deviates from Common Sense and Common Decency into acts of Sickness and Depravity. Oh.. look at that… But when you look from that angle….. Doesn’t that Just Make it Common Human Behavior that we’re looking at, independent of gender since both can choose to behave badly or be unfortunate enough to be ill? How Strange then that we’re Only choosing to throw masculinity under the bus as the Singular Culprit!
-Exactly my issue and point with the Entire Foolishness.
To quote yourself “Being uncomfortable during or after a sexual situation just because there was another man present is a form of homophobia. No one would feel uncomfortable with this if it was not, so there’s really no form of valid argument that can deny this”
-Simply untrue and so demonstratively untrue in your wording that it’s Basic logic. Having an unwanted guest wander through the room during coitus would make Most people uncomfortable. See where imprecise and lazy wording arrives?
To be more specific to the Spirit of what you claim though, I present this.
A man could be ok with a situation escalating and then get cold feet. Why? Because sex, believe it or not, actually involves a lot of emotional content and as much as some people seem intent on believing that hollywood depictions of college-blond-surfer Chad’s are the Epitome of How each and Every man acts All the time Forever.. It’s simply Not True. People can make mistakes. They can feel one way at one point and decide that they were wrong or that they should have thought things through more. Saying that toxic masculinity is the only rationale is also saying that they’re incapable of being more or being better then that.
As for the latter half of your statement? What if they’re both fine with each other being present (we don’t know what they each agreed to after all, or the Context, Or any Other Pertinent Info) and the issue they had was discovering that they were open enough to Allow Cora to play “Tentacle Playtime: Super Edition” with them but we’ren’t willing to admit to a group that they function with and Work with Professionally (considering how Max has discussed about such things in the past seriously and not both) that they indulged in mutual tentacular penetrative activities.
Or perhaps there was surprise tentacles, it’s not like it’s uncommon for a person to decide to explore other orifices during coitus Without having access to shape-shifting limbs (which can be to the partner’s delight or horror, consider spanking in the same vein).
Plus, at the end of the day.. it’s clear you didn’t even take the 3 seconds to read the “>coughtentaclescough<" that is Clearly meant to be a hint for our imaginations to fill the gaps with. But hey, the more you keep on "chasin' that narrative" the more you'll get to keep being right ;)
Because hey, That's all that Matters anymore to Anybody.. RIGHT?
Was it not you who got upset when someone interjected themselves into your comments? And you are doing the very same thing…
Also, you do realise that this is a public chat system, no one needs your express permission to reply or add their comments to
Now, to get to the point: yes, driving around town looking for Anyone to beat up is simply a violent impulse, driving around town looking for Someone Specific is a hate crime, and in this case it is an example of Toxic Masculinity because they are not comfortable in your own to even allow homosexuality as an option for someone else: the person they are planning (with intent) to beat up hasn’t done them any harm other than simply existing, being a gay man in a ‘straight mans world’
We are not talking about some ‘unwanted guest wander through the room during coitus’, we are specifically talking about another guy taking part in the coitus
It’s not about getting cold feet (usually that would result in them stopping and leaving), it’s about being embarrassed to the point they will not talk about it, even to the point of saying they will not talk about it
You seem so intent on denying that there even is Toxic Masculinity, just reinforces the culture of TM
Hello Guesticus! One would think that a Guest understands hospitality.. and that when one is invited in one has a right to enter.. I was engaged separately so I was simply returning the favor. That shouldn’t be difficult to understand.
Although I find it to be a deliberate misrepresentation to say that I was “upset” by interjections. Considering I thanked one and the other Required correction due to clearly not reading anything I had written before in full, one can hardly be “upset” with sheer ignorance. Disappointed perhaps, but not upset.
Kindly quote where I had insisted that my permission was needed. Otherwise if you’re working to build up a target to tear down, at least put Some effort into it. Otherwise what’s the point? You expect My stuffings to be Straw?
Violent impulses are things that normal people have on a regular basis. That doesn’t mean every person who has them is automatically a saint for resisting or a sinner for indulging. It means it’s an inherent part of being human, having the potential to do bad or good.
Now that That’s been established…
Driving around town looking for Somebody Specific is Usually what’s known as an Assassination, a Hit.. even Murder. Which is Typically a Crime. Once again, sloppy writing follows sloppy premise and sloppy thought.
In the Spirit of what you Actually meant to say.. Yes, hunting down a specific individual because of a specific bias or idea of superiority/inferiority IS a hate crime. Which is Also a crime. Which Common Bloody Sense says.. Is A Bad Idea Regardless.
But! Now we’re changing the game again. Because… the points don’t matter!(Clearly; also Who’s Line).
If they Did matter at all, people would make at least a Semblance of trying to be Coherent with their thoughts.
So, in your own words… violent impulses, hate crimes and toxic masculinity are literally equal and inseparable. But! Doesn’t it still seem strange… that a Woman is capable of these crimes as well? How can it be something unique to the masculine when the feminine is equally capable (by being Human) of good and evil? How can something be labeled as toxic Masculinity when a woman is Just as capable of hate crimes, assault and persecution as any man?
OR is it still this generic basic hollywood chadly bradford surfer dude college football star BRO example that’s being used somehow Actually the baseline gold standard for general male behavior in the United States? Somehow I Highly doubt it, yet it’s Ok to use that Stereotype whenever you like.. Hypocritical. Lazy. Disappointing.
Ah. But that’s the Point isn’t it? Just because there are women that believe “it’s a straight world” and are just as likely to waive those awful “god hates fags” signs… ah well, they’re not Equally to Blame for the Problems are they? Why Ever Would They Be? Big Cruel Men have to be the entire and absolute cause for Everything. Why, even the mainstream media tells us so!
Mmmhm. As usual, nobody who responds is willing to Actually take the ten seconds it’d take to Actually parse what I’ve written. Or you’d Understand that the “wandering into the room during coitus” was (and written as such below it) A Deliberately Obtuse Example pointing out the Absurdity of the Rigidity of the Thought process and Ideological Garbage on display.
Humans aren’t robots. A person might Feel that they’re comfortable with a situation and then find it brings more anxiety then they expected, they might feel a rush of “I..I can’t do this!” and have to Leave.. Or they might discover what they felt was an attraction really Was just a passing feeling.
The fact you utterly refuse to accept that other options are even Possible shows just how little you think of both human nature and the capacity of people to change at All. Which is downright Depressing. If your imagination is so lacking you can’t see that people are more complex then the little stereotypes you want to believe, there’s no force on this earth that’s powerful enough to shake you out of it.
That’s Adorable. You’re so Intent on proving that toxic masculinity Must be the culprit that you’re trying to label Me as toxic so you can get out of actually rebutting me in a logical and practical manner.
Frankly, I find it Low that a person can only oppose the thought of another through cowardly negation and tactics of character assassination. Find your own words and think for yourself, perhaps then you won’t fall so easily into such traps.
Funny, being so focused on a concept only brings it to life and brings it Into your life. The more you fear and decry something, the more Likely it is to surface in your life xD. You help to Create the very things you hate and fear most! How much more Funny can it BE? xD
Bitching about my activity level is both a non sequitur and another attempt by you to change the subject.
Oh, I get it now. You don’t actually know what toxic masculinity means! Maybe you should do some reading on a subject before you decide to opine, it makes you look foolish when you try to claim that blatantly homophobic activity doesn’t fully fall into the definition of toxic masculinity. Maybe you can do better after you overcome your ignorance of the subject matter.
Also, try not to randomly capitalize words in the middle of sentences. It makes you look even more ignorant.
Oh Oberon, how sad it must be to be you! Turning a bright greeting into a tragedy.. And calling it “bitching” tsk tsk. Not often does somebody tweak your tail mm? Make you think a lil bit?
Oh, Oberon Oberon Obeeerrrronnnn… Of Course I know what it means. It means that people would rather make excuses for their bigotry then actually concede that Using such tools makes them as Ugly as their “enemies”. That’s the only context that language is used in, unfortunately.
Still waiting on that definition of what can be considered masculinity that’s not “toxic” as well (Common Sense and Common Decency doesn’t count by the very Rules that you play by).
Assault is and only is toxic masculine behavior huh. So nobody else is Capable of assault. Gotcha. Makes Sense!
And Lo! When kept brief I Am quotable after all ;) I’ll try to pace myself, I know the entire length is more then a mouthful after-all. Wouldn`t want to leave you catching your breath in the dust. The journey is half the Fun you know!
Seems to me that you can’t back yourself up. Instead of using logic and refuting me where you disagree, the best you can manage is play yard level insults. Ignorant? Foolish? Truly that’s the rapier wit you bring to this? What happened to your creativity Oberon? Is Midsomer no longer sweet? Can you no longer Dream?
The word Anybody in that quoted sentence actually means Anybody. Now I may be Confused, but I thought that one had to be looking to attack somebody who was homosexual to Be Being Homophobic, when the “Anybody” clearly places what I was talking about into the realm of General Assault. Which, by definition.. isn’t Homophobic. It’s against Common Decency and the general Rule of Law of our Society.
Pray, Give me a definition that isn’t just regurgitated variations of what’s been said. Something that IS a literal definition would be just..smashing. And along with that, if you please, the inverse as I’ve been requesting. There’s a good lad.
Ah I apologize. That’s the spots when I was Shouting at you for emphasis because the idiocy of the ideology you worship makes me want to swallow my own tongue when I think of humanity’s future :)
..Really should’ve been more clear. Apologies, Old Sport.
It’s not toxic masculinity or homophobia.
Some extremely weird crap happened the previous night involving an alien chick with infinitely adjustable limbs. And that is all.
Stop trying to over-complicate things and shove them into some weird conspiracy box it doesn’t belong in. Cause all you’re doing is continuing to demonstrate you still have no clue what actual toxic masculinity is.
Dabbler’s face is just priceless in all 3 of her panels, love the ear perk and droop. It’s like she woke to to find out Christmas was being celebrated early just for her! …And then all she had in her stocking was coal.
+1
Yeah I love her expressions in this strip too :)
I concur wholeheartedly.
Poor Dabbler. That is like a couple of nice juicy steaks jumping up off the plate and stalking out of the restaurant. Ok they wern’t her steaks, but now she can’t even enjoy them vicariously or try to sneak a nibble!
or a good sniff and lick
Imagine you have gone to a restaurant that serves amazing steaks, and discover all of your friends and co-workers are obsessed with counting calories and/or are strict vegans. You’re dejected because you know exactly how good that steak with mushrooms slathered with bordelaise sauce tastes. Everyone you’ve grown up with appreciated fine food. It’s a big part of your life. You can’t understand why your friends aren’t digging in with gusto.
Suddenly, you realize two of your friends have just finished having steak dinners, and you rush over wanting to ask them how much they enjoyed it and really get into some geeky foodie talk . . . only to realize they’re ashamed they broke their diet and they just want to slink away so nobody else realizes they had a moment of weakness.
That’s how Dabbler feels in that last panel.
And it’s perhaps even worse for her in that she can quite literally eat some of the steak just from talking about it (due to all the concomittent lusty emotions), and she is evolved (created?) to love that steak more than just about anything & be obsessed with it… and yet they are still saying nothing after all the times he’s tried to teach them! It’s like kicking a four-armed baby with boots made out of …not karma, exactly – schadenfreud, maybe?
*nods*
Except for the bit about Schadenfreude, as that loosely translates as “taking pleasure at other people’s misfortune”. Now some of the readers may be experiencing schadenfreude, if they look at Dabbler and laugh. But none of the characters in that scene are experiencing it themselves. Dabbler is suffering, but nobody there is enjoying that.
Short of coining a new term (or someone pointing out one that I am missing in my post-long shift exhaustion) I think those boots are most likely to be made out of irony.
Dabbler has long been campaigning for the unit to relax their ‘no sex between members rule’ and here are a couple of teammates who have bent the rule. So Dabbler would love to hear all the juicy details, but ironically cannot, because (many) Earth people are too prudish, to talk about it, even when they have flaunted social rules!
Hence my spelling of Schaden-Freud :) – Dabbler is suffering at the feet of Earth phsycology and it’s (relevant) attendent behavioural traits, while we gain enjoyment from watching it occur.
If Max is watching she is going to be torn between two of her team enaging in combined relations, and basking in Dabbler’s suffering, thus, classical schadenfreude (recall her laughter when she realised how upset Dabbler would be at missing out on seeing how well endowed her colleague was, at the end of the Mars factory raid when they first met Sciona.
One can only hope that Cora was not engaged in more creative Schadenfreude the night before..
I shall have to try and reread this when I have not just worked a 13 hour shift, doing the work of 2 people. My brain is just fizzling trying to follow the nuances, at the moment.
I thought it was established that Dabbler could soak up tantric energy from sexy times even if she wasn’t involved directly. I mean obviously she gets more tantric ‘juice’ (heh, double entendre anyone?) from being a participant, but she still can grab a snack by being in the vicinity, can’t she?
Yes, and that’s how she figured out what they had been up to (or who they had been in)
She’s not after sloppy seconds or a snack, she’s wanting to know what it was like (well, obviously she knows what it is like to be with Cora, she wanted to know how they felt about it, and what ‘attachments’ Cora used ;) )
Devil’s Triangle, you say?
I think whatever they did, it rhymes with “Gleesome”.
Should have used Awesome
Don’t do possums kids.
You can’t do hedgehogs at all. There is even a song about that.
Either you talk about something totally different, or those really do not rhyme at all.
I highly doubt that they were discussing protein complexes in cells containing proteases, which break down the proteins that have been tagged by ubiquitin. Ie, proteasome.
But who knows, I could be wrong and Math and Hiro might be far more knowledgeable about biology than I thought.
They certainly dealt with biology and some kinds of proteins in particular.
KRAcoomm, Kracowww, Hssshhhh.
Say! Why does Cora need to exercise artificial limbs?
Because your core muscles (back/stomach) get exercised, too, and in ways that help with balance, stability, mobility, etc. Her artificial limbs are anchored to her torso (even if they’re just hard-light projections). That means if she has a flabby gut, she won’t be nearly as strong, agile, or just capable in general. Plus, running is an excellent abdominal & aerobic exercise (if you do it right, not so much the sprinting as more of the jogging), and that’s always good when it comes to keeping in shape for lovemaking.
Cardio
Sorry, cardio exercise, not aerobic, you’re right; I couldn’t remember the right word.
For the same reason both Morph and Les run the track
Cora’s limbs may not have squishy biological bits that need maintenance, but that doesn’t mean there’s no benefit from practicing their use. Regular use of each limbset, or at least each type, ensures that she can use them all as required without being distracted by re-learning any little variations in stance, gait, etc..
Dabbler you may be a lady but don’t expect them to break their bro code
sounds like certain someone’s engaged in a Devil’s Triangle with a certain extra-terrestrial
I’d almost say it sounds like you want someone to come up with a phrase that combines “devil’s triangle”, “Bermuda triangle” and “galactic spiral arm”.
Maybe Math was not up to it: Check the last panel of this https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-521-to-no-dress/
I’ve always liked Dave’s art, even when the style changes up. Dabbler’s gleeful face in panel 7 here, along with Maxima’s every expression in 739 and Cora in the last panel of 738, have to be along my favorites now!
Poor Sydney. She’s so bagged she has to float to the track.
Or she’s still too shaken to uncurl from a fetal position any more than she absolutely has to.
I just realized she was Bouncing off of things in flight with the bubble up during the alian fight so presumably if she flew up, bubbled up, and set her shield on the ground, that someone could push her around like a Giant Marble…bowling with Sydney. That would also let her be a super tanker for water since we know from the press conference that she can fly with a chunk of surface bisected by the shield.
I wonder if that means the shield only cuts underground if she attempts to change position of the shield after putting it up. If not, and it always destroys the subsurface then any place she activates it should drop by the shield thickness when it deactivates; there are lots of half worms around. It would also make her an awesome bulk excavation tool provided that she doesn’t accidentally cut through whatever they are trying to reach and unstable cave ins didn’t happen.
ARCSWAT really needs to get her testing the “Ramifications of Shield Interactions with Subsurface Structures.” It could be a ground breaking study.
If you mean the sand that was in her shield, that wasn’t bisected from the ground. It was the sand that was being blown past her by the explosion, that settled to the bottom of the shield. She could carry it pretty effortlessly, though. She also carried three people sitting on the bottom part of the shield. There hasn’t been an upper limit established, but if she embiggened the shield over a lake, for instance, and then flew over a forest fire and dropped the shield, that could be very useful, assuming she can carry at least a few tons of water.
I believe the shield passes through solid matter without bisecting it (letting it pass through if it’s not harmful, like visible light and sound). Sydney fell off the roof across from the former candy warehouse when the blood-bot sliced away the section she was standing on. The roof fell away from her, then she fell and landed on her butt. There wasn’t a chunk of roof in the field with her. She got hit by ricocheting piece of rock on the Alari homeworld, but that was hurtling through the space the shield formed around. Apparently, the shield blocked it for moving fast enough to be harmful, but whoever (or whatever) designed it never predicted the possibility that someone would create a field with something dangerous already inside it with them. No plan, after all, survives contact with Sydney.
Dabbler just has a completely different mindset when it comes to sexuality. Sex is as natural to her as sleeping or eating, and she’s like a gourmand on a planet plagued by eating disorders and fad diets.
She’s said before that “get a room” doesn’t make sense because why wouldn’t you want to watch or be watched, and the people doing it being friends just makes it better, not awkward. She didn’t seem to be pulling Sydney’s chain, either. She really had difficulty grasping why someone wouldn’t want to watch their friends having sex. Similarly, she doesn’t get why said friends wouldn’t want to dish the details at the first opportunity. Like going for a complex path-predicting algorithm instead of putting a tracker on a rock and kicking it through a portal, she’s shaped by experience and upbringing into approaching things from a certain point of view.
She’s amazingly intelligent, and it’s not that she can’t understand it, but cultural conditioning shapes the direction of thought. The most powerful submarine in the world doesn’t fly very well, and an SR-71 Blackbird makes a poor submersible . . . it’s not what they’re designed to do.
Honestly, I think her attitude makes more sense, but I realize I’m pretty far outside the norm in terms of sensitivity about sexual orientation, jealousy, monogamy, prudity and a slew of other concepts that might complicate things.
It does make more sense, but until we detoxify our cultural attitudes about sex between consenting mature adults…welp, we’ll just have to keep poking fun at it over and over until the whole concept is seen as old-fashioned, out of touch, and yay for friends who make love without shame or stigma!
It would be nice, but I doubt it’ll happen before my technological utopian dystopia idea comes true.
Until we solve the whole STD problem, “detoxifying our cultural attitudes about sex” has some really nasty public health implications. A large part of those attitudes is driven by the population biology of pathogens.
No, it has nothing to do with STD’s, because complete strangers face that same problem, so why should be it ‘worse’ for friends?
As funny/cute as Dabbler’s face is in the 6th panel, what really took the cake for me, was the utter delight in her face on the 5th panel. The eagerness and delight at having “Eskimo” buddies to share with? I’m still cleaning my tea off of my monitor.
I think this is a case of. ” what happens on earth stays on earth.”
I think this just became my favourite page in this comic. The expression on Dabbler’s face in every panel she is in, and the expressions on all the faces in panel 7 are absolutely priceless.
Porn sense overtingling? Or just normal tingling?
The worst kind of tingling. A lost meal.
… and for her species, blue balls is actually fatal.
Well, for a part of her species makeup. Is Dabbler subject to the full impact of denial of tantric energy? It seems like one of the disadvantages you’d choose in a Superhero RPG in order to get more build points, because we’ve seen Dabbler eat food so it seems obvious that she needs to eat and drink, and apparently breath as well. So adding ‘needs tantric energy to avoid *define specific disadvantage here*’ would be a weakness rather than a strength.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. All that needs to be said.
So who slept with big arse diablo guy last night?
He was flirting with a few.
Did he end up with the reporter?
Dabbler recap of “First encounters” last night should be a VOTE Panel! PLEASE Especially with her imagination running wild.
Who got alien probed and who probed an alien…
Nope, Suzie went hope with Ari, like they do every night
why not both?
Because Suzie don’t cheat (she wouldn’t dare, Ari is a beast in the bedroom :P)
Oh right, you meant Pinkie (forget Suzie isn’t the only newsie around :()
The gal he LOOOMED over wasn’t suzie
Yeah, like said, forgot you meant Pinkie
Saw ‘the reporter’ and went straight to the News :)
Anvil and Altus would make a nice couple. Does Anvil get slowly charged up by sex via knetic impact if she takes a real pounding?
There’s a character in the Wild Cards anthology series (GRRM edited, many authors including himself in each novel, because again: Anthology series) who has the same power as Anvil, just expressed differently. The Amazing Bubbles absorbs kinetic energy which is converted into fat, and then she can ‘bubble’ which is creating bubbles that she can control the explosive power and targeting of, and doing so uses her stored fat. Throughout the series there have been many ways she has been shown powering up, mostly by having strong man types beat on her. But being shot or standing in an explosion work as well. It hurts her not at all and she just gets fatter. I’ve only read about 5 of the novels in the fairly long series so I’m sure I haven’t seen all of the power stunts she can use, but I’ve wondered if just standing in a river would be a decent if slow way to power her up. All that water mass is actually hitting you, which is why water can easily knock people down and sweep cars off of highways if it is deep enough and moving fast enough.
As an interesting aspect of her power, she only gets fat up to a certain size point (I want to say 8′ x 8′, but I can easily be misremembering), at which time she starts becoming more dense instead of continuing to grow. She may not have an upper limit (I won’t spoil the upper limit that I’ve seen in the few novels I’ve read, but it is fairly high), but the more she absorbs the more difficult it is for her to access her power and ‘bubble’ so she tends to just power up to the point where she is comfortable.
Re: water: Well, that and the whole buoyancy thing…
Back to Bubbles and the proposition made by Just_IDD about powering up during rough sex. The stories aren’t filled with sex, but they don’t shy away from it either. Bubbles has never been pointed out to be more fat the morning after sex, and I can think of one time in particular where that would have been fairly noticeable and so if it had happened it should have been pointed out, as she had used up all of her stored fat and her partner made specific mention of wanting the next time to be when Bubbles had her standard level of fat going. So if sex can power her up her partner should have mentioned that she liked Bubbles’ morning after shape better than the night before shape. But, Bubbles is a lesbian and so that might have a lot to do with the relative level of ‘pounding’ involved in her lovemaking.
This was a good one, Dave.
dabbler looks so happy in that one frame.
i thought hiro and heatwave were in a relationship?
Dabbler does not subscribe to the concept of exclusive relationships. And she has hypno-powers and very few compunctions about using them.
Mr amorphous
And his magical tongue! And that’s not all…
Dabbler looks positively starved for gossip. Her expression is kinda creepy.
That’s….not exactly what she is starved of…..
;-þ
something that I don’t think a lot of people might be taking account of, after briefly skimming the other comments, is that this is a military organization, and not everyone, even if they don’t think of sex as taboo, still prefer to keep such things private. Hiro and Math are not just coworkers, Hiro is up on the chain of command over Math, and as such is technically one of his bosses. Yes, I know Max has seniority, and has operational command and everything, but if she isn’t there in a combat situation, Math would most likely answer to Hiro. Even with the lax standards Arcon has, that’s bound to cause some awkwardness, the two of them confronting what they did with an alien that could give Dabbler a run for her money. Like ‘hey boss, let’s try to ignore all the X-rated stuff me and you teamed up to pull off last night.’ I know things would feel a tad awkward around my first line the next morning if something like that happened.
also, maybe the reason why Math specifically looks as embarrassed as he does is because while he talks a big game, when it came to perform he was woefully unprepared to take on someone who a succubus considers pleasant company in the sack? Like, quite possibly biting off more than he could chew, and in front of one of his coworkers?
Also consider that Hiro is a super, whereas Math is just highly skilled. Hiro has the impressively overendowed equipment that comes with being a super. Math might be feeling a little underequiped in comparison.
theundermole and #6, well reasoned and coolly presented
I thought Hero had a thing for Maxima ? I’ve lost respect for him now if that’s the case
(Last 3 panels have great facial expressions though)
Hiro might have a thing for Max, but that is totally irrelevant. Max is his superior officer in a military chain of command. Hiro also is a professional and a field grade officer who presumably knows the road. More importantly, Maxima is a senior field grade officer who has made it clear on numerous occasions that she takes her role as commanding officer very seriously.
Also, personal embarrassment aside, I suspect Hiro is not the type of guy to brag about his activities with the ladies. “You’re breaking the rule” for Hiro is more than not wanting to talk about whatever happened during the Devil’s Triangle.
Overall I am with Mike Blackwolf, due to being a soppy romantic and believing that Hiro and Maxima should work to find a way for them to be together. For instance Math could jockey for a position commanding one of the branch offices (such as New York). This would stop Maxima being his commanding officer (he would be reporting either to General Faulk or a CO with a similar role to in New York), should that ever come to pass). As such they would be able to get together. But the chances of that would be diminished if Hiro were sleeping around a lot.
And don’t forget that he brought back someone(s) from the nightclub/dance thingy place that they attended.
That said though it clearly is normal for him, and Maxima equally clearly must be aware that he gets up to such behaviour (the other example being conducted openly in sight of the common room in their HQ building). Yet she was still attracted to him.
So, even though I agree with every point you make, my soppy romantic side is still hopeful that they will find a way, despite this latest incident. They are, after all, strong and resourceful.
+2
I don’t know if it’s so much a “thing” as a “in another world, we could have been friends (with benefits)” sort of thing. Max knows it can’t happen as things are, and so does Hiro. The closest they’ve come to sidling alongside hinting at flirting was Hiro floating the notion that, if he and Max were ever the same rank, she might potential owe him a chance to stare at her nude, since she had lingering over the Full view of his Monty (as it were).
There’s the occasional acknowledgement by each that the other is attractive . . . but that mostly proves they have some level of attraction to the opposite sex and their eyes work.
Personality-wise, Hiro seems like the kind of guy Max might want to have a fairly serious relationship with, maybe. But I don’t think anything has been shown that indicates either of them has really thought about anything that could even remotely construed as having a relationship or a commitment.
The failures in conjugation in what I wrote above make my head hurt re-reading it, but there’s no Edit option, so please accept both my apology and my assurance that I am, in fact, literate. Mea culpa, Maxima.
Kinda feel need to make this statement
NOT against artistic change, as long as it is a change and the change is consistent
An example: started reading “Ghost Rider” in the 90’s, and, for me, the definitive artist will always be Mark Texeira, butt there have been other artists through the years and some… have not been, POO, as good (anyone remember the dayglo leather? o_O ). Just read the “Ghost Racers” book with a whole slew of Riders, and… the artwork was different (could barely tell who the Riders were, fortunately they had labels), initially was hesitant to buy it, butt, it was the Ghost Rider(s) (even if it focused more on the false Rider, Reyes). The artist also did a story about the Cosmic Ghost Rider, aka Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, and, again, it wasn’t a depiction of Castle was use to (ignoring the fact he was shown as a much older version, with long hair and a beard)
Okay, the rambling waffle has waffled its ramble too long: the point is, not against change, and just because may critique and moan doesn’t mean will stop reading, and if this is Hiro and Math’s (and everyone else) new look, then so beit, you are stuck with me (not even Rich Morris and his psychophants can chase me away from a great webic)
I took more than a day to consider this…
Math wears black jeans normally, is on the left, and thus is wearing green?
Major is in sweatpants while he was last seen in jeans.
Harem was last seen wearing grey sweatpants…
Maxima wears green military jeans standard…
I consider a 5+ party to have happened.
Maxima wears a uniform (which means that many other people wear it too). So, whilst I would not wish to pop your bubble that there was a 5+ (the more the merrier), I think the circumstantial evidence to associate Maxima with it is far too flimsy. Plus I think that if she were involved Hiro would be way way happier and (possibly*) willing to talk about it!
* If his emotions were dominating. If though he saw his career dissipation light blinking he might realise that talking about such would be a very quick way to earn a dishonourable discharge for either or both of them (but more likely to be Maxima than him, given her seniority). I don’ think Hiro would want to risk that.
That was no spank. That was full on gropage of the boohonkus! And how. Lucky Cora!
We must never speak of this again. Ok the big question here is was it Math or Hiro who ended up wearing the ball gag and gimp suit?
For some reason I am always surprised by the people that get into fits about things that happen in this comic. On another note, I love the look on Dabbler’s face. The insanity is real.
I haven’t read anyone’s comments but I must affirm that Dazzler’s delighted expression in panel 6 is one of the most delightfully wonderful expression’s of hers throughout the entire Toon???
I stumbled across Grrl Power a week ago and have now hit the wall of real time.
Depression ensues. I’m going to hate waiting for my weekly fix.
Commentary: I have fallen in love with these characters and absolutely captivated with the storyline.
It’s interesting seeing years of labor compressed into a week. Dave’s art was fun to start with but has transformed into something spectacular over time. I would love to see how an early episode character like General Faulk would be rendered now.
I’m also interested to see how early story elements tie in… Like exactly what was Sydney’s “List” about?
Hopefully whoever Sydney talks to will be VERY sympathetic towards her and her ADHD!?
If it comes down to Sydney resigning from Archon,will her orbs be government property???
Why would they? They were never guv’ment property to start with, she never signed them over to the guv’ment, and the guv’ment couldn’t take them from her without killing her even if they wanted to
I think I’m an Incubi then, cause I would want to hear everything that Dabbler has to say. Mostly cause I would imagine myself in place of her partners, but I still would want to hear everything. Am I not normal?
loling at Sydney ‘flying’ in to PT in a seated position. The lazy superheoine’s use of her flight power. Or as Maxima might say, “Flying in an annoying manner.”
Well, she did have a rough night
Heh. “Math Major”