Tactical Question - Haley

[SavageWombat]

If Laurin uses some form of Psionic Flight to escape, does Haley get to use her Favored Enemy (Airborne Tramp) bonuses? Or is Laurin not so much a skank as a MILF?

[Carl]

:haley: doesn't have Favoured Enemy (airborne tramp)...

[Haldir]

ah, but her intense hatred of airborn tramps gives her a circumstance bonus. It's just like picking the lock in Azure City, but with hate.

[jere7my]

If Laurin uses some form of Psionic Flight to escape, does Haley get to use her Favored Enemy (Airborne Tramp) bonuses? Or is Laurin not so much a skank as a MILF?

Are all female characters defined by their sexuality for you, or just stick figures?

[Haldir]

I think sexuality defines a whole helluva lot for alot of people, otherwise the internet wouldn't be dominated by pornography. I recommend you enjoy the joke for its face value.

[jere7my]

I think sexuality defines a whole helluva lot for alot of people, otherwise the internet wouldn't be dominated by pornography. I recommend you enjoy the joke for its face value.

Good point. I took a closer look, and the joke has "Face value: one tenth of one cent" written on it in four-point type. So, not much to hang on to there.

Seriously, has Laurin said or done anything to give any impression of her sexuality at all, apart from having had a child at some point in the past? We have a completely non-sexualized female character called a "skank", "tramp", and "MILF", and that's funny...why, exactly? Would it make any sense to call Miron a boytoy or a stud for the sake of a joke?

[Haldir]

The point is that the vast majority of people have strong ties between personality and sex, from Laurin's perspective and from the Op's perspective, as twisted as it might be, the common thread is breeding. Accept that it's a thing, or don't. You won't change it with gender-defensive trolls.

[jere7my]

The point is that the vast majority of people have strong ties between personality and sex, from Laurin's perspective and from the Op's perspective, as twisted as it might be, the common thread is breeding. Accept that it's a thing, or don't. You won't change it with gender-defensive trolls.

I honestly can't parse what you're saying here, but you might want to review the forum rules.

[Ramien]

The point is that the vast majority of people have strong ties between personality and sex, from Laurin's perspective and from the Op's perspective, as twisted as it might be, the common thread is breeding. Accept that it's a thing, or don't. You won't change it with gender-defensive trolls.

Say what? Laurin's perspective, as near as we can tell, involves providing the best life she can for her daughter. Nothing about 'breeding' except the assumption that it must have happened at one point for her to have a daughter. But beyond that, her motivation and view have nothing to do with sex, or even her gender - anyone can want to give their children a better life.

[The Oni]

I tend to agree, Laurin doesn't appear to be especially promiscuous, so Haley wouldn't be getting any bonuses from it anyway even if she could fly. The catfolk gal, maybe - but she's elsweyr.

Suddenly imagining D&D minmaxers tailoring their character's sex lives for mechanical bonuses...

[Tass]

Would it make any sense to call Miron a boytoy or a stud for the sake of a joke?

If it was funny, yes.

Besides, you can't tell me Miron is not a stud. Look at that sexy scarf.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Are all female characters defined by their sexuality for you, or just stick figures?

Haley made the "Favored Enemy (Airborne Tramp)" joke.

[Ramien]

Haley made the "Favored Enemy (Airborne Tramp)" joke.

Yes she did, but putting Laurin in either that category or 'MILF' is just crossing the line a bit for some people.

[137beth]

But has she taken a level of ranger yet?:smalltongue:

[Nimin]

Good point. I took a closer look, and the joke has "Face value: one tenth of one cent" written on it in four-point type. So, not much to hang on to there.

Seriously, has Laurin said or done anything to give any impression of her sexuality at all, apart from having had a child at some point in the past? We have a completely non-sexualized female character called a "skank", "tramp", and "MILF", and that's funny...why, exactly? Would it make any sense to call Miron a boytoy or a stud for the sake of a joke?
If it'd be funny, yes. You're overreacting anyway.

[Cavenskull]

...Seriously, has Laurin said or done anything to give any impression of her sexuality at all, apart from having had a child at some point in the past? We have a completely non-sexualized female character called a "skank", "tramp", and "MILF", and that's funny...why, exactly? Would it make any sense to call Miron a boytoy or a stud for the sake of a joke?
Well, Haley did call Roy a slut for the sake of a joke. :smallwink:

[johnbragg]

Let's go through the roster of Airborne Tramps and see if (or how well) Laurin qualifies.

Sabine. Tramp by definition.
Samantha. Used/abused her authority as bandit cheiftain to pressure cute men for sex. So yeah.
Tsukiko. Enamored with the undead, and Xykon in particular. Borderline, actually. Very borderline--one romantic entanglement/aspiration, but her entire life is defined and controlled by a fetish.
Crystal. No known trampish activities.
Druid's Hawk. Not confirmed female, no record of promiscuity.

So "Favored Enemy: Airborne Tramp" is Haley's feminist issue. I think including Laurin is fair for a joke, but not generally fair to Laurin.

Effort in this thread would better be spent further berating the folks in the "Laurin's Favor" thread who desperately want Laurin to ask for Tarquin for sexytime or marriage.

[Chronos]

Crystal. No known trampish activities.
Well, Haley would probably call her a tramp, whether or not it's justified, given the wide variety of derogatory labels the two of them have attached to each other. Less ambiguously, though, Crystal also has no known airborne activities, either.

[Pyron]

Less ambiguously, though, Crystal also has no known airborne activities, either.

True. But, air-headed activities, on the other hand...

[Kish]

I do not believe it speaks well of Haley that, confronted with the conundrum of how to insult a deluded necrophiliac traitor and mass murderer who had a morbid loathing for her own speciescreature type but hypocritically did not choose to become an undead creature, kept her own "precious children" enslaved by magic, and was obsessed, to the point of not accepting the clearly stated word "no," with a man who had no interest in her...

...confronted, as I say, with a barrel overflowing with fish...

...chose for her go-to insult, "The way you dress suggests promiscuity."

[Cerussite]

{{scrubbed}}

[Domino Quartz]

How is this thread still open? Are the mods asleep?

[SavageWombat]

I do not believe it speaks well of Haley that, confronted with the conundrum of how to insult a deluded necrophiliac traitor and mass murderer who had a morbid loathing for her own speciescreature type but hypocritically did not choose to become an undead creature, kept her own "precious children" enslaved by magic, and was obsessed, to the point of not accepting the clearly stated word "no," with a man who had no interest in her...

...confronted, as I say, with a barrel overflowing with fish...

...chose for her go-to insult, "The way you dress suggests promiscuity."

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed this post greatly.

[jere7my]

{{scrubbed}}

[warrl]

Well, "tramp" in this sense is a female who has looser-than-is-considered-proper standards of sexual behavior, and some people consider this a moral issue* - even going so far as to class the behavior as Evil.

So it gets extended to females who are Evil, without regard to their sexual behavior.

And by that strange several-steps-removed-from-origins standard, both Laurin and Tsukiko are tramps.

* I understand why loose sexual behavior was *originally* classed as a moral issue. It was all about damage to the man that the woman belonged to, and simply being thought to be sexually "loose" was damaging to a man - it cast doubts on the validity of heirs the woman might birth for her husband, which would also reduce the benefit a father could gain from marrying his daughter off.

So a woman being - or deliberately dressing as if - sexually loose was, at best, engaging in a reckless disregard for the well-being of the man she belonged to and any sons she might already have or give birth to in the future. Which would be reasonably considered Evil.

But this originates from treating women as property and from punishing children for what their parents did (or for that matter are incorrectly suspected of having done).

Why it is still considered evil now that we recognize that women are not men's property, particularly in the case of unattached women where there's no legal presumption of paternity, totally escapes me. The availability of cheap highly-effective contraception doesn't help clarify.

[FLHerne]

How is this thread still open? Are the mods asleep?
Because the original post made a meaningful reference to a long-running 'running gag' that's close enough to the current situation to at least consider it. And one* person's rather vehement rejection of it (possibly due to missing the reference?) doesn't change that?

Anyway, it seems to have calmed down again now. :smallsmile:

I'd agree that if Crystal (who didn't come close to meeting either criterion) counted for it then Laurin probably could - certainly if she became airborne.

*And one more-reasoned objection

[jere7my]

Because the original post made a meaningful reference to a long-running 'running gag' that's close enough to the current situation to at least consider it. And one* person's rather vehement rejection of it (possibly due to missing the reference?) doesn't change that?

I got the reference. Doesn't change the fact that a) Laurin has shown no sign of flying and b) the OP went beyond quoting Haley to throw in additional gender-based, slut-shaming insults. Seriously, am I the only person who thinks "Is she a skank or a MILF?" belongs on some frat-boy Maxim forums, not here?

I see a lot of dudes telling me I overreacted. I don't see a lot of women contributing to this thread.

[Rakoa]

I got the reference. Doesn't change the fact that a) Laurin has shown no sign of flying and b) the OP went beyond quoting Haley to throw in additional gender-based, slut-shaming insults. Seriously, am I the only person who thinks "Is she a skank or a MILF?" belongs on some frat-boy Maxim forums, not here?

I see a lot of dudes telling me I overreacted. I don't see a lot of women contributing to this thread.

You do seem to be overreacting a bit, at least in my eyes. But I do appreciate that you are still being respectful.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Suddenly imagining D&D minmaxers tailoring their character's sex lives for mechanical bonuses...

Worked in Fallout: New Vegas...

[jere7my]

You do seem to be overreacting a bit, at least in my eyes. But I do appreciate that you are still being respectful.

Well, thank you. It may be true that my response was a bit more vigorous than necessary.

But here's my thinking: if you wouldn't joke, "Hey, is she a skank or a MILF?" in a mixed conversational grouping, with women you don't know or don't know well, then why would you do it here? It creates an unwelcoming atmosphere for women, and in my eyes geekdom already has enough problems with that.

[Lombard]

I got the reference. Doesn't change the fact that a) Laurin has shown no sign of flying and b) the OP went beyond quoting Haley to throw in additional gender-based, slut-shaming insults. Seriously, am I the only person who thinks "Is she a skank or a MILF?" belongs on some frat-boy Maxim forums, not here?

I see a lot of dudes telling me I overreacted. I don't see a lot of women contributing to this thread.

"MILF" is eye of the beholder and so doesn't really have a thing to say about the character of the person you're giving the term to. "Skank" and "tramp" on the other hand does speak to that character, so as far as some female about whose sex life we know little, the latter two examples are probably more misogynistic than the former, the former nevertheless I suppose being potentially offensive to those who are especially sensitive to objectification issues even if it's meant as a compliment in its way.

So, while I get where you're coming from, I don't think the OP was being really malicious, which is not to say that you're not entitled to your offended feelings if the post pushed your buttons. Just seemed like his goal was more to make a comic-centered joke with a side of "catfight lol" than a misogynistic joke with a side of comic. So probably (IMO) just something about which to speak your piece if you feel it needs to be spoken, and not really worth going down a multi-post road with it.

[Haldir]

In all likelyhood Laurin is thinking about sex just as much as our controversial OP, she just has a different way of expressing it. Calling any of those expressions right or wrong is sexist itself.

If you don't think men are objectified just as much as women then you are ignoring a great deal of evidence. Are the social methods of that objectification different? Hell yes they are. Is one inherently right and the other inherently wrong? Good luck arguing that.

[GrayGriffin]

In all likelyhood Laurin is thinking about sex just as much as our controversial OP, she just has a different way of expressing it. Calling any of those expressions right or wrong is sexist itself.

If you don't think men are objectified just as much as women then you are ignoring a great deal of evidence. Are the social methods of that objectification different? Hell yes they are. Is one inherently right and the other inherently wrong? Good luck arguing that.

Does the objectification of men make them scared about being too close to the type of women who produce media with objectified men? I somehow don't think so. Admittedly, this is a simplification. Someone else can probably explain it better than me.

[jere7my]

If you don't think men are objectified just as much as women then you are ignoring a great deal of evidence. Are the social methods of that objectification different? Hell yes they are. Is one inherently right and the other inherently wrong? Good luck arguing that.

I don't want to turn this into Intro to Sexism 101, but yes, men are also objectified. It's much more likely, though, for women to be objectified in a way that reduces them to their sexual characteristics, even if they're just doing some unrelated job (like, say, mind blasting a party of adventurers). A male scientist might be sexy, but people who see him still see a scientist; a female scientist is more likely to be perceived as a sexy woman who's wearing a lab coat for some reason.

Objectification happens to everyone, but since we do still live in a male-dominated society it disproportionately affects women. Reducing a non-sexualized female character to "skank or MILF?" reinforces that narrative, and may make this forum an uncomfortable place for female fans to hang out.

Here's a thought experiment to demonstrate the lack of symmetry here: we have two sex-shaming terms for women in this thread, "skank" and "tramp". Can you think of two similar sex-shaming terms for men? I wasn't able to; the two I came up with ("stud" and "boytoy") don't have anything like the same negative connotations.

[GrayGriffin]

I don't want to turn this into Intro to Sexism 101, but yes, men are also objectified. It's much more likely, though, for women to be objectified in a way that reduces them to their sexual characteristics, even if they're just doing some unrelated job (like, say, mind blasting a party of adventurers). A male scientist might be sexy, but people who see him still see a scientist; a female scientist is more likely to be perceived as a sexy woman who's wearing a lab coat for some reason.

Objectification happens to everyone, but since we do still live in a male-dominated society it disproportionately affects women. Reducing a non-sexualized female character to "skank or MILF?" reinforces that narrative, and may make this forum an uncomfortable place for female fans to hang out.

Here's a thought experiment to demonstrate the lack of symmetry here: we have two sex-shaming terms for women in this thread, "skank" and "tramp". Can you think of two similar sex-shaming terms for men? I wasn't able to; the two I came up with ("stud" and "boytoy") don't have anything like the same negative connotations.

Thanks for that. The only terms I can think of are basically putting "man" in front of a female-oriented sex-shaming term. And even then there's still a bit of positive connotation somehow.

[Porthos]

Here's a thought experiment to demonstrate the lack of symmetry here: we have two sex-shaming terms for women in this thread, "skank" and "tramp". Can you think of two similar sex-shaming terms for men? I wasn't able to; the two I came up with ("stud" and "boytoy") don't have anything like the same negative connotations.

"rent/pool boy" is the only one that comes to mind. The other one that comes to mind ("himbo") is still a play on a term that mostly deingrates women.

The thing is, yes, some men are objectified in media. Usually in power/strength stereotypes (if you are not powerful/strong/whatever you aren't a real man et etc). Jim C. Hines has been doing sterling work on this just by pointing out the differences between stereotypical covers that objectifies women versus ones that objectifies men. Hilariously, I might add.

Both are bad. Both harm real people. Both contribute negatively to society.

Both do not remotely to contribute negatively to society equally. Not even close.

[Euclidodese]

I always found Haley's use of insults slightly odd.
Not unrealistic... Just, if you can choose what a character says... Why choose those words?

Personally I would have called her pseudo-peado adversary a [BLANK]-nosed, [BLANK]-featured [BLANK]-opotamus... But that's a stylistic choice.


But seriously... Your rage is with Rich, not with the OP.
And we got your disapproval and humourlessness from your first contribution, there's nothing else you really need to add.

[NerdyKris]

I always found Haley's use of insults slightly odd.
Not unrealistic... Just, if you can choose what a character says... Why choose those words?

Personally I would have had her pseudo-peado adversary a [BLANK]-nosed, [BLANK]-featured [BLANK]-opotamus... But that's a personal choice.


But seriously... Your rage is with Rich, not with the OP.
And we got your disapproval and humourlessness from your first contribution, there's nothing else you really need to add.

Because Haley is not a great person. She's emotionally screwed up. Notice her initial hatred of Sabine was because Sabine was outwardly dating Nale, and she was repressing her feelings for Elan. She calls Samantha a skank because she was about to have sex with the guy she liked. Choosing different words wouldn't have made sense, because it's part of her character that she's repressed and is attacking those women's openness because she is jealous of it.

There is a far, FAR cry from a character using the term because it fits their character, and making jokes about it on the forum.

For a non sex related example, Xykon has murdered multiple people in cold blood for no reason. That doesn't mean you can come on the forum and start joking about murdering people. One is a character. The other is you, a real person.

[Cerussite]

Let's be fair here: there wasn't much fun to be removed from this one. "If Laurin starts flying, which we have no indication she'll do, which insulting sex-related term would we get to use for her? Haw haw!"
Deconstructing a joke with the sole intention if demeaning it doesn't make it any less funny in the first place. You've done nothing but show your complete lack of a sense of humor again, exemplifying my point.



There is a far, FAR cry from a character using the term because it fits their character, and making jokes about it on the forum.

For a non sex related example, Xykon has murdered multiple people in cold blood for no reason. That doesn't mean you can come on the forum and start joking about murdering people. One is a character. The other is you, a real person.

So making jokes about Xykon sacrificing minions would be reprehensible? I don't see it. This isn't about sex jokes. This is about how Haley commonly fights airborne ladies whom she characterizes as "tramps", and how Laurin could, due to her psionic powers, possibly become one such target for her, and how she might be characterized by Haley as a "tramp" thus. Turning it into a discussion about sexism is pointless derailing.

[Haldir]

I think many of us are choosing to ignore that "slut-shaming" is a tried and true pasttime for women just as much as it is for men. Convenient when your argument is that one type of sexism is alright but the other is not.

[Porthos]

Convenient when your argument is that one type of sexism is alright but the other is not.

Who has made that argument on this thread? :smallconfused:

[GrayGriffin]

I think many of us are choosing to ignore that "slut-shaming" is a tried and true pasttime for women just as much as it is for men. Convenient when your argument is that one type of sexism is alright but the other is not.

You are also choosing to ignore a simple fact-in most cases, said "slut-shaming" is directed at women, no matter who is doing it.

[Haldir]

"Objectification happens to everyone, but since we do still live in a male-dominated society it disproportionately affects women. "


A historically questionable statement that supposes that society is dominated by the outer sphere, when in all actuality, to my learned eye, the family is the core unit of society. The outer sphere of society, really, being derived mostly from the needs of the family. In this sense, society is dominated by the collaborative effort at rearing children, which is the case I've been making this whole time.

[Euclidodese]

There is a far, FAR cry from a character using the term because it fits their character, and making jokes about it on the forum.

For a non sex related example, Xykon has murdered multiple people in cold blood for no reason. That doesn't mean you can come on the forum and start joking about murdering people. One is a character. The other is you, a real person.Firstly the OP, while presumably themselves real is making the joke about a fictional person.

Also, the question being asked by the OP is: "Does/would Haley think the woman is a skank?"

Not in fact "Is she a skank?"

Making the question similar to: "Would Xykon murder Elan?"

Not "I want to murder Emily Deschanel."

[Porthos]

Turning it into a discussion about sexism is pointless derailing.

If you think posters are 'derailing' threads, report them.

Personally, the second I saw the OP I knew the thread was headed in this direction. Mostly because, unlike just about all of the other instances mentioned, there is nothing remotely sexual about the conflict between Haley and Laurin (Crystal being a special case of long long standing rivalry).

Now could the (in)famous "Sneak Attack, Bitch" make an appearance? Sure. But that's just Haley's anti-social nature coming through and nothing particularly sexual.

[johnbragg]

For a non sex related example, Xykon has murdered multiple people in cold blood for no reason. That doesn't mean you can come on the forum and start joking about murdering people. One is a character. The other is you, a real person.

Uh, I think we can and have joked about Xykon murdering people.

The OP joke was framed as a reference to Haley's habits and terminology. The OP even allowed for the option of Laurin's non-skankdom--just because she's attractive (MILF), doesn't mean she's to be denigrated (skank/airborne tramp.) The OP was talking about Haley's perception of and reaction to another female adventurer. Based on Haley's record of interactions with other female adventurers.

That said, this thread probably lost most of its value after the OP posted. Good 5-second joke, whose 5 seconds have long ended. So I exit the thread.

[Porthos]

"Objectification happens to everyone, but since we do still live in a male-dominated society it disproportionately affects women. "

You can, of course, disagree with the statement. But please don't put words in people's mouths by saying that the people saying it are saying it is 'alright' or acceptable.

Because, as far as I can see, no one has said remotely such a thing.

[Haldir]

Forgive me, then. You can take my "alright" not to mean it is acceptable in a literal sense, but rather to mean that one type of sexism is more damaging than another, and therefore should be fought more than the other. This is not a defensible position at all, in my opinion.

[Porthos]

but rather to mean that one type of sexism is more damaging than another, and therefore should be fought more than the other. This is not a defensible position at all, in my opinion.

Depends on how much one agrees with the concept of prioritization, I suppose.

The other counter to the point is that all sexism should be fought. But that since, in the opinion of many, there is much more sexism that negatively affects women, it is only natural that there will be more battles against that than the sexism that negatively affects men.

In other words, don't ignore the sexism that affects men. Just don't be surprised if more of the battles that are discussed are the ones that affect women, because of pure numbers.

I would also, as an aside, say that the notion (which I don't believe has been raised per se but it should still be addressed) that this is a zero-sum game where only 'one side' can be dealt with at any one time by society at large is a particularly silly one, IMO. But getting too deep into that stance is probably outside the scope of this board. :smallwink:

[Koo Rehtorb]

It was a bad joke. Insensitive jokes are only acceptable when they're really funny.

[Euclidodese]

Depends on how much one agrees with the concept of prioritization, I suppose.There's prioritizing differently, and there's near-universally ignoring.

No one's fault of course.
It's just the obvious difficulty of trying to fight the ravages of a traditional gender norm when that norm largely centers around never admitting weakness or asking for help...

But, we're heading in the right direction as a society, as with women, however ponderously.
You can level a mountain with a shovel, so long as the mountain doesn't shovel back.
It's a Mao quote, but that doesn't stop it from being true.

[Nimin]

I got the reference. Doesn't change the fact that a) Laurin has shown no sign of flying and b) the OP went beyond quoting Haley to throw in additional gender-based, slut-shaming insults. Seriously, am I the only person who thinks "Is she a skank or a MILF?" belongs on some frat-boy Maxim forums, not here?
Personally I would say yes. At least speaking of myself. Nothing wrong to see.

[jere7my]

But seriously... Your rage is with Rich, not with the OP.

It is absolutely not. Rich put those words in the mouth of a fictional character; generally speaking, I have no problem with that, and I doubt he's used "tramp" or "skank" to describe any of his characters in his posts or commentaries. Likewise, I don't have a problem with writers who have their characters use racial slurs, but I would still go O_o if someone asked, about an unrelated character of the same race, "So what about X? Is he a {racial slur 1} or more of a lazy {racial slur 2}?"


And we got your disapproval and humourlessness from your first contribution, there's nothing else you really need to add.

"You have no sense of humor." Aw, shoot, I wish I'd brought my BINGO card.


Forgive me, then. You can take my "alright" not to mean it is acceptable in a literal sense, but rather to mean that one type of sexism is more damaging than another, and therefore should be fought more than the other. This is not a defensible position at all, in my opinion.

How about this: Next time it comes up with respect to a male character, poke me and we'll see if I think something should be said. I predict we'll be waiting a long time.


Deconstructing a joke with the sole intention if demeaning it doesn't make it any less funny in the first place. You've done nothing but show your complete lack of a sense of humor again, exemplifying my point.

It would take a better man than me to make that joke less funny.

I'll ask again: Does anyone think it would be appropriate to ask, in a mixed-gender group with women you don't know, "What do you think? Is she a skank or a MILF?" If you don't, why would it be appropriate here?

[Angel Bob]

The OP joke was a bit of a stretch to start with, given that there's nothing sexual about Laurin at all, and furthermore, Haley's "airborne tramp" running gag seems to have ended with Tsukiko. (Ironically enough, Haley has recently been flying around the battlefield herself; not sure how she feels about that.)

Personally, I think the discussion (call it a derailment if you must) that's sprung up since is of much more use to the forums than the initial joke. Although most Playgrounders are pretty affable folks who seem to have their heads screwed on straight, having a discussion about Serious Issues offers a chance for everyone involved to deepen their understanding of said Serious Issues. Thus, I congratulate jere7my for bringing about the discussion and continuing to be a courteous "host", if you will.

That said, there's a distressing lack of discernibly female commenters in this thread, which I find to be both odd and a bit of a shame. Although being a guy doesn't mean you can't talk about sexism, having some actual females here would give some much-needed perspective.

With regards to my own feelings on the subject: I'm personally sickened by the suggestion that Laurin is either a tramp or a MILF, both of which I find to be detestable words. I also applaud Kish's earlier post; keeping that in mind, I must insist that just because Haley slut-shames other female characters doesn't mean a male reader can slut-shame female characters, and to be frank, I'm quite alarmed as to how anyone made that leap of logic. The difference, of course, between Haley's slut-shaming and Xykon's murdering is that the former bleeds too close to the real world, whereas Xykon is so unrealistically evil as to be ridiculous. I think we can all agree, without naming names, that although some humans in history have arguably approached Xykon's calibre of nastiness, they've never done it with the same style. Thus, Xykon's murdering? Acceptable basis for jokes. Haley's slut-shaming? Best to leave that one alone if you're in polite company, ie. the Playground.

Well, that's my two cents. Hope it makes a difference.

[Euclidodese]

I'll ask again: Does anyone think it would be appropriate to ask, in a mixed-gender group with women you don't know, "What do you think? Is she a skank or a MILF?" If you don't, why would it be appropriate here?As stated before, because it is a person suggesting as a joke that we, as a thought experiment guess the feelings of one fictional character about another.

If you can't see the difference between that and what you have suggested... I really don't know what to say.

[jere7my]

As stated before, because it is a person suggesting as a joke that we, as a thought experiment guess the feelings of one fictional character about another.

If you can't see the difference between that and what you have suggested... I really don't know what to say.

So your premise is that the OP was wondering whether Haley thought of Laurin as a MILF? Are you expecting Haley's latent bisexuality to play a larger story role?

[martianmister]

:haley: doesn't have Favoured Enemy (airborne tramp)...

Ironic because Laurin have Favoured Enemy (airborne tramp), and she's using it against Haley...

[AKA_Bait]

The catfolk gal, maybe - but she's elsweyr.

Jacinda objects to your implications of Jacinda's private behavior.

/my interest in contributing to this thread.

[GrayGriffin]

That said, there's a distressing lack of discernibly female commenters in this thread, which I find to be both odd and a bit of a shame. Although being a guy doesn't mean you can't talk about sexism, having some actual females here would give some much-needed perspective.

What am I, chopped liver?

[Euclidodese]

So your premise is that the OP was wondering whether Haley thought of Laurin as a MILF? Are you expecting Haley's latent bisexuality to play a larger story role?Hehe, I can only pray that it never makes a return.
Too soap-opera-y.

[The Oni]

Jacinda objects to your implications of Jacinda's private behavior.

I'm glad somebody caught my Khajit joke.

I'm just saying, she seemed a lot more likely to be promiscuous than Laurin, who's rockin' her Cleopatra cosplay in a white robe most conservative.

[Perseus]

{{scrubbed}}

[Zmeoaice]

I tend to agree, Laurin doesn't appear to be especially promiscuous, so Haley wouldn't be getting any bonuses from it anyway even if she could fly. The catfolk gal, maybe - but she's elsweyr.


She rides a flying carpet. If any member of Tarquin's Team is going to be the flying tramp it's going to be Jacinda.

It could be Shoulder Pads guy since he's not wearing a shirt. But we haven't seen him fly, so I'm betting Jacinda.

[Ramien]

{{scrubbed}}

Or, you know, pointing out that some jokes were never really funny to begin with.

[Zmeoaice]

{{scrubbed}}

[jere7my]

{{scrubbed}}

That's makes as much sense as elbow puppies nightflounder.

[Porthos]

{{scrubbed}}

Clearly you didn't see the jokes in 1893-1923 that were the standard of the day toward women (or later for that matter).

The ones about suffragettes were... Well, Google for yourself. Especially the cartoons/propaganda against suffragettes back in the day.

Mind, I suggest not linking them back in this thread for several reasons. :smallwink:

[Zmeoaice]

{{scrubbed}}

[Math_Mage]

As stated before, because it is a person suggesting as a joke that we, as a thought experiment guess the feelings of one fictional character about another.

If you can't see the difference between that and what you have suggested... I really don't know what to say.
Except the post doesn't say, "Would Haley think of Laurin not so much of a skank as a MILF?" It says, "Is Laurin not so much of a skank as a MILF?" It is requesting our opinion about Laurin, not Haley's--from the starting presumption that she is somewhere between tramp, skank, and MILF. Not cool.


What am I, chopped liver?
You're probably someone whose post he missed. Or the exception that proves the rule. I don't think it's necessarily inappropriate to describe a situation with one girl and thirty guys as "lacking girls."


No.

All jokes they say are offensive funny to anyone who isn't oversensitive
Bull. Some (not all) offensive jokes are otherwise unfunny; their value is only to people who think sensitivity is absurd. This is leaving aside that offensive jokes can fall flat just as inoffensive ones can.

[jere7my]

{{scrubbed}}

Nope, sorry, still elbow puppies nightflounder. Some offensive jokes are actually funny, but a lot of them—including the one at the top of this thread, which barely qualifies as a joke and involves more stretching than my cat—just ain't.

[Zmeoaice]

Nope, sorry, still elbow puppies nightflounder. Some offensive jokes are actually funny, but a lot of them—including the one at the top of this thread, which barely qualifies as a joke and involves more stretching than my cat—just ain't.

But claiming that a joke isn't funny because it is offensive doesn't make the joke not funny.

But I agree the top comment wasn't funny because it was poorly made.

[Ramien]

But claiming that a joke isn't funny because it is offensive doesn't make the joke not funny.

But I agree the top comment wasn't funny because it was poorly made.

But claiming that

{{scrubbed}} is equally fallacious. Some things are rightfully called offensive, even by people who aren't oversensitive

[ti'esar]

Honestly, Laurin has attracted so much of this kind of discussion since her introduction, with so little in-comic basis for it, that I kind of feel like there's something deeper (and creepier) than just sexism going on.

[Megsie]

Since there does seem to be a shortage of womens' opinions, I'll add mine.

There are probably quite a few women who read these forums regularly but don't feel comfortable posting, some in part because of threads like this or the other one about Laurin. In that way, jere7my's analogy of making ridiculous quips like this one in the company of women one doesn't know well is right on the money.

Although I think that anyone who doesn't understand why the OP is objectionable right away is beyond having it explained to them, I'll add my vote to the pile in noting that it is, in fact, objectionable. It's also not funny because it's badly worded, over-explained, and relies on random suppositions that are not, in themselves, either likely or amusing.

[Porthos]

Probably can't really respond to this properly do to the nature of the Forum Rules and whatnot, so I think I will simply say that I do not agree with your objection here and leave it at that. :smallsmile:

[Spoomeister]

I got the reference. Doesn't change the fact that a) Laurin has shown no sign of flying and b) the OP went beyond quoting Haley to throw in additional gender-based, slut-shaming insults. Seriously, am I the only person who thinks "Is she a skank or a MILF?" belongs on some frat-boy Maxim forums, not here?

I see a lot of dudes telling me I overreacted. I don't see a lot of women contributing to this thread.

I flagged one of the posts in the thread, to try to summon a mod, to see if this thread is the sort of discussion the forum owners are ok with. Whether or not this thread is locked in the next couple days should answer your question for you, in my opinion.

[Zmeoaice]

{{scrubbed}}

[Kish]

All right, then. Since we're apparently allowed to do this,

Haley made the "Favored Enemy (Airborne Tramp)" joke.
...Yes, and? Are you suggesting that being a member of a group prevents her from being prejudiced against that group? (An ironic suggestion in a thread that's already mentioned Tsukiko the Living.)

In fact, I would say Haley has recently been dethroned as the most sexist character in the webcomic, by Tarquin. (Still has the title of the only one who's actually used the word "slut," unless I'm forgetting someone.) As I previously commented, there were any number of legitimate insults she could have thrown at Tsukiko; instead of any of them, she chose "skanky" and "tramp."

[Dragonus45]

{{scrubbed}}

[Euclidodese]

Except the post doesn't say, "Would Haley think of Laurin not so much of a skank as a MILF?" It says, "Is Laurin not so much of a skank as a MILF?" It is requesting our opinion about Laurin, not Haley's--from the starting presumption that she is somewhere between tramp, skank, and MILF. Not cool.No.
The question is: 'Does she qualify for the Airborne Skank Bonus.'
Since the bonus, and therefore the attributes needed to qualify for it exist purely in Haley's imagination, (since she invented the fictitious bonus, as a joke) this means: 'Does Haley categorize her as a skank?'

If the bonus was real (including home-brewed), you would be right. It isn't, so you are not.

[Dragonus45]

No.
The question is: 'Does she qualify for the Airborne Skank Bonus.'
Since the bonus, and therefore the attributes needed to qualify for it exist purely in Haley's imagination, (since she invented the fictitious bonus, as a joke) this means: 'Does Haley categorize her as a skank?'

If the bonus was real (including home-brewed), you would be right. It isn't, so you are not.

At that point your getting into a conversation about the thoughts of a fictional character, which means you are asking for a judgement from the people involved.

[Ramien]

{{scrubbed}}
Really? This is the only discussion that I've seen like this. Well maybe the theory that her "favor" from Tarquin is sex, although that's more about Tarquin than Laurin.

How on earth do you think that claiming her favor would be sex says anything at all about Tarquin? It's putting thoughts in Laurin's head regarding how she views the world, and says a lot more about how Laurin is viewed than it ever could about Tarquin.

And yes, jokes can be too offensive to ever be considered funny, especially once they become removed from the original circle the joke was meant for. Context is a huge factor in humor, after all. Try telling the wrong joke at a funeral sometime and see how that goes for you. Any successful comedian will tell you that knowing your audience is an important part of humor. What can fly marginally in an all-male group, for example will often and rightly fall flat in mixed company, because it can be insulting to women. The original 'joke' in this thread is a good example of that.

[GrayGriffin]

How on earth do you think that claiming her favor would be sex says anything at all about Tarquin? It's putting thoughts in Laurin's head regarding how she views the world, and says a lot more about how Laurin is viewed than it ever could about Tarquin.

And yes, jokes can be too offensive to ever be considered funny, especially once they become removed from the original circle the joke was meant for. Context is a huge factor in humor, after all. Try telling the wrong joke at a funeral sometime and see how that goes for you. Any successful comedian will tell you that knowing your audience is an important part of humor. What can fly marginally in an all-male group, for example will often and rightly fall flat in mixed company, because it can be insulting to women. The original 'joke' in this thread is a good example of that.

Quite frankly, I find the idea that men will not joke about things that they know are insulting to women only if women are present even more disturbing. I personally do not mind if my male friends make sexual jokes around me, as long as those jokes are not degrading to women.

[Ramien]

Quite frankly, I find the idea that men will not joke about things that they know are insulting to women only if women are present even more disturbing. I personally do not mind if my male friends make sexual jokes around me, as long as those jokes are not degrading to women.

I don't blame you there - my wife is the same way. I was just trying to come up with a situation appropriate example of when a joke would work in one audience yet still be offensive to others outside that audience. I chose that example because it is very common, sadly.

[AgentofHellfire]

I got the reference. Doesn't change the fact that a) Laurin has shown no sign of flying and b) the OP went beyond quoting Haley to throw in additional gender-based, slut-shaming insults. Seriously, am I the only person who thinks "Is she a skank or a MILF?" belongs on some frat-boy Maxim forums, not here?

I see a lot of dudes telling me I overreacted. I don't see a lot of women contributing to this thread.

Okay, ser:

Using the tramp/MILF term in this context isn't really defining a character by sexuality. It's using a preexisting meme in the storyline to create a joke by making a slight twist on it.

...and that meme, I might add, is based off of a genre convention that used to exist of the female lead and the female sub-villain fighting each other. Or that's what I got from it.

It does not indicate that anyone making the joke actually thinks of her as a MILF, nor would it cause readers to do so. It's just a cigar.


How on earth do you think that claiming her favor would be sex says anything at all about Tarquin? It's putting thoughts in Laurin's head regarding how she views the world, and says a lot more about how Laurin is viewed than it ever could about Tarquin.

...though I will agree that the people putting this idea forward were probably *****. That in no way makes the joke definitively dickish, though.

[AKA_Bait]

Using the tramp/MILF term in this context isn't really defining a character by sexuality. It's using a preexisting meme in the storyline to create a joke by making a slight twist on it.

When has the comic used the term MILF? I have some trouble seeing that term being used in a non-sexual context, given the meaning of the acronym. Tramp, at least, has some non-sexual, non-gendered definitions (e.g., Lady and the Tramp).

I know I said I wouldn't be back but I just couldn't help myself.

[Porthos]

When has the comic used the term MILF?

Check the title (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html) for Comic #494 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0494.html). :smallwink:

[AKA_Bait]

Check the title (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html) for Comic #494 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0494.html). :smallwink:

You got me there. However, there are sexual references/jokes going on in that strip (and the next one).

Also, one example is hardly a meme.

[Dragonus45]

Quite frankly, I find the idea that men will not joke about things that they know are insulting to women only if women are present even more disturbing. I personally do not mind if my male friends make sexual jokes around me, as long as those jokes are not degrading to women.

Speaking from a male point of view, its less not telling the jokes because its insulting and more not telling the joke because a man telling a joke that risks crossing a woman's individual line, which can vary a lot just like anyone else. But for a man the social punishment for that can be very severe so we tend to ere on the side of caution.

[faden]

I just had to laugh at the update, Laurin got that slight bit of sexualization that you were fighting over, albeit as a teenage crush.

[AgentofHellfire]

When has the comic used the term MILF? I have some trouble seeing that term being used in a non-sexual context, given the meaning of the acronym. Tramp, at least, has some non-sexual, non-gendered definitions (e.g., Lady and the Tramp).

I know I said I wouldn't be back but I just couldn't help myself.


"Terms Haley uses to refer to women she dislikes", or "Haleyisms".

(She hasn't specifically used that term, but it's a subversion, so that's the point)

[The Giant]

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the original "joke" in this thread was a stretch, considering the only thing she has in common with a "Airborne Tramp" is…nothing. No, literally—nothing. She has been depicted as neither flying nor sexually promiscuous, and those are the only two words in the original reference. The only thing she has in common with any of the characters Haley was referring to with the original joke was that she is female, which means that as far as the OP goes, being female is enough to prompt the mental association. That's not really OK.

Laurin is a female character probably in her late 50's who is covered from head to toe and has never discussed anything sexual at all. I made a deliberate effort to not sexualize her, even, since I realized a while ago that I was subconsciously "sexing up" almost all of the female characters. The fact that she still rates these kind of comments is very disappointing.

Regarding Haley's fairly persistent slut-shaming…all I can do is apologize for that. I have no excuse except my own shortcomings and lack of self-awareness. I could try to say that because of the environment that Haley was raised in (a literal criminal gang), she hasn't had the education or experience to not fall in line and perpetuate those sort of harmful labels on her own gender. I could say that, but that would be justifying it after the fact. The truth is, I didn't think it was a problem at the time. I've known so many women (many in the lower class, like Haley) who would drop those insults at other women in a fight that I was just trying to add authenticity. In my experience, some women are quicker to slut-shame other women than even men. So I was going for accuracy in how a woman might insult other women, but you know what? It's still not acceptable. I'm still producing a piece of media consumed by young women, and I have a responsibility to do better.

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.

And, for the record, "You're oversensitive," is not a valid defense for saying something offensive on this message board. The initial joke was mildly offensive; some of the responses defending it have been much more so. And references to political movements of the past are right out. Scrubbing may be in order.

[GrayGriffin]

Thank you so much for that, Giant. I really wish I could have explained things as eloquently as you did, but I'll be the first to admit I'm young and inexperienced in explaining this kind of thing. I do hope that I was able to convey my feelings in this thread properly, though.

[Shale]

Laurin is a female character probably in her late 50's who is covered from head to toe and has never discussed anything sexual at all. I made a deliberate effort to not sexualize her, even, since I realized a while ago that I was subconsciously "sexing up" almost all of the female characters. The fact that she still rates these kind of comments is very disappointing.

From your mouth and/or keyboard to God's ears. Every time there's a new "Laurin was sleeping with [X]" post I die a little.

[adulus]

Regarding Haley's fairly persistent slut-shaming…all I can do is apologize for that. I have no excuse except my own shortcomings and lack of self-awareness. I could try to say that because of the environment that Haley was raised in (a literal criminal gang), she hasn't had the education or experience to not fall in line and perpetuate those sort of harmful labels on her own gender. I could say that, but that would be justifying it after the fact. The truth is, I didn't think it was a problem at the time. I've known so many women (many in the lower class, like Haley) who would drop those insults at other women in a fight that I was just trying to add authenticity. In my experience, some women are quicker to slut-shame other women than even men. So I was going for accuracy in how a woman might insult other women, but you know what? It's still not acceptable. I'm still producing a piece of media consumed by young women, and I have a responsibility to do better.

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.

Not to suck up or anything, but I think you've done a good job characterizing Haley. If you had told me, "Insecure, paranoid rogue pines after attractive, quirky bard but can't spit it out" I would have told you the rogue was male and the bard female. Every day of the week. She explicitly chose her own outfit to remind people she was an attractive woman and has explicitly shown lusting after Elan, but that was not her character or even much of her character. All of this has just been treated as totally normal and mundane which is what really sells it. In my humble opinion, this puts you ahead of about 90 or 95 percent of fantasy literature.

But don't have her just stop with the slut-shaming. It's unrealistic to have the good guys always shouting "Stop, evildoer!" and the bad guys always the ones throwing slurs. If fantasy doesn't tell you about real life, it's just escapism, right? I'm truly happy that you recognize that having a main character calling the women she fights sluts while mentioning nothing about the sexuality of the men is not OK. But you, of all writers, I trust to be able to address it without being preachy or terrible about it.


And, for the record, "You're oversensitive," is not a valid defense for saying something offensive on this message board. The initial joke was mildly offensive; some of the responses defending it have been much more so. And references to political movements of the past are right out. Scrubbing may be in order.

Thank you. All this stuff about "offended" and "overreacting" is just a thin veil for "I don't wan't to talk about it" You're damn straight I will get offended if someone starts supporting, say, eugenics. People will discuss humor and sometimes they will get vehement about it. "You're overreacting" is not a get out of jail free card that means you're automatically right and I'm wrong.

Look, we can criticize the comic and still enjoy it. Do I think the characterization of women in this comic is perfect? Frankly, no. Do I still enjoy this comic and want it to improve? Yes. That's the point of criticism.

[Dragonus45]

Thank you. All this stuff about "offended" and "overreacting" is just a thin veil for "I don't wan't to talk about it" You're damn straight I will get offended if someone starts supporting, say, eugenics. People will discuss humor and sometimes they will get vehement about it. "You're overreacting" is not a get out of jail free card that means you're automatically right and I'm wrong.


I agree with you there on the overreacting line being used far to often in comedy, i just always have thought of humor as being offensive by its very nature. Its sort of built in, or perhaps offensive isn't the right word, but its the closest i can find to define how I feel about humor and how it pushes and blurs the lines of acceptability. In the end though I guess my philosophy on the subject is that quality is its own justification, and when a joke isn't funny it isn't funny and loses and reason to exist, thus causing it to be offensive. That came out a little weird but I can't think of a better way to put it. As to the women in the comic I must say I love the way they are portrayed so far, all them are real people. That's just about the highest praise I can think of The Giants characterizations.

[Cerussite]

Regarding Haley's fairly persistent slut-shaming…all I can do is apologize for that. I have no excuse except my own shortcomings and lack of self-awareness. I could try to say that because of the environment that Haley was raised in (a literal criminal gang), she hasn't had the education or experience to not fall in line and perpetuate those sort of harmful labels on her own gender. I could say that, but that would be justifying it after the fact. The truth is, I didn't think it was a problem at the time. I've known so many women (many in the lower class, like Haley) who would drop those insults at other women in a fight that I was just trying to add authenticity. In my experience, some women are quicker to slut-shame other women than even men. So I was going for accuracy in how a woman might insult other women, but you know what? It's still not acceptable. I'm still producing a piece of media consumed by young women, and I have a responsibility to do better.

You've nothing to be ashamed of or to apologize for. Saying the leads can't do something because it 'sends a bad message to young women' sounds very silly to me. You're a writer of fiction, not a moral tutor for the audience.

Characters' flaws are what makes them interesting in the end of the day. Might as well remove her greed while she's at it since it's also a bad message to send.

[GrayGriffin]

I agree with you there on the overreacting line being used far to often in comedy, i just always have thought of humor as being offensive by its very nature. Its sort of built in, or perhaps offensive isn't the right word, but its the closest i can find to define how I feel about humor and how it pushes and blurs the lines of acceptability. In the end though I guess my philosophy on the subject is that quality is its own justification, and when a joke isn't funny it isn't funny and loses and reason to exist, thus causing it to be offensive. That came out a little weird but I can't think of a better way to put it.

Humor is naturally offensive? Do we have the same definition of "humor"? Go into any children's section of any bookstore and you'll find books upon books of child-friendly jokes that are completely unoffensive and yet amusing.

[The Giant]

But don't have her just stop with the slut-shaming. It's unrealistic to have the good guys always shouting "Stop, evildoer!" and the bad guys always the ones throwing slurs.

Well, I think it's as simple as having Haley call someone an asswipe or a piece of dog crap instead of a tramp or a slut. There's no reason her insults need to be sexuality-oriented, but that doesn't mean she's going to stop slinging insults.

[AgentofHellfire]

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the original "joke" in this thread was a stretch, considering the only thing she has in common with a "Airborne Tramp" is…nothing. No, literally—nothing. She has been depicted as neither flying nor sexually promiscuous, and those are the only two words in the original reference. The only thing she has in common with any of the characters Haley was referring to with the original joke was that she is female, which means that as far as the OP goes, being female is enough to prompt the mental association. That's not really OK.

Not just being female, though! Being part of that old trope where the female lead fights the female sub-villain, again. :smallsmile:

As for your thoughts on Haley's insults, well...I actually could think of numerous positive messages her calling people tramps could send (look at what the giver of the insult is wearing, and then realize that the story implies she isn't a slut/tramp/whatever, and then yeah), but I will mostly keep silent on this.

[Dragonus45]

Humor is naturally offensive? Do we have the same definition of "humor"? Go into any children's section of any bookstore and you'll find books upon books of child-friendly jokes that are completely unoffensive and yet amusing.

Most of which are only funny to children, but if you look at any stand up comic alive right now, or even listen to ANY joke made among your friends, someone is always the but of the joke. Even most punchlines in the strip tend to be at one person or anothers expense. Like I said offensive doesn't feel like the right word but the closest other word I can think of is combative which I feel like is also missing a key point. It's not what i would call a universal rule of humor, but i feel it encompasses a great deal of it.


Well, I think it's as simple as having Haley call someone an asswipe or a piece of dog crap instead of a tramp or a slut. There's no reason her insults need to be sexuality-oriented, but that doesn't mean she's going to stop slinging insults.

True, that captures her character as being fairly foul mouthed without having her devolve into insulting a persons sexual preferences.

[adulus]

Well, I think it's as simple as having Haley call someone an asswipe or a piece of dog crap instead of a tramp or a slut. There's no reason her insults need to be sexuality-oriented, but that doesn't mean she's going to stop slinging insults.

Sorry if my post was written badly. That's exactly what I hope you do. But if bad guys are the only racists and sexists in the story it's just as lazy as if bad guys never care about their family.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: This Thread didn't start in a good place. I'm locking it for review, and likely for good.

[The Giant]

You've nothing to be ashamed of or to apologize for. Saying the leads can't do something because it 'sends a bad message to young women' sounds very silly to me. You're a writer of fiction, not a moral tutor for the audience.

It's my decision about how I want my work to be perceived. I've come to my own conclusions about what I want my work to say, and without exception, I want to stand against racism and sexism and homophobia and classism and all the other forms of discrimination and dehumanization that take place in our society. I want to be part of the solution. And if that means taking a hard look at what I wrote in the past when maybe I didn't think as much about these things, then that's what it means.

I'm writing a fantasy story here, which means I can pretty much do one of two things if I want to make a difference: I can either relate the situations in the story allegorically to situations in the real world and use them to make a larger point, or I can use the fantasy world that I'm making to show a world that doesn't have those problems. I managed to do this with race, but I fell down on the job when it comes to gender.


Characters' flaws are, what makes them interesting in the end of the day. Might as well remove her greed while she's at it since it's also a bad message to send.

A character flaw is only a flaw if it is acknowledged and addressed within the narrative as being so. If it's just left to stand in a heroic character without comment, it becomes something that is transmitted to audience as being acceptable. If I had other characters looking at Haley and pointing out the problems with what she's doing, that would be wholly valid as a character flaw for her. I haven't done that. I have done that with her greed, or her trust issues, or Roy's early sexism toward Miko, or V's pride, or any number of other intentional character flaws. So, no, this isn't a case of an intentional character flaw, this was a flaw in me, the author, that I simply failed to screen out.

And Mark, while I'm totally down with you reviewing this thread for violations, at this point I'm engaging in this conversation and would like to keep it open. Thanks.

[CaDzilla]

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.



Just wondering, does Tarquin see everybody in the world as cardboard cutouts? When he was apologizing to Malack about his children, was he just doing that to give what he thought, at the time, was a pet the dog moment? Also, how did he see his female teamates?

[Kish]

{SCRUBBED}


Just wondering, does Tarquin see everybody in the world as cardboard cutouts? When he was apologizing to Malack about his children, was he just doing that to give what he thought, at the time, was a pet the dog moment? Also, how did he see his female teamates?
I'm not Rich, of course, but I do remember him saying, back when the Order was still fighting the army, that Tarquin considered that there were two people in the scene--himself and Elan--and everyone else there was window dressing, Laurin and Miron included.

[Aard_Rinn]

Just tossing this out there...

I thought that this was a funny joke. Not really worthy of a thread of it's own, but if it had been posted as an aside in the Disscussion Thread, I would've lolled and moved on... It does seem a bit rude for a separate thread; it's just not that funny, and it's a bit too crude when you add on the skank/milf question. That bit felt unnecessary to the joke, and more like actual slut-shaming.

I thought the original joke (in the comic) was awesome. It was insulting, and it was an insult, by a character, in character. It seemed like something Haley would say. Nothing there to take offense at, really...

And I am a woman, since some people feel that matters for discussions like this. So... :smallconfused:

[Dragonus45]

A character flaw is only a flaw if it is acknowledged and addressed within the narrative as being so. If it's just left to stand in a heroic character without comment, it becomes something that is transmitted to audience as being acceptable.

You know I had never thought of the concept of character flaws in quite that way. It makes a fair bit of sense. So do you think its possible to have a flawed character who is portrayed as flawed but not called out on specific flaws. Or is it just to easy to for people to pick what they felt was wrong and ignore what makes them uncomfortable in a character meaning the author to a degree needs to have some element of the story call them out on it, or at least frame it as being acknowledged wrong by the author as wrong. I had always thought of flaws as being self evident meaning the author had no need to call them out.

[Zmeoaice]

As for your thoughts on Haley's insults, well...I actually could think of numerous positive messages her calling people tramps could send (look at what the giver of the insult is wearing, and then realize that the story implies she isn't a slut/tramp/whatever, and then yeah), but I will mostly keep silent on this.

You mean that Haley's current outfit is "slutty" so her calling other women tramps or skanks for wearing revealing clothing would be hypocritical?

[AgentofHellfire]

Just wondering, does Tarquin see everybody in the world as cardboard cutouts? When he was apologizing to Malack about his children, was he just doing that to give what he thought, at the time, was a pet the dog moment?

I think that was just him escaping death. :smalltongue: (but still serious)

[AgentofHellfire]

You mean that Haley's current outfit is "slutty" so her calling other women tramps or skanks for wearing revealing clothing would be hypocritical?

Well, that or "revealing clothing (and/or promiscuity, although my sense that Haley probably has a promiscuous streak might just be me) doesn't make you a tramp".

[The Giant]

You know I had never thought of the concept of character flaws in quite that way. It makes a fair bit of sense. So do you think its possible to have a flawed character who is portrayed as flawed but not called out on specific flaws. Or is it just to easy to for people to pick what they felt was wrong and ignore what makes them uncomfortable in a character meaning the author to a degree needs to have some element of the story call them out on it, or at least frame it as being acknowledged wrong by the author as wrong.

More the latter. No one needs to stand and tell the character, "What you're doing is wrong!" if the general thrust of the story implies that it is. It's really only an issue for heroes, because there's an implicit assumption that a heroic character is Heroic Unless Proven Otherwise.

[Cerussite]

It's my decision about how I want my work to be perceived. I've come to my own conclusions about what I want my work to say, and without exception, I want to stand against racism and sexism and homophobia and classism and all the other forms of discrimination and dehumanization that take place in our society. I want to be part of the solution. And if that means taking a hard look at what I wrote in the past when maybe I didn't think as much about these things, then that's what it means.

I'm writing a fantasy story here, which means I can pretty much do one of two things if I want to make a difference: I can either relate the situations in the story allegorically to situations in the real world and use them to make a larger point, or I can use the fantasy world that I'm making to show a world that doesn't have those problems. I managed to do this with race, but I fell down on the job when it comes to gender.


Fair enough. If such is your wish to portray one such world, I have no objection to that. I had felt from your first post that you were acquiescing to the wishes of a society that doesn't accept the portrayal of some behaviors, even when it's an accurate one. I see that I was wrong, and it makes all the difference that you actually believe what you preach.

[Dragonus45]

Just wondering, does Tarquin see everybody in the world as cardboard cutouts? When he was apologizing to Malack about his children, was he just doing that to give what he thought, at the time, was a pet the dog moment? Also, how did he see his female teamates?

Honestly I would say that the T really views the entire world as meaningless objects that exist only to further his own life and narrative. It's sociopathic narcissism, along side machiavellianism taken to such an extreme that even his own sons are just puppets on his a stage, better animated ones with movable eye brows and facial expressions but puppets all the same. The other side of that coin though is that narcissists need validation and recognition from the same people they view as only having value in relation to the. They need that world view to be validated, and i think that's the closes to a real apology a person from his perspective could ever give. As to his female teamates probably the same as everyone else alive, at least he manages to equal opportunity in his dismissal of the importance of the entire cosmos.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Well, that or "revealing clothing (and/or promiscuity, although my sense that Haley probably has a promiscuous streak might just be me) doesn't make you a tramp".

It's not just you; I feel the same way too. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that! In fact, I think it's a good thing that Haley is a sexual character while still being intelligent and competent in her own right. You don't see that nearly as often as you should.

[Math_Mage]

No.
The question is: 'Does she qualify for the Airborne Skank Bonus.'
Since the bonus, and therefore the attributes needed to qualify for it exist purely in Haley's imagination, (since she invented the fictitious bonus, as a joke) this means: 'Does Haley categorize her as a skank?'

If the bonus was real (including home-brewed), you would be right. It isn't, so you are not.
Leaving aside that you're really stretching here...Quoting a different part of the post from the one I quoted doesn't mean I'm wrong about the part I quoted, it just means you think a different part makes a different argument. I'm pretty sure I don't have to show that OP was never ever talking about Haley's perception of Laurin. Showing that OP was talking about how we the audience do/should perceive Laurin is sufficient to pose a problem.


Sorry if my post was written badly. That's exactly what I hope you do. But if bad guys are the only racists and sexists in the story it's just as lazy as if bad guys never care about their family.
That's not the issue, though. The issue is if racism and sexism are presented uncritically. Good characters can be racist or sexist, but they're character flaws, not just character traits.

EDIT: Whoops, I should read all the Giant's posts before I post to avoid being ninja'd by a giant. You'd think giants would make pretty poor ninjas, but hey.

[AgentofHellfire]

It's not just you; I feel the same way too. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that! In fact, I think it's a good thing that Haley is a sexual character while still being intelligent and competent in her own right. You don't see that nearly as often as you should.


:smallbiggrin: I appreciate the implication that I am a progressive writer. :smalltongue:

(I'm actually pretty unconcerned with where my writing falls on the prejudice spectrum, although I tend to think my own personal tastes direct me towards work that's pretty liberal, if a bit imperialist in nature)

[CaDzilla]

I

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.



Several other questions about Tarquin's group and Tarquin himself: if Tarquin is so misogynistic, why did he recruit two women into his group instead of just taking the convention of smurfetting? Did Tarquin know that Malack was a vampire when he first recruited him, and if so how did he react? Is Tarquin named after the first or second real life one? Does he give equal pay to lizardfolk employees?

[The Giant]

Fair enough. If such is your wish to portray one such world, I have no objection to that. I had felt from your first post that you were acquiescing to the wishes of a society that doesn't accept the portrayal of some behaviors, even when it's an accurate one. I see that I was wrong, and it makes all the difference that you actually believe what you preach.

If I was writing a gritty realistic story about a woman living as a career criminal in New York, I would have every right to defend my dialogue choices for her as realistic or accurate. But I lose that defense the moment I have a character wiggle their fingers and shoot a ball of fire at a giant flying lizard, much less have the characters spout off about their hit points and Spot checks.

[AgentofHellfire]

Leaving aside that you're really stretching here...Quoting a different part of the post from the one I quoted doesn't mean I'm wrong about the part I quoted, it just means you think a different part makes a different argument. I'm pretty sure I don't have to show that OP was never ever talking about Haley's perception of Laurin. Showing that OP was talking about how we the audience do/should perceive Laurin is sufficient to pose a problem.

He was talking about how they (I don't, and would resent the implication that I did) perceive Laurin--and hanging a lampshade over it. I don't know if that would cause the same problem.

[The Oni]

On an entirely serious note which I'm sure the Giant will dismiss, but I'm submitting anyway in a Death-of-the-author sort of way, I'd like to submit the pet theory that Haley's insults towards women always being gendered is because of Haley's Latent Bisexuality. She was raised to keep everything hidden...

[mhsmith]

Maybe one way to salvage the stuff Haley has said in the past is to give her a learning experience. Maybe it's too late in the Tarquin saga, but something which drives home "Tarquin is a real jerk for the things he's been saying, maybe I should try and not go down that path either" or perhaps something where she actually does sexually insult Laurin and it doesn't go over well at all? Or maybe have that lesson pop up in a future book? There's something to be said for trying to instill a "here's how you should act" lesson as part of a character's growth, when that's feasible within the existing framework of the story.

[Sylian]

If I was writing a gritty realistic story about a woman living as a career criminal in New York, I would have every right to defend my dialogue choices for her as realistic or accurate. But I lose that defense the moment I have a character wiggle their fingers and shoot a ball of fire at a giant flying lizard, much less have the characters spout off about their hit points and Spot checks.Well, if you were writing an allegory, you could justify realistic dialogue even in a world with magic and dragons. That being said, that's not really what you're doing, so your point still stands.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if the protagonists have flaws, but if you want to avoid confusing the audience, you might want to make it clear that these character traits are flaws, or else you risk helping people associate the flaw with something good. An obvious example would be if the hero were also racist, and the narrative never pointed out that racism is bad. I think your story has done a great job so far regarding this issue, although it sometimes takes a while for you to point out that the flaws were, in fact, flaws, such as with Redcloak and hobgoblin racism (and human xenophobia/racism, though that seems to be played off more as a joke. It's still a little problematic, because Redcloak was meant to be sympathetic, and yet he hates humans for shallow reasons), and V's initial disdain for the value of black dragon lives.

Come to think of it, it is slightly problematic, actually. Perhaps I'm threading on thin ice here, but hear me out: The black dragon thing, which has been discussed over and over again on this forum. Now that we've given a proper perspective of it all, or at least I assume so, we can clearly see that V's lack of concern toward black dragon lives is problematic. Before V pointed this out, however, many people on these boards thought that what V did wasn't problematic at all.

Why is it problematic that some people thought that? Well, the main reason is time, I believe. It took a long time before we got an official answer to the question, and during that time, many people kept believing that it was right to kill the black dragons without concern, even if they thought that it might have been problematic to kill the half-dragons, or the humans with dragon blood. This kind of reasoning could, potentially, influence the way they think about real life issues.

Do I think that this comic has turned anyone racist? No, probably not. Has it made people more racist overall? I doubt it. In many ways, the comic probably helps to spread tolerance for different people, which is admirable, especially considering that it is a webcomic with stick figures. That being said, given enough media exposure, I think that issues like this could influence how some people think.

So, my point is, well: Keep in mind what signals you're sending out. You could, for instance, have a character act really sexist and all, like Roy did towards Miko, but if that had kept on for three years instead of just a few months, then I think it could potentially have some (very slight, but it might add up) effects on some of the readers.

[AgentofHellfire]

Come to think of it, it is slightly problematic, actually. Perhaps I'm threading on thin ice here, but hear me out: The black dragon thing, which has been discussed over and over again on this forum. Now that we've given a proper perspective of it all, or at least I assume so, we can clearly see that V's lack of concern toward black dragon lives is problematic. Before V pointed this out, however, many people on these boards thought that what V did wasn't problematic at all.

Why is it problematic that some people thought that? Well, the main reason is time, I believe. It took a long time before we got an official answer to the question, and during that time, many people kept believing that it was right to kill the black dragons without concern, even if they thought that it might have been problematic to kill the half-dragons, or the humans with dragon blood. This kind of reasoning could, potentially, influence the way they think about real life issues.

1. The reasoning didn't exist because of the comic, though. It existed because of the existing lore on black dragons being what it is.
2. Before V brought the problems up, V's mass murder wasn't even really a thought about topic. It wasn't discussed further than in passing in the comic. So I wouldn't say that the comic really portrayed it as being okay.
3. As for Redcloak--he's sympathetic, but he's still evil. What he's doing is still obviously considered wrong.

[Math_Mage]

He was talking about how they (I don't, and would resent the implication that I did) perceive Laurin--and hanging a lampshade over it. I don't know if that would cause the same problem.
I can't really respond to this because I don't know what "they" is attached to. But I don't think OP was merely lampshading Haley's attitudes.

[AgentofHellfire]

I can't really respond to this because I don't know what "they" is attached to. But I don't think OP was merely lampshading Haley's attitudes.

"They" is attached to the rest of the audience/Haley.

But anyhow, why would you say it isn't a lampshade? The OP was using those attitudes as the start of a joke. He was laughing at those attitudes. That kind of has to be lampshading.

(Unless you think he was calling Laurin a tramp, which I find even more unlikely, but...)

[Zrak]

I think part of the difficulty is that Haley's slut-shaming is not so much a personal flaw as it is indicative of a problematic linguistic trend; I never thought Haley's comments reflected an actual opinion about female promiscuity, but rather a cultural trend of gendered insults against women being primarily based in slut-shaming. In other words, as no more literal (and no less problematic) than gendered insults against men either questioning their sexuality or impugning their masculinity. I don't mean to say that this excuses such behavior, but it makes it a lot more difficult to portray. It's easier to show Roy's behavior towards Miko is problematic because the problem is in his attitudes, even if those attitudes are socially enforced; Haley's use of potentially problematic language is different in that it doesn't reflect an actual belief on her part.

I don't mean this to say it's not worth taking a hard look at what you've written in the past, but as something to consider when taking that look. I don't think Haley having avoided that language all along would necessarily present a critical engagement with its use — I don't think Haley avoiding gendered insults would have the same impact as the comic making no mention of Roy's race. It would make her behavior less problematic, certainly, but I think an opportunity for engagement with her problematic language, however accidental, is more productive than for it to have never happened in the first place. I think the potential to both learn and teach is greater, here, than it would be has Haley simply always used non-gendered insults. I think it's important to show that it's very easy to be perpetuate the insidious forms of discrimination and oppression that are woven into the fabric of our discourse, even for those with the most progressive attitudes or the best intentions.

Sometimes, we plan flaws in our characters and sometimes we find them; I think what is more important is what the author makes of those flaws than if they were originally intended. All of us, characters and authors alike, can make mistakes without even realizing it; what defines us is how we react when we do realize it.

[Grey Watcher]

On an entirely serious note which I'm sure the Giant will dismiss, but I'm submitting anyway in a Death-of-the-author sort of way, I'd like to submit the pet theory that Haley's insults towards women always being gendered is because of Haley's Latent Bisexuality. She was raised to keep everything hidden...

I actually like this idea. And who knows, maybe a Watsonian-Freudian justification for the slut-shaming dialogue disappearing could be that, now that she's openly involved with Elan and not massively geographically separated from him, her sexuality in general is fairly well-satisfied, so there's less fuel for the Latent Bisexual fire.

Of course, as I write it, this theory is skewing awfully close to the "All you need is a good man..." line of reasoning, which I find utterly repugnant, so I think I'm just going to dunk my head in bleach and try to forget about it.

(That said, part of me would like it if Haley's Latent Bisexuality became Haley's Bisexuality. Openly gay characters are pretty rare, openly bi characters even moreso.)

[Math_Mage]

"They" is attached to the rest of the audience/Haley.

But anyhow, why would you say it isn't a lampshade? The OP was using those attitudes as the start of a joke. He was laughing at those attitudes. That kind of has to be lampshading.

(Unless you think he was calling Laurin a tramp, which I find even more unlikely, but...)
See, I don't think OP was lampshading "those attitudes" so much as wallowing in them. As a joke about people who think of Laurin that way, it doesn't even make sense; it's merely a joke that relies on thinking of Laurin that way.


I actually like this idea. And who knows, maybe a Watsonian-Freudian justification for the slut-shaming dialogue disappearing could be that, now that she's openly involved with Elan and not massively geographically separated from him, her sexuality in general is fairly well-satisfied, so there's less fuel for the Latent Bisexual fire.

Of course, as I write it, this theory is skewing awfully close to the "All you need is a good man..." line of reasoning, which I find utterly repugnant, so I think I'm just going to dunk my head in bleach and try to forget about it.

(That said, part of me would like it if Haley's Latent Bisexuality became Haley's Bisexuality. Openly gay characters are pretty rare, openly bi characters even moreso.)
If I could contrive of a way to do it without unfortunate implications vis-a-vis her relationship with Elan, I'd be all for it.

[AgentofHellfire]

See, I don't think OP was lampshading "those attitudes" so much as wallowing in them. As a joke about people who think of Laurin that way, it doesn't even make sense; it's merely a joke that relies on thinking of Laurin that way.

Or finding people that think of Laurin that way funny, and/or the attitude ridiculous enough to seem a joking caricature.

[The Giant]

Come to think of it, it is slightly problematic, actually. Perhaps I'm threading on thin ice here, but hear me out: The black dragon thing, which has been discussed over and over again on this forum. Now that we've given a proper perspective of it all, or at least I assume so, we can clearly see that V's lack of concern toward black dragon lives is problematic. Before V pointed this out, however, many people on these boards thought that what V did wasn't problematic at all.

Why is it problematic that some people thought that? Well, the main reason is time, I believe. It took a long time before we got an official answer to the question, and during that time, many people kept believing that it was right to kill the black dragons without concern, even if they thought that it might have been problematic to kill the half-dragons, or the humans with dragon blood. This kind of reasoning could, potentially, influence the way they think about real life issues.

Here's the thing: The reason it took "so long" for anyone on-panel to acknowledge that yes, killing a bazillion black dragons is wrong is largely because I thought it was self-evident from the narrative. From the dwindling size of the panels in that strip that blurred together into an unnumbered massacre to the following strip where the literal incarnations of Evil are stunned by the scale of it, I was under the impression that I had made a clear statement about whether it was a good idea or a bad idea. Maybe Vaarsuvius him/herself was unclear, but I didn't consider it even slightly ambiguous on the part of the narrative. Indeed, the very point of the scene was that it was an unjustifiable atrocity. That so many people continued to argue that it wasn't was completely unforeseen on my part, and perhaps fueled largely by feelings from their gaming experiences—not by what I had drawn.

But my point is, the intent was always there to present that as utterly wrong, it just apparently failed to penetrate for some readers. But honestly, like I said upthread, I shouldn't have to have someone speak dialogue saying, "THIS IS BAD!" in order to get the point across that I'm not supporting that thing.

[AgentofHellfire]

If I could contrive of a way to do it without unfortunate implications vis-a-vis her relationship with Elan, I'd be all for it.


Whatever did happen to Elan's belt of gender transformation...:smalltongue:


(It was Elan that gave it to Roy in that one arc)

[Math_Mage]

Or finding people that think of Laurin that way funny, and/or the attitude ridiculous enough to seem a joking caricature.
I think you're applying the principle of charity a little too liberally here. I buy that Wombat simply didn't think it through, but I don't buy that there's a secret troll going on here. There's no indication that this is a joke about those people; the words of the post indicate that it is a joke about Laurin.


Whatever did happen to Elan's belt of gender transformation...:smalltongue:


(It was Elan that gave it to Roy in that one arc)
This, however, is brilliant. :smallbiggrin:

[DaggerPen]

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the original "joke" in this thread was a stretch, considering the only thing she has in common with a "Airborne Tramp" is…nothing. No, literally—nothing. She has been depicted as neither flying nor sexually promiscuous, and those are the only two words in the original reference. The only thing she has in common with any of the characters Haley was referring to with the original joke was that she is female, which means that as far as the OP goes, being female is enough to prompt the mental association. That's not really OK.

Laurin is a female character probably in her late 50's who is covered from head to toe and has never discussed anything sexual at all. I made a deliberate effort to not sexualize her, even, since I realized a while ago that I was subconsciously "sexing up" almost all of the female characters. The fact that she still rates these kind of comments is very disappointing.

Regarding Haley's fairly persistent slut-shaming…all I can do is apologize for that. I have no excuse except my own shortcomings and lack of self-awareness. I could try to say that because of the environment that Haley was raised in (a literal criminal gang), she hasn't had the education or experience to not fall in line and perpetuate those sort of harmful labels on her own gender. I could say that, but that would be justifying it after the fact. The truth is, I didn't think it was a problem at the time. I've known so many women (many in the lower class, like Haley) who would drop those insults at other women in a fight that I was just trying to add authenticity. In my experience, some women are quicker to slut-shame other women than even men. So I was going for accuracy in how a woman might insult other women, but you know what? It's still not acceptable. I'm still producing a piece of media consumed by young women, and I have a responsibility to do better.

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.

And, for the record, "You're oversensitive," is not a valid defense for saying something offensive on this message board. The initial joke was mildly offensive; some of the responses defending it have been much more so. And references to political movements of the past are right out. Scrubbing may be in order.

And this is why The Giant is awesome. Everyone internalizes problematic stuff at some point or the other, but not a lot of people realize that, acknowledge it without excusing it, and learn from it.

[AgentofHellfire]

I think you're applying the principle of charity a little too liberally here. I buy that Wombat simply didn't think it through, but I don't buy that there's a secret troll going on here. There's no indication that this is a joke about those people; the words of the post indicate that it is a joke about Laurin.

At first, that's what the simpler solution would be, but at the same time Laurin isn't really like that at all. It wouldn't make sense for someone to apply that term to her seriously.

(Well, unless it was Belkar. Belkar might actually be attracted to that. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0316.html))

And this level of trolling isn't something like the long-winded posts on why Tarquin is good--it's not even really sarcasm--it's just...making a wry comment about the attitude.


This, however, is brilliant. :smallbiggrin:

*does a bow*

[Zrak]

But my point is, the intent was always there to present that as utterly wrong, it just apparently failed to penetrate for some readers. But honestly, like I said upthread, I shouldn't have to have someone speak dialogue saying, "THIS IS BAD!" in order to get the point across that I'm not supporting that thing.

I think a good comparison to this is the plenitude of readers who found Humbert Humbert sympathetic; the character is so able to rationalize his behavior that we, as readers, can often be taken in by the same lies the characters tell themselves to justify their actions. The strength of this is that it can remind us of our own weaknesses when we catch ourselves agreeing with a character's attempt to justify what we know to be unjustifiable, the difficulty is to make sure that the readers catch themselves without making the justification patently ridiculous.

[Zmeoaice]

If I could contrive of a way to do it without unfortunate implications vis-a-vis her relationship with Elan, I'd be all for it.

Sadly Tsukiko is dead.

Nothing wrong with polyamory though.


Whatever did happen to Elan's belt of gender transformation...:smalltongue:


(It was Elan that gave it to Roy in that one arc)

Durkon has it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0249.html)


And, for the record, "You're oversensitive," is not a valid defense for saying something offensive on this message board. The initial joke was mildly offensive; some of the responses defending it have been much more so. And references to political movements of the past are right out. Scrubbing may be in order.

Obviously saying things certain that are offensive wouldn't be permitted on these boards since it's all encompassing and bans discussions on politics, religion, or other real life issues that are the subject of offensive humor. However, people going to places where such humor is tolerated or encouraged and telling people to stop them is annoying and unnecessary.


...If you think that's what the Giant was getting at, I think you missed the point. If you understand and disagree, you certainly have not given adequate justification for your viewpoint.

I don't think that's what he was getting at, but I felt the need to say what I did, since I used the oversensitive line but wasn't referring to comments on the forum.

[The Oni]

Of course, as I write it, this theory is skewing awfully close to the "All you need is a good man..." line of reasoning, which I find utterly repugnant, so I think I'm just going to dunk my head in bleach and try to forget about it.

I look at it more from the perspective of "Elan is a good person and Haley is happy with monogamy, but is still a little flustered by Tsukiko's short skirts and fishnet." And in all seriousness she has every right to feel uncomfortable about being attracted to the enemy - it could be a hazard in combat. But if Elan happened to be Elaine, she might also be perfectly OK with that.

I dunno what happened to the belt of gender change, but remember that those things are technically cursed items - you can't just take them off at will - so they might've gotten rid of it as it might've become a liability later. In fact, I would guess Roy ditched it at the next available opportunity simply because Belkar was in the party.

[Benthesquid]

This, however, is brilliant. :smallbiggrin:

It would also play into the Opposites theme with Nale- Nale and Sabine have experimented with gender-swapping play, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0365.html) with Sabine changing genders, and Nale is somewhat ashamed of it.

Elan and Haley experiment with gender-swapping play, with Elan changing genders, and they're both cool about it and don't think it's a big deal (or anyone else's business, which is why it won't be mentioned on panel until Elan makes an off-handed remark while talking about something else).

[Math_Mage]

Obviously saying things certain that are offensive wouldn't be permitted on these boards since it's all encompassing and bans discussions on politics, religion, or other real life issues that are the subject of offensive humor. However, people going to places where such humor is tolerated or encouraged and telling people to stop them is annoying and unnecessary.
...If you think that's what the Giant was getting at, I think you missed the point. If you understand and disagree, you certainly have not given adequate justification for your viewpoint.

[137beth]

<snip>

But my point is, the intent was always there to present that as utterly wrong, it just apparently failed to penetrate for some readers. But honestly, like I said upthread, I shouldn't have to have someone speak dialogue saying, "THIS IS BAD!" in order to get the point across that I'm not supporting that thing.
You did, indirectly, have a character say 'this is bad': Qarr said he thought the familicide was affecting V's alignment.
Either way, I'm pretty sure that even if Nero or Lee said "Wow, that is the most Evil thing I have ever seen a mortal do!", there still would be forumites saying it was somehow good.
The same group of forumites who promoted the theory about Belkar somehow being CN during NCFPB. It's just the nature of the forums. I think most readers understood that what V did was horrible, if not immediately upon his/her/its casting, then certainly in the next strip when the effects were explained, and when even the fiends were surprised at the level of V's evil.
In other words, I think the familicide thing worked as it is for all but the segment of readers who will come to silly conclusions no matter what.

[Reddish Mage]

It's my decision about how I want my work to be perceived. I've come to my own conclusions about what I want my work to say, and without exception, I want to stand against racism and sexism and homophobia and classism and all the other forms of discrimination and dehumanization that take place in our society. I want to be part of the solution. And if that means taking a hard look at what I wrote in the past when maybe I didn't think as much about these things, then that's what it means.

There is a point where that would start taking self-censorship to the extreme. Sexism is such a big thing it is hardly where I would say it crosses that line but there are other parts of the comic where we find these things. The Empress of Blood is clearly a "fat=stupid=lazy=acceptable to laugh at" characterization, something I am very much aware of given that I used to be obese and have a number of friends of various weight levels who are actively promoting a positive image of fat, or who have a negative perception of their own bodies, or are struggling on the fence. I'm not sure what I think about the acceptability fat jokes, but I decided to take away a link that included an my earlier attempt using the Empress that has in fact bothered me. This would certainly seem to cross the line if you are actively attempting to avoid all forms of discrimination.

More mildly Kilkil is clearly a stereotype of a boring, efficient, bureaucratic, accountant subordinate. This stereotype perpetuation is nothing on the scale of the fat-comedy mini-industry, and I'm sure most accountants would laugh at it, but it is a way to differentiate people by a single trait and put them into boxes.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The Empress of Blood is clearly a "fat=stupid=lazy=acceptable to laugh at" characterization

No, it is not, clearly or otherwise. The Empress of Blood is a "mark" or "patsy" - i.e. the person being conned, as is appropriate for a puppet for a shadow government. These roles require characters that are stupid.

Now, since this character also happens to be a dragon, it opened up the joke opportunity of a stupid individual misunderstanding the meaning of "size" in the context of dragon rules, interpreting as weight when it is meant to be interpreted as age. Which lead to a dragon stuffing itself in an attempt to gain power. Laziness does not enter the picture at all - indeed, she still flies herself, does she not? We do not laugh at her for being fat, we laugh at her for failing to understand simple words. See also "Gate? What gate?".

So your equation should read "stupid dragon->fat-> jokes about how inconsequential weight is to the rules or anything else"

Grey Wolf

[Sylian]

Here's the thing: The reason it took "so long" for anyone on-panel to acknowledge that yes, killing a bazillion black dragons is wrong is largely because I thought it was self-evident from the narrative.I suspect what threw some people off was the half-dragons killed in the strip.


But my point is, the intent was always there to present that as utterly wrong, it just apparently failed to penetrate for some readers. But honestly, like I said upthread, I shouldn't have to have someone speak dialogue saying, "THIS IS BAD!" in order to get the point across that I'm not supporting that thing.I'm inclined to agree. There should be some kind of balancing scale between how clear the author wants to make something and other values, such as subtlety and not looking down on your audience. You could make a comic where nearly everything is obvious and where subtlety is sacrificed to make it easier for the readers to understand your intention, but I think the comic would be worse off for it. Aiming for the lowest common denominator is not always good, and sometimes some clarity might need to be sacrificed in order to gain some other value.

That being said, your comic is read by a large audience, and, assuming you buy into the theory that media can affect us (which I find fairly obvious, but some disagree), then it might be something worth keeping in mind.

It's rather general advice that I'm mainly putting here because I find the subject interesting to discuss, not because I believe that you need it. You've probably thought about this already, but I had fun developing my thoughts on the matter, so yeah, at least something was gained, even if the advice wasn't needed. :smallwink:


1. The reasoning didn't exist because of the comic, though. It existed because of the existing lore on black dragons being what it is.
2. Before V brought the problems up, V's mass murder wasn't even really a thought about topic. It wasn't discussed further than in passing in the comic. So I wouldn't say that the comic really portrayed it as being okay.
3. As for Redcloak--he's sympathetic, but he's still evil. What he's doing is still obviously considered wrong.1. Quite likely, though it isn't impossible that the comic, in some ways, helped reinforce that belief. In the end, I'm inclined to believe that it did more good than harm, since we ended up in a situation where V discussed the implication of genocide of "Always Evil"-creatures that aren't really "Always" Evil.
2. I seem to recall it being quite a popular topic, about whether Familicide was evil or not. In either case, I'm primarily using it as an example to help illustrate my point better, I'm not trying to pin any blame on the Giant for it.
3. To some extent, I'm inclined to agree. Redcloak is a lot more nuanced than Xykon, though, and not everything he does or believes in is necessarily bad. Are people supposed to think that because Redcloak believes that everyone should get a fair chance (if we assume he's not hypocritic, which he might very well be), giving people a fair chance is a bad thing? Probably not. If someone is racist in real life, I suppose they might agree with some of Redcloak's thoughts... but given how he's written, I'm not too worried. Redcloak's racism could, potentially, be problematic, though I don't think it is at the moment, and I don't think it's going to be. What's interesting is that if would step over the line with his racism, then it's likely that he will do so in a manner that's obviously evil and obviously bigoted, thus falling under the "Antagonist doing obviously bad things"-clause.

[The Giant]

There is a point where that would start taking self-censorship to the extreme. Sexism is such a big thing it is hardly where I would say it crosses that line but there are other parts of the comic where we find these things. The Empress of Blood is clearly a "fat=stupid=lazy=acceptable to laugh at" characterization, something I am very much aware of given that I used to be obese and have a number of friends of various weight levels who are actively promoting a positive image of fat, or who have a negative perception of their own bodies, or are struggling on the fence. I'm not sure what I think about the acceptability fat jokes, but I decided to take away a link that included an my earlier attempt using the Empress that has in fact bothered me. This would certainly seem to cross the line if you are actively attempting to avoid all forms of discrimination.

The Empress is fat because she is dumb, not dumb because she is fat. Her fatness is the direct result of being fooled by Tarquin. You'll note that in the flashback panel where Tarquin is fighting Nale (just two years ago), she's still skinny. Her defining characteristic is thus her stupidity, not her weight, and in no way does her weight actually impede her functioning. And she's not lazy at all—she's actively pursuing a regimen of self-improvement, day in and day out. She's just totally wrong on how that works.

So while I get what you're saying, I feel like the fact that her size is willfully self-inflicted muddies the water.


More mildly Kilkil is clearly a stereotype of a boring, efficient, bureaucratic, accountant subordinate. This stereotype perpetuation is nothing on the scale of the fat-comedy mini-industry, and I'm sure most accountants would laugh at it, but it is a way to differentiate people by a single trait and put them into boxes.

I have no idea how displaying an accountant that is good with numbers is in any way supposed to be a problem, but I would point out that this accountant is still secretly conspiring in an evil world domination scheme, and is in fact a flying kobold, so I feel pretty safe that I managed to step outside the box on that one.

I think the race issue—that an unusual race doesn't have to be a monster or a bandit, but can have a normal everyday job and be good at it—is a far more important point than whether or not I am stereotyping accountants as being efficient. If I make him some sort of weird non-typical accountant, the audience assumption would be, "Oh, that's because he's a kobold. Kobolds shouldn't be accountants, then." Heck, the fact that it didn't even register in your mind that it was unusual to put a kobold as an accountant means I achieved exactly what I wanted to!

[jogiff]

But my point is, the intent was always there to present that as utterly wrong, it just apparently failed to penetrate for some readers. But honestly, like I said upthread, I shouldn't have to have someone speak dialogue saying, "THIS IS BAD!" in order to get the point across that I'm not supporting that thing.

I'm sorry. I know this is your comic but I have to disagree with you here.

You should ALWAYS have a character standing off to the side and telling the readers how they should feel.

[Spoomeister]

Just a brief drive-by comment here to note that the Giant's parameters for a character flaw in this thread is a stunning one (in a good way). I have been wracking my brain trying to think of counterexamples in what I consider good stories and nothing has come to mind. I'd never heard that take on characterization before. Well done, and insightful.

[Reddish Mage]

Heck, the fact that it didn't even register in your mind that it was unusual to put a kobold as an accountant means I achieved exactly what I wanted to!

touché. I can't argue with that.

[Werekat]

But my point is, the intent was always there to present that as utterly wrong, it just apparently failed to penetrate for some readers. But honestly, like I said upthread, I shouldn't have to have someone speak dialogue saying, "THIS IS BAD!" in order to get the point across that I'm not supporting that thing.

Ooh, Giant, since you're here anyway, I'd been wanting to ask: you have seem to become more direct in taking a stance on morality and making other points in-comic - to be honest, it sometimes feels like you're talking through the characters directly to the audience and not primarily to the other characters. Is this an intentional change in writing, or am I just reading too much into it?

[deworde]

I'm sorry. I know this is your comic but I have to disagree with you here.

You should ALWAYS have a character standing off to the side and telling the readers how they should feel.



Good enough for Shakespeare, I guess.

[Grey Watcher]

Nothing wrong with polyamory though.

Almost went there, but didn't want to step on the landmine of the stereotype that bi people need to be in open/swinging/poly/whatever relationships or they're not really bi because they picked one person who (probably) has one gender.

Besides, I think Haley's more suited to monogamy. Given her history of trust issues, I think the added reassurance would help her emotional well-being a lot. And Elan, of course, would love a nice, cliched, traditional happily ever after.


I look at it more from the perspective of "Elan is a good person and Haley is happy with monogamy, but is still a little flustered by Tsukiko's short skirts and fishnet." And in all seriousness she has every right to feel uncomfortable about being attracted to the enemy - it could be a hazard in combat. But if Elan happened to be Elaine, she might also be perfectly OK with that.

True. I dunno. Tsukiko's combination of unsavoriness and brattiness makes my skin crawl a little at the idea of anyone being attracted to her.


There is a point where that would start taking self-censorship to the extreme. Sexism is such a big thing it is hardly where I would say it crosses that line but there are other parts of the comic where we find these things. The Empress of Blood is clearly a "fat=stupid=lazy=acceptable to laugh at" characterization, something I am very much aware of given that I used to be obese and have a number of friends of various weight levels who are actively promoting a positive image of fat, or who have a negative perception of their own bodies, or are struggling on the fence. I'm not sure what I think about the acceptability fat jokes, but I decided to take away a link that included an my earlier attempt using the Empress that has in fact bothered me. This would certainly seem to cross the line if you are actively attempting to avoid all forms of discrimination


The Empress is fat because she is dumb, not dumb because she is fat. Her fatness is the direct result of being fooled by Tarquin. You'll note that in the flashback panel where Tarquin is fighting Nale (just two years ago), she's still skinny. Her defining characteristic is thus her stupidity, not her weight, and in no way does her weight actually impede her functioning. And she's not lazy at all—she's actively pursuing a regimen of self-improvement, day in and day out. She's just totally wrong on how that works.

So while I get what you're saying, I feel like the fact that her size is willfully self-inflicted muddies the water.

Aaaaaaand suddenly we've gotten all the way to gainers. :buries face in hands:

[The Giant]

Ooh, Giant, since you're here anyway, I'd been wanting to ask: you have seem to become more direct in taking a stance on morality and making other points in-comic - to be honest, it sometimes feels like you're talking through the characters directly to the audience and not primarily to the other characters. Is this an intentional change in writing, or am I just reading too much into it?

At a certain point, when you're pushing 40 and have spent one-quarter of your life drawing a stick figure comic about D&D, you start to ask yourself whether what you are doing is really important and what impact, if any, your work will have on the world beyond momentary distractions.

Or maybe it's just that at a certain level of success, you stop worrying about whether a public stance you take on something that actually matters to you might alienate readers because there are things that are more important than sales numbers.

Probably a mixture of the two.

[Werekat]

At a certain point, when you're pushing 40 and have spent one-quarter of your life drawing a stick figure comic about D&D, you start to ask yourself whether what you are doing is really important and what impact, if any, your work will have on the world beyond momentary distractions.

Or maybe it's just that at a certain level of success, you stop worrying about whether a public stance you take on something that actually matters to you might alienate readers because there are things that are more important than sales numbers.

Probably a mixture of the two.

Thank you for the reply. :) I didn't, however, mean taking a public stance outside of the comic. I meant a more direct presentation within the comic itself. Do you think that sort of style is more effective for getting your point across? Is it just a simpler, cleaner style? Or am I seeing something that isn't there?

[The Giant]

Thank you for the reply. :) I didn't, however, mean taking a public stance outside of the comic. I meant a more direct presentation within the comic itself. Do you think that sort of style is more effective for getting your point across? Is it just a simpler, cleaner style? Or am I seeing something that isn't there?

It's all the same. The first answer probably applies more to the comic, the second more to the forum, but it's all part of the same continuum.

[factotum]

Here's the thing: The reason it took "so long" for anyone on-panel to acknowledge that yes, killing a bazillion black dragons is wrong is largely because I thought it was self-evident from the narrative.

You clearly forgot to show the half-dragon priest in white robes healing a leper while his adoring congregation looked on in horror as he got killed...although I doubt even that would have been enough, knowing the way discussions round here usually turn out. :smallwink:

Seriously, do you think it would have made a difference if you'd shown more human-like half-dragons in that image? Or would that have been too close to a spoiler for the later scene in the pyramid?

[Zrak]

I think whether or not that would make a difference or be too blatant a hint for the scene in the pyramid is less important than the impact it would have on the message. I think part of the point is that V's actions aren't justified just because the creatures he happens to be mass-murdering don't look like we do. To show humans with draconic heritage would ruin the message, since giving us a familiar face with which to identify basically just enforces the sort of self/other binary the strip seems designed to shatter. The reader is supposed to see that the mass murder of essentially innocent, sentient beings is wrong, regardless of how different from oneself they may be. At least, that's the message I took from the scene. Rich can obviously speak for himself about his intentions, but I think including more humanoid victims would lessen the scene's power.

(Edited for clarity of phrasing.)

[jogiff]

Good enough for Shakespeare, I guess.

If it wasn't for those kinds of characters in Shakespeare's works I would have a hard time guessing who I'm supposed to be rooting for. Merchant of Venice, for example. Normally I would assume that the antisemite who spits on Jews and the disloyal daughter who steals from her father (and pawns the cherished keepsakes from her dead mother so that she can buy exotic pets) were bad guys.

Fortunately Shakespeare added a bunch of characters who kept on reminding us that these guys are totally awesome.

Rich, I think there's a lesson to be learned from Shakespeare. Have a bunch of characters who follow the protagonists around and remind us that they're the good guys no matter how awful they behave.

[Aard_Rinn]

I gotta say, one thing I think needs to be taken into account too is that this is the internet, and people on the internet can be butthats. I mean, I am, IRL, super-friendly. Even here, on this forum, I try to be nice, same with the Reaper forums and any other community forums. You find me in some of the other areas of the 'net? Hell, if your first encounter with me was on 4chan or Minecraft, you'd think my real name was Sir Douchington McKittenshiv.

See, the difference is this: I know how to modulate my butthattery. I understand that there are places I can make sexist/homophobic/slut-shaming/racist jokes, and I won't hurt anyone's feelings, and I won't have my feelings hurt when they make those jokes back because that's just where I am and what the culture's like. The problem comes when people forget that that's not the norm, when they come into nice areas like this and butt it up, and then you do risk hurting people - that's not right.

But to say that jokes like that have no place seems harsh to me, too. Some of the communities I'm in online are so vitriolic, so poisonous, that yeah, if you don't expect it, you'll get hurt. But that doesn't mean we're wrong for making those sorts of jokes, amongst ourselves, with no intent to hurt anyone - it means that you should stay out of those areas! But by the same token, jokes like that shouldn't be brought into safe environments like this one - we have no right to pee in this pool, just like you shouldn't dive into our (slightly yellower) one and then whine about the faint smell of ammonia.

At the end of the day, people who make offensive jokes (like this one) are like that kid in science class who starts talking over the teacher - they just don't understand the social restrictions normal people deal with enough to self-moderate their behavior. They make a lot of noise, sometimes, but in the end, sometimes we raise our voices even louder trying to shut them up - and in the end, it's pointless: people who can understand already do, and the people who don't won't be made to understand their inappropriateness by us. In the end, we're talking to two walls - the people who agree with us, and the people who's opinions we won't change, and we should keep that in mind; that's not to say we can't have constructive talks, but we shouldn't obsess over changing minds and attitudes, either. Fortunately, most of the people I know online who make offensive comments like this are well-adjusted people IRL who let themselves slip online; for some, it's cathartic, for others, a chance to ignore social norms... But I doubt that many of the people we get worked up over online are actually terrible homophobes/racists/sexists IRL.

And fortunately, at the end of the day, the mods, like the teachers with the loud kid in science, will sweep in and tell us to sit down and shut up. That's the great thing about a good forum like this! :D

[oppyu]

I gotta say, one thing I think needs to be taken into account too is that this is the internet, and people on the internet can be butthats. I mean, I am, IRL, super-friendly. Even here, on this forum, I try to be nice, same with the Reaper forums and any other community forums. You find me in some of the other areas of the 'net? Hell, if your first encounter with me was on 4chan or Minecraft, you'd think my real name was Sir Douchington McKittenshiv.

I'm deliberately choosing not to engage your post as I'm not feeling up to a wall of text battle about the right to make offensive jokes that reinforce negative and hurtful social trends, but this is for every racist/sexist/inappropriate/griefing minecraft troll I've had to engage and almost inevitably ban. *throws snowball* :smallbiggrin:

Have a nice day.

[Aard_Rinn]

Oh, I don't do it on other people's servers - that would be rude, and I, at least, try not to hurt other people's feelings. I have my own server. Things... get pretty terrible, but we have fun! :smallbiggrin:

[Werekat]

It's all the same. The first answer probably applies more to the comic, the second more to the forum, but it's all part of the same continuum.

Thank you for the clarification. :)

[oppyu]

Oh, I don't do it on other people's servers - that would be rude, and I, at least, try not to hurt other people's feelings. I have my own server. Things... get pretty terrible, but we have fun! :smallbiggrin:
Ah, well that's fine. I apologise for any preemptive snowball throwing good poster. :smallsmile:

[Aard_Rinn]

Oh, no, I don't mind~ I've dealt with enough POS players on other servers to understand where you're coming from... :smallbiggrin:

Besides, I can take a little knockback. Snowballs don't phase me! :smalltongue:

[Kish]

You clearly forgot to show the half-dragon priest in white robes healing a leper while his adoring congregation looked on in horror as he got killed...although I doubt even that would have been enough, knowing the way discussions round here usually turn out. :smallwink:

Seriously, do you think it would have made a difference if you'd shown more human-like half-dragons in that image? Or would that have been too close to a spoiler for the later scene in the pyramid?
That would have been aggressively counterproductive, since the latest iteration of "they were all black dragons, therefore Vaarsuvius didn't do anything wrong" is "Vaarsuvius made a tragic mistake by failing to take into account that the spell would hit part-dragons; s/he wouldn't have done anything wrong had s/he made sure all the targets were black dragons."

[AgentofHellfire]

1. Quite likely, though it isn't impossible that the comic, in some ways, helped reinforce that belief. In the end, I'm inclined to believe that it did more good than harm, since we ended up in a situation where V discussed the implication of genocide of "Always Evil"-creatures that aren't really "Always" Evil.

I find that fairly unlikely, actually, because the character that did it was pretty clearly painted as evil at the time he did it, and was even said in-comic to have taken a serious turn towards evil.


2. I seem to recall it being quite a popular topic, about whether Familicide was evil or not. In either case, I'm primarily using it as an example to help illustrate my point better, I'm not trying to pin any blame on the Giant for it.

*checks google*

Hrm. I guess it was. Still, you had a lot of people arguing that it was an evil act in those threads.


3. To some extent, I'm inclined to agree. Redcloak is a lot more nuanced than Xykon, though, and not everything he does or believes in is necessarily bad. Are people supposed to think that because Redcloak believes that everyone should get a fair chance (if we assume he's not hypocritic, which he might very well be), giving people a fair chance is a bad thing? Probably not. If someone is racist in real life, I suppose they might agree with some of Redcloak's thoughts... but given how he's written, I'm not too worried. Redcloak's racism could, potentially, be problematic, though I don't think it is at the moment, and I don't think it's going to be. What's interesting is that if would step over the line with his racism, then it's likely that he will do so in a manner that's obviously evil and obviously bigoted, thus falling under the "Antagonist doing obviously bad things"-clause.

Redcloak kind of was hypocritic (towards the hobgoblins), but yeah.

[Gift Jeraff]

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.

I wonder if this is related to why Haley and Sabine's rivalry seems to have been dropped.

Not that there can't be a rivalry between 2 female characters without using those words. It's just an easy insult to throw at a succubus is all.

[Kish]

It's just an easy insult to throw at a succubus is all.
How about, "Life-draining fiend from the pit?"

(Or just "vapid devil" without the "whore" part; she really didn't like being called a devil, which might also serve to aggravate any feelings of prejudice she might have toward her direct superior.)

[Sunken Valley]

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.


Does this mean "Sneak Attack Bitch" is dead?


At a certain point, when you're pushing 40 and have spent one-quarter of your life drawing a stick figure comic about D&D, you start to ask yourself whether what you are doing is really important and what impact, if any, your work will have on the world beyond momentary distractions.

If it makes you money, it made an impact on the world. An individual piece of work can't change someone unless they are willing to change themselves. They'll just accept the good quality story then store it away. At least people like it.

[Spoomeister]

At a certain point, when you're pushing 40 and have spent one-quarter of your life drawing a stick figure comic about D&D, you start to ask yourself whether what you are doing is really important and what impact, if any, your work will have on the world beyond momentary distractions.

Or maybe it's just that at a certain level of success, you stop worrying about whether a public stance you take on something that actually matters to you might alienate readers because there are things that are more important than sales numbers.

Probably a mixture of the two.

As someone who has recently pushed 40 and had it start to push back, I understand this sentiment. Even though we're in very different careers with very different public visibility and, by some measures, very different levels of success. :) These are pretty universal questions, and common conclusions to come to, after a certain point.

I think some of it also stems naturally from just individual growth and change as a person. The writer who wrote Durkon's impassioned pleas to his murderer is not the same person who wrote the Forced Tentacles of Intrusion jokes. The artist who was drawing flame effects for V's spells a few comics ago is not the same artist who was drawing goblins in the first few comics. And so on.

[Trillium]

Does this mean "Sneak Attack Bitch" is dead?


Unless they fight dogfolk amazons in next chapter, I suppose.

[Nolant Marlevy]

It would also play into the Opposites theme with Nale- Nale and Sabine have experimented with gender-swapping play, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0365.html) with Sabine changing genders, and Nale is somewhat ashamed of it.

Elan and Haley experiment with gender-swapping play, with Elan changing genders, and they're both cool about it and don't think it's a big deal (or anyone else's business, which is why it won't be mentioned on panel until Elan makes an off-handed remark while talking about something else).I'd find it hilarious if Haley wanted to wear the belt instead of wanting Elan to wear it.

...and that's all I'll say on the subject.

[AKA_Bait]

Does this mean "Sneak Attack Bitch" is dead?


Gosh I hope not. I don't really think it has to be though. Although it's a gendered insult, I don't really see that particular word as having the same sexualized (as opposed to gendered) context as the other insults that the Giant is moving away from.

[Benthesquid]

I'd find it hilarious if Haley wanted to wear the belt instead of wanting Elan to wear it.

...and that's all I'll say on the subject.

I mean, that's also potentially an option, but it wouldn't really speak to Haley's latent bisexuality, or Elan's curiosity about being a woman.

[AgentofHellfire]

I'd find it hilarious if Haley wanted to wear the belt instead of wanting Elan to wear it.

...and that's all I'll say on the subject.

...why would you need to do one or the other? :smalltongue:

[Sylian]

@The Giant: While you're still here, I have a question about strip #631. The conversation between V and Qarr goes like this:

Panel 2

Vaarsuvius: Begone from here, imp! You are wasting precious time if you cannot give me what I require.
Vaarsuvius: (internal) Perhaps my books...
Qarr: Oh, right, because I can just wave my fairy wand and POOF, you can teleport. Sure, I'll get right on that, Mr. Elf, sir.

Panel 3

Vaarsuvius: Is that not what tempters of your ilk do? Provide those willing to bargain with any extranormal abilities they may require?
Qarr: What...like a literal sell-your-soul sort of thing?



This may be because I'm not a native speaker, but the jump from panel 2 to 3 seems rather... Odd. Where did V bring up the soul selling? V told the imp to scatter, then Qarr replied, sarcastically, that he wasn't able to help the elf teleport, and suddenly, V talks about soul selling. The progression always struck me as odd.

[Reddish Mage]

I wonder if this is related to why Haley and Sabine's rivalry seems to have been dropped.

Not that there can't be a rivalry between 2 female characters without using those words. It's just an easy insult to throw at a succubus is all.

I think "slut" is a meaningless insult to throw at a succubus.

[Kish]

@The Giant: While you're still here, I have a question about strip #631. The conversation between V and Qarr goes like this:

Panel 2

Vaarsuvius: Begone from here, imp! You are wasting precious time if you cannot give me what I require.
Vaarsuvius: (internal) Perhaps my books...
Qarr: Oh, right, because I can just wave my fairy wand and POOF, you can teleport. Sure, I'll get right on that, Mr. Elf, sir.

Panel 3

Vaarsuvius: Is that not what tempters of your ilk do? Provide those willing to bargain with any extranormal abilities they may require?
Qarr: What...like a literal sell-your-soul sort of thing?



This may be because I'm not a native speaker, but the jump from panel 2 to 3 seems rather... Odd. Where did V bring up the soul selling? V told the imp to scatter, then Qarr replied, sarcastically, that he wasn't able to help the elf teleport, and suddenly, V talks about soul selling. The progression always struck me as odd.
Think of it this way.
Vaarsuvius: If you can't help, then go away!
Qaar: What, you were expecting me to be able to grant you wishes?
Vaarsuvius: YES! You're a fiend! That's what fiends do! Wishes are what you use to tempt people!
Qaar: Tempt people to sell their souls, you mean?
Vaarsuvius: Yes, that's what I mean! You're a fiend and I need power enough to do anything for it, the situation is pretty self-explanatory!

[CoffeeIncluded]

I think "slut" is a meaningless insult to throw at a succubus.

Yeah, I think that's one of the very few, very rare times when that term might be acceptable, since, you know, succubus. Slut isn't a pejorative so much as it is a job description.

Hey, Rich, what made you decide to make Sabine a succubus anyway? That might have opened up the can of worms to start with.

[Kish]

It's a meaningless insult to throw at anyone; it amounts to, "I, the speaker, am prudish and for some reason I think you should care."

But it is, as they say, the thought that counts.

[Joerg]

If I was writing a gritty realistic story about a woman living as a career criminal in New York, I would have every right to defend my dialogue choices for her as realistic or accurate. But I lose that defense the moment I have a character wiggle their fingers and shoot a ball of fire at a giant flying lizard, much less have the characters spout off about their hit points and Spot checks.
Interestingly, it seems that it's easier to accept magic and dragons as believable than some changes in human nature. Perhaps it's generally easier to accept big differences to the real world, or perhaps it's because we intrinsically know humans better than we know the laws of physics.

That doesn't mean one can't or shouldn't try to portray a world that's different regarding humans. It just means that people are more likely to find such a world 'unrealistic' than a world with dragons.


At a certain point, when you're pushing 40 and have spent one-quarter of your life drawing a stick figure comic about D&D, you start to ask yourself whether what you are doing is really important and what impact, if any, your work will have on the world beyond momentary distractions.

Don't underestimate the impact of momentary distractions. Even if your comic was just funny (of course, it's much more than that), making people laugh is worth a lot, too.

[GrayGriffin]

Interestingly, it seems that it's easier to accept magic and dragons as believable than some changes in human nature. Perhaps it's generally easier to accept big differences to the real world, or perhaps it's because we intrinsically know humans better than we know the laws of physics.

That doesn't mean one can't or shouldn't try to portray a world that's different regarding humans. It just means that people are more likely to find such a world 'unrealistic' than a world with dragons.


Reminds me of how some people will call fantasy stories "unrealistic" for having diverse casts. Even when said fantasy stories actually take place in places that were historically very diverse and that the complainers simply didn't bother to research.

[Reddish Mage]

This may be because I'm not a native speaker, but the jump from panel 2 to 3 seems rather... Odd. Where did V bring up the soul selling? V told the imp to scatter, then Qarr replied, sarcastically, that he wasn't able to help the elf teleport, and suddenly, V talks about soul selling. [/QUOTE]

I think it is your language issues. V didn't talk about soul selling but implies it by talking about wanting to make a deal for supernatural power. V says "get me what I require [a teleport or some other means to stop the dragon] or go" after Qarr responds sarcastically "like I have that kind of power." V "Isn't that what devils do? Grant deals for power" The deal V is suddenly talking about dealing with devils for power in general terms, so a soul-selling deal would come to mind to any western reader familiar with "dealing with the devil." That is why it is perfectly understandable when Qarr asks if V is implying a "literal" soul-selling deal.

[wootage]

Well, "tramp" in this sense is a female who has looser-than-is-considered-proper standards of sexual behavior, and some people consider this a moral issue* - even going so far as to class the behavior as Evil.

So it gets extended to females who are Evil, without regard to their sexual behavior.

And by that strange several-steps-removed-from-origins standard, both Laurin and Tsukiko are tramps.

* I understand why loose sexual behavior was *originally* classed as a moral issue. It was all about damage to the man that the woman belonged to, and simply being thought to be sexually "loose" was damaging to a man - it cast doubts on the validity of heirs the woman might birth for her husband, which would also reduce the benefit a father could gain from marrying his daughter off.


...wow. You don't think that loose sexual behavior by a woman, in a time when there was virtually no birth control (the Earl of Condom's invention notwithstanding) nor cures for potentially deadly sexual diseases, might in any way be damaging to the WOMAN's life?

What are they teaching people in schools these days...

[Poppy Appletree]

...wow. You don't think that loose sexual behavior by a woman, in a time when there was virtually no birth control (the Earl of Condom's invention notwithstanding) nor cures for potentially deadly sexual diseases, might in any way be damaging to the WOMAN's life?

What are they teaching people in schools these days...

Well, the Earl of Condom is a non-person, so you may wish to review your own education. :smallwink:

And yes, warrl has it right. Women were considered nothing more than chattel, and their lives were not considered important. You're essentially trying to ascribe a benevolent (and deeply anachronistic) rationale to the treatment of women in a time period where people didn't care about the treatment of women. Modern perspectives of sexual diseases are far removed from historical ones, which tended to view them as the result of sin.

[Mightymosy]

Well, "tramp" in this sense is a female who has looser-than-is-considered-proper standards of sexual behavior, and some people consider this a moral issue* - even going so far as to class the behavior as Evil.

So it gets extended to females who are Evil, without regard to their sexual behavior.

And by that strange several-steps-removed-from-origins standard, both Laurin and Tsukiko are tramps.

* I understand why loose sexual behavior was *originally* classed as a moral issue. It was all about damage to the man that the woman belonged to, and simply being thought to be sexually "loose" was damaging to a man - it cast doubts on the validity of heirs the woman might birth for her husband, which would also reduce the benefit a father could gain from marrying his daughter off.

So a woman being - or deliberately dressing as if - sexually loose was, at best, engaging in a reckless disregard for the well-being of the man she belonged to and any sons she might already have or give birth to in the future. Which would be reasonably considered Evil.

But this originates from treating women as property and from punishing children for what their parents did (or for that matter are incorrectly suspected of having done).

Why it is still considered evil now that we recognize that women are not men's property, particularly in the case of unattached women where there's no legal presumption of paternity, totally escapes me. The availability of cheap highly-effective contraception doesn't help clarify.

People are stupid and insecure, that's why. :smalltongue:

Slut is used by

A) Girls who envy other girls because they percieve them as sexual competition either because the other girl is more attractive or the other girl is for some other reason more successful. Often even because the jealous girl could but does not pursue her own sexual dreams or satisfactory needs, be it because she is simply to timid and insecure and/or she was raised to be prude and can't/won't go against her education.

B) Boys who are afraid of female sexuality and/or wish to be f*ed by the girl in question rather than the boy(s) she is actually having. Again, jealous and insecure.

C) People who just use the word as an insult without actually thinking much about the actual meaning, but they know the word as an insult, so they just use it.

You usually don't see people who are sexually satisfied and confident in themselves (read: happy) use the word as an insult to sexually active girls.

[GrayGriffin]

You usually don't see people who are sexually satisfied and confident in themselves (read: happy) use the word as an insult to sexually active girls.

You might want to add the corollary that people don't need to be "sexually satisfied" in order to be happy (asexuals exist!), although I guess the "confident" part still applies.

[Aard_Rinn]

I dunno, I always considered myself to be just "sexually satisfied" by no sex - sum zero is still sum, right? But that's a discussion for elsewhere...

See, I think C is the most common one, tbh. And I don't find it terribly insulting - I've never been a big fan of calling an insult 'an insult against someone's womanhood' when the intent was 'an insult against someone I (the insulter) don't like.' That just bothers me - it feels very much like ascribing malicious intent where none exists. I mean, yeah, I call people bitch all the time, if they piss me off - I'm not doing it because I'm trying to be anti-woman, I'm doing it because it's a rude term and they've pissed me off! And it does bother me, a lot actually: there are so many real problems with gender in the world - actual things that are really hurting people like job disparity, rape culture, stuff like that - that having people focus on swear words? That's the least of what we need to worry about.

Now, you can argue that they represent that sort of oppressive culture - maybe! But they only represent it - they'll fade with it, too: instead of worrying about the symptoms, we need to treat causes, work on pro-equality legislation, work on making sure that crimes against women are treated with the dignity and regard that they deserve in the legal community, work on making sure that hate crimes based on gender are punished.

If you look at the civil rights movement in the US, black people didn't start fighting for freedom by complaining about how use of the term n***** was offensive - they made bold attempts at policy change, they fought for their rights in the courts and in the public eye! Women should do the same: once we've proven that we can stand up for ourselves, that we can and will fight for change, the use of offensive terms like bitch and slut - that'll end. Don't forget, n***** and f*g were once accepted too, but they've faded as hating and repressing blacks and gays became unacceptable... That's how to get rid of words you don't like. Until then... I really don't care if someone calls me a bitch, especially if it's only meant as an insult without considering possible feminist implications.

[Mightymosy]

Humor is naturally offensive? Do we have the same definition of "humor"? Go into any children's section of any bookstore and you'll find books upon books of child-friendly jokes that are completely unoffensive and yet amusing.

This is a really interesting point.

It is often noticed that different people have different kind of humor.

In my experience there is a more "male" kind of humor, and a more "female" kind of humor. I put "" there because it is not at all a clear cut difference, but I have experienced it as a 70% or 80% thing, maybe. For me there seems to be a strong gender association, but still enough way for it to go either way in individuals.

So, "male" humor is the kind of humor that is directly or indirectly connected with a harm to someone. In German it is called "Schadenfreude" (malicious glee).
The classic being the person walking in the garden, stepping on a rake and getting hit in the face by it (probably several times).
To my knowledge it has been shown that even apes laugh when they see something like that - malicious joy seems to originate from "I'm glad I wasn't the one being hit" and it seems to be deeply anchored in the human soul or even ape soul.

At least for some individuals. Because here comes the thing. Some people just don't find things like that funny. They simply can not.
They cannot feel it. No matter how funny I personally find movies or comics or jokes with the above kind of humor, some people (usually girls) just cannot understand how someone can find this funny.

These people still laugh at some things, though. Other things.
This is the "female" humor. I wish I could tell you what it is, but I simply cannot understand it. Loriot falls into this category. I never understood how people laugh at that, still I know lots of people (especially women) who find that guy exquisitely hilarious.

For theoretic purpose, I'd like to identify the underlying factor which makes "female" humor funny, but this is something I am stuck with. I just don't get it, maybe the same way other people just don't get the Schadenfreude humor bit.

So, back to the quote above, I think most of the "male" humor does have some kind of offensiveness in it. It is definitely part of the reason it is funny.
That said, there is another kind of humor (my female kind) that appaerantly works without it. Maybe that is why it doesn't work for me?

I realise that things aren't totally black or white. There may be lots of grey areas, and there may be intersections of the two types I mentioned, maybe even more types.
But from my experience, one can group humor and most of the time the same person will find the same things funny that belong to the same group, and will likely find the other kind boring.

Most of the time. Because what I really find impressive is when a cartoonist like Rich Burlew or any comedian can deliver to both kinds of humor. For me, I just cannot comprehend it. But some people seem to be able to comprehend both lines of thought, and even deliver to an audience! There are lots of jokes in Oots for example, that just don't work for me, so I believe they must be for the "other" audience. Still, there are lots of jokes I find really funny.

[Aard_Rinn]

I think that it may be less inherently male vs. female, and more that one is considered more socially acceptable for males vs. females. Men are 'allowed' to laugh at physical humor - there's no stigma against a guy finding a joke based in violence, sex, or bodily functions humorous; for a woman, that's considered unladylike and frowned upon. Meanwhile, women are expected to prefer (or at least claim to prefer) more genteel humor - jokes that are less offensive, at least. The female shock comic is a fairly new thing, and one originating fairly firmly from the stereotypical 'feminist'. Meanwhile, men who complain about rude humor, or prefer femme humor, are considered less manly then guys who make crude jokes.

Personally, I'm a big fan of 'male' humor, although I prefer satire over anything....

[Grey Watcher]

But if Elan happened to be Elaine, she might also be perfectly OK with that.

Now I'm imagining some bizarre crossover fic in which Haley and Elaine Marley from the Monkey Island series run off and have adventures together.

[eras10]

Fair enough. If such is your wish to portray one such world, I have no objection to that. I had felt from your first post that you were acquiescing to the wishes of a society that doesn't accept the portrayal of some behaviors, even when it's an accurate one. I see that I was wrong, and it makes all the difference that you actually believe what you preach.

I'm not going to upend anyone's take on gender relations in one blog post, nor do I really want to. And while I hope that a discussion on what is or is not offensive, in abstract terms, is appropriate for this forum, maybe it's not, in which case, apologies. But I don't think Haley's prior jokes in this comic [edited for clarity] were inappropriate, or a bad example.

Someone tell me where I am wrong with the following set of analogies:

First, we make fun of our friends sometimes for their poor decisions. We're not always even nice about it.

Second, it can be a poor decision - in a completely genderless way - to be too quick to engage in sexual relations with someone else. It can be a bad idea for people of all genders and sexual orientations to be a little too quick on the trigger.

Third. Rich's Haley jokes did not involve Haley tearing down a young woman in love over her choices concerning physical intimacy. It wasn't a realistic depiction of any aspect of "slut-shaming" that is actually problematic in practice. In at least the ones I remember, she was mostly mocking Roy, a guy, while he was a girl. It was not being used to promote a double standard of behavior that I can see (if there weren't enough comments of that kind about men, maybe it suffices to have a sexually promiscuous male character, who is made fun of for it, as well - this would also help salvage, for example, Sabine as a character, from this critique)

Fourth. Anyone who thinks we're going to eliminate friends making fun of friends' poor choices in sexual partners, or even general lack of selectivity in mating partners, is not being realistic.

Fifth. If the goal is unrealistic, perhaps it's not the right goal. The fact that hurting people with words and judgment of sexual behavior has been used to perpetuate gender oppression, patriarchy, and so on and so forth - has been used in a way that is in practice sexist, used in a double-standard, and so on, is wrong. But the alternative moral standard of eliminating all judgment of the sexual proclivity patterns of others is not the correct alternative moral standard. The appropriate remedy is to begin judging men by the same standards as women, or maybe not to judge people for sexual frequency per se, only to judge them for sexual frequency leading to empirically negative consequences for themselves or others, i.e. a case by case basis.

I think Haley's behavior was okay. There is a gender-neutral and nonsexist concept of 'tramp'. It's a redeemable concept. A work of literature lacking in judgment of people by people is an empty work of literature, and there's no particular reason why sexual behavior should be excluded. This is confused with sexism when directed at women, but it should not be so confused.

Update/Edit: It occurs to me that Julio Scoundrel himself, in SSDT, in his story, basically the last joke in the strip is, indirectly, a joke on Julio's promiscuity. His go-to-method is seduction, he uses it loosely, and... well, hilarious consequences ensue. All it needed was a mean crack from a woman to be an excellent example of what I'm trying to demonstrate - there's no need to eliminate digs at other people's choice of sexual partners, or even digs at someone whose standards are subjectively perceived as humorously not high enough, in order to be gender equitable. There are reasons why someone might be a little too quick to have sex with people that are inherently gender-neutral reasons.

[Sir_Leorik]

It's my decision about how I want my work to be perceived. I've come to my own conclusions about what I want my work to say, and without exception, I want to stand against racism and sexism and homophobia and classism and all the other forms of discrimination and dehumanization that take place in our society. I want to be part of the solution. And if that means taking a hard look at what I wrote in the past when maybe I didn't think as much about these things, then that's what it means.

I'm writing a fantasy story here, which means I can pretty much do one of two things if I want to make a difference: I can either relate the situations in the story allegorically to situations in the real world and use them to make a larger point, or I can use the fantasy world that I'm making to show a world that doesn't have those problems. I managed to do this with race, but I fell down on the job when it comes to gender.

It sounds to me like you're being a little harsh on yourself. The Sapphire Guard, for all their faults when it came to Goblinphobia, were a very egalitarian organization when it came to gender. The highest ranking member was a woman, the force that attacked Redcloak and Right-Eye's village seemed to be made up of equal numbers of men and women, and when the Sapphire Guard make their final stand against Xykon there are also equal numbers. The Azurite army was also egalitarian, with male and female archers, pikemen and swordsmen. Even eight months pregnant Kazumi was more effective than Daigo at fending off Kubota's thugs.

Sabine and Tsukiko were the "flying skanks" Haley was mocking (along with Samantha. Oh, man, Samantha. Seriously, what were you thinking when you came up with her? :smallconfused:). Sabine and Tsukiko are/were well rounded characters, and both were not afraid to engage in combat and talk smack back at Haley. Samantha was pretty much a one dimensional joke, whose death at the hands of Miko was better than she deserved.

Part of Roy's character growth in book two is clearly the scene at the Inn, where Roy puts on the Girdle of Feminity/Maculinity to save Elan. Without Haley's jibes at Roy's expense, Roy would not have become a better person. That doesn't mean Haley's impulse to make fun at Roy becoming a woman isn't a character flaw, but it did serve the plot as part of Roy's growth as a hero.

Given that you've shown how Haley and Crystal interacted as teenagers, it can be understandable that Haley picked up this style of speech from growing up in the criminal underworld. Not everyone in the Greysky City Thieves' Guild is as cultured as Hank. If you want to address the issue in the future, maybe Crystal could make a return appearance, though honestly I don't expect her to. Or you could have Haley's encounters with Tarquin make her voice regret at referring to other women in a demeaning manner (and she could give Roy the apology she doesn't seem to have ever given him for the ribbing she gave Roy while he was a woman in book 2).


A character flaw is only a flaw if it is acknowledged and addressed within the narrative as being so. If it's just left to stand in a heroic character without comment, it becomes something that is transmitted to audience as being acceptable. If I had other characters looking at Haley and pointing out the problems with what she's doing, that would be wholly valid as a character flaw for her. I haven't done that. I have done that with her greed, or her trust issues, or Roy's early sexism toward Miko, or V's pride, or any number of other intentional character flaws. So, no, this isn't a case of an intentional character flaw, this was a flaw in me, the author, that I simply failed to screen out.

But there are different ways to address the fact that a character trait is a flaw. It could be another character voicing displeasure with the character, the character themselves wishing they could stop doing something, an omniscient third-person narrator could announce that it's wrong, (speaking of which, did that guy ever escape that monster guarding Dorukan's castle? :smallconfused:) or the author could Show the audience why it's wrong, rather than Telling us why it's wrong. Sometimes you need to beat a moral, even one you think is obvious, into your audience's heads with a sledgehammer, other times you need to be more subtle. There's no hard and fast rules. I think that you were very subtle in Start of Darkness and it worked very well, but maybe you needed to be less subtle when it came to Familicide. You weren't particularly subtle with Roy's sexist attitude towards Miko or the way he learned his lesson, and it worked. But maybe given how long Haley's been referring to Sabine, Samantha and Tsukiko in gender-related derogatory ways, you need to be less subtle about why that was wrong, and if do decide to highlight this I feel it should be addressed in the story.


Here's the thing: The reason it took "so long" for anyone on-panel to acknowledge that yes, killing a bazillion black dragons is wrong is largely because I thought it was self-evident from the narrative. From the dwindling size of the panels in that strip that blurred together into an unnumbered massacre to the following strip where the literal incarnations of Evil are stunned by the scale of it, I was under the impression that I had made a clear statement about whether it was a good idea or a bad idea. Maybe Vaarsuvius him/herself was unclear, but I didn't consider it even slightly ambiguous on the part of the narrative. Indeed, the very point of the scene was that it was an unjustifiable atrocity. That so many people continued to argue that it wasn't was completely unforeseen on my part, and perhaps fueled largely by feelings from their gaming experiences—not by what I had drawn.

But my point is, the intent was always there to present that as utterly wrong, it just apparently failed to penetrate for some readers. But honestly, like I said upthread, I shouldn't have to have someone speak dialogue saying, "THIS IS BAD!" in order to get the point across that I'm not supporting that thing.

Sometimes subtlety flies over the heads of some people. You made an artistic decision not to have an omniscient third-person narrator (seriously, did that monster eat him or something?) announce that V was doing something wrong, though maybe you could have had the IFCC directors mention that this was a pretty impressive bit of villainy. But it was your call to make, regardless of how the audience decides to interpret it.


The Empress is fat because she is dumb, not dumb because she is fat. Her fatness is the direct result of being fooled by Tarquin. You'll note that in the flashback panel where Tarquin is fighting Nale (just two years ago), she's still skinny. Her defining characteristic is thus her stupidity, not her weight, and in no way does her weight actually impede her functioning. And she's not lazy at all—she's actively pursuing a regimen of self-improvement, day in and day out. She's just totally wrong on how that works.

So while I get what you're saying, I feel like the fact that her size is willfully self-inflicted muddies the water.

But it's not self-inflicted. She's a victim of Tarquin and Malack's deceptions. If they'd tried convincing her to fast two days a week in hopes of gaining spells, she'd do that instead of gorging herself. Tarquin probably figured a morbidly obese dragon was more terrifying than one that was wasting away. Either way, they did this trick to make her easier to control. She's fat because Tarquin took advantage of her stupidity, and because she wanted to be fat.


I have no idea how displaying an accountant that is good with numbers is in any way supposed to be a problem, but I would point out that this accountant is still secretly conspiring in an evil world domination scheme, and is in fact a flying kobold, so I feel pretty safe that I managed to step outside the box on that one.

I think the race issue—that an unusual race doesn't have to be a monster or a bandit, but can have a normal everyday job and be good at it—is a far more important point than whether or not I am stereotyping accountants as being efficient. If I make him some sort of weird non-typical accountant, the audience assumption would be, "Oh, that's because he's a kobold. Kobolds shouldn't be accountants, then." Heck, the fact that it didn't even register in your mind that it was unusual to put a kobold as an accountant means I achieved exactly what I wanted to!

See! This is the kind of racism Kobolds have to put up with! I played a Kobold PC in the dying days of the RPGA's "Living Greyhawk" campaign, and my PC was barred on pain of death from entering the City of Greyhawk (and many other places). Kobolds are reviled as monsters when they live in dungeons and set traps, but when they try to get real jobs, as adventurers, accountants or Oracles, everyone still gets on their case! They won't let the Kobold adventurers in the city (my PC had to disguise himself as a Gnome!), the Kobold accountants are "too good with numbers" or "too sneaky", and the Kobold Oracle gets dangled out a window! Seriously, Kilkil, despite the fact that he is part of the machinery Tarquin set in motion to run his Empire, is not sneaky, just hard-working.

[Math_Mage]

I think Haley's behavior was okay. There is a gender-neutral and nonsexist concept of 'tramp'. It's a redeemable concept.
Not the way it was used here. That's why the Giant responded as he did.


A work of literature lacking in judgment of people by people is an empty work of literature, and there's no particular reason why sexual behavior should be excluded. This is confused with sexism when directed at women, but it should not be so confused.
First, 'tramp' comes loaded with particular meanings that are not gender-neutral, even if there is a gender-neutral variation on the term.

Second, just because some kind of judgment must be made does not lend this particular judgment any merit.

Third, there is good reason to, not exclude, but criticize the judgment being made here: to avoid propagating the shameful stigma associated with sexual behavior. (As a note, since said stigma is disproportionately leveled at women, this is a matter of gender. Just want to reinforce that.)

This is not to say that there's nothing wrong with the behavior associated with a 'tramp', but the problem is not the sexual behavior, and definitely not the gender. And this is not to say that everyone will agree with the value system leading to this conclusion, but the Giant evidently does.

Fourth, this doesn't mean Haley shouldn't be allowed to make that judgment. It means Haley's judgment shouldn't be presented uncritically, as a heroic characteristic.

I hope this clarifies the Giant's position.

One final comment:

Third. Rich's Haley jokes did not involve Haley tearing down a young woman in love over her choices concerning physical intimacy. It wasn't a realistic depiction of any aspect of "slut-shaming" that is actually problematic in practice. In at least the ones I remember, she was mostly mocking Roy, a guy, while he was a girl. It was not being used to promote a double standard of behavior that I can see (if there weren't enough comments of that kind about men, maybe it suffices to have a sexually promiscuous male character, who is made fun of for it, as well - this would also help salvage, for example, Sabine as a character, from this critique)
The bolded situation is actually extremely relevant in the real world, albeit to a fairly small segment of the population. I would not be so quick to dismiss it as not a realistic depiction of any aspect of, if not slut-shaming, then attaching undeserved shameful stigma to sexual choices in a more general sense.

[AKA_Bait]

Now I'm imagining some bizarre crossover fic in which Haley and Elaine Marley from the Monkey Island series run off and have adventures together.

I'd read that.


See! This is the kind of racism Kobolds have to put up with! I played a Kobold PC in the dying days of the RPGA's "Living Greyhawk" . . . Seriously, Kilkil, despite the fact that he is part of the machinery Tarquin set in motion to run his Empire, is not sneaky, just hard-working.

Maybe the Giant gets a pass on the accountants. But what about his totally unfair and demeaning description of intellectual property lawyers. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0032.html)This is obviously a joke y'all.

[eras10]

Third, there is good reason to, not exclude, but criticize the judgment being made here: to avoid propagating the shameful stigma associated with sexual behavior. (As a note, since said stigma is disproportionately leveled at women, this is a matter of gender. Just want to reinforce that.)

It's not clear to me that, sans gender, this is a necessary thing to do. An analogy, again, would be to avoid criticism of your friends' very poor business decisions, in order to avoid propagating the shameful stigma associated with business.

Now, we definitely have a problem with people, mostly but not exclusively kids, shaming other kids in insanely cruel ways, usually in packs. But that is, again, very much a domain-spanning problem. Eliminating sexual-habit criticism won't fix it, or even make it better.

It is wrong to disproportionately criticise women for being excessively quick to have sex with people. It's a criticism that should, in my personal book, be applied to both genders, and in the case of each gender, should only be applied when the behavior leads to, subjectively, generalized poor decision-making about other things casually entangled with this topic in the person's life. Frankly, I've never felt this way about a person I've actually met. It's more of a trope I feel to be defensible when I see it in sitcoms, usually directed at guys. Anyway, I don't think that sexual behavior is presented as inherently stigmatic in mainstream culture. Maybe fifty years ago. Sexual behavior of particular characters is subject to satire and criticism, and this seems okay to me, as a subcategory of "poor decision-making".

So, I am politely challenging the point of view that Haley's prior statements were wrong. I recognize this as inconsistent with Rich's prior statements.

[Math_Mage]

It's not clear to me that, sans gender, this is a necessary thing to do. An analogy, again, would be to avoid criticism of your friends' very poor business decisions, in order to avoid propagating the shameful stigma associated with business.
Criticism of poor choices in the realm of sexual behavior is fine.

Criticism of same that implies sexual behavior itself is shameful is not fine.

Nobody (outside academia) criticizes their friends' poor business decisions in a manner that suggests their friends should be ashamed for getting involved in business in the first place.


Now, we definitely have a problem with people, mostly but not exclusively kids, shaming other kids in insanely cruel ways, usually in packs. But that is, again, very much a domain-spanning problem. Eliminating sexual-habit criticism won't fix it, or even make it better.
This particular criticism is hardly confined to kids, teenagers, or twentysomethings.


It is wrong to disproportionately criticise women for being excessively quick to have sex with people. It's a criticism that should, in my personal book, be applied to both genders, and in the case of each gender, should only be applied when the behavior leads to, subjectively, generalized poor decision-making about other things casually entangled with this topic in the person's life.
I don't necessarily agree with your opinion, but it's a valid basis for a value system. However, just because you think such criticism should be applied equally does not mean the reality changes to fit your norms. Rich is not basing his comments on a hypothetical where such criticism is applied equally--he is dealing with a real world where it is applied unequally. This informs his opinion about how to use such criticism.

IF words like "tramp" did not come loaded with gender...IF sexual criticism was not loaded by gender...but it does, and it is.

[The Giant]

Look, I understand that everyone wants to reassure me for some reason, but if I've identified something that I think I need to improve on, then that's my call. I'm not flogging myself publicly over it, I'm saying that I made some decisions without really examining them and now I am. Self-examination is a good thing. I'm sure there are lots of you who were OK with it the way it was, but then there were lots of people who were OK with a gag strip focused entirely on D&D rule jokes, and that didn't stop me from changing it when I thought I needed to.

The point is, now that I'm aware of this (and other issues), there's no way I'm going to knowingly write something problematic anyway, so it's sort of a moot point to argue about it with me. The past is the past, mistakes were made, going forward I hope to do better. That's it.

[King of Nowhere]

I don't understand what was the big problem about the joke. just because it may have been presuming secual promiscuity about laurin. so what? it was just a joke. I actually laughed at it, but even if I hadn't, I still think intention matters in those cases: the op didn't intend to make a sexist remark, he intended to make a joke. that joke contained a sexist remark, but that's not a problem, because jokes are not supposed to be taken seriously.
I make plenty of sexist and racist jokes myself, and i see no problem with it, as long as it is clear they are just that, jokes. In fact, I also make jokes on italians, nerds, or chessplayers, all categories I belong to.
And I really don't understand this "politically correct" stuff. so, calling someone a ****ty ******* is ok, but calling them a ***(EDIT: it was a gay slur, but it got censurated automatically; you can understand it from context) is not? why? is there a book of allowed insults? in fact, if i am actually trying to insult someone, i prefer racial slurs, because they are more effective: to me they say "you're casting a bad light on your people, you're shaming your family". so a racial slur is not insulting to the ethnic group. Saying "you horrible ***" do not mean "gay people are bad"; it means "you are a bad example of a gay person, and are staining the reputation of all your community". same for ******(EDIT: it was a racist slur, got censurated automatically) or jew or anything. Or maybe I'm just calling him a *** because I know many straight people will take offence at that. But again, it is just the intention that matters: it don't matter that i called someone a ***, but that i meant it to be an insult. in fact, i've known two gay guys, and both of them called themselves **** and made gay jokes and laughed about it.
EDIT: the automatic censor made this baely readable. I don't think there's anything insulting in me writing those words to analyze the exact meaning and circumstances; they are only insults if used against other people (again, circumstances).

Ok, I realize I'm a bit confusing here, cause every time I start to form an argument i get sidetracked. But the point I'm trying to pass is that intention matters, not words; if it's clearly meant as a joke, it should not offend. if it is meant as a personal offence, it should not be read as racist. if it's meant as racist/sexist/whatever, then the exact words don't matter.

Second point, it's especially strange with insults used against women and indicating sexual promiscuity. I don't see why calling a woman "slut" would be offfensive to women. I called slut that one woman, not all women. if i call a woman "dumbass", it's not offensive to other women. I'm not implying they are dumbasses too. So why with slut is different? No idea.
and also, sexual promiscuity is ggenerally accepted in our society. So why is it used as an insult? And why is it considered sexist? why "slut" do not mean "emancipated female that is free to do with her body as she wishes, as per the rights granted by the constitution and advocated by the sexual liberalization of the sixties"? Again, only because it is meant as an insult. So why the fact that it is meant as an insult matters, while the fact that it is not menat as a sexist remark do not matter?

And third point, about all the people taking offence for perceived sexism/racism/discrimination. When I was twelve, other kids insulted me. I got angry, a couple of times I got into fistfights over it. The adults told me that I was being immature and that if people insulted me, I should just ignore them, because people insulting other people are stupid and shouldn't be given consideration. And they were right. Now, if people insult me, I just look them with a mixture of scorn and pity.
So why perfectly grown up adults are taking offences at insults that aren't even thrown at themselves? And why do society consider this as normal? Why being oversensitive to some insults is considered childish, but being oversensitive to other insults is considered responsible?

Don't get me wrong: I know that sexism and racism are real issues, and some people are propagandating them on media, and that has to be fought. But it's really not the case here. no one intended anything to be insulting at all.
EDIT: I'm also not trying to insult anyone, and I hope it's clear. But On hot topic like this, I feel it's practically impossible to express opinions without someone taking offence over them

[GrayGriffin]

And I really don't understand this "politically correct" stuff. so, calling someone a ****ty ******* is ok, but calling them a *** is not? why? is there a book of allowed insults? in fact, if i am actually trying to insult someone, i prefer racial slurs, because they are more effective: to me they say "you're casting a bad light on your people, you're shaming your family". so a racial slur is not insulting to the ethnic group. Saying "you horrible ***" do not mean "gay people are bad"; it means "you are a bad example of a gay person, and are staining the reputation of all your community". same for ****** or jew or anything. Or maybe I'm just calling him a *** because I know many straight people will take offence at that. But again, it is just the intention that matters: it don't matter that i called someone a ***, but that i meant it to be an insult. in fact, i've known two gay guys, and both of them called themselves **** and made gay jokes and laughed about it.

Note the "called themselves" part. As people who have been hurt and insulted by these terms, they have the right to reclaim them.


Second point, it's especially strange with insults used against women and indicating sexual promiscuity. I don't see why calling a woman "slut" would be offfensive to women. I called slut that one woman, not all women. if i call a woman "dumbass", it's not offensive to other women. I'm not implying they are dumbasses too. So why with slut is different? No idea.
and also, sexual promiscuity is ggenerally accepted in our society. So why is it used as an insult? And why is it considered sexist? why "slut" do not mean "emancipated female that is free to do with her body as she wishes, as per the rights granted by the constitution and advocated by the sexual liberalization of the sixties"? Again, only because it is meant as an insult. So why the fact that it is meant as an insult matters, while the fact that it is not menat as a sexist remark do not matter?

Because of all the negative connotations now associated with that word. It has been used as an insult for far too long for it to have positive associations now.



And third point, about all the people taking offence for perceived sexism/racism/discrimination. When I was twelve, other kids insulted me. I got angry, a couple of times I got into fistfights over it. The adults told me that I was being immature and that if people insulted me, I should just ignore them, because people insulting other people are stupid and shouldn't be given consideration. And they were right. Now, if people insult me, I just look them with a mixture of scorn and pity.


I assume you do not actually belong to any social minority group. Thus, you've never been treated as lesser from someone's first impression of you, and you don't know what that feels like. It's invalidating and hurts deeply.

[Ramien]

Don't get me wrong: I know that sexism and racism are real issues, and some people are propagandating them on media, and that has to be fought. But it's really not the case here. no one intended anything to be insulting at all.
EDIT: I'm also not trying to insult anyone, and I hope it's clear. But On hot topic like this, I feel it's practically impossible to express opinions without someone taking offence over them

Because the problem isn't that people are necessarily trying to hurt women by their comments - they do it unthinkingly, and don't realize what they're doing. It doesn't matter if you are trying to hurt someone when you use a hurtful term or phrase or make jokes about something that really isn't funny, if the end result still adds to the same oppressive feeling as the people who are trying to be hurtful. Most of the problems with sexism aren't from people trying to hurt women - they're from people who don't realize that they're doing it anyways by the way they keep treating them.

[King of Nowhere]

I assume you do not actually belong to any social minority group. Thus, you've never been treated as lesser from someone's first impression of you, and you don't know what that feels like. It's invalidating and hurts deeply.

I've been victim of mobbing from around age 7 to 13. I was never insulted for my racial group, but I've been insulted cause I didn't fit in the group. And by that I mean groups of 10-20 people rounding up on me and calling me names and slurs. I had repercussions in my life for it until age 18. So I think I know pretty well how it feels.
But it felt bad only because I was a child. Then I grew up, and I'm so glad those other kids never let me mingle with their group of *******s. I have to thank their mobbing for becoming a better person.
Yes, that surely influenced a lot the way I feel about the topic. Probably, since I grew calluses over it and became stronger, I wrongly assume that everyone else can and will do the same.

Still, I think people should react with a laugh and dismiss those who insult them. I generally think that in the world there are bad people, and no matter how hard you try to educate them, there will always be bad people. So good people cannot hope to eradicate evil; they should learn to become stronger to live with evil and not be hurted by it. It's a sort of life philosophy for me. Not taking offence if people insult me is one specific case of it. Another case is, for example, to lock my bike well against thieves.

Anyway, I realize that being a writer, rich has to be more careful than me, because
a) what I say, I say to a specific number of people. I know I can make racist jokes with them, cause they know me and know I don't do it for offence. If they misunderstand, I can clarify. what rich writes, will be read by hundreds of thousands of people. most of them will never bother to read some clarification if they feel offended, and
b) what he writes will actually have an effect on what people think. Just because there will always be bad people, it's not a good reason to not try to keep their number as low as possible (by persuasion).
So I understand rich taking issue with haley's vocabulary.

EDIT:

Because the problem isn't that people are necessarily trying to hurt women by their comments - they do it unthinkingly, and don't realize what they're doing. It doesn't matter if you are trying to hurt someone when you use a hurtful term or phrase or make jokes about something that really isn't funny, if the end result still adds to the same oppressive feeling as the people who are trying to be hurtful. Most of the problems with sexism aren't from people trying to hurt women - they're from people who don't realize that they're doing it anyways by the way they keep treating them.
THat's exactly my point: if they don't intend to offend you, how can they offend you? sometimes they do cause their comments make clear they are sexist people, even when they are not trying actively to hurt you. but when they are clearly meant as jokes, they should not be interpreted offensively. And when the situation is unclear (for example, a joke posted on the internet by an unknown guy), I prefer to assume for the best until proven wrong.
Otherwise, if you focus on feeling oppressed, you will feel oppressed no matter what, even when people around you aren't doing anything wrong.

[oppyu]

I don't understand what was the big problem about the joke. just because it may have been presuming secual promiscuity about laurin. so what? it was just a joke. I actually laughed at it, but even if I hadn't, I still think intention matters in those cases: the op didn't intend to make a sexist remark, he intended to make a joke. that joke contained a sexist remark, but that's not a problem, because jokes are not supposed to be taken seriously.
I make plenty of sexist and racist jokes myself, and i see no problem with it, as long as it is clear they are just that, jokes. In fact, I also make jokes on italians, nerds, or chessplayers, all categories I belong to.
And I really don't understand this "politically correct" stuff. so, calling someone a ****ty ******* is ok, but calling them a ***(EDIT: it was a gay slur, but it got censurated automatically; you can understand it from context) is not? why? is there a book of allowed insults? in fact, if i am actually trying to insult someone, i prefer racial slurs, because they are more effective: to me they say "you're casting a bad light on your people, you're shaming your family". so a racial slur is not insulting to the ethnic group. Saying "you horrible ***" do not mean "gay people are bad"; it means "you are a bad example of a gay person, and are staining the reputation of all your community". same for ******(EDIT: it was a racist slur, got censurated automatically) or jew or anything. Or maybe I'm just calling him a *** because I know many straight people will take offence at that. But again, it is just the intention that matters: it don't matter that i called someone a ***, but that i meant it to be an insult. in fact, i've known two gay guys, and both of them called themselves **** and made gay jokes and laughed about it.
EDIT: the automatic censor made this baely readable. I don't think there's anything insulting in me writing those words to analyze the exact meaning and circumstances; they are only insults if used against other people (again, circumstances).

Ok, I realize I'm a bit confusing here, cause every time I start to form an argument i get sidetracked. But the point I'm trying to pass is that intention matters, not words; if it's clearly meant as a joke, it should not offend. if it is meant as a personal offence, it should not be read as racist. if it's meant as racist/sexist/whatever, then the exact words don't matter.

Second point, it's especially strange with insults used against women and indicating sexual promiscuity. I don't see why calling a woman "slut" would be offfensive to women. I called slut that one woman, not all women. if i call a woman "dumbass", it's not offensive to other women. I'm not implying they are dumbasses too. So why with slut is different? No idea.
and also, sexual promiscuity is ggenerally accepted in our society. So why is it used as an insult? And why is it considered sexist? why "slut" do not mean "emancipated female that is free to do with her body as she wishes, as per the rights granted by the constitution and advocated by the sexual liberalization of the sixties"? Again, only because it is meant as an insult. So why the fact that it is meant as an insult matters, while the fact that it is not menat as a sexist remark do not matter?

And third point, about all the people taking offence for perceived sexism/racism/discrimination. When I was twelve, other kids insulted me. I got angry, a couple of times I got into fistfights over it. The adults told me that I was being immature and that if people insulted me, I should just ignore them, because people insulting other people are stupid and shouldn't be given consideration. And they were right. Now, if people insult me, I just look them with a mixture of scorn and pity.
So why perfectly grown up adults are taking offences at insults that aren't even thrown at themselves? And why do society consider this as normal? Why being oversensitive to some insults is considered childish, but being oversensitive to other insults is considered responsible?

Don't get me wrong: I know that sexism and racism are real issues, and some people are propagandating them on media, and that has to be fought. But it's really not the case here. no one intended anything to be insulting at all.
EDIT: I'm also not trying to insult anyone, and I hope it's clear. But On hot topic like this, I feel it's practically impossible to express opinions without someone taking offence over them

1: Making jokes like that is hurtful. Just because you don't mean to offend a woman when you infer that her sexual history makes her a terrible human being, it does not mean that the last twenty times she's heard it were also happy friendly jokes. People face hurtful discrimination on a regular basis, is it really that funny for you to reinforce that?

2: These jokes reinforce the negative stereotypes associated with the jokes. Want to know why women in the sex industry are still considered gross, or why African-Americans are harassed for buying clothes from expensive upmarket places? Because the prejudicial culture survives through 'jokes'. The thing about these jokes is that you're making the minority the victim of the joke. When you say these hilarious things in public, you're subtextually reassuring people that it's fine to hold those beliefs because look how funny they are. It's not that bad to refer to Asians by some racist term! Look how hilarious it was when I did it ironically! For the most alarming example of this, look up 'rape culture', then prepare to feel bad. (Actually, most people choose to lash out at the feminists with sexist remarks instead. It's pretty sad. But it's absolutely fine, because when they refer to us as female dogs and tell us to shut up, they're being totally funny and joking.)

[Math_Mage]

I don't understand what was the big problem about the joke. just because it may have been presuming secual promiscuity about laurin. so what? it was just a joke. I actually laughed at it, but even if I hadn't, I still think intention matters in those cases: the op didn't intend to make a sexist remark, he intended to make a joke. that joke contained a sexist remark, but that's not a problem, because jokes are not supposed to be taken seriously.
I think the issue is awareness. A good joke involving racism or sexism, besides being funny, is conscious of the fact that it's dealing with a serious subject, even if it's treating the subject lightly in the given context. (In a group of friends, one may substitute the people's consciousness of that fact for the joke's consciousness; this is why a lot of jokes are acceptable among friends that aren't acceptable in a vacuum, why people can make jokes about their own ethnicity or gender, and so on. But there is no assumption of such consciousness in an anonymous environment.) A bad joke involving racism or sexism trivializes the issue.


And I really don't understand this "politically correct" stuff. so, calling someone a ****ty ******* is ok, but calling them a ***(EDIT: it was a gay slur, but it got censurated automatically; you can understand it from context) is not? why? is there a book of allowed insults? in fact, if i am actually trying to insult someone, i prefer racial slurs, because they are more effective: to me they say "you're casting a bad light on your people, you're shaming your family". so a racial slur is not insulting to the ethnic group. Saying "you horrible ***" do not mean "gay people are bad"; it means "you are a bad example of a gay person, and are staining the reputation of all your community". same for ******(EDIT: it was a racist slur, got censurated automatically) or jew or anything. Or maybe I'm just calling him a *** because I know many straight people will take offence at that. But again, it is just the intention that matters: it don't matter that i called someone a ***, but that i meant it to be an insult. in fact, i've known two gay guys, and both of them called themselves **** and made gay jokes and laughed about it.
First, the same issue with jokes pertains to slurs.

Second, "You horrible ***" generally does not mean "You are a bad example of a gay person." That may be how you wish it were used, or how you intend to use it, or how you think it could be acceptably used. But that's not going to change how people receive such a remark.


Second point, it's especially strange with insults used against women and indicating sexual promiscuity. I don't see why calling a woman "slut" would be offfensive to women. I called slut that one woman, not all women. if i call a woman "dumbass", it's not offensive to other women. I'm not implying they are dumbasses too. So why with slut is different? No idea.
and also, sexual promiscuity is ggenerally accepted in our society. So why is it used as an insult? And why is it considered sexist? why "slut" do not mean "emancipated female that is free to do with her body as she wishes, as per the rights granted by the constitution and advocated by the sexual liberalization of the sixties"? Again, only because it is meant as an insult. So why the fact that it is meant as an insult matters, while the fact that it is not menat as a sexist remark do not matter?
It also simply doesn't mean that. As in, the dictionary definition is something completely different from that.

If 'our society' is the US, our relationship to sexual promiscuity is a lot more complicated than "generally accepted," and if I were to try to boil it down, I would call it a love-hate relationship. 'Slut' currently falls on the 'hate' side of that relationship, and again, just because you think it could become what you described does not make it so.


And third point, about all the people taking offence for perceived sexism/racism/discrimination. When I was twelve, other kids insulted me. I got angry, a couple of times I got into fistfights over it. The adults told me that I was being immature and that if people insulted me, I should just ignore them, because people insulting other people are stupid and shouldn't be given consideration. And they were right. Now, if people insult me, I just look them with a mixture of scorn and pity.
So why perfectly grown up adults are taking offences at insults that aren't even thrown at themselves? And why do society consider this as normal? Why being oversensitive to some insults is considered childish, but being oversensitive to other insults is considered responsible?
Because not all insults are created equal, so not all insults should be responded to in the same way. Side note, a kid being insulted by other kids should not necessarily ignore the insults, either; it depends on the situation.

[GrayGriffin]

Hey guys, thanks for explaining it better. I have to admit that I was holding back a bit since this is at least a little more personal for me, and I didn't want to end up lashing out.

[eras10]

I think that I'd like to uphold the principle that there are definitely circumstances in which 'perfectly harmless jokes' and condemnation of individual behavior reinforces stereotypes in bad ways, and avoiding this is admirable. Sometimes these jokes and stereotypes are unique to a single person; sometimes they are broader. So, I'm not on the boat with King of Nowhere.

I think that it's okay to make fun of poor choices in sexual behavior, including of someone who might, to use the exact same language as last time, be a little quick on the trigger.

I'd probably only do it to make fun of someone who I thought, socially, wasn't actually going to be deeply wounded by it. If I was actually angry about someone's behavior and actually wanted to condemn them, I wouldn't use a vulgar epithet. And I don't endorse being angry or scornful of someone's sexual behavior simply because they have sex with more people than you do. There should probably be something specific about what's going on that is specifically harmful.

Part of the problem, I would agree, with bygone eras was the condemnation of excessive sexual behavior for its own sake. Again, outside the era of teenagers, I don't see this as a going concern these days. The "hate" in the love/hate relationship is, I think, mostly a factor in forums where there's a high level of baseline hate, rudeness, and general pie-flinging. The more sensitive a topic is, the more it will be seen by trolls as the right topic on which to base terrible things to say. People that want to hurt other people with words aren't going to fail at that because of a changed topic.

Also, at this point I'm discussing the topic as a question of abstract interest. Rich has weighed in to say that he's made up his mind on how he feels and what he wants to do, which is fine. I'm not posting in an advocacy campaign to keep Haley's sexual insults alive. I just feel like expressing opinions.

[King of Nowhere]

2: These jokes reinforce the negative stereotypes associated with the jokes. Want to know why women in the sex industry are still considered gross, or why African-Americans are harassed for buying clothes from expensive upmarket places? Because the prejudicial culture survives through 'jokes'. The thing about these jokes is that you're making the minority the victim of the joke. When you say these hilarious things in public, you're subtextually reassuring people that it's fine to hold those beliefs because look how funny they are. It's not that bad to refer to Asians by some racist term! Look how hilarious it was when I did it ironically! For the most alarming example of this, look up 'rape culture', then prepare to feel bad. (Actually, most people choose to lash out at the feminists with sexist remarks instead. It's pretty sad. But it's absolutely fine, because when they refer to us as female dogs and tell us to shut up, they're being totally funny and joking.)
(emphasis mine)
Well, yes and no.
If those jokes were only on the minority, there could be a point. but as i said, i make jokes on just about everything, including me and my ethnic/cultural groups. the message is not "look how funny they are. It's not that bad to refer to Asians by some racist term (because they actually deserve it)"; the message is "look how funny everyone is. It's not that bad to refer to any of us by some racist term (because we take ourselves way too seriously)". My opinion has always been that we should strive to see the humorous side in all things in life, and especially in ourselves and in our shortcomings.
But then, people in the minority will often feel oppressed even when they are not. So confirmation bias sink in. Even if they hear potentially insulting jokes against pretty much everyone, they only remember the ones against them. That's why, if a man and a woman are having an argument on the street, and the men yells "all women are sluts", you can be sure that plenty of people will intervene to tell the man that he's a sexist, while if the woman states "all men are pigs" probably no one will give a damn about it. And that's a big part of why many men lash out at feminists with rage(1): because they are called pigs at least as much as the women are called whores, and they suffer many things that could be called discrimination(2), but they don't give a damn about it, they go on with their life without problems, so they just can't understand why women are so offended.

So, I remain of the opinion that most of the discrimination (of any kind) is perceived, not real; the rest can be avoided by hanging up with more progressive people.
After all, if I were looking into it, I could find reasons to take offence every day. I just prefer to let them pass. And the world would be an happier place if everyone did the same.
I know many people will still disagree with me, and my position is not accepted by the mainstream culture, but I feel I had to give it the best defence I can.

1 sexist remarks are only meant as generic insults in that case: it is assumed that a feminist will be hurted more by a sexist insult, so it's the "weapon of choice"; no sexism in it, just insult effectiveness

2 some examples of cultural sexual discrimination against males: some researchers made an experiment, where they pretended to be a dating couple, then one of them would go the the toilet, and the other would overtly slip something into his/her drink. when the man slipped something in the glass of the woman, every time someone told it to the woman, or offered to defend the woman, or accused the man of trying to drug her and rape her. When the woman slipped something in the glass of the man, only half the times people reacted. the other half, no one said anything. some even found it funny.
It is generally considered ok for a girl to slap a man. the reverse is not true.
My department in the university where I work got specific instructions, when hiring new researchers, to prefer females to males. Just for that, no other reasons given. And we already have around 50% of women researchers.
I could make many more examples. And I'm not arguing that there is discrimination against men. I'm arguing that sexism goes both ways.

[GrayGriffin]

(emphasis mine)
Well, yes and no.
But then, people in the minority will often feel oppressed even when they are not. So confirmation bias sink in. Even if they hear potentially insulting jokes against pretty much everyone, they only remember the ones against them. That's why, if a man and a woman are having an argument on the street, and the men yells "all women are sluts", you can be sure that plenty of people will intervene to tell the man that he's a sexist, while if the woman states "all men are pigs" probably no one will give a damn about it. And that's a big part of why many men lash out at feminists with rage(1): because they are called pigs at least as much as the women are called whores, and they suffer many things that could be called discrimination(2), but they don't give a damn about it, they go on with their life without problems, so they just can't understand why women are so offended.

But the only consequence of a man being called a pig is slightly hurt feelings. A woman being called a whore receives a heavy social stigma associated with that word, as well as being more likely to be mocked or attacked further. There's a big, big, big, BIG difference between these two insults, and if you don't understand that difference, you're not going to be able to participate very well in this discussion.

[ti'esar]

I'm just going to throw this out there: when you start blaming things on "mainstream culture" or "feminists" or going on about "male sexual discrimination", I automatically find myself becoming verrrrry suspicious of the motives behind your position.

[jere7my]

And that's a big part of why many men lash out at feminists with rage(1): because they are called pigs at least as much as the women are called whores, and they suffer many things that could be called discrimination(2), but they don't give a damn about it, they go on with their life without problems, so they just can't understand why women are so offended.\

You answered your own question. "They go on with their life without problems." That's a privilege we (straight white men) have—we can laugh off the insults and go on with our lives, because we know the store owner isn't going to call the cops after we spend our own money on an expensive belt (as happened to a young black man in New York recently). We're not going to be shot for knocking on a door and asking for help (as happened to a young black woman here in Massachusetts). We're not going to be beaten to death because we're gay or trans (as happens too often to mention). We're not going to have our opinions dismissed out of hand because of our sex. We're not going to get roofied so some fratboy can get himself off, then laughed out of the police station when we try to report it.

Yes, life can be hard for straight white men. But we don't have to justify our position in society every day of our lives. Unless we're poverty-stricken or homeless or have some other disadvantage, we can wake up and walk out into the world feeling confident that the people we encounter, the police and the store owners and the strangers on the street, are going to treat us like regular folks. The people you think it's funny to insult don't get to feel that way. Sometimes they do, sure. Sometimes they can go a whole day without being patronized or insulted or stalked or sneered at or hit or dismissed. But every time they hear a slur coming out of the mouth of someone like you, like me, it makes it harder for them.

This is a true thing. You can choose to ignore it if you want. That doesn't make it less true.

(Edited to comply with Rich's instructions.)

[Rakoa]

I'm just going to throw this out there: when you start blaming things on "mainstream culture" or "feminists" or going on about "male sexual discrimination", I automatically find myself becoming verrrrry suspicious of the motives behind your position.

Why is that?

[GrayGriffin]

Why is that?

Well, for one, it sounds a bit like you're justifying your own offensive behavior and claiming that it's beyond your own control. Spoiler alert: It never is.

[The Giant]

OK, seriously: Everyone stop it with the barely-screened versions of racial/gender/identity slurs. I don't want to see them here, not even with the middle blocked out. You don't need to type them out with one vowel asteriked to get your point across.

[Rakoa]

Well, for one, it sounds a bit like you're justifying your own offensive behavior and claiming that it's beyond your own control. Spoiler alert: It never is.

I assume by "you", you are referring to a generalized male population, and not me personally?

[The Giant]

Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument.

[GrayGriffin]

I assume by "you", you are referring to a generalized male population, and not me personally?

Yes. I figured that would be obvious from context, considering the quote you quoted also used "you" in a general sense.

[oppyu]

(emphasis mine)
Well, yes and no.
If those jokes were only on the minority, there could be a point. but as i said, i make jokes on just about everything, including me and my ethnic/cultural groups. the message is not "look how funny they are. It's not that bad to refer to Asians by some racist term (because they actually deserve it)"; the message is "look how funny everyone is. It's not that bad to refer to any of us by some racist term (because we take ourselves way too seriously)". My opinion has always been that we should strive to see the humorous side in all things in life, and especially in ourselves and in our shortcomings.
But then, people in the minority will often feel oppressed even when they are not. So confirmation bias sink in. Even if they hear potentially insulting jokes against pretty much everyone, they only remember the ones against them. That's why, if a man and a woman are having an argument on the street, and the men yells "all women are sluts", you can be sure that plenty of people will intervene to tell the man that he's a sexist, while if the woman states "all men are pigs" probably no one will give a damn about it. And that's a big part of why many men lash out at feminists with rage(1): because they are called pigs at least as much as the women are called whores, and they suffer many things that could be called discrimination(2), but they don't give a damn about it, they go on with their life without problems, so they just can't understand why women are so offended.

So, I remain of the opinion that most of the discrimination (of any kind) is perceived, not real; the rest can be avoided by hanging up with more progressive people.
After all, if I were looking into it, I could find reasons to take offence every day. I just prefer to let them pass. And the world would be an happier place if everyone did the same.
I know many people will still disagree with me, and my position is not accepted by the mainstream culture, but I feel I had to give it the best defence I can.

1 sexist remarks are only meant as generic insults in that case: it is assumed that a feminist will be hurted more by a sexist insult, so it's the "weapon of choice"; no sexism in it, just insult effectiveness

2 some examples of cultural sexual discrimination against males: some researchers made an experiment, where they pretended to be a dating couple, then one of them would go the the toilet, and the other would overtly slip something into his/her drink. when the man slipped something in the glass of the woman, every time someone told it to the woman, or offered to defend the woman, or accused the man of trying to drug her and rape her. When the woman slipped something in the glass of the man, only half the times people reacted. the other half, no one said anything. some even found it funny.
It is generally considered ok for a girl to slap a man. the reverse is not true.
My department in the university where I work got specific instructions, when hiring new researchers, to prefer females to males. Just for that, no other reasons given. And we already have around 50% of women researchers.
I could make many more examples. And I'm not arguing that there is discrimination against men. I'm arguing that sexism goes both ways.
Ok, to try and rebut your post, I'm going to attempt to break it down into more succinct, less rambling parts.


Making racist/sexist jokes is fine because I joke about everyone. All racist terms are OK, because the victims of discrimination take themselves way too seriously.

People are imagining their oppression, and then twisting their real-life interactions to confirm their feelings of persecution. Also, women are sexist as well. Men call women sluts, and women call men pigs, but for some strange reason I cannot fathom people seem more offended by the first one. This is why men hate feminists, because they feel persecuted and because they don't understand why women would feel persecuted, because they don't feel persecuted.

Therefore, most prejudice and discrimination is imagined, and the rest can be fixed if women and minorities would stop associating with stupid people.

I am not personally offended by racism, so I feel confident in saying the world would be a better place if nobody else was offended by racism.

I know people disagree with me, but I have a right to my opinion.

Sexist remarks are only said to offend and hurt women, so they're not really sexist.

Men suffer from sexism as well. I have some examples that show that society considers men invalid and incapable if they are every victimised, and therefore diminishes their suffering. Also, an anecdote about the university I work at supporting affirmative action.

1: Making jokes about everyone does not diminish the cultural factors which make prejudicial jokes harmful for women and minorities. Just because it's funny to you, does not make it funny for everyone else.

2: No, discrimination is not imagined. See here (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2013.pdf)for just one of the many examples for why just one of the many discriminations in society is not imagined. Also, men reinforcing a milennia-old gender stigma is not equivalent to women calling men pigs.

3: See, 2.

4: The world would be a better place if people would stop being racist.

5: That is true, yes.

6: Er... no. That is not true. And kind of irrelevant. People use sexist remarks as an effective insult because the remarks are given power by cultural conditions. If society was absolutely accepting of homosexuals, then [CENSORED] wouldn't be an effective insult. If society wasn't prejudiced against female sexuality, [AGAIN CENSORED] wouldn't be an effective insult.

7: Yes, but that's going into a whole new thing. The patriarchy (male-run system) both relegates women to the bottom of the barrel, and sets impossible standards of masculinity for men to aspire to. Men are supposed to be strong and invincible, so if they're ever victimised, they aren't really men and it's OK to laugh at them. This leads to some truly disturbing societal trends like people saying men can't really be rape victims, because men getting raped is funny. When feminists oppose the patriarchy, they oppose this [ONCE-MORE CENSORED] as well :smallsmile:

Also, affirmative action and quotas ain't pretty, but the glass ceiling isn't going to break itself. When society stops seeing white heterosexual male as the default promotable employee, then we'll talk about getting rid of affirmative action.

[zimmerwald1915]

I have no idea how displaying an accountant that is good with numbers is in any way supposed to be a problem, but I would point out that this accountant is still secretly conspiring in an evil world domination scheme, and is in fact a flying kobold, so I feel pretty safe that I managed to step outside the box on that one.
Kilkil's in on the scheme? Fascinating...

[Shale]

He clearly knows who he's supposed to be taking orders from. Including the people who supposedly advise the empires of sweat and tears.

[Math_Mage]

I'd just like to note that by far the most prominent use of the term 'pig' in the last several years was aimed at Sarah Palin.


I think that it's okay to make fun of poor choices in sexual behavior, including of someone who might, to use the exact same language as last time, be a little quick on the trigger.
Sure, and that phrasing makes it a criticism of the choice rather than a slur on the person. That's a substantial difference.


Part of the problem, I would agree, with bygone eras was the condemnation of excessive sexual behavior for its own sake. Again, outside the era of teenagers, I don't see this as a going concern these days. The "hate" in the love/hate relationship is, I think, mostly a factor in forums where there's a high level of baseline hate, rudeness, and general pie-flinging. The more sensitive a topic is, the more it will be seen by trolls as the right topic on which to base terrible things to say. People that want to hurt other people with words aren't going to fail at that because of a changed topic.
There's a reason the topic is sensitive. It's not all on the Internet. :smallsigh: Moreover, it's not like this is easily separated from all the other ways in which gender discrimination is an ongoing social issue.

[GrayGriffin]

Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument.

Yeah, this is going into my signature.

[Zmeoaice]

And I'm not arguing that there is discrimination against men. I'm arguing that sexism goes both ways.

...

That means you're arguing that there is discrimination against men. When men are treated differently then women because they are men, that's discrimination.

[Grey Watcher]

But it's not self-inflicted. She's a victim of Tarquin and Malack's deceptions. If they'd tried convincing her to fast two days a week in hopes of gaining spells, she'd do that instead of gorging herself. Tarquin probably figured a morbidly obese dragon was more terrifying than one that was wasting away. Either way, they did this trick to make her easier to control. She's fat because Tarquin took advantage of her stupidity, and because she wanted to be fat.

Well, thing is, all Tarquin says is that they observed that the more powerful dragons out there are larger and that she then assumed that becoming large would cause her to become powerful. Tarquin's manipulating her for sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every idea that pops into her head was put there by him. It could just as easily be that she took to this thing of her own volition and Tarquin simply saw no need to correct it. He probably figures she'll be replaced by the next puppet in a few years anyway and constantly gorging keeps her from asking annoying questions about policy and such in the meantime.

Or maybe he deliberately trolled her into turning herself into a living blimp for laughs. Who knows?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Well, thing is, all Tarquin says is that they observed that the more powerful dragons out there are larger and that she then assumed that becoming large would cause her to become powerful. Tarquin's manipulating her for sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every idea that pops into her head was put there by him. It could just as easily be that she took to this thing of her own volition and Tarquin simply saw no need to correct it. He probably figures she'll be replaced by the next puppet in a few years anyway and constantly gorging keeps her from asking annoying questions about policy and such in the meantime.

Or maybe he deliberately trolled her into turning herself into a living blimp for laughs. Who knows?

Agreed on all points, although I'd say he looks more amused at the development that smugly proud of the accomplishment. I think he saw the potential for some great laughs if he didn't correct her mistake, more than him engineering it.

Grey Wolf

[wootage]

Well, the Earl of Condom is a non-person, so you may wish to review your own education. :smallwink:

And yes, warrl has it right. Women were considered nothing more than chattel, and their lives were not considered important. You're essentially trying to ascribe a benevolent (and deeply anachronistic) rationale to the treatment of women in a time period where people didn't care about the treatment of women. Modern perspectives of sexual diseases are far removed from historical ones, which tended to view them as the result of sin.

And you're painting with a brush that covers the entire human race before us awesome enlightened folks. You may wish to both narrow your argument and broaden your own education as well.

[The Extinguisher]

You answered your own question. "They go on with their life without problems." That's a privilege we (straight white men) have—we can laugh off the insults and go on with our lives, because we know the store owner isn't going to call the cops after we spend our own money on an expensive belt (as happened to a young black man in New York recently). We're not going to be shot for knocking on a door and asking for help (as happened to a young black woman here in Massachusetts). We're not going to be beaten to death because we're gay or trans (as happens too often to mention). We're not going to have our opinions dismissed out of hand because of our sex. We're not going to get roofied so some fratboy can get himself off, then laughed out of the police station when we try to report it.

Yes, life can be hard for straight white men. But we don't have to justify our position in society every day of our lives. Unless we're poverty-stricken or homeless or have some other disadvantage, we can wake up and walk out into the world feeling confident that the people we encounter, the police and the store owners and the strangers on the street, are going to treat us like regular folks. The people you think it's funny to insult don't get to feel that way. Sometimes they do, sure. Sometimes they can go a whole day without being patronized or insulted or stalked or sneered at or hit or dismissed. But every time they hear a slur coming out of the mouth of someone like you, like me, it makes it harder for them.

This is a true thing. You can choose to ignore it if you want. That doesn't make it less true.

(Edited to comply with Rich's instructions.)

I think this is one of the best explanations of what privilege is (especially in regards to offensive jokes etc) and I might just have to use it again and again.

(b")b

[redcodekevin]

Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument.

You sir, are more amazing than what you've ever been told. This goes into my list of really worthwhile quotes.

[eras10]

Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument.

I agree with this. However, it gets a little more complicated if you are defending your inalienable right to say things to someone else that do not make them feel like garbage, but that third parties claim contributes indirectly to fourth parties being willing to say things making fifth parties feel like garbage.
The social scientist in me says that not all of these claims are valid, and that even a valid claim of this kind is not, in an of itself, equivalent to a determination that I shouldn't say this thing.

That's a complicated question, especially if everyone involved could instead choose to draw a distinction that what the fourth person said was bad, the end, and live with condemning obviously mean things as bad, instead of making everyone else do things differently on this basis. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just not sure it's always right.

Also, while I don't agree with KoN, I appreciate his ability to discuss the topic without flaming the people talking to him. That's a good sign. If that's grading on a curve, well, grading on a curve is useful. Flies will never be caught here with vinegar alone, which is why stories play a useful role in norm generation, and reach people who will never be reached by stern lectures and mockery. You can't really force people to obey these rules, and in practice coercion fails.

EDIT: A version of this post that actually captured how I really feel was eaten by the forum's very restrictive limits on how long I have to make a post without being logged out automatically. This happens to me about every other post. This version is cruder and mildly overstates my interest in defending the indefensible.

[jere7my]

EDIT: A version of this post that actually captured how I really feel was eaten by the forum's very restrictive limits on how long I have to make a post without being logged out automatically. This happens to me about every other post. This version is cruder and mildly overstates my interest in defending the indefensible.

The what now? I've been logged in here for six months or so.

[ti'esar]

Kilkil's in on the scheme? Fascinating...

I thought that had already been established by 915 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0915.html).


Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument.

And yeah, also sigging this.

[Dragonus45]

1: Making jokes about everyone does not diminish the cultural factors which make prejudicial jokes harmful for women and minorities. Just because it's funny to you, does not make it funny for everyone else.

2: No, discrimination is not imagined. See here (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2013.pdf)for just one of the many examples for why just one of the many discriminations in society is not imagined. Also, men reinforcing a milennia-old gender stigma is not equivalent to women calling men pigs.

6: Er... no. That is not true. And kind of irrelevant. People use sexist remarks as an effective insult because the remarks are given power by cultural conditions. If society was absolutely accepting of homosexuals, then [CENSORED] wouldn't be an effective insult. If society wasn't prejudiced against female sexuality, [AGAIN CENSORED] wouldn't be an effective insult.

7: Yes, but that's going into a whole new thing. The patriarchy (male-run system) both relegates women to the bottom of the barrel, and sets impossible standards of masculinity for men to aspire to. Men are supposed to be strong and invincible, so if they're ever victimised, they aren't really men and it's OK to laugh at them. This leads to some truly disturbing societal trends like people saying men can't really be rape victims, because men getting raped is funny. When feminists oppose the patriarchy, they oppose this [ONCE-MORE CENSORED] as well :smallsmile:

Also, affirmative action and quotas ain't pretty, but the glass ceiling isn't going to break itself. When society stops seeing white heterosexual male as the default promotable employee, then we'll talk about getting rid of affirmative action.

1. See the above discussion on the nature of humor, the thing that makes the joke funny is the fact that the involved people know and understand that the subject of the joke is in fact a bad thing.

2 I'm not sure if we can discuss that specific link there without violating the board rules, but if a mod does say its fair game i'll have something to chime in on that.

The Rest: That only applies if you subscribe to the view of the world that Patriarchy as presented by several prominent people who will not be named for board rules reasons is a real thing. Now i feel the need to at least give a token disagreement but really all we can do is say yea huh uh uh repeatedly till blue in the face since the forum roles would definitely keep us from having that conversation in any amount of detail, since there is no way to have that debate without talking about politics how about we avoid spending 5 pages going O'rly YA'rly and just move on.

Also I know for a fact that any discussion of affirmative action is absolutely political from the get go, so I'm not touching that one.




2: These jokes reinforce the negative stereotypes associated with the jokes. Want to know why women in the sex industry are still considered gross, or why African-Americans are harassed for buying clothes from expensive upmarket places? Because the prejudicial culture survives through 'jokes'. The thing about these jokes is that you're making the minority the victim of the joke. When you say these hilarious things in public, you're subtextually reassuring people that it's fine to hold those beliefs because look how funny they are. It's not that bad to refer to Asians by some racist term! Look how hilarious it was when I did it ironically! For the most alarming example of this, look up 'rape culture', then prepare to feel bad. (Actually, most people choose to lash out at the feminists with sexist remarks instead. It's pretty sad. But it's absolutely fine, because when they refer to us as female dogs and tell us to shut up, they're being totally funny and joking.)

See my above point on humor often being based on the assumption that the joke is itself about something that is wrong. Also when you talk about culture transferring through jokes your getting dangerously close the shapir-worf hypothesis, which is unproven and unprovable. As to the rape culture comment there is so much more information relevant to that discussion i can barley get into due to forum rules that i think we should perhaps toss that one into the things we can't talk about here pile.


But the only consequence of a man being called a pig is slightly hurt feelings. A woman being called a whore receives a heavy social stigma associated with that word, as well as being more likely to be mocked or attacked further. There's a big, big, big, BIG difference between these two insults, and if you don't understand that difference, you're not going to be able to participate very well in this discussion.

I can't help but feel that your greatly underestimating the power of social stigma and insults on men when it comes to mocking and the like. Pig sure isn't the word i would use to call equal to in comparison here but the word i would use would be filtered. I admit that i lack a fully solid understanding of the female perspective but i think it would be nice if more people could perhaps admit the same lack of understanding in the way it affects men.



I'm just going to throw this out there: when you start blaming things on "mainstream culture" or "feminists" or going on about "male sexual discrimination", I automatically find myself becoming verrrrry suspicious of the motives behind your position.

If you don't mind me asking, why is that?


...

That means you're arguing that there is discrimination against men. When men are treated differently then women because they are men, that's discrimination.

Well lets be honest, there IS discrimination against men.


Well, the Earl of Condom is a non-person, so you may wish to review your own education. :smallwink:

And yes, warrl has it right. Women were considered nothing more than chattel, and their lives were not considered important. You're essentially trying to ascribe a benevolent (and deeply anachronistic) rationale to the treatment of women in a time period where people didn't care about the treatment of women. Modern perspectives of sexual diseases are far removed from historical ones, which tended to view them as the result of sin.

The cultural situation was significantly more complicated than that throughout all of history. Women have always been valued and cared for members of many societies, if you don't believe me just think about why it is that men have always been obligated to hard menial labor in order to provide for family while women have often been spared the most difficult and dangerous work. At very, very, very, very few points in history have the EVER been relegated to the kind of total nonhuman property that you describe. Well i can't start quoting relevant laws and the like due to board rules I do think its an interesting subject to research i would recommend it to anyone.


The what now? I've been logged in here for six months or so.

Happens to occasionally as well, i think it has something to do with cookies timing out or some other tech stuff i don't quite understand.

[GrayGriffin]

I can't help but feel that your greatly underestimating the power of social stigma and insults on men when it comes to mocking and the like. Pig sure isn't the word i would use to call equal to in comparison here but the word i would use would be filtered. I admit that i lack a fully solid understanding of the female perspective but i think it would be nice if more people could perhaps admit the same lack of understanding in the way it affects men.

It's kind of funny how you ignored the male member who pointed out the problematic nature of that statement, and much more eloquently than I did. That does not make you look good.

[Dragonus45]

It's kind of funny how you ignored the male member who pointed out the problematic nature of that statement, and much more eloquently than I did. That does not make you look good.

I missed the last bit of the thread and was responding to things as i saw the, as to what post are referring. :EDIT: I see the one you mean now, I'm not even touching the subject of privileged as a direct named subject on here, its far to political and contoversial so i skipped it. When you say "That does not make me look good" what exactly are you implying.

[GrayGriffin]

I missed the last bit of the thread and was responding to things as i saw the, as to what post are referring. :EDIT: I see the one you mean now, I'm not even touching the subject of privileged as a direct named subject on here, its far to political and contoversial so i skipped it. When you say "That does not make me look good" what exactly are you implying.

You are basically trying to argue that "women can't understand men's feelings, so I don't have to take what you say seriously." And let's not get into semantics, because it's the essential meaning of what you said. Thus, by your logic, you would give more weight to the argument if a man said it. Your apparent ignoring of a male-perspective argument makes it seem like you're giving a dumb excuse for dismissing my argument.

[Math_Mage]

1. See the above discussion on the nature of humor, the thing that makes the joke funny is the fact that the involved people know and understand that the subject of the joke is in fact a bad thing.
"Heheh, you said butts" is the quintessential example of such a joke. (Sometimes it's even funny.) The joke runs on the idea that butts are a juvenile taboo subject, and doesn't really have much else going for it.

"Heheh, you said feminism" is offensive, and not funny, because the joke runs on the idea that feminism is ridiculous. One could argue that the joke is supposed to play on anti-feminist sentiment--it's ironic, right? Except it's not. It's merely wallowing in that sentiment. In a close group of friends, one could make that joke with the understanding that the person is being ironic--but the person is not the joke.

The OP's joke runs on the assumption that one can make the leap from "female" to tramp, skank, and MILF. It's an example of the latter kind of 'humor about offensive subjects', not the former.

It's not impossible to have funny or acceptable jokes in that form--but the bar is much, much higher, and the scope of contexts where those jokes are appropriate is generally narrower.


The cultural situation was significantly more complicated than that throughout all of history. Women have always been valued and cared for members of many societies, if you don't believe me just think about why it is that men have always been obligated to hard menial labor in order to provide for family while women have often been spared the most difficult and dangerous work. At very, very, very, very few points in history have the EVER been relegated to the kind of total nonhuman property that you describe. Well i can't start quoting relevant laws and the like due to board rules I do think its an interesting subject to research i would recommend it to anyone.
I agree that the historical situation is complicated. However, that does not eliminate the long-running strain of male superiority in Western civilization, only complicates it.

[oppyu]

1. See the above discussion on the nature of humor, the thing that makes the joke funny is the fact that the involved people know and understand that the subject of the joke is in fact a bad thing.

2 I'm not sure if we can discuss that specific link there without violating the board rules, but if a mod does say its fair game i'll have something to chime in on that.

The Rest: That only applies if you subscribe to the view of the world that Patriarchy as presented by several prominent people who will not be named for board rules reasons is a real thing. Now i feel the need to at least give a token disagreement but really all we can do is say yea huh uh uh repeatedly till blue in the face since the forum roles would definitely keep us from having that conversation in any amount of detail, since there is no way to have that debate without talking about politics how about we avoid spending 5 pages going O'rly YA'rly and just move on.

Also I know for a fact that any discussion of affirmative action is absolutely political from the get go, so I'm not touching that one.




See my above point on humor often being based on the assumption that the joke is itself about something that is wrong. Also when you talk about culture transferring through jokes your getting dangerously close the shapir-worf hypothesis, which is unproven and unprovable. As to the rape culture comment there is so much more information relevant to that discussion i can barley get into due to forum rules that i think we should perhaps toss that one into the things we can't talk about here pile.



I can't help but feel that your greatly underestimating the power of social stigma and insults on men when it comes to mocking and the like. Pig sure isn't the word i would use to call equal to in comparison here but the word i would use would be filtered. I admit that i lack a fully solid understanding of the female perspective but i think it would be nice if more people could perhaps admit the same lack of understanding in the way it affects men.




If you don't mind me asking, why is that?



Well lets be honest, there IS discrimination against men.



The cultural situation was significantly more complicated than that throughout all of history. Women have always been valued and cared for members of many societies, if you don't believe me just think about why it is that men have always been obligated to hard menial labor in order to provide for family while women have often been spared the most difficult and dangerous work. At very, very, very, very few points in history have the EVER been relegated to the kind of total nonhuman property that you describe. Well i can't start quoting relevant laws and the like due to board rules I do think its an interesting subject to research i would recommend it to anyone.



Happens to occasionally as well, i think it has something to do with cookies timing out or some other tech stuff i don't quite understand.
1: I disagree that offensive humour for the sake of being offensive is inherently not hurtful or prejudicial, or that everyone who employs offensive jokes is doing so to highlight just how offensive the joke is. This does tie into my belief that the jokes are used to express, support, and keep alive beliefs and therefore shape society, but you seem unwilling to discuss that so I'll leave it there.

2: I do not believe patriarchy is propagated by a few select men in positions of power, but a general cultural attitude passed down through the millennia that still thrives today.

3: You seem to have a rather rosy view of gender throughout history; while women have sometimes been shielded from the rough and tough manly stuff, they were stuffed in the kitchens like submissive trophies who existed to clean, cook, and serve the men who actually did stuff and shielded their weak, delicate, stupid wives who couldn't handle such complex things like education, voting or leaving the home. Not to mention the whole 'here's how we'll show their men we mean business... rape, burn and pillage! In that order.' It says a lot that a key sign of gender equality is the fact that women are able to join those nasty, mucky professions that the benevolent men once forcibly shielded them from.

4: Yes, men suffer from social stigma. I'm not arguing that we should exclusively abolish prejudice against women. Men face worse challenges in some respects, in that society teaches them that to be men, they have to grin and bear it no matter what happens. Real men don't cry, real men don't get hurt feelings, real men don't talk about their feelings, real men don't do much with emotional issues aside from internalising them and looking all tough. Society should be nicer to women, and it should be nicer to men as well.

5: The reason I'm suspicious of people who go on with 'darn political correctness this' and 'darn feminists that', is that they always seem to be arguing that they should be allowed to say awful things no matter what anyone else thinks. Going back to what the Giant said, "Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument."

[Werekat]

King of Nowere, Dragonus, I'll just note that humor is at least in part a "what seemed dangerous actually isn't" mechanism. It's a "call off the alert" signal. A tense situation stopped being tense, we can all relax now. It can get filtered down through civilization into a "things aren't what they really seem," and this is why we find paradoxes funny.

But when you're laughing at someone by lumping them in with their social group, you're invoking that primal meaning - essentially saying "you're not dangerous. Whatcha gonna do, come and HIT me?" Replace "hit" with "challenge in any meaningful way" in civilized society. What makes it different is that the humor is not aimed at the environment, but at a person.

It's not a "male" or "female" thing. It's not a "we're laughing at a bad thing." It's a message saying "relax, it's ok." But when you're aiming it at people who DO belong to that same group you're insulting, you're sending a conflicting message. You're outwardly telling them to relax and at the same time you're reminding them to "know their place," which is lower than yours. This is what provokes an offended reaction. If they're feeling secure enough, they'll attack. If not, they'll be hurt. Do you seriously want to provoke a confrontation every time you use those words? Because that is what you're doing, ethologically speaking.

It's not offensive to you because you feel secure. If you want to invest into into other people feeling secure, into actually having a secure environment around you, then you don't use slurs or "humorous" insults, period. If you don't want to invest effort into that - well, you're going get the same attitude back in spades, give or take a few years, either you or your children. And there's always a bigger fish.

[Angel Bob]

Yeah, this is going into my signature.

Well, I hate to seem like a copycat, but I agree, this has gotta be sigged.

[ahdok]

It's very simple. You don't get to judge whether or not you're offending someone else. They do.

Apology is your ladder. Justification, your spade.

[Aard_Rinn]

It's very simple. You don't get to judge whether or not you're offending someone else. They do.

Apology is your ladder. Justification, your spade.

Now, I wouldn't say that's true either. After all, my being asexual offends a whole bunch of people very, very deeply.

I'm sure in the past, people were offended by 'those self-righteous women' or 'those damn uppity n*****s'.

A feeling of offense isn't, and shouldn't be, the determination of one's rightness. And it doesn't give you a right to be heard, or a right to my consideration.

There are offensive things I do that I will apologize for. If I slip and use a homophobic term, and someone goes '**** you, don't say that' I don't try to explain it away by citing my own position on the rainbow road - I was wrong, and I'm sorry.

But there are also things I say that are offensive that I have never and will never apologize for - my race, my nationality, my sexual orientation, my gender, my religion. I have been told to apologize for all of these - that they offended someone - and I will not.

You can say that we're clearly talking about insults, here, but that's not and can't be true. These words cause moral offense because they defend a state of the world in which sexist terminology can be used freely - other things cause offense because they can be used to defend a state of the world in which people can be openly gay, or where blacks are equal to whites, or where someone can have any faith they want.

It's a pithy line, and I see they appeal - "Apology is your ladder. Justification, your spade." Unfortunately, that way lies weakness, and a permissive moral viewpoint where you refuse to defend your own beliefs for fear of insulting someone. Terms intended to insult or hurt others shouldn't be used, perhaps - but reducing it to something so simple is insulting.

[AKA_Bait]

It's very simple. You don't get to judge whether or not you're offending someone else. They do.

Apology is your ladder. Justification, your spade.


It's a pithy line, and I see they appeal - "Apology is your ladder. Justification, your spade." Unfortunately, that way lies weakness, and a permissive moral viewpoint where you refuse to defend your own beliefs for fear of insulting someone. Terms intended to insult or hurt others shouldn't be used, perhaps - but reducing it to something so simple is insulting.

I think perhaps the thing you are getting at is that there are times when offending another person is not equivalent to having done something wrong. Most people are capable of becoming offended when it is suggested, or implied by another's behavior, that a position they hold or an action they took is wrong, immoral, or both. Their state of being offended is not causally related to whether or not their action actually was wrong, immoral, or both.

[Aard_Rinn]

I think perhaps the thing you are getting at is that there are times when offending another person is not equivalent to having done something wrong. Most people are capable of becoming offended when it is suggested, or implied by another's behavior, that a position they hold or an action they took is wrong, immoral, or both. Their state of being offended is not causally related to whether or not their action actually was wrong, immoral, or both.

Yeah, pretty much. Offending someone else isn't inherently a bad thing - if I were to go up and kiss another girl in front of a group of WBC people, they'd be offended, sure, but that doesn't make them right. Standing up for your beliefs will offend people, but that doesn't mean you should apologize, nor that an attempt to explain your beliefs is -justification- - or even that having a justified viewpoint is wrong! If you can properly justify a viewpoint, go for it - attempts to stifle or belittle a justification of someone's beliefs is the equivalent of saying "sit down, shut up, no one cares what you think." If they can do it, let them - if not, well, they won't convince anyone and you've got nothing to worry about.

[Sir_Leorik]

Maybe the Giant gets a pass on the accountants. But what about his totally unfair and demeaning description of intellectual property lawyers. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0032.html)This is obviously a joke y'all.


Yeah, but he then did a 180 and showed labor attorneys (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0617.html) in a great light.


Look, I understand that everyone wants to reassure me for some reason, but if I've identified something that I think I need to improve on, then that's my call. I'm not flogging myself publicly over it, I'm saying that I made some decisions without really examining them and now I am. Self-examination is a good thing. I'm sure there are lots of you who were OK with it the way it was, but then there were lots of people who were OK with a gag strip focused entirely on D&D rule jokes, and that didn't stop me from changing it when I thought I needed to.

The point is, now that I'm aware of this (and other issues), there's no way I'm going to knowingly write something problematic anyway, so it's sort of a moot point to argue about it with me. The past is the past, mistakes were made, going forward I hope to do better. That's it.

I'm not saying that reexaming the way you wrote Haley's character isn't a good thing, but I am wondering whether this will be addressed in the comic itself. Besides if you're going to engage in self-flagellation over a past mistake, Samantha and her dad are better candidates. :smallwink:


Kilkil's in on the scheme? Fascinating...


He clearly knows who he's supposed to be taking orders from. Including the people who supposedly advise the empires of sweat and tears.

Kilkil probably needs to be in on the scheme in order to make sure the scheme runs along efficiently. He's Tarquin's accountant, not the Empress of Blood's accountant. By contrast, the Empress' emissary to Reptilia seemed completely unaware of the scheme until it was too late.

Kilkil's character traits seem to be efficiency and loyalty. In that regard he's Qarr's Lawful Neutral opposite. Qarr is a barely competent henchman who flees at the first sign of peril. Kilkil, who's an Expert, not an adventurer, went on a business trip to a mysterious pyramid in the desert, regardless of the peril. That's loyalty. He also probably made sure Penelope got a bouquet of flowers every other day, and made sure to direct a fat contract for the plumbing on the Empress' palace to Hannah.


Well, thing is, all Tarquin says is that they observed that the more powerful dragons out there are larger and that she then assumed that becoming large would cause her to become powerful. Tarquin's manipulating her for sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every idea that pops into her head was put there by him. It could just as easily be that she took to this thing of her own volition and Tarquin simply saw no need to correct it. He probably figures she'll be replaced by the next puppet in a few years anyway and constantly gorging keeps her from asking annoying questions about policy and such in the meantime.

Or maybe he deliberately trolled her into turning herself into a living blimp for laughs. Who knows?


Agreed on all points, although I'd say he looks more amused at the development that smugly proud of the accomplishment. I think he saw the potential for some great laughs if he didn't correct her mistake, more than him engineering it.

Grey Wolf

Given the way we've seen Tarquin, Malack, Laurin, Jacinda, Miron and The Warrior With No Name manipulate their puppets, I can't see this as anything but a way for Tarquin and Malack to manipulate her. The fact that they get some chuckles in the process is a bonus. After all, Tarquin has always been willing go an extra mile for a punchline. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0854.html) The Empress of Blood dying from high cholesterol seems like the sort of thing he would laugh about for days. :smallannoyed:

[AKA_Bait]

Yeah, but he then did a 180 and showed labor attorneys (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0617.html) in a great light.

Actually, he didn't. While effective, Celia was clearly acting beyond the scope of her authority and failed to adequately inform her client (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0621.html)about the consequences of the agreement she negotiated. Lawyers aren't supposed to betray their client's principles all over the place.

Defense lawyers (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0734.html) don't get off so well either, come to think on it.

[Kaytara]

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the original "joke" in this thread was a stretch, considering the only thing she has in common with a "Airborne Tramp" is…nothing. No, literally—nothing. She has been depicted as neither flying nor sexually promiscuous, and those are the only two words in the original reference. The only thing she has in common with any of the characters Haley was referring to with the original joke was that she is female, which means that as far as the OP goes, being female is enough to prompt the mental association. That's not really OK.

Laurin is a female character probably in her late 50's who is covered from head to toe and has never discussed anything sexual at all. I made a deliberate effort to not sexualize her, even, since I realized a while ago that I was subconsciously "sexing up" almost all of the female characters. The fact that she still rates these kind of comments is very disappointing.

Regarding Haley's fairly persistent slut-shaming…all I can do is apologize for that. I have no excuse except my own shortcomings and lack of self-awareness. I could try to say that because of the environment that Haley was raised in (a literal criminal gang), she hasn't had the education or experience to not fall in line and perpetuate those sort of harmful labels on her own gender. I could say that, but that would be justifying it after the fact. The truth is, I didn't think it was a problem at the time. I've known so many women (many in the lower class, like Haley) who would drop those insults at other women in a fight that I was just trying to add authenticity. In my experience, some women are quicker to slut-shame other women than even men. So I was going for accuracy in how a woman might insult other women, but you know what? It's still not acceptable. I'm still producing a piece of media consumed by young women, and I have a responsibility to do better.

Does this mean that those words will never show up in anything I write ever again? Probably not, but at least in the future I hope to only use them when I'm depicting a character who is overtly sexist/misogynistic (like Tarquin), rather than having them flow out of the mouth of the primary female lead. Because what kind of message does that send? I may be wrong, but I think I've avoided Haley using any of those words for this entire book. I just didn't want to draw attention to it.

And, for the record, "You're oversensitive," is not a valid defense for saying something offensive on this message board. The initial joke was mildly offensive; some of the responses defending it have been much more so. And references to political movements of the past are right out. Scrubbing may be in order.

Thank you, you are amazing. Logged in for the first time in a few years (not that I haven't followed the comic daily, just not the forums anymore) just to say that.

I think it might be OOC if Haley were to semi-abruptly stop spouting misogynist stuff after she's been established to do so, especially since, as you've rightfully pointed out, her background makes it plausible for her. In fact, I think it's very important that you keep that as a character trait for her for now - she's like a lot of women in that regard, as you've said, and i'ts important that other women like her can relate to her enough to finally notice why she's acting wrong.

So, on that note, I'd love it if you kept this character flaw but started treating it more like a flaw in-story and resolved it properly rather than just letting it fade out of existence. Perhaps with a small arc where this behaviour of hers was challenged?

Anyway, my respect for you just rose a thousand notches. Keep up the great work. ^^

[Kaytara]

King of Nowere, Dragonus, I'll just note that humor is at least in part a "what seemed dangerous actually isn't" mechanism. It's a "call off the alert" signal. A tense situation stopped being tense, we can all relax now. It can get filtered down through civilization into a "things aren't what they really seem," and this is why we find paradoxes funny.

But when you're laughing at someone by lumping them in with their social group, you're invoking that primal meaning - essentially saying "you're not dangerous. Whatcha gonna do, come and HIT me?" Replace "hit" with "challenge in any meaningful way" in civilized society. What makes it different is that the humor is not aimed at the environment, but at a person.

It's not a "male" or "female" thing. It's not a "we're laughing at a bad thing." It's a message saying "relax, it's ok." But when you're aiming it at people who DO belong to that same group you're insulting, you're sending a conflicting message. You're outwardly telling them to relax and at the same time you're reminding them to "know their place," which is lower than yours. This is what provokes an offended reaction. If they're feeling secure enough, they'll attack. If not, they'll be hurt. Do you seriously want to provoke a confrontation every time you use those words? Because that is what you're doing, ethologically speaking.

It's not offensive to you because you feel secure. If you want to invest into into other people feeling secure, into actually having a secure environment around you, then you don't use slurs or "humorous" insults, period. If you don't want to invest effort into that - well, you're going get the same attitude back in spades, give or take a few years, either you or your children. And there's always a bigger fish.

One of the best explanations I've seen for why the 'it's humour!' explanation is bogus and flies in the whole point of what humour is supposed to be.

As to everyone arguing that 'men are discriminated against' too.... Great. Yes. You're absolutely right. I'm not being sarcastic. You're correct. That's a result of society's (I wont' say 'patriarchy' because you appear to be allergic to that word and consider it some kind of 'new age conspiracy' thing) effort to impose rigid gender roles. Rigid, meaning step outside, and you lose the benefits you had by sticking to them. The only difference between men and women is that men are on average *slightly* better off if they stick to the 'rules', whereas for women it's often a no-win situation.

Now that you've successfully noted that sexism hurts men too, could you please move on and actually start trying to fight it? There's absolutely no reason not to except for the utter illusion that sexism against men and sexism against women are somehow separate and have independent causes.

And with that, I'm noping out of this thread because the past few pages have already made me feel sick to my stomach. I already put up with this crap on nearly every other website I know. Sinfest.net is receiving flack for the creator having dipped into femisnim (ostensibly to 'please his girlfriend', because men are ruled by their sex drives and no man would ever do anything different for any reason that did not involve getting laid, amirite?), half the articles on cracked.com are written explicitly in a way that assumes that the reader is a heterosexual male and its female readers don't even exist, about three thirds of the jokes on 9gag.com, a site meant for silly lighthearted humour, rely on misogyny or homophobia to work, and 90% of the Let's Play channels on Youtube similarly do nothing but insult women and other "minorities" in place of humour. And of course, I still don't know a single good female LPer, because, whaddoyouknow, being female in a *~*~*~male*~*~*~* industry gets you pelted with death threats, rape threats, and "joking' comments to get back in the kitchen. Surprisingly, not a lot of women stick around in that environment.

Tl;dr version: When an average female fantasy and gaming and sci-fi fan can't get her fun *anywhere* on the 'mainstream' (read: not "for feminists by feminists") internet without continuously running into reminders that she's subhuman, something is very wrong here.

King of Nowhere, it's easy for you to treat the "patriarchy" as some sort of "theory". I'd give a lot for you to actually spend a week as a woman and see if you still feel the same way. For me, it's everywhere I look, now that I've learned how to actually notice it. And I'm lucky that I live in a very progressive country and mostly only have to deal with that crap online.

[Grey Watcher]

Given the way we've seen Tarquin, Malack, Laurin, Jacinda, Miron and The Warrior With No Name manipulate their puppets, I can't see this as anything but a way for Tarquin and Malack to manipulate her. The fact that they get some chuckles in the process is a bonus. After all, Tarquin has always been willing go an extra mile for a punchline. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0854.html) The Empress of Blood dying from high cholesterol seems like the sort of thing he would laugh about for days. :smallannoyed:

Don't get me wrong, not correcting her misunderstanding is, in itself, a **** move (at bare minimum, he might suggest that she become a bodybuilder and increase her size that way). But that still doesn't prove that he deliberately goaded her into gaining weight. And, if (do note if) he did not, then Burlew's point stands that she's doing this to herself. Now, whether that makes her an acceptable target for jokes about her size is yet another discussion which I honestly don't care to participate in too heavily.

Of course, as I acknowledged, because we only have Tarquin's account of how this went down, and he was still playing mostly nice to the PCs at the time, it's entirely possible that events unfolded exactly as you say, and the Empress' weight is simply an elaborate prank.

Also, strictly speaking, we don't know that dragons are subject to the same health risks from obesity that humans are.

[Sir_Leorik]

Tl;dr version: When an average female fantasy and gaming and sci-fi fan can't get her fun *anywhere* on the 'mainstream' (read: not "for feminists by feminists") internet without continuously running into reminders that she's subhuman, something is very wrong here.

King of Nowhere, it's easy for you to treat the "patriarchy" as some sort of "theory". I'd give a lot for you to actually spend a week as a woman and see if you still feel the same way. For me, it's everywhere I look, now that I've learned how to actually notice it. And I'm lucky that I live in a very progressive country and mostly only have to deal with that crap online.

I think that the anonymity the Internet provides can often bring out the worst in people. "The New Yorker" once ran a cartoon of a dog typing on a computer, with the caption "On the Internet no one knows you're a dog". The masks the Internet lets users wear can be liberating, but that can lead users to drop their societal inhibitions. As you mentioned Kaytara, in Germany men would not dream of behaving that way in public. Even in America, in certain circles, outright misogyny is not tolerated. But on-line the mask comes on and people who might chafe at these "politically correct" or "feminist" ideas, might let loose with streams of invective. The problem is that once you turn on this kind of hate, you can't just turn it off. Even if they do nothing more than engage in misogynist speech on a forum or in a YouTube comment, that speech will eventually begin to filter into their day to day life. As Dr. Jekyll found, once you start turning into Edward Hyde, it becomes harder and harder to change back to Henry Jekyll. Eventually you will be Mr. Hyde all the time.


Don't get me wrong, not correcting her misunderstanding is, in itself, a **** move (at bare minimum, he might suggest that she become a bodybuilder and increase her size that way). But that still doesn't prove that he deliberately goaded her into gaining weight. And, if (do note if) he did not, then Burlew's point stands that she's doing this to herself. Now, whether that makes her an acceptable target for jokes about her size is yet another discussion which I honestly don't care to participate in too heavily.

Of course, as I acknowledged, because we only have Tarquin's account of how this went down, and he was still playing mostly nice to the PCs at the time, it's entirely possible that events unfolded exactly as you say, and the Empress' weight is simply an elaborate prank.

Also, strictly speaking, we don't know that dragons are subject to the same health risks from obesity that humans are.

I think the part where she's going along with this is that she is at least a little greedy and power hungry; she chose to join Tarquin and become the Empress. But she didn't understand that her bargain with Tarquin was a worse one than Redcloak and Right-Eye's bargain with Xykon in the diner. She's their pawn, and if they really wanted her to be in fighting shape, they'd keep her on a strict diet. They gorge her on food to keep her under control.

[Dragonus45]

:EDIT: Someone has tossed me a PM asking that i take any conversations with yall to PM since they feel we are derailing the thread. A second person i know just tossed me the same request on facebook after i posted this. Anyone who wants to ill gladly keep the discussion going, but only if you PM me first.

[Grey Watcher]

I think the part where she's going along with this is that she is at least a little greedy and power hungry; she chose to join Tarquin and become the Empress. But she didn't understand that her bargain with Tarquin was a worse one than Redcloak and Right-Eye's bargain with Xykon in the diner. She's their pawn, and if they really wanted her to be in fighting shape, they'd keep her on a strict diet. They gorge her on food to keep her under control.

True, Tarquin's relationship with the Empress is, at a fundamental level, abusive and manipulative. But that's a bit more broad that the specific question of: did the Empress embark on her weight gain project on her own, or was it Tarquin's idea?

Yes, he probably has many motives for not correcting her: maybe he thinks it's funny, maybe it's a handy way to shut her up and keep her from looking to closely at what Tarquin is doing, maybe it helps him keep her less of a physical threat to him (so that, should the need arise it's easier to kill her). But the question of whether she was somehow forced, coerced, tricked, or otherwise manipulated into starting in on the weight gain regimen in the first place has not been, definitively answered. Unless you interpret Rich Burlew's statement that he felt more comfortable doing fat jokes about the Empress in part because it was something she was willfully doing to herself to mean that, no, Tarquin didn't put her up to it.

[multilis]

Why it is still considered evil now that we recognize that women are not men's property, particularly in the case of unattached women where there's no legal presumption of paternity, totally escapes me. The availability of cheap highly-effective contraception doesn't help clarify.
It goes both ways, men also a social negative. For example polygamy is also often illegal, and is more often a man with multiple wives.

Many social structures are based on "family", where children are raised by 2 mates. Polygamy has more problems with jealousy. People who have multiple partners in past are statistically less likely to have lasting marriage and children raised by two parents... some might quote old bard who claimed "the first cut (love) is the deepest". Children raised in more complex situations than 2 parents who stay bonded for life tend to have higher crime rates later in life.

Some scholars feel that the collapse of Azuran Empire was because of the decaying social structure, because of having less strong family bonds. In early years, Azuran paladins were able to triumph over distant savage villages, but in later years, the Azure city defenders tended to flee rather than defend against the invading goblin hordes.

...

As for Laurin, we have insufficient information, she is planning to ask T for favor but unknown whether it is a sexual favor.