Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2500-2504 (29 July- August 2, 2013) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread
DSL:
--- Quote from: wiserd on 05 Aug 2013, 11:57 ---... There's something about the AI creation process in this world that is not strictly utilitarian, and seems to be a copying of the human psyche, warts and all.
Considering that Jeph has been clearly willing to address notions of identity politics in his comics, and that each character's psychology seems based on a fairly rich back story, this makes me wonder what he plans to do with May and where she comes from.
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They are (within the verse) people that grow and develop. They are (for story purposes) characters crafted to grow and develop. IOW, Jeph's a good storyteller.
Finding out what Jeph plans to do with May and where she comes from is a problem that solves itself, as long as Jeph continues to produce the comic. I counsel patience.
wiserd:
--- Quote from: psyduck ---
--- Quote from: wiserd on 02 Aug 2013, 00:51 ---Is it just me or does May really not seem female.
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:psyduck: I don't know; what are we supposed to seem like? And by whom?
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To be completely clear, I'm not saying "supposed" as in "normative/this is how a woman should be." I'm saying she doesn't express herself in the manner females I've known do. (I've been in a number of different cultures. I'm not sure to what extent I can really have been outside the middle class in any of them, though. )
But it's a fair question. Compared to many women, May seems; more directly, needlessly confrontational, more 'trickster' ish in a sadistic way... her faked confidence in places comes across like a teenage boy's, she's more overtly libertine, she's less concerned with upholding and more concerned with deliberately violating social norms in an obviously offensive or harmful way.
None of these are close to a knockdown punch, but as a constellation of effects, they seem unusual to me. I'm not saying most men are like this. I am saying that all the people like this that I've known are male.
wiserd:
--- Quote from: DSL on 05 Aug 2013, 12:24 ---
Finding out what Jeph plans to do with May and where she comes from is a problem that solves itself, as long as Jeph continues to produce the comic. I counsel patience.
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That might be true. (Or not.)
But this form of reply could be used to obviate a LOT of forum posts, you know? We post anyways. ;-)
Think of how sports fans speculate on the outcome of upcoming games, even though the games will resolve themselves. It seems like part of the process of fandom.
Is it cold in here?:
The key question is how Dickmouth Stinkface's actions compare with those of other sociopathic female inmates.
An unpleasant idea comes to mind, though. There's a sadistic American official who forces male prisoners to wear pink underwear. What if Dickmouth Stinkface is the victim of a warden like that? What if she's set to male in software but maliciously assigned to a humiliating female avatar?
Valdís:
--- Quote from: wiserd on 05 Aug 2013, 11:57 ---So far, the comic has hewn pretty close to my gender constructs. Thus, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to play "one of these things is not like the other" where the AIs are concerned.
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The things you're pointing your finger at stem from how you view humans, not how you view AIs. For the record AIs aren't "less than", they're their own characters and warrant the same amount of respect one would give to any human on the cast.
Also finger-pointing about "adequate femininity" isn't a game.
--- Quote from: wiserd on 05 Aug 2013, 11:57 ---If someone wanted to be transgender would you advise them to 'just re-evaluate their gender constructs?'
I ask this because the acceptance of trans-sexuality/body dysmorphic disorder/whatever as something "real" rather than an arbitrary or learned choice seems to indicate a pretty deep-seated human connection with a certain gender that precedes any constructs society might impose.
People tried doing random gender reassignment on hermaphrodites a few decades ago, based on the notion that gender identification was arbitrary. The results are currently believed to have been pretty disastrous. This suggests that whatever gender is, it is more than just a social construct. As offensive or threatening as that notion may be to some people.
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First and foremost "Hermaphrodite" is not an appropriate thing to call an intersex person at all. Nor is it "trans sexuality", as it isn't a sexual orientation. Also it's Gender Dysphoria.
Secondly, just because our genders aren't constructs doesn't mean there aren't constructs built around them, true, but which no one of any gender need adhere to. "Statistical tendencies" toward certain traits does not equate to them being a necessity for anyone of that gender. This is equally important to recognize when thinking of us, as transgender people, because it's so often precisely this type of thinking that brings up the "Well men can wear dresses have feminine mannerisms too, you don't need to change like that!" (or the eternally loathed "Can't you just be gay?"), but I have no particular intent of wearing an extraordinary amount of dresses. It isn't seeking permission for those constructs - because fuck all that nonsense, it's simply what I am. Nor would it invalidate who I am just because I'm wearing a t-shirt and jeans right now or that I happened to write the word "fuck" in that earlier parenthesis. Even if I admittedly mostly did to write that afterwards.
The sad reality of society's cisnormativity faced by transgender & intersex people does not make either of us an excuse for gender-essentialist sexism, such as doubting if a person can "really be" their gender given certain behaviors.
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 05 Aug 2013, 13:33 ---What if Dickmouth Stinkface is the victim of a warden like that? What if she's set to male in software but maliciously assigned to a humiliating female avatar?
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Indeed. It'd be an awful thing for it to be the case. Certainly not out of the ordinary in our world, given all the trans people sent to the wrong prisons and suffering terrible abuse over it as-is... but it might be a tad grim as an ongoing situation for a character, maybe?
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