Comic 714: Porn for Nerd Women

First off, isn't "Porn for Women" really old? Yes. It is. It was published on April 5th, 2007. That may not seem so old now (except actually it's almost 3 years ago so really it does), but put it this way: when this book came out, the xkcd had only 224 comics. I don't know why Randall has suddenly found reason to be offended by this book now, I guess he just heard of it for the first time? Well, ok. No reason you can't protest after the fact, right, sort of a theoretical kind of thing. Just makes it hard to sympathize with the outraged characters, you know, because it's like, well there's dozens of these books now, why are you only just finding out about it?

Here's the problem I have with so much of this "getting offended by things." This book series, it is a joke. Ok, it plays off a stereotype, I guess. The stereotype is....men don't like doing housework and so women like to see men to housework. This stereotype - which is, as you know, currently tearing the fabric of our nation to shreds - is terrible. So anything that plays into it - a certain book, you see - is a terrible sexist monster that has to be mocked forever. Randall's female persona in the comic is striking a blow for women's equality everywhere by pointing out that she too enjoys actual pornography - a product not usually associated with treating women particularly well, or as people rather than objects. Somehow this is supposed to help the feminist cause.

I know there are some people out there who think that this comic is supposed to make the girl in it look dumb, because she doesn't understand that the book is a joke. The excuses are nice, but the fact is that clearly Randall Munroe doesn't understand that the book is a joke. Apparently the word "porn" can ONLY mean actual pornography. Apparently some people do not realize that there are phrases like "torture porn" which use the word as a metaphor. No one is pretending or arguing that Porn for Women is actual pornography; there are legal definitions for that and we know that they are not met. Does the book exaggerate for comic effect? Yes. But so what? How is that such a terrible thing?

I'm not going to go so far as to say that Randall made this comic to try to impress so called progressive women (that is what I have Rob for). But I do think that this fits into a pattern of "comics which portray the artist as highly sympathetic to women," the most obvious other example being the fact that we have seen like 18 guy-on-girl oral sexes but 0 girl-on-guy (and no gay ones! get offended by that, guys!). What does that mean? I do not want to speculate.

oh of course I want to speculate! This comic is designed to make women who think they are intelligent like Randall, because he is portraying himself as a woman who is offended by all the "right" things. The glorious irony is, that by setting himself up as a heroic defender of women's rights he is basically doing exactly what the guys do in....Porn for Women.


===============

GUYS! Perhaps you know this already but: there is a new Perry Bible Fellowship comic! Well- there is basically a new Perry Bible Fellowship comic. Nick Gurewitch made a very PBFlike comic for some new comic book about superheroes or something. Anyway, here it is. I don't find it all that funny, but like the best PBFs, I love looking at it just the same - the art is just so great, the faces so expressive. The colors and art style just feels like an old movie in the best way.

The associated interview is well worth a read - good stuff about pacing that lesser writers could stand to study. Also, I know little to nothing about superheroes, but even I can tell that the Galactacus/Magneto idea for a comic at the end of the interview is awesome. so stop reading this and start reading that!