Hurly-Burlewd

A few months ago I splurged on PDFs of The Order of the Stick books, padded with a few extra pages and author commentary, from the first volume of which I excerpt the following:

 

Year 2005, two years after the strips in question:

"The “bardic nudity” strips were a lot fo* fun to do, partly because I got the chance to show that while these were stick figures, this was not a strip for young children. While Elan’s nakedness is somewhat innocent, Haley’s desire to check him out indicates that yes, this strip will sometimes drift into “PG-13” territory. Strip #28 was kind of my “warning shot” to those who would be offended by mildly adult material. Not that it worked; when #35 came out, I got more than a couple emails from people who were offended at the sexual suggestion. Which, incidentally, is actually far tamer than that in #28."

 

then, year 2015:

"I also realize now why people were offended by strip #35 and not #28. It wasn't about the inclusion of content that implied sexuality; it was the fact that in the former strip, my female lead character was in control of her own sexuality and in the latter she was reduced to a sexualized object."

- and then he goes on for another paragraph self-flagellating over his "male gaze" and making apologies to the political correctness police.

 

Oh for fuck's sake Burlew, stop being facetious. We know you're smarter than this. #35 is indeed tamer than #28, both in its sexuality (slight cleavage vs. full nudity) and in its entitlement (the men ogle covertly, shamefully, while the woman does so brazenly, imperiously) and that's without considering the litany of double entendres. Even the minimal effort of logic the author routinely applies to villainous banter, pratfalls and attacks of opportunity would reveal his original, 2005 interpretation hit far closer to the mark. Of course even in 2005 he missed prudishness' unspoken function to criminalize and cash in on guilt. Is anyone? ever? prudish about the other half of sex, the all-pervasive female paraphilia of romance? Did Burlew himself feel the need to pixelate Roy and Celia's candle-lit courtship ritual? I refer you to my Yes Sex Scenes post.

Even if we naively accept the proposition that <a gaze> inflicts harm (gorgons and kryptonians excepted) Haley gazes at a lot more of Elan than the men ever glimpse of her. Is Elan "in control of his own sexuality" to borrow a stupid phrase?** Neither Elan nor Haley are showing off on a conscious desire to attract a mate but Haley at least had the INT score to be aware of her situation if she'd cared to. While you're treating sexuality as harmful, just for the sake of argument, you may want to address Elan's infantile stupidity, so severe in early strips that if he'd been female the audience would now act outraged at a counterpart male Haley committing statutory rape with an Algernon-level retard. And I mean the mouse.

No, obviously your audience did not run a detailed, objective harm analysis of both situations to weigh the characters' ethical comportment in a fair and impartial manner. Which you might've assumed given your audience is an audience. On teh internets, no less. The herd merely reacted to a waved matador's flag, lurched in the direction dictated by a scriptural dichotomy of good and evil, attacking the designated enemy which in any discussion of the sexes means men by default. Page #35 shows men enjoying the sight of a woman. Burn the men! Page #28 shows men being made to suffer by a woman. Ha-ha, they're being burned! That's it. That's the entire cogitation. Beyond glorifying women and demonizing men, to SJWs the rest is filler and justification.

So, after Burlew's sane but uninsightful 2005 assessment and his 2015 overwrought kow-towing to fanatics, what would his commentary be in an imagined 2025 re-release of book #1? Can woke proselytes ever pull out of their self-gratifying dogmatic tailspin? Are twenty years long enough to go insane and back again?*** We've seen that with other new faiths like Scientology, it's more often the next generation, born into the faith, which shakes itself loose. And when it comes to snowflakery, the thought of what that backlash will look like is getting scarier every year.

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* Yes! I'm not the only one who constantly makes that typo! YEEEESSSSSS!!!

** By its very nature sexual attraction/attractiveness is something you cannot truly be in control of, not only because it is inherently interpretive, but because it is the most obvious, direct example of your genetic imperative wrenching control of your brain away from your conscious mind. Even if you were sexually attracted to something utterly lacking intentionality, like... gravel... neither you nor the gravel would have as much say in the matter as your pre-sapient instinct to hump gravel. (Ooooh, yeah, baby, scree me like that.)

*** Insane and back again: A trademark-safe halfwitling's tale.