Other Explosions
  • Craig!
    June 18, 2010

    You see, it’s funny because by this point it’s been well-established that he loves lasagna.

  • jonthebru
    June 18, 2010

    I’m not white, I’m pink.

  • The Ghost of D. Boon
    June 18, 2010

    I’m not white, I’m clear

  • dogimo
    June 18, 2010

    I’m ecru.

  • Mr. Sutton
    June 18, 2010

    Do real people say “I’m queer culturally”? I just can’t imagine that for some reason.

  • Beyla
    June 18, 2010

    @Mr. Sutton

    I have encountered it.

  • Michael
    June 18, 2010

    Sure, why not? There’s a queer culture, and a huge chunk of it has nothing to do with sex and romance.

  • Teddy
    June 18, 2010

    I don’t get it- are they being beset by a gang of socially-accepted outsiders? Is that where the irony is?

  • yachris
    June 18, 2010

    Ah, lasagna… thanks for pointing that out.

  • Jonathan
    June 18, 2010

    Michael: “Culturally queer” reinforces the notion that all subcultural preferences are rooted in sexuality. When people describe themselves that way, others don’t hear, “I like opera and female sexual organs,” they hear “I like opera but am not ready to come out.” Which is a bad thing for all our diverse sexual self-perceptions.

    Teddy: yes, and Girl created them in a previous strip.

  • S.N. Niyen
    June 18, 2010

    Queer button.
    Queer curious.
    Cherish the queer.
    Culture queers do it imperceptibly.

    These are just some internet-fragmented “thoughts” that are apparently taking the form of button “suggestions.” Wait; I’m on a roll!!!

    Come for the queer, stay for the baton work. (Highbrow is better than middlebrow, middlebrow is better than lowbrow, and lowbrow is better than highbrow. It’s very simple.)

    Queer shoes. (Shoes are always interesting to button gazers. That would be the only reason for this button.)

    I queer Minnesota. (Silly, yet oddly subtle, since there’s no “instantly” recognizable graphic for “queer”. How transgressive is that?!? So I think it’s clear what type of queer I actually am… quite a sobering realization, actually.)

    Kiss my queer. (Hmm. None of the others except the “cherish” one would I probably wear on public transportation. But this one? The border of
    unacceptable transgression is always fluid, and I imagine “kiss my queer friend” wouldn’t… quite… work… for me. Mostly. So, maybe…)

  • Apachama
    June 19, 2010

    I have met one genderqueer fellow who was very definitely heterosexual.

    I don’t know about queer as a cultural designation. Being gay doesn’t make you automatically into someone who enjoys and partakes in cultural elements which have traditionally been associated with gay people. Being “queer” in that way may be an attempt to show solidarity with homosexuals, but it does reinforce stereotypes of the sexualities.

    Maybe. Maybe it’s all cool and people can call themselves whatever the Hell they want. I’m fine with that.

  • Nny
    June 19, 2010

    Im not cathing the link between the first 3 panels and the rest of the comic…anyone care to elaborate for me?

  • Mei J.
    June 19, 2010

    Sometimes what one is doing in one’s post-industrial nutriting facilities may have unexpected side-effects, such as the disappearance of the walls or even the entire living structure. And as we all know, “Other is Out There.”

  • David Thomsen
    June 19, 2010

    I think Boy is so self-absorbed that he doesn’t ask Girl if she’s okay after her REAL explosion, when she asks if he’s okay after his OTHER explosion. Or something. The first three panels are there to put Boy’s explosion in perspective.

    I don’t really have anything to say on the subject of ‘queer’. It’s a nice label that means ‘I am the way I am’, which pretty much goes for everyone anyway.

  • Bystander
    June 20, 2010

    Nny – it’s a follow-up to three strips back

    http://catandgirl.com/?p=2489

  • Esn
    June 20, 2010

    I understand this one…

    It’s a bit embarrassing, to be honest…

  • Esn
    June 20, 2010

    Also, I think many of you are missing the point. I don’t believe he’s using “queer” in the sense of “gay”. That’s how he’s supposed to be using it, but he’s not.

  • Jonathan
    June 20, 2010

    Apachama : “Heterosexual genderqueer,” like some neologisms, represents an failure to use language coherently. That’s certainly preferable to trying to force people to use language in a certain way; language is supposed to be an experimental process, so I wholeheartedly agree with you that people can call themselves whatever the Hell they want. But some things people call themselves really are counterproductive. Queer is not a gender. It is a way of fucking. Slapping the words “gender” and “queer” together continues to tie gender to specific ways of fucking, and thus relies on sexual stereotyping as a manner of self-definition. All stereotypes reinforce an existing status quo. I suggest that a “genderqueer” person is self-stereotyped as sexually immature (sexually mature males rarely come up with neologisms to express that they like both opera and vaginas), and that the word reinforces the stereotype of men who fuck men as sexually immature.

  • Pegs
    June 21, 2010

    Not that it’s particularly central, but I could almost see thought-ballons in the last panel…

    “I tan orange.” (And without risking the bad health consequences of UV overexposure. Ask me how!)

    “I’m half Hispanic.” (On the Queen of Aragon’s side of the family.)

    “I’m queer — culturally.” (And not bi-curious in any way, shape or form whatsoever. Just ask me!)

  • David Thomsen
    June 21, 2010

    I sometimes find that people who aggressively promote ‘queer’ acceptance and awareness are the ones that move it further backwards.

    Russell T Davies had a habit of casually slipping homosexual references into his series of Doctor Who. Like, a woman will casually allude to her ‘wife’, and then never speak of her again. Or a guy will be sharing a meaningless anecdote about one of his friends, and casually throw in a reference to ‘his boyfriend’. In both instances, the dialogue is entirely incidental, and seems to have been created with the sole intention of casually slipping gay references into the show, which seems disingenuous to me. It’s like product placement, but with a social agenda.

    Why not have actual gay couples on screen, instead of just referring to them off the screen? Even Jack Harkness, the most assertively bisexual character ever, was never seen in an actual relationship with another man. Or, if the network won’t actually allow you to show homosexual couples on the screen, work in a subversive statement about that.

    It’s like if in Friends at least one of the six white characters had to casually refer to their ‘black friend’ in every episode. Like, “Hey, I just got back from having coffee with our black friend… he says hi”. Ostensibly pro-race, but more racist than a can of hillbilly soup.

    The best way to promote acceptance is to remove labels, not perpetuate them. Who doesn’t have a heterosexual friend who has self-consciously gone to a screening at a ‘queer film’ festival, thinking that it’s a great way to demonstrate their awareness?

  • kat
    June 21, 2010

    Jonathan, are you familiar with what “genderqueer” indicates? I wasn’t sure by what you wrote. It’s not something some squeamish hetero dude made up. “Genderqueer” typically refers to a person who identifies somewhere in between the binary male-female genders; they might say they are neither, both, other, or just, well, genderqueer. Some of these people deliberately cultivate an appearance or method of presenting that fucks with typical understanding of gender presentation/identity; others are less political about their presentation. Some people go through partial/full sex-reassignment surgeries or will take hormones.

    I’ve also seen “genderqueer” used as an umbrella term for all persons on the trans spectrum.

    So I guess there might be some oddness to attaching “heterosexual” to “genderqueer” [because what would be hetero to a genderqueer person? another genderqueer?] I don’t see anything weird about “genderqueer” itself. Genderqueers get to hang out in queersville regardless of their sexuality just like [other?] transfolks do.

    I’d also say, importantly, that they have a legitimate claim to the certain type of personal narrative and being the focus of certain oppressive forces that allow one to be a Real Queer rather than That Guy Who Says He’s Culturally Queer.

  • Jonathan
    June 21, 2010

    Kat, the term has always annoyed me — though it can be a logical descriptor, it’s too-often used in place of a specific, more useful word. When used this way, it evokes someone who’s not sure how to describe themselves — which is fine, but does seem linguistically week.

    Take a couple — an M-to-F trans and a lesbian. Before they were dating, our XY friend self-identified as trans and our XX friend self-described as a lesbian. Their relationship could be said to put a kink in either of their self-descriptions, so if they had to describe their relationship in one word, “genderqueer” might be the best word. On the other hand, there will never be a circumstance in which they’ll get to describe their relationship in just one word, even if they want to. So what’s the point?

    “That word is useless” isn’t much of a condemnation, and it isn’t a big deal — the phrase “heterosexual genderqueer” is gibberish, which is always a greater irritant, though hardly the worst thing that’s happened to gender. I maintain that the word suggests a naivete on the part of the self-describer, and I maintain that there is a result of reinforcing the stereotypical connection between “queer” and immaturity. I’ve been wrong about such things before.

    But we are talking about language, in which accuracy and coherency must take precedence over social or earned legitimacy. And even to the degree to which such linguistic discussion spills over into subcultural norms, “oppressive” seems like an exaggerated descriptor.

  • David TC
    June 21, 2010

    Dorothy, you rock as always, and thanks for this comic, it’s great. Everybody else. . . well, let’s just put it this way: Internet, I love you.

    Seriously though, you owe Dorothy for this, give her some Donation Derby money right now.

  • kat
    June 22, 2010

    Hey Jonathan,

    Thanks for responding back. I think you’re coming from a different place than I am, because I’m not quite sure why you think “heterosexual genderqueer” is “gibberish”. I also don’t quite get why you think a person who chooses to call themselves genderqueer is naive or immature. What are they naive or immature about? What’s the connection between queer and immaturity you’re talking about?

    I think, yes, some people who say they are genderqueer are currently unsure about their gender, and so genderqueer can be a holding pen, so to speak, for those who will later move on to different binary identities [M2F, F2M, cisgendered after all]. I think it’s also possible that there are some people who are at bottom unsure where to put themselves on the gender spectrum, and it’s not a matter of immaturity that they’re saying “I’m genderqueer”.

    I liken it to the situation with “bisexual”– there’s a chunk of people who use the term as an identity descriptor who are merely on their way to identifying as gay, or who turn out straight. I am bi myself, and I don’t get bent out of shape about this. People who are questioning their identity are doing the best they can, and of course it’s the gray-area identities that people take up first because they are sort of liminal spaces. It doesn’t mean that in-betweeners or whatever are always illegitimate or that those who end up permanently identifying as bi or genderqueer or whatever are immature.

    Sometimes these sorts of spaces [“half-spanish”] end up being more accurate or genuine than picking somewhere else. I know I’d be lying if I said I was a lesbian, or if I said I was straight. I suppose where this gets us into trouble is when people adopt too-watered-down identities [“culturally queer”, “one-sixteenth Cherokee”] because part of identifying with something is, I guess, its being compared/defined against an opposite and going all-out with the positive identification. If you’re in too much of a muddled space, there’s really nothing to hang on to. But I think genderqueer is defined enough to constitute a real, mature identity.

    My comment about oppression was intended to indicate that presenting as genderqueer is going to get you kicked out of, fired from, etc. the same places that presenting in drag, as a diesel dyke, holding hands with your same-sex partner, being a non-passing transperson etc. would, and for the same reasons. “Culturally queer” dudes or ladies are unlikely to be subject to the same sort of discrimination. This is important because modern queer identity is in part predicated on this sort of experience. Genderqueer persons are likely to be subject to it as well and at the very least, have claim to this part of queer identity.

  • rocketbride
    June 24, 2010

    @david: the fact that such “meaningless” comments are so noticable just points out the heteronormative weight of western culture. we wouldn’t pick out het descriptors and argue about their relevancy.

  • Nny
    June 26, 2010

    Im Alright Me by The Cribs (good song) says this:
    And now, you think you’re right
    With your reluctance to accept us
    But I know that will change
    When it’s cool to be an outsider

    More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/the_cribs/#share

  • Taylor McIntyre
    October 3, 2016

    The Cribs incredible band, never disappointed. ‘Our Bovine Public’ their best song in my opinion http://lyricsmusic.name/the-cribs-lyrics/mens-needs-womens-needs-whatever/our-bovine-public.html

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