[0887] Second Circle Consulting
└ posted on Thursday, 18 May 2017, by Novil
- Cloud: I can’t give Sandra sexy lingerie for her birthday!
- Larisa: Of course you can, Cloud! You just have to go step by step, then it’s quite simple!
- Cloud: She’d think I’m a pervert if I gave her panties like these!
- Larisa: Correct. Only this product will meet the needs of the client.
- Cloud: The store wouldn’t sell me such scandalous clothes anyway….
- Larisa: A clerk who hasn’t yet met his sales quota can become your best ally!
- Cloud: You bewitched me, nefarious demon!
- Larisa: We from Second Circle Consulting prefer to speak of “reorganizing deep neural networks by supervised training.”
![[0887] Second Circle Consulting](/comics/2017-05-18-0887-second-circle-consulting.png "[0887] Second Circle Consulting")
Velgar wrote:
Well there is also 13 year old in this comics who is likely to be blind in 7 years and dead in 17…
she exactly does not have much time to live her life.
Gorm13 wrote:
At least in U.S. English, this use of “their” is not formally correct. But it is used more and more in practice, and it is the most practical possessive pronoun for a single person of any gender that we’ve got. Language evolves all the time, and I expect this usage will become standard.
It’s amusing that Cloud thinks the store won’t sell him “such scandalous clothes” (presumably due to his age) when the clerk appears to be only a year or so older than he is.
Seems even with her mind wiped, Larisa is doing the devil’s work
@ Stephen
@ fuzzy3158
Chill TF out. As CoMa wrote:
Velgar wrote:
It’s underage only by our current culture’s standards, and people mentally tend to age differently. The rules are meant to be “mean safe”. Some people really become mature earlier, and some people never grow up. Relying solely on age is silly.
And it’s dubious we would get graphical representation of Sandra in lingerie, so no worries here.
Tom West wrote:
First, this comic currently has someting short of a thousand pages and has run for a long time. It’s only normal for one f many topics to be this. Otherwise we could talk about self-censorship (which is a bad thing, for many reasons). Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if all or most such comments would originate from USA. Your bubble standards aren’t world’s standards, live with it. Or not. Apologies, but nobody else cares.
@ Paeris Kiran:
You’re argument in favor of child sexualization is that it’s alright since the comic also establishes it’s willingness to imply death by disease at a young age? Your logic seeks flawed.
In the end I don’t have overly high hopes for this plot, last time the author had a story about sexualizing one of the underage characters was when Larissa shared her nudes on snapchat and got 80 percent of the US population sent to prison. Kind of squicky for ultimately a lame payoff.
Also, this comic could have been just as funny if Larissa had convinced Cloud to buy Sandra a flamethrower instead of lingerie. The last joke could have just been instead of a Victoria’s Secret (equivalent) clerk, been ‘a pawn shop owner willing to be paid under the table is your best friend’.
Typeminer wrote:
I’m not sure how there can be any such thing as “formally correct” in English, consider their is no equivalent of the French Academy for the language.
Many classical writers have use the singular they, from Jane Austen to Shakespeare! If anybody in a position claims it shouldn’t be used, they should reconsider ^_^
“Second Circle Consulting”
Didn’t take Larisa long to corporatize her true nature.
Aw, poor Cloud, so naive and easy to fool x.x;
Sandra’s gonna hate him now x.x;
Cookie wrote:
Yep. And training deep neural networks requires practicing the desired behavior again… and again… and again…!
Stephen wrote:
you would have hated by 8th grade break 17 years ago… this is nothing
@ Hugh Minn:
That may well just be because it’s a reference to the actual divine comedy
He’s going to end up wearing the lingerie himself by the end of this arc.
Stephen wrote:
Thank you for reminding me that you live in America, the “land of the free and home of the brave.”
Why do I feel a boss fight incoming?? Larisa is WAY out of your league, Cloud! Hope you’re fast enough to flee!
@ Peridotdreams:
OML it is!!! its totally her! the question is, why is she working there of all places???
Edda wrote:
she might have “many kits” but probably not since seeoahtlahmakaskay has no power over humans and she was opposed to the idea.
@ jon:
does it matter how fast he is? shell just burn all possible hiding places.
Ritch wrote:
This was her nature well before she met a certain gentleman from ‘down south’…..
Jamtex wrote:
She seems to be looking at a male clerk. It’s also not unreasonable to think this happens more often to male employees, as women may be less likely to ask them for help or advice.
Sandra not so shelter remember the time on the beach!
Poor Cloud and his boyhood.
@ Typeminer:
This might be of help to you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Stephen wrote:
oh murica, where it would be less contorvrsial for a 13 yo boy to buy his girlfriend a device made for killing your enemy by burning him alive than some sexy lingerie.
Damn prudes^^
Interesting choice for a bat mitzvah present.
Robert wrote:
Considering the outfits worn by some of my grand-niece’s friends at her bat mitzvah last year… not too surprising at all. “Thirteen going on twenty-one” was a popular style.
@ Brian:
oh no she’s still mortal. she’ll die young and then become a succubus after death.
I hope we get to see Sandra in the lingerie.
She is not dead yet, and already doing her job.
Lucifer really got his hands on a nice one.
Paeris Kiran wrote:
For crying out loud, you do understand that the squickiness (such as it is) is not because of the fictional action, but because *we*, the very much adult audience, are involved. I suspect that most of us would be somewhat uncomfortable about being the adults looking through the windows at the antics of the 8th graders.
mhw wrote:
Oh come off it. This has nothing to do with sexuality between (fictional) children, and everything to do with the (PG rated) depiction of early teen or pre-teen sexuality for the amusement of the (very real) adult audience.
And trying to squeeze in the “Europeans aren’t hung up on sex” is a pathetic dodge of the point. Europeans do not seem to be notably more blase about the idea of child (and 13 years old is a *child*) and adult sexuality crossing. (And because people seem to miss it, I’ll repeat once again – the child/adult cross is not between characters, it’s between characters and *you*, the audience.)
However, I don’t want to oversell this. It’s not beyond the pale or anything. I simply hope the author will think about *why* they choose the topics for the comic they do as they chart the course for the future of the comic.
@ Tom West:
“We”, as adults, were 13 too. We know how it was. We don’t have to pretend that’s not how it was. It’s exactly how it was. It’s incredible how this page keeps being the absolute most relevant thing ever published here:
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2009/11/02/0108-moms-in-black/
Pretending it didn’t happen won’t change we did it too back then. There’s no sense in ignoring one of the absolute most important factors in the development of teenagers in a comic about freaking teenagers. Or is this a topic you can only discuss when you’re 13 and have to forget for your entire life afterwards?
“Well there is also 13 year old in this comics who is likely to be blind in 7 years and dead in 17…”
And I bet that day can’t come soon enough for Cloud and Sandra now… X(
Childhood sexuality is such an odd topic.
Look: 13 year olds have sex with one another. In the US, median age at first intercourse is between 12 and 16 depending on social cohort; European countries tend to be somewhat later, arguably due to the entire process being less surrounded with “forbidden fruit” taboos; South American countries somewhat earlier, arguably due to the entire topic being of less concern to anyone. I’ve never been interested enough to bother researching data, so I can’t speak of Eastern countries.
Child-with-child sex is not diseased. I wouldn’t be terribly concerned if some strips from now Cloud and Sandra are having sex, as long as it is handled as delicately and compassionately as it has been for Larissa and Landon. This is a story about children, and growing up, and relationships, and not eating squirrels. Children growing up and having relationships (and not eating squirrels) have sex, and it is an important element in their coming of age.
Now, if this topic were being presented in a titillating manner, I might agree with the poster who categorized this as “(PG rated) depiction of early teen or pre-teen sexuality for the amusement of the (very real) adult audience.” But, aside from one mis-step (#819), it is not: it is realistic character development, within a fictional universe with numerous unrealistic elements (talking raccoons, entire pantheons manifesting in the world of form, software that actually works, and so forth). I at least find the presentation remarkably touching and deft, and not at all titillating.
But this is all a matter of interpretation and the filters through which we view the world. It may be your filter sees titillation where mine does not. Oh well.
Larissa being Larissa or …
Personally, I applaud this webcomic for handling child-and teen sexuality with such a deft touch.
First we had a bonerific, and funny, arc with Sandra, Larissa and Cloud on the beach.
We know why Larissa seems promiscuous.
We’ve seen Sandra isn’t _that_ innocent, and they have naughty thoughts about each other.
Like it or not, this seems to be a realistic portrayal.
I’ll be sticking around.
mike smith wrote:
I hope you’re 9 years old.
I was so looking forward to Cloud utterly destroying Larissa when he went for a gorgeous Link cosplay dress for Sandra.
Brian wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescent_sexuality_in_the_United_States#Sexual_practices
“The average age of first sexual intercourse in the United States is around 18 for males and around 17 for females,[14][15] and this has been rising in recent years.[16] For those teens who have had sex, 70% of girls and 56% of boys said that their first sexual experience was with a steady partner, while 16% of girls and 28% of boys report losing their virginity to someone they had just met or who was just a friend.[16]”
@ Killjoy:
Oh can’t be! All these dubious magazines und websites tell us different. It think we should chose alternative facts here!
(Irony off)
Thanks for adding facts. With 12 usual kids might not even be in love yet. And even if, sex is far away still for most. And then from first sex to lingerie for your girlfriend – that’s another huge step…
Frankly: if it weren’t so weird it wouldn’t be funny.
Although I think there were funnier strips. – Most of them actually.
Oh and I mean *comic* strips. Just to clarify! 🙂
Killjoy wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescent_sexuality_in_the_United_States#Sexual_practices
Huh. Thank you. That’s changed a lot since I was in school.
Brian wrote:
Let me talk about the elephant in the room. Adults, specifically males, have sexually predated upon children for much of history. It wasn’t particularly rare, nor considered particularly monstrous. Biologically, it appears that human beings, like many species, don’t have a lot stopping many males from doing so.
It’s also sad, but true, that some smallish (but if history is any guide, not tiny) segment of men will, if children are treated as creatures with a sexual identity, consider them suitable subjects for their sexual attentions. (You just have to read about the fashion industry, where sexual predation of model/children (who are highly sexualized even if the individual is not) seems to be rife.)
It’s pretty clear that a there are a significant number of men restrained not by will power or self-restraint, but by cultural conditioning that puts children in the same sexual category as “lamp-posts”. (Yes, I’m overstating, but I’m certain you get what I mean.)
This is especially true as such men are adept at interpreting sexual imitation (“13 going on 21”) as sexual maturity, enabling them to justify their predation.
The prevention of child abuse is a *cultural* choice. And it’s a choice that’s made by, for the most part, putting children ‘beyond the pale’, in a way our distant ancestors did not. And how do we put children ‘beyond the pale’? By essentially enforcing a standard of treating children as non-sexual, even if they are (in some fashion). The taboo is there for a reason.
The reason for my feeling of (mild) disgust (squickiness) is the (mild) violation of a taboo that has been created in order to protect children (and compared to historical norms, had a high degree of success).
The comic ever so slightly erodes the barrier protecting children from the sexual attention of adult men. Now, if there’s a fairly strong positive aspect, it makes up for the negatives. There *are* parts of this comic that are touching and deft and do touch upon childhood sexuality. However, this arc, and the other one that was mentioned earlier are neither touching, nor deft. Nor are they educational. They are simply using childhood sexuality as a way of getting a chuckle out of the adult audience.
And in those two arcs, to my mind, the negatives that they have incurred by their violation of the taboo have not been outweighed by their positives, leaving me feeling squicky.
It is my hope that the author will dig a little deeper for comic material in future, leaving me able to recommend this comic without reservation (and with fewer attempts at humor like Mike Smith’s above, which also break taboo and induce feelings of squickiness in the (failed) attempt to get a chuckle).
@ Tom West:
So you’re new to that comic I take it?
Saru wrote:
If I was, I’d have rolled my eyes and left. As it is, I’ve enjoyed the comic for years, although there have been a few arcs that I’ve not cared for and two that I found distasteful.
However, there’ve been lots of arcs that I greatly enjoyed and hope to keep enjoying. Hence my posting (I’m not assuming the author needs my readership – but with a slight hope he may not have fully appreciated the ramifications of his choices.)
@ Tom West:
Tom West wrote:
He doesn’t need to “understand the ramifications of his choices.” He, as a human, has the right to say whatever he wants at any time. Go ahead and stop reading because you are offended. It won’t harm him! I, for one, will continue to read this comic until it is finished.
WotI wrote:
Perhaps he doesn’t “need” to. But at least *attempting* to do so is perhaps one of the most basic requirements of morality.
I’ve met only a few who refused to acknowledge that their actions could affect others. They were, either under 4, or monsters. Our author is, I am sure, neither.
While free speech has a value, it is, for me, not the ultimate value. And such speech, coming from one who doesn’t believe there is any necessity of understanding the damage and harm that it can cause, is valued by me even less.
We all learn the consequences of our speech through seeing the effects that it has upon others. Because it is slow and the damage subtle, such knowledge can take time to acquire. (I’m still doing it over a lifetime.) But not believing there is any moral requirement to *attempt* to do so?
That’s a pretty dark vision.
Peridotdreams wrote:
I think it’s just the freckles.
When several of your main characters are kids in the midst of puberty, I think it’s perfectly natural and believable that sexuality is something they’re starting to think about and explore. So far, this comic has depicted this in what I would consider a reasonably tasteful, non-exploitive manner. So, I don’t think I’ll reach for the panic button just yet.
(For the record, I’m one of those horribly repressed ‘Murricans. Considered as individuals, most of us aren’t quite as crazy as the country occasionally looks.)
Oh, and it probably wouldn’t be that hard to find something sexy in (roughly) Sandra’s size. Assuming she’s about average for a thirteen-year-old, she could probably wear clothing designed for petite adult women. Even if the proportions are slightly off, anything not intended to be really tightly fitted should work.
Oh my, chill, people.
I wonder if there would have been this much of a discussion if it had not been a comic but a written story.
@ Tom West:
You’re pushing beyond rational responsibility here.
Infact while you state an obligation to avoid damaging expression you’ve created such a nebulous definition of damaging over your posts that if applied to other forms of victimisation wouldn’t leave much room for many of the jokes used in the comic, sexual or not.
Derf wrote:
Actually, my point was more indirect than that. I state an obligation to understand the damage you are doing – not to necessarily avoid doing damage.
I will occasionally speed on the highway. I understand that by doing so, I am increasing the risk of death and injury to everyone around me by some small amount. I still do so. However, that knowledge does act as a regulator on my the amount and how often I speed.
My point here is not that the author necessarily stop gratuitous focus on childhood sexuality, but that the author (and the odd reader of the comments) be are aware that there is some small harm to that. Whether they choose different topics in future is up to them.
We are all *guaranteed* to harm others by our choices – with very few exceptions, every choice we make is a trade-off of harms. (Where ‘harms’ is used fairly loosely, but exists). The ability to make meaningful choices requires knowledge – and obtaining that knowledge is, in my opinion, a moral obligation.
@ Tom West:
I am trying to understand the point of view you are coming from. But I do not understand that in how far this specific comic arc has caused any harm. If you can, could you clarify for me?
Because in my opinion, the focus here is not on the sexualisation of children – it is growing up (which does involve physical change towards higher sexual attractiveness – but to me it is not depicted in any sexualised or even objectifying way) – which involves starting to find the other gender not – not only their personality but also their body.
A part of puberty. Attention from each gender towards the other at the appropriate age group.
I fail to see how this can endanger enhancing sexualisation of children or young teenagers with making them more attractive for adult men. Not in this way.
I actually fail to even see this connection – mostly because it sounds as if nothing is wrong with men finding children attractive. You are talking about sexualisation of children but fail to mention that the danger does not lie within children dressing up – it’s with the wrongness in certain peoples heads.
Your argument sounds as if you are close to victim blaming (I know we are talking about children and they need extra protection – but it sounds similar to the claim that if a woman wears little it’s her fault for men grabbing her). I do hope you are not.
Criticising a comic that tries to tackle the complex issue of youth and first love (and first sexual feelings) is probably the wrong way – as not talking about such an issue in a comic about teenagers would certainly be more harmful than anything (mystifying sexuality would definitely do more harm than good).
@ CoMa:
I wish I could edit this – some corrections:
“which involves starting to find someone from the other gender (or possibly the same gender, and other) attractive – not only their personality but also their body.”
“I fail to see how this can be a danger in enhancing sexualisation of children or young teenagers in making them more attractive for adult men.” (as you focus in your argument on men)
I of course do not want to imply that you think that men sexualising children because of them wearing lingerie is ok – but your comment is worded in a way that insinuates that the main part of ‘wrongness’ in the sexualisation lies in children dressing up like adults (and mind you, in this comic we’re talking about teenagers, that are bombarded with hormones, new wants, desire to find out who they are really etc.) and not in the fact that adults find them attractive and the worst of them even act on such desires (and most commonly – family members or other close persons to victims of abuse – which has very probably not been caused by the way the children or young or older teenagers dress.)