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Note: While it’s true that many things are based on actual events, the characters contained within this strip are not meant to be direct analogs for actual people. They are not based off of people living, dead, or undead and any resemblance is coincidental. Nor are they based off of Ferrets.
Because that would be weird.
The ship is sailing. I repeat: the ship is sailing! <3
Was it Kierkegaard or Dick Van Patten who said “When you label me, you limit me?”
There’s a wonderful youtube video by my man RJ Aguiar about being bisexual and monogamous and one of the things he covers is labels, like people telling him that since he is committed to this one guy, “Why don’t you just come out and say you are gay?” Sigh. Anyway, he gives very similar advice to what Ruth does: that labels work as a shorthand but the minute they don’t fit, throw them away.
Another trouble with labels, they don’t always mean the same thing to different people. I might say something intended as a compliment, only to have it taken as an insult, or vice versa.
Other Person: Eew! That movie looks weird!
Me: Ooh! That movie looks weird!
I’m really not a fan of the whole identity politics schtick. I think it gets used to divide people far more than anything else currently.
But Lynn’s advice here is the best advice I can possibly imagine and, should I ever find myself stuck in the position she’s in in this scene, I pray that I’m able to offer something as effective.
“I’m really not a fan of the whole identity politics schtick. I think it gets used to divide people far more than anything else currently”
Spoken like a straight white dude who has no clue what it’s like to not be the socially acceptable default.