Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2015-09-03
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2015-09-03

by shaenon on September 3, 2015 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Looking Glass Land
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Discussion (53) ¬

  1. Jerry Aethers
    September 3, 2015, 12:04 am | # | Reply

    Okay, well that answers any questions or misconceptions I had.

  2. Maria
    September 3, 2015, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    I predict that Dr. Mendoza and Rebecca will have sex.

    • AYH
      September 3, 2015, 1:55 pm | # | Reply

      And then Tip will have sex with Dr. Mendoza.

      And then they will have a ménage a 3 with Dr. Mendoza to just see how close they can skirt the issue.

  3. Ron Armstrong
    September 3, 2015, 12:11 am | # | Reply

    No matter the Universe Tip Wilkin is a slut puppy.
    :>))

    • Ken
      September 3, 2015, 9:32 am | # | Reply

      Sweetheart resents that remark. In no way is Tip Wilkin a puppy. Well, at least not since the werewolf thing.

    • darkstarling
      September 3, 2015, 11:26 am | # | Reply

      Sweetheart also resents the implication of pedophilia :p

    • Yotz
      September 8, 2015, 4:07 am | # | Reply

      “Sweetheart resents”.
      That should be on a T-shirt.

  4. Foxhack
    September 3, 2015, 12:13 am | # | Reply

    Well it’s not technically incest / selfcest if the parents are from different dimensions… I think.

    • Jay
      September 3, 2015, 12:27 am | # | Reply

      They’re still siblings, genetically, and depending on when the dimensions “branched off”, each Tip’s parents might have been indistinguishable (up til the moment Tip was conceived, anyway).

      But, who cares? If there’s consent and there’s contraception, cui malo?

      • darkstarling
        September 3, 2015, 11:33 am | # | Reply

        Yeah. It’d be different if they grew up together or something, but they’re both adults who simply happen to be a genetic counselor’s worst nightmare.

        • WJS
          July 26, 2019, 11:09 pm | # | Reply

          Honestly I don’t see what difference them growing up together would make, except that if they had they would be less likely to want to.

  5. Frank
    September 3, 2015, 12:29 am | # | Reply

    You did that just to shut up the readers, didn’t you, Shaenon?

    • greenknight32
      September 3, 2015, 2:57 am | # | Reply

      Nah, this comic has always been sex-obsessed. Even Nick, who has no biological body, is sex-obsessed – and anything involving Tip invariably includes sex. Two Tips? the subject had to come up (the double entendre is unavoidable).

      • woozy
        September 3, 2015, 4:08 pm | # | Reply

        I think the comment was referring to the copy/sister/daughter speculation. Not the sex.

        • darkstarling
          September 3, 2015, 6:01 pm | # | Reply

          Ah. Then yes.

  6. JSStryker
    September 3, 2015, 12:47 am | # | Reply

    I like Rebecca’s smile in the last panel

    • Treesong
      September 3, 2015, 8:46 am | # | Reply

      JSS: But why the immediate flip from sad face? Is she looking at Unity?

      • Guesticus
        September 3, 2015, 8:55 am | # | Reply

        She is simply thinking how long it has been since there have been males around to boink

        • darkstarling
          September 3, 2015, 11:35 am | # | Reply

          The verb you’re looking for in Narbonic or Skin Horse is ‘goink’ actuallly :p

          And yes, though if she’s anything like Tip she’s also bisexual. But then who the heck KNOWS whether that’s genetic or not.

          • dralou
            September 3, 2015, 1:45 pm | #

            I tend to think of sexual preferences (or lack thereof) as a matter of taste. They can evolve with time but you can’t force them to change, and in the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whatever you like as long as you share them with people who enjoys them too.

          • Dave
            September 3, 2015, 4:37 pm | #

            Well if all the males have been killed in this universe, Rebecca’s pretty much stuck with other women. Plus or minus the existence of non-human sentients in this reality, though.

  7. woozy
    September 3, 2015, 1:21 am | # | Reply

    Actually from all the sci-fi I’ve read sex with your self *is* okay (almost required). So … genetically similar = icky but genetically identical is okay. Kind of weird.

    Oh, wait. Genetically identical *is* okay…. never mind.

    It’s the sex with your grandmother that never makes any sense when you think about it.

    • Rick
      September 3, 2015, 1:37 am | # | Reply

      They never give Philip J. Fry a break on that one

    • Delta Echo
      September 3, 2015, 7:12 am | # | Reply

      There’s also the fact that (contrary to the popular conception) reproduction between genetically similar people doesn’t result in the baby having buck teeth and three eyes – assuming there aren’t any genetic-flaw issues in the parents, it would take several generations of inbreeding before genetic issues became a problem.

      (In fact, inbreeding and linebreeding (crossing back to an ancestor) are commonly used practices in animal husbandry in order to fix desirable genetic traits in a breed.

      So, from a purely scientific standpoint, the automatic “Don’t Do It!!” instinct is bizzare and inexplicable. The moral standpoint is, of course, another overflowing kettle of axolotls.

      • Mental Mouse
        September 3, 2015, 10:02 am | # | Reply

        Actually, sex between siblings does have a much higher rate of both major birth defects and minor “issues”, it’s just not a certain thing. Remember that even ordinary siblings can range from 0% to 95% overlap. (Assuming opposite gender.) And even if the kid looks more-or-less normal, they’re still more likely to have stuff like immune flaws or neurological quirks. (In this universe, that would suggest Madness….)

        The incest-avoiding “instinct” (actually prepared learning, see Westermarck effect) is very much necessary, basically because siblings are even closer than the boy/girl next door.

        Inbreeding in animals is useful only because with animals, you can summarily dispose of the sickly, deformed, or otherwise problematic ones. That’s what lets you select out the opposites, the ones that hew more closely to whatever you’re breeding for.

        • Smurfton
          September 3, 2015, 1:43 pm | # | Reply

          Just to add a note to the instinct, it only applies to people you saw frequently before the age of 5, so sexual attraction is not actually hindered by that in this case.

        • woozy
          September 3, 2015, 4:44 pm | # | Reply

          Yes, but if the brother sister pair were *identical* rather than merely similar, the offspring would have no fear of undesired enhanced traits (??). But of course there are *always* be minor mutations so Oboros situations won’t actually occur. Self-generation through grandmother sex would never work.

          • Nix
            September 3, 2015, 5:12 pm | #

            It would be much worse. We all have a few lethal recessive genes. Identical twin matings would be very likely to amplify these, though we’ve not seen it in reality because it would need mad science to even implement. 🙂

        • Sheik
          September 3, 2015, 4:51 pm | # | Reply

          It is due to the forced expression of recessive genes.
          Conceivably, positive traits can come of such inbreeding as well, but they rarely outweigh the the negative.
          That being said, this is one mechanism by which new species arise, if the tiny population can survive the onslaught of negative results.

          • woozy
            September 3, 2015, 7:26 pm | #

            Oh, wait. Yeah, I was making the erroneous assumption that if the partner had the *exact* genes as oneself the offspring would have identical genes to as the genes it got from the father would be the same as the gene from the mother and there’d be no way of variation.

            But, duh, individuals have two sets of genes to chose from. So producing an identical offspring is as impossible with yourself as with anyone else. *All* the Ooroborus stories are impossible.

            Duh!

          • woozy
            September 3, 2015, 7:29 pm | #

            To be honest, I didn’t get the impression from the first several Rebecca strips that there was much attraction going on. I guess, for Tips it always assumed and never stated.

    • chrisn
      September 3, 2015, 11:40 am | # | Reply

      See the movie “Timerider” for that one . . .

  8. casimir
    September 3, 2015, 1:57 am | # | Reply

    …if sex is out there’s always the possibility of a good make-over! The other of Life’s pleasures.

  9. Kirala
    September 3, 2015, 8:23 am | # | Reply

    Yes, but… now it’s confirmed that Alt!Tip has Tip’s sex drive. In a universe where women’s sex drives were flipped to androcidal rage in the recent past.

    Our Tip might be well advised to keep a safe distance. (Wouldn’t follow the advice, but still.)

    • darkstarling
      September 3, 2015, 11:38 am | # | Reply

      Well, she CLAIMS it’s cured and she’s clearly been thinking about goinking Tip without seeming noticably angry so we have some reason to believe her.

  10. Guesticus
    September 3, 2015, 9:00 am | # | Reply

    Okay, guess that rules out what they were doing behind that wall… or does? o_O

  11. Guesticus
    September 3, 2015, 9:02 am | # | Reply

    Wait, what friends would A-Tip have, when she was hiding alone? o_O

    • BMunro
      September 3, 2015, 10:29 am | # | Reply

      The fact she’s currently wandering the wastes alone doesn’t mean she doesn’t have friends back in Bartertown or wherever.

  12. Bergerjacques
    September 3, 2015, 11:42 am | # | Reply

    I love myself, I want me to love me
    When I’m feeling weird, I want myself above me
    I search this place, I want myself to find me
    When I forget you are myself, I want you to remind me

    Oh, In this alt-Universe
    I met my alt-U twin, Now can I touch myself?
    Oh, A-sig agent says I can’t, oh, no
    Oh, no, oh, no

  13. Bergerjacques
    September 3, 2015, 11:43 am | # | Reply

    To the tune, more or less, of The Divinyls “I Touch Myself”

    I love myself, I want me to love me
    When I’m feeling weird, I want myself above me
    I search this place, I want myself to find me
    When I forget you are myself, I want you to remind me

    Oh, In this alt-Universe
    I met my alt-U twin, Now can I touch myself?
    Oh, A-sig agent says I can’t, oh, no
    Oh, no, oh, no

  14. Robert Nowall
    September 3, 2015, 11:47 am | # | Reply

    Maybe it’d be creepy if she wanted to watch…

  15. Michael Fortner
    September 3, 2015, 4:05 pm | # | Reply

    If they are the same person, wouldn’t it be more like masturbation then?

  16. chrisn
    September 3, 2015, 5:01 pm | # | Reply

    Is this the first time that Tip voluntarily decided not to have sex with a woman?

    • Jack
      September 3, 2015, 5:51 pm | # | Reply

      He repeatedly rebuffed Violet Bee. Of course she turned out to be a man operating a robotic drone but Tip didn’t actually know that.

      • WJS
        July 26, 2019, 11:13 pm | # | Reply

        Personally I think that he realised (if only subconsciously) that she was trying to seduce him for nefarious purposes rather than actually being interested in him.

    • woozy
      September 3, 2015, 7:29 pm | # | Reply

      To be honest, I didn’t get the impression from the first several Rebecca strips that there was much attraction going on. I guess, for Tips it always assumed and never stated.

    • woozy
      September 3, 2015, 7:32 pm | # | Reply

      Arrgh. that comment wasn’t supposed to be a reply. It was supposed to be an original stand alone comment!

      Anyway “Is this the first time that Tip voluntarily decided not to have sex with a woman?”

      Technically speaking, *every* time Tip doesn’t have sex with a woman he is doing it voluntarily.

  17. Shadowmehr
    September 3, 2015, 7:35 pm | # | Reply

    The sigh in panel 3 was apparently echoed by dozens of readers. Alas, alack.

  18. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
    September 3, 2015, 9:27 pm | # | Reply

    I just had a thought, and I realize this is wholly unrelated to anything currently happening with today’s comic or the Looking Glass Land arc, but bear with me:

    What if Gold Bug has something to do with the real life mysterious leaver/leavers of cryptic messages known as “Cicada 3301“?

  19. BigBearBrian
    September 3, 2015, 11:07 pm | # | Reply

    Hey, having sex with his alternate-universe self was good-enough for Dave Lister, why isn’t it good-enough for Tip?

    Admittedly, that’s setting the bar pretty low. 😛

    • woozy
      September 4, 2015, 12:45 am | # | Reply

      The universe has two types of people:
      Those who assume it’d be obvious that alternatives would have sex.
      And those who think they are clever and unique to come up with the idea.
      The third and fourth types, those who never think of it or those who decide to not pursue the idea, don’t seem to exist.

      • BigBearBrian
        September 4, 2015, 12:16 pm | # | Reply

        Well, it’s just a variation on a quote from Annie Hall:

        Alvy Singer: Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.

  20. Joyce Melton
    September 4, 2015, 4:50 pm | # | Reply

    Isaac Asimov wrote a filk about this situation. This is what I remember of it:

    “Oh give me a clone, a clone of my own,
    With the the Y traded in for an X,
    Then when we’re alone
    I and my clone
    Will always have nothing but sex.”

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