Half

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half

Title text: Honestly, you have to give him credit for his ability at timing.

Votey

Explanation

This comic is one of many of Zach's works revolving around the running gag of men being overly ashamed of, or not wanting to admit to, sexual inadequacy (See also: 2013-08-22, 2009-01-06).

In a lot of media, there is a prevalent idea that sex is supposed to be and feel good, and that therefore, being unable to sexually satisfy your partner (whether due to a lack of skill at lovemaking or due to not considering the needs of one's partner) is a flaw, and that people with this flaw are deserving of derision and mockery. One specific implementation of this trope is depicting men as suffering from premature ejaculation, which is often depicted as being due to either a lack of experience, the man selfishly only considering his own pleasure and focusing on getting off as fast as possible, or both.

Zeno of Elea was a famous philosopher from Ancient Greece, who is best known in popular culture for his dichotomy paradox. The paradox states that in order for an object in motion to arrive at its goal, the object must first reach a halfway point. In turn, before the halfway point can be reached, the object would have to travel a quarter of the distance; in order to reach a quarter, one eighth; in order to reach an eighth, one sixteenth, and so on and so forth, creating an infinite number of points the object must reach. Zeno reasoned that, since it is impossible to complete an infinite number of tasks, all motion must therefore be an illusion.

In the first panel of the comic, a man and a woman are presumably in the aftermath of sexual congress, with the woman expressing dismay due to the man apparently having already orgasmed. However, rather than the standard approach that a reasonable person would take in this situation (which would be to apologize and, optionally, bring their partner pleasure via alternate methods of intimacy), the man, presumably not wanting to admit to having sexual inadequacies, tries to frame his premature ejaculation as being an expression of Zeno's dichotomy paradox, and that therefore he should be viewed as romantic instead of a lousy lover. The woman, not falling for this tactic, subsequently begs the man to communicate with her about his difficulties (and presumably reach an agreement about him either improving his skills or else seeking treatment), only for the man to double down on wanting to avoid shame and saying that he will 'talk for half as long as last time'.

The votey continues the depiction of the man's strategy, with him citing Zeno by name and calling himself 'Zeno's doinker', further highlighting the absurdity of the situation by dint of the fact that the verb 'doink' is not particularly dignified and inappropriate for a situation as emotionally charged as sexual dysfunction.

Transcript

This transcript was generated by a bot: The text was scraped using AWS's Textract, which may have errors. Complete transcripts describe what happens in each panel — here are some good examples to get you started (1) (2).

[Describe panel here]

Wow, really? You. You already.

Every time we have sex, I take half as long to orgasm.

Yes, my love.

3

With each halving of our lovemaking, we approach an infinity of love in our finite lifespan.

Please please can we talk about this instead of pretending you're doing a math thing?

I am prepared to talk for half as long as last time.

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Votey Transcript

This transcript was generated by a bot: The text was scraped using AWS's Textract, which may have errors. Complete transcripts describe what happens in each panel — here are some good examples to get you started (1) (2).

[Describe panel here]

I am Zeno's doinker.

7

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