Sex Criminals, Volume Three: Three the Hard Way

Just incredibly fun.

Okay, things are a little going off the rails in this one; I admit that. It's a little bit all over the place, and the pacing stutters and stumbles. They break the fourth wall repeatedly, and it starts to feel indulgent, rather than clever.

But - overall! - this still remains such a smart, fun, and funny exploration of human sexuality and relationships, and one of the best comix out there right now; just like volume 2 featured the denuding of poor Jon's libido due to mental health issues, volume 3 features compassionate, authentic portrayals of a woman realizing she's asexual and a man's self-consciously “vanilla” preferences. It's not all kink! Yo, and if there's one thing we all learned from Alfred Kinsey (or, the movie anyway...) was how much much more diverse and heterogenous sexuality is than we all realize; which makes sense, given sexuality is an internal biological something-or-other that is often “performed” (e.g. “oh isn't he hot”, Cosmo magazine sex tips, sex ed classes, movie scenes) and often moralized over. In fact, there's a wonderful lecture scene in this volume that talks a lot about sexual morality as a direct tool of the patriarchy (e.g. “hysteria” was removed from the DSM in the 1990s, stuff like that); this reminded me of that great documentary, Orgasm Inc., highly recommend!

Not as good as the first two volumes, but still enjoyable. 3.5

The in-story history of sexuality and feminist commentary is amazing considering it is coming from two dudes. Hands down the most sexuality-positive #woke comic book I've ever even imagined, let alone read.