Scans_Daily

I'm afraid I just don't really understand why a casual hook-up means that her character is being trashed, or that she is less worthy of respect.

Some women don't sleep with guys they're not pretty seriously into. That's not a judgement on women who do, in any way. It's simply a reality that that's a choice some people make. It was established, over several years of character work, as Helena's choice. To have her act in a way not in accordance with that is, yes, a disservice to her character, in exactly the same way that Clark Kent waking up tomorrow as a die-hard emo with Crow mascara would be a disservice to her character: failure to respect prior characterization is a fundamental failure of respect, period.

As for whether it was insulting beyond merely the fact that it meant Winick didn't care about who she was as a character? That has far less to do with objective fact and far more to do with how Winick saw it and how he expected his audience to see it. You can think penises are the most awesome things in the entire world, it doesn't make someone calling you a "dick" any less an insult.

Basically, Winick writes this scene as a sexually-based indictment of Helena. "Is there anyone you won't sleep with," Dick asks Roy, as though Helena were somehow sexually distasteful. "Casual sex with people you aren't in love with is bad," Dick tells Roy, as Helena says goodbye to someone she had casual sex with and doesn't even appear to like. There's no way he wasn't looking down his nose at Helena as he wrote this, and no way the dudebros that make up 80% of the comic-reading audience would interpret this as anything other than a massive validation of the natural dudebro inclination to slut-shame, with bonus offer of a tasty new target.

The fact that that's an effective insult is horrible, yes. It's a disgusting truth of kyriarchy. But it is a truth nevertheless, and that damage had to be answered.

(Not, mind, that I'm all that fond of how Gail chose to answer it.)