great-expectations
Explanation
The Joke
The comic presents a graph plotting "Expected Staying Power During Next Sexual Encounter" on the Y-axis against "Current Desire for Sex" on the X-axis. The curve shows an exponential relationship: the more you want sex right now, the more wildly optimistic your expectations are about your own performance. In the panel below, a couple lies in bed after sex, and one partner says "Wow, you only lasted five minutes. Good thing you set aside 12 hours and a garden shed full of new sex toys." The other responds "And yet 9pm is very close to bedtime."
The title "Great Expectations" is a play on the Dickens novel, repurposed here to refer to the inflated sexual expectations people have when they are in a state of high arousal.
The Humor
The comedy targets a universal human experience: the gap between anticipation and reality when it comes to sex. When desire is high, people wildly overestimate their stamina and ambition, making elaborate plans and purchases. The graph gives this common phenomenon a mock-scientific veneer, presenting human self-delusion as though it were a predictable mathematical function. The punchline in the bedroom scene grounds the abstract graph in a concrete, relatable scenario -- someone who planned a 12-hour marathon and stocked up on supplies but was done in five minutes. The second character's remark about 9pm being "very close to bedtime" adds another layer, suggesting that even the desire itself was inflated, and in reality they are just tired.