much
Explanation
The Joke
The comic opens with a statement along the lines of "I think women like sex as much as men." A second character agrees: "Yes."
The conversation then takes a turn. The first speaker elaborates with an analogy: how would you react if you stopped going to a particular restaurant, and after months of not showing up, the restaurant contacted you, said you must be "cheating" on them with another restaurant, demanded your continued patronage, and started crying? The point being made is that this behavior would be seen as unhinged and possessive coming from a restaurant, yet it mirrors how some people behave in sexual and romantic relationships.
The second character responds that if we stipulate that women do indeed like sex as much as men, the implications for how we understand certain relationship dynamics become "disastrously" uncomfortable — suggesting that many common relationship behaviors, when stripped of romantic framing, look a lot like possessive or controlling conduct.
The final panel features a punchline where one character seems to say something about "hardcore" or "hardcover" — possibly a deflection or subject change that underscores the discomfort of the conclusion they have reached.
The Humor
The comedy comes from applying cold logic to a commonly accepted premise ("women like sex as much as men") and following it to its uncomfortable conclusions. If both parties in a heterosexual relationship genuinely desire sex equally, then many common relationship dynamics around jealousy, possession, and sexual gatekeeping look very different — and much less defensible — than how they are traditionally framed.
The restaurant analogy is the key comedic device: it defamiliarizes relationship behavior by mapping it onto a commercial transaction, making the possessiveness and emotional manipulation stand out as absurd. This is a classic philosophical technique (and a favorite SMBC move) — taking a familiar situation and redescribing it in unfamiliar terms to reveal its underlying logic.
Broader Context
The comic touches on themes from feminist philosophy and the sociology of sexuality. The premise that women enjoy sex as much as men challenges older cultural narratives that positioned women as sexual "gatekeepers" and men as pursuers. If that premise is accepted, it reframes many traditional relationship scripts — jealousy, possessiveness, the "wandering eye" — in ways that are uncomfortable for all genders. SMBC frequently explores how accepting a seemingly simple premise can lead to surprisingly radical conclusions when followed to its logical endpoint.