Sexual Humor, Part 1

Recently one of my clients was reading a book about jokes and philosophy. It was a book that taught the tenets of many of the great philosophers using jokes to get their ideas across. I briefly flipped through it to see if there happened to be anything about what jokes mean in terms of sex, but found nothing. My client was up to Kant and said he hadn't run across anything about sex yet.

What sprang to mind was a desire I've quietly had to write about sex jokes -- perhaps a book some day when my kids are older and wouldn't harass me with, "Mom, are you still writing that book about sex jokes?!?"

I began thinking in categories about jokes. Which ones make me laugh? Why is that? Which ones make me groan? (I know, it's dangerous to analyze humor.) I started remembering jokes that colleagues in the field of sexology have presented in their talks at conferences (often near the beginning or end to demonstrate that even though their presentation may involve a lot of dry number crunching, they personally still had a sense of humor about it.)

Many jokes get their laugh from clinging to long held myths about a sexual matter. One of the most cherished yet generally unhelpful notions concerns penis size. While some women have a strong preference for genitals of a certain length and/or girth, most women just don't care. Here's a joke that plays on that myth:

Three old ladies were sitting side by side on patio chairs at their Orlando retirement home reminiscing. The first lady recalled from years past shopping at the local Piggly Wiggly and demonstrated with her hands the length and thickness of a cucumber she could buy for a penny.

The second old lady nodded, adding that onions used to be much bigger and cheaper also, and demonstrated the size of two big onions she could buy for a penny a piece.

The third old lady remarked, "I can't hear a word you're saying, but I remember the guy you're talking about."

I remember as a young teen vacationing on the Jersey shore and sitting on the dunes swapping stories about all sorts of stuff with the other kids spending the summer there. After a while, the stories turned to jokes and ultimately the jokes turned to sex jokes. This was a form of peer sex education and, as is often the case, it lacked accuracy. One joke stuck with me. Though I don't remember the premise of the joke, it involved a woman having intercourse with a fireman and her exclamation about him needing to "reel out more hose or get closer to the fire."

And there are thousands (millions?) of other jokes about men needing "a big one." I have wondered how many men thought themselves the butt of these jokes and emotionally suffered because of it.

Some sex jokes are about an aspect of religion - often how religion got it wrong.

A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old canons and the laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.

So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been open for hundreds of years.

Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the "R"! We missed the "R"!

His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"

With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was CELEBRATE!!!"

No matter that "celebrate" minus the "R" does not spell "celibate," we all get the joke that Catholic priests have been "missing out" for centuries.

And, there are jokes about sex, religion and guidelines of "godly" behavior:

During these serious times people of all faiths should remember these four religious truths:

1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's chosen people.


2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.


3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world.


4. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.

Nothing like the topic of sex to bring out the hypocrisy that can flourish among some religious folks.

To be continued...

Sexual Humor - The Series
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Related Topics:

• WebMD Video: How Laughter Can Improve Your HealthHow Laughter Can Improve Your Health
• Humor Therapy

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