that's what she said

On the back of the door to the media office at Whitworth, The Whitworthian editors maintain a "Quotations" board. This board is really just a large piece of white butcher paper with silly sayings or pieces of conversations pulled from the long hours of Sunday production. Many residence halls or other organizations keep similar records of words taken out of context. And in almost all of these situations, the quotations deemed "funny" have sexual connotations.

I remain fascinated by mankind's relationship with sex. Sure, it's been around since the first of mankind, but sexuality is contextual to cultural and time periods. Take, for example, ideas of physical "sexiness." A recent episode of Oprah explored beauty standards from around the world, from the noses of Iran to the staggering rate of plastic surgeries in Brazil. In almost every culture, sexual attraction is based on that culture's own somewhat arbitrary definitions.

In my class last year about the English language, part of our reading included Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue. The chapter on swearing studies the history of profanity, and points out two common insults across history: the male member and someone's mother. Somehow, a man's penis, at least in terms of civilizations that contributed to the development of English, has always been seen as funny.

I have failed to conclude an answer to why sexuality is a go-to joke generator. Maybe it's because regardless of culture, sex happens in some capacity, whether simply as the method for procreation or a nonchalant activity. Maybe it's because language and history have been dominated by the male narrative, and thus jokes that relate to something that universal male understanding at the most basic level. This could also contribute to the fact that it's much harder for a female comedian to incorporate sexual material into their act, compared to acts like this one from Dane Cook. All I know is, my staff has come up with way too many "that's what she said" comments to ignore this somehow innate understanding of humor.