Paper Short Abstract:

Sexual folklore provides insights into social structures, including power imbalances and cultural prohibitions. This research explores how bawdy humor addresses intimacy, embarrassment, and dominance, uncovering its role in questioning or sustaining norms and exposing deeper societal frictions.

Paper Abstract:

Humor within sexual folklore, especially in the form of jokes, is often regarded as mere amusement. However, this study argues that such entertainment offers a window into deeper societal dynamics, including anxieties surrounding authority, gendered power imbalances, cultural taboos, and mechanisms of control and resistance. By examining how these jokes navigate topics like intimacy, fear, shame, and control, the research explores their ability to challenge or uphold societal boundaries and norms. Moreover, this paper highlights the dual role of sexual humor: to challenge restrictive social frameworks while simultaneously reinforcing them. This analysis underscores the importance of a critical approach to understanding the layered meanings in sexual humor, revealing its potential to reflect social tensions, historical contexts, and cultural conflicts. By moving beyond surface-level interpretations, this work offers nuanced insights into sexual folklore, which simultaneously entertains, provokes, and critiques, as a medium that intertwines entertainment with meaningful commentary on human experiences.