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Ha Ha Bonk
This article was first publlished on Ship of Fools.
Did you hear the one about the two nuns in the bath?
Not if you're a good Christian, you didn't - or at least, not without a disappointed tut, sorrowful reflections on the state of the world, and nothing remotely like a snigger. Proper Christians give dirty jokes a wide berth.
But why, exactly? What's wrong with dirty jokes - or rather, what's dirty about sexual jokes? Why do faith, sex and laughter make such an unhappy ménage à trois?
Traditional Christianity has left English without any words for groin-related comedy that don't suggest tight-lipped disapproval. 'Dirty jokes'. 'Smutty'. For people who read big newspapers there are 'bawdy', 'lewd' and 'ribald', all of which have slunk into the dictionary out of the backdoor of the brothel. Even 'blue' comes from the shameful uniform that jailed prostitutes once wore - hardly an image that suggests a happy, healthy chuckle at the abusrdities of the horizontal arts.
Is it simply because sex and religion don't mix? Hardly. You only have to look in Christian bookshops, conference programmes and bulletin boards to see that the two have an intimate relationship. We are happy to talk about sex, openly and at length. Most of us are happy to do it too - God willing - though whether equally openly and lengthily, I couldn't say.
And it's not as if we have a hang up about comedy in general. Christians are not humourless, and some are very funny indeed, one way or another. Admittedly you don't get many laughs per page in the Bible, and we have the example of sourpusses like St Benedict who banned all laughter from his monastries. But most of us are reasonably positive about both laughter and sex, and enjoy a bit of one as much as a bit of the other.
So why do the two make such awkward bedfellows?
It is, it has to be said, a hard one.
What's particularly confusing is that the other big comedy taboo we have is God. We seem to feel that laughter pollutes the sacred and diminishes the divine. 'Jesus of Nazereth' was, if memory serves, more popular among Christians than 'The Life of Brian'. Whether this taboo is right or wrong, the sex taboo is bizarrely different: surely Christians are not afraid that jokes about bonking will desecrate it and tarnish its glory.
And then the third no-go comedic area is death, but this is because it's too scarey, sad and painful. Three words that may describe the sex in your life, chum, but not mine.
You might assume sex is taboo in jokes for the same reason it's taboo in books and films etc., but I don't think so. Because in books and films the danger is that we'll get wrongfully aroused. Surely no one ever got turned on by a nob gag. They're as erotic as porn is humourless. (Which information is for me, I hurriedly add, totally second-hand, of course, and not just because the other one holds the remote.) Blue movies and blue jokes may both culminate in a release of tension, but in pretty much opposite directions.
So I come, for a third time, to the question why. Why so grumpy about rumpy-pumpy? Why no titters about boobs?
Well, here's my theory. (Though after all this teasing the final unveiling may be a bit of an anticlimax rather than the contrary.) It won't be the best theory you've ever seen, but try not to make comparisons.
Sex jokes treat the whole messy, wriggly business as a bit of fun. As what it is for most contemporary practitioners: entertainment.
Some are more entertaining than others, of course. Some are clever, some are lame, some are nasty, some are liberating and some make you wish we were still amoebas. But what they tend to have in common is that they are earthy, they bring sex down to earth. Where once it stood proud and majestic, it is left looking a bit limp and silly.
When you're laughing at sex, it's difficult to see it either as a transfiguring ecstasy or a diabolical evil.
The churches, on the other hand, whatever position they adopt, take the whole thing so darn seriously. We spent such an insane number of centuries, thanks to the unhappy experiences of St Augustine, believing that horniness was the greatest evil Satan ever manufactured, we find it impossible now to keep it in perspective.
"It's a beautiful gift from the Lord," we're told. "It's very special but also very dangerous." "It's the greatest act of love two people can share." "It's God's marital glue." "It's the largest obstacle to overcome on the road to holiness."
Whatever angle you peep at it from, it's too big a spiritual deal for merriment.
And I'm sure there's some truth in most of those attitudes, but there's also a load of hype.
The thing is, we're not alone in being hyped. The modern secular West worships and glorifies sex almost as stupidly as we once demonised it. (Which I suppose is our fault too in the long run.)
So surely the best thing the churches can be doing now is bringing sex down to earth somewhere between the two extremes. And in this, sexual humour is on our side.
Sex is not the greatest act of love, or sinfulness, possible. Sex is not the greatest joy or fulfillment life has to offer. Sex is not the most important thing in the world. Sex is not the answer to any but a few very simple problems. It's just sex.
It's a bit soggy, a bit smelly, a bit noisy, a bit silly. Sometimes it's a lot of fun, sometimes it's a bit crap. Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's horrible. And it is very, very funny.
We've all of us spent too long inflating the self-importance of sex by, one way or another, stroking its ever-growing ego. Let's laugh at it, and see if we can make it flop.
why so grumpy about rumpy-pumpy?
why no titters about boobs?
