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From: Lee Rudolph <lrudolph@panix.com>
Subject: Legman Report, Part 2 (originally posted March 23, 1995)

This is the second and last part of a report on {\it Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor, Second Series}, by G. Legman (Breaking Point, Inc., New York, 1975). As in the first part, I haven't tried to write a book review, but rather to take note of the various overlaps between Legman's book and alt.folklore.urban's recurrent themes and obsessions; I use pseudoTeX conventions to mark italics, etc., and enclose {topics} in curly braces. The organization by SUBJECTS follows that of the book. Warning: Legman's plan was to put the ``clean dirty jokes'' in the first volume, and the ``dirty dirty jokes'' in the second, with a gradient of dirtiness that becomes positively enormous towards the end. Less and less of his material is afurelevant as page 992 gets closer, but what there is, may make some sensitive eyes water; read at your own risk.

CASTRATION (concluded).

Speaking of {merkins}, Legman (p. 523) asks the reader to note ``the `Wig Club' in the 18th century in England,'' cf. ``David Foxon's {\it Libertine Literature in England} (1965). This club was named for a wig or merkin of such tufts, presumably made from the pubic hair of various mistresses of King Charles II, which was added to by all new members and worn on their heads during their initiation: a mock rebirth ceremony.'' He says that Louis C. Jones ``mentions that King George IV was a member'', making it all the sadder that the Roman numerals were dropped from {\it The Madness of King George}.

Here's an unsubstantiated claim (note the weasel word ``apparently'') about {ads for Camels} (p. 525): ``The embroidered and appliqu\'e'd {\it graffiti} on the buttocks (and flies) of young girls' and mens' blue jeans in the early 1970's were apparently touched off internationally by a Camels' cigarette advertisement of a girl's buttock with a yellow Camel embroidered (i.e. tattooed) on the blue-jean coverup. The pubic hair was too rich for the advertisers' blood.''

On p. 534 there's a reference to ``Victor Robinson's {\it Encyclopaedia Sexualis} (New York, 1936)''. Any relation to the {Odd Physics Professor}?

Finally! a genuine Urban Legend, on ``... the folktale theme of the game or jest that ends fatally. (Tale Type 2401.) Many modern `true' anecdotes of this type circulate about initiations and mock-executions, especially in medical schools, and the usual death-by-terror of the victim is sometimes modified to his (or her) {\it merely} going insane. For example: {\it The girl medical student in whose bed a Negro's amputated penis, or a male leg [sic] is placed as a joke, covered with phosphorescent paint. When the male medical students, who are gathered around her door waiting to hear her scream, hear nothing but a heavy clumping sound, they break in and find the girl glassy-eyed, thumping the leg up & down on the floor while tearing at it wildly with her teeth.} (Ann Arbor, Mich. 1935, told as a true occurrence `just recently.') In versions where it is a penis which is placed in her bed, the girl is not stated to be found eating it, but {\it squeezing it between her knees.}'' (p. 539) Any med students or Michiganders care to comment?

Most of Legman's material on {condoms} is more joke than Urban Folklore, but ``This is sometimes told as a `true story,' of: {\it A wife who punctures her husband's whole supply of condoms with a pin, in order to be sure to get pregnant and thus `hold his love.'} (N.Y. 1940...)'' (p. 551)

On p. 555, in the subsection on Cannibalism, there's a reference to a variant on {tapping the Admiral}, attributed to ``Francis Grose's {\it The Olio} (1792) p. 189, `Tapping the Governor,' {\it A sailor drinks the alcohol in which the body of the East India Company governor is being brought home for burial in England}. This story still survives, usually in a modification about a Negro porter supplying {\it ice} on a transcontinental train.'' Does it survive even now? Any recent sightings?

Also on pp. 555-6, Legman manages to relate {Rocky Mountain oysters} to ``an unbelievable scene'' from a cookbook (which I have), {\it Clementine in the Kitchen}, ``in which the gourmet father practically forces his daughter to eat a calves-head dish, including the {\it eye}''; but no comments on Levantine diplomats are made at this juncture (though he makes plenty of them in other connections).

In a long threnody on overpopulation, planned famine, and so on, pp. 560-567, Legman manages to cover a lot of ground, from the folkloric theme of ``the `Tunic of Nessus' method of the British General Amherst against the American Indians in the 18th century, by means of {smallpox virus}'', through four lines on {\it Soylent Green} (it's people; now, move along, folks, there's nothing to see here), to ``the great American literary stylist but total crackpot, Charles Fort, and .... his marvelously written and abysmally wrong-headed books''. (Maybe it takes one to know one.)

On p. 570, we find an interesting claim: ``This crushing ungallantry [that limping women have secret sexual abilities] is at about the scientific level of the statement in Dr. David Reuben's bestselling conglomeration of sexual folklore and purported sexual science, {\it Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask}, in 1970, that: `blind girls particularly become adept at secret masturbation.' Ask any ten thousand blind girls, who limp.''

And here's a one for alt.folklore.college, on p. 574, complete with a reference to folklorist Stith Thompson's motif H251.1.1, ``the same sort of biting off, but here by a lion. This superstition is still very much alive in America, in a jocular form in which: {\it The two stone lions in front of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, at the crossroads of the city, and its busiest intersection, will roar loudly every time a girl who is a virgin walks by.} (N.Y. 1935, and doubtless already fairly old.) ... Many American co-ed colleges were noted in the 1960's to have similar statues, usually human, and by preference some grim-looking Puritan founder of the college, {\it who will take off his stone hat, run up a staircase, or kick roguishly outward with one leg} [!] when the same rare occurrence takes place. Note that the girl's virginity or `purity' is here represented as an unspoken asseveration that the lion or statue is testing. The danger to here is no longer physical, but moral -- her `untroth' will be unmasked if the lion's mouth does not roar.''

On p. 595, Legman describes the {plaster-caster} groupies of the 1960's, then goes on to make an assertion the truth of which is unknown to me; anyone heard it before? ``What is done with the resulting phallic souvenirs is never stated. ... In one case, lollipops (`All Day Suckers') were cast using a penis model stated to be that of a recently-dead Negro rock-&-roll star. Though probably intended to be sentimental, not gruesome, this one step further even than lynching.''

Not too long ago, a.f.u. was discussing stories about butchers, etc., who hang {sausages}, etc., out of their flies as practical jokes. A version of this is cited to Idaho, 1920, on p. 601.

As a sort of thread-tie of a.f.u's once-popular Eugene Garcia story and {unfortunate names}, on p. 613 Legman reminds us of a scene ``in the children's book, {\it Penrod} (1914), by Booth Tarkington, ... between three comedy Negro brothers: Herman, Sherman, and Vermin -- howzat for humor -- ... [in which] the older brother (Sherman, I believe) does actually cut off Vermin's finger [while playing with an axe]. Or it may be the other way around. In any case, Negro comic stereotype kids are expendable, fingers and all.''

I have earlier reported, at length, on {\it Cin\'e-ville}, a ``fake expose\'e of a purely mythical Hollywood of the sex-orgy period, [which] includes a hilarious hoax ... concerning `gland stealers' in Los Angeles parks, for the supplying of {human transplant-organs} for rejuvenation operations on aging movie-stars'', written in Spanish and published in French translation in 1928 (p. 627).

Paging Diane Kelly! ``In Bavaria and Steiermark the penis-bone of a badger (actually a stone-marten) is worn as a watch-chain charm or fob. Also in America, at one time, under the euphemism of `bone toothpick,' which is the dried baculum from the penis of a male raccoon, according to Vance Randolph...'' (p. 631). On the other hand, Legman seems to confuse the two ends of a narwhal: ``The two-foot long penis-bone of a narwhal (the older `unicorn's horn,' considered the greatest of all aphrodisiacs?), humorously inscribed with {\it graffiti} by movie-stars of both sexes, diplomats, prize-fighters, &c., is described by explorer Horace McCracken''.

Didn't a.f.u. have a thread about Khrushchev's reported shoe-pounding, that migrated to a discussion of LBJ's supposed habits of phallic intimidation? Compare this to a supposed true anecdote describing an orgy at which ``{\it An elderly woman about to go into a professional belly-dance makes the unruffled request: `I only want to ask the gentlemen to show their appreciation, if any, in the old Russian style. When we danced during those suppers I was telling you about, the men always took out their penises and banged them on the table to indicate their approval. Any girl who failed to please, was squirted with soda-water or drenched in champagne}'' (p. 632.)

``Jokes on animal grafts (Tale Type 660, Motif X1721.2) have been excellently studied by Dr. Jan Harold Brunvand, in {\it Northwest Folklore} (1965) No 2: p. 10-12, with examples.'' (p. 640)

DYSPHEMISM AND INSULTS

Acronyms and acrostics! A whole slew of them, unsuitable for a family newsgroup (or this one either), appear on p. 688. Instead, I quote the following, on {hoaxes and revenges}, from the same page. ``Mr. Ray Russel ... tells in his {\it The Colony} (Los Angeles, 1969) p. 259-60, a work filled with stories of elaborate hoaxes and revenges, Hollywood style, of a writer dying untimely, who leaves orders that a brief poem be placed on his gravestone, secretly reading in acrostic, `FUCK YOU.' (A published sonnet of this kind by John Peale Bishop, posthumous, apparently describing cunnilinctus with a two-tailed mermaid, but unexpectedly including as acrostic, `FUCK YOU HALFASS,' has already been noted. ... ''

And there's more on p. 688! Legman quotes Russell's reference ``to the Sears Roebuck [mail-order] catalog, and to a story -- more likely a legend -- he had once been told. Something about the indoor commodes Sears had offered, at the turn of the century, to rural families still making do with primitive outhouses. The catalog page on which these items were described and depicted had been topped, according to the anecdote, by a large, bold headline of four words, each word bedizened with a gigantic capital letter: {\it Sears' Handy Indoor Toilets}. The luckless (or mischievous) copywriter responsible for the barely buried obscenity had been summarily dismissed.'' File under {Subliminal Advertising}, or what?

Prosit, {Harlan Ellison}, here's mud in your eye! ``{\it A fat, dapper little playboy wearing all the latest clothes, rings, dark-glasses, underwater wristwatch, etc., is ogling a beautiful young woman sitting with her legs crossed very high at a bar. Finally he gets up his courage, crosses over to her and says in her ear, `Hello, Beautiful. Whaddya say to a little fuck?' She measures him coolly with her eyes. `Hello, little fuck.'} (N.Y. 1965.) Again, under the insult, observe the hidden maternalism in the crucial concern with the `littleness' of the man-child who imagines himself grown-up enough for professional sex.'' (p. 718.)

I have a vague memory of having heard the following, or similar, but I'm darned if I can remember of whom. ``... a similar item directed against an American lady politician and religious leader, very unpopular in the years since World War II. {\it A societywoman is pestering the Chinese ambassador at a Washington banquet to admire the Chinese brooch she is wearing. `You know the symbols, of co'ss,' she says, `don't you, Ambassador?' He murmurs something polite about their referring to good luck. `Well, can you read them or can't you?' she snaps. `Certainly, Madam. The brooch reads, ``City of Shanghai. Licensed prostitute -- second class.''.'} (Positano, Italy, 1954 ...)'' (p.748.)

SCATOLOGY

The {`man on the floor'} girls'-dorm UL appears in essentially the same form in Poggio's ``{\it Facetiae} (MS. 1451) No. 137, `De muliere quae, cum caput cooperire vellet, culum detexit', and this one was translated into English, in {\it Tales, and Quicke Answeres}, one of the earliest English jestbooks (about 1535) No. 66, `Of the woman that coverd her heed and shewed her taile.''' (p. 818.)

I believe it is in {\it The Mexican Pet} that JHB presents compelling evidence that the UL of {Green Stamps at the gynecologist's} actually did happen at least once. Nonetheless (and not withstanding), it's clearly a UL; we've recently seen a version reported on a.f.u. which ends with the punchline of the following joke from Legman (p. 831). ``It is the striking trait of the yoking by the toilet-seat (Tale type 571A) which has become crucial in the most common modern form of the joke, with various rationalizations. {\it An Italian immigrant writes a letter (in dialect verse) to `Mr. Kresge,' complaining that he has painted the toilet-seat with a can of 10-cent-store paint, and that it never dried, trapping his daughter on the seat. They go to the doctor to have the seat removed, and when the doctor looks astonished, the Italian asks if he has never seen one of those things before. `Sure,' says the doctor, `but this is the first time I saw one with a frame around it.'} (Printed `novelty' card, circulated since the 1940's in America.)'' There's an obvious connection, too, to the {fat passenger who gets stuck in an airplane's suction toilet}.

{Le P\'etomane} (Monsieur Joseph Pujol) needs no introduction to a.f.u. He and his predecessors are discussed, at length, starting on p. 871. The theologically better-read than I will already know that ``St. Augustine, an early Algerian church-father who died in 430 A.D., notes in his {\it The City of God}, Book XIV, chap. 24, the case of a man who could fart at will: {\it `There are those that can break wind backward so artificially [artfully], that you would think they sung.'}''

There's a story (p. 943), quoted from the 1969 book {\it Memoirs of an Erotic Bookseller}, but presumably dating from an earlier time, which is somewhat parallel to {the draft-dodger and the peanut butter} (and not at all to {the surprise-party and the peanut butter}), where, however, chewed gingerbread rather than peanut butter is used to simulate shit which is then eaten by the practical joker.

And that's that.

Lee Rudolph