"If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion." - George Bernard Shaw

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"Although people often say that they cannot appreciate the humor of another country, they rarly make that remark about foreign sexual humor. The reason is that humor distorts the familiar, and sex is familiar to everyone.

There is no limit, geographically or historically, to the popularity of sexual humor. Allusions to sex please Asian readers as much as everyone else. In the Chinese novel Journey to the West, female monsters try to rape the monk Tripitaka; they have heard a rumor that his semen guarantees immortality. In the same book the ladies of the court are unhappy because the usurping King has been neglecting his bedroom duties. In such Indian tales as Sukasaptati (Seventy Stories By A Parrot), Dandin’s Ten Princes, and in the anonymous “Tale of Two Bawds,” sex plays a prominent and entertaining role. Chinese writers frequently add sexual details to increase interest in their narratives.

From Korea comes an anecdote about a one-eyed man who stopped to spend the night at a village inn. He overheard the inn keeper in the adjoining room say to his wife, “Let’s kill one -eye.”

“Good,” she said.

The one-eyed man was terrified and ran to inform the village magistrate, who sent for the inn-keeper and accused him of attempted murder.

“The innkeeper laughingly explained. ‘One-eye is a colloquial term for penis. I was joking with my wife - when we finished with intercourse wouldn’t it be dead? You having one eye, heard us and misunderstood.”

The magistrate laughed and dismissed the case.

Levy also cites three Korean jokes about masturbation, and several anecdotes about bestiality. Whatever a prudish Westerner might think, the Koreans found these stories funny.

In his collection of Ghanaian abuse Owusu Breinpont lists, among many similar sexual insults, the following. Whether one considers them funny or not depends on one’s temperament and cultural conditioning. Ghanaians considered them amusing.

“Your vagina is as wide as a plate.”
“The hair on your vagina is like an Afro Wig.”
“Your clitoris is as long as a pickaxe.”
“Your penis is bent like the gearshift of a Mercedes-Benz.”"

--- The secret of humor / Leonard Feinberg