Tag Archives: sex

Game – Claremont, California

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Claremont, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: German

Driving Game

Participants include everyone in a car, excluding the driver for safety purposes.  When on the road, if people within the car see a car that has a headlight out, then that person yells “sex” and everyone participating hits the roof.  The last person to hit the roof takes off a piece of clothing.  Play ends when the car ride is over.

The informant claimed that this game is played for fun at night in cars, usually when the car is full or there are several people in the car.

I think this game probably came about as a way to make a boring car ride more interesting.  It is common probably only with younger, teenage to twenties, crowds because of a sort of obsession and fascination this age group has with sex and nakedness.  I would guess that there is a link between the acknowledgements of a headlight being out and the word “sex” being yelled, since headlight is often using as a metaphor for female breasts, hence the game involving a taking off of clothes.

Joke

Nationality: Black
Age: 60
Occupation: Unemployed
Residence: Compton, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2008
Primary Language: English

Slim’s Dirty Joke

“A girl playing golf came home and her husband said to her, ‘how was your game?’. She said, ‘not too cool’. He said, ‘what happened?’. She said, ‘I got stung by a bee’. He said, ‘where?’. She said ‘between the first and second hole’. He said, ‘maybe your stance was too wide!’

To give a proper interpretation of this joke, I first have to give a proper explanation of whom it came from. Slim is a homeless man very notorious around USC. He usually can be found at the corner of 28th and Figueroa hollering at all the students who instantly recognize him and usually reply with a “Hi Slim!”. There have been articles written about him in the Daily Trojan and someone even created a facebook for him, to which Slim proudly tells everyone about.

He told me this joke in exchange for three dollars, to which I happily obliged. He told this joke to me and I was impressed. Although Slim is homeless and enjoys the daily case of beer and whatever else, he told me this joke, which not only has a good punch line, but it derives from a dual meaning inside a multi dimensional joke. The humor in the joke comes from the fact that the husband misinterpreted the wife’s account of the location of the bee sting. While it is probably obvious, the wife was referring to the first and second hole on the golf course, while the husband read her description as telling the location on her body in which she was stung. I do not want to go into too much detail about the whereabouts of the husband’s belief of the location of the sting, but the punch line concludes that it is within a close distance of the woman’s genitalia.

This joke can be classified as a “dirty joke” or a “sex joke”. It does not completely surprise me that Slim chose a joke from this category, as he often tries to get a peek up female students’ skirts. However, dirty jokes are a very popular genre of jokes in the present time because they are a bit of a taboo and perhaps because sex is something enjoyed by a very large age range and percent of the population. While it came from a homeless man, I could have easily gotten many similar jokes from people of all professions and age ranges if I had asked. In the past, my parents have even told me dirty jokes.

Folk Belief – Kazakhstan, Korea

Nationality: Kazakh
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2, 2008
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English, Japanese

An active sex life can clear away acne

A Kazakh friend told me that she heard this, asking me if I thought it was true. I told her that I although I am not particularly inclined to believe it, I am not sure, and that I have heard it as well. She told me that her peers, mainly her Kazakh friends, would occasionally refer to it. I told her that in my experience in Korea, many people seemed to believe it, and a lot of adults would mention it as well too. For example, if a girl’s skin mysteriously cleared up, her friends might tease her by asking, “Who is it, who is it?”

Because both of us have international friends, and friends who have been abroad, we are both not completely sure where this belief originated from—whether it was predominantly Asian belief, or whether it was an American belief that our friends have picked up and brought back. It is so interesting to see, that as people’s concepts of nationality and ethnicity begin to blur, the distribution of our folklore consequently gets just as complicated and confusing. Is this a Korean belief that spread to Ukraine?—An American one that spread to both Korea and Kazakhstan?

Apart from its interesting distribution, I also think it shows a rather positive attitude towards sex. It implies that sex is a natural and healthy activity, and the lack of it could result in unhealthy skin. Because this belief is often expressed hand in hand with the belief that stress causes pimples, it also seems to suggest that either sex is a good way to dissipate stress—or that without sex, we are likely to experience stress.

If I were to guess, I would tend to think that this belief is probably more inline with Asian beliefs, than with American beliefs. Although Americans are much more liberal with their bodies, and open about sex—I still feel that I can perceive the Christian notions that sex is a temptation, or a guilty pleasure. Yes, the Americans are open about sex, but it simply means they are open about admitting their carnal desires. In Asia, or at least, in Korea, however, we are not as open about talking about sex, or showing lots of skin, but sex is not usually thought to be a “sin” or a “temptation.” More often, it is thought to be a natural phenomenon, and a rather normal and healthy one, at that. It is simply considered embarrassing and distasteful to talk about it too publicly, is all.