on our way to another erection

I have lived with this photo for a week. I took it on my way home from work as I travelled through the English Town of Rochdale.

Right now, in direct correlation to its impact, I feel like this:

Here's the conversation going on inside my brain...

It's just a picture of a flatbed truck with a joke on it. It's a pun made by a bunch of, I don't know, scaffolders, maybe? Hoarder-putter-uppers, perhaps? It's just a giggle. To be fair, it's actually quite self-deprecating. They aren't saying they have an erection, just, you know, on their way to one; trying to get there. I mean, when it's put like that, you have to resist the urge to say, "Ahhh, bless." Besides, you can legitimately call scaffolding or hoarding an erection. Arguably, it's only because of my dirty mind that I can see the joke at all.

It's pantomime. It's Carry On Rochdale. It's Benny Hill on a truck. This is Great British humour. An adult-only joke. The kids won't get it. No harm, no foul.

So why did I laugh nervously, find my jaw gaping open, and feel the warm glow of shame creeping up my neck within thirty seconds of seeing this? My emotions were that on top of each other, I had to reach for my phone and click a photo (no, none of that is an innuendo; it's definitely too soon).

The reaction doesn't make sense, especially when I think back to nearly twenty years ago when my husband and I drove around New Zealand in a Wicked! Campervan with the words "There's a party in my pants. Would you like to come?" graffitied on the back. I even parked it outside my Great-Aunt Gladys's house. She found it funny. It was quite the conversation starter as we travelled about. It definitely broke down some social walls.*

So why did I not just laugh and go on my way when I saw the message on the back of that truck? What made me nervous, feel shame, and stop me in my tracks to reach for my phone to take the photo?**

Perhaps it was the context. To quote Angus McLachlan (2022):

[laughter's]... significance can only be grasped in terms of the context in which it is embedded.

Ok, resisting the urge to quote the Mary Poppins song, there are lots of ways and reasons why people laugh. Although Darwin (1872) stated that laughter was simply a manifestation of joy more recent research (e.g. Edmondson, 1987) describes how laughter conveys far more than just joy, including sincerity, nervousness (aha!), vapidity, hysteria, embarrassment, amusement, mockery, friendliness, raillery, sycophancy, taste, strength or character, and, last but not least, sanity.

Ok, so perhaps I laughed nervously because of the context.

To recap:

I was on my way home from work, stuck in traffic alongside other commuters. I was about to drive past a school, and around me, families were walking to or from the Mosque.

Yes, talk of an erection did feel out of place.

Then, was it not inappropriate of us to drive that campervan around New Zealand, parking it on my Aunt's drive on a housing estate where kids played outside?

Perhaps the nervousness was actually embarrassment and that is where my shame is coming from. Although it was only a couple of days ago that I remembered that Campervan at all, perhaps I did, latently, feel complicit. I don't know, but I confess I have done something similar. I comfortably accepted the nervous laughs and giggles solicited from driving that van. It helped me start conversations and form social bonds.

As an example as we disembarked at a hostel I would laugh and say:

Yeah, I guess you were expecting a buff, young surf dude to get out of that camper, but I am afraid you have a thirty-something married couple. Sorry!

We knew what we were doing. We were using laughter, putting ourselves as the butt of a joke to find like-minded people, people who shared our humour in a foreign country on the opposite side of the planet to our own.

Did we alienate anyone along the way?

Oh my God. Come on, where does this lead? We can't cancel humour. We can't cancel laughter. Not only is it part of the meaningful fabric of life and a huge contributor to joy, laughter is a very powerful social tool.

Marjolein 't Hart, in their 2007 paper Humour and Social Protest describes humour as "a true weapon of the weak", citing the Polish Solidarity Movement in the 1980s, sharing a quote from the Solidarity Strike Bulletin (no.6, 27 Aug. 1980):

The more the Deputy Premier insists on his sincerity, the more sincere our laughter becomes in the hall.

and, as Australian Unionist Harry Bridges once said:

The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.

We can all think of many examples where laughter has been used by the weak to forge social bonds and create solidarity.

I think back to the schoolyard chant every kid in England knew during WW2:

Hitler has only got one ball. The other is in the Albert Hall!

Yep, it was a kid's song! Still funny, especially when you hear kids shout it in the playground. In the 1980s, trust me, because it was rude, it was still going strong.

Humour, all types, rude or not, plays a huge role in creating morale when we are faced with adversity.

I found a paper this week Ukranian War Humor and Civic Activism in 2022 (Klumbyte and Yeremieieva, 2024, Nationalities Paper). This paper describes how, throughout the war with Russia the Ukrainians have deployed a barrage of mocking memes. My favourite one cited probably being this:

I read another article, Comedy Can Help Change the World, Rutgers Researcher Says. In it, the researcher shares the story of how, in 2016, Amanda Nguyen, a sexual assault survivor, partnered with Funny or Die to create a sketch comedy video to expose the absurdity of sexual assault laws. This video helped Change.org gather a petition with 100,000 signatures, which Rise presented to Congress to facilitate a change to the law.

Another example is from The Guerilla Girls, a group of feminist activist artists who designed a billboard for the Public Art Fund in New York criticising museum institutions for underrepresenting female artists and objectifying women. The billboard was rejected for being "too provocative," so The Guerilla Girls rented advertising space on New York buses and posted it themselves.

But laughter isn't just a powerful social tool deployed for grand-scale solidarity. It also helps unite people on a one-to-one. Research by Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas (reported in DailyMailOnline) showed how the maxim, couples who laugh together stay together is true. Although, he did note one caveat to that universal truth. He said that laughter has to be "shared" or equal to create love. It cannot be at the expense of the person with whom you are looking to create "loving" solidarity.

Mockery can elicit laughs, but if it is aimed at the weak, it is not funny; it is bullying.

So, what does that have to do with any of this? The truck owner was not directly mocking me. I doubt the driver or owner even registered my existence.

Here's my problem...

I think back to that Campervan in New Zealand, and as funny as I found it, I know something about back then that I haven't shared yet. Had I been on my own, without my husband, there is no way on earth I would have driven that Campervan with those words on the back, not because of a lack of humour, but because I would have felt vulnerable driving it on my own without his protection.

Instead of laughing with others at that van, the conversation would have changed, and the dynamic would have shifted. I would have been a single woman travelling alone, risky, inviting attention, asking for it. There is no way my Aunt Gladys would have allowed me out in it for fear of what I may have been inviting.

Not funny at all.

The man (I am assuming) who wrote that on that truck, I doubt, cared that they were asking for attention; they quite clearly wanted it; I would go as far as saying they were asking for it (is that ironic?). You see, as self-deprecating as the joke is, there is not a shred of vulnerability in it. I nervously laughed at that truck because I could see the pun was funny, but I could also see the undercurrent was not. That message on that truck was not designed to include the likes of me. It is highly unlikely that the truck would be driven by a woman. No woman is included in that joke. Can you imagine a woman turning up for work and having to drive around in that truck all day?

No.

Under the joke's self-deprecating sheep's veil lay a wolf. A wolf that has been doing the rounds a very long time.

It's the same wolf that used to laugh as they watched me squirm while they asked me to be in a porn film every shift I worked behind the bar at my local tennis club. It was funny, wasn't it? Flattering, wasn't it? The same wolf who got kicks about me having to put all the porn mags out on sale in the newsagents every weekend and then sell them to men who liked to graze my hand and wink. The same wolf as those guys at The Tenacious D concert who got in close to me and my pal to get a grope? They were just having a laugh, weren't they? Silly boys, not knowing what to do with their hands in close company. No drama, just giggles.

Don't worry—all of that got "handled." A lot of it by men who could see what was going on and helped me. (Yes, I am lucky). However, my point is, my discomfort is, that I don't want my friend's daughters or my nieces to work in places where they have to "handle" stuff. You know places like tennis clubs, newsagents, and concert halls.

But when we say we want to stop it going as far as it does, the men who make these jokes often say that they are being "cancelled." It is only a joke, and there is nothing wrong with a laugh.

Come on, they'd say, which comedians don't tell jokes with a shock factor? The tease is part of the fun. All jokes are unsettling.

And, you know what, on the surface and in the right places, they are right. We do need laughter. We need to be brilliant at laughter. It's the one thing we have that really helps us find meaning and joy in a very difficult world. We have to be able to express ourselves, be ourselves. It is not just about social justice, it's freedom.

It's just the open door to objectification, marginalisation, and victimisation that needs to be closed.

As my mum would say to me and my brother as we ran about the house laughing and joking:

It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.

Indeed.

Love and Peace, CJ.

P.S. One final thought...What if it wasn't a man who wrote that on the truck?

Now then...

~ THE END ~

References, reading list, and notes:

(PDF) role of laughter in establishing solidarity and status https://search.app/5zEsNWnsKqJWvrQv6

(PDF) Ukrainian War Humor and CivicActivism in 2022 https://search.app/seUgnDWUd7mEVhnL9

(PDF) Just Seconds of Laughter Reveals Relationship Status - Laughter with Friends Sounds More Authentic and Less Vulnerable than Laughter with Romantic Partnershttps://search.app/vuf4yGWo5tmkxPX87

(PDF) Timing of laughter in conversation: Better late than never https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371323251_TIMING_OF_LAUGHTER_IN_CONVERSATION_BETTER_LATE_THAN_NEVER

Comedy Can Help Change the World, Rutgers Researcher Says | Rutgers

University https://www.rutgers.edu/news/comedy-can-help-change-world-rutgers-researcher-says

10 Controversial Artworks That Changed Art History - Artland Magazine https://search.app/NcpZKBEXYB5fdHjS8

Couples who laugh together stay together, scientists discover https://search.app/sDtgNQDKCnJLuM4d7

* I wish I could share a picture but offexploring.com, where my blog lives, was offline when I was writing this.

**Don't worry, traffic police, I had my brake on and was stationary for around 30 seconds!