Sex Differences in Response to Obscenities and Bawdy Humor

Abstract

Cameron ( 2 ) sampled words from college students' conversations and concluded that females' dialogues yielded about the same frequency (but not the same kind) of obscenities as found in males' remarks. However, research with written d~aloguer in which students were free to write in their conversational sryle indicated that 6996 males but only 42% females included at least one obscenity in their reports ( 3 ) . T o examine these sex differences a questionnaire was devised to ascertain usage of I 2 1 obscenities, administered anonymously and voluntarily to 41 males and 75 females (modal ages 20 and 19 yr.) in a course on sexual behavior. Only a small number of expressions were used in equal accord by both sexes, with males being familiar and using more frequently a greater range of obscenities. A scale of increasing from 1 to 1 0 was proposed to evaluate seven obscenities of varying severiry and gender reference, which were familiar and might be spoken in casual, opposite-sex conversations. Females indicated greater anger if they were to hear these obscenities from a male rather than a female; and males claimed more anger (bu t at a consistently lower rating) if they were to hear such expressions from a girl rather than another male. A second i n v c s t ~ ~ a t ~ o n involved censorship and humor ratings of 10 bawdy stories based on black ghetto humor (1 ) . examined in a context of one of three censorship criteria (Johnny Carson Show, today; Johnny Carson Show, 1984; Educational TV, today). The stories were counterbalanced and administered voluntarily to small groups totaling 57 white males and females {modal ages 21 and 20 yr.) from another class in sexual behavior. Females were consistently stricter in censoring stories than males but the ratings were too variable for statistical confirmation. Humor judgments were made independently of censorship criteria and sex differences were present, males rating the stories significantly higher on humor than females (F,,loa = 9.33, < 0.01). Sex differences were also apparent in a 2 x 10 analysis of the story liked least (Xe ' = 31.35, p < 0.001), with 53% females and 15 % males most disliking a long story containing many obscenities about jungle animals, and 40% males but only 7 % fema!es most disliking a short story with no obscenities, entitled Drawers. Differences in ratings of humor could reflect greater familiarity of white males with black humor. However, the stories liked least were criticized as pointless by both sexes, suggesting that obscenities may have been evaluated as facilitative o r detrimental conrlngent on the cleverness of the author in using a logical sequence of events to deliver a punch I~ne .

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