I’ve Been Thinking
By Bonita Wilborn
I’ve been thinking lately and trying to determine why farts are always funny. I was sitting in church recently behind a young mother who had an approximately 6-month-old girl child. It’s very obvious that a six month old has no reason to know the social graces of etiquette or that southern girls “don’t fart in public settings”; they only do what comes natural to them. And that is, when you feel the urge to fart, you act on it.
During the church service, of course when everything was quiet for a moment, the beautiful child felt the urge, and acted on it. As I sat there watching the aftermath I counted ten women, of varying age and social status, who began to snicker. Some of them even went into a full blown giggle fest. We all know that everything is funnier in church, when you’re supposed to be serious.
That put me to thinking about why even the raunchiest fart will cause those who are holding their nose and gasping for air to find it funny. So I went to my trusty computer to search for the answer.
I logged onto a site titled Flatus Interruptus by Joachim Krueger, Ph.D. It said, “Farts are funny. Children know this. Fathers know this because their children remind them. There is no way to get more joy out of children with less work. Tickling comes close, but it requires effort. Farting provides release to the self and entertainment to the children. The cost-benefit ratio is excellent. The question is: Why are farts funny? How is it that farts can make us laugh until it hurts? How do farts provoke the kind of laugh that refuses to die down? A side question is why the power of farts does not work as well with grown women. And why don’t we laugh at burps? Burps are just gross, and it is their very grossness that deepens the mystery of the funny fart.”
On another website, Simon Brown said, “Farts are funny because people are so precious about them, ohhh the horror!, because they sound funny, because they smell bad, because they embarrass people, and because whoever you are, high or low, a fart can always bring you back to earth, it’s the great leveler.”
Yet another website by said, “Farts are funny. There’s just no way to get around it. No matter who you are, or what your background is, chances are you have found some kind of fart, or something specifically about farts pretty darn funny.”
So the question remains, why are farts funny?