Jokes: A Bonding Experience?

        Joking is used for a variety of reasons and one that is the most important is building bonds. About five years ago, I came in contact with another young man who was tall, frail, and geeky looking, kept his head in the book, and walked with a kind of feminine strut. For three years, I terrorized him the way I use to be teased, before I became a part of the "in"-crowd. For three hundred and sixty days and up until the beginning of sophomore year, I would call him derogatory names. (I did not see the devastating effects that this joking could have had on this kid until later on in my life.) Making jokes at his expense was a part of my daily routine. I would make others laugh as well as myself, while he got visibly irritated. He would then make a comment back to try to discourage me, thus completing the cycle of the game. If he had ignored my comments, there would have been no joke because of the absence of a response, leaving me with no reason to continue this form of bereavement, and no reason to continue the bonding experience.

        On the other hand, this form of joking could have devasting negative effects. The joking at other's expenses, if not properly displayed to be a way of bonding, could cause others do develop a form of despondence. Making them feel like a pariah in what use to be a familiar surrounding. This joking over time could arouse the feelings of hate instead of a form camaraderie, causing the person to have and act on hostility derived from the joking by the joker.

        Keeping this into consideration, joking is still a very common way for men to form strong, lasting friendships, or be the target of a hate killing. Luckily, through time the joking between the young man and myself got stronger. With the joking came a type of heterosexual intimacy which is started off in order to break down emotional walls. Through this men are able to get to open up to each other, forming these friendships. This case has helped develop a friendship that has lasted for three years, with a man I consider one of my best friends.

        Many feel that because men and women have a different idea of what is funny and what is distasteful, the bonding experience through joking could never exist between men and women. In the essay, "The Fraternal Bond as a Joking Relationship" by Peter Lyman, a fraternity breaks into a sorority, and surrounds the female members. While one pledge discussed Freud's theory of penis envy, another practiced various different masturbation techniques with a rubber penis. The men were kicked out of the girl's house and were to be brought up on charges because the women were offended and the college had no appreciation for their lascivious manner (Lyman 387).

        The men explained that their intentions although not in good humor were meant to be a joke. They agreed with the women that being the object of a joke is painful, but the collective talk of the fraternity is entirely hostile joking. The general idea I got from this fraternal joking is that no one is held accountable for their aggressive humor. One member said that he could see both the men and women while the joke was taking place. When he looked at the men he was incredibly amused by the joking, but when he looked at the women and saw that they were not laughing, he was embarrassed because he felt the joke might have been too crude for the women's sense of propriety. He said that men have a sense of crudeness that women do not have. This type of crude behavior is a way for men to signify their solidarity (Lyman 390).

        The women said that they enjoyed the joking relationship with the men. They did not the mind naked Christmas Carol event, where the fraternity would send over five or six pledges to do naked jumping jacks while singing carols. This particular joke did not bother the women because both the women and the other members of the frat watched on the side while the joke was taking place. They knew the pledges, not the women, were the targets of the joke. The women felt these jokes were ritual events and not real social relationships. The author states this considered a part of the normal erotic joking relation between guys and girls (Lyman 388). I got the impression that the men had understood their joking relationship as a bonding experience for the men and women. They figured the bigger and better the joke the stronger and more powerful the bond. After being the objects of so many jokes (not being offended and laughing with those who were laughing at their expense), the men figured it was time for them to share the other side of the joking with the women. So they planned a spectacular show, one that was tradition, and the best of the year. Then, just because the joke had not lived up to the hype, the men were told to leave the women's sorority house.

        There are two parts to all relationships one is give and the other is take. Society would look at the fairy tale of Robin Hood differently if he had stolen from the rich and kept to himself as opposed to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. It was crucial for the women to contribute to the other part of joking in order for the joke to work and for their relationship to continue.

        Peter Lyman leaves the reader thinking that this emotinal bonding does not and can not exist between men and women, which is far from the truth. In the example Lyman uses, the women did not only dislike the idea of being the object of the joke, but they also did not feel that the joking was part of a real social relationship. The reason the joke did not work was because the men had not clearly seen who their target audience was. They had misunderstood the closeness of the relationship with the women and did not visualize how the women might have reacted if the joke had not gone over well. This was just one example and it only shows that the bonding through jokes does not work for this particular group, but is not to say that bonding can not have the same effect on a male-female relationship as it does on an all male one.

        I knew a group of kids back in High School (which I was a part of) that were fairly decent, well-educated people (consisting of many different ethnicities). Individually, they would say hello, please, and thank you- and were generally good people to have a thought provoking conversation with.

        Unfortunately, when these personalities diverged, a group of malevolent, adolescent, troublemakers emerged (this would happen when a small collection of the same sex, either young men or women got together). They would destroy anything that got in their path. The men would tease others (kids and adults) on their appearances, they would throw objects (anything that wasn't nailed down), and cause hellacious damage to public and private property or even to things owned by another in the group, laughing the entire time, even through punishment.

        The women would do similar things, focusing less on destruction and more on making other girls run home and cry because their physical attributes are not quite up to their standards. The men and women got along but were never as jokingly open to each other. The men would feel funny or awkward joking with the women because they wanted to be cautious about offending their friendly peers. It wasn't until the women started acting or saying things in an off-color manner that the men felt comfortable joking around and with them. Once the men and women felt comfortable opening up to each other, the remaining barricades holding the full-fledged emotions were torn down. They realized that the opposite sex's personalities weren't that different from their own. They had just never been able to open up to each other because they had no common thread, nothing to combine or bond the men with the women.

        Shortly thereafter, the men and the women of these groups minimized their hostility and destruction to almost nonexistent. This conglomeration of opposing yet similar personalities toned both the men and the women down. We were now able to sit down like young adults and have one of those thought provoking conversations (still containing our distasteful humor) together, both the men and the women.   

        The women in this story acted and reacted to joking in a different way than the women in the Fraternal Bond. The women I grew up with are nineties women. They have not been taught that the discussion and joking of sex was taboo, but instead that they should embrace the freedom of finally being able to do so. The women in the Fraternal Bond, did not react positively to the joke because they were not brought up to laugh at crude jokes, however funny they may be.