What is the rationale of a dirty joke? People are clearly drawn to telling and listening to them, just enter it in Google and the results are endless. Mostly people tell a joke to get a reaction (the shock factor!) and if the joke is a little raunchy, it will attain this result regardless of whether it’s actually funny. Therefore, a dirty joke is a joke-tellers win/win situation. But, sometimes dirty jokes are just plain entertaining - period.  Most of our office jokes that are repeated & deemed funny are on the edgier side and we all love it!  Does prefering dirty jokes mean you are slimy & sinful - heck no!  You are just well rounded to the categories of joke-telling and open to the possibilities.  Obviously there are levels to the madness though - and many of us have our stopping point.  The difficult task a joke-teller must accomplish is accurately determining how far he/she can go with the audience and the jokes they tell.

So, have clean jokes just become boring?  NO!  Here are some great ones from our site:

• A man walks into a bar with his newt by TommyBoy
• International beer convention by Pickles
• Wake Up Watson by Captainhilariousness
• Cannibals prefer eating readers over writers by tasteslikechicken
• Sexy voice in a bar by todney dangerfield

Are dirtier jokes repeated more because many joke-tellers are male and it just isn’t cool to hear from your buddies after you tell a joke, “oh…my wife would like that.  She would probably say it’s ‘cute’?”  Yes!  What a blow! Or, is the clean vs. dirty factor based on the company you keep?  Save the clean ones for the kiddies, parents, and maybe women, and tell the dirty jokes among friends. Most certainly, and if you are not following this perhaps you should take a look at your audience the next time you tell a joke!

Finally, what constitutes a “clean joke” vs. a “dirty joke”?  According to Websters,

• Dirty Jokes: Morally unclean or corrupt - indecent, vulgar
• Clean Jokes: Free from offensive treatment of sexual objects and from the use of obscenity

Now, go out and find your audiences comfort level and tell some great jokes!