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The oldest known joke in known human history is not “Why did the chicken cross the road?” In fact, it’s a fart joke that can be traced all the way back to the earliest-known civilization in human history.
“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap,” the proverb, dating all the way back to ancient Sumeria around 1900 BC, reads. Some 4,000 years later, and they remain as funny as ever. But why?
For as long as psychologists and academics have studied humor, flatulence — a.k.a farting a.k.a passing gas a.k.a letting one rip — has remained an interesting topic of study given that it’s both too universal to ignore but also too lowbrow for most researchers to take seriously.
Why do men find farting so funny? Studies suggest it has to do with the spontaneity and harmless of flatulence
Studies have been conducted, theories have been hypothesize, and literature has been published, though, with virtually all of it landing on the conclusion that farting is inherently funny to men, and will forever remain so.
The most widely accepted explanation is the Benign Violation Theory (BVT), which was developed by University of Colorado psychologist Peter McGraw. BVT occurs when something is funny, breaks a social norm, and is perceived as completely harmless. That’s where farts come in, as they’re essentially the platonic ideal of the Benign Violation Theory.
The sound arrives without abruptly and loudly and violates basic manners, but also causes no tangible damage to anyone involved. As McGraw posits, when someone cuts cheese, the brain registers the offense but then instantly determines the threat level is zero and transitions that tension into humor.
There’s also a 1980 study that was conducted by psychologist L.G. Lippman called “Toward a Social Psychology of Flatulence: The Interpersonal Regulation of Natural Gas” which found that people who pass gas loudly are rated as more humorous by observers. Lippman’s research, however, found one notable and well-known exception: women did not find farting as funny as men did.
Furthermore, “Toward a Social Psychology of Flatulence: The Interpersonal Regulation of Natural Gas” also found that deliberate flatulence, when identified as intentional, caused observers to rate the person as more malicious rather than funnier, suggesting the true humor comes from the uncontrolled and accidental elements of flatuence.
Historically, women do not find farting as humorous as men do — no surprises there…
Other researchers have documented a gap in the enjoyment of farts by women and men, too, as a study conducted by the University of Helsinki noted that attitudes toward the male fart have been more permissive than toward the female fart across centuries of recorded humor. Those same researchers note that in early humor, the fart’s primary cultural role was to “demonstrate our shared humanity” and introduce a measure of equality between people. Essentially: everyone farts.
Part of what makes it stick for men specifically comes down to how early the reinforcement starts. Children respond to bodily function humor as young as age two or three, before any meaningful gender differences in humor emerge. Boys tend to sustain that response longer into adolescence and adulthood, largely because they receive more positive reinforcement for it from peers and, often, from the adults around them. The laugh they got at age seven from a well-timed fart becomes a template that holds.
There is also the bonding dimension. Research on male friendship has consistently found that crude and transgressive humor functions as a trust signal between men — a way of signaling comfort and ease with another person. Farting in front of someone, in this context, is not just an accident or a joke. It is a statement about the relationship.
More recently, the Cambridge University Press published the paper “Why Flatulence Is Funny” by philosopher James Spiegel in 2013, which framed farting through the lens of the “Psychological Shift Theory,” which posits that humor emerges from a sudden, pleasurable mental pivot.
Few things in daily life produce that sudden pivot as reliably or as equally as a fart. It was true 4,000 years ago and remains so today.