“Fruits,” “Fags,” and “Dykes”: The Portrayal of Gay/Lesbian Identity in “Nance” Jokes of the ’50s and ’60s

Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 55(3) 2008Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com© 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.

388 doi:10.1080/00918360802345107

WJHM0091-83691540-3602Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 55, No. 3, August 2008: pp. 1–37Journal of Homosexuality

“Fruits,” “Fags,” and “Dykes”: The Portrayal of Gay/Lesbian Identity in “Nance” Jokes of the ’50s and ’60s

Peter M. Nardi and Nancy E. StollerJournal of Homosexuality Peter M. Nardi, PhD

Pitzer College

Nancy E. Stoller, PhD

University of California, Santa Cruz

ABSTRACT. What is humorous and how it is interpreted very muchdepends on the norms and values of a culture at a particular point in time,the characteristics of who is telling jokes, and the makeup of the audience.This article presents archival material and an analysis of an outsider’s jokesabout gays and lesbians. These were told to primarily heterosexual audi-ences by a heterosexual comic. They reveal the assumptions Americansheld about gays and lesbians throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and a few yearsinto the mid-1970s, when most of these jokes were compiled. Although

Peter M. Nardi, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College, a member ofthe Claremont Colleges.

Nancy E. Stoller, PhD, is Professor of Community Studies, University ofCalifornia, Santa Cruz.

The authors wish to thank Sam Freund, a student at University of California,Santa Cruz, who painstakingly went through the 105 pages of often poorly typedjokes and pulled out those that related to male and female homosexuality. Also,thanks to the late Whitey Roberts who demonstrated his “nance” accent andgestures during a three-hour interview with Peter Nardi in 1996.

Address correspondence to: Peter M. Nardi, Pitzer College, 1050 N. Mills Ave,Claremont, CA 91711 (E-mail: [email protected]) or Nancy E. Stoller,Department of Community Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064(E-mail: [email protected]).

Peter M. Nardi and Nancy E. Stoller 389

generalizations about gay/lesbian humor in that period cannot be madefrom one person’s private collection of nearly 1,000 jokes, they do revealseveral clear patterns: Much of the humor about male homosexuality isused to debase men and their masculinity, by making them passive, feminine,or weak, except for their hypersexuality. The women are also depicted inthe jokes as sexually eager, especially to give oral sex to possibly straightwomen or acting in the male insertor role. Rarely were the gay/lesbianjokes focused on political issues of discrimination, oppression, or romanticrelationships.

KEYWORDS. Gay, lesbian, nance, jokes, humor, stereotypes, sex,masculinity, femininity

Jokes are a form of folklore that can provide fascinating information aboutthe joke tellers, audiences, and stereotypes of a particular culture. For histori-cal and archival purposes, we present and analyze a set of gay and lesbianjokes, as told mostly in the 1950s and 1960s by a heterosexual performer.

Apte (1985) argues that humor refers to “a cognitive, often uncon-scious experience involving internal redefining of sociocultural realityand resulting in a mirthful state of mind . . . [and] to sociocultural factorsthat trigger this cognitive experience” (p. 14). Sanders (1995), in hishistory of laughter, writes that “cracking jokes allows us to break openreality for ourselves: Jokes upset expectations. They create their own real-ities. They rupture logic” (p. 31). Most humor depends on language in allits ambiguities and incongruities (Davis, 1993). And central to linguistichumor is the pun that Davis (1993) claims “is the foundation of all wit”(p. 33).

Humor is also a creative process that uncovers a shared culturalknowledge; shared rules for interpreting it; and the cultural appropriate-ness of exaggeration and distortion of individuals, groups, actions,personality traits, and physical features which rarely reflect objectivereality (Apte, 1985; Berger, 1997). When focusing on humor aboutculturally identifiable folk groups—including national and ethnicgroups, gays/lesbians, and women—the jokes tell us about culturallyheld stereotypes and a society’s collective anxieties. And when thehumor targets gays and lesbians, issues emerge not only about the self-image of the joke-telling group and perceived identity of the targetgroup, but also about how sexuality and gender are constructed in a par-ticular time and place.

390 JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY

In his book on “sick” humor, noted folklorist Alan Dundes (1987)argues the importance of studying ethnic and national slurs: “Folkloreprovides the principal means of transmitting and disseminating nationalcharacter stereotypes. The study of traditional slurs involves such topicsas stereotypes, national character, ethnocentrism, prejudice, imagery, andhumor” (p. 96). Embedded in many jokes are indicators of how a particulargroup is perceived by the joke teller and the audience listening to the joke.Jokes also suggest important information about a society’s collectivelyheld assumptions and stereotypes about the ingroups and outgroups. Apte(1986) argues that “in order for ethnic humor to have the desired effect, itneeds readymade and popular conceptualizations of the target group(s).Stereotypes fulfill this requirement admirably, and therein lies theirsignificance in the development of ethnic humor” (p. 114).

Several outcomes of stereotyped joke telling are possible: A nation’s orethnic group’s “national character” becomes reified, even when there maynot be such a cohesive thing for a diverse set of people; the joke tellerethnocentrically boosts her or his group’s self-image and prestige by puttingdown the other groups; intergroup conflict and differences are created andmaintained; newcomers to the society learn about the stereotypes (nega-tive and positive) about particular ethnic, racial, or national groups; andsome simply experience entertainment and pleasure (Apte, 1985; Dundes,1987). In most of these outcomes, performer and audience also reinforce asense of community and social cohesion through the process of creatingand sharing information about themselves and other groups. This is espe-cially evident when groups tell ethnic slur jokes about their own group.As Dundes (1987) writes: “Whether an ethnic slur is truly disparagingdepends in part upon who is using it and about whom” (p. 119). If theteller is joking about his or her own group, rather than about a moremarginalized group than one’s own, it changes the nature of the joke andthe audience’s reactions, as well as developing a shared sense of communityrevolving around group identity traits.

At the same time, the existence of humor about groups of peoplebecomes evidence of that group’s identity as a distinct folk. As Dundes(1987) put it: “Conceivably, one good test of whether a given group is oris not a folk would be the existence of slurs about the group in question”(p. 98). Thus, gay and lesbian humor in some ironic way can end up creatinga more visible and coherent (yet, not necessarily accurate) cultural iden-tity for a category of people who are otherwise quite diverse.

Some jokes about ethnic and national groups are templates in which anyone could become the target of the slur; the groups are interchangeable


within the joke (see Cohen, 1999). For example: “Why does Chicagohave more Poles and New York have more Italians?” Answering that“Chicago had first choice” puts down Italians as lower than Poles—especiallyin a cultural context that has used “Polack jokes” to render Poles as theleast intelligent and desired ethnic group. The same joke has been told invarious regions and countries by very different ethnic and religioussubcultures. According to Apte (1985), some traits such as “stupidity,dirtiness, brute force, and excessive sexuality” are universally viewed asnegative and are often linked to various target groups in ethnic humor andslurs (p. 127).

Other jokes, however, clearly depend on knowing something about thecultural stereotypes of the targeted group. For example, one joke has itthat heaven is defined as the place where the Italians are the lovers, theFrench are the cooks, the police are British, the Germans are the mechanics,and it’s all organized by the Swiss; whereas, hell is the place where theBritish are the cooks, Germans are the police, the mechanics are French,lovers are Swiss, and it’s all organized by the Italians. These details arenot readily interchangeable and depend on some knowledge of the stereo-types of a particular national character.

As we illustrate, jokes about gays and lesbians are rarely of thetemplate form and are not likely to be interchangeable with other groups(although many of the jokes about oral sex can be told with a man and awoman). They often depend on quite specific assumptions uniquely attrib-uted to lesbians and gay men, yet also share some of the characteristics ofhumor directed at other feared groups, such as the exaggerated sexualityand erotic ambivalence also attributed to Jews and Blacks (Adam, 1978).

When jokes go beyond ethnic and group identity into the realm ofgender and sexuality, other cultural norms are also challenged. Freudintroduced the idea that there is a pleasure in telling jokes that tear downthe walls built up by civilized life. Joking is often a socially approved wayof ripping off the masks and peeking behind the facades that a culture hasconstructed. Jokes provide “an acceptable way for the discontent, ormarginal malcontent, to break the law, to upset the status quo, with impunity”(Sanders, 1995, p. 252). And what arena of human life has more norms ofdecorum and rules of propriety than human sexuality?

Davis (1993), in his book on how jokes target social worlds and violatecultural expectations, claims that sexual inadequacy is the most frequentlytargeted behavior incompetence in jokes. Such jokes include ones about“homosexuals and transvestites who fail to live up to the sexual ideals ofeither gender” (p. 222). He also argues that “jokes that transfer women’s


clothing, behavior, or personality traits to men have a homosexual impli-cation” which typically are viewed as a debasement, yet which alsouncover the temporary arrangements and social construction of genderroles in a culture (p. 177). This kind of humor is particularly amusing, heclaims, in periods when gender roles are breaking down and are unstable.

Davis believes that humor about sexuality derives from the fact thatsexual desire

can transform human beings down not merely to the animal level buteven farther to the object-level . . . Those obsessed with their sexualdrive to the exclusion of all their other drives and social obligationsincrease the incongruity between their human and object aspectswhile decreasing the unity of their psychophysiological selves. Nowonder we laugh at those “carried away” by sex: they are carriedaway from their humanness. (p. 338n17)

But who tells the sexual jokes also becomes salient in analyzing theircontent. Today, “comics speak more and more for those who standoutside the threshold of power . . . How much more powerful for amarginalized person to stand up and make fun of himself or herself,instead of some proxy . . . who in the end can talk only secondhand”(Sanders, 1995, p. 271). In these performances, joke tellers defuse theculturally held stereotypes, while providing positive role models thatoften break down those very stereotypes.

Thus, a joke told by a gay or lesbian comic takes on different mean-ings than when told by a heterosexual comic. Furthermore, other kindsof jokes can be told by insiders that outsiders can never tell, not onlybecause the jokes require the teller be gay or lesbian, but also becausethe outsider might not have the required inside information neededto construct the joke. In fact, what sometimes makes the outsider’sjokes about another group not funny is the lack of accurate informa-tion that is needed in order for the incongruity or exaggeration to beeffective.

This article presents an analysis of an outsider’s jokes about gays andlesbians compiled from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s. These weretold to primarily heterosexual audiences by a heterosexual comic, or atleast someone portraying himself as one. They reveal the assumptionsmany Americans held about gays and lesbians throughout that era, whenvisibility in the media was limited to negative news, sensational stories,and outright harassment and discrimination.


The 1950s and 1960s were decades when gays and lesbians werestarting to ask for equal rights yet not being openly assertive in a way thatcelebrates queerness. This was a period when many gays and lesbiansformed organizations like the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitisas places to meet each other in safe spaces and to strategize againstdiscrimination (D’Emilio, 1983). The movement was still in the phase oftrying to be “normal” and the jokes we discuss are part of the dominantculture which asserted that gays and lesbian people were not really nor-mal, and the jokes reinforced that ideology. As the gay movement grew inthe early 1970s and the images of gays and lesbian began to change, thejokes also demonstrate a response to the growing political power andsocial visibility.

METHODOLOGY

In the library of the Magic Castle, a performance space and club formagicians and their guests in Hollywood, California, there is a collectionof books, documents, and papers focusing on the variety arts (see Nardi,2006). One significant donation has been the private joke files of the lateWhitey Roberts, a performer and vaudevillian.

For 75 years, Roberts collected gags, jokes, and one-liners, some original,some from magazines like Reader’s Digest and some from other performers.He typed them, pasted them into loose-leaf binders, and cataloged themunder a variety of cross-listings. Throughout his career, Roberts per-formed vaudeville-type variety shows, often next-to-last on the bill, andmore regularly served as Master of Ceremonies for shows on cruise ships,with the USO during World War II, in night clubs, at the Friars Club,at the Magic Castle, and on television, including The Tonight Show andThe Ed Sullivan Show.

Roberts sang songs, did some magic, played music, juggled plates,performed a routine with audience members ringing bells to play out atune by following his directions, and danced. His specialty was tellingstories and jokes, especially one-liners with puns and primarily usingdialects, including drunk, Irish, Swedish, Italian, Jewish, and—using hisword—“nance” or sissy-boy lisping accents. He was highly regarded forhis emceeing abilities, having been asked twice in a row to host thefamous Policeman’s Ball at Madison Square Garden. After his appearanceat a Chicago convention of show people and agents, the President of theEntertainers and Actors Club wrote Roberts a letter, dated October 13,


1961: “Appearing before this difficult audience and many of the top showpeople and agents, you should be introduced as ‘the most versatile man inshow business’. . . . As a humorist, your choice of jokes was proper andendless, always fitting the situation” (Personal Communication).

The jokes Roberts told were collected in binders, one of which waslabeled “Nance.” Of the approximately 3,200 jokes in this binder, about870 centered on male homosexuality and 75 on female homosexuality.Another 120 focused on transsexuality or transvestism, most of which dealtwith Christine Jorgensen, one of the most publicized male-to-females fromthe late 1950s and early 1960s.

In a three-hour interview with the first author in 1996, Roberts saidthis binder also included non-nance jokes that often went along with thenance routines, usually of a sexual nature. Hence, not all of the jokes inthis particular set were about gays and lesbians. Some of these were hetero-sexual parodies of nursery rhymes; spoofs of fairy tales; jokes about besti-ality, flashers, masturbation, transvestites, gender differences, prostitutes,voyeurs, molestation, and incest. Although most of these were heterosexualin nature, a few were cross-listed under the nance, lesbian, and sodomysections. The following analysis, however, covers only the jokes on maleand female homosexuality.

Since these jokes were selected or written by a particular performer,they are not necessarily representative of the range of available jokesabout gay men and lesbians. Even if these were collected from a varietyof published and popular sources of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, there isno indication that Roberts chose all the available jokes. He probablyfiltered out those he did not like and found unfunny, rewrote some, andoverlooked others. In short, this is an analysis of one person’s collectionof homosexual jokes and any generalizations about homosexual humorcannot be made. However, they do provide insights about the wayslesbian and gay identity was seen by a leading performer who more thanlikely reflected the generally held stereotypes of that era.

THE JOKES

Male Homosexuality

If we were to describe what the typical male homosexual was likebased on these jokes, the answer would probably be that he was mostlyfocused on oral sex and often on anal sex; sometimes he turned out to be


someone’s husband or father; occasionally pursued heterosexual men;was regularly referred to as odd, a fruit, fairy, or a queen; came fromGreece but lived in Greenwich Village, Hollywood, or anywhere inCalifornia; hung out in Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles oralong Hollywood Boulevard; was in the military or some working classoccupation (factory worker, longshoreman, lumberjack, cowboy, thief,truck driver, or dishwasher), yet liked to wear women’s clothes; spokewith a lisp or a squeal while walking funny or skipping and swishingdown the street, was neither male nor female (or was some combinationof both), but really was effeminate and similar to a sweet, slender, pretty,or skinny woman who liked the colors lavender, pink, purple, and cerise;and was probably named Bruce or Clarence.

However, the male homosexual would not be defined as someone fromSan Francisco or Fire Island, who was a body-building masculine person,immoral or a child-molester, who got killed or committed suicide orrisked being bashed, who was any more likely to be in the theater or ahairdresser, who used four-letter words or took drugs, and who usuallyexperienced discrimination. Yet, we would learn that someone can be putdown by being labeled as a fairy, fruit, or pansy. Also, one can becomegay by moving to Greenwich Village, eating fruit, wearing women’sclothes, or getting drunk.

Although there were jokes for almost every possible stereotype, most ofthe one-liners and short jokes can be classified into two larger categories:sexual jokes and effeminate jokes. Let’s look at these and the messagescontained within these categories about what a male homosexualappeared to be from the 1950s into the years just after the Stonewallrebellion.

Sexual Jokes

By far, the most common characteristic of the jokes deal with sex.Since many jokes in general are about sexuality, it would be inappropriateto conclude that this is somehow disproportionately applied to homosexuals.It is important, however, to assess what kinds of sexuality make up thejokes.

Most of the male homosexual jokes in Roberts’ collection focus on oralsex with variations using puns on the words eat, blow, suck, gobble,lick, and going down. Typical of these are the following jokes and one-line quips he made, all with their original punctuations, spellings, andcapitalizations:


• Mother who hollered “Son, What are you doing in the basement?”He said, “I’m blowing taps.” She said, “That’s nice. Who’s downthere with you?” He said, “Taps.”

• Queer bank robber who was so absent-minded that he tied up thesafe and blew the teller.

• A guy who said he keeps his fish in an aqueerium. His friend said“You mean an aquarium, don’t you?” He said, “No. I keep nothingbut suckers and blowfish.

• Nance who said to another, “Not tonight Clarence, I have a toothache.”• Guy who goes in a candy store and says to the clerk “I’d like an All

Day Sucker.” He said, “Don’t look at me . . . I’m short winded.”

Anal sex is a close second to the type of sexual behavior that homosexualmen in jokes constantly talk about or engage in. Usually, it is linked withGreeks and punned with such words as end, tail, turning over, and rear.

• Greek boy who dressed in front of a rear-view mirror. He said“Down boy! Down! It’s only us!”

• Greek boy who claimed he was reared in Athens.• Greek truck drivers who stopped along the road and exchanged

loads.• Greenwich Villager who came out with a solution to the crime problem.

He suggests that they mount all policemen!• Guy who claimed that most love affairs seldom last long. “It bores

me in the end.”

Many of the other jokes played with words (double entendres) thatsuggested the penis (tools, flutes, poles); a few focused on promiscuity(i.e., having sex with large numbers of people, such as “let’s blow thistown”), and only a few were phrased in terms of rape or being molested(but something to be welcomed unless one were heterosexual). Surpris-ingly, not many dealt with masturbation and—other than some of theGreek ones—none were about pedophilia.

Where these sexual acts took place and with whom ranged across avariety of public places and with various types of people. There was a lotof emphasis on the well-publicized gay places of the day: GreenwichVillage, Hollywood (before West Hollywood was the gay center inLos Angeles), Pershing Square (no longer a public park in Los Angelesknown for its gay cruising but well-known through John Rechy’s writings ofthe 1960s), and California in general (in part because of Roberts’ residency).


• Inventor who came put with a Pershing Square Survival kit: a pair ofknee pads and chap stick.

• Guy who watched a football game between Greenwich Village andPershing Square. They called it fruitball.

• Faggot who went into a florist’s and said “Do you send flowers?”The clerk said “Yes.” He said, “Well, will you please send me toCalifornia . . . I’m a pansy.”

What is most interesting is the emphasis on the military and draftboards as a location for homosexual activity (see Berube, 1990). Very fewwere about bathrooms, bathhouses, prisons, or bars. No one occupationstood out—other than sailors—but working-class roles and traditionallymasculine occupations, including sports, were much more common thanstereotypically gay-identified occupations. Suggested sexual acts happenedbetween the effeminate men and masculine men whose occupationsincluded longshoremen, police, firemen, dishwashers, cowboys, janitors,electricians, carpenters, thieves, and truck drivers. They were mentionedmore often than hairdressers, interior decorators, actors, dancers, ormusicians.

Perhaps what was thought to be funny was to see heteronormativemasculine men unmasked as people who could be sexually involved withan effeminate man. Yet, they remain the approached. Is the joke thenreally on the masculine, supposedly heterosexual man? Sometimes themasculine male responds; mostly it is the effeminate man being attractedto the working-class guy; and occasionally it is an egalitarian interactionof willing masculine men.

• Homosexual who just couldn’t be true to his soldier boyfriend at thefront . . . so he wrote him a Queer John letter.

• Navy man who said “The vice of the Vice Admiral is the rear of theRear Admiral.”

• Effeminate longshoreman who was known as the Steveadorable.• Fag was asked what reading matter he would prefer if he were

marooned on a desert island. He said “A tattooed sailor.”• Policeman who stops a faggot for speeding and says “Where’s the

fire?” He says “In your eyes, you big gorgeous policeman!”• Sailor who said “Can you direct me to Percy Street?” He said, “You

lucky doll . . . I am Percy Street!”• Wrestler who was thrown into a faggot’s lap and he wouldn’t let him

go. He said “Finder’s Keepers!”


Sometimes, however, the potential sexual encounter with an effeminatehomosexual is problematized and seen in terms of a threat or an unwantedapproach. Occasionally, it is a way of putting down or insulting theassumed heterosexual man.

• Football season opens next week and our players are all at their peakexcept for the center who has worried all winter ‘cause our quarter-back is gay.

• Guy who checked in a hotel that had the bathroom decorated withPassion-Pink ceilings, and the walls were in Blushing Rose andSimmering Scarlet. He went in to take a shower and what do youthink? He was afraid to take off his clothes!

• Guy who had to double off [share a bed] with another guy and waswarned that he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. He said “That won’tworry me” and he spent the night with the snorer. The next day hewas fresh as a daisy. They asked him how he did it. He said, “Rightaway he started snoring and I kissed him in the mouth. He stayedawake the rest of the night wondering what I was going to do next,and I slept like a baby!”

• Comic who says to the heckler “Why are you being so nasty now,when you were so nice to me in the men’s room!”

Effeminate and Female-Like Jokes

The other most common theme is the similarity between women andhomosexual men. Not only are some of the jokes about oral sex inter-changeable with promiscuous women jokes, but the description of themen who engage in oral and anal sex is usually in terms of an effeminateman or of someone who really wants or is a woman.

In addition to the presentation of these jokes using a lisping accent andeffeminate walks, gestures, and limp wrists, they were often written withthe words nance, faggot, queer, and pansy. One type of joke was to usepuns of these effeminate epithets, in particular fag, homo, swish, fruit,fairy, queer, queen, pansy, and sissy. Especially popular then, and less sotoday, was the use of the word “odd” and numerous puns on the fraternalorganization called the Oddfellows. The word “gay” rarely appeared inthe jokes from the 1950s and 1960s, but mostly in a handful of “gay lib”jokes from the 1970s, and almost never playing with puns of the worditself.


• Nance western, Oklahomo.• Dean of Hollywood High School who said, “We have 1,200 odd

students here.”• Grape fruit: a queer wino.• Forbidden fruit: a married fairy.• Cannibal who captured a homo, “Oh Goody! Swish steak!”• Zookeeper who found that all the monkeys mated except one. He

was a chim-pansy.

Another category of jokes involved portraying homosexual men lisping,squealing, walking funny, being weak and ladylike, and failing to live upto masculine images.

• Fag who says to another, “Come on, Bruce. Are you a man or amouse? Come on, squeak up.

• Faggot who entered the 100 yard dash but got disqualified—forskipping. He thought it was one of those drag races.

• Fag who says to another after a fight “Bruce, you needn’t lower yourvoice to me! Our war is still on!”

• Fag who didn’t want to go swimming when he heard it was hardwater. He said, “I bruise so easily.”

• Fag who said “You’re looking at a man—here feel these muscles—o-o-oo not so hard!”

• Man who bragged to his wife that if he had two more inches he’d bea King. She said, “Yes, and if you had two inches less, you’d be aQueen!”

• Big lumberjack who stomped into a tavern, ordered three doublewhiskeys, and downed them one after the other. Then he poundedthe bar with his fist and roared “I feel like a bull in heat!” From atable in the back came a small feminine voice: “Moooo.”

Talking and walking like a woman and not acting masculine enoughare further emphasized in jokes that focus on women’s clothing, effeminatecolors, and other female styles.

• Faggot who said “I’ve got to go home now. I’ve got to get therebefore my wife does. I’m wearing her girdle!”

• City dude who said to the lavender cowboy, “Do you ever rustle?”He said, “Hell no . . . only when I wear my taffeta chaps!”


• Nance, the kind of guy who carries two handkerchiefs—one forblowing and the other for waving.

• Boy who said to his father, “Why did the man with the lavender shirtblush when the elevator man said ‘Going down??’”

• Faggot who got a job in a department store. He works in ladiesunderwear.

• Kid who said, “Daddy, what’s a queer?” He said, “Shut up andunhook my bra!”

• Fag who graduated college cap and gown. He wore his father’s capand his mother’s gown.

• Two faggots walk down the street, one with a yellow sports jacketand a cerise shirt. One says “Where are your earrings?” He says,“Don’t be silly! You don’t wear earrings with a sport’s jacket!”

But wearing women’s clothes is often not enough in these jokes.Homosexual men also want to be women or really are women. Or, assome jokes indicate, are they really male or female at all, or some kind ofthird sex?

• Fagala who described a fancy wedding. He said “The father gave thebride away, the best man gave the groom away, and the fact thatI wanted to be a flower girl gave me away!”

• Guy who wasn’t exactly effeminate—let’s say he was sort of anear-Miss.

• Guy who asked, “When a girl meets a boy at a gay bar . . . how doyou tell which is which?”

• Pansy swimming who screams when he sees a shark. A life guardsaid “You needn’t be concerned . . . he’s a man-eating shark!”

• Guy who says of a nance, “When he was born his father asked thenurse if he was a boy or a girl” and she said, “Guess again!” He said,“He’s not wearing those lavender booties for kicks?”

• Comic who starts by saying “Ladies and gentleman and those of youwho may be in-between.”

• Off beat nightclub that had three washrooms. One was marked “His”another was marked “Hers” and the third read “Let Your ConscienceBe Your Guide!”

• Guy whose wife had triplets. He said “One was a girl and the otherwas a boy . . . we never found out what the third was. After threedays he just flew away.”


How men become gay was rarely explained in terms of genetic orbiological reasons, except for the belief about a predisposition to be like awoman. In general, sex between men is viewed in the jokes as somethingthat can happen through recruitment depending on the situation and isreadily entered into or out of, if the circumstances are right. One can alsobecome homosexual by wearing women’s clothing, eating fruit, gettingdrunk, or taking a sex pill meant for women.

• Nance, a guy whose mother was frightened by a doily.• Georgie Porgie, pudding pie, Kissed the girls and made them cry.

Now, because he can’t stand noise, Georgie Porgie’s kissing boys.• Country kid who moved into Greenwich Village and became prema-

turely gay.• Ferdinand the Bull who sees a cow in the next pasture and goes to

jump the fence but didn’t quite make it. He says to the cow, “Just callme Ferdy. That fence was higher than I thought!”

Discrimination and Political Jokes

Unlike much humor today which tends to be topical and filled withcurrent event situations (see Karvosky, 1997; Warren, 1995), very few ofthe male homosexual jokes focused on political issues, religious values,or incidents of discrimination and victimization. However, some jokescentered on violence, rape, death, or suicide. And an occasional jokefocused on how much more normal it is to be heterosexual.

• Guy who said there was something queer about his pants since hewent on a diet. He said, “You have to give them a good belt, orthey’ll go down on you!”

• Six-footer who sees a little bit of a faggot at the end of the bar and hewalks over and invited him up to the room. Wen he gets him there hesets him in the middle of the room and says, “Would you like to getinto something more comfortable?” He says “Yes, oh yes!” So hegoes in and brings out a lovely set of blue lingerie and when he getsthem on, the big guy says “Are you my little Blue Jay?” He says,“Oh yes, I’m your little blue jay!” So he picks him up and takes himto the window and opens it and throws him out. He says “There, youlittle fag freak, fly away!”

• Fag boat that committed suicide. He found out his mother was atramp and his father was a ferry.


• Guy who found a magic lamp on the beach and started rubbing andimmediately a genie appeared. He immediately started clobberinghim over the head! The poor fellow said “Why did you hit me?” Hesaid “Because you rubbed me the wrong way, you faggot!”

Several jokes were written during the rise of a more visible gay liberationmovement in mind, probably in the early to mid 1970s. But note how themovement simply provides a context for sexual jokes, rather than providingthe content for what might be more political humor about the issues, asmight be heard told today by gay and lesbian comics.

• Loser: the guy who wakes up on the first morning of the Gay LibConvention with lock jaw.

• Liberation slogan that went “Up With Going Down!”• Gay Lib speaker who said, “Your money isn’t everything . . . we

need your Oral Support.”• Guy who claimed that the Gay Liberation boys are for getting it

all out in the open. He said “Yesterday, I passed a building with amarquee that read ‘California Fruit Exchange’”.

• Guy who claimed that when bored, it’s not considered liberated for agay to say “I’ve had it up to here.” It’s best to say “I’ve taken it downto there!”

And, in a stereotyped nod to multiculturalism, the jokes were notlimited to White men or Greeks either. Anyone could be a nance, engagein same-sex behavior, and get joked about in these routines.

• Gay cabalero: a Mexican swish buckler.• Nance, Irish, a gay lick.• Nance, Jewish, he blew.• Guy who was part Italian and part hairdresser—sort of a Sissylian!• How do you tell a gay Chicano? It takes Juan to know one.”• Queer Indian who was known as the “Homo” of the Braves.• An Alpine pansy: a Swish yodeler.• Japanese bartender who came out with whatever your favorite cocktail

is, only then he added rice wine. It is known around Tokyo as a“Cock Saki.”

• Gay cowboy who played strip poker with the Indians and blew fivebucks.

• New Chinese book entitled “The Princess Fairy” by Hu Suk Dong.


Some of the jokes could be told today by gay comics, given theirrelevancy to contemporary issues. These jokes took for granted thathomosexual men could couple, had it better off than if they were hetero-sexual, yet did face discrimination in society, as in the widely publicizedcampaign by Florida orange juice spokeswoman, Anita Bryant, to repeal ahuman rights ordinance in Dade County in 1977 that prohibited discrimi-nation based on sexual orientation.

• After a gag that flopped, the comic said “That story went over likeFlorida Orange Juice at a gay bar.”

• Two women who were having lunch at the Waldorf Astoria and onesaid “What does your son do?” She says, “He’s a doctor and he’sdoing great. He just retired at 37 went out to California and bought a$400,000 home. He’s doing great!” She said “What about your son?”She said, “He’s doing great, too.” The other said, “What does he dofor a living?” She said “He’s a homosexual.” She said “What do youmean he’s doing great?” She said, “He’s living with a retired doctorwho moved out to California and bought a $400,000 home.”

• Two pansies watching a married couple fight. One said, “See Clarence,I told you those mixed marriages would never work!”

• Faggot who said “Did you now that people get leprosy from hetero-sexual relations?” The other said “Really?” He said, “Not really, butspread the rumor.”

• Guy who said “What’s the world coming to? Gays are now gettingmarried and straights are shacking up!”

• Pansy who gets married and another swish asks him how he’s makingout. He says, “It’s not near as good as the real thing!”

• Guy goes into the U.S. Army Recruiting Center and says, “What’sthe difference if I don’t like girls? Does the army want me to makewar or love?”

• Guy who applied for a job as a bartender and left 3 references. Theboss called up the first one and was told the guy was a thief andwould steal him blind. The second reference said “Are you kidding?The guy’s a drunk and will drink up all your profits!” He called thethird guy and he said, “You’d be a fool to hire him. He’s a faggot andwill have every sailor and fruit in town in your place.” Finally theguy came in and said, “Well, do I get the job?” The boss says, “Ifyou steal from me I’ll break your arm and if you get drunk on me I’llkick you out on your fanny! Do you hear? Now kiss me and go towork!”


• Gay from Australia dated a butch (lesbian) from Italy. Butnothing came of it. He went back to Sydney and she went back toFlorence.

• Guy who asked another, “How is it that you never went for women?”He said “My big brother and three of my uncles were gay.” The firstsaid, “Doesn’t anybody in your family make it with girls?” He said,“Yes . . . my sister does.”

Female Homosexuality

Roberts’ collection provides only 75 jokes on female homosexuality,compared to the 870 on men, perhaps illustrating the tendency to equatehomosexuality in popular culture with men during the 1950s and 1960s.Yet, there are some similar themes. If we were to describe what the typi-cal female homosexual was like based on these jokes, the answer wouldprobably be that she preferred giving oral sex or acting the male role ofinsertor, was attracted to straight women, tended to be young or an oldmaid, had a professional career if not working in a doughnut factory,probably was from Holland, and, of course, acted like or could bemistaken for a man.

Sexual Jokes

Jokes on sexuality are about either oral sex or the desire for somethingin the vagina, as long as it is not a penis. Like male homosexuals, lesbiansare depicted as sexually eager and their attractions are often to possiblystraight women

• Country would-be actress who checked in a Hollywood hotel forwomen and it turned out to be a hang-out for Lesbians. Several girlsin a row invited her into their rooms for a drink and she was servicedeach time. Finally, she got back to her room and another gal asked herto stop by her room for a cocktail. She said, “Lady, I need anotherdrink like I need another head in my hole!”

• As the Lesbian said as she collapsed, “You can’t lick ’em all!”• “A lez by the Bay of Biscay,

Inserts her own thumb twice a day.But her sis in AustraliaFavors male genitalia,Down Under, it’s better that way.”


Much of the punning humor concerning lesbians focuses on oral sex,especially the lesbian as a “licker” and the slang term “hole” for vagina.“Cracks” and “splits” also appear.

• Two lesbians tried to get married on a licker license.• Lesbian bar that was called, “The Likker Store.”• Catty one who says to another, “I won’t say those two girls in the

next apartment share strange tastes, but one was invited to a ‘BringYour Own Lic-quor Party’ and took each other.”

• Girl who was studying to be a contortionist so she could lick her ownlove problem.

• Girl who discovered that she was born to be a lesbian and did every-thing she could to lick it.

• Expression: The hole she-bang was originated by two Lesbians havingan affair.

• Lesbian who sees a real sexy girl go by and says to another, “I’ll betshe’s stacked like a doughnut!”

• Lesbian who quit her job at the donut factory. She said, “It wasgetting to where I couldn’t look another hole in the face.”

• Pro [prostitute] who said to another, “What did you do when shecalled you a Lesbian?” She said, “I gave her a crack in the mouth!”

• Voice over the phone who said to the ballet instructor, “Can youteach my daughter to do the splits?” He said, “What do you want herto be, a Lesbian?”

While well-known slang terms for women’s genitalia (e.g., cunt, beaver)do not seem to be in Roberts’ lesbian lexicon, slang terms for dildos andpenises, as well as other items for use in the vagina, do appear.

• Lesbian doctor who said to the cute patient, “Would you be willingto let me transplant an artificial organ into your body?”

• Lesbian who tries to score with a chick by saying, “Baby, I couldmake heavenly music with you!” She says, “Not without a baton,you couldn’t!”

• Two lesbians who finally got married and for a wedding march theorgan played, “Yes, we have no Bananas.”

Lesbian sexuality, however, is occasionally depicted as flexible and asa preference:


• Husband comes home and finds a naked woman in bed with his wife.She says, “Well, you always squawk when you catch me withanother man!”

Sexual jokes about female homosexuality often make puns using thewords dyke and lesbian. The ubiquitous term “dyke” especially leads tomuch joking about the Dutch and the representation of Holland as a site ofsexual orientation confusion, although often in terms of men.

• Guy who took his finger out of a dyke and she made him put it back.• Amsterdam lad who got in Dutch. Someone said, “My God! What

happened to Hans?” He said, “He tried to stick his finger into adyke!”

• Leak in the Dyke: a butch’s period.• Little Dutch lesbian girl who was walking across Washington Square

with her finger in a dike!• Guy who said he was fed up with Women’s Lib. He said, “As far as

I’m concerned, they should send all those dykes to Holland wherethey can do some good!”

The other term for female homosexual, lesbian, is also used for punning.

• Psychiatrist who has two women on his couch and says, “Now then . . .which one is the Lesbo and which one is the Lesbee?”

• Guy who claimed that females are not fruit. He said, “They werevegetables . . . les beans.”

The lesbian is found in a range of occupations in these jokes. She maybe well educated, a college girl, or a doctor. Singers and actors also appear,reinforcing the notion that arts are a congenial home for the sexuallyadventurous. A few lesbians are employed in doughnut factories, forobvious reasons, and others have partners who are in the military.

• Chick who goes to a lady psychiatrist who says to her patient,“About those lesbian tendencies . . . do you want them cured orcatered to?”

• Lesbian doctor who got sued for Male practice.• Girl who comes home with her lover who turns out to be a gal. The

father says, “When you said you were in love with a soldier, wenaturally assumed . . . ”


The lesbian’s age, when noted, is either young (her mother finds her inbed with another girl or she has a college roommate), or significantlyolder—the dirty old woman or old maid.

• Parent who said, “It’s hard to sleep nights knowing that your daughterlives in a co-ed dormitory, where the school lets everyone pick theirown room mate . . . and she’s selected another girl.”

• One college girl in bed who says to another, “Why else would I askyou to be my roommate?”

• Mother who finds her daughter in bed in the nude with another girl.She says, “Don’t get uptight, Mother, ‘Butch’ is just my roommate’snickname. She’s all girl.”

• Elderly playful wealthy lesbian who was in her second childhood.All she wanted to play with is a living doll.

• Two old maids and one said, “I want to be Frank . . . and Earnest.” Theother said, “All right . . . but you be Earnest . . . I wanna be Frank!”

Masculine Images

This last joke also raises the association between masculinity and lesbi-anism which is the reverse of the relationship of femininity and malehomosexuality:

• Lesbian with another in the nude, “Now try not to think of me as awoman!”

• Guy who says to another, “You think you got troubles! I knew apsychiatrist went crazy trying to figure out what to tell a Lesbianpatient who’s developing doubt about her masculinity.”

Some of the commentary on masculinity reflects a general anxietyabout women acting or looking like men and about the effects of women’sliberation on gender identification for both boys and girls in the late 1960sand early 1970s. Although they are in Roberts’ nance collection, thesejokes are primarily about women who look or act like men and men whoact like women.

• Girl who had the kind of figure that grows on a man, but that was thetrouble. It grows on men—not women!

• Girl who always looked like a boy but now she’s grown up and shedoesn’t look like a boy any more. She looks like a man.


• Guy who married a woman and she hated him from the start. Hesaid, “She claimed I was effeminate and—compared to her, I guessI was.”

• Guy at a horse show said, “Isn’t it scandalous the way the girls dresslike boys? How the one with the crew cut and the stretch pants smokingthe cigarette—is that a boy or a girl?” He said, “It’s a girl—she’s mydaughter!” He said, “Please forgive me. I’d never have been so out-spoken if I had known you were her father!” He said, “I’m not—I’mher mother!”

• Guy who said, “Have you noticed the latest thing in men’s clothes?Women!”

• Guy who claimed that the only way you can tell a modern girl from aboy is that her feet are bigger.

While jokes about male homosexuality debase men who are attractedto men, and jokes about lesbians may criticize them for stepping out oftheir proper roles as women, a kind of camaraderie or identificationbetween straight men and women who love women is also presented.

• Old coot on his 100th birthday was asked why he never was married.He said, “My old dad warned me to find a woman with tastes like myown. I searched and searched, and when I finally found one, hertastes were exactly like mine . . . we both loved girls.”

CONCLUSION

Images of gay men, as depicted in Whitey Roberts’ joke file from the1950s through the mid 1970s, focus on oral and anal sex and feminizedbehavior, while images of lesbians emphasize oral and vaginal sex andmasculinized behavior. Rarely is there any humor based on love, romanticrelationships, political issues, or discrimination.

These men are noticeable for their effeminate walks, lisping speech,and female clothing. And, whatever the situation—even near moments ofdeath—their chief concern is sex, especially with masculine, often workingclass, men who are sought after by the nances. Much of the humor aboutmale homosexuality is used to debase men and their masculinity, by makingthem passive, feminine, or weak, except for their hyper-sexuality. Thehumor derives from the image of men acting like women and not beingmasculine enough.


The women are also depicted in the jokes as sexually eager, especiallyto give oral sex to possibly straight women or acting in the male insertorrole. But, then again, most humor revolves around sexuality, as Davis(1993) pointed out and, when emphasizing homosexuality, it is used topoint out the incongruities, ambiguities, and inadequacies of people’s sexuallives and how temporarily constructed sexual identities can be, as wewould say today.

Finally, it should be noted that very few of the female and male homo-sexual jokes from the 1950s and 1960s are focused on those who discrim-inate, or on those in power unless they are unwittingly caught in asituation with another of the same gender. These are jokes about thenances and the dykes, not the masculine men and feminine women.Mistaking someone to be homosexual was a put down in these jokes.

Today, much of the humor on television sitcoms, for example, relies onheterosexuals mistakenly assuming someone else is or is not homosexual,or on their own ignorance in how to relate to gays and lesbians. The jokeis not about a person being lesbian or about being less of a man becausesomeone is gay; rather, the humor sometimes builds around the idea thatthe most masculine person is the gay one or the really feminine person isthe lesbian and the others did not know this and so acted foolishly. Andyet, the stereotyped jokes about gays, as told by Jack, the more flamboyantgay man on the television sitcom Will & Grace and the more masculinegay male, Will, illustrate how the same themes used in the 1950s and1960s can be recycled in our contemporary era. In this case, these are gayjokes, many written by gay men, for a mostly heterosexual audience (seeCooper, 2003).

It is also important to remember that many of these jokes, if told by agay or lesbian performer to a gay or lesbian audience, would be muchmore acceptable, and probably even funnier. Social context of audienceand performer is key to understanding and interpreting humor. But as toldby a heterosexual to a mostly heterosexual audience, the jokes represent astyle of telling ethnic, racial, religious, and gender humor that has becomeoutdated and defamatory in most public media.

We can see how the words used to talk about gays and lesbians havechanged over the years, how humor responded to significant social andpolitical movements that challenged the dominant order, and how someconcepts about gays and lesbians have persisted over time and how othershave significantly changed. These jokes are an archive providing culturalmarkers for a particular era and the ways it thought about sexual minorities.And, although the nance jokes have become part of that archival past,


they often linger in our culture’s collective knowledge about the imagesand identities of male and female homosexuals, and have an impact onhow some people continue to legislate and discriminate against equalrights today.

REFERENCES

Adam, B. (1978). The survival of domination: Inferiorization and everyday life.New York: Elsevier.

Apte, M. (1985). Humor and laughter: An anthropological approach. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

Berger, P. (1997). Redeeming laughter: The comic dimension of human experience.New York: Walter De Gruyter.

Berube, A. (1990). Coming out under fire. New York: Free Press.Cohen, T. (1999). Jokes: Philosophical thoughts on joking matters. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.Cooper, E. (2003). Decoding Will & Grace: Mass audience reception of a popular network

situation comedy. Sociological Perspectives 46(4), 513–533.Davis, M. (1993). What’s so funny? The comic conception of culture and society. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.D’Emilio, J. (1983). Sexual politics, sexual communities. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.Dundes, A. (1987). Cracking jokes: Studies of sick humor cycles and stereotypes. Berkeley,

CA: Ten Speed Press.Karvosky, Jr., E. (1997). A funny time to be gay. New York: Simon & Schuster.Nardi, P.M. (2006). The reality of illusion: The Magic Castle in Hollywood. Contexts 5:1,

66–69.Sanders, B. (1995). Sudden glory: Laughter as subversive history. Boston: Beacon Press.Warren, R. (1995). Revolutionary laughter: The world of women comics. Freedom, CA:

The Crossing Press.

Documents

“Fruits,” “Fags,” and “Dykes”: The Portrayal of Gay/Lesbian Identity in “Nance” Jokes of the ’50s and ’60s