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see also Humor in Advertising

People have probably made jokes about menstruation since woman/mankind had a sense of humor. Send in your jokes, cartoons, etc., so others can enjoy them!


I am sorry to have to warn you, but YOU MAY BE OFFENDED BY THE HUMOR BELOW!

Please read the reason for this humor section before you proceed!


Part 3


"Lee from DC" sent this shocking two liner:

Why do tampons have strings?

So you can floss after you eat!


Premenstrual syndrome throbs in this twofer (for people outside America, that means "two for one"):

What's the definition of P.M.S?

1.) Permissible ManSlaughter

2.) Possible Murder Suspect

 

What's the difference between a pitbull and a woman with P.M.S?

Lipgloss!!


I didn't understand the elephant, sheep and tampon joke listed seven items below. The submitter writes to clarify it to your old MUM, who apparently is aging quickly:

Hello!

In case no one has explained it to you yet (you said you didn't totally get it), the reason elephants have trunks is so that they can reach in and pull out the sheep/tampons, because the sheep don't have strings to pull them out with. The second joke is meant to be told right after the first one about elephants using sheep as tampons. :-) Hope that helps. [It does!]


Another visitor discusses the Brazilian joke mentioned below:

I don't speak Portuguese but my take on the joke was that the salesman was pointing out to the customer that if his wife had her period, he had better find something to do with his weekend that did not include her.That is how he suckered him into buying so much "manly" sports equipment.


A South Carolinian (U.S.A.) sent one of the best vampire jokes:

What did the vampire say to the high school girl?

See you next period!


An Italian reader - cover name, Mr. Lidu - sent this vampire joke - vampires must meet some need of people - and he also offered to take a stab at translating some Italian jokes - at least I think they are! - I received:

Two lesbian vampires are "doing it."

At the end, one says, "Bye, I hope to see you after 28 days!"


Urgent request! Does any English speaker out there know Italian well? I have what looks like a series of jokes, sent from Italy, but I can't read them. Please contact your MUM!



The Portuguese joke - see it and its commentary in various places below - gets clearer:

Dear Harry,

I was just reading your humor pages and thought I might be able to clarify a word for you. Espantado, in Spanish (which I speak) in addition to meaning frightened also means amazed, awed, etc. I believe the manager would have felt these rather than having been afraid of the salesman's skill.

I had heard this joke before from my father in a slightly expanded version. It's easier to say jokes than write them down with proper comedic effect.

Humorously Yours!


The MUM visitors are warming to the humor page. Here's two from the same source:

How can you tell if your bartender is mad at you?

You find a string in your Bloody Mary!

 

What would a used tampon be good for?

A vampire's tea bag!


Two people sent the first one below within a day of each other; it must have been on the 'Net. I don't totally get the second one, but . . . .

What does an elephant use for tampons?

Sheep!

 

Why do elephants have trunks?

Sheep don't have strings!


And this just in from an Australian woman:

Why do pubic-hair crabs like tampons?

Because they can go bungee jumping on the string!!!



This female writer said " I can't resist sending this joke from grade school days:"

How do you know when your pet elephant is on her period?

Your mattress is missing!


The creator of this joke says it always gets a strong reaction, usually ewwwwwww!

I know a woman who has a pink, frilly mouse pad by her computer. She calls it her feminine pad.


This Australian e-mailer says "G'day, Harry!"

What's the difference between a Toyota and a tampon?

A Toyota doesn't come with a tow rope.


A few weeks ago a visitor sent an approximation of a translation of a joke from Portuguese (see I think we have a translation, below). This visitor says he has supplied a more exact translation:

I don't speak Portuguese but I am fluent in Spanish and I think I understand the joke. Here's how I would translate it.

A new salesman of a department store went to assist a customer and sold him a fishing pole, hook, fishing clothes, boots, and an inflatable boat with a motor at the stern. The frightened manager asked the salesman how he had made such a large sale. The salesman then said that when the client arrived at the store asking where he could buy a Tampax, the salesman asked the customer "[And] What are YOU going to do this weekend"?

It's obvious from the original Portuguese, but not from the translation, that both the salesman and the client are male, although the translation makes the salesman female.



From Australia:

How did the Red Sea get it's name ?

Cleopatra used to bathe there periodically.


From someone spending a "lazy Saturday afternoon on the Web" - I smell flowers in the breeze coming through the window - in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for gosh sakes, a first for your MUM! I'm glad that's again possible there!

A vampire comes into a grocery/butcher shop and asks for a loaf of bread and half a litre of blood. Gets it, pays and leaves.

Several days later, he comes again, and buys the same.

And still later, there he is again, asking only for a loaf of bread. The shop attendant, used by then to the vampire's shopping list, asks, "And what about half a litre of blood. Don't you want it?"

"No, no," replies the vampire, "not this time - my wife is menstruating."


From AOL:

What do two lesbians on their period do instead of sex?

Finger paint.



From Ann Ony Mouse:

I think the Female Crucifixion is right on. I hate cramps.


From A. Non:

Did you hear about the two vampires standing on the corner, chewing the rag?


A male, R. P., sent this one:

A man is standing behind a woman at a bus stop and notices that she has a tampon hanging out of her mouth.

He taps her on the shoulder and says, "Excuse me, but do you realize you have a tampon hanging out of your mouth?"

"Mouth?"

She looks at him in horror and says, "Oh, my God! What did I do with my cigarette!?"


I think we have a translation!

A few weeks ago, Elieu Sobral, of Brazil, sent the Portuguese joke at the end of this section, together with a translation made by an Internet automatic translator. I had to admit I didn't get it, surely the fault of the translator; read it (below) to brighten your day.

Well, just seconds before I shot this week's update of this Web site into cyberspace, a site visitor's e-mail came to the rescue! Here's her mail:

Hi Harry,

I wrote you last week and congratulated you on the museum. While looking at it this morning I found myself on the humor page. I found the badly translated tampon joke and I agree, I didn't get the joke either.

After thinking on it a while I think I know what it is.

It reminds me of a joke that was told frequently during my high school days, the late 1970s, and refers to many commonly seen advertisements for feminine hygiene products that were popular at the time. It goes like this.

A husband and wife were talking one morning. The wife told her husband that their son's birthday was the next day and that he should ask him what he would like for it.

That night the woman said, " Did you ask Junior what he would like for his birthday?"

"Yes," said the husband, "but it's very strange. He said he wants a tampon."

"Oh, dear, that IS strange," said the wife. "There must be some mistake. I'd better have a talk with him."

So the wife goes to her son's room to ask him about it.

"Son, your father tells me you want a tampon for your birthday. Is that true?"

"Yes, Mom, it is," said Junior.

"But son," said the mother,"why do you want a tampon for your birthday?"

"Because," said the son, showing her an advertisement for Tampax, "it says here that with a tampon I can go swimming, play baseball, go canoeing and fishing . . . ."

This may or may not clear up the mystery of the joke. [I think it does!] I was thinking that the person coming into a sporting goods store may have read the same advertisement. Whether or not you agree, could you add this joke to your humor page? I would appreciate it very much.

Thanks again and keep up the good work.

It reminds me of the German Always cartoon in the next section of humor because of the promises the company makes. Hmmm: both Tampax and Always belong to the same organization now, Procter & Gamble!

Here's the original joke that Elieu Sobral e-mailed from Brazil (it's in Portuguese):

Um novo vendedor de uma loja de departamentos foi atender um cliente e vendeu-lhe um caniço de pesca, anzol, roupa para pescaria, botas, um bote inflável e motor de popa. O gerente, espantado, perguntou-lhe como havia feito aquela venda tão grande. O vendedor então disse que quando o cliente chegou à loja perguntando onde poderia comprar um Tampax ele perguntou ao cliente: o que o senhor vai fazer no fim de semana?

The e-mailer sent this translation by Altavista/Systran:

A new salesman of a department store was to take care of a customer and sold a caniço to it of fishes, hook, clothes for would fish, boots, a inflatable and motor small boat of poop. The manager, frightened, asked to it as she had made that so great sale. The salesman then said that when the customer arrived at the store asking where it could buy a Tampax asked to the customer: what he goes you to make in the weekend?

From A. R.:

A man walked into a grocery store and asked the sales clerk where the tampons were. He said his wife was sick in bed and had asked him to pick some up for her.

He got the number of the aisle and left to search for them.

A little later the man came back with a large bag of cotton swabs. The clerk looked at him with a puzzled face and said, "I thought you were buying your wife tampons?"

"Well, the other night I asked my wife to go and get some cigars for me and she brought me wrapping paper and tobacco. So if I have to roll my own, so does she!"


The woman who donated the Halloween costume made of menstrual pads told me this joke after looking at the Cathy Rigby advertisement for Stayfree menstrual pads, at left, hanging on a wall in the museum (see also the Cathy Rigby page).

In the ad, Rigby says she wears an adhesive menstrual pad when performing gymnastics.

The joke:

Pretend that you see a little bit of a white thing sticking out from under the collar of my shirt.

What is it?

It's Cathy Rigby after doing a back flip.


Two people, one British, one Swedish, sent me the cartoon strips below; neither said where they came from. I show both, because the Swedish contribution is in French, whereas the Brit sent an English version.

Note the altered - and obscene - English translation of the male's French speech in the second block down on the left. I suspect the original cartoon is the French one, and that the English one is from the United Kingdom; Americans would not say "bollocks."

Note also that the woman in the French version uses the word for "period," whereas the English translation supplies a more distant and pejorative euphemism, "wrong time of the month."

The defunct American television program In Living Color once did a skit very similar to this cartoon. These are very large files!

(Speaking of super-absorbent tampons, see the Rely tampon, which killed and maimed many women because of its promotion of toxic shock by using an extremely absorbent artificial fiber. This has led to the offering of all-cotton tampons today (a revival of a very early tampon component), notably by Tampax, now owned by Procter & Gamble, the maker of the Rely tampon! It's a small world.)

French version, probably the original

A translation from the United Kingdom


A Tale Once Told from Menstrual Mythology

A runner delivered this sealed missive from Tample Hygenica, in Oberlinia Minor. Read, O Surfers!

I have yet another story from Tample Hygenica.

It seems we have discovered why Diareesha Stankmaxima (Liz) has turned out the way she has.

Liz's family has a pet ferret, which they, for some strange reason, keep in the bathroom. Liz's mother noticed that when she uses the bathroom while menstruating, the ferret became severely agitated (as opposed to a ferret's normal state, that being merely "very agitated"). As a small experiment, Liz's mother decided to place her used maxipad up against the side of the ferret's cage. The ferret went insane, and began throwing itself against the pad wildly, growling (inasmuch as an oversized, elongated, amphetaminic rat can growl), and attempting to get at Liz's mother. Liz's mother, henceforth referred to as Mater Stankmaximae, came out of the bathroom, told her story, and made the conclusion that "the ferret is a pervert."

The only thought in Diareesha's head was thus: "She's calling the ferret a pervert?!"

Yours,

Tampaxia Kotexis Gonorrhissima Jones, High TamPriest of Tample Hygenica

Hit or myth: read more about menstrual odor and animals, including humans!


NEXT

Send in your jokes, cartoons, etc., so others can enjoy them!

see also humor in advertising

news | first page | contact the museum | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | washable pads | LIST OF ALL TOPICS

Take a short tour of MUM! (and on Web video!) - FAQ - Future of this museum - Tampon Safety Act - Visit or contact the actual museum - Board of Directors - Norwegian menstruation exhibit - The media and the MUM - Menstrual odor - Prof. Mack C. Padd: Fat Cat - The science and medicine of menstruation - Early tampons - Books about menstruation - Menstrual cups: history, comments - A Note from Germany/Neues aus Deutschland und Europa - Letters - Links

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