Laughter at genitals masks shame over their involuntary passivity.

Evidence

The more rationality (the reality principle) is carried to extremes, the more its ultimate aim (actual gratification) tends, paradoxically, to appear as ‘immature’ and ridiculous. Not only eating, but also uncontrolled manifestations of sexual impulses tend to provoke laughter in audiences - kisses in motion pictures have generally to be led up to, the stage has to be set for them, in order to avoid laughter. Yet mass culture never completely succeeds in wiping out potential laughter. Induced, of course, by the supposed infantilism of sensual pleasures, laughter can largely be accounted for by the mechanism of repression. Laughter is a defence against the forbidden fruit. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 341 (#expands, via linked claim)

Ideologies of all kinds, especially religions, hate laughter because they know how dangerous it is. He who laughs at a thing is no longer afraid of it. […] The fear of laughter is the fear of thinking. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 413 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Dine’s distress was such that Al Hansen was moved to tears. Outside in the lobby, he found Dick Higgins drying his eyes, which were wet from laughter. According to Dine, “Kaprow once said, ‘You’re the one who does the funny Happenings.’ He likes classification … But they were not funny. Car Crash was not laughed at; the spectators tittered like they do at nudes in museums—kids get embarrassed and laugh.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 181 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Laughter arises only at the reversibility of opposed terms — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 473; Audience laughter at gratification signals repression, not mere immaturity — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 341; Happenings audiences reacted to emotional work with nervous or inappropriate laughter. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York…, 181 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Audience laughter at gratification signals repression, not mere immaturity #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 341
• Laughter disarms ideology because it dissolves fear and enables thought #contradicts (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 413
• Happenings audiences reacted to emotional work with nervous or inappropriate laughter. #exemplifies (0.72) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 181
• Being perceived as an object by another creates communal shame and alienation #expands (0.72)
• Learning the truth of sex transforms the child into another being marked by shame #expands (0.70) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 728