We’ve all heard the “Why, you play the harmonica?” joke, but where did the notion that Asian women’s vaginas are oriented ‘sideways’ originate? What would have caused someone to believe this??
Thanks.
No, we haven’t.
Or is it just me?
In my half-century on earth I thought it was my misfortune to encounter every racist notion ever devised by benighted idiots, but this one takes the cake.
Surreal, what misbegotten segment of demi-humanity has ever said this?
Exapno Mapcase, I can’t believe you’ve lived in the U.S. for this long and have never heard this. I’ve heard it said numerous times, but I think most people know it isn’t true and are just saying it as a joke.
But I’m assuming that, at one time or another, people really believed this as a fact. Did they? Who said it first??
I’ve spent all my life(up to this point) in the US and I’ve never heard the harmonica joke nor the Asian women notion. But I’ve probably meet fewer than 100,000 Americans so far, and these subjects haven’t come up much in my conversations.
In this regard, what should you call me? Ignorant of ignorance?
RotorHead, here you go
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q="are+you+a+harmonica+player%3F"+asian+women+sideways&btnG=Search
I once dated a Hawaii’an girl. Her’s was at a 45 degree angle! 
I first heard this when I was about 7…many, many years ago. Common urban myth among lads who have never seen a real one.
never… ever… heard this…
Your link brings up one “joke” copied apparently word for word on a grand total of 17 sites. It proves that stupid racist “joke” sites copy from one another but how does this make it common or something that anyone actually believes?
And nobody else here so far has ever heard it before either.
You mean it’s not true?
The pee-pee in the Coke thing, though … that’s still true, isn’t ir?
Words fail me. . . Please tell us why you are assuming people really believed this as fact. On what do you base your assumption? Pray tell.
Wait a minute . . . wait a minute . . . I’m beginning to suspect . . . it’s just dawning on me . . . hey, you’re not one of those lousy racists! Good on you!
Sorry – it’s always hard to resist the temptation, when someone asks a factual question that does not embody or endorse racism/sexism/-ism, to guess when the first gratuitous “Well, I certainly don’t know anything about such stuff, as witness my disgusted use of shock quotes, but that’s because my enlightenment prevents me from . . .” reply will pop up.
Just for the record, I’ve, er, looked into it and the perception is not true. Though I’m not sure how it would be racist if it were (heck, who knows, it might be better that way; it’s not like saying some race has a small monkey brain or something); just kind of uninformed or silly.
And further for the record . . . I heard this notion (not the cited joke, though) a number of times in my youth, usually in jocular fashion, so that’s at least two. Never struck me as particularly funny because it doesn’t make much sense taken literally or figuratively, and doesn’t “prove” a point even as to meaningfully ‘perceived’ stereotypes the way that, say, a goofy joke about slanty eyes might at least accord with something observable.
I have heard it before…and it was here! Someone else asked this question before. I can’t seem to find it on the search though (possibly because it’s difficult to guess how it would have been phrased).
Since we’re in GQ, Huerta88, I suggest you take your personal comments elsewhere.
But perhaps you could share a few things with us before you go.
You say “Just for the record, I’ve, er, looked into it and the perception is not true.” How did you look into it? Who did you ask? What did you ask? What do you even mean by “the perception is not true”?
If you heard the notion a number of times in your youth, why not tell us something useful, like how old you are now, what part of the country you’re from, who was spreading this notion.
Given the number of people who have never encountered this notion before, your experience and wisdom elucidating the subject will be much appreciated.
Given the “er”, you really need to ask how he “looked into it” ?
Why the pile on? I can’t for the life of me work out what “sideways” means in this context* :eek: but there just plain are some odd physical differences between the various ethnicities, to continue the example of east asians, flakey earwax as opposed to caucasian gooey, and blue-bummed asian babies, why is the idea of other differences automatically taken to be completely inconcievable?
Fwiw, the claim sounds like bullshit, good lord we do love to make claims about the genitals of ppl of other ethnicities. I am assuming the sideways reference is some sort of reference to “slant”.
*ok, what the hell is sideways referring to? <> vs () or tilted or what the hell is it about?!
I’ve never heard the harmonica joke, but I’ve run across the concept in fiction from the 1940s (artfully relayed so that they convey the idea without being gross and explicit). Those sources treated it as an old joke, and an obviously ridiculous one. I don’t think any of these took it at all seriously, or intended it as racist – if anything,. it wasd a comment on the gullibility of the Americans who would believe such a stupid idea. (And, out of curiousity, how is believing this “racist”?)
This joke/rumor is probably perpetuated by young, college males. Since coming to college, I must have heard this dozens of times. I also heard this in high school a few times. I’ve never heard the harmonica joke, though.
You have evidently led a very sheltered life, in that case. I’ve heard it ever since high school in NYC, 35+ years ago. Though usually the tale was that the genitalia were slanted, rather than horizontal. (I hadn’t heard the harmonica joke itself before.) It was always said as a kind of ridiculous joke. I don’t think it was ever believed by anyone other than the most naive adolescent.
Given the version I first heard, it’s obviously based on the idea that since Asians’ eyes appear to be slanted, Asian women’s genitals must be also.
You have led a sheltered life. 
My WAG is that ‘someone’ would have to be some wanker who’d never met an Asian woman.
You’re welcome.