本文以清代遊戲主人所編《笑林廣記》為本，探討笑話所透露的身體觀與情慾世界。諧謔式表達在理論上不受社會規範的箝制，因而大膽觸及一般論述中所罕言的身體部位與情慾活動。作者認為本書呈現之心靈世界是由作品的創造者、編寫者、出版者與讀者共同塑造。此一世界雖經過折射、扭曲，不完全對應社會真實，但仍可幫助我們認識明清時代人們心態中的一個重要面向。《笑林廣記》採取戲謔的語言，調侃、操弄身體器官與情色活動來博君一粲，同時並勾勒出一理想境界以為寄託。表面上，這些情色笑話充滿歡笑，然而細究其內涵卻有深沈的哀傷、焦慮與恐懼，憂喜交織形成文本中令人思索沉吟的一個特殊面向。明清時期這類諧謔作品發揮了狂野的想像，挑戰世俗禁忌，此現象類似巴赫汀（Mikhail Bakhtin）所說的「狂歡節話語」，把「肉體的低下部位」和「肉體的物質性原則」提得很高，因而展現了大眾文化的顛覆性格。巴赫汀的「狂歡節話語」在某種程度內與《笑林廣記》所展示的表達策略與價值取向非常類似，然而《笑話廣記》卻不具有太多的革命性：作品中所表達的仍是一套與當時禮教配合有關「健康」、「美麗」與「正常」的價值觀念。這些情色笑話所扮演的似乎是社會「安全瓣」的角色，人們藉著逾矩的言談，適度地經解內心的張力以維繫現實的秩序。

　　　　　Using the famous Qing jest book Xiaolin guangji 笑林廣記 (Extensive Gleanings from the Grove of Laughter, ca. 1790) edited by Youxi Zhuren (Master of Playfulness, a pen name), this paper explores the representation of the body and sexual desires in humorous literature in late imperial China. In theory, humor may escape or defy social norms; therefore, the body and sexual desires become important topics in jokes. This paper argues that jokes about the body, gender, and sexual behavior (including man-woman and man-man relations) in this book reveal an important aspect of people's mentality in Ming-Qing times. These "dirty" jokes made people laugh, but their laughter was mixed with sorrow, obsession, and the presumption that humor was the only tools with which to confront problems like incest and love affairs. Using wild imagination and the shock of sex, the creators of the "dirty" jokes challenged the established moral order and tested the boundaries of obscene behavior in the public and private sphere. To a certain extent, this phenomenon was similar to the subversive mode of "carnival laughter" identified by Mikhail Bakhtin. Yet the jokes in this book did not have such a strong revolutionary character. Its representations of the body and sexual desires where by and large congruent with commonly accepted values placed on health, beauty, and normality in Confucian orthodoxy. They appear to have functioned as a "safety valve" which in the end only helped to maintain the status quo.