There's nothing hot about a woman who belches and tells dick jokes—not even if she's Cameron Diaz.

-By John Sellers
-Photograph by Metz and Racine

There's a moment in nearly every decent episode of The Simpsons when Homer and his alcoholic pal Barney are sitting around Moe's Tavern and the latter lets out a belch so powerful that the wind causes his lips to flap like two pieces of raw bacon draped over a Vornado. This is funny for two reasons: (1) Someone is unleashing a monster burp on national television and (2) that someone is a man.

Yes, women are born with the ability to belch with the best of them, as is regularly proved by little sisters the world over. But as any good sitcom writer (or older brother) can tell you, such behavior is rarely amusing to anyone other than the burper herself—and it gets less amusing the older she gets. Also not funny: When a woman lets one rip. Or hocks a loogie.

It takes but a brief stroll through the pages of Us Weekly to find evidence that we're on the verge of some kind of neo-cavewoman epidemic. There's comedian Sarah Silverman—essentially famous for being a female version of Andrew Dice Clay—pretending to crap her pants in a farting competition on her Comedy Central sitcom.