The Punchline is Permission:How Comedy Dismantles Shame

There are moments that happen in almost every show that I do. It's not just the big laughs — though dear Lordy, do I love the big laughs. It's the moment before the laugh. The sharp intake of breath. The split second where someone in the audience thinks: are we allowed to laugh at this?

And then we do. All of us. Together.

That moment is why I make comedy.

Shame Is Not Your Conscience.

It's a Cage.

Let's be honest about what shame actually is, because we've been mislabelling it for a long time. We talk about shame like it's a moral compass — like it keeps us decent, keeps us in line, keeps us from doing things we shouldn't. But that's guilt. Guilt says I did something wrong. Shame says I am something wrong.

There's a difference. And it's enormous.

Guilt can be useful. It nudges you to apologise, make amends, do better. Shame just… sits on your chest. It doesn't motivate you to change anything. It just makes you smaller. It makes you hide. It makes you laugh a little too quickly at yourself before anyone else gets the chance — a pre-emptive strike dressed up as self-deprecation.

I know this because I've done it. I still do it sometimes. The difference now is that I notice it. I own it. I diminish it.

And comedy — specifically, live stand-up comedy in a room full of people who are all breathing the same air — is one of the most powerful tools I've ever found for dealing with shame. For calling it out. For laughing at the cage instead of pretending it isn't there.

The Women in the Room

I want to talk specifically about women. About sexually active women, in particular, because that's where shame can sit the thickest, and that's where I see the most extraordinary transformation happen in a room.

Here's what I know from years of performing confessional, raw, autobiographical comedy: women are walking around every single day carrying a ledger of things they're not supposed to want. Not supposed to enjoy. Not supposed to admit to. They've been handed a rulebook they never agreed to, and they've been enforcing it on themselves so long they've forgotten they're doing it.

The rules go something like this: want sex but not too much sex. Be adventurous but not that kind of adventurous. Have a body but don't talk about it. Have desires but make sure they're palatable. Be funny but not dirty funny. Be confident but not threatening. Be open but not embarrassing.

It's exhausting. And most women don't even realise how exhausted they are until someone on a stage — under lights, with a microphone — says the quiet part loud.

That's what I do. I say the quiet part loud.

What Happens When You Laugh at the Thing You Were Hiding

I've had women come up to me after shows and say things like: I've never heard anyone say that out loud before and I thought I was the only one and, my personal favourite, I laughed with my best friend all the way home and told her everything.

That last one. That's the medicine working.

Because shame thrives in silence and isolation. It tells you that your experience is uniquely humiliating — that no one else has been there, no one else has felt this, no one else would understand. And the moment you're in a room laughing with two hundred people about something you thought was your shameful secret? That story shatters.

Comedy creates collective permission. When something is funny, it's survivable. When it's survivable, it's speakable. When it's speakable, it loses its power over you.

This is not an accident. This is the actual mechanism. This is why humans have been gathering in the dark to tell stories and laugh since long before theatres existed. It's ancient technology. It works.

Confessional Comedy Is an Act of Solidarity

The style of comedy I make — raw, autobiographical, unfiltered — is sometimes described as 'brave'. I always find that a bit funny, because from where I'm standing, the brave ones are the people in the seats. They're the ones who showed up having never heard of me before, having no idea how far I'm going to take it, having a lifetime of conditioning telling them to keep certain things private.

When I confess something onstage, I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm extending an invitation. I'm saying: here's something true about me that I refuse to be ashamed of anymore. And the invitation is for the audience to locate their own version of that truth and, for the length of the show at least, refuse to be ashamed of it too.

That's different from shock comedy. That's different from comedy that pokes at someone else's shame for a cheap laugh. What I'm doing — what I've always been doing — is pointing the lens at myself first, going as far as I'm willing to go, and trusting that the audience will meet me there.

They almost always do.

Permission Structures and Why They Matter

I think about this a lot: what does a woman need in order to laugh freely at a joke about female sexuality? She needs to feel safe. She needs to feel like no one in the room is laughing at her. She needs to feel like the comedian is on her side. She needs to know that whoever she arrived with; her mother, her friend, her partner or lover are also on her side. This only works when we meet each other together.

I work hard to build that permission structure in each show, from the first minute. The energy I bring into the room — unapologetic, self-aware, warm — is deliberate. It's an opening of the door. It says: you're safe here. Your body is not a punchline. Your desires are not a punchline. We're laughing at the absurdity of the shame itself — not at you for having felt it.

That's a meaningful distinction. And audiences feel it.

What I Want for Every Person Who Comes to a Show

I want them to drive home lighter than they arrived. I want them to think about something they've been carrying and find it, for the first time in a while, kind of funny. I want them to feel less alone in their specific, weird, entirely human experience of being alive in a body that wants things and a world that has a lot of opinions about that.

I want them to call their best friend.

Shame is not inevitable. It's learned. And anything learned can be unlearned — slowly, imperfectly, non-linearly, but genuinely. Comedy is not the whole answer. But it's a hell of a starting point.

The punchline is permission.

Permission to be exactly who you are, want exactly what you want, and laugh — loudly, freely, in a room full of other people doing the same.

Come to a show. Let's do it together.

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading this! I'll be popping some blogs up on my website from time to time, so make sure you subscribe if you'd like to read more. I have loads of 'shamefully' funny stories to share with you, and some more personal and not-so-funny stories about my own experiences dealing with shame that I'd like to share with you.

If this blog resonates with you and you know someone who needs a little shame removal, please share! Bring them to a show!

Vanessa.x