“Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw,[5] describing the clean limerick as a “periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity.” From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function.”

You can’t write a limerick clean,
All naughty parts must be seen.
You must leer at the Dick,
poke fun at his prick,
and at all costs be obscene.