160: Tijuana Time

[Colin Rowsell]

Tijuana Time

"Tijuana bibles were Depression-era smut booklets, eight-page comics on cheap paper that gave you the real lives of the rich and famous. You too, my friend, can finally see Donald sweeping Daisy's chimney. J. Wellington Wimpy laying the pipe to Olive Oyl. You can find out once and for all whether Betty and Veronica look the same when you flip them upside down. Big-lipped black people, sex-crazed nuns, grasping old pensioners and every other ugly caricature known to man? Right here in this suitcase, yours for fifty cents."

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[Shushyne4np2ne]

Colin Rowsell wrote an amazing article here. It's true. The world of hyper stylized sex has killed the straight up "let's get sloshed and shag" perspective of things. Sex isn't just a down and dirty let's-get-it-done type thing anymore. You have to prepare and do something a certain way. It may have been like this in most people's households physically, but mentally, it was just playing a game of pelvic pinochle. People are so caught up in worrying about everything that can go wrong with sex that they don't enjoy it. I'll be the first to say I'm one. I got so caught up with the dangers of sex that I didn't enjoy the pleasures enough and soon found it hard to even engage in the activity. The gaming world has been on the tip of technology (yeah, nice transition) for a while now, but the real innovation in sex in games is coming from past inspiration.

 

[Rampancy]

An interesting and well-written article. AGS is a more powerful engine than you may think, though, and some games of a very high quality have been made using it. Check out the ones made by our very own Yahtzee, for example.

 

[maantren]

Thanks v much to both of you for taking the time to post

Rampancy, I absolutely agree that AGS has a lot of scope; I may have shortchanged it by focusing on the potential for SCI and early SCUMM-era type games. I think the point still holds, though: even such polished titles as Yahtzee's aren't about the Sheen...

Cheers

Colin

 

[sammyfreak]

While I'm not really keen on "Indie Porn" most of my favorite art is definately of the crude sort. Jeff Buckley's Live in Sin'e is one of the most amazing albums I have ever heard even if it is quite crude compared to studio albums these days. The music industry in particular seems determined to stomp out any individuality out there.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Great read, just learned a ton and that's aces in my book.

Maybe this comes from growing up in America...but sometimes I feel like our culture makes writing or portraying sex so difficult because it subconsciously disconnects it from love. Hell, maybe it goes all the way back to the concept of the Virgin Mary, but never doing the nasty was part of what made her so great in people's minds.

Most films that have great personal relationships and dynamic sexuality between two people censor out the actual act. Gross Point Blanke, To Have and Have Not, or even The Dark Knight. And films that do depict it? Basic Instinct was a film noir where anyone who has sex with the gorgeous woman gets killed by her. Teen Slasher films reward the participants of graphic scenes with similar punitive measures. There is no love in the champagne room, in other words.

With the exception of John Cameron's Shortbus, which delves into both homosexual and heterosexual relationships, I can't think of many movies that have successfully combined the two. How can video games handle crossing the boundary into combining sex and love when so many other mediums still fail at it? Hopefully the author is right and the underground scene will have its day eventually.

 

[maantren]

I had an interesting discussion earlier today about Betty and Veronica - how the whole point of the Archie-related comics is that they separate sex and love in that distinctively 1950s way that L.B. Jeffries talks about above. And then, in a Tijuana Bible, that's completely debased in a pretty jolting way... seems like the more pristine things get, the more fun it is to see the underside, as it were

Cheers

Colin

 

[Juan Regular]

A kind of new version of those "Tijuana bibles" was a big hit at my school in 1994, so they didn't completely die. They were mostly created by 15 or 16 year people, usually a brother of a friend's friend and found their way to us. It's weird, that me and my friends at the time never got in touch with real porn, but instead a lot of that comic stuff. But I think there's a certain appeal in those things for 13 year old guys who read a lot of comic books anyway. The japanese hentai stuff proves it (though the japanese are a little bit weird when it comes to sex anyway).
They of course faded when I first got in touch with real porn and completely died when I got an internet connection, but those filthy little books with famous comic charcters written and drawn by students at the peak of puberty still exist. And it's good to know they're there. Kind of...

I really liked the note about Leisure Suit Larry about how noone actually purchased the game, but rather got it in school from some friends who got it from another friend, etc... and I checked with mine and it's really true. Everyone got the game through the same channels.