Читать книгу The Tijuana Bible Reader - Victor J. Banis - Страница 4

FOREWORD

Tijuana Bibles...cock stories...crotch readers.... By whatever appellation, these little gems are familiar to us all. What schoolboy has not traded them zealously with his classmates? What young man has not had them offered for sale as he made his way through the carnival, the amusement park, the county fair? They are a staple of the erotic arts, and particularly in this country, for, despite the south-of-the-border tag sometimes applied to them, they are truly Americana. They are an aspect and a result of our rigid Puritan tradition that outlaws our inherent sexuality and forces us to derive the greater portion of our pleasures from fantasies in lieu of reality. They reveal the American traditions of frustrated sexuality.

How did they come to be called Tijuana Bibles? In part because, while they are written for and by Americans, they are frequently printed and “bound” south of the border. Second, because the very use of the name Tijuana designates erotica and sexuality ; the erotic arts are specific.

Perhaps the most important reason lies in Tijuana’s location, little more than spitting distance from San Diego. And San Diego is filled with men. Beautiful young men. Beautiful young servicemen. Beautiful, young, horny servicemen. In short, San Diego represents probably the world’s largest market for material of this sort. And Tijuana, conveniently close across the border, provides a good place to have the material printed, etc.

Now, a great many such stories are prepared in places like Kalamazoo and Omaha. And every border town can produce a heady supply. But El Paso just doesn’t have the numbers going for it that San Diego does. Nobody outside of the Pentagon can state exactly how many servicemen there are in San Diego, but it’s well up in the multi-thousands. These guys are young and horny. They’re a long way from their homes where, as often as not, stories such as these were a rarity and hard to come by (no pun intended). Most if not all of these guys end up sooner or later with a few of these readers in their possession.

Something else San Diego has got—queens. The gay boys flock there by the thousands also, for reasons which should be apparent from the above paragraph. And they too like erotica. Also, they like to share their erotica (etc.) with some of the handsome, horny young servicemen. There’s lots of action in this town. It’s known as “heaven” for chicken queens, those lascivious hawks who swoop down upon young prey. As a result, the erotica of San Diego runs lavender to a degree unknown anywhere else. In New York—not exactly a straight city—the percentage of gay versus straight material would be maybe ten out of a hundred. Elsewhere, it would be even less. But in San Diego, it’s an easy fifty-fifty, maybe better. And if anybody still doubts a sexual revolution, let him contemplate on the fact that those figures are going up. Gay is in. And this is being reflected in erotica just as it is in major studio movies, best sellers, and cocktail party chatter.

The Tijuana Bibles offer a fascinating glimpse into the American male’s sexual makeup. They mirror not only the changing times, as in the increase of homosexual acceptance, but virtually every form of sexual activity, and every attitude toward such behavior. Whatever aspect of sexuality one wishes to explore, it can be found here, as authentically presented and revealed as in any psychiatric case history. The fantasies through which man expresses his sexual longings are as telling as the “factual” accounts that he gives in the laboratory—perhaps more so. Here he utilizes the shield of anonymity, the freedom of literary exercise, the full strength of his imagination and the aid of erotic stimulation to demonstrate what he really feels, thinks, desires. Here are no cloaked meanings, no innuendoes, no carefully couched phrases designed to protect the ego. This is how it is, all the way inside, all guts and damn the general.

Every man ought to be able to enjoy these stories. They were written for that purpose, and what they have to say is not much different from what any of us would say if we let go the ropes.

Or, if you don’t want to read them to enjoy them, you can study them, with a serious and scholarly intent. You’ll get one hell of an education. Of course, you’d have gotten that anyway. But it seems a shame not to have both. And if you can’t—or won’t—enjoy them right along while you’re studying them...well, maybe you ought to pause and ask yourself “why?”

That’s the last bonus, you see. You just might find that even if you didn’t like them, these little literary treasures provided a bit of therapy. They usually do. Sometimes it’s that a guy lets off his steam reading them, and doesn’t have the urge to go out afterward and molest anyone. And sometimes it’s that he finally gets rid of a hang-up or two. And sometimes...well, like the guy who couldn’t enjoy them a couple of paragraphs back; they kind of make him take a look at himself for a change.

And even that ain’t bad.

—Victor J. Banis