Tijuana Bible

Tijuana Bible

See also: Tijuana bible

English

Alternative forms

• Tijuana bible

Etymology

From Tijuana, deriving from the idea that these were smuggled across the US-Mexico border, plus Bible, used ironically in this context due to the publications' pornographic nature. Attested since the 1950s.

Noun

Tijuana Bible (plural Tijuana Bibles)

1. (slang) A kind of palm-sized pornographic comic book produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s.
   • 1955, Mr. Bobo; Mr. Barnes; US Senate, Hearing Before the Subcommitee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency‎, page 374:

     MR BARNES. I would say that the most prevalent [pornographic literature] would be the type known to us, or in the language of the people who deal in it, ... the Tijuana Bible, a small [cartoon] booklet about 2 by 3 inches, that is very lewd and very obscene in its character. ... [I]t [shows all types of sexual perversions].

   • 1972, Bernard Wolfe, Memoirs of a not altogether shy pornographer‎, page 18:

     “You acquainted with the Tijuana Bibles?” ¶ “I've heard a lot goes on in those border towns but not much that calls for religious reference works.” ¶ “These bibles they don't use, they make, and fast as they come off the presses they go over the border.”

   • 1984, Ernest Brawley, The Alamo Tree‎, page 209:

     It was a Tijuana bible. They sold them in the newspaper kiosk in the Jardin Obregon, under the counter.

References

• Jonathon Green (2023), “Tijuana adj.”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang