Twister: Sex in a Box

How many times have you wanted to talk to a cute guy or girl at a party, but you were too self-conscious?  Or you talked to them, but they didn't respond.  Or maybe you liked each other, but you couldn't show it, because you were supposed to like the "opposite sex."

Wouldn't it be great if someone invented a way to "get physical" with hunks or babes while everyone around thought you were just friends?  Or even the two of you thought you were just friends?

That's the whole point of the game "Twister."

It was introduced by Milton Bradley in 1966 as a "wild party game" for heterosexual grown-ups, but teens soon became the primary audience.  

You play on a large plastic mat covered with red, blue, yellow, and green circles.  The leader spins, and then announces "Left foot -- green", "Right hand -- yellow", and so on.  Players (up to 4) try to place the proper appendage on the proper circle.  If they can't, or if they fall down, they are out of the game.  The last player standing wins.

You might expect that, as players squirm and twist to hit the proper circles, intimate body parts would be pressed together, and in fact the game's critics called it "Sex in a Box."  But the mechanics of body placement really gives you about the same amount of intimate contact you would get in a wrestling match, or an extended hug.

But you do get that hug!


Teenage boys in the 1970s were forbidden touching, except for  brief, stylized handshakes and the aggressive contact of sports matches.  If they touched by accident, they were expected to jump back and feverishly brush off invisible contaminants, too disgusted for words.  So having license to touch at all was liberating.


It was no fun in mixed-sex groups, but you could often convince sleepover buddies to play.  It would have been even more fun in swimsuits at the beach, but that was hard to arrange in the Midwest, 2000 miles from the nearest ocean.

Military Comedy Beefcake: Ensign Pulver

I hate military dramas.  People dying in foxholes is not my idea of entertainment.  But military comedies, such as McHale's Navy and Hogan's Heroes, are ok.  No combat. Lots of semi-naked men lying around on their bunks.  And, in spite of some discussions of how horny the soldiers are, few women present amid the buddy-bonding plotlines.

Ensign Pulver (1964), a sort of sequel to Mister Roberts (1955), stars Robert Walker Jr. as an irreverent, sassy Navy ensign who is adept at breaking rules, impersonating senior officers, whatever needs to be done to get what he wants.  Usually "what he wants" means three things: getting out of work, finding black market booze, or meeting women.  But he does good deeds, too.  e gives an emergency appendectomy to the overbearing Captain (Burl Ives); and he talks the Captain into giving command to the less authoritarian LaSeur (Gerald S. O'Loughlin).

1. Semi-naked men lying around on their bunks: Larry Hagman (of Dallas), James Farentino, Jack Nicholson, Tommy Sands, and Robert Walker Jr. himself.

2. Lack of women.  There are women in bikinis on the poster, but none in the movie itself.  The only women present are a cadre of nurses whom Pulver tries unsuccessfully to impress.  No fade-out-kiss.

3. Buddy-bonding plotlines.  Pulver bonds with Bruno (former teen idol Tommy Sands), attempting to help him get a pass to he can go home to attend his young daughter's funeral, and when that falls through, counseling him as he becomes more and more despondent, restraining him when he tries to kill the captain. (Yes, this is a comedy.)