One for the ladies . . .

Pulp fiction, the tawdry disposable fiction of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, back when people read to get their cheap thrills rather than flicked on the TV or the internet, was long considered to be a boy’s club in regards to the people that actually wrote them.

However there was a problem.  During the early ’50s, there was a surge in demand for sleazy fiction involving lesbians from both straight men and gay women. Unaccepted by mainstream society, lesbianism had a certain sexy cachet- not least because porn and “lads’ mags” were not as widely available as they are now-but also, for many women, this was the only access to information on lesbianism they could find. . . But guy writers just couldn’t come up with the goods. Their output was often implausible, unimaginative and lacking the sensitive touch a female hand often brings.

Then, in 1950 Women’s Barracks by Toreska Torres, the first lesbian pulp written by a woman, was published. The war setting was no coincidence, as WWII was still fresh in the public’s mind, and Toreska herself was a pivotal member of the French resistance working alongside Charles De Gaulle himself, when she was just 18 years old. Women’s Barracks went on to sell 4 million copies and achieved the prestigious position of being held up in 1952 as the prime example of how paperback novels promoted moral corrosion and degeneracy by a gang who rejoiced under the name  House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials.

After the success of Women’s Barracks came Spring Fire by Marijane Meaker writing under the pen name Vin Packer. Spring Fire is widely considered to be the first true lesbian pulp and created the formula for a new generation of pulp fiction novels. It was also noted as being free of the hints of homophobia which littered its predecessors. This was perhaps due to the fact that not only was she a woman writing these kinds of stories but she, herself, was also a lesbian.

Cautionary tales

The other thing that distinguished Spring Fire was that it concentrated on the relationship between two main characters rather than an orgy featuring many characters, in showers and dorm rooms, which featured heavily in works prior such as Women’s Barracks.  However, Spring Fire is also a typical example of how lesbian pulp fiction had to be told as cautionary tales in an effort to avoid censorship. That is to say that any lesbian characters, or the chief lesbian character who was leading an impressionable young girl astray, had to meet a grim end or end up in misery and loneliness.

More worrying still was the fact that a protagonist being “turned straight” was often a requirement from the publisher.

It was not until 1959 that Artemis Smith, aka Annselm Murpego, a philosopher and gay/feminists rights activist decided enough was enough  and, after many rejections managed to get The Third Sex and Odd Girl published. These books are thought to have been part of the factors which spurred the gay rights movement into action, and Smith is considered to be the person who coined the phrase “out of the closet”.

Covers of lesbian pulp fiction typically featured titillating images of a pair of scantily clad women, one invariably being a butch “Bull Dyke” with short dark hair looking domineeringly at a fresh-faced peaches and cream blonde. These covers were chiefly aimed at a male audience who fancied something a little exotic. But anecdotes are rife of women, most of whom had to hide their sexuality, donning dark glasses and, with their hearts beating like a kettle drum, entering a drugstore and picking up armfuls of products they didn’t need so they could sneak a copy of one of these books under a the rest of their purchases and hope that this provided adequate distraction from scrutiny.

A famous, and much repeated, anecdote from writer Donna Allegra goes like this: “No matter how embarrassed and ashamed I felt when I went to the cash register to buy these books, it was absolutely necessary for me to have them. I needed them the way I needed food and shelter for survival.”

The beginning of the end . . .

By the late sixties the US Supreme court had to bow to public pressure and lax laws on pornography. As a result much more graphic entertainment was relatively freely available and the pulps, with their insinuation and innuendo could not compete. This factor coupled with the rise of the Gay Rights movement made the political aspects of the lesbian pulp story frequently irrelevant and old hat.

However, the publication of Patience and Sarah by Alma Routsong saw the emergence of feminist writing and in 1973 Naiad Press, the first feminist publishing house, was launched. They employed the services of many of the women who had written lesbian pulps to write more feminism-inspired tomes. A tradition which continues today.

Tags: book, feature, feminism, sex

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