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Jul 12, 2018 15 tweets 7 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Pulp is lowbrow and cheap, which is why it was able to skirt around the censorship laws of the 1950s and cover subjects that 'serious' novels had to hint at. And one taboo topic dominated pulp in the 50s: #lesbian love.

This is the story of the lesbian pulp explosion...
There were a few pre-war novels that treated lesbians as serious characters in relationships with other women, but mostly the topic was handled in circumspect code. However all that changed in 1950...
Women's Barracks by French author Tereska Torrès was published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1950. Describing the lives of Free French Forces stationed in London in WWll it candidly discussed lesbian relationships and passions, and went on to sell over four million copies worldwide.
Sensing a market, Gold Medal published Spring Fire in 1952, a novel by Vin Packer (aka Marijane Meaker) about a lesbian affair between two students. Again, sales were high...
But there was a problem: US obscenity laws meant that books could not be sent through the mail if they promoted homosexuality. To get around this lesbian pulp stories had to have either a redemptive or unhappy ending: characters had to end up straight, or end up punished.
There were some exceptions: Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt (1953) has a relatively happy ending for the lovers. However Highsmith still had to publish it under the pseudonym Claire Morgan to 'protect' her reputation as a serious writer.
Whilst some lesbian pulps were written by lesbian writers, the bulk of the genre was produced by men - often using female pen names. Generally these were 'Lesploitation' novels: high on sex, low on story and aimed at males.
But in small-town America lesbian pulp was sometimes the only media people could access where #LGBT themes were sympathetically dealt with. Whilst cheesy and often exploitative they still sent out a message: if you're gay, you're not alone...
A lot of lesbian pulp is based on stereotype: older controlling lesbians seducing young innocents, men fighting butch women for the love of a confused wife, small-town girls falling for big city vices...
The cover blurb and titles also suggested faux-sympathy with the lesbian 'dilemma': a demi-monde, a soft sin, unnatural but irresistible hungers and desires. All this was aimed at men - curiosity and titilation in equal measure.
However the cover art for lesbian pulp generally shows the characters in a sympathetic light: sensual women who deserve understanding and fulfilment.
Most lesbian pulp was about middle-class white women, often in domestic settings. Women of colour were rarely featured, though there were a few exceptions.
As obscenity laws were relaxed in the 1960s the lesbian pulp market began to decline. More serious and realistic lesbian stories began to be published, and the pulps were reduced to voyeurism and gimmicks to sell copies.
By the end of the 1960s the lesbian pulp genre had all but disappeared: the market had moved on and the public conversation about sexuality had changed...
So what was lesbian pulp's role in the 1950s? It talked openly about things that other media only hinted at, and tried to show its subjects in a sympathetic light. If it's sleazy or cheesy - well that's pulp. But it played its part.

More stories another time...

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More from @PulpLibrarian

Dec 2, 2018
It is the greatest frog-worshiping zombie biker occult horror film ever made. Possibly the only one. It's certainly like no over movie you've ever seen.

Today in pulp, I look back at the 1971 classic Psychomania...
By the early 1970s British horror films were trying to get 'with it' to attract a younger audience. So it wasn't surprising that in 1971 screenwriter Arnaud d'Usseau tried to create a biker horror movie.
d'Usseau had previously written Horror Express, an Anglo-Spanish sci-fi/horror movie loosely based on John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas did their best with the material.
Read 18 tweets
Oct 9, 2018
"The gun is good! The Penis is evil!" bellows a huge stone head floating over the Irish countryside. It's quite a strange start to any movie, but it's about to get even stranger...

This is the story of John Boorman's classic 1974 film Zardoz.
In 1970 director John Boorman began work on a Lord Of The Rings film for United Artists. It would be an unusual adaption; The Beatles would be the Hobbits and Kabuki theatre would open the movie . Alas the studio said 'No', but the idea of a fantasy film stuck with Boorman...
So in 1972, following the commercial success of Deliverance, John Boorman started work on Zardoz - a fantasy film into which he would cram many unorthodox ideas. Initially Burt Reynolds was to play the lead role of Zed, but pulled out citing other filming commitments.
Read 13 tweets
Oct 8, 2018
As it's #LibrariesWeek let's look back at Britain's favourite library book*: the 1977 Usborne Guide to the Supernatural World!

(*according to my readers)
Supernatural World was an anthology of three existing Usborne pocketbooks: Vampires, Mysterious Powers and Ghosts. As an Usborne hardback it was deemed perfect for the nation's libraries.
Usborne had previously fascinated and frightened readers with its 1977 World Of The Unknown series: a terrifying triptych of ghosts, monsters and UFOs. Supernatural World would continue in the same vein.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 7, 2018
It was a university course for the price of a packet of cigarettes: Pelican Books! Maybe the blend wasn't to everyone's taste, but there's no denying the addictive nature of the range.

Today in pulp I look back at the autodidact's bible...
In 1937, two years after Allen Lane founded Penguin books, the company decided on a new imprint to provide academic and intellectual non-fiction for the general public. Lane believed there was a market for “intelligent books at a low price” which he was determined to serve
Over its lifetime Pelican sold a quarter of a billion books covering almost 3,000 subjects. Lane apparently came up with the Pelican name when he overheard a woman at King’s Cross railway station mistakenly asking for a Pelican book instead of a Penguin one.
Read 14 tweets
Oct 7, 2018
📩PULP POSTBAG TIME!📩

And today's letter is home computer related...
Mr Derrick Wibley from Penge writes: "Dear PL, I recently invested in a 48k ZX Spectrum to help run my stationery business 'Penge Pens'. However I'm worried it's not powerful enough to meet the needs of my ambitious business expansion programme. What should I do?"
Well Mr Wibley fear not! The ZX Spectrum is a fully-scaleable integrated solution to your business needs - provided you buy the right peripherals!
Read 13 tweets
Oct 6, 2018
The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984: these weren’t the first dystopian novels. There's an interesting history of Victorian and Edwardian literature looking at the impact of modernity on humans and finding it worrying.

Today in pulp I look at some early dystopian books…
Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863, was the second novel penned by Jules Verne. However his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel rejected it as too gloomy. The manuscript was only discovered in 1994 when Verne’s grandson hired a locksmith to break into an old family safe.
The novel, set in 1961, warns of the dangers of a utilitarian culture. Paris has street lights, motor cars and the electric chair but no artists or writers any more. Instead industry and commerce dominate and citizens see themselves as cogs in a great economic machine.
Read 26 tweets

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