Adult Novels of Men in the Womanless World – Gay Pulp Fiction of the 1950’s and 1960’s
by David Seubert
“Gay fiction never existed as a distinct genre until the 1970s, and any study of pre 70s gay culture through literature usually looks at the same handful of mainstream novels with gay themes that had been published. Unfortunately, an entire body of literature, that of gay pulps, has been ignored. Gay pulps offer a fascinating glimpse into gay culture of the 1950s and 1960s, and although they might be viewed as stereotypical and negative, they are probably the largest body of overtly gay writings of the time and cannot be ignored. Gay exploitation titles first started appearing in the 1950s, taking advantage of growing postwar gay visibility. The number of pulps, including gay friendly titles, exploded in the 1960s for a variety of reasons. Besides the increasing visibility, the courts also played a major role in changing the style of pulps being written. While not the only case, Grove Press had been defending William S. Burrough’s novel Naked Lunch against charges of obscenity since the early 60s, and when the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared it not obscene in 1966, a virtual deluge of pulps followed. How directly these two events are related could be debated, but this victory certainly was a signal that the times were more liberal and that writing that would have previously been considered obscene would not be considered such by the courts.”
READ MORE of Seubert’s article HERE
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