Gay Male and Lbian Pulp Fictn and Mass Culture (Chapter 37) - The Cambridge History of Gay and Lbian Lerature

pulp fiction gay

As a rult of a seri of urt s, by the mid-1960s the U.S. post office uld no longer terdict books that ntaed homosexualy. Gay wrers were ...

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GAY PULP FICTN - VTAGE

Books shelved as gay-pulp: To Want a Boy by Bert Shrar, Go Down, Aaron by Chris Davidson, Happyland and Other Stori by Alexanr Goodman, A Summer on... * pulp fiction gay *

"They are an tegral aspect of gay male culture and gay history that is as val as—ed separable om—our fight for legal equaly and personal eedom. They are the rerds—albe fictnal on, often seen through the peculiar lens of their tim—of how gay men lived, thought, sired, loved and survived.

LBIAN & GAY PULP FICTN

The Gay Pulp Fictn Collectn nsists of over 1,100 fictns tl mass market paperback form on male homosexual and bisexual them, published om the 1940's through the 1990's. * pulp fiction gay *

In November 2005, the Bgham Center received an ial donatn of 378 gay male mysteri and police stori and 109 gay Amerin pulps generoly given by Drewey Wayne Gunn, Profsor Emer, Texas A&M Universy-Kgsville. Gunn is the five llector of gay male mysteri and wrote the 2005 book The Gay Male Slth Prt and Film: A History and Annotated Biblgraphy. Gunn first disvered gay paperbacks at nvenience stor the small Texas town where he lived durg the 1960s.

GAY PULP BOOKS

* pulp fiction gay *

After retirement, Gunn began his rearch to the gay male mystery and pulp fictn genr. History of Gay Male Mystery and Pulp Fictn GenrIn the late 1950s through the mid 1960s, U. In the wake of the legal victori and wh the flourishg of the homophile movement, there was an explosn of gay "pulp" fictn publishg.

Bis servg as a "validatn of gay male sexual sir" (Bronski, 2001, p. 20), the books, wrten primarily by gay men, offered rears sights to how gay men lived.

GAY PULP FICTN

An exhibn of selected book vers om gay, lbian and transgenr themed vtage paperbacks. * pulp fiction gay *

They served as primers on gay cultural norms for newly g out or isolated gay men. At first, the gay-themed books did not acknowledge the possibily of a "gay life, " jt "gay sex, " but as gay culture and polics veloped, gay fictn reflected a new all-enpassg culture separate om the "straight world.

The CollectnThe Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jacqu Murat Collectn of Gay Amerin Pulps and the Drewey Wayne Gunn Collectn of Gay Male Mysteri and Police Stori are ma up primarily of books prted by low-budget publishers the post-Stonewall era (after 1969). The pulp novels, mostly om the 1970s, are often pornographic exploratns of gay male sir. In an effort to pass the Supreme Court's new standards, troductns a number of the books discs how that particular novel fs wh the historil ntext of homosexualy and why the tle is a necsary step dismantlg "sexual reprsn.

1970’S GAY PULP

" There are currently 109 tl our gay Amerin pulps llectn which has been supplemented wh the purchase of 58 addnal gay male pulps.

By the 1980s and 1990s, as gay culture entered to the mastream, gay-themed novels were prted by proment publishg ho. The Drewey Wayne Gunn Collectn of Gay Male Mysteri and Police Stori currently nsists of 378 books rangg om mastream hardbacks to Japane manga to the specialized publisher, "adult only" tl. The publishg world has evolved to the extent that some of the wrers reprented this llectn aren't classified as "gay wrers.

"The first wave of gay pulp fictn materialized the 1940s and was primarily posed of reprts of earlier mastream, rpected lerary fictn wh gay them. Though lbian-themed pulp fictn was also beg produced at this time, they nsisted of origal stori wrten by men for a heterosexual male dience whereas the gay pulp fictn books were wrten by gay men for a wi rearship. Relaxatn of censorship laws the 1960s led to a send wave of gay and lbian pulp fictn where was possible to publish work wh more explic sexual ntent and prent unapologetic queer characters.

1960S GAY PULP FICTN

For both gays and lbians the new wrgs, which reached far more people than the earlier lerary fictn, "were both a visceral and visible marker of personal as well as group inty" acrdg to thor Michael Bronski. Addnally, the back pag of the books, there were advertisements for homophile anizatns and spac for personal ads.

BROWN UNIVERSY IS ARCHIVG GAY PULP FICTN TO PRERVE A MOMENT OF LGBTQ HISTORY

Ste (Ed), Encyclopedia of lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr history Ameri. Search for the work you want (for example, "Gay Berl") and open the page. Swallow the Lear: Amgly tled, tawdry gay pulp novels of the 50s & 60s.

‘Rally Round the Fag’ one of ten vtage gay pulp novels starrg the popular character “Jackie Holm” om ‘The Man om C. Gay pulp novels have been around sce the 1930s when the sale of paperback books proliferated.

PASSNS UNVERED: GAY, LBIAN AND TRANSGENRED PULPS

Historilly, lbian pulp was much more popular than novels featurg the explos of gay men—and that is, of urse, bee the lbian pulp was wily purchased by straight dus. The populary of the novels ntued to rise durg 1940s though, as noted the book Where Thy Dark Eye Glanc: Queerg Edgar Allan Poe eded by pulp historian Steve Berman, the very first te “gay pulp” novel was published 1952 by thor Gee Viereck. Viereck, a former propaganda tool of the Nazis durg WWII thored the 195 page Men to Beasts that ed homosexual prison culture as a part of s storyle—somethg Viereck had observed first hand while he was locked up.

The 50s was not a good time for the gay muny, much part to the gay-hatg U.

Senator Joseph McCarthy who addn to his spicns that mi, pkos and reds had managed to weasel their way to ernment posns, was also nvced that was swarmg wh homosexuals, probably mie, pko homosexuals, too. McCarthy sent his right-wg buddi to turn up the heat on the State Department claims which would rult the acknowledgment that 91 employe had been intified as “gay” and were fired unr the guise that they were a huge “secury risk.

37 - GAY MALE AND LBIAN PULP FICTN AND MASS CULTURE

Senate lnched the ridiculo soundg vtigatn “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts the Government”.

Upon the ncln of what is bt scribed as a gay wch hunt, the mtee was unable to intify any Amerin cizen who might have sold out the good-old U. This didn’t stop the mtee om publishg a post-operative paper which “nclively” tablished that a gay man or a lbian posssed “weak moral character” and that the cln of only one homosexual n “pollute a ernment office.

Post office uld no longer refe to liver books that featured homosexualy, which, acrdg to rearch nducted by the Universy of Massachetts Prs led to a verable “explosn” of gay pulp novels.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* PULP FICTION GAY

Gay Pulp Fictn - Vtage (94 books) .

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