lesbian – Pulp & Pep

Opening Night, Frameline 43

Monica — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 19:22:09 +0000

Virginia is very tall and Vita is very well-dressed. They write books, lots of letters to each other, go to some parties, and have sex a couple times in luxurious settings. Their husbands make noises in the background. Vita moves on to other girlfriends and Virginia writes Orlando. They cry but stay friends. The end.

L. said: I’d give it a seven.
I said: Yeah, it wasn’t bad the way I thought it would be bad.

Jim said: I hated it.
Allen said: If it had been a foreign film with no subtitles I would have liked it a lot.

Lauretta and Susan and I agreed: It had moments.
I … Read more

The Man Who Would Be Lesbian

Monica — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 20:11:43 +0000

69 Barrow Street, by Lawrence Block writing as Sheldon Lord, Tower, 1959

Cover Line: “Their Love was Right! But Their Sex Was Wrong!”

We’ve all known them: the men who long to be lesbians. in the days before they found an outlet for their frustrated desires by dominating the discussions in women studies classes with passionate paeans to Monique Wittig, they wrote lesbian pulp.

Does Lawrence Block belong to this esoteric tribe? One thing is for sure: before becoming an Edgar Award-winning mystery author, Block wrote an awful lot of lesbian pulp. Sure, I realize that many male writers paid their dues in this grove of the pulp jungle, … Read more

Ozu’s Lesbian Kiss

Monica — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 13:00:33 +0000

There aren’t a lot of lesbian kisses on screen. Especially in the 1930s. In Japan. But this is one of the best.

Dragnet Girl isn’t really about Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka), an office girl who vamps her employer à la Babyface by day and parties with her bad-boy boyfriend, the sultry Joji, at night. The story revolves around Joji and his relationship with a young gangster-wannabe, Hiroshi. Hiroshi has a sister, Kazuko, who’s trying to keep her kid brother out of trouble, the way sisters always do in gangster movies.

So Kazuko frets about Hiroshi, Hiroshi has a crush on Joji, Joji is interested in Kazuko, and Tokiko gets jealous. After … Read more

Journey to Ann Bannon

Monica — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 07:47:54 +0000

Journey to a Woman, by Ann Bannon, Fawcett Gold Medal, 1960

Classic Line: “All the dormant fires of her younger days had sprung to life and they burned in her still, tempting her, torturing her until she knew she would have to find release somewhere or die of it.”

It took me many years to appreciate Ann Bannon’s contribution to lesbian literature. Bannon wrote five pulps between 1957 and 1962, linked novels that tell the intertwined, melodramatic adventures of Laura, Beth, and Beebo. The books made her the community’s best known lesbian pulp writer, and an acquaintance with her books is as much a requirement for lesbians as is … Read more

Designing Lesbians

Monica — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 18:55:42 +0000

The Odd Ones, Edwina Mark, Berkley Books, 1959

“Jean discovered her true sexual nature through the expert teachings of sleek Sherri Lancaster.”

The Plot: Orphaned outcast Jean Grant is so desperate to get out of her hick town and discover her “true nature” she elopes with sensitive Tim, the unhappy son of the lecherous druggist (who is also Jean’s employer). After gritting her teeth through their wedding night, Jean steals Tim’s $1000 nest egg and hightails it to New York. There she checks into a cheap hotel and sets out to explore the city, alternately racked by guilt and overflowing with delirious joy at her newfound freedom.

Stumbling into … Read more

Desperate Housewives

Monica — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:00:10 +0000

One Touch of Ecstasy, by Gwynne Wimberly, Frederick Fell, Inc. 1959.

Best line: “There’s a reason we teach you correct posture. If your pelvis isn’t tilted forward, the organs in the area are affected unfavorably.”

The Plot: Poor Louise, married and with an eighteen-year-old daughter has never had an orgasm. Ever since that date-rape in college she’s been all twisted up inside, and marriage hasn’t helped–she’s mired in suburban misery. “The hollandaise had been spectacular” but that can’t disguise the fact that her life is one “cruelly civilized evening of superficiality and loneliness” after another. Now hubby Warren is chasing after her best friend, while daughter Betty is enamored … Read more

Dead Lesbians

Monica — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:06:52 +0000

I was looking forward to Helen Nielsen’s The Fifth Caller (Morrow, 1959) from the Grier-McBride collection–the library catalog lists “Lesbian physicians–Fiction” as the second subject. Alas, only a completionist collector like Barbara Grier would put this rather dull mystery with its few elliptical references to sapphic tendencies in her lesbian library.

The Plot: Dr. Lillian Whitehall has been found dead in her office and all evidence points to her nurse. Nursie can’t defend herself, because she was found unconscious on the beach with her wrists slashed and has no memory of what happened that day. Tall, square-jawed D.A. Investigator (I’m sorry–I’ve already forgotten his name) thinks Nurse Anna is awfully … Read more

Virtual Pulp–A Lesbian Linkorama

Monica — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:24:29 +0000

I’m not a fan of the internet. I’m an old-fashioned gal who prefers knitting while listening to Alan Farley talk about his Noel Coward obsession on the radio to web surfing. I was violently against ebooks until a royalty statement made me change my tune (turns out I’m making money from them!).

However, cracks have recently appeared in the mud wall I have built to hold back the tide of “progress.” Friends send me links to stuff they have written that appears only online, and I have to check those out, right? From there it is an easy slide to clicking on the “this is interesting” links people also send … Read more

Pulp for Dad

Monica — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:23:45 +0000

Twisted Loves, by Mark Ryan “an original Bedside Book”

“A story of strange passions and forbidden lusts that changed a young girl into a twisted sinner!”

This is the template for the exploitation pulp. Lots of big breasted, horny women, sex, sex, and more sex, and then a heterosexual rescue on the final pages. From the cover to the content, this is what most people think of when they think of lesbian pulp.

The Plot: The book opens with Connie Chapin getting drunk in a Third Avenue bar, being mauled by a fellow customer, and then passing out in the street. She is rescued by Lee Fielding, “a tall … Read more

Inversion on the Beach

Monica — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:34:23 +0000

The Golden Cage, Tereska Torrès (1959, Avon, published by arrangement with the Dial Press)

“Miss Torres is a very naughty Aphrodite presiding over a multitude of libidinous extravaganzas.” (Parade of Books)

Some pulps are meant to be skimmed, and the works of Tereska Torrès belong to that category. She favors the Grand Hotel approach to fiction: a group of disparate people are brought together by unusual circumstances and Tereska tells us a series of colorful, unrelated stories about them. She used this technique in Women’s Barracks (1950), the ground-breaking pulp that started the craze for paperback lesbians, and she uses it in The Golden Cage, one … Read more