Themes

The Lesbos Jungle front cover. Two women in the image seem to attack a single man in what looks like a back street alley. A red brick wall is behind them. A garbage bin is partially shown in the foreground, and a wooden crate is partially revealed to the left. There is a bottle on the ground and a puddle. The blonde on the left of the image is shown ripping off the man's shirt, while the brunette on the right grasps his arm by the bicep. The women are fully dressed while the man wears jeans and boots; his belt is unbuckled, and his jeans are half-unzipped. The blonde is wearing a white, turtle-neck sweater, black leather pants and black leather boots and her hair is long, with bangs across her forehead. The brunette is wearing a white turtle-neck blouse under a black leather jacket, black leather stiletto boots and white pants. Her hair is short and wavy. The man looks surprised and scared, right arm bent, hand in front of his face as if trying to cover his eyes from the light that comes from the front left. His eyes and mouth are wide open.

On the whole, paperback novel publishers were not interested in literary content but rather in achieving large sales through wide distribution and low costs. Titles that promoted alternatives to the dominance of family-centred monogamous heterosexuality were profitable but came at the price of attracting the attention of moral authorities.

To avoid the scrutiny of the censors, many publishers urged their authors to produce stories that perpetuated 1950s societal perceptions and stereotypes of lesbians. Sympathetic lesbian depictions and realistic portrayals of discrimination against lesbians were the exceptions to the rule. Stories that objectified lesbians for male entertainment were more common.

Browse the MSVU Lesbian Pulp Fiction Collection for some of the common themes found in the paperback novels.

Power differences within relationships

Relationship triangles

"True-life" Accounts

Gendered spaces

 Identity formation

Rape myths

Sexploitation

Social Problems

 

Themes