LESBIAN PULP FICTION 2

In the early to mid 20th century, only a handful of books were published that addressed lesbians as characters in relationships with women. However, after World War II, there appeared a subversive trend in publishing that allowed for books to be written, cheaply produced, and widely distributed that addressed "dirty" topics like drugs, gangs, white slavery, crime, murder, and homosexuality. Because the literature was not respected, it was not censored. In terms of lesbian fiction, these books were the only ones available to many people in many locations who had no previous access to information or stories that involved lesbian characters.
Hundreds of titles were published in this genre between 1955–1969, and millions of them were sold. This was part of no social agenda on the publishers' parts: they were making quite a bit of money. However prevalent the books were, purchasing and reading them for many women was the equivalent to coming out to the cashier. Author Joan Nestle called them "survival books" and described purchasing them:
The act of taking one of these books off the drugstore rack and paying for it at the counter was a frightening and difficult move for most women. This was especially true during the atmosphere of the McCarthy trials...Although tame by today's standards...these volumes were so threatening then that women hid them, burnt them, and threw them out."

Women's Barracks
The first pulp to address a lesbian relationship was published as early as 1950 with Women's Barracks by Tereska Torres, published by Gold Medal Books. The story was fictionalized account of Torres' experiences in the Free French Forces in London during World War II. Women's Barracks sold 4 million copies and was selected in 1952 to become an example of how paperback books were promoting moral degeneracy, by the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials.
Spring Fire and the establishment of a formula
Accounting for the success of Women's Barracks, it is not a coincidence that Gold Medal Books published another paperback with lesbian themes, and in fact, eventually published some of the least homophobic books in the genre.
Spring Fire by Marijane Meaker writing as Vin Packer is generally considered to be the first lesbian pulp novel, since the plot focused on the relationship of the two main characters, as opposed to the various relationships examined in Women's Barracks. Spring Fire, which was published by Gold Medal Books in 1952 and sold more than 1.5 million copies, is about two college girls, Mitch and Leda, who fall in love and have an affair. The tragic endings of Women's Barracks and Spring Fire (suicide and insanity) are typical of lesbian pulp novels. Meaker was told by her editor that because the books traveled through the mail and anything sent through the U.S. Postal Service was subject to government censorship, publishers had to make sure that the books seemed in no way to proselytize homosexuality.No character was allowed to be both homosexual and happy at the book's end. A character had either to turn straight and end up coupled with a man or, if she remained homosexual, suffer death, insanity or some equally unappealing fate. Although originally published in hardback and technically not a pulp novel (it however quickly became available in paperback form), the first exception to this formula is the book The Price of Salt written by Patricia Highsmith under the pen name Claire Morgan. Throughout the genre, satisfactory endings for women who accepted their homosexuality were rare.
Odd Girl and The Third Sex by Artemis Smith, a pen name for philosopher and early 1950s gay/feminist activist Annselm Morpurgo, were finally published by Beacon Books in 1959 after multiple rejections by major publishers. Unlike former pulp novels, these also contained strong political statements that influenced the formation of the gay rights movements of the late 1950s. Originally titled Anne Loves Beth, Odd Girl was extensively blue-penciled by the pulp editors. The original version has recently been reissued by the Author through 'the savant garde workshop', a service press for The Savant Garde Institute. In her 1960's addresses to East Coast Homophile Organizations meetings in Philadelphia, Artemis Smith originated the "come out of the closet" slogan and strategy for linking the gay rights movement to other rights movements in which, as both novelist and playwright, she was also a spokeswoman.