Butch in Progress

[K] As an avid reader of our blog (which I will arrogantly assume you all are), you are both familiar with the Vintage Butch of the Week as well as the cultural phenomenon of lesbian pulp novels. Therefore I wil skip any introductionary workds and get right to the good, not let me rephrase that, the best part:

Beebo Brinker in all her bright pulp cover-glory

And yes, ‘the best part’ without any further further specification, just because Beebo is simply the best part of everything she could possibly be related to: you read Ann Bannon in the afternoon? Beebo is the best part of your day. You talk about LGBT cultural history in class? Beebo is the best part of your schedule. You look for a literary figure to turn to for advice? Beebo is … well, you get the idea.

Ann Bannon describes the inspiration for her timeless creation in the introduction to I am a Woman’s Cleis Press Edition, 2002 :

Beebo was my own unrealized romantic phantom. There was another college friend, it is only fair to concede, who gave me the physical prototype. She was taller than the rest of us and strikingly handsome, with a crop of wavy, dark-blond hair and an irresistible smile. Her nickname was one of those too-cute tomboy variations on a boy’s name. She hated it and made us promise never to use it, but her formal name didn’t seem to suit her. I remember running into her in the dorm bathroom — one of those gray marble affairs with rows of icy washbowls and green toilet stalls — in her skivvies, and trying not to admire her unduly.

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[K] For this week’s vintage butch, we turn away from the big screen to small books - books so small and cheap, you could leave them on a train or a bus, when you were through with them, either because you didn’t care to take them home … or you didn’t dare.

I am, of course, talking about the infamous pulp novels of the 1950’s. At the time book publishers tried to circumvent restrictions and censorship by producing books as cheaply as possible (hence the low-quality paper with pulp), so they could be sold on magazine stands at drug stores rather than book shops. During World War II the demand for such ‘throw-away books’ for soldiers and other serving abroad and under severe conditions had increased and after the war, publishers realized that they still could make a whole lot of money with these publications.

Pulp novels catered to a newer, faster living generation AND they could be as gruesome, scandalous and sex-obsessed as no ‘real’ book could ever even dream of. Consequently, pulp novels were concerned with the ‘shadowy’ and ‘forbidden’ (two very convenient words to indicate gay/lesbian content) parts of human existence, stories that could hitherto only be ‘whispered’ about, loves that had to be denied, deeds that had to be hidden (shame, devil, queer were also cherished key words)

Almost totally unrelated, but definitely totally awesome

Soon it became obvious that sex sells, but lesbian sex sells even better. With this epiphany the genre of lesbian pulp (and later sweeps week’s girl-on-girl action) was born thanks to the publication and record-breaking success of Vin Packer’s Spring Fire.

College Girls touching each other’s knees - hide you children!

Most of the era’s the lesbian pulp novels written by straight men for straight men (sound familiar?), but some female/lesbian authors managed to sneak in their version of lesbian life and desire before Stonewall and thus, before any idea about gay rights or even a positive gay identity.

Consequently, the reason, why lesbian pulp novels should be on every queer grrl’s reading list, isn’t so much their juicy parts (even though they do exist and are a delicious mix of sexy and campy), but their stories of inner turmoil, denial and recognition, which are so much clearer in retrospect, but still resonate with today’s experiences. Oh, and on top of being an easy and highly entertaining read: due to being ‘ground-breaking’ lesbian pulp is as much a part of US lesbian cultural history and identity today as The L Word will be 20 years from now. And you wouldn’t have missed The L Word, would you?

The most famous of all pulp butches is without the shadow of a doubt Ann Bannon’s fabulous Beebo Brinker (more about her in the future, I guess promise), heroine of the chronicles of the same name (and yes, that means, there were ‘chronicles’ of interest even before Lena Headey graced the screen as Sarah Connor):

Today’s vintage butch, however, is taken from Tereska Torres’ Women’s Barracks - The Frank Autobiography of a French Girl Soldier. That subtitle, by the way, is more or less all you need to know about the plot.

I can see bras! Do you see bras? I think we both see bras! Must be a great story.

And here’s what you need to know about that “(straight) french girl soldier’s” point of view, when she witnesses the meeting of the two butches (which reminds me that I should write about Meeting of Two Queens at some point) Ann and Petit at her barracks:

While the Captain talked, I could see Ann studying the warrant officer, Petit. Yes, Petit had the air of an elderly man, and I suppose Ann knew that it was inevitable that Petit should notice her. She touched her tie to make sure the knot was in place; she passed her hand over hr hair.

Petit was studying all the girls, smilingly, looking from one to the other of us, until her eyes met Ann’s, and then her eyes remained immobile for an instant. Petit had small grey clever eyes. It seemed to me, watching her, that her little pupils were suddenly drowned in Ann’s large somber blue eyes, and even I, only a bystander at this silent exchange, could sense a current passing between the two women.

They looked at each other over the heads of the rest of us, and I thought, They’ve never met before, but they recognize each other; they know they’re the same kind. I was plain that there was no need of words or of explanations between them. It was quite simple, quite clear, and even if nothing came of it, they could count on each other in the eternal battle between themselves and other women – those of us who were subject to the needs, the fears, the weaknesses that neither Ann nor Petit felt. (23)

Soooo cheesy —- I’m smitten.

Spoiler alert and extra bonus of unique awesomeness: completely against type and pulp’s fondness for butch-femme constellations, Ann and Petit will later in the novel start a relationship (yes, you read that correctly: the two butches will fall in love. Who’s ground-breaking now?!), which, you guessed it, is doomed to fail due to mutual jealousy and lack of understanding by society, but until then …