Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 14:01:48 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] S* X; was Re: Interesting Inventions
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Possibly an apocryphal story . . . but at the end of Part 1 of a serial in =
The Saturday Evening Post the male & female characters are having dinner =
together. Part 2 opens with them having breakfast together.  Upset letters =
to the editor about this blatant sex . . author responds that he is not =
responsible for what characters do between serial installments.

Another one . . . from Dave Langford (http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/writin=
g/sfx/sfx054.html)
"I've told the story of the great 1940s struggle to get anything resembling=
 a dirty joke past Kay Tarrant, puritanical subeditor of Astounding, and =
how George O. Smith did it in a 1947 `gadget' tale by mentioning `the =
original ball-bearing mousetrap' ... that is, the tomcat."

mjw

>>> leeandalexis at hotmail.com 04/02/02 01:07PM >>>

Big problem is that people try to apply current standards to
"historical" events, without understanding the attitudes of the times.
For an SF example, why is there no sex in pulp SF in the 1940s and
1950s?

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."

I have to disagree about there being NO sex in pulp SF in the '50's- =
what
about "They Do It With Mirrors" by Heinlien, for instance?  Hell, =
ANYTHING
by Heinlien ALWAYS has some sex.  That's why he was so cool to read in =
high
school.

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