Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 14:25:00 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] More S*X, was Re: Interesting Inventions
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

> 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?
>

Well, there were the"spicy" pulps, which promised a lot, and delivered . . =
. well, see: http://www.robertweinberg.net/pulps.htm for some cover shots. =
 And here:   http://www.lanset.com/lurch/pulp/spmystery.html.

Now, if you mean the introduction of the "F" word . . . well, according to =
Langford:

"But who would be first to sneak the Big F-Word into the austere pages of =
US magazines? Robert Silverberg, that's who.

The swinging 60s were nearly over, but still no rude words were permitted =
in Galaxy. Then Silverberg got handed one of those odd magazine assignments=
, to write some fiction  to go with this cover painting showing gigantic =
periscopes. Easy -- he shoved them into the story (`Going Down Smooth', =
1968) as one of the hallucinations suffered by an insane  computer. A =
foul-mouthed insane computer, that said:

1000110
1010101
1000011
1001011"

(I guess that would constitute the dirty bits.)

mjw