Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 16:21:59 -0500
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: More S*X, was Re: Interesting Inventions
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Michael Walsh wrote:
>
> > 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

Near as I can tell, the first one to sneak one past Kay Tarrant in
Analog was Anne McCaffrey, in "A Womanly Talent" (February 1969).  It
has a quite explicit description of an act of sexual intercourse.  It's
done so subtly that it's not until later that some part of your brain
wakes up and says "Hey, wait a minute!"

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