Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 16:35:29 -0500
From: Ted White <tedwhite at compusnet.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

lee gilliland wrote:

> 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.

There was little sex in Heinlein until the end of the '50s (and none at all in
his '40s fiction).  Sex entered "pulp SF" in 1952 with the publication of the
original (and better) version of "The Lovers" by Philip Jose Farmer in
STARTLING STORIES.  Farmer and Sturgeon were the pioneers, if you will.   Sex,
of course, was Against The Rules in most pulp magazines, not just SF pulps.

--Ted White