From: "Erica VD Ginter" <eginter at klgai.com>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 10:04:45 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

O Pioneers! We salute thee!

Erica

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted White [mailto:tedwhite at compusnet.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 4:35 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions

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