Abstracts of Papers
Beatrice Michaelis, Elahe Haschemi Yekani:
"Where are the Lesbians?" - The Topography of Lesbian Desire in 1950s and 1960s America in the Pulp Novels of Ann Bannon
In this paper we want to examine the way Lesbian subculture is reflected in the Pulp novels of Ann Bannon (Odd Girl Out, I Am A Woman, Women In The Shadows, Journey To A Woman, Beebo Brinker).
Lesbian desire is always linked to specific locations, e.g. colleges, sororities, Greenwich Village, Hollywood, to name but a few.
Greenwich Village (New York) became the Lesbian Mecca of the 1950s/1960s. What did this mean for identity politics? In how far did the contrast between rural and urban America come into account? Not only did Lesbians from all over the country (+Canada) follow their literary heroines in their paths through New York, but also a heterosexual audience was attracted to these places to "look at the queers". In so far one can certainly speak of a "mainstreaming" of marginal spaces.
This is undermined by the fact that pulp, and lesbian pulp specifically, as a medium was aimed at a heterosexual readership.
Pulp therefore becomes contested ground: ""Lesploitation" or "Coming-Out-Prosthetics"? Sex in Lesbian Pulps always ambiguous, as both heterosexual desire is written on the lesbian body and at the same time sexual agency is granted to Lesbian women.
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