page_title: Lesbian pulp fiction
section_title: Women's Barracks
hierarchical_section_title: Lesbian pulp fiction / Development of the genre / Women's Barracks
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of "Women's Barracks" by Tereska Torrès 1950 Français&#160;: Couverture de "Women's Barracks" par Tereska Torrès, 1950. Illustration de Barye Phillips.
context_page_description: Lesbian pulp fiction is a genre of lesbian literature that refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel or pulp magazine with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 60s by many of the same paperback publishing houses as other genres of fiction including westerns, romances, and detective fiction. Because very little other literature was available for and about lesbians at this time, quite often these books were the only reference the public had for modeling what lesbians were. Stephanie Foote, from the University of Illinois commented on the importance of lesbian pulp novels to the lesbian identity prior to feminism: "Pulps have been understood as signs of a secret history of readers, and they have been valued because they have been read. The more they are read, the more they are valued, and the more they are read, the closer the relationship between the very act of circulation and reading and the construction of a lesbian community becomes...Characters use the reading of novels as a way to understand that they are not alone."
context_section_description: The first paperback to address a lesbian relationship was published as early as 1950 with Women's Barracks by Tereska Torrès, published by Gold Medal Books. The story was fictionalized account of Torres' experiences in the Free French Forces in London during World War II. Women's Barracks sold 4 million copies and was selected in 1952 to become an example of how paperback books were promoting moral degeneracy, by the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials. The Committee concluded their investigation with a report that required publishers to conform to certain moral standards in the content and publicizing of their books, or else face fines or imprisonment. As a result, authors were forced to limit their stories to fit these requirements. However, as the decade went on, publishers became bolder in printing material that might be judged immoral.
caption: Cover of Women's Barracks (1950) by Tereska Torrès
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