The Stonewall National Museum & Archives hosted a talk by curator Joe Madura focusing on PULP: Erotic Paperbacks in Gay Male Culture Exhibition.
When censorship lifted and gay liberation took hold in the 1960s, a robust publishing industry produced a steady stream of cheap paperbacks exploring the practice and burgeoning culture of homosexuality. Pulp books prompted gay men to navigate imaginatively their own impulses and curiosities, many for the first time. Gay male pulp fiction, as it is now known, was a key element in the evolution of diverse sexual self-expression in the United States. Using SNMA’s extensive archival collection, this exhibition highlights several late twentieth-century authors and contextualizes their books as cultural artifacts in the rise and fall of gay pulp.
Check out our featured photos from the event:
