Sexuality in Lesbian Romance Fiction

Abstract

Romance research has mainly concentrated on heterosexual romances. Lesbian romantic novels have, as far as I know, been extensively discussed only in 'Some pulp Sappho' by Fran Koski and Maida Tilchen (1979). Lesbian trash does not figure much in the few other texts on lesbians or lesbianism in literature (see Zimmerman, 1985, 1990, Jay and Glasgow,1990). In this paper, I propose to discuss lesbian romances as a reader, concentrating on a 1950s lesbian pulp novel Stranger on Lesbos, and a modern romance, An Emergence of Green. The lesbian texts have a quite different background regarding how they were and are published and how they are bought and read. For one thing there are not nearly as many lesbian romances available as there are Mills & Boon or other mass-marketed heterosexual romances. According to Jane Rule, author of lesbian novels, a lot of romances are still sold by mail order (Opzij, 1985). Apparently, another difference between straight and lesbian romances, is that North-American readers of the latter genre still do not like to be seen buying one. Many confess they hide their copies of lesbian pulps in more neutral covers. Koski and Tilchen quote Kate Millett who even burnt hers in case a sublet would find them (1979: 262). The mass phenomenom researched by Tania Modleski (1982), Janice Radway (1984) and others, such as Ros Coward (1984), Cora Kaplan (1986), Ann-Rosalind Jones (1986), is something quite other than the subcultural phenomenon of lesbian romance reading. I will, however, rely on some of the insights provided by their impressive studies. Radway's description of the 'institutional matrix' within which heterosexual romances are produced has served as an example to sketch the history of the lesbian romantic story. Modleski's perceptive treatment of the different layers underlying romantic fiction (and other popular women's genres) has convinced me of the interrelatedness of history, politics and narratives.