Banis - Spine Intact, Some Creases (Borgo Bioviews)

Table of Contents

SPINE INTACT, SOME CREASES

REMEMBRANCES OF A PAPERBACK WRITER

VICTOR J. BANIS

Edited and Introduced by Fabio Cleto

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

BORGO BIOVIEWS #6

ISSN 0743-0628

Copyright 2004, 2007, 2012 by Victor J. Banis

Introduction Copyright 2004 by Fabio Cleto

Published by Wildside Press LLC

www.wildsidebooks.com

DEDICATION

I am deeply indebted to my friends, Heather and Dave Datta, for all the help they have given me in getting these early works of mine reissued.

And I am grateful as well to Rob Reginald, for all his assistance and support.

PUBLISHERS NOTE

The Index has been omitted from this ebook edition, but is available in the Borgo Press print edition.

INTRODUCTION

AMERICANHISTORYXXX, by Fabio Cleto

Let us go then, you and I, and let us browse a little in Americas cobwebbed garrets. Among discarded rocking chairs and creaky hobby-horses, dusty dolls and moth-eaten dresses, tarnished primers, newsmagazines and grandmas recipebooks, we may run into a half-concealed cardboard box full of timeworn 4-x-7 paperbacks, little books with campy, thrilling covers, titles and taglines. Look at these! Passions and Debauchery Explode in Historys Most Wicked City (tagline for Paul Iltons The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah , Signet Books, 1957); Twilight Lives of Talent & Torment, Man-for-Man in the World of Dance (Ronn Marvins Mr. Ballerina , Regency Books, 1961); Her Twisted Passion Drove Her to Evil Deeds as She Sought Pleasure in the Arms of Women (Del Britts Flying Lesbian , Brandon House Books, 1963). And what about these? The Uninhibited Story of a Free-Loving, Free-Wheeling Nympho! (Victor Jays The Affairs of Gloria , Brandon House, 1964); One Love Was Natural. The Other Was Forbiddenand Dangerous! (Paula Christians The Other Side of Desire , Paperback Library, 1965); He Burned with a Lusty Passion as He Soared into the Ecstasy of Lovebut This Time His Partner Was a Man (Victor Jays So Sweet, So Soft, So Queer , Private Edition Books, 1965). Well, they get more and more outrageously camp! Now, guess what? For a Price, He Performed Any Act of Degeneracy That Appealed to His Perverted Mind! Sex Hungry Men and Women Offered Their Bodies for His Pleasure! (Victor Jays AC-DC Lover , Private Edition, 1965); Lancer Knew Damned Well Hed Married a Womanbut the World Refused to Believe Him! (Stark Coles The Man They Called My Wife , Brandon House, 1968); It Was a Haven for OddballsSex Weirdos in Search of Offbeat Thrills (Lou Morgans Hangout for Queers , Neva Books, 1965). And talking about campy stuff, there you are; Yoo Hoo! Lover Boy! (Don Hollidays The Man from C.A.M.P. , Leisure Books, 1966). Oh my, where does all this come from? Who are these authors, what are these publishers? And who on earth read this stuff? Bringing as they did the unbelievable to the spotlight, covers, taglines and titles cried it loud and clear; fifties and sixties queer pulps emerge from the realm of obscenity .

Named after the poor quality of the pulpwood paper they were printed on, and the queer offspring of late nineteenth-century dime novels and early twentieth-century detective or science fiction magazines, pulp novels and social inquiries capitalized, among other factors, on the sensation first created by surveys such as Alfred C. Kinseys 1948 landmark Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (followed five years later by the equally shocking Sexual Behavior in the Human Female ) and as William Masters & Virginia Johnsons Human Sexual Response (1966), unapologetically charting the field of human sexual practices, so as to disclose an astonishing variety of experiences and desires that radically undermined Americas wishful self-image of normality. The queer, shadowy world was hardly believable, and it needed to be addressed if one wanted to avoid unpredictable consequences such as the tagline for Don Hollidays Stranger at the Door (Late-Hour Library, 1967) ambiguously squealed; He Came to Camp! While Jordan Parks Half (Lion Books, 1953) and Eve Linkletters The Gay Ones (Fabian Books, 1958) wondered What Was His Bodys Dark Secret That Made Him Neither Man Nor Woman? and Were They Pranks of Nature? Or Were They the Third Sex?, others simply cried that homosexuals were A Problem That Must Be Faced! (W.D. Sprague, Ph.D., The Lesbian in Our Society , Midwood Books, 1962). Pulps did face such varied threats indeed; in Anthony James Americas Homosexual Underground (Imperial Books, 1965) An Ace Reporter Covers a World of Vice and Intrigue ; March Hastings The Unashamed (Midwood Books, 1968) provided a heartbreaking explanation for such downfall from virtue ( After What Men Did to Her, She Found It Easy to Turn to a Woman For Love ); and Ray Trains Miss Kinseys Report (Chevron Books, 1967) unveiled an appalling backstage to Dr. Kinseys intellectual heritage; It Was Absolutely Unthinkable! To Collect the Money That Her Uncle Had Left Her in His Will, She Had to Make a Survey of All the Townspeopleand Question Them about Their Sex Habits . Tawdry sexual practices deserved adequate investigation, indeed.

As howled by eyecatching garish covers and taglines, queer pulp promised sordid deeds and baffling passions ( One of the Threea SisterWho Strongly Opposed the Basic Convention and Taboos Against Incest Louise Shermans The Strange Three , Saber Books, 1957), bizarre geometries of desire ( A Lover and His Ladyand His Laddie! J. X. Williams AC-DC Stud , Greenleaf Classics, 1967) and tales of sheer self-love ( No One Could Admire Him More than Himself! J. X. Williams Pretty Man , Sundown Reader, 1966). Queer pulp promised to introduce the reader to the strangest of creatures; nymphos, hustlers, swappers, drag queens, ultra-femme vixens from this and other worlds (Frank Belknap Longs Woman from Another Planet , Chariot, 1960, had The Body and Passions of a Womanbut the Soul of a Demon ), transvestites and serial killers, hookers, junkies, tramps, luscious beefcake bodybuilders ( Most Men Fall In Love with Women, But Some Men Fall in Love with Themselves! Bud Cliftons Muscle Boy , Ace Books, 1958), psychopaths and freaks of all confessions, Scandalous Women from Society Dames and Suburban Sinners to B-Girls, He-Girls and Call Girls (Lee Mortimers Women Confidential , Paperback Library, 1961), strange Sisters and Odd Girls Out, leather-clad lesbians, gay cowboys and detectives, transsexuals, fetish lovers and alien gender-benders. A weird throng indeed, confessing the underground Sin Scene, giving vent to the twilight, sorrow and doom shadowing the sleek faade of mainstream America (J. X. Williams Goodbye, My Lover , Sundown Reader, 1966, claimed that Their Life Was a Sad Song Entitled Good-Bye, My Lover ). As rumors had been insinuating for years, the sancta sanctorum of the American pursuit of happiness, its dream-factory Tinsel Town, hosted lust and perversion; the shocking truth emerged in novels devoted to A Hollywood Heyday of Dark Desire! (Don Hollidays Home of the Gay , Adult Books, 1968) and to The Hollywood Scenethe Way It Really Is; Wanton, Luscious, Lusting Hunks of Woman Flesh Who Will DoANYTHINGforANYONEfor Fameand Sensual Thrills! (Marion Archers Thrill Chicks , Bee-Line Books, 1969). Pulps were, in other words, Americas favorite mass-marketed obscenity show before The Jerry Springer Show