Being Queer Sociology

Without the lesbian pulp novels of the 1940’s through the 1960’s the United States and perhaps the world would be putting queer people in institutions; prisons and psychiatric wards just for being queer. The film Carol which is based on a lesbian pulp novel of that era is an excellent example of what women who are lesbian or bi-sexual might have had to deal with.

Books, Films, & History

In the 1940’s through the 60’s was a curious time for lesbian women where there where many laws against people’s sexual orientation. Queer people are discriminated against which was much worse for any queer person about 60 year ago. It was also very dangerous to be queer during this era as well, and it is still a little dangerous but not as much because of

Being queer is not something people chose like going on a diet or choosing what to wear and can’t be fixed by therapy, because it’s not something to be fixed, however that is what was and is taught and the lesbian pulp novels helped change that view in many ways. In Keller’s article about lesbian pulp novels from fifty to sixty years ago she shows a correlation of queer people’s views of themselves and how that improved by being able to read a story that they could relate with even if it was a biased story, because as she explains it helped homosexual people see that they aren’t flawed as society would say they were (2005). Society still says to people that are queer that they are flawed by the content that is portrayed, however one could say that the pulp novels of the 1950’s and 60’s helped change some of the way society views

A common misconception of queer people is that they decided to be like this, which the book subtly disputes in chapter 16 after the first time they had sex Therese asks Carol, “don’t you think it’s more pleasant than sleeping with men?” Carol told Therese that it depends on who the man is that she’s sleeping with that could make it enjoyable and Carol suggests that Therese try other men before deciding that its most pleasant with women. Carol goes on to say that, “whom you sleep with depends on habit”. This part of the book sends mixed signals by Carol saying that Therese’s just needs to experience other men, which says to the audience that they might not be lesbian if they just find the right man. In 1952 when the book was published the idea that a woman would be lesbian sometimes was based on moral depravity or that she just hasn’t found the right man to sleep with. Conversely, in the film Therese is portrayed as a lesbian who has never had sex with a man. The book and the film show how life was and how it is now. Even though the film was based in the past, by portraying Therese as more headstrong instead of the very shy nervous Therese from the book they both send different signals. The book says that a person needs to experience other things in life before knowing what they want, and the film