Ep. 3: The Search for Sapphic Stories: A Dive into Gerber/Hart's Erotica Archive
The Gerber/Hart Erotica Collection
“I think it’s great that we have material available, so you don’t feel like you’re alone. You’ve got a place to come where you mean something as well, you’re not being left out. That’s the importance of the collection to me.” - Steven F., volunteer
Gerber/Hart’s collection of erotica is one of the largest in the Midwestern United States. It is made up of magazines, films, novels, catalogs, calendars, comics, and more. This collection is not available for check-out: it is primarily used by researchers, exhibit curators, and artists. In this episode, we celebrate the sheer existence of this collection, and of LGBTQ+ erotica as a whole. However, upon deeper inspection, the erotica collection paints a lackluster picture of representation of women who love women, bisexuality, the trans community…pretty much anyone who is not a cisgender white gay male.
Magazines
Thousands of periodicals, spanning the 1950s through the 2020s, sit in a temperature-controlled archive. Our “Pre-Stonewall” collection features publications from before 1969: largely “beefcake” and muscle magazines celebrating the male physique.
Films and Media
Next to the magazines are over 12,000 movies, all in formats like Betamax, VHS, and DVD. We also have over 300 8 millimeter and Super 8 adult films which are still being processed and cataloged. We have to keep several types of obsolete media players (like working VCRs) and projectors / viewers to review these types of films.
Pulp Novels and Erotic Fiction
We have well over 1,000 paperback pulp novels in our erotica collection. The vast majority of those represented were published between 1980-1992. An intern helped process and create an online exhibit about the transgender erotic fiction in our collection too: a handful of titles from Empathy Press, Sandy Thomas Advertising, and Reluctant Press.
What is "erotica"?
Erotica is defined as literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire, whereas pornography is described as printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings (OED). In many cases, the line between the two definitions is paper thin. The definitions are also highly subjective, dependent upon the person, place, and time. Most of the items in our erotica collection were once part of someone’s personal porn stash!
The Challenges with Collecting and Preserving Erotica
"I think the concern with some funders is what, what a headline could look like…Certain government funders, potentially politicians, the risk of the headline of “politician supports porn” makes people nervous.” -Jen Dentel, Community Outreach and Strategic Partnerships Manager
Famously, erotica has long been controlled and restricted - and in most cases, wholly forbidden - in how it can be accessed, who can access it, and who can make it. Erotica has been declared “obscene,” and “immoral,” making anyone in possession of it or affiliated with it a criminal or ne’er-do-well. Even though erotica has been around since approximately 2000 B.C.E., there is still a cultural discomfort with the idea of representations of desire and sexuality.
What this means is that, as a small community repository that does include an erotica collection in our archives, certain sources of funding and support are cut off from us. Some businesses and folks in politics are reluctant to offer sponsorships or grants because they want to preserve a “family-friendly” image, despite the fact that our erotica collection is just one part of our library and archives.
Being a small community library and archives means that we have limited space for our collections. Currently, we house almost all of our Special Collections - including the erotica - in a temperature-controlled space. And because the erotica collection can only be accessed by people 18 years and older, visitors under that age cannot go into that entire archival room. Our library and exhibit space are kept accessible for visitors of all ages, so we do not put anything graphic on display. We have also experienced censorship through very biased algorithms on social media when we post anything deemed “inappropriate” by the platforms (having posts flagged or completely removed), even though we do not post anything graphic.
How is the erotica collection used?
Even though we are limited in how we can use the materials in the erotica collection, they do get quite a bit of attention!
The main way the collection is used is by researchers coming to leaf through pages, or occasionally to watch historic videos. There has been a growing interest in the cultural value of pulp novels too - the types of stories and relationships depicted, and what they meant to queer audiences during their time of publication. Artists have also looked through our erotica periodicals for inspiration: one regular visitor repurposes scans of erotica magazine models and settings into beautiful, intimate collages.
With our video collection, researchers have watched films shot in specific locations: the film In Man’s Country (1996) offers viewers a unique glimpse inside the space of the now-closed Chicago gay bathhouse and bar Man’s Country. The erotica video collection also provides a visual timeline of fashion and desirable appearance trends, language and slang, and sexual behavior before, during, and after the AIDS epidemic.
Sapphic Representation in Gerber/Hart's Collection
“I would say [Gerber/Hart’s erotica collection] is less than 20% like lesbian and femme to 80% gay, male, gay masc. It's less than that, though…I'm sad that there aren't, there isn't a broader representation in our current erotica collection that it is primarily a lot of cis white men.” - Erin Bell, Operations Director
The representation of LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary folks in our erotica collection is bleak. In the episode, Operations Director Erin Bell estimates that representation of anyone who is not a cis gay man is less than 20%. Unfortunately, the numbers are even lower than that.
Of our cataloged pulp novels, less than 5% contain stories with cis or trans women, or possess the subject heading of “bisexuality” or "lesbian." There are several pulp novels that feature sex between cis women, but not all of them are classified as erotica.
Our video collection has even fewer titles: just shy of 100 titles mention lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or generally appear to center women's sexuality. In total, these make up less than 1% of our entire erotica video collection. Of that 1%, we have holdings from Fatale / Fatale Video, Blowfish Video, and even Chicago sex toy shop Early to Bed, which all produced films for the sapphic community between the 1980s - early 2000’s.
In our magazines and periodicals, we have a few titles that get used regularly reflecting sapphic representation: Bad Attitude, Fat Girl and On Our Backs. These are some of our most requested periodicals from the erotica collection.
These totals reflect many scenarios, both in Gerber/Hart’s collecting history, the types of people donating to our collection, as well as the state of the LGBTQ+ erotic publishing world and opinions towards anyone who is not a cis gay male in the LGBTQ+ adult industry.
What does erotica for women look like?
“So the question is, can you tell the difference between lesbian porn made by women for women and lesbian porn made for men or made for the male gaze?...I think it's actually really hard to tell the difference, especially with kink and especially with leather…” - Mel L., Archivist and Librarian at Leather Archives & Museum.
What does erotica for women look like? As Mel said above, it can be tough to tell the difference between materials made for the sapphic gaze, versus materials made for a straight male audience. But there are some materials at both the Leather Archives and Gerber/Hart that are representative of erotica made by-and-for women.
First, a quick look at one of the erotica creators and publications Mel mentioned:
Barbara Behr & House of Milan
Did you know that Chicago was home to the first fetish clothing store in the United States? Futura Fashions opened at 162 N. State in the fall of 1964, the first of its kind in the country. Founded and operated by couple Barbara Behr and Yogi Klein, the store stayed in business until 1969 when it closed and Behr moved the business to California. There, Behr reopened the store as House of Milan, a mail-order business that was an incredibly influential supplier and distributor of BDSM-oriented materials. House of Milan produced several publications every month as well as audiovisual materials. One of the most well-known of the publications was Bound to Please. Behr’s letters from the editor often included the phrase “Bound to Please magazine is for the bondage enthusiast who loves his/her wife/husband,” which opens up the interpretation that this publication, largely produced and created by women, was made by and for a lesbian audience.
To learn more about Barbara Behr and her fetish publication empire, check out this great article from the Chicago Reader. And be sure to visit the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago!
Here is some more information about sapphic erotica creators and publications we have at Gerber/Hart in our erotica collection:
On Our Backs
In 1984, On Our Backs became the first completely women-led erotica magazine in the world and the first one to feature lesbian content for a lesbian audience in the United States. Founded by Debi Sundahl and Myrna Elana, contributor Susie Bright became the editor for the first six years. The magazine was one of the few sex positive lesbian magazines of its time, featuring nude photo spreads and frank conversations about lesbian sexuality. The title of the magazine was a reference to “off our backs,” a radical feminist magazine that was considered “prudish” in its perspective on women’s sexuality. On Our Backs published until 2006.
Fat Girl
From Fat Girl’s website, Fat Girl (spelled FaT GiRL) was “a collective run zine ‘for fat dykes and the women who want them.’” It published seven full size issues between 1994-1997. A group of friends out of the San Francisco Bay Area wanted to see magazines featuring fat people, engaged in political discussion and celebrating queerness. The zines were full of articles, photography, manifestos, and poetry. “FaT GiRL created a visual culture of ‘living out loud,’ and in doing so created new possibility models for robust, joyous, connected queer fat lives.” The entire zine is available digitally through their website.
Fatale Media
Two of the founders and early contributors of On Our Backs, Debi Sundahl and Nan Kinney, started producing a series of lesbian erotic videos in 1985, under the name Fatale Video. In just a few years’ time the company became the largest producer of lesbian pornography in the world. They have produced videos and DVDs and still have some videos available to stream through their website. One of their most famous and bestselling films is ironically titled “Bend Over Boyfriend,” a video guide featuring women using strap-ons for the first time with their male partners.
Early to Bed
Early to Bed is an adult toy store that opened in Chicago in 2001. The owner, Searah Deysach, sought to create a shopping experience that felt comfortable and supportive, not shameful or secretive. “I was actually interested in representation of queer women[‘s] sexuality in porn basically before I even had a sex toy store,” Deysach says in the episode. In the first decade of the store’s operation, Deysach collaborated with filmmaker Carolyn Caizzi to produce a few erotic lesbian films through Early to Bed Productions. Caizzi donated copies of each of these films to Gerber/Hart’s archives and erotica collection.
Where do we go from here?
"Archives like Gerber/Hart reflect their founders' priorities. But they don't have to reflect our priorities. For years, women have faced the ubiquitous message that their sexuality had less value without a man involved. Even today, erotical created by and for women is often undervalued or overlooked...there has always been a demand for lesbian erotica. The problem isn't lack of interest: it's whose stories we've been taught to save." -Chijoke Williams, Unboxing Queer History Season 2 producer.
So, how to we save lesbian erotica? How do we close these gaps on the shelves and make Gerber/Hart's collection more representative? There are a number of steps we can take:
- Adjust our collecting policies to focus on underrepresented parts of the LGBTQ+ community.
- Identify certain publishers, authors, and creators and seek out those titles for our collection, such as works made by the production companies listed above.
- Continue to highlight what we do have through displays and social media posts (working within guidelines for erotica).
- Increase access through cataloging and making lists of our resources available to the public.
- Put out calls to the community for donations of specific items, sharing wishlists on our website and/or posted inside our space at Gerber/Hart.
- Seeking out partnerships with community organizations or institutions with more representative erotica collections and offerings, highlighting their work.
Just as we say at the end of the episode: if you find yourself in possession of some lesbian smut in need of a new home - be it in magazine, video, novel, or another format not mentioned here - please consider donating it to our collection!
A brief dictionary of some terms mentioned above:
Beefcake: a photographic display of muscular men. A.k.a., a “hunk.” The term first appears in the 1940s as a way of describing shirtless muscular Hollywood stars. (Neatorama, “The Origins of the terms Cheesecake and Beefcake,” 2013).
BDSM: Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism. An acronym used to encompass various activities and relationships within the kink scene (The Aftercare Lounge, “Glossaries,” 2023).
Erotica: literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire (OED).
Monograph: a book, pamphlet or document that is complete in itself; it's the opposite of a periodical or serial publication which are continuing resources (Simon Fraser University, 2018).
Pornography: printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings (OED).
Pulp novels: Pulp novels and magazines were an inexpensive and quick way of getting stories published, spanning numerous genres like romance, hardboiled detective mysteries, and science fiction. Hundreds of novels could be produced in a year for very low costs. They were published on cheap wood pulp paper (how they got their name) and meant for quick consumption, not long-term preservation.
Serials: items published under the same title, generally as separate issues or annual texts. Think newspapers, magazines, annual reports, yearbooks, and more (University of North Texas, 2022).