Acquired Tastes XLIII: Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 173 - Impact Library, Part 1 of 2

Acquired Tastes XLIII: 

Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 173

Impact Library

Part 1 of 2

I found very little information about Impact Library or it's publisher, Echelon Book Publishers, Inc.

They operated out of Los Angeles, CA at 5525 Wilshire Boulevard and published titles under the Impact Library imprint from 1967-1974. The bulk of their titles skewed hetero, with a great deal of attention focused on niche kink - whips, bondage, torture, women deflowering young boys, incest, oral sex, sex workers, interracial relationships, nature lovers, and all things then considered perverse. On the plus side, they had a handful of titles devoted to lesbian sex and about 20 titles dealing with gay males - a number of which were inspired by or translations of classic European titles along with the usual 'report' style books, purporting to be actual case histories/files. 

They certainly liked to fan a flame... take for example this tagline from 1971's I Never Touched Susie Harberger: "He was a sex-sick rapist, transvestite, animalist, male whore, yet his passions went like an arrow toward females." That covers a lot of ground, don't you think?

The cover art  for the gay male titles is pretty tame, but worth a look, as it is a part of gay history. Remember, these books did all they could to skirt their way around the censorship and obscenity laws of the time. 

So, let's take a look at the first ten gay male titles...

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Mister Venus

Author: W.F. Mosher

1968

IL-?

Impact Library

(Cover not found.)

This is a gay adaptation of Monsieur Vénus, a bit of classic French erotica written by a rich young woman to piss off her parents and kick start her writing career. She had a habit of blaming all the erotic content in her work on others; in this case, a fictionalized collaborator named 'F.T' or Francis Talman and in the case of her first novel, she convinced her parents that 'Swedish ghosts' were to blame.

From Wikipedia:

Monsieur Vénus is a novel written by the French symbolist and decadent writer Rachilde. Initially published in 1884, it was her second novel and considered her breakthrough work. Because of its highly erotic content, it was the subject of legal controversy and general scandal, bringing Rachilde into the public eye.

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The Muscle Lovers

 Author: Carlson Wade

 1967 

IL-221

Impact Library

I found a little bit of information about this author!

Carlson Wade

From Wikipedia:

Carlson Wade was born June 7, 1928 in New York City. He worked as a literary agent in New York starting in 1949 and was a member of the American Medical Writers Association. 

Wade first became known for his books on sexual topics such as fetishism, homosexuality, sadomasochism and transvestism. His The Trouble Sex, published in 1961, offered behavioral clues how the American public could 'detect' a lesbian. His work was classified as 'pulp sexology', for example his 1965 book Sexual Deviations of the American Female gave anthropological generalizations about lesbian subcultures.

Wade's books on dieting and health were criticized by medical experts as quackery. 1976's The New Enzyme-Catalyst Diet recommended with each meal to add raw fruit and vegetables such as bananas, celery, nuts and wheat germ. The diet forbid the consumption of fried, processed or sugar foods. Wade argued that raw fruits and vegetables "are prime sources of enzymes which then are used by your billions of body cells to alert the mitochondria to perform internal combustion; this action helps to melt the accumulated fat in your cells, and wash them right out of your body." However, this idea is not supported by scientific evidence. Dieticians noted that the statement is false because enzymes in foods are digested to amino acids and once absorbed play no enzymatic role.

Nutritionist Judith S. Stern commented that Wade's The New Enzyme-Catalyst Diet is filled with scientific misstatements such as "the most vital digestive enzyme is hydrochloric acid" and concluded that it is a "classroom example of a fad diet." Wade's book Health Food Recipes for Gourmet Cooking was criticized by Choice Reviews as "unintelligible jargon at best".

He passed away in 1993.

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Adam and Adam

 Author: R. C. Carruthers 

1967

 IL-228

Impact Library

Available as a downloadable ebook or PDF at Hommi Publishing for 95 cents!

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Anonymous Intimate Diaries of Homosexual Geniuses

Author: Anonymous

 1967

 IL-231

Impact Library

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Quatres of Cherry Grove

Author: A. L. Trokki

 1967 

IL-233

Impact Library

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Naked in Sodom

Author: Carlson Wade

 1967 

IL-234

Impact Library

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Only With His Own

Author:  Charles Davids

 1968 

IL-235

Impact Library

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 Author: Chauncey Whittington

69 Boy St.

1968 

IL-237

Impact Library

Featuring an introduction written by Carlson Wade.

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Author: Carlson Wade 

Boys of Boles Dorm

 1968 

IL-239

Impact Library

Found a copy of this one for $125 at AbeBooks.

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 Barry Crandall 

Duet for Two

 1968 

IL-240

Impact Library

Barry Crandall is responsible for a number of titles published as part of the Impact Library imprint: including two other gay titles (which we will take a look at next week) and 1968's Three Way Sex, which is about "Couples who seek hitch-hikers and third party lovers involving sodomy, spanking, bondage, flagellation and oralism."

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And that's all for now.

Next week: ten more Impact Library titles.

Until then...

Thanks for reading!

Adam - Sibel Alas