I wish there were a way to find out more about Sloane Britain, an amazingly talented pulp fiction writer who died way too young and under way too sad circumstances (she killed herself when her family could not deal with her being gay.) While some of what she wrote ended in unhappiness typical of lesbian fiction at the time, books like These Curious Pleasures and First Person 3rd Sex had something more upbeat to offer, either with actual happily ever afters or at least hints of something better to come.

There is so much to like about this book except maybe the title which doesn't exactly roll of the mouth easily. I found myself enjoying several of the passages...ones such as this:

"I felt like laughing because, well, let's admit it, if you're not feeling anything there is something absurd about normally self-controlled dignified human beings grunting and panting with that expression of complete absorption on their faces." Paula (our main character whose heart is bigger than her head and far less practical when it comes to her roommate Janet) contemplates how silly physical love can be without emotional ties.

There's another great line about the main character's history with crushes and, later, she wrestles with how hard it is to meet someone she could actually share a life with forever (something a lot of people search for whether they are gay or straight).

"All I was sure of," Paula thinks to herself, "was that someday, somewhere, I would find that woman who would love me as I loved her. I don't know her name or what she looks like or anything about her, only that as I write this she, too, is waiting."

To contemplate that this was written six decades ago, when most pulp fiction featuring gay women had them "changing their minds," killing themselves, or being committed to institutions...well, that just makes this impressionable book even more overwhelming.

Katherine V. Forrest, a somewhat more modern pioneer in lesbian fiction, once wrote about women like Sloane Britain: "The courage of the authors of these books also cannot be overstated, pseudonyms be damned. The writers of these books laid bare an intimate, hidden part of themselves and they did it under siege, in the dark depths of a more than metaphorical wartime, because there was desperate urgency inside them to reach out, to put words on the page for women like themselves to read. Their words reached us, they touched us in different and deeply personal ways, and they helped us all....In my case, they saved my life."

These words strike hard with the truth, especially for anyone who has ever suffered in silence for fear speaking out would cost them their family or worse.
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