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| Make time for pleasure in your busy day! You'll be glad you did! |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).
The article; "Time Out for Pleasure." Originally published in Girl Mates (Gallery Press), vol. 1, no. 1, September/October 1975. Credited to "Ann Gora."
Excerpt: "The lesbian wife sooner or later will not be satisfied with just a night or two out with the girls. She will become more and more demanding for her freedom. She will want full-time lovers because the lesbian has a tremendous appetite for sexual thrills and pleasures. The man can't give it to her. She is like a vegetable under him. He is getting no sex pleasure and neither is she. The only thing left is separation. "
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| A haven for homosexuals? Ed Wood says yes. |
Reflections: Sometimes, the title of an Ed Wood article will give you a good idea of its contents. In this series of reviews, for instance, we've already encountered "Necrophilia: Love of the Dead," "Origins of a Fur Fetishist," and "Witchcraft in America Today." At other times, however, an article's title will yield no useful information whatsoever. All I knew about "Time Out for Pleasure," beyond its very vague name, was that it was included in the chapter about lesbianism. What could that phrase mean? To me, it sounded like an advertising slogan, perhaps the motto of a cigarette company. ("Gals, take time out for pleasure with Virginia Slims.")
The article is indeed about female homosexuals. In fact, it's very similar to yesterday's article, "Lesbian Understanding," in that it tries to offer a big-picture, broad-spectrum view of the lesbian lifestyle. Eddie, once again writing as "Ann Gora," even includes a few biographical details about the Greek poetess Sappho (c. 630 BC-570 BC), whose very name has become synonymous with same-sex love. "Her name lives down through the ages," Eddie tells us, "because she made famous an aristocratic society of women which decreed that the only true love was woman to woman."
Eddie then fast-forwards to the present day and says that "there have been vast changes in the lesbian makeup during the past few years in our own generation." People are more open and honest about their sexuality, he tells us, and some psychiatrists are even starting to give the A-OK to this lesbianism thing. Without citing any specific names or dates, Ed Wood offers this example of how things have improved for male and female homosexuals in a relatively short amount of time:
Little can be said of the gay guys and girls of the past because they were hiding in some kind of obscurity, except for the clinical studies and many were telling the interviewer what they would like their lives to be and not what they really were. But one thing for sure was the fear of losing their job. It happened in the state building in Washington, D.C., a few summers ago. A great majority of the state employees were of the gay world and it was felt that they were good prospects for blackmail, and since they were in positions of importance they had to be dismissed. Finally the courts took up the case and most of those who wanted to be reinstated were, by law, put back on the job. They were no more dangerous to security than any other person who tastes of sexual happenings of a different nature than the old missionary position.
I guess, when Eddie says "state building" and "state employees," he's referring to the United States Department of State, headquartered in the Harry S. Truman Building. Was there a "gay scare" in Washington in the late '60s or early '70s? Perhaps Ed Wood is obliquely referencing the "lavender scare" of the 1950s.
Shifting focus from the political to the personal: Ed tells us that lesbians occasionally find themselves trapped in unsatisfying heterosexual marriages, leading to some major emotional and legal problems. Sure, some husbands may understand and even let their wives have occasional nights out with "the girls" (wink, wink). But the true lesbian soon wants more, and a divorce is inevitable. I couldn't help but be reminded of the "divorce court" scene from Glen or Glenda (1953).
Speaking of that film, compare this passage from "Time Out for Pleasure":
Times are changing. Few are hiding their problem. To them it is not a problem, it is their way of life, their enjoyment and to hell with who cares one way or another.To this speech from Glen or Glenda:
Very few transvestites wish to change their strange desires. This is their life. To take it away from them might do as great a harm as taking away an arm or a leg or life itself.
Remarkably similar, right? It would seem that Ed Wood tries to understand lesbianism by comparing it to his own penchant for cross-dressing.
P.S. Some miscellaneous publication details about this article. First published in 1975 in the premiere issue of a lesbian-themed Gallery Press magazine called Girl Mates, "Time Out for Pleasure" is one of the later pieces included in When the Topic is Sex. Greg Dziawer has indicated that the Pendulum/Gallery magazine empire was slowing down a bit by '75. But it looks like they were still occasionally tossing some work Eddie's way. This may well have been thee only issue of Girl Mates ever released. Ed Wood likely wrote the editorial for this particular magazine. He references this briefly in "Time Out for Pleasure." This issue of Girl Mates also included Ed's short story "The Loser."
Next: "The Divorcee's Dilemma" (1973)