Not every first encounter with lesbian pulp fiction was so transformative. Soon after, the two became lovers Hutkin left her husband, and they began a new life together. Finally, she wondered whether she might, in fact, be “like that,” too. Her friend presented her with one salacious-looking book, then another, and another-she had “millions” of the volumes, Hutkin remembers, with the same “wonderful” covers and suggestive taglines: “twilight women,” “forbidden love,” “illicit passion.” Once Hutkin was hooked on the stories, her friend made a confession: “I think I’m like that.”Īt first, Hutkin says, she was horrified. At the time, she says, marriage “was the only way a young woman could get out of her house.” It was the early 1960s, in Montreal, and Hutkin had recently married at 21. When Reva Hutkin’s friend from night school offered to lend her something to read, it must have seemed wholly innocent.
