Cold War anxieties created a conservative milieu after WWII that sought to contain communism gobally and women locally. A heteronormative ideology of domestication denied gains won by women during the war, persecuted homosexuals, and equated lesbianism with oversexed women and prostitutes. Yet the era also saw a blossoming gay and lesbian community, united not just by persecution but by perserverance. Pulp novels display all the fear and anxiety of the age- they also celebrate emerging gay and lesbian communities.
