VICE VERSA
America’s Gayest Magazine
America’s Gayest Magazine
Sample copy of Vice Versa
"The Gopher Girls," by Lisa BenOne of Lisa Ben loved parody:
Some girls drink and some girls smoke
Some will tell a naughty joke Some girls work and some girls play And some girls lie in bed all day Some wear skirts and some wear pants Some go topless when they dance Some like dogs and some like cats But let me tell you where it's at: We are the Gopher Girls We only go for girls We never go for men So here we go again Have you had yours today I had mine yesterday That's why I walk this way Ta ra ra boom de ay! |
In 1947 Edyth Eyde was a secretary for an executive at RKO Studios, one of the Big Five motion pictures companies that ran Hollywood at that time. A lesbian from northern California, Eyde moved to Los Angeles to be a lesbian, free from parental control. She was a very fast typist with not enough work to keep her occupied. The executive ordered her to always look busy, as he wanted people to know what an important man he was, no reading or knitting at her desk. “I don’t care what you type, as long as you are typing something,” he said.[1] Eyde liked to read but was frustrated by the lack of access to interesting material, observing that if a library had any books “on That Subject they were kept in locked cabinets.”[2] She also wanted to meet other lesbians but was intimidated by the bars. So she decided to use her downtime at work to write her own simple magazine, nine to fourteen stapled pages, typed on a manual typewriter with carbons. This meant she “put in an original plus five sheets of carbon paper. That made a total of six copies.” Then she did it again. “There were no duplicating machines in those days, and, of course, I couldn’t go to a printer.”[3] Michelle Tea and her ‘zine parties of computers, glue stick and photocopier had nothing on Vice Versa.
Eyde mailed a few copies and distributed the rest at the legendary lesbian bar, the If Cafė. She had an introductory manifesto, explaining that newsstands carried materials for everyone except “a definite group. Why? Because Society decrees it thus.”[4] Vice Versa had movie and film reviews, poetry, nothing sexually explicit, and no four-letter words. It did not even have Eyde’s name (she did not use the moniker ‘Lisa Ben’ a play on ‘lesbian’ until later) or address. After someone pointed out that she could get into trouble if the post office determined it obscene, she stopped mailing and only handed it out in bars. She considered it a labor of love and never charged for it. Vice Versa ended when Eyde lost her job during the purge brought on after Howard Hughes gained majority control of the studio, but the nine-month publication lived on in treasured copies passed along. Several years later, when ONE Magazine was recruiting lesbians to work on staff, the women who were most willing were those who had read and treasured Vice Versa.[5] A forerunner of the modern ‘zine, the name Vice Versa came from vice, as homosexuality was classified in most people’s minds and versa, the lesbian life was contrary to most people’s lives. While Eyde always insisted she had no political aims, she lived her life among gay people as much as she could. Rodger Streitmatter writes that the longest item ever to appear in Vice Versa, was a short story where a intoxicated homophobe blacks and awakens to a world where he is the only non-homosexual. ONE Inc.’s Jim Kepner noted that the essential structure of Vice Versa, “set the pattern that hundreds” of gay and lesbian publications “followed”.[6] There was no process for disseminating news, so Vice Versa contained mostly fiction and the publications that followed, did as well. This “concept…would become a staple of the lesbian and gay press for the next two decades: using short stories and poetry to communicate political messages.”[7] [1] Rodger Streitmatter, Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1995, 4. [2] Kate Brandt, “Lisa Ben: A Lesbian Pioneer,” Visibilities January/February 1990, 8. Web. http://www.queermusicheritage.us/viceversa0.html [3] Streitmatter, Unspeakable, 4. [4] “Lisa Ben,” Vice Versa 1:1, 1. Accessed 9 December 2013. http://www.queermusicheritage.us/viceversa1.html [5] Faderman and Timmons, L.A. Gay, 4-9. [6] Streitmatter, Unbreakable, 2. [7] Streitmatter, Unbreakable, 9. |