Women's Health Booklet “Abnormal Love Between Women” purports to recount a double murder-suicide "driven by suppressed lesbian desire " 1937

[Women's History][LGBTQ] Your Body: Health, Science, Sex Problems, Body Care. New York: Popular Medicine, March 1937. First edition. Original silver and rust-red pictorial wraps featuring neoclassical nude figures. A controversial pseudo-medical monthly edited by psychiatrist and science fiction writer Dr. David H. Keller, published at the nexus of science, sexuality, and social anxiety during the interwar period. This issue is notable for its pathologizing "study" of lesbian desire in the article “Abnormal Love Between Women,” alongside other topics relating to women’s bodies, surgical reconstruction, censorship, and aging sexuality. “Abnormal Love Between (truncated) Women” purports to recount a double murder-suicide driven by suppressed lesbian desire between college women, using the case to cast aspersions on the American higher education system. The article relies on thinly veiled pseudoscience to pathologize same-sex female intimacy, referencing “masculine roles,” “fixation,” and mental instability, and concludes with grim prognostications for the future of “homosexual tragedies.” While the article utilizes outdated theories of human sexuality that may be considered offensive today, it is a valuable artifact of common mid-century perceptions of same-sex relationships.

Other articles of interest include the more prescient “Why American Mothers Die,” by Frank Leighton Wood, M.D., a sobering examination of maternal mortality which cites Japan’s lower rates and challenges the adequacy of hospital antiseptic practice; “Reconstructing Damaged Bodies by Surgery,” by Raymond LaPeyrade, M.D., discussing skin and organ grafting advancements; and “Who Are Too Old to Marry?” by Edward Podolsky, M.D., which awkwardly defends postmenopausal sexual viability through folkloric case studies. Moderate edge wear with minor chipping at spine ends and fore-edge. Light toning and some brittleness to interior leaves. Binding remains sound and complete. Overall good condition. An unusually well-preserved and culturally revealing artifact of sexual pseudoscience in Depression-era America, of particular value to scholars of LGBTQ history and gender politics. (Inventory #: 22206)