Vice Versa (magazine)
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Third issue, August 1947
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| Categories | Periodical |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Publisher | Edith Eyde (Lisa Ben) |
| Founder | Edith Eyde |
| First issue | June 1947 |
| Final issue — Number |
February 1948 9 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Los Angeles, California |
| Language | English |
| OCLC number | 1624255 |
Vice Versa (1947–1948), subtitled "America's Gayest Magazine", is the earliest known U.S. periodical published especially for lesbians, as well as the earliest extant example of the lesbian and gay press in that country.
Vice Versa was the project of Lisa Ben (an anagram of "lesbian"), a secretary at RKO Studios in Los Angeles. By her own account, Ben had "a lot of time to herself" at work and, starting in June 1947, "twice each month typed out five carbons and one original of Vice Versa. She recalled being told by her boss that he didn't care what she was typing, but he wanted her to "look busy" so people at the studio would think he was important.
She described the intention of the magazine being to create "a medium through which we may express our thoughts, our emotions, our opinions- as long as material was 'within the bounds of good taste'".
The nine issues of Vice Versa created by Lisa Ben "combined a unique editorial mix and a highly personal style" and opened up a forum for lesbians to communicate with each other via readers' letters, personal essays, short fiction and poetry. The first issue was 15 pages long; subsequent issues ranged from 9 to 20 pages.
In Unspeakable, his history of the gay and lesbian press in the United States, journalist and historian Rodger Streitmatter noted that Vice Versa "contained no bylines, no photographs, no advertisements, no masthead and neither the name or address of its editor... yet it set the agenda that has defined lesbian and gay journalism for 50 years." As examples of the 'defining qualities' of the magazine, Jim Kepner, founder and curator of the International Gay and Lesbian Archives cites Vice Versa's mix of editorials, short stories, poetry, book and film reviews and a letters column as setting "the pattern that hundreds [of gay and lesbian magazines] have followed".
The publication was free and Ben initially mailed three copies to friends and distributed the rest by hand, encouraging her readers to pass their copies along to friends rather than throwing them away. Ben believes that several dozen people read each copy. Although scrupulous about avoiding material that could be considered "dirty" or risqué, she stopped mailing copies after a friend advised her that she could be arrested for sending obscene material through the mail. Publications addressing homosexuality were automatically deemed obscene under the until 1958.
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