Faderman L
J Homosex. 1986 May;12(3-4):23-42. doi: 10.1300/J082v12n03_04.
Because lesbianism, as described by sexologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was treated overtly in a number of novels of the 1920s, while earlier literature seemed seldom to recognize its existence, it appeared that what had been a taboo subject suddenly "came out of the closet" in a liberal and sophisticated era. In fact, fiction of earlier eras often dealt with love between women in the most romantic and positive terms. The fiction of the 1920s was no more frank about affection between women than its predecessors, but it differed from earlier work by depicting women who loved other women as congenitally abnormal, neurotic, peculiar, or outcast. These changes in the literary view of love between women came about because the spread of sexology "wisdom" created a hitherto seldom acknowledged category of abnormality. Women's increasing economic independence opened the possibility of permanence in such relationships, posing an ostensible threat to heterosexuality. And the new interest in companionate marriage encouraged heterosociality and heterosexuality as it had not been encouraged before, to the exclusion of love between women.
19世纪末20世纪初的性学家所描述的女同性恋现象，在20世纪20年代的一些小说中得到了公开探讨，而早期文学似乎很少承认其存在，因此在一个自由而成熟的时代，一个曾经的禁忌话题似乎突然“出柜”了。事实上，早期时代的小说常常以最浪漫和积极的方式来描绘女性之间的爱情。20世纪20年代的小说在描写女性之间的情感方面并不比其前辈更坦率，但它与早期作品的不同之处在于，它将爱上其他女性的女性描绘成天生不正常、神经质、怪异或被社会抛弃的人。文学中对女性之间爱情看法的这些变化是因为性学“智慧”的传播创造了一个迄今为止很少被承认的异常类别。女性经济独立性的增强使得这种关系有可能长久维持，这对异性恋构成了表面上的威胁。而且，对伴侣婚姻的新兴趣鼓励了异性社交和异性恋，这种鼓励是前所未有的，以至于将女性之间的爱情排除在外。
