I read “The Mists of Avalon” a long time ago, and while it was well-written, some things smelled kind of “off” to me, but it took this information coming out to snap the last pieces of the puzzle into place.
And the problem wasn’t restricted to this couple either. It’s been an issue in sci-fi fandom for a while. Here is a document, rather lengthy but comprehensive on the issue:
WARNING: Some of this could be very difficult to read, on account of the unsparing nature of the material.
If your stomach is still holding up well after that, look up “Breendoggle”, and you will find 60’s-era ‘zines that show that Walter Breen’s tendencies were already well-known in southern California fandom at that time.
Walter Breen was one of the most knowledgeable experts on US coins to ever been involved in the numismatic business.
I knew people who knew him. They were always interested in his numismatic opinions but they all knew he was a monster.
Why they didn’t shun this man when so many in the business knew what he was is really disturbing.
As a child, I was an avid consumer of SF; my parents paid the bills for my "membership" in the "Science Fiction Book Club," from about 1966 into the mid-70s.
One thing I remember clearly is that the marketing literature for the "Book Club" contained imagery that I found disturbing as, as a pre-pubescent boy. I didn't understand why at the time, but I would stare at some of the images, which I found attractive and repellent at the same time. One I remember in particular was of a demon-like creature with (what I now realize were) feminine features of the lower body, exposed to an extent that would have been considered near-pornographic if they had depicted an actual human being. There were others as well, and all of them together caused me to think that the "Science Fiction Book Club" had something strange about it.
The other thing about that time was that as I continued to receive SF books from the "club," they began to get more sexual in content. One I remember distinctly was about time travel, and it contained an actual homosexual relationship, although the words "homosexual" or "gay" didn't appear in the story. I'm sorry, but I can't remember the title of the book. I do remember, however, that it was that book that caused me to tell my father that I didn't want to get any more books from the Science Fiction Book Club, and that he could stop paying for them.
The Safe Space As Rape Room document helps to fill in some of the details of what may have been going on at that time, and with that club.
One thing I do know, as an adult, is that the books that were being published by the "Club" in its early years were mostly reprints of novels and collections of short stories from the so-called "Golden Age" of SF, in the 40s and 50s. As time went on, however, they ran out of that material, and had to publish younger authors; it is from these sources that some of the disturbing sexual concepts began to be introduced, I believe.
Although it is true that in at least one instance, a "Golden Ager" did include at least the concept of homosexuality in one of his books: in Time Enough For Love, Robert Heinlein includes at least one character who is bisexual by implication; the only actual sexual encounters in the novel are between the main character and his own mother, via time travel (in the section entitled Maureen).
I never attended any science fiction "conventions"; in fact, I didn't know there were such things until I was in college.
It's disturbing to know that I brushed close to that world.
I believe I was solicited by the "Science Fiction Book Club" because I had a subscription to Scientific American as well as Science at that time.
It may also be that they got my name as a result of my attending, over a period of years, a lecture series on science in my home town. I know we were solicited by other "gifted children"-type publishers when I was young, probably because my name was on a list of children who attended those lectures.