After the birth of an explicitly gay and lesbian literature in the 1970s, the following decades saw a tremendous rise in its production. While gay male novels had more crossover appeal and often became mid-list sellers in mainstream publishing houses; lesbian literature, depending on smaller presses, developed smaller but 'respectable' audiences. In the 1980s, with the advent of sex-positive feminism, a few lesbian literary magazines began to specialize in more explicitly erotic work, such as "On Our Backs", a satirical reference to the feminist 1970s magazine, "Off Our Backs". The 1988 founding of the Lambda Literary Award, with several lesbian categories, helped increase the visibility of LGBT literature.