Pulp Intl. friend Jacques Puiseux staged a gallery show earlier this autumn and e-mailed over a few of his pulp influenced pieces. The exhibition was in Aup, a small town in the French Provence region, and Jacques’ trompe l’œil pin-ups mimicking vinyl records managed to draw the attention of local feminists, female and male, who staged a protest concerning objectification of the female body. Apparently, they compared his work to the famed Pirelli calendars and said Jacques was almost as bad as Donald Trump.
Pulp Intl. would doubtless likewise be labeled sexist by these particular protesters, but of course a pulp history website could hardly fail to be. We would simply suggest that appreciation for beauty, whether male or female, is not inherently exploitative. While many feminists are actually quite vocal in their appreciation of beauty and sex (personified by the new wave of woman centered porn websites), a subset seem to believe that any male expression of appreciation for female beauty is a form of violence.
As we’ve mentioned before, since 99.9% of humans came into being through an act of sex, and sex drives our existence, biologically speaking, it follows that it’s unreasonable to expect it not to be on people’s minds much of the time. We’re all wired that way. And since it is on people’s minds, those thoughts and desires will be expressed. We agree there’s a best and worst way to do it, and that a refusal should be taken at face value, and that safety is paramount, but we disagree that any expression of sexual interest by an unknown male toward a unknown female is wrong.
The feminist cause is right and moral, but we don’t imagine the coming world as one in which women are never looked at by unknown men as sexual beings, or approached by unknown men at bars or parties, or complimented on their beauty by unknown men. We imagine a world in which those things happen and it goes only as far as a woman’s consent permits. That might be no farther than a few exchanged words, but conversely it might go all the way to someone’s bed for a lovely night. Doesn’t that sound like a fun world?
Jacques, we think, would agree. He’s a guy who thinks women are beautiful and that interest comes out in his art, as it has for countless other artists and always will. He also likes pulp, et voilà—what you get is what he’s done above and below. We really like these, and they fit nicely into our conception of modern pulp. You can see a few more Puiseux pulp stylings at this link.
