PENETRATING JOURNALISM

The best reporters know how to lay their subjects bare.

In these virus times we need viral stories more than ever. An item hit the wires yesterday concerning Louise Fischer, a journalist in Denmark, who conducted an interview at a suburban Copenhagen sex club called Swingland and got into the swing herself. In a move that would have impressed Hunter S. Thompson, she demonstrated experiential journalism to the utmost and took her interviewee on a Fischer expedition. Her story originally dealt with the club reopening after many months closed due to virus prevention. We mean COVID-19, not HPV. But the story evolved. The video clip she later posted lasted only two minutes, but we can be pretty sure her research went on longer than that. This actually happened back in March, but it takes time for rumors about who you had sex with to proliferate. Trust us—we know. A prude has to find out, then they’ll check to be sure everyone they know is outraged.

Yesterday Denmark’s Radio 4 reshared the interview, and this time British and U.S. internet outlets provided the prudes by spreading the story far and wide. Anytime someone talks about sex it’s the perfect clickbait to agitate legions of self-appointed moral judges, particularly when that sex comes without negative consequences and abject regret attached. We glanced at the comment threads on a couple of websites and were reminded what benighted lives some people lead. Many commenters zeroed in on the reactions of Fischer’s parents, who dared to not be outraged or shamed, and even, seemingly, believe that sex is a part of life and casual sex can be healthy and fun.

As a sex positive site, we here at Pulp Intl. didn’t blink. If our parents had been more open about sex we’d have spent less time reading Penthouse Letters, and PSGP probably wouldn’t have torn his ulnar collateral ligament masturbating. Reconstructive surgery was a wake-up call, and he’s sexually healthy today. We have a few friends who aren’t. Some are so repressed that their lives have been ruined. We think of one in particular who was so intent on saving her virginity for the right

man—who of course had to be wealthy and handsome and funny but mainly wealthy—that she reached her middle thirties with only a single unfulfilling sexual experience on her résumé and was in therapy trying to discover her self worth. We’re talking about a good-looking woman. Nicely proportioned, creamy skin, nose surgically nudged toward perfection. We tried to steer a male friend or two her way but her doctrine of having a like-new vagina to bestow upon a future husband scared away well-adjusted guys by the third date.

Fischer has some ideas about sexual repression too. Here she is in her own words: “Hypersensitivity to our own sexuality and drive is dangerous. At least I totally believe that you can and should do what you want. Then life becomes much more fun.” We agree, and we’re all about her in-depth journalism. Find a story, follow wherever it leads, even if it’s on top of a dick. Her objective assessment: “It wasn’t the best sex I ever had.” But it wasn’t bad either, judging by the moans that can be heard emanating from the interview audio (see captions below). Would we go to a swinger’s club? Only if we wanted our crab-gnawed corpses to wash up on the local beach with dents in our skulls matching the Pulp Intl. girlfriends’ prized cast iron skillet. But even if we were single we wouldn’t do it. Just not our bag. But it’s some people’s bag and we respect that. And we respect Louise Fischer. Hell, we admire her. She’ll get genuine laughs telling her swingers club story for the rest of her life.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1920—League of Nations Holds First Session

The first assembly of the League of Nations, the multi-governmental organization formed as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, is held in Geneva, Switzerland. The League begins to fall apart less than fifteen years later when Germany withdraws. By the onset of World War II it is clear that the League has failed completely.

1959—Clutter Murders Take Place

Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas by Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith. The events would be used by author Truman Capote for his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, which is considered a pioneering work of true crime writing. The book is later adapted into a film starring Robert Blake.

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.

Robert McGinnis cover art for Basil Heatter’s 1963 novel Virgin Cay.
We've come across cover art by Jean des Vignes exactly once over the years. It was on this Dell edition of Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Untitled cover art from Rotterdam based publisher De Vrije Pers for Spelen op het strand by Johnnie Roberts.
Italian artist Carlo Jacono worked in both comics and paperbacks. He painted this cover for Adam Knight's La ragazza che scappa.

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