Friday March 20 1970 the editorial committee of the New York Times made an exception. Normally Denmark never figured in the headlines of the most influential newspaper in the world. What happened in this little corner of Europe was simply too unimportant. But as mentioned: this was no longer so. The Americans had to get informed of the situation, and spread across three columns one could read the horrifying truth: »Danes open a 4-Day Sex Show that Shows All.«

The occasion was, that a pornography-fare had been arranged in Odense - the birth city of HC Andersen, and that story had an out of the ordinary impact. From New York it flowed through the usual channels and reached the farthest outskirts of the world. Denmark was thrown into the spotlight of the world with the power of a tidal wave. And in the following years, no citizen in the kingdom could avoid taking position on the imperative problem, that the nation had gotten a stain on its reputation. "Danish morals" was not a highly rated concept in southern Europe, and what was thought of us on the other shore of the Mediterranean, one did not dare to ponder.

Already back in 1969, a Danish lady living in Italy had voiced her indignation in a newspaper opinion piece titled: »Our Disrepute. I feel an urge to let everybody home in Denmark know, that we Danes have a very bad reputation - at least down here in Italy. During the last two weeks, the widely-read weekly »Epaca« has had countless pages about the more and more easygoing morality in Denmark. Group families, porn, etc., etc. Richly illustrated. And our friends makes it clear to us, that what is said about the Danes, is hardly flattering. It hurts to hear, and you ask yourself, why it is like this. One would prefer to feel proud of one's native country.«

From the embassies, frequent reports arrived, about troubles carrying out the traditional duty to fertilize the ground for Danish business interests, now that the porn-industry had discovered an almost insatiable market for export. England had traditionally imported all kinds of Danish meat products, but now it was too much, and the 1st of may 1971 this newspaper was carrying the headline: »The British Offended by Danish Porn.« The Danish embassy in London had received more then 100 complaints from British citizens who had received pornographic materials from Denmark by mail. That was bad enough in itself. But especially one single case had resounded, since it was claimed that a women had suffered a nervous breakdown after receiving one of these shipments, and had had to be hospitalized as a result.