Berlin, “laboratory of counter-cultures” and sexual freedom

• The editorial staff of 20 Minutes accompanies you during the summer.

  Because this period is often that of big nonsense on the heart and on the ass side, the "club of 4" at your service gives you some "hot stuff" to spend two months "tchatchatcha", every Monday evening at 7:30 p.m.

  So if you don't know what to talk about at aperitif time, we're here and, in the headset, we talk to you about nudes, Tinder vacations, skin and hot sand.

• In this sixth episode of our series "And more so affinities", we take a vacation in Berlin, elected fifth most sexual city in the world.

  Ideal for exploring your sexuality in virgin territory, while traveling smart for the planet.

• A veritable "laboratory of counter-cultures" for decades, "poor, but sexy" Berlin has a long tradition of celebration and sexual freedom, which two German specialists, Elisa Gourdin and Hélène Camarade, decipher for 20 Minutes.

  And with a bit of luck, like our reader Marie, you will “never see so many small buttocks in one evening” as in Berlin.

It's good, your paid holidays are set.

A drop of sweat running down your neck, heat wave requires, you prepare your suitcase: shorts, a box of condoms.

We are good.

So where are we going?

Hastily, you launch an Internet search in search of inspiration for a hot summer of the swimsuit.

According to a ranking established by the adult site Lazeeva, based on criteria ranging from access to contraception to porn consumption, Paris is the most sexual city in the world.

Ok, but we dream of a change of scenery!

You can no longer see a Londoner (3rd) in painting since Brexit, Rio de Janeiro (2nd) and Los Angeles (4th) require hours by plane… Rest Berlin, fifth.

A suprise ?

Rather a tradition of sexual freedom that goes back a long way.

"For example, the history of the LGBT scene in Berlin dates back to at least the 1920s," says Hélène Camarade, professor of Germanic studies at Bordeaux Montaigne University.

The second largest city in the world developed at the time a "cult of the party", and a "movement with lesbian clubs" and a specialized press were already in place.

Fifteen years of National Socialism could have destroyed everything.

But Berlin found itself, in the aftermath of the war, in an unprecedented situation.

Two cities, two strong sexual identities

Cut in two, the city will develop for forty years two marked sexual identities.

"In East Berlin, women had greater financial autonomy," recalls first Elisa Gourdin, lecturer in contemporary German civilization at the University of Paris-3.

The result is "greater erotic self-determination, because economic factors do not come into play in the choice of partner", and therefore better "sexual satisfaction".

On the other side of the Wall, West Berlin is an island of freedom, a rare place where “military service was not compulsory, which attracted anti-militarist, protesting youth, well beyond Germany”.

In the 1970s, these young people would lead “life experiences in sexually free communities”, inspired by hippie communities, explains the author of

.

The city is becoming a "laboratory of counter-cultures", adds Hélène Camarade, from the punk movement to the gay scene which settles in the Schöneberg district.

At the fall of the Wall, these two cities will "meet" to create a "particular energy", continues Elisa Gourdin.

The bars of empty buildings in the East, deserted by the inhabitants of the former GDR, will once again attract young people from all over the world.

“You could live practically without working, get a lease from the town hall, collect furniture from the street.

Squatting, underground culture and a sense of partying flourished in the 1990s.

“I have never had so many small buttocks in one evening in my entire life”

City-region, Berlin has its own government, dominated for many years by the left.

Nurseries are free, LGBT inclusion a priority and for a long time "legislation on prostitution was different, large brothels were tolerated, porn cinemas were well established", indicates Hélène Camarade, co-author of

.

Klaus Wowereit, homosexual and left-wing mayor of the city between 2001 and 2014, declared in 2003 that Berlin was “poor, but sexy” (“

”), which quickly became a slogan for tourism.

Today, it is above all the techno scene that carries Berlin's alternative culture.

Marie, a

reader , lived in the German capital for a few months, and returns there regularly to party.

She recounts a recent experience at

, "one of the temples of techno in Berlin", symbolic of the sexual lightness that reigns in these evenings.

“The outfits are very free, it's quite bare but not necessarily topless, including for the men.

There are girls who dress in leather, with straps, tight or very short outfits”.

That night, "I've never seen so many little buttocks in my entire life," she smiles.

Berlin, the city where cruising does not exist

The young woman has an explanation for this feeling of freedom and lightness that floats in Berlin evenings.

"In a lot of nightclubs, photos are prohibited", and we even stick stickers on the lenses of phones at the entrance.

The objective is twofold: "to keep the place a little secret and that people can enjoy it without risking ending up on social networks".

In the ranking established by Lazeeva, Berlin is also in the lead on the criterion of swingers' clubs.

For latex fans, the KitKatKlub is an unmissable address.

The city also attracts the international porn scene.

Among the French, Lucie Blush, director of feminist pornographic films, and Olympe de G, author of

and founder of the Voxxx platform, lived there for several years.

But it's not all sex in Berlin.

"It's also the biggest void in my history as a single person in the evening / mug ratio", jokes our reader Marie.

Because sexual freedom also consists in not wanting, sometimes, which the locals respect perfectly.

"In a city marked by West German feminism, boys don't practice flirting," explains Hélène Camarade.

“Meetings are done in different ways, there are fewer heavy compliments, less physical contact before concluding.

Thus, a Berliner will "not flirt with you over a beer, but in a club it can go very quickly".

This is confirmed by Marie, adding that “it is rather the girls who take the first step”.

Nudity “decorrelated from sexuality”

“You feel that if something is going to happen, it will come from a very mutual consent.

“A happy notion that extends beyond nightclubs, specifies the one who has” never been afraid to go home alone, drunk and in evening dress “.

Perhaps also because “the relationship to the body and to nudity is decorrelated from sexuality” in the north of this Protestant Germany, analyzes Hélène Camarade.

"There is a massive practice of nudism, which began at the end of the nineteenth century and developed a lot in the GDR", and remains very much alive today.

Here is the recipe for going clubbing with your buttocks in the air without being bothered, carefully choosing your partner for the night, letting go, discovering yourself.

The German capital, symbiosis of two heritages, "laboratory of counter-cultures" and playground of youth, is offered to you.

From the freedom-seeking party girl to the member of the LGBT community participating in the massive Pride March outside the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin embraces you.

Company

Holidays: Between beautiful memories and big clicks, summer puts the couple "to the test"

Company

“Outdoor” sex or when “our imagination drives us out of bed”

• Company

• Berlin

• Germany

• Summer holidays

• Sex

• Sexuality