GER 150 Podcast - Frauism - Ep 9 - Sexual Liberation in East Germany

During the 1960s, East and West Germany had different views on sexual liberation. In West Germany, there were more conservative values and traditional marriages focused on financial stability. Sexual content and pornography were seen as perverse and wrong. In East Germany, women were integrated into the workforce but didn't receive equal pay. However, they had maternity leave and access to child support. Sex was normalized in East Germany, giving people a greater sense of freedom and control over their bodies. The idea of nudity and free sex was more accepted and even practiced by families. When the Berlin Wall fell, the West Germans were shocked by this openness and wanted to stop it. This movement towards sexual liberation empowered women and allowed them to have more fulfilling relationships based on love rather than just reproduction. It also challenged traditional gender roles, with men participating more in raising children. This kind of liberation is still relevant today, as soc Hello and welcome to Episode 9 of Heroism, Sexual Liberation in East Germany. On today's episode we will be discussing the division and definition of sexual liberation in East and West Germany during the mid and late 1960s and implications of each. So in West Germany there are more traditional values, more conservative values. They idealized faithful, homebound femininity and self-sacrificing motherhood. Women married for financial stability rather than love. It was kind of more of a need to be married instead of like a ritualistic, I don't want to say ritualistic, but like ritualistic. Traditional marriage? Yeah. Sexual content and pornography kind of exploded under capitalism and the idea of selling sex was equated to earning profit. But it was also viewed as perverse and wrong. It was more of a spectacle than like a free thing. Yeah, and then in East Germany women were kind of more integrated into the workforce, but however they did not receive equal pay to their male counterparts. They did receive maternity leave as well as other access to child support in order to return to work sooner. East German men were encouraged to work in the home and raise children, which is obviously a little bit different than what we've seen before in history. And then as far as sex goes, sex was not taboo and was actually normalized. This normalization gave East Germans a greater sense of freedom and control over their bodies. As you can imagine, the idea that you can walk around naked and have free sex makes everybody a little bit happier. For sure. Amen. I thought there was going to be boom glooming in public or anything like that, but I think it's more about just the idea that the FKK or free booby culture is Freikörperkultur, so like areas where it was just like the naked body would seem more natural. Yeah. And so it was like people were able to nudist beaches or nudist parks and also families even did it too. And there was like a statistic like they would be in the home together and just like they apparently were bonded together more closely. Where does that statistic come from? It was in the main reading. How was it? I can try to find it. I'll get back to you on that one. Alrighty. But like they were, they really got it going together. Their appearance. But then when the Berlin Wall fell and the West people came over, they saw that and they were like, hold up, we've got to stop that immediately. Well there were a lot more, well I don't want to, I'm not sure exactly, but there was a lot more, I feel like there were a lot more people in West Germany than East Germany. I mean maybe, but. A significant amount. I guess because the idea of like how sex was portrayed in the West and like pornography was like, sex bad, I can't let my kids see naked people. Yeah. And it's like they go to the East and they're like, and then the East was like, well this is what we were doing. Yeah. Because I guess, and pornography also wasn't either A, available or, was it illegal or was it just like not prohibitive in the East? I, I just, I. I don't want to say, I think it was illegal, if I'm being honest with you. But I could be entirely wrong. We'll fact check it later. We'll get back to that one too. That's for next episode. Yeah, but I just feel like how this like movement to like, this like movement of like free body culture, it's like empowering. Like it's like, before like women were just, you know, producing babies, like tossing babies out. Sex like is for reproduction, reproduction, reproduction no more, it's for pleasure. Jinx. Yeah. I want a Dr. Pepper. Ew. For my soda. No. What did you just say? I said jinx, like jinx you owe me a soda. We're ignoring that one. Oh, okay. So. What were you going to say Allie? Go ahead. Also like due to like this change, like women are also like now able to like love their partner instead of like just like fully going to like reproduce. Well, they could have. For financial stability. I mean, they could have, you know, they still could have loved them before in the West. Right, yeah. The idea that. The idea was less married to have kids and more married to marry. Yeah. I mean, I guess it is their choice to marry in the West too, but in the East it was definitely like you could like find a partner and like love your partner. Yeah. Then also an actual like relationship more than just like I'm going to pop out with five babies. Yeah. It's more like I'm going to love this person, enjoy my life with this person. If we have kids, that's, we have kids. That's like. Right. They had the institutions to take care of kids too. So they had opportunities to be together. Yeah. And they also like with women being in the workforce, they were financially like dependent on their significant other or their husband. Not as much as the West. Yeah. So it like gave them also that liberation. So like it's like sexual liberation in a lot of ways, like liberated women. So women could divorce their husband if like the love was gone and they could support themselves with like how their childcare facilities, institutions, whatever word you want to use, and then they could support themselves financially. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's word. Word. Word. I do think that like this kind of brought up like men partaking more in the role of raising children. Yes. Women still have double roles though. Yeah. I don't think that's still common today even. Yeah. Definitely. I feel like even like modern society, like there's such like a, like there's like a movement right now on social media, like called like Trad Moms, where it's like, it's like a movement of like women who are saying that women's role is within the household. And it's kind of just like ridiculous. Like. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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