In an interview with Playboy, German politician Gregor Gysi has bemoaned the decline of the FKK nudist camps, which were a popular feature in the old state of East Germany. It is possible that he is getting ready for the next elections by conjuring up this image of the Good Old Days in the GDR. He is after all a member of the leftist party “Die Linken” that developed of out the mighty SED, who had the elections and the country under control…
FKK was classy, and not really erotic
For me however this interview brings back memories of what is what like when I, as a young and impressionable lad moved to Germany (albeit the West) in the mid-seventies. Things were very different in those days. It was a strange society. No sense of humour is a feature that has been often attached to The German. And in those days it was true. Entertainment, as a whole, was light years behind the British stuff. TV presenters were very stiff and proper. Its difficult really to describe.
But when it came around to sexual freedom, the Germans were in a class of their own.
They were the days when women were not afraid to show off. Anyone who was young and pretty thought nothing of going about braless. In swimming baths (I always remember an open-air swimming pool in the Stadtpark) ladies who covered themselves up were more conspicuous than the topless. And television was something else.
The following video is taken from a TV music programme that was broadcast on State Television (at the time there weren’t any others…) called Musikladen. It was a sort of a Top Of The Pops thing, complete with gogo dancers. And if you thought that TOTP’s Pans People were hot, wait until you see these.
Its all changed now however. Even if there are movements like “Free the nipple” and the realisation that a bra is not necessarily good for the breast, German women do not show themselves off as they used to. These days that is put down as being sexist. Today sexual liberation takes different forms. Its no longer the women who are in fact “liberating” themselves. We’ve moved on towards sexual diversity. But, did the ladies have to take a step backwards to help achieve this? I wonder…
Bildrechte: CC0 Creative Commons
