via @eastgerman_visuals
From 1949 to 1990, East and West Germany were test cases pitting the capitalist and communist Cold War philosophies against each other. While East Germany was losing battles on the fronts of industrial success, culture exports and not having a police state, research findings emerged in the 1980s that shook West German confidence to the core: East German women were have more orgasms and felt more satisfied after sex than their West German counterparts.
“These findings were so uncomfortable, especially for the West that they replicated many studies,” Professor Kristen Ghodsee, author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism (originally published last November and re-published this month in German for the first time), tells SLEEK over the phone. “Different studies found different results, as this was all self-reported, but what was so fascinating about these studies is that East German women were reporting much higher levels of satisfaction than West German women. More importantly, they were asked if they were happy after their last sexual encounter—most of them were.”
While it is possible that the Soviet Union insisted on taking only the parts of Germany where people were better in bed, Ghodsee and most other researchers who have looked into these studies trace the difference back to structural differences between East and West Germany. Not all capitalist romances are purely transactional, but the author points out that we have developed quite the business vocabulary when it comes to discussing relationships. We “spend time,” “close the deal,” “invest in relationships,” and go “back on the market” after a breakup. According to Ghodsee, these linguistic phrases are indicative of how people approach relationships as well as intercourse.
“It’s like that in any capitalist country where emotions, affections and attention are essentially being commoditised,” she says. “When you feel like you’re in bed with somebody because you’re going to get something out of it that isn’t just sexual pleasure, you’re going to have an entirely different experience than if you were there just because you really liked the person.” This theory is reinforced by studies that show that equality between partners—such as sharing household chores—increases relationship satisfaction.
One of the big differences between most capitalist societies and the socialism of the German Democratic Republic, was the level of independence women had. Valuing the fairer sex as workers, in addition to their reproductive capabilities, East German women had a range of social benefits and reproductive rights, like access to affordable childcare, maternity leave, birth control and job security that made it possible for them to do both and be self-sufficient. “Divorce rates were much higher in the East,” Ghodsee says. “GDR officials and marriage counsellors saw this as a symptom of women’s independence and women’s equality, that women were able to leave husbands that they were unhappy with.”
The lack of religious pressure on the government also had a hand in making East Germans better lovers. In some countries like the United States, you are lucky if sex education is medically accurate, but the GDR not only invested in making sure people knew what all the different parts do, they covered pleasure. “The government knew that sexual satisfaction was important to people, so they made sure that they knew about it,” Ghodsee says.
The 1969 educational book by GDR sexologist Siegfried Schnabl Man und Frau Intim, or Man and Woman Intimately in English, was the second best-selling book of East Germany, with 18 editions printed between 1970 and 1990, in addition to the translated versions that spread throughout the Soviet Bloc. According to Schnabl, good socialists have a moral obligation to close the gender gap when it comes to orgasms—and since the East German government was the one publishing the book, it’s safe to say that they agreed.
While socialist officials wanted people to know how to have sex, they banned things like ‘dirty’ magazines and pornography. “Most socialist states saw pornography as demeaning to women,” Ghodsee says. “Still, East Germany had Das Magazine, which had very erotic images, but it was more tasteful than what you would see in Playboy.” Even in fashion publications like Sibylle, women were portrayed more as protagonists rather than objects. Compared to the West, the socialist republic also had a thriving nudist culture. This means that instead of seeing idealised images of what the human body should look like, they saw real people that were less likely to cause self-image anxiety.
Ghodsee may praise the gender equality of East Germany, but she is not advocating a return to the government’s secret police, bans on punk and blue jeans in the name of better sex. “We shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater,” she says. “In terms of how socialist countries treated women, there were some really good babies.”
After all, if millions of readers still buy Cosmo and Men’s Health every month for the promise of improving their sex lives, then maybe it’s not so much of a stretch to think that people would try social equality with the same bravery with which they assume the wheelbarrow position.
In conjunction with our autum issue, SLEEK wants to raise awareness about the cultural divisions that still exist today. We have designed two limited edition sweaters, bearing the slogan “All Walls Fall”, available to purchase now.