Sexual Revolution in East Germany

East Germany did not encounter a sexual revolution that was seen in the West, but there was some gradual evolution of sexual mores. 

• The differences lay in the combination of institutional structures and the strongly supported rhetoric of the East. 
• SED's policies were aimed to end social discrimination - illegitimacy was seen as an objective 
  • Campaigns against pre-marital heterosexual sex in West Germany driven by the CDU were not seen in East Germany as Christian perspectives were absent and did not influence government policy, teacher education and school curricular
• The main concern in the East was to show citizens that socialism provided the best conditions for least and happy love. 
  • Discussions of sex were seen as a way of mastering the future - engaged participation
  • Socialism - steady en route to perfection
•  Pre-marital sex was seen as both natural and normal in the east. 
• The GDR's gender egalitarianism and practice of co-education, together with the incontrovertible fact of earlier trends of puberty, made support for love both sensible and ethical.  

The GDR in the 1950's did produce a distinctively socialist and quite oppressive brand of sexual conservatism. 

• Sex would and should always lead to marriage 
• "Socialist virtue" - the suspicion that private bliss may draw citizens away from socialism rather than towards it. 
  • Humans can only be happy if they participate in the ongoing political struggle. 
• Homosexuality - perceived as a pervasion, pathology, deviant - resulted from early on sexual activity/abuse. 
  • Homosexuals, like in the Nazi rhetoric, where see to prey on young boys and were "true perverts"
  • 1968 - abolished paragraph 175, a year ahead of the West German government. 
  • However, a new paragraph was created with the aim of the "protection of youth." 
  • SED officers could not confront the fact that homosexuals existed in the GDR or that they could be integrated into the socialist society wholly

The conservative tendencies of 1950/60's had their source in the profoundly conventional views of the GDR leadership and directives coming from the Soviet Union. 

• Also derived from the governments and overall population's anxieties concerning the desperate state of the economy - created an atmosphere were on should only concentrate on the day-to-day struggle to survive 
• The second half of the 1960s saw a see-saw rhythm between conservative and liberal policies, with novel arguments put forward for the return of social conservativism vs. the need for the state to present itself as desirable for young romance. 
• No large scale feminist movement in the GDR - feminism in East Germany was seen by East German women as a redundancy 
  • Women enjoyed state-sponsored advantages, they did not have to fight for abortion rights, child-care policies, economic independence or professional respect, unlike West German women. 
  • *********** as with the absence of capitalism and anti-**** laws, objectification of women was low. 
  • 1 in 4 schools had female principles/ 13% of women were mayors - only 1% in West G.

Where the driving force of the society is to strive after profit but rather the coincidence of the individual and social interests, there is no ground in which egoism, self-glorification and oppression of women can grow. 

• However, East Germany did develop its own distinct form of femininity and masculinity - ideals proclaimed by the leadership were not empty - they shaped the daily interplay between social conditions and individual negotiations 
• East German expert's obsession with the idea that socialism produced especially charmed conditions for mutually satisfying sex - a figment of their own fantasy lives 
• West German sexual revolution was seen as a threat but was not imitated in the East
  • Emphasis was always on the constant declaration that the future belongs to socialism 
  • Love and sexuality became absolutely crucial elements in this struggle to win popular approval 
  • The majority of citizens were not taken by the romance of socialism itself, however.