The Naked German

I was at the Erfurt main train station yesterday, waiting for the commuter train that will take me back to Jena. I tried to pass the time by reading magazines. Boy, the Germans have quite an array of them. I loved this magazine called L-Love (a lesbian mag). I was leafing through a magazine called BRAVO (think of those teen mags back in the day, like Tigerbeat and 16, except that its in German) and was shocked to find this section called Dr. Sommer.

"Dear Dr. Sommer, Hi I am ____ from ____. I'm fourteen, but I haven't had my period yet! Is that normal? I also just hooked up with a boy, and I would like to have sex with my boyfriend someday. Can I do it even if I don't have my period yet?"

The middle of this spread had a photo girl and a boy no more than seventeen years old having sex (or acting out having sex.) The letter that accompanied the picture was from a 12 year old who wanted to ask what an orgasm was, and how does it feel like?

I was shocked speechless for a few seconds. God, I couldn't help but feel envious. When I was 12, I asked my grandpa what was a penis and a vagina? I read it in a magazine, and looked it up in the dictionary. The definition read: "The female reproductive organ," and so forth. What the fuck was reproductive? So I asked my grandpa. His curt reply: "I'll tell you when you're older." But then he never did.

We are so prudish in the Philippines that we only have one famous sex therapist, and she caters to adults. These magazines are catered to children and teens. I am in love with the sexual openess. In the Philippines, everything that has to do with sex was dirty, confined to magazines like FHM. And the Censors ban everything sexual in movies and TV. Here in Germany, I can open my TV and see something sexually explicit just by channel surfing. And nobody gives a damn.

I am very much at home with my body. As evidenced by my blog and by my cosplaying, I have an exhibitionist streak. I have sunbathed topless in a public beach in Nice, France; done the FKK beach thing; and tried not to stare too hard at the sea of breasts and uncircumsised penises when I went to the sauna here in Germany. In this way, I fit right in. The Germans, especially the East Germans, love to be naked. They are so desensitized with nudity at such an early age that it is no longer a big deal to them. People here remain virgins because it is their choice, and not because somebody said you have to remain a virgin till you die. Nobody accuses anyone of pedophilia. A section of the Dr. Sommer column claims to empower teens and promote a good body image by asking their teenaged readers to pose nude for the magazine. The poses are non-sexual, but I am uncertain whether it achieves this purpose.

God, I think my sister will have a fit when she sees this magazine. She once asked me to not tell her 7 year old daughter that Thomas and I live together without the benefit of marriage. This is from a girl who has children with 2 different dads. I think its a bit prudish and hypocritical of her, but she's raising her child, not me.

Oddly enough, even if the Germans are very open about sex and nudity, I believe that they are an emotionally straitjacketed people. They can be a lot like my sister, just in the other way around. They don't believe in lying, and are emotially hurt even with white lies, those things meant to lubricate social relations. Phrases like, "Let's get together sometime!" are considered impolite if you don't mean it. The naked senior citizens in the sauna frown if you address them as "du" and not the polite "Sie" form. You can't talk about your personal life to your close friends, it's impolite. They love their emotional distance, and you should respect that. In short, they're the exact opposite of the Americans.

I am now beginning to wonder where I should raise my future children: In the Philippines, where decent, normal folk go to Church everyday and listen to songs like Ocho ocho, or in Germany, where they'd be exposed to Schiller, Göethe, and BRAVO.

EDIT: Adam wrote a blog entry about this entry and posted a link of a scanned Dr. Sommer issue. Check it out!