Berlin Off Sex Florian Cramer & Tatiana Bazzichelli commissioned by BLUE magazine, Italy Within and outside Germany, Berlin has a traditional reputation for its sexual tolerance and liberalism. Already in the Weimar Republic, nudism and queer culture, for example, had their strongholds in the city. Prostitution became more or less legalized in that era, too. Christopher Isherwood's book "Cabaret", written in the early 1930s, has preserved and mythologized the image of a laszivous and promiscuous Berlin: erotic cabarets, queer polysexuality and transvestitism; a culture whose living icon was film diva Marlene Dietrich. While much of it was destroyed and persecuted in the Third Reich, the Nazi's indebtedness to the life reform movement led to an ongoing tolerance of nudism and sexual liberalism, yet mainstreamed for "Aryan" heterosexuals. For example, even Veit Harlan's infamous propaganda movie "Jud Suess" contains burlesque scenes of topless nudity. Isherwood's mythical image of 1920s Berlin has been reenacted many times: by David Bowie's when he lived in West-Berlin in the 1970s, in the Hollywood movie "Cabaret", mashed up with fetishist images of the Nazi era, in Tinto Brass' Italian sex film "Salon Kitty", in contemporary erotic electroclash performances, or the naming of the Kitkat sex club. But as a matter of fact, it is rather difficult to find erotic cultures in Berlin outside the usual suspects of mainstream sex business, queer culture and the S/M and fetish scene. With its protestant heritage, the city is tolerant regarding representations of sexuality, but still rather distanced and cold when it comes to making personal contact, at least outside particular communities and scenes. In the early 1990s, "Kitkat Club" - which has changed locations several times and currently resides in Bessemer Str. 2-14 in the Tempelhof district - had the potential of revolutionizing erotic nightlife in Berlin. It fused the concept of the queer and fetish sex club with the booming techno club culture, opening it up at once for hetero and queer people, S/M and vanilla sex crowds, nude ravers and "hip" swingers although fetish or nude dress codes continued to prevail. People danced half-nude or naked, and whoever felt the urge of going farther than hugging or kissing had the opportunity of doing so right in the club without having to resort to toilet booths. Generally, a lot is possible in Berlin clubs; countercultural venues are unlikely to throw out anyone for sexual acts. The electropunk-oriented Rio club, for example, had a polysexual couples room for some time, but closed it later. In a chapter of her sexual autobiography "Stripped", Berlin-based drag king performer Bridge Markland remembers how she and a stranger were the only people to make out in Kitkat club, with her in a gynecological chair and a guy who turned out to be a miserable sexual failure having drugged up himself with Ecstasy. Today, dress code pressure on women to go fully naked inside the club has increased, and more masturbating voyeurs populate the club. Worst of all, camera teams shoot pretty tasteless porn there that combines nude shots of club visitors with scat sex shot with porn actors in a studio. The tapes are sold and rented under the Kitkat Club label in the mainstream porn video market all over Germany. Likewise, audience has become increasingly low-brow. Nevertheless, people - especially women looking for an anonymous adventure - might find amusement there. The best place in Berlin for less direct erotic pleasures - erotic media -, is "Lustwandel" (street address, Prenzlauer Berg), a bookstore run by women. It offers a truly superb selection of erotica: Sex novels from the erotic chapters of the 1001 Nights to Sade and Bataille, art and sex photo books by artists like Richard Kern, Krista Beinstein and erotica publishers like Konkursbuch and Taschen, non-fiction by Suzie Bright and others, a large collection of pornographic comic books, audio sex books, plus special sections for gay/lesbian and BDSM erotica. In total, the store offers thousands of books; their titles can also be browsed under . Unlike typical sex shops, the store has a tasteful, bright interior and friendly atmosphere. The women running the store are true experts, and knowing to answer even difficult questions out of their head like, for example, the availability of Guido Crepax's "Justine" and "Juliette" comic books. Berlin's mainstream sex business, from prostitution to conventional sex shops, is spread all over town, thanks to the decentral structure of the city and the absence of laws like in Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg that restrict sex commerce to red-light districts. German mainstream porn is more or less the same fare as in other Western countries. In other words: largely unimaginative, boring and sexist. Unlike in Denmark and the Netherlands, bestiality porn is outlawed in the country, thus depriving consumers of at least some bizarre entertainment. But in this department, nobody will be able top Italy anyway, with its legendary sexploitation director Joe d'Amato whose films "Emanuelle in America" and "Caligola: La storia mai raccontata" contain horse masturbation scenes. Notable perhaps are the scat porn sections that exist in practically any German sex shop and video store, providing some truly tasteless entertainment for people with robust humor. Berlin, being the rather lowbrow and informal city it is, has its own particular culture of mainstream second-hand sex shops that can be interesting to check out for more than just encounters with the raincoat crowd and the joy of browsing through stacks of seedy and stainy old sex magazines. Most of these stores also have corners with sex comic books, such as Manara, and erotic photo books. Often, one can find quality photo books by publishers like Taschen at these places, for a fraction of their new retail price. A good address is sleazy Dominicusstraße in the Schöneberg district which, on the right side of the street between Hauptstraße and the S Schöneberg station, features two respective sex shops, one them with the great name "666". It's not meant to be the number of the beast though, but - in German pronounciation - a code for "sex sex sex". Of course, DVDs and sex toys at these places are forgettable. Even "Lustwandel", with its focus on print media, offers only rudimentary choices in these departments. Visitors are therefore advised to check out dedicated alternative video and sex toy stores in Berlin. The best address for videos, DVDs and film literature of any kind is Videodrom store at Heinrichplatz (Oranienstr. 195, http://www.videodrom.com) in the Kreuzberg district. Aside from a superb collection of genre, art and underground films - including splatter and exploitation -, it also features a small, but good selection of DVDs with sexploitation, porn classics and Hentai Anime, such as the films of Russ Meyer, Jess Franco, Radley Metzger and French porn legend Brigitte Lahaie. In addition, the book section of the store offers literature on the history of sex and pornographic movies. A good selection of non-pornographic gay and lesbian films is available at the store, too. A much larger number of DVDs and videos is available in the Videodrom rental store in Mittenwalder Str. 11, in a different part of the Kreuzberg district - however, rental is restricted to Berlin residents. Furthermore, Berlin's alternative film culture has given birth to a number of notable independent erotic filmmakers. A local pioneer from the 1970s is director Lothar Lambert. His films are affectionate portraits of gay, transvestite and Turkish immigrant underclass people. Frank Ripploh's 1981 film "Taxi zum Klo" ("Taxi to the Toilet") is _the_ cult film of German gay culture and still a valid portrayal of Berlin's traditional gay culture mekka in the Schoeneberg district between Motz-, Eisenacher- and Fuggerstraße. Since the 1990s, alternative gay porn cinema has a stronghold in Berlin thanks to "Cazzo Video", a production company run by producer and director Jürgen Brüning, a co-founder of the alternative "Eiszeit" movie theater. The last great Cazzo production was Bruce LaBruce's "The Raspberry Reich", a bisexual underground porn portrayal of a group of terrorists whose attempt to refound the Baader-Meinhof group with a kidnapping gets sidetracked by sexual crushs on their hostage. Berlin-based underground film maker Carl Andersen, an Austrian expatriate, has made a series of lesser known, campy films that pay hommage among others to Jess Franco's vampire sex movies and Lothar Lambert's films. They all involve explicit hetero and bi sex. In his recent films, Andersen has collaborated with the Polish-born sex performance artist Malga Kubiak. - All the aforementioned films can be principally bought at Videodrom, but to go sure that they are available, one should call the store in advance and have films ordered if necessary. [Tatiana: Cover the "La Luna" sex toy shop for women in Anklamer Str. 38, Mitte, 44 32 84 88] [Tatiana: Cover the "Sexclusivitäten" sex toy shop for women, www.sexclusivitaeten.de ] Berlin of course has an active S/M and Fetish scene that will have its great annual celebration at the German Fetish Ball, June 2-4, at Matrix club , Warschauer Platz 18 (http://www.germanfetishball.de). An excellent community information resource on the local S/M scene is the site . Popular venues include the Darkside Club in Kreuzberg (Nostizstr. 30), a meeting point of the S/M and fetish community that left Kitkat Club. The city also boasts a rich scene of S/M and fetish fashion designers and stores. Conveniently for visitors, two major rubber-and-leather stores, "Hautnah" and "Schwarze Mode" are located right next to each other in Uhlandstraße 170 and 171 near Kurfürstendamm, in the Western city center. Eccentric and imaginative fetish wear is also available at "Savage Wear" (http://www.savage-wear.com) and, for particular fetishes, the TO.mTO store, Torstr. 22 in the Mitte district, a business that solely produces and sells corsets (http://www.daskorsett.de). [Tatiana: Cover Barbie Deinhoff's and Kumpelnest] [Tatiana: Cover the dating site http://www.abgefuckt-liebt-dich.de]