Category: Opinions

The ins and outs of dating in Berlin.

If there’s one thing I never thought I would try out – let alone enjoy – it’s BDSM. I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, didn’t know much about its plot before the movie came out, and where I come from this particular kink isn’t as common as it seems to be here.

Before moving to Berlin, I was convinced that only balding, overweight middle-aged men and faded menopausal women were into BDSM, and there was nothing glamorous about that. Sure, I had been to KitKatClub before, but I never gave much thought to what I saw or heard there. And I certainly didn’t identify with the men who crawled past me on all fours wearing dog collars. But, as with many other things, my opinion on this whole scene has changed drastically over the past months.

It all started with an OkCupid match with two guys sharing a joint profile and looking for girls to have threesomes with.

Their writing was very much “on point” and I really wanted to meet them, despite not even knowing what they looked like – their faces were hidden on all of their pictures. Shortly before our first date, they sent me pictures that screamed BDSM. Women tied up, a girl with a gag in her mouth, a man holding a whip…

I was surprised to find that these pictures really appealed to me. Perhaps that was because of the Vogue-esque aesthetic – after all, Slutever has a column on vogue.com now. I didn’t end up having a threesome, but I did meet up with one of the guys for what was to be my first ever blind date. Luckily, he turned out to be a really handsome and surprisingly normal man in his late twenties.

For the first time, I let a complete stranger choke me. He spanked me, and not in the ridiculous, almost cute way some boys had tried to hit me before. This was for real.

The next day, I noticed that my breasts were covered in bruises, but the emotional traces of the night were much more palpable than these physical marks. I felt ecstatic.

I had my second experience a few weeks later. I met an incredibly good-looking man at KitKatClub and he quickly suggested going back to his place. Shortly before we reached his front door, he asked me whether I had ever heard of Fifty Shades. I told him that I had, and was in fact very curious about its themes – despite having little to no experience of them.

What happened then was one of my best memories so far. Once we got to his place, he quickly vanished and came back holding a crazy amount of BDSM toys and accessories. We ended up trying most of them out and he was incredibly patient, caring and open during the whole process. He taught me how to use each of them, asked me which ones I preferred and why, and helped me find out what my boundaries were. When I went home the next day, I realised I felt even more high than I had the first time.

As of now, I am meeting up with a guy who has agreed to be my sex master. He’s teaching me about the more psychological aspects of BDSM, which is fascinating. Our last session involved me being tied to a chair, blindfolded, with a vibrator strapped between my legs, and told not to come unless he allowed me to. He hardly touched me except for several soothing kisses, but here again I couldn’t believe how satisfying the evening was.

Also, and because this is Berlin after all, my flatmates and I recently had a slave over. He posted an ad online offering to go to women’s houses and clean them for free. Since we’re curious (and lazy), I decided to take him up on his offer. I was asked to boss him around a little, and after a few emails we agreed on a date and time.

I couldn’t help but nervously laugh as he made his way up the stairs. I had no idea what to expect, and the fact that one of my flatmates had showed me which kitchen knife to use in case things went wrong wasn’t really helping. Our “slave” also turned out to be relatively normal. I had no idea how to boss him around at first, but after a few hours I got pretty comfortable – so much, in fact, that I had to repress the urge to be bossy to the cab driver and the barkeeper, and pretty much everyone else I encountered afterwards.

As I’d been told before, control is everything here, so there is definitely room for improvement on my part, but I think I might actually enjoy playing the role of dominator as well. For the record, I have no idea how someone could gain satisfaction from cleaning a house, let alone for free and while putting up with orders from someone else.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned since moving here, it’s that you should avoid judging people. After all, the boundary between normal and shocking is very thin, and Berlin is, and should remain, a place where people are free to behave as they please.

EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

Jörg Fauser is one of Germany’s most overlooked countercultural icons. He “drank more beer than Bukowski and shot more heroin than William Burroughs”, yet still found time to write Raw Material, a savage satire about the decay of the dreams of the sixties. Originally published in German as Rohstoff, this semi-autobiographical masterpiece was translated into English last year. Find out how to win one of 5 copies we’re giving away, after this excerpt in which our protagonist takes to the Berlin streets for a radical protest, with a pocket full of LSD trips:

The auditorium maximum of the Technical University was packed. That evening’s topic for debate was the forthcoming vote for federal president, which was taking place in Berlin. As ever the list of speakers was endless. Practically no-one was thinking of Heinemann as a candidate. I was standing right at the back of the room amongst the rank and file, taking care not to become separated from Sarah. Sarah was nineteen and reminded me of the Song of Songs: “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.” Last summer she’d sent me a photo of herself to Istanbul; she was leaning against a tree in the Englischer Garten in Munich, and when Ede saw it he said, “If there’s anyone who’s going to pull you out of the shit, it’ll be her.” Now she was in Berlin too, and I was determined not to be parted from her again.

The crowd jeered and shouted down a young socialist. It was all part of a ritual in which the leaders of the radicals played at being the Bolshevik bosses, and the students and dropouts in the auditorium the riotous masses of St Petersburg. In truth it was much simpler: the leaders were enthroned on the podium and engaged in high politics, while the rank and file stood below, believing in the historical moment. Skilful direction brought the room to boiling point and at the decisive moment the slogan was uttered: “Onto the streets!”

We were still a tight mass in Hardenbergstrasse, but when we got to America House, where the police lay in wait, the crowd soon dissipated. It struck me that I had twenty LSD trips in my pocket, which I’d swapped for a few of the blocks I’d got off the Turk. As I hurried away I looked around for Sarah. She was behind me, being shoved along rather than moving of her own accord. In the police floodlights and nocturnal glow of Hardenbergstrasse Sarah looked far too beautiful and fragile. I tried to grab her and battle my way out to the side, but those advancing from behind dragged me along with them. Stones were being hurled at America House, but word got around that we were to take the Kurfürstendamm, and so we charged onwards, past Zoo station. Stones were everywhere on the ground; I picked up a couple myself – smooth, grey cobbles. I’d soon forgotten the LSD, and Sarah too. I charged with the crowd. There was the Ku’damm, the colourful façades, the onlookers, the massive vehicles with their water cannons, we were coming from all sides, we were storming. There was Café Kranzler, temple of the bourgeoisie, there were the police, chains of uniformed men that entangled us. No sooner had the echoes of our war cries died down than the first screams of those being beaten by truncheons resounded in the street. I threw a stone, then turned around and saw a policeman charging towards me at full pelt. I dropped the other stone and ducked. The truncheon only hit me as I bent down, a second blow found my arm, and another policeman hauled me off to a patrol car, but let me go when a new troop of assailants broke through and made for Kranzler. Cautiously I stood up again. No one appeared to be watching me. I slipped through a kind of no man’s land to the corner of Joachimsthaler. There were stones everywhere, protesters bent over injured bodies, those arrested held temporarily in wrist locks by the police. I felt cold and thought that our attempt to take the Ku’damm had been a complete farce and would be far better without me. I looked for Sarah and found her at a metro station. I took her in my arms. She was wearing a fur coat and I an old, thick cloth jacket, but through all our winter clothes I could still feel her breasts which bore the promise of springtime.

Via a circuitous route we arrived at the flat near Savignyplatz, where Boleslaw and his girlfriend, Sylvia, were waiting. They’d been living in a commune in Potsdamer Strasse and had now moved into this grand, nine-room apartment belonging to two scientists who worked at Siemens and were trying to find a synthesis between computer science and anarchism. As far as I was concerned, their flat was paradise: an enormous kitchen where everything functioned, a refrigerator filled to the brim, tiled stoves, comfortable sofas and leather armchairs everywhere, pictures hanging from the panelled walls, two bathrooms, two cats, books. I offered them all a trip. Sarah was still together with a friend of Boleslaw’s, an ascetic philosophy student in his seventeenth semester, who lived in a tiny hovel without any hot water in Steglitz. I wanted, of course, to prise her away from him. That night we all took a trip, and in such surroundings I sensed I was coming closer to the world of literature.

I sat with Sarah in Bolesaw and Sylvia’s room. To my mind these were the nicest people I’d come into contact with in Berlin. They were good-looking, they were educated without trumpeting it, they’d travelled widely, and they had artistic leanings without pretending to be artists. Their anarchism was an intellectual provocation, but they, too, had picked up stones in the street, and told the state precisely what they thought of it in court. And one day there was no doubt that this society would give them the space they were asking for. I looked down at myself. I felt like a filthy little drug-dealer from Tophane. I could sense the dirt oozing from my every pore. “2,000 light years from home.” That’s how I perceived myself too. Sarah lit an incense stick. She was so breathtakingly beautiful; how could I imagine that she’d be the one to save me from all this shit? The beauty of the Orient flowed in waves from her face and transformed the wall into the Taj Mahal. Sylvia snuggled up to Boleslaw, who smiled at me. I was sweating. I rolled a joint. That was one thing I could do. Although it was good to be able to do at least something, I felt I’d have to demonstrate a little more if I was going to win over Sarah, Boleslaw and Sylvia. The three of them seemed to be fusing into one, together with the candlelight, the music, the smell of the incense. I was sitting beside them like a lump of frozen spaghetti. I was sitting beside them like a heap of unsellable copies of The Function of the Orgasm. I was back in Istanbul, sitting on the roof, the snow seeping through the walls, the foghorns wailing, the pigeons scrabbling at the holes in the plaster, the schoolchildren below filing into the playground and singing the national anthem. Were I sitting there I could write again. Although I didn’t have my notebooks or a radiograph, this biro would do, this sheet of paper with computer formulae on the back. I started writing.

The following morning Sarah went to fetch her things from Steglitz, and we moved into the maid’s room beside the kitchen. Heinemann was elected president.

HOW TO WIN A COPY OF JÖRG FAUSER’S RAW MATERIAL:

If you were going to take to the streets, what would you protest against?

Our 5 favourite answers will win a copy of Raw Material.

You have until 6pm on Sunday 29th March to enter. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be 18 years or older to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. Our favourite comment wins. Simple as.
4. If you win, we’ll let you know by email and get your postal address.

The ins and outs of dating in Berlin.

I had a few “friends with benefits” before moving to Berlin.

First, there was this boy I used to go clubbing with. I would try to help him find a girl to take home, knowing that if it didn’t work out, I’d be the one he’d end up with. For some reason, I never felt the slightest pang of jealousy, and I kind of enjoyed watching him get rejected by most of the women he approached.

Then there was this other guy who was in a relationship, and insisted on making me spend time with his girlfriend, just so he could pretend there was nothing going on between us. I stopped seeing him when it all became too much for me to handle.

Fast forward a few years and here I am in Berlin, occasionally hooking up with a few guys. Some of them I’ve known for six months now, but I could never imagine developing any romantic feelings for them. So much for the misconception that women are unable to have sex without falling in love, right?

However, despite my previous experience, I realise now that I still had a lot to learn about casual sex when I moved to Berlin – and I have to plead guilty to a few don’ts.

I used to assume that going back to a boy’s place meant that I was sleeping over. I was dead wrong – but fortunately I didn’t have to learn this the hard way. I found myself confused when I had someone over and they’d leave straight after we’d had sex, even if it was 3 am on a weekday.

And I’m pretty sure I overstayed my welcome a few times, but the guys in question were thankfully too polite to say anything. Well, there was this one dude who made me smoke a million joints and then proceeded to ask me whether I knew how to get home, even though I was barely able to make my way to his bathroom. But still, another myth busted: just because your relationship with someone is purely sexual, that doesn’t mean they will treat you like a prostitute.

A huge DON’T, however, is to assume that anyone wants to hear about your problems. There’s no bigger turn-off than hearing you complain about your boss, especially when it’s 1am on a Sunday morning and the other person has already put on their scarf and gloves. Just don’t – you’re only making it uncomfortable for everyone involved.

If you don’t want any of the commitment required of a real relationship, then I’m sorry to break this to you, but you’ll just have to live with the fact that whoever you’re seeing is going to put him- or herself first. One guy did this to me the last time we saw each other and, well, I’m not sure I can go through it again. But instead of trying to change him, I’ll just have to call the whole thing off.

When it comes to casual sex, the single biggest do would be: have fun. Do stuff that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but yourself.

There are few things as amusing as sitting on the U-Bahn on a weekday afternoon, wondering whether everyone around you can tell what you’ve just been up to and why your hair now looks like a bird’s nest. Especially when said encounter happened right after an unsatisfying lunch date with another boy.

To me, casual sex is the ultimate confidence boost. There’s nothing like having a man tear your clothes off right after you’ve entered their apartment, having awesome sex and then leaving an hour later as if nothing had happened. It’s also the best way to live out your sexual fantasies, especially in Berlin. Feel like having a blind date with someone who’s into BDSM and who you would be way too embarrassed to ever see again? No problem.

I guess casual sex has become the norm here, since most people seem to rely on their close friends for the emotional intimacy that a romantic relationship would normally provide. And this is coming from someone whose best gay friend only-half-jokingly suggested we open a joint bank account. In a city mostly populated by handsome young people who happen to be great in bed, it would be a shame not to try some of them out!