New York Times: "Germany Abuzz At Racy Novel of Sex and Hygiene"

Der deutsche Analfeminismus ist jetzt ein internationales Thema geworden – die "New York Times" springt auf den Medienhype um einige eher nichtssagende Frauenbücher auf. Einige Auszüge aus dem aktuellen Artikel:

TEGERNHEIM, Germany — Not many literary readings are restricted to an over-18 audience. Fewer still take place under circus tents. Yet nothing could be more appropriate for the scandalous German best-seller “Wetlands,” by a television personality and author, Charlotte Roche.

With her jaunty dissection of the sex life and the private grooming habits of the novel’s 18-year-old narrator, Helen Memel, Ms. Roche has turned the previously unspeakable into the national conversation in Germany. Since its debut in February, the novel (“Feuchtgebiete,” in German) has sold more than 680,000 copies, becoming the only German book to top Amazon.com’s global best-seller list. (…)

The subject has struck a nerve here, catching a wave of popular interest in renewing the debate over women’s roles and image in society.

With its female chancellor, angela Merkel, and progressive reputation, Germany would hardly seem to be thirsting for such a discussion. Yet, Germany has an old-fashioned tendency to expect women to choose between careers and motherhood rather than trying to accommodate both.

Last year, another German television personality provoked a storm of controversy about the role of women by suggesting that they should stay home to raise their children, and then referring approvingly to the Nazi policy of encouraging German women to have large families.

Hm, das kommt offenbar dabei heraus, wenn Journalisten über die Ländergrenzen hinweg "Stille Post" spielen. Aber es geht weiter:

Beyond the historical land mines, there are also measurable gender-equality problems in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Of the 27 European Union members, Germany is tied with Slovakia as third worst in the wage gap between men and women, with women earning 22 percent less, a figure surpassed only by Cyprus and Estonia.

So the topic is being debated in every newspaper and magazine in Germany right now. The discussion has been amplified by two nonfiction books about young women, the more traditional “New German Girls” and “We Alpha-Girls.”

A provocative female rapper in Germany, Lady Bitch Ray, who runs her own independent label, Vagina Style Records, grabbed headlines when she accused Ms. Roche of stealing her explicit form of empowering raunch. “I am what’s in the book,” said the rapper, 27, whose real name is Reyhan Sahin, in a telephone interview.

Ich bin wirklich mal gespannt, ob, wenn wir in zehn Jahren auf diese Bücher zurückblicken, auch nur eines von ihnen erkennbare Spuren in einer Veränderung unserer Gesellschaft hinterlassen haben wird.

Germans have been accused, on occasion, of overanalyzing.

"Germans habe been accused"? Wer widmet dem Schwachsinn denn volle zwei Seiten?

Sometimes a funny, dirty book is just a funny, dirty book, but not this one, according to its author.

Ms. Roche, 30, has long identified herself as a feminist and, in a vein first explored in 1960s-era American feminism, describes the book as a cri de coeur against the oppression of a waxed, shaved, douched and otherwise sanitized women’s world.

Newspapers here have contrasted her unhygienic, free-spirited fictional heroine to an American-import model of womanhood: the stable of plucked, pencil-thin contestants on “Germany’s Next Top Model,” a popular reality show hosted by the German supermodel Heidi Klum.

Und eine darf bei der Party natürlich auch nicht fehlen:

“The combination of pornography and feminism is old, and was already a favorite marketing strategy for Playboy in the ’70s,” said Alice Schwarzer, Germany’s best-known feminist and founder of the magazine EMMA, modeled in part on Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine, in an e-mail message responding to questions about the recent books. “Right now we’re living through another revival.”

Ich weiß nicht, was mich bei dem Beitrag mehr amüsiert: die wilden Themensprünge bzw. das Miteinander-Verquirlen der unterschiedlichsten Aspekte, die zu einer starken Verzerrung führende Oberflächlichkeit der Darstellung oder dass Charlotte Roche, Angela Merkel, Eva Herman, Lady Bitch Ray, Heidi Klum und Alice Schwarzer in einer aberwitzigen Freakshow als die typische deutsche Frau dargestellt werden. Was ist los, war Thea Dorn im Urlaub, als die New York Times ihre Telefoninterviews führte? Man sollte dabei allerdings auf keinen Fall vergessen, dass deutsche Artikel über andere Länder oft ähnlich verquer geraten, wobei uns nur die Möglichkeit fehlt, das durch eigene Erfahrung sofort innerlich zu korrigieren.

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