Competitive Pleasure: Sexuality, Media and Belonging in a Reunifying Germany (1989-1995)

After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989, the process towards the Reunification of East and West Germany became referred to as a matter of "political orgasm," "German-German copulation" or "an orgiastic party." Behind these colourful metaphors, residents of the two states (in particular, those of East Germany) contended with momentous shifts in identity, mobility and political ideology that interacted with public sexual values and culture. This thesis analyzes media-based primary sources, including magazines, newspapers, and tabloids as well as memoirs and televised broadcasts, to argue that sex and sexuality became a significant public matrix for complex processes of inclusion, exclusion and meaning making during the transition to a reunified Germany and beyond. In doing so, this thesis engages with relationships between consumerism and public space, memory politics, and the sexual/racial "Other".