Wikipedia

Pornography in Germany

Modern German pornography is generally similar to the American "glamour" pornography though often tailored primarily for the German market. In contrast, several German labels focus on a more "home-made" amateur flair, often focusing on intense hardcore themes such as gang bangs, bukkake, scat and urine fetishism; most notably 'German Goo Girls' and other series by John Thompson Productions.

Entrance to Venus Berlin in 2019, the world's largest adult entertainment and pornography convention[1][2]

Germany is the world's second-largest consumer market for pornography behind the United States.[3][4][2] According to Similarweb, 12.5% of all website visits in Germany are to pornographic sites, the highest rate in the world.[5]

Regulation

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Pornography has been legal in Germany since 1975.[6] Exceptions to this include pornographic content depicting violent acts or sexual acts with animals, the distribution of which is prohibited,[7] as well as child pornographic content, the distribution and possession of which is prohibited when depicting real children, but legal when it is immediately apparent that the content is purely of fictional nature in cases of mere possession.[8][9] German law distinguishes between child and youth pornographic content, whereby the latter, which concerns persons over the age of 14, is punished less severely, with the mere possession of youth pornographic content being legal when it is produced exclusively for personal use with the consent of the persons depicted.[10]

Germany has relatively liberal laws and cultural attitudes concerning softcore pornography, which may even be broadcast on TV at night.[11]

Selling or distributing pornography to minors is a criminal offense.[12] Shops and websites that offer pornography must carry out age verification.[13] For example, Aylo's age-verification software AgeID is used to verify the ages of users of pornographic Internet websites and has been in use in Germany since 2015.[14] Violators of the law can face fines up to 500,000€.[15]

The German Edathy affair of 2013/14 following the neglected cooperation of Federal Criminal Police within the Canadian child pornography uncoverings gave way for new legislation procedures in parliament to define the status of either posing or exhibitive pictures of minors. New laws were still in parliamentary debating as lately as 19 December 2014.

History

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One of the earliest artifacts depicting human sexuality in the history of mankind, the Venus of Hohle Fels, was found in 2008 in the Hohle Fels cave in Schelklingen, in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is estimated to be more than 35,000 years old and has been described by some experts and media as (borderline) pornographic.[16][17][18]

One of the earliest pornographic films in the world is the German stag film "Am Abend", released in 1910.[19][20][21]

Closed sex shop at a former inner German border crossing point

The world's first sex shop[2] was opened in Flensburg in 1962 by Beate Uhse AG. Post-WW2 commercial movie pornography in Germany began with the softcore film Graf Porno und seine Mädchen (Count Porno and his girls) in 1968. The movie's success (more than 3 million admissions) led to a whole series of pornographic media that was referred to in German media as the Sex-Welle[22][23] (sex wave). The most well known film of this period is Schulmädchen-Report: Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten (The School-Girl Report, what the parents do not believe possible) by Ernst Hofbauer in 1970. The sex scenes had become bolder with time and by 1975, when the legal ban of pornography was lifted, the era of German hardcore pornography began.[citation needed]

In 1976, the German band Scorpions released the album Virgin Killer, whose original cover featured a nude ten-year-old girl, which stirred controversy in several countries[24][25] and, as a result, was re-issued in some countries with a different cover. The question of whether the album cover meets the definition of child pornography has been controversially discussed.[26][27][28][29][30]

As of 2007, over 1,000 pornographic films were released on DVD each month in Germany, and annual sales were estimated at around 800 million euros.[4]

In 2018, the SPD Berlin [de] passed a proposal to create government-funded feminist porn and make it freely available via public broadcasters, arguing that "mainstream porn depicts sexist and racist stereotypes", which can have negative effects on consumers and create unrealistic expectations among young people.[31]

In a 2022 episode of the German public TV show ZDF Magazin Royale [de] that focused on ethical problems in the online porn industry, Jan Böhmermann announced that their team, under direction of Paulita Pappel, had created the first public-service fee-funded TV porno film.[32] He described it as an "ethically correct, queer-feminist high-gloss porno” where all performers consented, were treated fairly, and paid properly.[32] The film, titled FFMM straight / queer doggy BJ ORAL orgasm squirting ROYALE (gebührenfinanziert) [de], received an oscar at the 2022 Venus Award ceremony.[33]

Film and pornography

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Director Hans Billian was the protagonist of the period and the films were usually in line with the so-called "Bavarian porn sex comedies", often depicting male performers as comic characters, like Sepp Gneißl in Kasimir der Kuckuckskleber (1977). This era was also characterised by several Josephine Mutzenbacher films.[citation needed]

References

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  1. ↑ "Sextoys, Fetische und viel nackte Haut" (in German). Der Stern. 27 October 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2026. Am Wochenende findet in Berlin die Venus statt, die weltweit größte Messe der Erotik- und Pornobranche. [This weekend, Berlin will host Venus, the world's largest trade fair for the adult entertainment and pornography industries.]
  2. 1 2 3 Schaer, Cathrin (26 December 2022). "What makes the Germans so open about sex?". The New World. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  3. ↑ Schwarzer, Alice (1 September 2007). "Pornografie ist geil ..." Emma (in German). Retrieved 2 June 2026. Und, good news: Als zweitgrößter Pornomarkt der Welt gilt Deutschland, direkt nach den USA. [And here's some good news: Germany is considered the second-largest porn market in the world, right after the U.S.]
  4. 1 2 Lill, Tobias (13 February 2007). "Gesetz mit Nebenwirkung: Das Ende des Pornofilm-Verleihs". Der Spiegel (in German). ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 2 June 2026. Die Bundesrepublik [Deutschland] ist der zweitgrößte Pornomarkt der Welt, direkt nach den USA. Mehr als 1000 neue Pornofilme erscheinen in Deutschland pro Monat auf DVD, der jährliche Umsatz wird etwa 800 Millionen Euro jährlich geschätzt. [The Federal Republic [of Germany] is the second-largest porn market in the world, right behind the United States. More than 1,000 new pornographic films are released on DVD in Germany every month, with annual sales estimated at around 800 million euros.]
  5. ↑ Krause, Tilman (21 December 2013). "Internet-Statistik: Warum wir Weltmeister im Porno-Gucken sind". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 1 June 2026. Laut einer Analyse der Online-Forscher von Similarweb bestehen 12,5 Prozent aller Webseitenaufrufe in Deutschland aus Zugriffen auf pornografische Seiten. Weltweit liegen wir damit an der Spitze der Statistik. [According to an analysis by the online researchers at Similarweb, 12.5 percent of all website visits in Germany are to pornographic sites. This puts us at the top of the global rankings.]
  6. ↑ "§ 184 StGB. Verbreitung pornographischer Inhalte". lexetius.com. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  7. ↑ "German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch – StGB)". www.gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  8. ↑ "German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch – StGB)". www.gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  9. ↑ "German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch – StGB)". www.gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  10. ↑ German Criminal Code, Section 184c (4)
  11. ↑ Cowell, Alan (13 February 1997). "Even if German TV Doesn't Blush, You Might". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
  12. ↑ "German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch – StGB)". www.gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
  13. ↑ "Legal requirements". klicksafe.de. 4 May 2023. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
  14. ↑ Zoe Kleinman (6 March 2018). "Porn check critics fear data breach". BBC News. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  15. ↑ "Age verification in Europe: Which countries require age checks?". euronews. 17 November 2025. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
  16. ↑ "The Earliest Pornography?". Science. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  17. ↑ Wilford, John Noble (13 May 2009). "Full-Figured Statuette, 35,000 Years Old, Provides New Clues to How Art Evolved". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  18. ↑ Strickland, Eliza. ""Pornographic" Statue Could Be World's Oldest Piece of Figurative Art". Discover Magazine. Archived from the original on 11 February 2026. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  19. ↑ Hay, Mark (11 April 2018). "Pornos in den 1920ern waren härter, als du dir hättest träumen lassen". Vice. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
  20. ↑ Phillips, W. D. (1 July 2018). "Smokers, Club Films, and Blue Movies". Genre. 51 (2): 133–158. doi:10.1215/00166928-6899280. ISSN 0016-6928.
  21. ↑ "What It Was Like: First Porn". Bird In Flight. 25 May 2015. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
  22. ↑ "50 Jahre sexuelle Revolution". dw.com (in German). Retrieved 2 October 2023.
  23. ↑ "Die German Angst vor Sex". Süddeutsche.de (in German). 19 May 2010. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
  24. ↑ "The 50 most controversial album covers of all time". www.gigwise.com. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  25. ↑ Dennison, Ben (18 November 2008). "The 15 Worst Album Covers of All-Time". Cracked.com. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  26. ↑ Johnson, Bobbie (8 December 2008). "Wikipedia falls foul of British censors". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  27. ↑ "Scorpionsomslag anses vara barnporr". Svenska dagbladet (in Swedish). 7 August 2015. Archived from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 25 September 2015.
  28. ↑ Zips, Martin (17 May 2010). "Die böse Blöße". Süddeutsche.de (in German). Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  29. ↑ Heine, Matthias. "Censorship: Naked people and toilets: scandalous album covers". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  30. ↑ Cohen, Noam (10 November 2008). "British agency resolves dispute with Wikipedia over album cover". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  31. ↑ Paulick, Jane (13 June 2018). "Porn gets political in Germany". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  32. 1 2 "Aus der Corona-Quarantäne: Böhmermann zeigt ersten öffentlich-rechtlichen Porno" (in German). Stern. 12 March 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  33. ↑ ""ZDF Magazin Royale": Jan Böhmermann bekommt Porno-Oscar". TV Movie (in German). 22 October 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
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