by ELIZABETH HEINEMAN
A collage of Beate Uhse shops from the late 1970s PHOTOS/Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg
Hugh Hefner’s death has reopened bitter debates about his place in history.
Many obituaries in the mainstream media have described him as a sexual liberator. Feminists and conservatives, however, have employed far harsher terms, noting that he drugged, demeaned and essentially imprisoned women in his Playboy Mansion in order to live out the fantasy he marketed.
Hefner’s conduct looks particularly grim when compared to that of the woman sometimes described as the German Hugh Hefner: Beate Uhse, who also rose to prominence after WWII and became a household name in Germany and Europe. (She died in 2001.) As the author of a book on Germany’s most famous erotica entrepreneur, I am struck by how radically the early stages of her career deviated from Hefner’s.
Each made sexuality into big business. But whereas Hefner “liberated” men to live out their sexual fantasies free of financial or emotional responsibilities to women, Uhse urged mutual pleasure built on communication and sexual education – as well as sex toys, skimpy lingerie and titillating photos.
A different vision of sex – with a focus on women
Beate Uhse was born in 1919 – seven years before Hefner – to one of Germany’s first female physicians. She had an enlightened upbringing: Her parents educated their children about sex and set no limitations on their daughters’ ambitions. Beate became a pilot – an unusual profession for women even today – and during World War II she flew for the Luftwaffe. By war’s end she was a widow, a mother and a refugee from Soviet-occupied East Germany.
To survive in West Germany’s postwar “hunger years,” she turned to the black market. A self-penned guide to the rhythm method – avoiding sex during a woman’s most fertile days – found eager buyers.
Uhse’s second career was born.
Within two decades, her firm, the eponymous Beate Uhse, would become the largest erotica enterprise in Germany. Today it remains Europe’s biggest erotica business.
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