Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin

by Mel Gordon

This seductive sourcebook of rare visual delights from pre-Nazi, Cabaret-period “Babylon on the Spree” has the distinction of being praised both by scholars and avatars of contemporary culture, inspiring hip club goers, filmmakers, gay historians, graphic designers, and musicians like the Dresden Dolls and Marilyn Manson.

This expanded edition includes “Sex Magic and the Occult,” documenting German pagan cults and their often-bizarre erotic rituals, including instructions for entering into the “Sexual Fourth Dimension.”

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Germany, Art, Sexuality, Queer, Erotica

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2006

Reviews

[brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

if i wasn’t a lazy bastard, i’d put together a photography book called Fascist Fashion. yeah, that’s right. americans are great at a certain form of propoganda but the real 20th century badasses, the communists and fascists and tyrants and totalitarians and terrorists (in the case of the latter, their 21st counterparts really need to get their shit together. unruly beards and dirty robes and timex watches? Suicide Chic? uh… no), understand the aesthetics and sexuality of power and violence. (americans seem not to understand the sexuality of anything. It just seems to seep to the surface of our pop culture in a variety of disturbing ways)

consider Stalin. in america he’d be some short, scarred, ugly guy. over there? a crisp boxy suit, stylish hat, trimmed mustache, twinkle in his eye, throw on the samovar, olga on one knee, marfa on the other, weekend at the dacha. comrade! or Castro: beard, army fatigues, cute little cap, and that cigar. and Mao? motherfucking Mao? the little red book. the serene smile. the badass longshirt he wore all buttoned to the top? goddammit, i’d bang his bald, chubby ass quicker than you can scream “Workers of the World Unite” -- and Mobutu. Trujillo. Tito. Saddam. and the grandaddy, of course, Hitler. goddamn, if those nazis didn’t know EXACTLY how to make facism attractive. And who did Hitler fall to? Truman? A mid-western haberdasher? Yuck!

the best we have to offer is Kennedy. stack of Ian Fleming books in the oval office, glass of scotch in hand, banging broads in the back room of Sinatra’s palm springs hideaway, under the table handjobs from an aging Marlene Dietrich… and even him, even JFK, the exception that proves the rule, had to play it safe and wear those drab blue suits all the time. shit, can you imagine what Dior, Balenciaga, Ungaro, or St. Laurent could have done for JFK had he given them free reign?

so there’s no american counterpart to my book. No Capitalist Chic. who’d get in that snorefest of a book? fucking Tom Delay? former-exterminator christianist jackass? do that guy up all Founding Fathers Chic in powdered wig, make up, and knickers and he still sucks. Nancy Pelosi? uh, maybe if the plastic-surgery deer-in-a-headlights look and newscaster hair suddenly became chic… and Bush? total zero. total fucking waste.

well, Winston Churchill (again: great personality, horrible fashion icon) famously said ‘the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery’, and it may be true. capitalism may be the least of all evils and/or the soul-crushing instrument fearlessly leading toward the end of days… i don’t know. but i know this: aesthetically speaking its leaders have nothing on those who have fallen before its might.

[Alexis Hall]

Probably this is a better book to own non-electronically because the photographs are spectacular.

And the text seems, err, fine? For a whistle-stop-tour through Pre-WWII Berlin. Obviously the subject matter is what it is but I think manages to stay on the right side of breathlessly exploitative, exploring the gamut of ... experiences? available without necessarily equating any of them. Which seems kind of important when you've got several flavours of queerness existing alongside literal death-murder and paedophilia.

[Carla Remy]

I did not finish this. Endless types of prostitutes and child prostitutes of both genders. I really don’t care what adults do, but this was clearly a desperate time and the fact that children were involved is so depressing.

[Angela Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a collection of photographs and a document of the period, this book serves as a good introduction. The writing is somewhat lacking. I'd taken some undergraduate courses which focused on the Weimar pre-WWII period in Germany. It wasn't until several years after that, that I ran into this book in my roommate's collection.

I don't feel like I learned very much from the book itself, but the photographs were very nice. And that to have such a nice collection of period photos easy available for the read in one place is perhaps the greatest service of this book. I think that the obvious recommendation for people who were attracted to Voluptuous Panic would be to read Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, a random sampling of Brecht, and have a mini film fest of Maedchen in Uniform, Pandora's Box, Metropolis, and Joyless Street.

[Cav · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I saw pimps offering anything to anybody, little boys, little girls, robust young men, libidinous women, or (I suppose) animals. (The story went around that a male goose of which one cut the neck at the ecstatic moment would give you the most delicious, economical, and timesaving frisson of all, as it allowed you to enjoy sodomy, bestiality, homosexuality, necrophilia, and sadism at one stroke. Gastronomy too, as one could eat the goose afterward.)"
~ Luigi Barzini, The Europeans

Voluptuous Panic provides a disturbing historical record of the widespread sexual promiscuity, prostitution, perversion, and deviance that was widespread in the 1920s -30s Germany's Weimar Republic. To be honest, a lot of the material here was downright shocking and disgusting...

Author Melvin Irwin Gordon (February 18, 1947 – March 22, 2018) was an American professor, director and writer.

Mel Gordon:



Gordon opens the book with a bit of background on how the aforementioned widespread lax sexual morality, perversion and sexual deviance came to dominate circa 1920s Berlin:

"The harsh imposition of Wilhelmian law and threats of Prussian discipline kept the anarchistic urban-swamp in check. But in 1919, with the Kaiser gone and a democratic constitution about to be proclaimed in Weimar, those legal strictures basically expired. The tapped-down moral restraints of bratty Berlin suddenly burst at the seams. The once quaintly roguish German metropolis was now an open city—open for sex. Or, as its many provincial detractors decried, “a new Hell on earth.”

Voluptuous Panic features a vast array (for better or worse) of pictures (many graphic), illustrations, and drawings.
Gordon also mentions the collection of source material for this book in the prologue.

Unfortunately, I was not really a fan of the formatting and writing style here; which was jumbled right from the get-go. The presentation of this material resembles more of a catalog of prominent people, places, and establishments than it does a polished story with a definitive and cohesive plot. I felt the book lacked a coherent narrative flow.

Ruined both physically and economically, post-WW1 Germany saw devastating hyperinflation and economic depression that brought extremely hard times for most Germans. Gordon expands:

"For most German families, trade—either in heirlooms or stolen merchandise—earned subsistence to endure the month or week. But eventually these items became scarce or obsolete. Only foodstuffs mattered.
The profiteering and theft of them were abetted by a distracted government, intent on victories in the field. Those poor souls without food sources or connections had just one other commodity to haul to the public market: sex.
At first, young war brides, branded “strawwidows,” offered their carnal services to the available males of Berlin, then it was the provincial youth of both sexes, and finally the children of bourgeois families. Prostitution lost its exact meaning when tens of thousands were involved in complex sex attachments, all of a commercial nature. The vaguely Wilhelmian underpinning of middle-class Berlin slowly cracked and, over time, collapsed."

However, the dire macroeconomic conditions in post WW1 Germany were not the causal agents of this sexual degeneracy, says Gordon:

"The Great Inflation complicated Berlin’s sexual folkways but did not really alter them. The so-called moral collapse had already occurred. Erotic amusements, prostitution, and narcotics were all readily available before the inflationary madness. But now the purveyors of commercial sex and other decadent offerings had a more acute economic incentive. Berlin was suddenly inundated with hard-currency tourists, looking for Jazz Age bargains. Swedes, Dutch, French, and detested hordes of Turks and Japanese flocked to the open city. Their modest assets in the form of kronen, guilders, francs, lira, and yen metamorphosed the plucky foreigners into multimillionaires the moment they disembarked at the Stettiner Bahnhof.
In postwar Paris, a traveler could engage the services of a streetwalker for five or six dollars; but during the Inflation in Berlin, five dollars could buy a month’s worth of carnal delights. The most exquisite blowjob or kinky dalliance with a 15-year-old never cost more than 30 cents, or 65 million 1923 marks. The widows of famous Wehrmacht generals rented their bodies and bedrooms for a few precious kronen. Even upright bourgeois couples exhibited themselves in marital embrace for a solid hour if anyone was interested in that kind of theatre..."

And for anyone reading this review who may object to my usage of the words "degeneracy," "perversion," or other such value-laden terms, I would challenge you to read this book and not come to a similar conclusion yourself. Here is just one quote (among many, many others) that illustrates my point:

"Ilya Ehrenburg, the Russian writer, remembered going to a flat in a respectable neighborhood during the Inflation and discussing Dostoyevsky with the excited middle-class residents. After a glassful of lemonade mixed with spirits, the staid Berliners brought out their young, nubile daughters, who promptly executed a striptease before the shocked eyes of their celebrated guest."

Indeed; the book graphically details the absolutely disgusting sexual deviance that managed to achieve a sizeable degree of social acceptance in Berlin. Rampant prostitution, pedophilia, bestiality, incest, ritual sexual animal sacrifices; and more. The ability to purvey and easily partake of these vices openly are also described in these pages. I would be willing to bet that most of what is covered here will likely turn the collective stomachs of everyone aside from the most depraved and sexually deviant...

Some more of what is covered here by Gordon includes:
• Prostitution in Berlin; many different categories that catered to specialized desires. Amputees, deformities, pregnancies, old, young, etc
• Homosexuality in Berlin; gay and lesbian culture
• Pedophilia in Berlin
• Cross-dressing and transgender culture
• Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and his “Institute for Sexual Science”
• Nudist culture
• Ritual sexual animal sacrifices.
• Criminal sexual acts: "The social boundary between vicious criminal behavior and unconventional sex became increasingly blurred during the Weimar era." [See pic below]
• Sadistic serial killers.
• Nazi Cleansing of sexual degeneracy; the destruction of Hirschfield's Institute
• A "Directory of Erotic": listings compiled by the author from approximately 200 sources, most of which appeared in the late Weimar period between 1927 and 1932.

A morgue photo of a female "Lustmord." [Covered for graphic nature]:
"Lustmord:
The exact number of Lustmord crimes in Weimar Germany cannot be easily tallied. Berlin sexologists testified that many sexual-related homicides were unintentional—Suitors and rape victims expiring from heart attacks or strokes; lethal roughhousing during S&M play; auto-asphyxiation; spouses reacting to abusive sexual punishment. Even necrophiliac penetration following murder was not necessarily deemed Lustmord if the perpetrator violated the cadaver in a symbolic, rather than passionate, gesture.
True Lustmord required sexual frenzy, where torture, savage annihilation, and orgasm intertwined. In fact, few German lust murderers had normal or forced intercourse with their victims. The killing and mutilation itself substituted for coitus. As a rule of thumb, ejaculation took place during the actual moment of death or immediately afterward when the sex maniac was madly sawing, pummeling, hacking, or dismembering the corpse’s head or genitals. Female lust murderers typically climaxed just when their naked partners, after being informed of their dire situation, convulsed in agony from the effects of a poisonous cocktail."



**********************

Voluptuous Panic was not a particularly enjoyable read; given the absolutely downright repulsive subject matter. However, for this reason alone - it is an important historical record.
And although the author doesn't seem to think so (and mentions so directly in the book): a case could be made that the broader story here adds a piece of the puzzle to the cultural climate that would eventually see a right-wing strongman like Adolph Hitler rise to power.
3.5 stars.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's an apocryphal story about David Bowie meeting Christopher Isherwood, author of "Berlin Stories." Bowie said something to the effect that it must have been exciting to be in Weimar Germany during the Roaring Twenties, what with the tycoons, transvestites, and spies all rubbing shoulders. At this point Isherwood felt compelled to let the relatively younger man know that he was a writer of fiction, and that the Weimar that fed his adventurous stories was very much fabricated.

The point of this anecdote is to highlight how elusive the reality of any bygone era is at a certain remove, and to further point out that Mel Gordon does the reader interested in the real history of Weimar a bit of a disservice by (by his own admission) ignoring anything that doesn't serve his sensationalist agenda. "Eroticism" is a subjective term, and while I didn't object to the S & M/ gender play content (or even the urolagnia/coprophagia), the sexualization of children glorified in the book (even if Gordon would deny this was his intent) was a bit much too stomach.

Taken in the right spirit, as something in the same vein as Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon," which is to say a kind of salacious bit of tabloid-style light reading, the book really isn't half bad. Some of the photos, flyers, and bits of artwork are essential Weimar memorabilia that help give the reader insight into Germany's ill-fated experiment with democracy in the post-Wilhelmine era. But those of a more scholarly bent beware: there is a bibliography, but no sources, and when I attempted to find external corroboration of many of the assertions in the book, the only results I got online led me right back to this book. That's a red flag right there. Tepid recommendation.

[Jim Dooley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a fan of the musical, CABARET, you actually have a pretty good insight into life in Weimar Berlin before the Nazis came to power. It was a time of massive, runaway inflation with disposable income quickly disappearing. To survive, many first sold their belongings ... and then sold themselves.

I read this book as research for a project, and was amazed by what I found. In the midst of its decline, the city of Berlin and the surrounding environs became sexualized to a degree that has likely not been seen since Sodom and Gomorrah. The writer provides stories and photographs that are jaw dropping, from families offering their children for sexual pleasures to clubs centered around "magical" sex rites.

Indeed, the Kit Kat Club created for CABARET is a tame version of the ones that existed, catering to every manner of sexual lifestyle and fetishism. Even nudist camps proliferated, ranging from the promotion of a healthy lifestyle to centers for sexual conquest. To be sure, there were many who were offended and campaigned against these places, but it wasn't until the Nazis came to power that these "examples of a decadent lifestyle" were forced into oblivion.

Many of the stories amazed me. For instance, "lustmord" ... a sex murder ... became prominent. Victorian England had its Jack the Ripper, but his victim count was far outshone by those of the "Werewolf of Hannover" and the "Düsseldorf Vampire," both of whom may have had as many as forty victims each.

There were major sections of the book that seemed like a tourist guide, taking the reader inside many unsavory establishments and describing the behavior seen within. There were times that I wondered if the pictures provided had been transferred from some other collection to make these places seem even more lurid, yet there would be the name of the club proudly displayed.

The downfall of these places went unmourned by me. It was only disconcerting to learn that they were too repellent for the Nazis.

This book provides a glimpse into a very dark side of a Sin City. Fascinating, haunting, at times beautiful, and decidedly predatory, Weimar Berlin was a unique entity ... and the book provides an opportunity to observe it from a safe distance.

I recommend it for the curious.

[Matthew W · Rating 5 out of 5]

The real wealth of this glossy book lies in the eclectic collection of perverse erotic photos from Weimar Berlin. This wonderful book also has anecdotes on the Occult, serial killers, the rise of National Socialism, quack doctors, deranged religious/cult leaders, and sex slang lingo. Once again, another lavishly put together book from the sages of forbidden information and history at Feral House.

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this 5-10 years ago.
Imagine if Hollywood Babylon was about German pop-cult personalities of the 1920s and 1930s... and was factual.
This book is as good as that book could have been.

Highest recommendation.

[Edward Champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinarily well-researched and completely fascinating volume on the decadence in Weimar Berlin. Mel Gordon impressively managed to collate all manner of rare photos, postcards, and literature (apparently not destroyed by Nazis!) to brilliantly recreate the deviance and transgressive behavior that flourished for almost fifteen years before the Nazis put a stop to it. You'll find everything in here. And I mean everything. Nudism, Satanism, S&M, secret societies, LGBTQIA innovation (thanks in large part to Magnus Hirschfield), and more unsavory stuff such as sex worker exploitation (children and those with disabilities, I'm afraid). The volume is both comprehensive and unflinching. But it is, most importantly, a vital chronicle of a particular subculture that has probably not been so honestly portrayed by some of its professed boosters.

[Cwn_annwn_13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some parts were more interesting than others but overall a very good read and historical document. The sections on the sex cults and infamous self proclaimed sex magicians that were active during this era in Germany were the most interesting to me.

[Ryan Schiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing book with a collection of photos and drawings of 1920's Weimar Berlin that I have never seen in one place. Great write-ups of what you are looking at with details that are seldom written.
It floors me at the sheer decadence that thrived almost 100 years ago. It would give Las Vegas a run for it's money as Sin City even today.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is awesome, as far as subject matter and photographs. The editing and proofreading, however, leaves much to be desired. Aside from that, as a reference and resource of beautiful and sometimes disturbing photos of one of my favourite time periods and cultures, this book is priceless.

[Hagar · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The romanticism of the underworld bewitched me. I was magnetized by the scum. Berlin—the Berlin I perceived or imagined was gorgeously corrupt." Klaus Mann, 1942

If you're into decadence, depravity, murder, satanism, filth, and want to know about categories of whores and scum, you'll enjoy this book a lot.

This is not a detailed sociopolitical history but rather a sybaritic account of the Weimar underbelly. I think Mel Gordon is a perfect writer for this. You just need to know what you're getting into: a subterranean orgy.

For a more sanitized, overarching, less sensational historical account of Weimar culture, I'd recommend the Peter Gay book on the subject.

I think this is an ABSOLUTE GEM! Albeit quite flashy and speculative at times.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart, but the photographs are truly incredible and you feel fully immersed in Gordon's vision of Weimar Berlin. Minus points for sensationalistic writing, which Gordon himself cops to at the end ("When in doubt over which report to believe, I generally accepted the more salacious account").

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an absolutely marvellous book but I have a serious problem over aspects of it. But first the praise. Mel Gordon is a maverick but serious academic in both his research and presentation of his arguments. He is absolutely free from the stodge of academic prose and loves his subjects and loves communicating what he has discovered to others. His presentation of the various groups, organisations and individuals who flourished in post WWI Germany and challenged the accepted sexual standards is wonderfully diverse and includes some marvellous illustrations from the time. When you look at the photographs but also read excerpts from many of the publications what is so startling is that this material these ideas, these photographs of liberated cabarets and theatre productions were mainstream, out in the open on newsstands and in regular clubs and theatres. There was nothing discreet, hole-in-wall, apologetic or euphemistic. The world of Weimar Berlin and the openness of the discussions over the role women, women's equality in work and marriage; the discussions of human sexuality, about homosexuality and within the homosexual movements between different visions of what being homosexual meant have no parallel for more then fifty years. In fact when Hollywood made Cabaret in 1973 there was nowhere in Europe and certainly nowhere in the USA as free in terms of what could be spoken of, thought, said or published as Germany during the Weimar years.

The greatest achievement of Weimar was it's refusal to censor ideas and opinions. It was happy for those who rejected convention to do so (obviously within limits of harming others) to say things, publish things, behave, dress and adopt lifestyles that were unpopular with many and scandalised more. That belief in freedom in areas of personal morality is what makes Weimar so unique, but again it didn't just appear out of the blue. The roots of many things like the women's movement and the homosexual rights movement but also many others had already put down strong roots in pre WWI Germany. There was an amazingly and richly variegated literary, artistic and political world which felt more attachment to its counterparts in Paris, Barcelona, Vienna, Moscow, then Germany's cultural pajandrums. The Kaiser and the imperial court was a ridiculous anachronism. It is more likely that WWI slowed rather then hastened the transformation into the modern world (see Philip Boom's Vertigo Years and Florian Illes '1913').

And this is where my reservations about this book comes in. Because the information is not presented within any kind of framework of what it emerged from, the context of the times in which it happened, or even a reliable narrative of how things developed and changed over the course of the Weimar period the book can all to easily be read simplistically as a decadent society with no roots, ideas, or character which inevitably collapsed under the discipline of the more morally astute Nazis.

The story of Weimar and the rise of the Nazis has often been presented that way as a warning of the dangers of unbridled sexual licence (that was the way the film Cabaret told the story - which was certainly not the way Isherwood, the originator of the stories in which the film was based, told it). It was like an updated story of the fall of Rome before those fierce barbarians because of the effeteness of Rome's ruling order (another incredibly resistant fairy story - hahaha I know what I wrote). This book because of its lack of proper context is in danger of providing ammunition for this inaccurate story to be presented again. Ironically the wonderful and rich illustrative marterial that celebrates the freedom of Weimar is in danger of providing folder for those who see freedom as a licence to promote repression and censorship.

I really hate to sound this negative because I love so much about this book and I wish high school students studying 20th century history had this as compulsory read but without context the wonderful material Professor Gordon has assembled does not tell the story it should or he would like it to.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly and eye-opener for me, I did not know much about the social life of Weimar Germany before starting.

One thing for sure we are not inventing the wheel at the moment with all out boldness, our permissivness etc. Imagine it and it was there back in the 1930's in Germany and if it was there it must have been elsewhere as well. The Gay 30's - Chicago

[A.J. Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The degenerate culture of Weimar Berlin before it went up in flames during World War II. Is this not the same degenerate culture that exists in America today? Will we suffer a similar fate, or judgement? A must read book with hundreds of photos from the era.

[Fluffy Singler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A

[?0?0?0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taken as a pure, dry, discourse on the history of interwar Germany, "Voluptuous Panic" may not be the academic work you're looking for, but if you want a fun read similar in style to Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon", although more factual, with posters, images, and a whole slew of other imagery from the time, some grotesque, some erotic, some funny, well then Mel Gordon's book is really hard to put down. It runs through the underworld of the time, the sex workers, the occult, sex workers, lustmord, etc. and in the back there's a glossary of the cafes mentioned with details on those specific venues. Loaded with imagery you're not likely to find jammed in any other cool looking book, filled with salacious tales, and with a bent toward the grotesque, this book had pretty much everything, and where it lacked, it provided enough information for this reader to study names and places elsewhere.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nihilism. Hedonism. Perversion. Murder and Satanism. Freaky German people. Makes a Rammstein concert look like a squirrel walk with St Francis.

Funny, though, how the Hippies played out the same script, complete with Manson instead of Hitler.

And, funny, how the new child grooming and genital mutilation kick mirrors the Weimer anti-values.

Some might think the same people are trying the destroy decent sane society stuff over and over again.

Always promising a fun, free time and always ending in nightmarish pain, disorder, insanity and debased control over others.

Who could be behind such a thing?

Hmmm....

[Llewellyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be forewarned: The book is pretty lurid, well, pretty much throughout. And gross.

But a lot of the detail is fascinating, especially the latter half which gets into the world of German cults. But it's also a window into what happened in the Weimar era, which is equally entertaining and absolutely depressing.

It doesn't say it outright, but it makes a case that Berlin cabaret came out of the flood of prostitution following the massive inflation of the Weimar era and a population that was desperate for foreign currency.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing but smut.

[didi · Rating 2 out of 5]

beautiful collection of art nd photography with lacklustre supporting text

[Alberto Erazo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin de Mel Gordon es un libro que no solo se atreve a explorar un tema poco investigado, sino que se adentra en las profundidades de una Alemania de los años 20 que desafía la percepción común de la historia y la cultura. En su estudio, Gordon no exagera al señalar lo poco que se ha indagado sobre este período histórico, y con razón: la Alemania de la República de Weimar fue un lugar único, donde el erotismo, la política y el esoterismo se fusionaron de una forma casi inimaginable.

Lo fascinante de este libro, y lo que realmente le da un valor excepcional, es que Gordon no solo presenta una recopilación de imágenes y relatos sobre la decadencia de la época, sino que también teje una narrativa que nos invita a reflexionar sobre los límites de la sexualidad, la ideología política y la sociedad en su conjunto. En ese sentido, el autor hace un trabajo sobresaliente al contextualizar estos excesos dentro de una Alemania que estaba experimentando una especie de "descarrilamiento" cultural y moral. Un descarrilamiento que, como señala el autor, no solo llevó a un liberalismo sexual radical, sino también a un escenario propenso para el ascenso de fuerzas oscuras como el nazismo.

Lo que convierte a este libro en una lectura fascinante, desde una perspectiva sociológica, es que ofrece una ventana única para entender cómo una sociedad se puede desintegrar lentamente bajo la presión de fuerzas internas tan poderosas. La Alemania de los años 20 fue una época de contrastes extremos: mientras florecían la prostitución, la pobreza y la decadencia, también lo hacían el cine alemán, la experimentación sexual y una nueva visión de la libertad que hoy parece casi inimaginable. En este contexto, se puede ver cómo los "disparates mentales" y las formas extremas de vida social se convirtieron en parte integral de la realidad diaria.

Es interesante cómo el libro aborda también el contexto de la pobreza y el surgimiento de fenómenos como el culto a los asesinos seriales, que se convertirían en figuras de fascinación en la sociedad alemana. Todo esto se entrelaza con un liberalismo sexual tan extremo que se convierte en la semilla de lo que, años después, conduciría a la subida de los nazis al poder. La relación entre esta "decadencia" cultural y el ascenso del nazismo es clave para entender cómo este período histórico, aunque se desintegró rápidamente, dejó una marca indeleble en la historia de Alemania y del mundo.

Este libro no es solo una crónica de excesos, sino una lección de historia sociológica, un análisis profundo de cómo las sociedades pueden girar hacia lo desconocido, llevando consigo tanto el dolor como el progreso. La Alemania de los años 20 es, en este sentido, un laboratorio de ideas y comportamientos que, si bien en su momento parecieron extremos, hoy sirven como un testimonio de lo que puede suceder cuando las normas sociales y políticas se desvanecen.

Voluptuous Panic no es solo una mirada audaz a una época fascinante, sino también un llamado a reflexionar sobre cómo las sociedades pueden caer en el abismo de sus propios excesos, solo para ser arrastradas por las fuerzas de la autodestrucción. Es una recomendación obligada para cualquiera que desee comprender mejor este peculiar capítulo de la historia alemana y, por ende, del mundo.

[robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read the whole book. There were revolting images that I couldn't look at (to give one example, murder victims). Part of me wonders if Mel Gordon is heightening everything because he finds that exciting. But this book does give you a glimpse into the secret underworld of Weimar Berlin.

There were people partaking of the freedoms a collapsing empire made possible. Berlin was a haven for homosexuals, transvestites, exhibitionists, and masochists. Alongside this laudable expressiveness, it's sad to realize that a lot of the erotic freedom was simply a result of hunger. People were selling themselves to survive.

Gordon's impressive obsessiveness has enabled him to accumulate a dizzying array of artifacts from the era that would probably have been lost to time with erotic archaeologists like him. There are even maps and descriptions of clubs so you can walk about and visit if you have a Time Machine and bring this book with you.

To fully immerse yourself in the Weimar Republic, start with this book, then read STEPPENWOLF, BLUE ANGEL NIGHTS, and GOODBYE, BERLIN. Then watch PANDORA'S BOX, DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, and CABARET.

[Vultural · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gordon, Mel - Voluptuous Panic

Hedonists, decadents, sybarites, voyeurs. Dilettantes or turistas.
Titillating excursion into the corrosive beauty of Weimar Berlin.
From the aftermath of the Great War until Hitler becomes chancellor. 1919-1933.

This book organizes and catalogues all manner of sexual activities, proclivities, and shenanigans that flourished in nightclubs, brothels, same-sex haunts.

Don’t blame Germany. Sexual currency, depravity, recreation, is older than the pyramids. Thing is, this was the first time years of photographs, adverts, paintings, and memorabilia survive, along with diaries and memoirs from participants, authorities, onlookers.
And hundreds of photographs and illustrations are the lure for this book.

I bought this when it was first published, and a later edition is extended, with more photos and a chapter on Sex Magick (which is hardly exclusive to Berlin).

For future time travelers, there is a handy map indicating where the clubs are. The finest to the sleaziest, same-sex-only to tourists welcome.

[Arnout Brokking]

Weimar Germany, and specifically Berlin, is a fascinating time/place-period, and Voluptuous Panic does a great job of collecting a fabulous array of photographs, posters and art.

As for the text, I really enjoyed it as an introduction, but felt it strayed a bit too far into sensationalism for my taste, often choosing to focus on the more seedy moments. Examples of this include the number of times the book paused on under-aged girls and boys, and the inclusion of certain gory crime-scene photo's in the chapter on lustmorden.

Instead of the more shocking extremes, personally, I would have valued a bit more information on the "everyday" eroticism. Maybe a bit more on characters like Hischfeld as well. And there were a few moments were I was unsure what facts certain numbers or certain events were based on, but most of the photos were awesome. And I'll certainly keep it on our shelves for now.

[Jay Amari · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a well-documented historical review of the Weimar period from 1918 through to 1933, a time filled with drug abuse, sexual debauchery, and crime!
Mel Gordon does a great job highlighting the vacuous atmosphere left after Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, and the German economy hit rock bottom, leaving many to resort to the oldest profession- matron, young women and boys, and men all became prostitutes in order to earn enough money to survive, and this increased the drug trade, and the crime, and sexual deviant holy tribes that made Berlin the place to go for real lascivious living.
Well- illustrated with photos from the time, the book may be a real eye-opener for many interested in the vacuum that allowed Nazism to rise, and Adolf Hitler to take over as leader.

[Greg Kerestan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure unapologetic sleaze with a side of sociology, there's been much debate over whether Mel Gordon's "Voluptuous Panic" is an accurate or a sensationalized look at the sexual underground culture of pre-Nazi Berlin. Either way, it's an extremely wild ride through every pleasure, perversion and profession you can imagine. Gordon takes a slightly detached view in prose, but a decidedly voyeuristic approach to photo collage- it's hard to tell if this is pornography or a history textbook at times. Though Gordon doesn't touch MUCH on the Weimar era's impact on punk, it's hinted at, and that connection isn't hard to see for yourself when you read it.