Hmm. Looks strikingly similar to a story that appears in the Darwin Awards book, and which has been circulating for the last 25 years at least, in various forms and about various nationalities/cultural groups. Treat as urban myth.
I'm always kind of skeptical of the Ananova stories, as they tend to not have much information regarding when and sometimes who and where, or their sources.
That is so bloody funny. I cannot wait to humiliate the Germans in my next French class with that one :-)
It's particularly funny because we were talking about the low standard of education in Germany just last week.. we hadn't considered that it might also include sex education though!
As I say, this story is almost certainly an urban myth; the only reason that the subject of it is currently a German couple is that whoever propogated it to Ananova has something against Germans.
Could be. In that case though the originator of this one is presumably a German, since they managed to pick a real (and rather appropriate) institution to blame the quote on, which is pretty good going.
I wonder if this incarnation originates from the Bild-Zeitung (not work safe) though the misspelling of Lübeck suggests otherwise - the daily mirror got the spelling right, maybe fixed off a blog post! but blame the article on Allan Hall in Berlin, who exists as a pseudonym? that appears in a number of papers eg. Times, Mirror, Scotsman, Sun, London Evening Standard, etc. (and skeptical articles -sorry, dutch)... It sounds like something the Bild would love to publish. The dpa, german press association, have picked up these articles before... I wonder if they will/have taken this one. It is hard to tell as the Bild do not keep online archives. And I note the Sun have now picked up the same story, though rather more politely than usual when there are Germans involved.
As for taking it seriously, I don't... it isn't practically believable when prostitution is legal and tv/posters on every street corner advertise sex. That said, this is also a country where sex is treated very irreverently - with a cash value, and little stigma associated to this attitude - which serves to sever its connection to issues such as, oh, expression of love or starting a family, leaving only the Pr0n face of the issue visible. I personally dislike this; great as sex is, I don't feel one should advertise on posters in subway stations next to adverts for sushi or McDo. Very few people actually do reproduce here, though this is strictly speaking to do with lack of available childcare, slowly failing economy and a general feeling that it's either Being a Mother or Having a Career - which it is in this place. There are few preschool care establishments, they cost more than just taking care of the kids, mothers who use them are asked to be ashamed at handing their responsibilities to a stranger, and German kids don't start school until years after the rest of Europe would. This, incidentally, is intended as a caring attempt to ensure the kids get to enjoy an unstressed childhood (bless), but it locks mothers out of the working world for most of a decade.
Equally, the men are as a rule fairly ignorant about a number of important practical issues surrounding sexual health/reproduction, eg. various varieties of Pill, coil, or rubber doodad out there or why "it feels better without" is not an effective argument. There are perhaps more averagely enlightened cultures in the world. Generally, German education fails in a lot of things (cf. PISA study) and on a side note, is often blamed for softness, lack of discipline and being generally slow (half-day school, you finally graduate from university at around 26!).
Finally, it comes down to this:- There is a missing link in German culture as to where sex fits in to reproduction or to love, and as to where women fit in to the greater scheme of things also (unfortunately). The idea that this comes down to lack of education is a political joke.
So this article is funny, even if you are German - Germans have a sense of humour, even though they are not world leaders in the cynicism department - but that's what makes a good urban legend. Stories like this make a great talking point.
Even more so when you also have a French contingent in the discussion, as the French are everything the Germans are not; their kids start school early. They stress, they work, they compete. Many, many Frenchwomen are fiercely feminist and scarily efficient career women, perhaps because the economy there requires it but also because the French (attempted to) kick out many ideals during the Revolution along with religion and hereditary social status... I am not saying that I believe the Germans to be wrong on this one, though you can see where my preferences lie (I am female, and I believe that I have the right to a career!), but I am saying that this urban legend would cause a great discussion. We could change the location to Marseille and see if it reads as believably, then try the same thing with London. It would be amusing.
Not to post about this again but: here is an earlier version of the story in dutch, and here apparently is the paper the thing was built upon. Psychogenic erectile dysfunction could I suppose be translated to become a polite term for "didn't see why he had to get a hard-on just in order to sprog", from which I suppose the story follows (guess this journalist just reads snopes a lot in search of 'angles'). The whole story has a very written in the pub after three beers and an amusing chat with an off-duty nurse/mate of a mate of one feel to it, but there you go... a core, or so it seems, of something approaching reality.
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But it wasn't what I wanted to link to! Stupid Logjam.
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It's particularly funny because we were talking about the low standard of education in Germany just last week.. we hadn't considered that it might also include sex education though!
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Perhaps I should just phone and check ,-)
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As for taking it seriously, I don't... it isn't practically believable when prostitution is legal and tv/posters on every street corner advertise sex. That said, this is also a country where sex is treated very irreverently - with a cash value, and little stigma associated to this attitude - which serves to sever its connection to issues such as, oh, expression of love or starting a family, leaving only the Pr0n face of the issue visible. I personally dislike this; great as sex is, I don't feel one should advertise on posters in subway stations next to adverts for sushi or McDo. Very few people actually do reproduce here, though this is strictly speaking to do with lack of available childcare, slowly failing economy and a general feeling that it's either Being a Mother or Having a Career - which it is in this place. There are few preschool care establishments, they cost more than just taking care of the kids, mothers who use them are asked to be ashamed at handing their responsibilities to a stranger, and German kids don't start school until years after the rest of Europe would. This, incidentally, is intended as a caring attempt to ensure the kids get to enjoy an unstressed childhood (bless), but it locks mothers out of the working world for most of a decade.
Equally, the men are as a rule fairly ignorant about a number of important practical issues surrounding sexual health/reproduction, eg. various varieties of Pill, coil, or rubber doodad out there or why "it feels better without" is not an effective argument. There are perhaps more averagely enlightened cultures in the world. Generally, German education fails in a lot of things (cf. PISA study) and on a side note, is often blamed for softness, lack of discipline and being generally slow (half-day school, you finally graduate from university at around 26!).
Finally, it comes down to this:- There is a missing link in German culture as to where sex fits in to reproduction or to love, and as to where women fit in to the greater scheme of things also (unfortunately). The idea that this comes down to lack of education is a political joke.
So this article is funny, even if you are German - Germans have a sense of humour, even though they are not world leaders in the cynicism department - but that's what makes a good urban legend. Stories like this make a great talking point.
Even more so when you also have a French contingent in the discussion, as the French are everything the Germans are not; their kids start school early. They stress, they work, they compete. Many, many Frenchwomen are fiercely feminist and scarily efficient career women, perhaps because the economy there requires it but also because the French (attempted to) kick out many ideals during the Revolution along with religion and hereditary social status... I am not saying that I believe the Germans to be wrong on this one, though you can see where my preferences lie (I am female, and I believe that I have the right to a career!), but I am saying that this urban legend would cause a great discussion. We could change the location to Marseille and see if it reads as believably, then try the same thing with London. It would be amusing.
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