It’s no secret that Berlin has a certain reputation: the kinky, poly, queer haven of sex-positivity, where nudity is the norm at lakes and clubs alike, latex kinkwear populates local flea markets and DildoKing ads loom large on morning commutes. The city, through its many eras and iterations – from 1920s Weimar and its thesis of sexual liberation as political revolution to the ‘89 Love Parade and the era of free love, sex and techno it ushered in – has remained steadfastly sexy. And while anyone given the chance will tell you how much Berlin has changed over the last decades, there is still an ineffable (and, in another sense, very f-able) energy to the city that remains intact.
We designed a survey that could investigate how these stereotypes measure up to reality.
But like anyone or anything with a big reputation, the details can overshadow reality. We wanted to tease apart some of the city’s stereotypes and investigate which, if any, of them ring true. Are we really as kinky as we think? Just how many people are non-monogamous? Is commitment really so difficult to find here? To really understand what love and sex look like in present-day Berlin, we needed to go straight to the source: all of you.
We designed a survey that could investigate how these stereotypes measure up to reality, and we asked, among other things: How do you define your relationships? Has the type of relationship you prefer changed while living in Berlin? Has Berlin influenced your sexuality? Have you ever been in a threesome, or to a sex party? How open are you to exhibitionism and voyeurism? How difficult is dating here? More than 2,000 Berliners offered us their perspective, and then we turned to the experts in the field – relationship coaches, sex-positive party promoters, researchers and, of course, Berlin daters – to hone our understanding of how Berliners feel about sex and dating in this city.
Of course, our results can’t capture all of Berlin. The Berliner is an English-language magazine operating in Germany, so our reach is strongest within the magazine’s readership, which is largely English-speaking. The survey went out in English, and was shared digitally through social media, so the demographic we captured reflects that. However, hundreds upon hundreds of Berliners responded, giving us statistically significant data to form a picture of life in Berlin. So while there are of course limits to our research, this is nonetheless a genuinely interesting portrait of what’s really going on in our city, on the streets and in the sheets.
Stereotype #1: Everyone’s poly
Consensual non-monogamy (CNM) has become part of mainstream discourse in recent years – if New York Magazine and Der Spiegel are running cover stories, you know it has reached the masses. When we asked how people defined their relationships, 40% of people categorised them as some version of non-monogamy. Of course, this can mean a whole host of different things – polyamory falls under that umbrella, but also structures like open relationships, relationship anarchy and being ‘monogamish’.
Forty percent is a sizable chunk, even when compared with other major cosmopolitan cities. A 2023 study by sexual wellness brand Lovehoney found that 38% of people from the UK would consider non-monogamy; in Berlin, we found at least 56% would consider or were already actively practising non-monogamy. New York, on the other hand, appears more comparable to Berlin: a ‘Singles in America’ study conducted in association with The Kinsey Institute from 2023 found that 38% of single adults in New York City have been in a consensually non-monogamous relationship.
So, given these not-dissimilar numbers, why is the notion of Berlin as a polyamorous playground so much more established in cultural discourse? This is further evidenced by the close to 80% of you who strongly or somewhat agreed that Berlin provided a more diverse representation of relationship structures than other cosmopolitan cities.
“People come here to play, and the kink scene and the polyamory communities and all the subcultures within that realm of ‘Let’s let loose and explore and play’ – those are very strong here. So that’s not even a stereotype, that exists here and people come here for that,” says Cameryn Moore, who has been hosting the storytelling series Smut Slam for 13 years, inviting people all over the world to tell stories about sex and dating.
The city can be inspiring and motivate you to explore certain things, to raise certain questions about what you want out of love.
Interestingly, while monogamy is still the norm, we found that the majority of Berliners are open to change. Over 50% of people currently in monogamous relationships were potentially or definitely interested in exploring something more open in the future, and of the people in non-monogamous relationships, a slightly larger majority of 55% said they’d be open to monogamy in the future.
Regardless of relationship type, a substantial number of people aren’t committed to the relationship style they’re currently practising, which indicates a fluidity of thinking. Even most of those who aren’t in a non-monogamous relationship are comfortable with the concept enough to consider it down the line, and even those who are already non-monogamous don’t necessarily think monogamy is a terrible idea.
We also wanted to find out if the city itself had influenced people’s experiences and the way they expressed themselves. We asked people whether living here, for however long, had changed their perspective on key things. More than a quarter of people said living in Berlin had changed their sexual identity, but even more – 35% – said it had changed their preferred relationship type. There’s an undeniable effect that this city has on how people think about their love life, and even as the conversational tides are turning for those of us with open minds (and legs), it’s surprising just how many Berliners love – or are open to loving – a lot of people, a lot of the time.
“The city can be inspiring and motivate you to explore certain things, to raise certain questions about what you want out of love, and have uncomfortable conversations with yourself that you could otherwise avoid if you lived somewhere else,” says Cairo-born Berliner Hassan*, 34, who has been reimagining his relationship structures over the six years he’s been dating here. “You maybe see an example of someone who’s having a certain type of a relationship, and you might not even know the definition of the word – you have to look it up. And then at some point you might start to relate to it, like: okay, yeah, this makes sense. This fits: I can be this person.”
Others are influenced not by Berlin but drawn to it. Thirty-one-year-old Trudie*, for example, moved to Berlin from the UK six years ago with her girlfriend to try an open relationship and attempt to save their flailing one. “We considered the idea of being open in Berlin in a way that we couldn’t in London,” she says. “[We] had this kind of collective idea that Berlin will fix our problems, like, ‘In Berlin, it will be different’.” For Trudie, it wasn’t; her relationship deteriorated within weeks of the move.
“[An open relationship] is not the latest trend that everyone has to join in on,” relationship coach Svenja Sörenson told Der Spiegel earlier this year when emphasising that non-monogamy isn’t necessarily right for everyone. She’s not alone in her opinion: structures like polyamory or consensual non-monogamy are “delicate arenas” that require honesty with yourself and with others, Moore says.
I think living here has actually even made me think more critically of certain narratives.
“You need to be able to [communicate] more than ever in those subcultures and those play spaces, you need to be able to talk about things. And on the one hand, there are people who can do that. But when you have people who are drawn to Berlin for that, but they don’t get the part about [being] able to talk about it, you’re just getting a lot of people who are super excited to be here, but don’t know how to [navigate].”
There are also those who abuse Berlin’s openness towards non-monogamy. For single pansexual Lesley*, 28, who moved to Berlin from Los Angeles, the city provides a breeding ground for values to be co-opted in harmful ways. Their dating experiences revealed an at-times toxic landscape full of “douchebags taking advantage of this phenomenon, and using the term CNM as an excuse to just treat people badly”, they say.
Berlin sex and relationship therapist Jeremy Shub, 52, agrees about the misuse of the concept. “It takes cheating and gives it a name,” they say. “And I think there’s a woke crew of cis dudes who just use it to be selfish and take advantage of people. But just because you’re having an open relationship, there’s still responsibility, and there’s still consideration.”
This is perhaps why some people, like 27-year-old Marit*, a lesbian in an open long-distance relationship, have begun to question the seeming dominance of non-monogamy in Berlin. “If anything, I think living here has actually even made me think more critically of certain narratives than I was before,” she says. “I’ve seen so many people try their luck at poly relationships and come to the conclusion that they’re happier in rather monogamous and ‘traditional’ [ones] after all.”
Still, Berlin’s reputation for non-traditional relationship structures can make for a comfortable entry point for those interested, a place where people can practise non-monogamy with access to resources that facilitate intimacy and healthy partnerships, like an abundance of coaches who specialise in this area and support groups for those practising non-monogamy. But nothing about the city’s reputation is going to grant anyone easy access to a successful relationship – of any kind.
“I used to wonder whether monogamy or polyamory is more challenging,” Shub says. “And finally, I asked a friend who’s a therapist in Australia what she thought, and she said that it’s not the constellation or the shape of the relationship per se – it’s the depth of it. What will make it hard is if you want to go deep – if you really want to touch the tender things, things like desires and shame that really want to turn the compost over – then, yeah, it could get wobbly.”
Stereotype #2: Everyone’s kinky
When you think of kink in Berlin, you might come up with images of gags, belts, whips, cords and cuffs. Sex toys shops abound here, and the term ‘play space’ is used less for children on the swings than adults on the… well, sometimes also the swings.
But the reality is that kink is a broader category that encompasses a large number of things you could be doing at clubs, behind closed (bedroom) doors, or not at all. It’s a category in Berlin that not everyone has the same conception of (“If you put a blindfold on someone, you’re kinky!” Shub argues). But it’s still a topic with a big hold on public discourse here, and we wanted to investigate whether the city’s stereotype stands – is it all chains, chokers and chafing latex, or is the city not really the fetish haven it is reputed to be?
When we asked Berliners whether they’d ever participated in any BDSM activities – not the only kinky contact people could be having, but one of the categories widely considered to fall under kink – 54% of people say they had. And there is no arguing that, regardless of your personal experiences with it, kink spaces are more visible in Berlin than in other cities.
“Kink is just in the air here,” Shub says. “It is like a candy store for all of the sexual desires people have,” adds Lesley. “You may not know that you are attracted to X, but then in Berlin, you can find X every single week. These things do not exist in other cities. Like, the idea of a sex party that’s open to the public – I have literally never heard of this in other places. Sure, I have friends who go to sex parties in NYC, but those are private and you have to join some kind of society – like an Eyes Wide Shut kind of thing.”
Fabio Bocchese, one of the organisers behind legendary queer sex party series Gegen, cites the city’s vibrant kink, BDSM and fetish scenes as one of his reasons for living here since 2002. “What sets Berlin’s scenes apart is their ability to transcend societal taboos, fostering an environment of trust and experimentation,” Bocchese says. “Beside providing individuals a safe space to explore their deepest desires without fear of judgement, this environment encourages participants to push their own boundaries and engage in consensual exploration, fostering a sense of liberation and empowerment.”
Lesley tells a story that underscores this freedom. Despite having nurtured a pegging fantasy since the age of 12, they were repeatedly rebuffed and shamed for it by the men they tried to broach the topic with, and had trouble finding those who were open to it. “I just said to myself, goddamn it, I have had this kink for so long. So I just went to a sex party and walked into the dark room with this strap-on. Almost immediately, a man approached me and said he had this fantasy of a really beautiful woman fucking him up the ass. And I was just like: ‘Well, tonight’s your lucky night!’ And the next thing I knew, there was an audience, and men lining up like, me next. I was in there for like an hour, just fucking guys up the ass. It was the most amazing night. And it was just such a moment of… I don’t want to say pride. What is the opposite of shame?”
The “opposite of shame” seems to be an emerging theme of kink life in Berlin – but that doesn’t mean that everyone here is kinky. In our survey, we asked Berliners about their sexual behaviours, and for many of the practices we listed – threesomes, orgies, sex at parties – a vast majority respondents who hadn’t experienced those things said they’d be open to trying them. This was markedly different for BDSM activities: 44% of the people who hadn’t already tried it said they weren’t open to doing so. “When I first moved here, I was going out a lot and definitely felt a kind of pressure to be open to the kinky scene, sex parties et cetera. It felt like everyone was doing it,” says Marit. “After seven years of living here and being in lots of different circles and spaces, I know that this isn’t true.”
Anytime you have an event that says it’s sex positive, it is super important to make space for all of it.
It also doesn’t mean that Berlin universally does a good job of making people feel welcome in the scene. “I think anytime you have an event that says it’s sex positive, it is super important to make space for all of it,” Moore says. “So I specify: kink and vanilla friendly. I will say asexual friendly… Sometimes you go into places and it’s just like, we’re so enlightened. And I think that’s possibly an Achilles heel for any space or any group or any city that says, oh, we’re sex positive. It’s like, yeah, but do you make space for people who aren’t, for example, polyamorous? Is it okay to not be kinky or do you kind of sneer at people for that? And Smut Slam being what it is, we tend to get a lot of kinky fuckers and polyamorous people, and that’s great. And this is a safe space to talk about those stories and not be judged. But within those communities, I think it’s really important not to turn that around and judge in return.”
Regardless of whether they act on it or not, nearly two-thirds of Berliners we surveyed strongly or somewhat agreed that Berlin increased their openness toward kink and BDSM. This is easy to see underscored by the abundance of city organisations and groups that facilitate healthy kinksploration through workshops, events, panels and podcasts.
In March alone, the IKSK (“Institute for Body Research and Sexual Culture”) hosted workshops on bondage and another on the art of submission, as well as sex yoga classes. Queer collaborative art space Karada House, in addition to hosting workshops, classes and performances, offers resources like their ‘Kink is Political’ poster, which challenges people to deconstruct their sexual fantasies while enjoying them. Berlin is also home to dozens of people who coach others through their sexual fantasies.
“Kink is also a form of communication where you learn a lot about yourself,” Friedrichshain-based kink coach Dee told Berliner Zeitung last year. “In this respect, it is important to first be clear about what you want and what you don’t want. It’s about setting boundaries, being mindful and also understanding each other.”
The sheer popularity and visibility of kink-positive spaces in Berlin – all the sex parties, the toy shops, a packed events calendar for those who want to experiment – make it seem like everyone is fetish-forward, but it’s an inflated perception. But regardless of whether you’re regularly getting down in the darkrooms, spanking from the comfort of your own sheets or your mission is merely missionary, kink is, to a certain degree, in the eye (or the fist) of the beholder.
Stereotype #3: Everyone’s afraid of commitment
It’s a common refrain: dating in Berlin is a nightmare, right? Such a nightmare that it’s impossible to find anyone who would actually want to settle down, right? Many Berliners seem to concur; nearly half of people we polled said that dating here was somewhat or very difficult. But the idea that Berlin is a singles’ city – another common refrain – is even further from the truth. The fact that, on paper, Berliners are not really that single – as many as 63% of you said you were currently in a romantic relationship – seems to do little to dissuade the prevalent feeling in the city that finding intimacy and long-term committed partnerships is a special kind of challenge.
Shub is not surprised at such high levels of frustration, having heard them many times before in their therapy sessions. “That’s Berlin. It is a transient population, and there’s also something cold in this city. It’s not an open-arms, welcoming kind of place. And I think that makes people avoidant. The fear of intimacy in the city is very strong.”
Lesley has also felt this creep up in their dating experiences. “In terms of people looking for intimate romantic connections, I find it very, very difficult. The population of Berliners who want to have intimate connections is just vastly outnumbered by the people who don’t, or who aren’t ready to.” In their experience, people are either in very serious long-term partnerships “with a dog and an apartment and like, that’s it”, or are just out for variety, unwilling to commit themselves in any way. “This idea of dating and getting to know somebody, getting to know one person, or getting to know a limited number of people over an extended period of time – that culture doesn’t exist here.”
Of course, that’s a perception, not necessarily a reality. Fabian Broeker, a London-based German researcher who did his PhD dissertation on dating in Berlin, has one explanation for this gap. “These stories around Berlin as really pushing the boundaries, amazing nightlife, anything goes in Berlin, lots of fleeting intimacy and things like that – these stories really influenced the way people talk about dating. I’d have interviews with people, and they’d be telling me, ‘Oh, in Berlin you can’t have a serious relationship, everything in Berlin is so fleeting and everyone’s just here to meet hundreds of people and nothing serious can happen’,” he recalls.
“But, a lot of the time, [these stories] jarred with the actual personal experiences. People would be in happy relationships, or they’d met someone on a dating app or they had these long-term relationships, and they’d still be talking about these narratives… even when that was completely the opposite of their own experience.” Berlin’s reputation loomed larger than their lived experience, he said. “It’s almost like they contrast their own experience against that or see themselves as being in a minority when as a matter of fact, they’re probably a majority.”
Moore offers another explanation: “When I think about the dating pool in Berlin, it is not only that you have people coming here to party, or coming here to play. But it’s also a city that people come to casting around for clarity or something to anchor themselves. We come to the city, but we bring our own baggage with us. You may be travelling light on easyJet, but you still got all your other shit.”
A lot of the time, these stories jarred with the actual personal experiences.
The feeling that finding intimacy and long-term committed partnerships in Berlin is impossible seems prevalent to daters – possibly because many say Berlin provides choices on an almost overwhelming scale. “Everything just moves super fast. It kind of feels like speed dating – but instead of 20 people, it’s the whole city. So you’re always on the lookout for something else, optimising, reiterating on your soulmate search. Which translates to a city full of singles,” says Hassan. “The openness with yourself and the openness that the city kind of provides is what makes this city so special. But relationships in Berlin are also harder, because you’re confronted with all of these options pretty much every day. Things that are working for others might not particularly work for you, but you are nevertheless confronted with them, and find yourself wondering, maybe I should try this out? Maybe I am not being interesting enough or open enough?”
Moore agrees that a lot of the frustrations with finding love in the city have to do with a tension between self-discovery and honesty. “I do think that is a common failing amongst a lot of people, not wanting to limit their options and so they say they’re open to everything, and that really comes into conflict with what they want. That’s everywhere, but I think that gets amplified when you come to a place like Berlin, where you really want to explore everything. You don’t want to limit anything, you don’t want to rule anything out. But you haven’t spent a lot of time listening to yourself and asking, ‘Okay, but what do I really want?’,” she says.
“Ultimately, you can boil it down to: people are not getting what they want from the dating scene. I think there’s an element of, dating is hard everywhere. Because people aren’t being specific about what they want. They’re not staying open to everything, they’re not truly open to everything. They’re not being honest, necessarily, about their approach going in.”
Despite all this, some have found joy in Berlin’s dating scene, even if they haven’t locked down a lover. “Before moving here, I was warned by my native Berliner cousin that ‘You won’t find a boyfriend in Berlin, it’s a singles city – people don’t find love as easily as they find a good time’,” writes Irish-born Berliner Lulu Johnson in her memoir-style book Dating in Berlin. “But it’s not all doom and gloom in the City of Singles, hell no! I’ve had a great amount of fun on the dating circuit. I’ve made lifelong friends from dating, which in turn grew my social circles; I discovered different parts of the city through the dates I went on.”
Our verdict
Stereotypes usually exist for a reason – they’re widely-held beliefs or perceptions, but they’re usually also oversimplified. They’re often things to overturn, to buck, to debunk. But we weren’t out to write a story that confirmed or denied Berlin’s reputational stereotypes – we were out to dissect them.
Sure, Berlin is full of non-monogamous relationships – but it’s trickier than it looks, and there are people abusing the city’s openness. Yes, Berlin is full of spaces that cater to sexual fantasy, but kink-friendly still isn’t a given, and exploring fantasies can be hard work. And of course, dating can be difficult here – as it can be anywhere you go – but that’s as much a perception as it is a reality. And while Berlin offers itself as a kind of Mecca of possibility when it comes to both dating and sex, it is often the very things that allow this culture to exist and proliferate – a desire to explore different aspects of their personalities, to test-pilot nuances of their gender, of their sexuality, of their very version of love – that create a tension with the ability to establish long-term intimacy and commitment.
Berliners want to engage with each other on these issues.
When we put this survey out, our response wasn’t merely quantitative. 584 people wrote back to elaborate on how Berlin has changed their identity. 976 wanted to add context to their answer about whether dating in Berlin was enjoyable or unenjoyable. 1,054 wrote more clarifying their answer about whether the city had influenced their attitude toward non-monogamy. Hundreds wrote in at the end to say they wanted to read the results, to express their interest in these topics, to thank us for giving them a chance to share their perspective.
Berliners want to engage with each other on these issues. The interest is so high that even if we can’t come to universal conclusions about how things are for everyone, it’s valuable to simply foster the conversation. Of course, there’s still more to discuss – age, gender, cultural background. One recent German study found that 32% of people believe there will be more open relationships in the future; that number is 50% among young people. There will surely be more to explore down the line. And by talking about these things with more depth, we make space for everyone to revel in their own naked truth. In that sense, Berlin lives up to its reputation.
*Names changed or shortened to protect privacy
