Sex is the form of expressing love.
[Christiane Amanpour] Berlin...
Is it kinky?
[Amanpour] Carnal Capital of Europe...
Ah, so good.
- Ah! - [woman laughing]
[Amanpour] Legendarily daring...
I want booty calls. I want casual sex.
- Did your family go naked? - Yeah, sure.
[Amanpour] And disciplined, even when recreating.
So you don't know where that love is?
-[painter] I don't know. I don't know. -This is the city of love...
What about the whole idea of romantic love?
Do you have a good sex life?
[laughs]
Are they having enough sex?
- Exactly. - [laughing]
[theme music playing]
[woman gasps]
[Amanpour] Is it sexual?
[Felix Ruckert] It can be.
[Amanpour] I've to come to explore sex and love in Berlin.
And this is my initiation rite.
Felix Ruckert's Japanese rope class.
Hop! [sighs]
Now move your rope quick and fluently.
[Amanpour] I thought that dropping in on a bondage workshop
would be a good entry into the famously edgy Berlin scene.
[Ruckert] Tight, but not too tight.
[Amanpour] I was expecting leather and chains and dim basements.
Not sunlight and yoga pants.
[Ruckert] Will you try?
- You should enjoy it. - What I do for my art.
[Ruckert] Everything you have to do, huh? Awful.
- Terrible job. [laughs] - So is this a punishment?
-[Ruckert] No, no. That's a reward. -[laughing] A reward?
It's a reward.
[Amanpour] Just explain to me what we're watching. What is it?
It's a workshop. Some people come to learn something, to get some new ideas.
-Right. -Of course, um, why people do this?
There's many different reasons.
You know, there's an aesthetic aspect.
Therapeutic aspect for some people.
- Therapeutic? - Therapeutic.
- In what way? - Letting go of control...
- Uh-huh. - You know?
- Taking control. - Yeah.
[Amanpour] Is pain involved? I mean, I heard a few, you know, groans.
[Ruckert] I mean, you can make it very comfortable, just like a hammock,
you know, if you put a lot of rope.
And then it's more about this floating feeling.
- [Amanpour] Yeah. - But most people like also
that it puts the body a bit in pieces. It stretches you.
It's something, uh, beautiful.
There's something very alive.
The real, personal, direct intimate meeting.
Because that's what people crave for,
and that's what they can experience here.
And it does turn on a lot of people.
[Amanpour] The atmosphere in this room is really intense
and surprisingly intimate.
There is no awkwardness here.
Everyone's pursuing their goal of getting turned on
in a disciplined, precise, and dare I say it, German way.
- Is it kinky? - For me, yes.
- But for some people, no... - It is kinky for you?
For me, it's kinky.
I do it because it turns me on. I find it exciting.
So is it sexual for you? Is it about sex?
-You are a bit obsessed with sex. You keep coming back. -Yes, yes.
-This is what this whole program is about. -[laughs]
I mean, for me the question is, are people happy with their sex life?
You know? Are they really fulfilled?
Are they getting what they want?
-And if you ask that question, you know... -So I'm asking that question.
[Ruckert] When I do a public talk and I ask people,
then you have at least 70-80% who are not really happy with what they have.
They're not getting as much sex as they want and not they way they want it.
- 70-80%? - I would say, ja.
I mean, are you happy with your sex life?
Well, it's a very good question.
- Ja. - Yeah.
- And? So? - [both laughing]
[Amanpour] Why Berlin?
Well, Berlin has always been a sexy city.
A legendary cabaret scene.
A place that attracts people looking to fulfill every sexual fantasy
and satisfy every fetish.
Given the city's pedigree,
I want to know what sex is like here.
[Lina speaking]
[laughing]
[Amanpour] For these two young women,
sex is as uncomplicated as sending a text.
[Paulita] It's a match!
How's your Saturday?
A bit boring so far,
but it's going to be a full moon tonight!
[imitates wolf howl]
[both laughing]
Oleg, Hagen, Andrew, Lisa, Joe, Stan, Alex, Mark.
[Amanpour] Of course, swiping left or right is a big part of romance in the digital age...
- Sweet. - It's a match!
[Amanpour] Like many of their generation,
Paulita and Lina are looking online for their dates.
I've been trying to have the smallest amount of words exchanged
for having sexual intercourse with dates.
"Hi. Where are you?"
- "I can be there in 15 minutes" - Mmm-hmm.
The guys are like completely astonished.
It's always like, "Okay, we could be having sex."
-"We're wasting our time." -"This is just meaningless blah-blah
because I'm not really interested in your job or in your future expectations
or in being the mother of your children, so..."
[Amanpour] But this will be a Tinder date with a twist.
[Paulita] So my idea was to cut a hole here somewhere,
so we can put the hidden camera here.
[Amanpour] Paulita earns her living as an adult filmmaker
and tonight, she will secretly film Lina's multiple hook-ups
with both men and women.
And then, with their consent,
the encounters will be turned into a sort of reality porn film
- and posted on the Internet. - [Lina] Oh, that's perfect.
[Amanpour] Paulita calls it "Tinder porn."
[Paulita] Yeah. This is going to work, this is so good.
Whoo!
This is what happens!
- [doorbell buzzes] - [gasps]
Is that him already?
Okay, let's put the camera on.
Oh, so good.
- [screams] - [both laughing]
Exciting!
Paulita, I've sort of slipped into your movie here.
What's Lina doing? What's going on over there?
[Paulita] So right now, I left her there Tindering.
The challenge is, she has 12 hours
and needs to make as many Tinder dates and sexual interactions as possible.
Why do people want to do this?
- Uh, cause it's fun. - [both laugh]
And for me, as a woman, it's very freeing to be able to have a profile
and be out there, being like, "Okay. I want booty calls. I want casual sex."
- And you do that? - Yeah, absolutely.
- A lot? - Uh, when I have time.
I mean, I work a lot, so... But when I have free time, yes.
[Amanpour] You know, a cynic would say
"It doesn't matter what you call it.
'Sex positive' or 'feminist-friendly porn, '
it's still porn and porn is exploitative."
That is because pornography, like any other industry, is just a mirror of society.
-Yeah. -So if we have a sexist society,
we're going to have a sexist pornography.
And when you google "sex" in the Internet,
the only thing you find is very violent, very extreme things.
And so boys are thinking, "Whoa! That's the benchmark now?"
Exactly, and the problem is that people are not getting a proper sexual education.
So, if parents would talk to their children openly without taboos,
without shame and tell them,
"Look, what you see here? It's two people doing this sexual practice.
It's a film, it's not reality."
The same way that you tell your child, "Superman doesn't really fly,
-so you cannot just jump out of the window and fly." -[laughing]
It's a film, it's not reality.
If we would have an open dialogue on sex, that wouldn't be a problem.
So do I sound like a prude when I'm asking you these questions?
- No, not at all. - [both laughing]
- Let's go! - Let's do it!
- You are on your own, okay? - Yes.
- Good luck! Be safe! - I will.
[Amanpour] As Lina headed off on her way to one of her five hook-ups that night,
I couldn't help feeling the generation gulf.
It couldn't have been easier. Honestly...
"Come here. Kiss me!"
Time is running, but we have like 90 minutes so...
- We're going to rock it. - Whoo!
[Amanpour] I can see that these young women
are fully in control of their sexuality
and they treat sex more like many men would.
[Lina] How are you doing, babes?
[Amanpour] As someone disinclined to record my own sexual pastimes...
Oh, my God. That was so funny!
[Amanpour] ...I have to wonder what sex is like for the rest of this city...
Are other Berliners having this much action?
[Amanpour] Berliners take their sex very seriously,
and not just in the cabarets, or the clubs and the sex shops.
The world's first sex research institute was established here in 1919.
It was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld,
and it was a safe space for Germans
to open up and learn about all matters of sex.
But all this progressive sexuality was too much for Hitler.
Amid the horrors of the Third Reich,
the Nazis burned this institute and all its archives to the ground.
But today, the old spirit is back.
It's alive and well on German public television every Monday night.
[speaking German]
I’m Ann-Marlene Henning, sexologist.
[Amanpour] While Americans laugh along with late night talk shows,
Berliners are watching Ann-Marlene Henning
unravel the mysteries of a very different kind of pleasure.
She uses props and graphic videos,
so couples can better understand
how to give each other the best possible experience.
So is Germany as open as we all think?
Maybe we can say there's a lot of sexuality, sex shops,
and, uh, also televisions shows and all that,
but there's still things to be done because there's this new conservatism going on
that we shouldn't talk about sex again and women back to the houses.
But there's enough people, more people, who doesn't like it.
So I say, let's talk.
[Amanpour] And her brand of frank sex talk is finding an audience among a generation
that's more comfortable texting than talking.
So what are the big issues in this generation?
All we hear about is planet porn...
I think they kind of imitate
because that's what they see four to six years before they have real sex.
But they think about it in a different way. They know it's not the normal sex...
I try to show the real stuff and that is more calm and this is down to earth.
So, "Generation Porn," I call them "Generation Longings."
They long for something. They can feel that this is wrong.
- What I'm beginning to learn... - Yeah?
...is that it's not just about sex, it's about communication.
Yes. That's one of my biggest things.
Talk about it. It's so easy.
And it can be fun and then you are in real contact with another person.
And then the sex gets better, the love.
You can feel the love.
Are they having enough sex?
They claim all the time that they have 2.6 times a week,
and I don't believe it. Because...
- I don't believe it either. - I... Exactly.
Why don't you believe it? Because you know more.
Because I don't have 2.6 a week.
And, that's the thing. What is sex?
Penetrative sex or maybe also with yourself? Masturbating.
And then I claim 2.6 a week might be right...
Because I had sex this week. With me. Also.
[both laughing]
[Amanpour] But what happens when this tolerant, open, public conversation about sex
is joined by people coming from a much more conservative tradition?
Germany's recently taken in more than a million refugees.
The majority are young, Muslim men who arrive
with very different ideas of how the sexes interact.
To head off at least some of the culture clash,
Germans are trying to integrate the newcomers to their new home.
There are language classes, civics courses.
Then there's this.
[Karoline Heine in German]
My Arabic? It’s non-existent.
[Amanpour] Karoline Heine is a young sexologist,
and she's teaching sex-ed to these refugees.
[all speaking German]
I know two words.
I only know "marhaba" and "mehbar."
"Mehbar." It's the word for vagina?
- [students] Mahbar! - Ah, mahbar.
Or "Koos."
[all laughing]
[Heine] In 2015, all these newcomers came
and all the people who work with these young people were like,
"Oh, my God! Now we have to handle this very, very difficult topic. Sexuality."
They were very unsure how to handle this "hot topic."
And, um, so, I just started to do and try this out and, yeah.
[Heine and students speaking German]
[Heine] Make a choice! What is that?
- A penis? - That is a vibrator.
[Heine] But the battery is dead.
[all laughing]
What is that?
I have no idea.
Do you remember the word, "clitoris"?
-[Hashem] Clitoris. -Yeah, clitoris. This spot is very sensitive.
Yeah.
I’ll say a word, and you tell me what you associate with it.
Kissing.
Kissing. Yes, it's something nice.
The Prophet said something about that.
You must start with this and not just get on with the sex.
Pornography?
In our religion, it’s totally, totally forbidden.
We must not watch it.
Another word: Orgasm.
No idea what that is, honestly. [laughs]
It’s the moment during sex, when you climax.
And who has it first? The man? Or the woman?
That depends.
Yes.
[Heine] Talking about this topic, it is completely new for them.
What I try to do in these sessions is to get a good conversation
because it is very, very interesting for me to learn from them,
to hear from them, uh, their opinions on Germany.
[speaking German]
I heard that, at school,
you get practical lessons in sex.
Is that correct?
No, no! God, no! No! That’s absolutely wrong! That's absolutely wrong!
[all laughing]
[Amanpour] The interest these young men have in learning about sex
is pretty universal.
And so, perhaps sex ed can become an unlikely bridge between the cultures.
[Heine speaking German]
[everyone laughs]
[Amanpour] In Berlin, sex and nudity are out in the open and on display.
But for Zohre Esmaeli, one of Germany's hottest fashion models,
the road to the runway began with the defiant act of removing her headscarf.
And no one was more surprised than I was
to see this refugee from Afghanistan
become the nation's newest ambassador for tolerance and openness,
taking over that role from the much more typical German,
blonde, blue-eyed supermodel, Claudia Schiffer.
[Amanpour] You come from Afghanistan, you escaped the Taliban.
The most repressive, the most covered up
conservative society and you come here
and you do something completely western.
The fewest amount of clothes, the most putting yourself out there.
At what point did you realize that, actually, to be a woman
was something completely different than what you'd grown up
thinking it meant to be a woman?
I can explain.
Before I come to Germany, I was not a normal girl.
I always wanted to play with the guys outside, with my brother.
I wanted to be always man because they had so much freedom.
I didn't like the burqa or scarf or this...
[Amanpour] Did you used to wear yours in Afghanistan?
- The burqa? - [Esmaeli] Yes, yes, yes.
But when I was discovered as a model,
it was the beginning to understand what it is to be a woman.
How you can use your woman power.
To be feminine?
What you have, what the God give you in your body.
[Amanpour] Zohre's culture values strict modesty,
and removing her headscarf took courage.
But a career in modeling would mean revealing a whole lot more.
For me, it was not easy to work as a model for lingerie.
I can remember one day I was very sad.
I called my friend and said,
"I make a picture in lingerie and I feel like God doesn't like me,"
- and... - [laughing]
She told me, "Zohre, look.
God is so busy with other people or terrorists...
-You are the end of them. You know?" -[laughs]
So kind of, thank God you left?
I think it was the best thing what happened in my life.
I understand what is the meaning of life,
to be a human, to have freedom.
I think modeling was not for me just a job.
It was the... The vehicle
-that let you find your freedom? -Exactly, exactly.
And you're the world's only Afghan supermodel?
- Model. Just a model. - Model? [laughs]
Not supermodel.
[Amanpour] Zohre found her freedom in Berlin
on the journey from the burqa to the bikini.
And she's in good company.
Berliners have always sought freedom of expression.
And on the eastern side of the Berlin Wall,
they found their own route to liberation by stripping down even further.
And in doing so, slyly raising the middle finger to their communist oppressors.
My driver, Patrick, is taking me to visit
the next generation of this naked truth.
You are taking me to FKK.
[laughs] Frei Korpus Kulture.
- Frei Korpus Kulture. - Yeah. Free Body Culture.
What is that?
That's a club where the people living in all situations without clothes.
[Amanpour] "Free Body Culture" dates back to the 19th century in Germany.
It's credo is basically, "Free your body and your mind will follow."
How normal was that for you growing up in Germany?
This whole naked thing?
In the eastern side, it was totally normal.
In western Germany, it's not so relaxed.
- Did your family go naked? - Yeah, sure. Always.
So first time meeting my girlfriend,
my parents were naked.
- Like, "Hello!" - And was she naked?
-Yeah, sure. It was on the beach -It's really weird.
[laughs] It was normal in the east.
That was a small piece of freedom that the people had.
-You were free just to express your body. -Yeah. [laughs]
[Amanpour] There are clubs like this all over the country,
but as a product of a British convent boarding school,
all buttoned down and covered up,
this kind of thing is still a bit of a curiosity for me.
People who are just fine with publicly flaunting what to most
are really their private parts unknown.
- Hi. - [man] Hi.
- So, can I join you? - Sure...
- Welcome. - Hi, nice to see you...
Little strange for me, I have to confess,
-but you know what? I'm going to get into it... -Yeah. Okay.
- Shall I strip too? - Yeah.
That's about all I can get away with! Okay, so...
- Vincent? - Yeah?
Is it kinda weird playing ping-pong in the nude?
It really isn't for me. I'm used to it.
But why do you do it?
- I like the freedom of it. - Really?
-Is it weird for you watching? -Not really, because I've sort of...
It's obviously weird because I'm throwing it into the net.
But tell me about the freedom.
I like, I like the idea of the freedom.
-[Vincent] Yeah. -'Cause it's not about sex, is it?
It isn't. There are other ways where people can be sexual, right?
I mean, the world is full of it right now.
And this is kind of a niche
where you can still be naked and like your naked body
without this part of all the sexual stuff.
Which is a very nice thing, to be happy with your body.
That's actually an interesting point
-because everybody is obsessed with their bodies these days. -Yeah.
Especially in relationships. People think, "Oh, I've got to be...
Look this way in order for somebody to find me attractive."
-Sure, yes. -But that doesn't exist in this group?
- No. - Right?
-No, it's not the point. -No, it's not like buff and bodybuilding and showing off.
-No, it's not. -So, why is it so central to freedom? Why?
I think if you're like dressed then you can also have styles.
-Mmm-hmm. -But if you're naked, you're all equal, right?
So it makes you also aware of your own body.
-Yeah. -And this really helps to free your mind.
[Amanpour] Vincent's a biochemist
and it clearly brings a deep sense of satisfaction
for him to break out of this convention.
Aw, damn!
And it got me wondering whether Germany's FKK
acts as a great leveler in someway.
The ability to get over body image
surely must play a role in what I'm seeing here in Berlin,
which is a very honest and open attitude towards intimacy,
and love and sex, too.
For me, sex is as important as food or water is.
It's like the most natural instinct,
what... What pushes us forward.
Sex is the form of expressing love.
A love for life.
[Amanpour] Zohre was born into one culture, but she's been thrown into this one,
and she embraces it.
I was curious to know how she's handled relationships in this city.
I want to ask you about your love life.
- [laughs] - Yes, you can.
What does it mean to be loved?
I see the real love when the person accepts you how you are
without changing you.
-And did you know... -I discovered real love in Germany.
And I think, when I stayed at home in Afghanistan,
I could never understand what mean the real love.
[Amanpour] We're on our way to see new refugees from Afghanistan
who are just starting out their life here.
Zohre sees herself as their "culture coach"
and she's using her own experience to try to help them navigate
what is really unfamiliar territory.
And what about the whole idea of romantic love?
I think in Afghanistan, like to be romantic, doesn't exist. You know?
-Holding hands, kissing? -Holding hands, no. Nothing, no.
I think they miss a big emotion.
They don't understand how you can enjoy the real sex.
I think for them, it's like "Okay. Inside, outside, have kids."
You mean, in, out and kid?
- Yeah. - [both laughing]
And you see they have kids. You can say, "Okay. They had sex."
So there's no sense of enjoyment?
No, no. Really I ask my... Some people...
Okay, I don't want to tell the name.
Because I have a different experience
and I'm very happy
because every human have the right to enjoy the real sex...
They told me, "No. We don't understand what you're talking about.
We don't have this kind of experience."
- You mean pleasure? - Yeah, pleasure.
I don't want to tell them, "Oh, you're missing something."
But, yeah...
[Amanpour] This was a school that's been turned into a refugee camp
in the heart of Berlin.
And for now, it's home for Lina and her husband Hanif,
their two children, and her in-laws.
[in Arabic] Thank you.
[Amanpour] I've reported on people fleeing war and crises throughout my career
and I've always wanted to ask about how they manage to maintain
what makes us all human:
relationships, love, and intimacy.
[girls singing in German]
[Amanpour] All three generations of this family are sharing this small space
and privacy is scarce.
You've got a four-year-old, a six-year-old, you've got a new daughter coming.
I just want to ask you one personal woman question.
Here you are in one room in a camp
and you have to have husband-wife relations. You're pregnant.
How difficult is it to do that
here with everybody in the same room and...
- What? - [laughs]
[Esmaeli] It's a good question, but I don't know if you'll get the answer.
[Amanpour] Ask her.
[speaking Arabic]
She says, you are pregnant, in the camp...
[laughing]
We managed to conceive our child here.
It's a gift from God.
[Amanpour] So in this room you got pregnant?
We were here.
Yes.
No one ever asked this question!
[all laughing]
Do you mind me asking you all these questions?
Too late, you asked already!
[all laughing]
[Amanpour] In Lina and Leila's culture,
sex and love are extremely private matters
and even talking about them openly is taboo.
You have one son. What did you tell him about love?
-About marriage? About courting and getting a wife? -[laughing]
I was expected to find a good lady for him.
-[Amanpour] It was her duty to find him a woman. -Yes. Exactly.
- And she did. - [Esmaeli] She did.
- Dear Lina. - Exactly.
What expectations did you have?
When I got married, my mother advised me
to get along well with my in-laws and my husband.
She told me not to fight with them.
First, your in-laws!
- [laughs] - [Amanpour] What?
First of all, you have to take care of the parents of the man,
and then your husband.
[Amanpour] And what about herself? Her own happiness?
Were you ever told that you also have a right to be happy, to be loved?
This is not in our culture until now. No.
I can explain you. When you marry in Afghanistan,
you don't marry the guy, you marry all the family.
You have to wash. You have to cook.
Is that what you expected? Is that what you want?
I wanted a future that all girls want.
To have a happy marriage and to have children.
I wanted this happiness.
She say, um,
every woman, every girl, want like this, how I am.
To have a good life, to have kids.
I think, when the horizon is not big,
to ask this question about happiness. It's scared...
-She looks scared right now. -[Esmaeli] Dangerous and scared...
-And I think we have to be careful with this question. -[Amanpour] Mmm-hmm.
- That is so interesting. - Yes.
That is a dangerous question.
Wow.
[Amanpour] Berlin has its kinky streak for those who dare,
and sex, in all its shapes and forms,
is just on the other side of a door.
[Lady Mercedes] People come to Avalon
basically because they want to have
a sexual experience, of course.
To have a fantasy fulfilled.
The average client is, I would say, mid-40s, in very good positions.
Mostly married men,
who in the outside world lead others
and are under very high pressure.
Here is a place where they give up completely and they don't decide anything.
Because we rule their world.
In Germany, the dominatrix is not having sex with her client.
So we have other ways.
There are hundreds of possibilities.
Thousands of fantasies.
[Amanpour] Here, sex is stripped down to its essentials.
A physical experience removed from the trappings of love.
[indistinct chattering]
[Amanpour] But back in the real world,
where people have families and jobs and mortgage payments,
does Berlin's kink filter through?
So, uh, ladies,
how often do you guys get around some pretzels and some banana bread
to talk about sex?
Less often than I used to.
-Less often than you used to. But you do? -[Nicole] Of course.
But not usually with people traveling all the way from America...
- [all laughing] - ...to talk with me about sex.
[Amanpour] Nicole, Luisa and Sarah, three working women,
are going to hash out the truth behind Berlin's reputation
as the carnal capital of Europe.
Where does kinky stuff fit in the Berlin experience?
Say for you, for instance?
[Luisa] Well, with a three-month-old and a four-year-old,
I haven't left the house past 9:00 p.m. in, I don't know, five years.
So the kinky stuff goes right past me.
- But, um... - You can be kinky at home.
Kinky at home? No, we're way too tired.
Um...
Um, what do you make of this saying in Germany
that's sort of KKK... Not that KKK,
but it's Kinder, Kuche, Kirche.
Am I right? Translate?
It means, um, to church, and children and kitchen.
So that's the way women's lives have been framed for a long, long time?
-Yes. -So what to you does KKK mean?
The kids, the church, the kitchen.
I mean, look where we are?
For me, it means this kind of mother ideal
that totally isolates women from the society.
And I think in Germany especially,
this idea that you cannot go against your nature,
is pretty strong from the Nazi times still.
[Amanpour] All Hitler wanted from women was babies.
The more blue-eyed, blond-haired babies, the better.
Medals were handed out for large families
and a cult of motherhood was born.
I remember really distinctly
when I was heading towards 40,
one of my producers, a guy, he said to me, "You know, Christiane,
you've been quite successful. What are you gonna do, grow old and hug your awards?"
Kind of, okay, now it's time, get married, have kids...
This... This fear of being lonely comes from this...
This kind of threat, you know, like you don't get love when you don't have a child.
What does love mean to you?
What does it mean to be loved?
Love is the foundation of our relationship stability.
This idea that we find a soulmate, of course that implies also good sex.
I think we base all our happiness in our relationship on that love.
And there are people who say, "That's a flimsy foundation."
For me, I would phrase it more like, we talk about connection, you know?
Like the connection we can have in various ways.
[Amanpour] This urge to connect keeps cropping up in Berlin.
But what keeps that connection alive in a relationship?
Is sex the most important component of a successful relationship?
I guess so.
I think it's different from couple to couple.
So that's really interesting because, in Europe,
the birth rate is plummeting quite precipitously,
and there are huge statistics to show
that couples are not having that much sex,
not that regularly.
Apparently, men who participate more in housework
also report higher levels of sexual satisfaction with their wives.
- Voila. - [Luisa] Right?
I think this is a balance in a... In a relationship, you know?
That means also, you can negotiate.
And you can also talk about that in bed.
You know? For me, this is totally clear that when you are equal in all sorts of levels,
you have a much more intimate way to just be open about what you need.
So we can boost the fertility rate by making men do more housework.
- Yeah. I totally agree. - Or just sex?
No, Well, that goes together, apparently.
-[laughs] -You can't get the one without the other.
[all laughing]
[Amanpour] And if that doesn't work, there's always this piece of advice
from professional dominatrix, Lady Mercedes.
- I say... - [whip cracks]
Get undressed.
[man sighs]
Learn from us.
Just put a latex panty on.
For women, it will help their sex life,
and make the sexuality more pleasant for them.
[Amanpour] Far, far away from Berlin's night clubs,
amid the rolling hills and pastoral villages of the German countryside,
an unlikely love story is unfolding.
Samah is a Syrian Muslim who fled the war at home
and came here to the small German town of Eschwege
where she met Klaus, a German Christian.
And they fell in love.
[talking indistinctly in German]
[Amanpour] I wanted to know how two people
who come from such wildly different backgrounds
find each other and make it work.
Good evening. Welcome to the Storytelling Arena.
[repeats in Arabic]
We have a wonderful program for you tonight of Syrian love stories.
[Amanpour] I'm meeting them at an event that introduces Germans to newcomers.
[Ehab speaks in Arabic]
My eyes followed them.
And I saw through the window, in the rain, he kissed her.
How can I explain a love such as theirs?
Such a love defies the alleyways, the streets,
whole neighborhoods.
Such a love defies the city.
Thank you.
[audience applauding]
[Samah] It is not normal to talk about love in our country.
So usually, when they speak about love, they speak in a hidden way.
-And it really, it touched your heart. -It... Yes.
[Amanpour] Everybody in this room,
it's full of Syrians and Germans.
They're all talking about what it's like as a Syrian or as a German to court,
to flirt, to go out with each other.
- What was it like for you? - Yes, you can, you can...
-I'm sorry you have to answer these questions. -[laughing]
- What did you like about her? - I like her attitude.
She has a certain ability to... To, uh, attract people.
And what did you like about him?
He's so honest,
so that's why I decided to talk to him.
[Amanpour] Samah and Klaus met at an English class.
But she's a practicing Muslim,
and she wasn't comfortable being alone with Klaus.
So for several months, they only talked via text.
[Samah] When I agreed to meet him,
to meet him to talk about our future marriage,
the appointment was at nine o'clock,
- but he came at 8:00. - At 8:00.
- [both laughing] - So, sorry, you asked him,
so that you could interview him about marrying him?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Samah told me, in Syria, it would not be like this,
to have a girlfriend, uh, like in Germany.
[Amanpour] Tell me what you said to him?
I told him. I can't go out with you.
Either you will be a friend
or I will be your spouse.
Because I felt so shy to tell him I want to be your...
- [Amanpour] Your wife? - Yes.
- You couldn't say that? - I couldn't.
-And the first kiss was, uh, near the church. -[Amanpour] Aw!
[Amanpour] Texting led to love and marriage, and a whole new life together.
[Amanpour] Do you feel liberated in Germany?
[Samah] I am, yes. I feel that I can talk.
You know, I didn't have the chance to make mistakes.
So, I want to make mistakes. Why not?
At the very beginning,
when we started going out together,
it was difficult for me to have kisses in the street.
- And now? - And now it's okay.
[laughing]
If... If he... If he forgets, I go, "Klaus, kiss me." [laughs]
[Amanpour] So, do you have a good sex life?
- Ja. - Ja.
[laughs] Ja.
- [Klaus] Ja, I think so. - [all laughing]
Did you ever think that,
I don't know, you would find satisfaction outside your own culture?
Your own country?
I... I didn't think about this
because uh, in our community,
we "sugar" the relationship. We are not honest.
I know what I want,
but our mothers taught us
that we have to be devoted for the man.
-And it took you until 55 years old... -Yes. Yes.
Let's say the sexual relationship with Klaus,
I feel like a queen.
I... I feel wanted.
- Yeah. - [Amanpour] I'm going to cry!
[laughs]
He's really completing me...
I'm so, um, full of life
and he is the one who say, "Okay. Calm down."
-Yes, I'm like... -[Amanpour] Don't calm her too much.
- [laughing] - She's got great spirit.
[laughing]
[singing in Arabic]
[Amanpour] I never expected a Syrian-German couple in their 50s
would be the ones to crack the code on love and sex,
intimacy and the connection that we all so desperately crave.
Berlin has always had an edge,
and Berliners cherish and nurture that reputation.
They dare to step out of their comfort zones
and explore sex and love, wherever their desires take them.
In so many places, sex is taboo
and even love is hard to talk about.
But not here.
[singer] Thank you.
Thank you so much!