By Kristina Marlen
Sexy and subversive: Summer in Berlin
or: The High Holidays of Lust, Pride, XPLORE and the Art of Rethinking Sexuality
July is the month of the High Holidays for Berlin’s queer community.
CSD, Dyke* March, Drag March, Trans Pride: Berlin has once again been glistening with glitter, showing flags and taking its body to the streets. There was dancing, protesting, kissing and arguing (internal disputes too, of course) – and a reminder that visibility is never merely decorative and that freedom must be fought for time and again.
Now the big parades are over.
But the sexual revolution isn’t yet!
Because next weekend, XPLORE kicks off another major celebration of Berlin’s sex-positive scene. A festival for everyone who understands sex to mean something more than the more or less skilful rubbing of genitals – or that uninspired formula ‘penis in vagina’, to which our culture stubbornly tries to reduce sexuality.
XPLORE has been a part of my life for many years. I’ve been there as a visitor, a learner and, occasionally, as a teacher. Many impulses from Felix Ruckert’s work, from the former Schwelle 7, today’s IKSK, and the spaces surrounding the festival continue to flow into my own work to this day.
I won’t be teaching there this year. Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly recommend the festival to you – out of affinity for Felix, its founder and artistic driving force, and for the team that makes this unconventional cosmos possible year after year.
Felix is a dancer, choreographer and conceptual artist. For decades, he has been blending dance, performance, BDSM and conscious sexuality. In this context, the body is not merely observed or displayed. It itself becomes a place of insight. Anyone who wishes to understand something must leave the audience stands and venture onto the stage of their own experience.
Berlin, Body and Avant-garde
At times, Berlin’s sex-positive scene reminds me of the avant-garde of the 1920s.
Not because everyone is constantly lying naked on velvet sofas drinking absinthe. At least, not exclusively.
But because here, sexuality is taken seriously as an art form, a path to insight and a social imposition.
XPLORE calls itself a festival dedicated to the ‘art of pleasure’. For three days, performance, bodywork, BDSM, dance, communication and sexual research come together. Much of it defies conventional categories – and that is precisely where its power lies.
This year, Felix is taking the experiment a step further. There is no fixed timetable, no reassuring list of workshops and no guarantee that you’ll be in the right room at the right time. Activities emerge in waves, spaces open up and change, and visitors must work out for themselves when it’s time to take part, watch or move on.
The motto is: ‘At the right time – when the time is ripe.’
An affront to the German longing for timetables and punctuality. At the same time, this concept demands precisely what a vibrant sexuality is all about: attentiveness, personal responsibility and the ability to perceive what is actually happening right now.
After all, our culture talks an astonishing amount about sex, yet all too often means the same narrow agenda. XPLORE reminds us that a body is capable of more than just functioning, and that pleasure is more than the successful execution of a familiar choreography.
This is also where the connection to Pride lies. Queer movements have never merely asked for visibility. They have challenged who is allowed to love, desire and express themselves – and by what rules.
We all benefit from this.
The good news is that even people who consider themselves perfectly ordinary are allowed to re-examine their habits from time to time.
by Kristina Marlen: https://www.marlen.me/
English (UK) 
Deutsch