Archive for Sexology
back to services
V. Congress of the European Federation of Sexology (EFS) XIV. DGSS Conference on Social Scientific Sex Research Berlin, June 29 - July 2, 2000
Awarding the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Sex Reform to Oswalt Kolle, Amsterdam
Laudation for Oswalt Kolle by Rolf Gindorf, Düsseldorf
Dear Oswalt, Dear Colleagues,
It is a great honor for me, and, at the same time, a great pleasure to
give today a laudation speach for someone whom I have known for more
years now than I care to remember. For someone whose name became a
synonym, a household word for sex - and for enlightened presentation of
sexuality in the mass media. Someone who has probably done more than any
single person - and certainly more than any academic sexologist I know
- to help bring about a more tolerant, understanding, and accepting
individual and public attitude towards the sexualities. Someone who,
although not a scientist himself, has been a long-time member of the
DGSS. Someone who - while pushing 72 - is still at it with a vigour that
puts to shame much younger people. Someone --- But stop, I am getting
ahead of my story.
Oswalt Kolle was born in 1928, in Kiel, at the Northern, Baltic shore of
Germany, as son of the noted psychiatry professor Kurt Kolle, who
eventually moved to Munich and a life tenure position. But young Oswalt
decided against an academic career for himself. He choose to become a
journalist, working for such popular newspapers as "Frankfurter Neue
Presse", "Nachtausgabe", "BILD", and "BZ Berliner Zeitung". - Of course
I am wildly speculating now, but maybe it was this early connection to
Berlin, the "birthplace of sexology", which set him on the sex track
that was to mark all his later life ...
His attention sharpened by his
father's work, he began to write in daily newspapers about psychiatry as
a repair shop for a society that was sexually inhibited, uptight, and
hypocritical. In the early Sixties he broke the big taboo, in the mass
media and society as a whole: he began publishing articles about human
sexuality. Not in exclusive journals but in large-circulation
illustrated weeklies (I suppose some of them can be called tabloids);
not in intellectual, scientific lingo but in plain language. These
articles were highly informative, advocated an open atmosphere about
sex, were immensely popular, and reached a vast audience. Because of
their tremendous success, book publications followed the original
magazine versions. Some of these stories, or rather serials, and the
subsequent books were titled:
Your Child, That Unknown Being (published as a book in 1963)
Your Husband, That Unknown Being (book 1967)
Your Wife, That Unknown Being (book 1967)
The Miracle of Love (book 1968)
Sexuality 70 (1970).
These and other books were made into eight full-length motion pictures
that were seen by 50 million people in the German-speaking countries
alone. (These include, in addition to Germany and Austria, Luxembourg,
and parts of Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy.) Worldwide there were over
100 million viewers.
To nobody's big surprise, they met with harsh resistence: by Christian
churches, especially the Roman Catholic church, by the "Volkswartbund",
or "People Guardian Alliance" (an influential reactionary pressure group
claiming to protect the German people from what it considered
un-Christian, un-German, licentious, or liberal ideas), and the
"Bundesprüfstelle", a conservative government censorship authority
charged with protecting the young - notably from sexuality. Kolles
writings and films were accused of being obscene, advocating
fornication, corrupting youth. In a number of court cases, courageous
sexologists (like the former DGSS-President Helmut Kentler) testified in
court that Oswalt Kolles articles, books, and films were neither.
Eventually, their evidence prevailed.
What about TV, you may ask. Now let us remember: The sixties, in Europe,
were largely a slim-TV era, and difficult as this may be to imagine for
young people of today: all this came about pretty much without
television. For many years German TV was some sort of public TV with
only two national and no local channels, where the conservative parties
along with the churches could control programs. That changed with the
advent of private TV and a growing number of stations competing with
each other and with public tv. While the overall quality of programs
could not said to sky-rocket with the appearance of private TV, one
thing did change: enter sex. So, rather belatedly, some 30 years later,
private TV stations jumped on the Kolle bandwagon, and RTL - the biggest
and most popular among them - featured in 1992 seven of those early
films in an abridged version edited by Oswalt Kolle himself. Again, they
were immensely successful, with millions of viewers even for their
late-night repeats in 1994.
Regrettably, but perhaps unavoidably, he has also been misunderstood and
misrepresented: as a guru of sex performance, as an advocate of sex as
a competitve sport, as a propagator of a sexual meritocracy. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. What he does say, over and over again,
is that people should enjoy each other - if they so choose, and
howsoever they choose. In so doing, he helped sexuality come out of that
traditional teleological and biologistic "procreation ideology" corner
where sexuality had been "allowed" only for the pupose of producing
offspring.
At the height of his popularity, Oswalt Kolle's name was probably known
to more people than that of the German Federal Chancellor. His fame took
strange forms: like whenever someone wanted to raise the subject of sex,
at home, at work, or at a party, he or she might begin by asking: "Say,
whaddaya think of Kolle?" ("Was hältste denn von Kolle?") - By the way,
the same question was often used to suggest and initiate sexual play.
After his serial, movie, and TV successes Oswalt Kolle stayed busy,
producing more books on sexuality and partnership. Let me quote three
examples:
All Of Us Need Tenderness (1976), and
Lust Without Taboos (1981).
Open To Both Sides (1997).
In this latter book, written jointly with the young MD Sabine zur
Nieden, he came out as a practicing bisexual. What better tribute to his
pioneering work and the attitude changes it helped bring about than the
fact that this did not cause any publicly raised eyebrows!
As for his private life, Oswalt Kolle has been married for 47 years to
Marlies Kolle. The couple have three adult children and two
grand-children. The whole Kolle family live in Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, to where Kolle emigrated 32 years ago. He is now a Dutch
citizen. (And so we can stick to our tradition of not awarding the
Magnus Hirschfeld Medal to Germans ...)
At 72 soon, Oswalt Kolle continues to write articles and columns on
sexuality for popular weeklies, notably for "Neue Revue". But he is also
an Invited Speaker to scientific and medical meetings: from sexologists
to gynacologists to urologists to general practitioners to psychologists
- you name them, he's been there. In 1996 - six years after the DGSS
historic first scientific conference on "Bisexualities" in Berlin -
Oswalt Kolle gave the opening address to another international symposium
on bisexuality, likewise in Berlin. That same month, he gave yet another
opening speech - at the exhibition of the German Museum for Hygiene,
Dresden, about "The Pill". Tomorrow, in case you did not know, he'll
speak to us about "Sexuality and Aging" - right in this hall, at 6:30
p.m. This is a subject to which he has increasingly given his attention.
With this, let me come to the end and attempt a summary. This is roughly
the English translation of what the document says, in German, that goes
with the medal.
Throughout the decades of his professional life as a journalist, science
publicist, film, TV and book author, popular talk-show guest, and
invited speaker to academic conferences, Oswalt Kolle has made a truly
tremendous contribution to the sexual education and enlightenment of
ordinary people. His tireless and monumental work helped bring about a
better understanding of human sexualities.
Ever since his first articles in popular illustrated weeklies some 40
years ago, he addressed - in a clear language understandable to all -
what was then strictly a taboo subject: sexuality. He was attacked,
ridiculed, and victimized by the religious and poltical right,
threatened by court actions, faced with bans and censorship. Despite
this, his books were translated into 17 languages, and his films were
seen by more than a hundred million people world-wide. In Germany, his
name became known to virtually everyone, and got to be a household word
for an affirmative sexual information and education effort in the mass
media.
As sexologists, we bow in awe and envy to such success, such popularity,
such outreach, such effect, such vision, such courage, and such
circulation figures. We owe very much to him as he admirably spread many
of our research results, helping them to have effects on people's lifes
that are normally beyond our reach. In honoring Oswalt Kolle today, we
are at the same time paying tribute to the example and aims of our great
sexological pioneer, Magnus Hirschfeld.
Dear Oswalt, today the German Society for Social Scientific Sex Research
takes pride in awarding you the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Medal for outstanding
service to sexual reform. May you keep up the inspiration and strength
you have been showing over the past years! Thank you for all this.
page up
back to services
Note: Our directories depend on the input of interested readers. For corrections,
additions, and suggestions, please contact: HaeberleE@web.de
|