The Unsung Hero of Sexual Liberation, Beate Uhse

Beate Uhse in one of Germany's Beate Uhse shops.

Before Playboy released its debut or Kinsey published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, a woman was also at work in the origins of modern sexuality, Beate Uhse.

Beate Uhse had been a German Luftwaffe pilot, but after World War II, former Luftwaffe pilots were forbidden from flying. Uhse was a widow with a children and in desperate need of money. She began selling door-to-door products to German housewives. Uhse found herself more intrigued listening to these women than selling to them. She unofficially began a kind of counselor for marital problems, many of which arose from lack of education in or access to contraceptives.

Uhse had been raised in a progressive family. Her mother was one of the first female doctors in Germany and spoke openly and in great detail with Beate about reproduction and sexual intercourse.

Uhse and an employee preparing mass mailing catalogs. From Beate Uhse Archive.

With this background, Uhse began writing pamphlets called "marriage guides" and mass-distributing them through the mail in 1947. The original marriage guides explained the rhythm method, but as greater numbers wrote to Uhse with sexual questions, her topics and offerings increased.

Aphrodisiac oils and stimulating creams. Beate Uhse Archive. 

By 1951, the Beate Uhse Mail Order Company was established. Uhse sold condoms and booklets on sexual health and reproductions through her small mail order catalogs. Her and four employees used phonebooks to mail millions of catalogs across the nation. The response was overwhelming.

Uhse's catalog also included lingerie to stimulate marital relations. Beate Uhse Archive.

 During the Nazi regime, strict moral codes resulted in little to no dialogue about sex education and reproduction. Uhse received many questions from her customers, including "Can you get pregnant from kissing?" and "Do children come out of your bellybutton?" Baffled at the widespread ignorance, Uhse hired a doctor to answer and response to customer questions in a section of the Uhse catalog.

Uhse included photos of herself in her catalogs with the caption "Happy Wife and Mother". Beate Uhse Archive.

Uhse straight-forward manner gave an air of legitimacy that later competitors struggled to achieve. Uhse could relate to the housewife. She never hid her name or the pride she took in being a wife and mother. Sexual education and the accessories she sold were not prurient but aides to a healthy and happy marriage.

Annual mail order sales reached 7.3 million deutsche marks, and in 1962, Uhse created physical store to sell her catalog items, which became the first sex shop. Despite her wholesome approach, by 1992, Beate Uhse's companies had been indicted over 2,000 times.