German Reform

West Germany officially loosened its chastity belt a notch with the ratification by the Bundesrat of a new German sex law. Part of a general overhaul of the country's archaic 19th century penal code, the sweeping reforms were finally hammered out after three years of angry debate in the West German Parliament. Said a spokesman for Chancellor Willy Brandt's Social Democratic Party: "All the law does is catch up with the times and protect the freedom of the individual to sexual determination."

From now on, Germans can engage in wife swapping without fear of being arrested as pimps, a liability under the old law. The new law also lowers the age of sexual responsibility from 21 to 18 for everyone, including homosexuals.

While the new code legalizes so-called "soft porn," it bans hard-core films and literature depicting acts of sadism, bestiality and child molesting, and punishes what it calls "glorification of brutality and incitement to racial hatred on television" with stiff fines and prison terms of up to a year. The sale of soft porn will be restricted to persons over 18, and banned from places frequented by minors. This means that public posters advertising sex films, and shops displaying sexual devices, will have to get off the streets within 14 months. Germany's mass-circulation picture magazines will, however, still be able to run nudes on their covers.

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