In January 2024, information spread on the Internet that one of the German preschool institutions was going to open special rooms for self-satisfaction of children. We decided to check if this is true.
A high-profile initiative to organize masturbation rooms for preschoolers in a kindergarten in the German city of Kerpen was reported “Gazeta.ru", EADaily, "Red Spring"and other Russian media. Social media users also shared this news (“VKontakte", X, Facebook*) and blog platforms (“Zen", "It's a small world", LiveJournal). Popular Telegram channels also wrote about this: “All Seeing Eye"(299,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Russia now"(267,000), "Ax - hot news" (240,000), "Latest news"(227,000), "Horn"(213,000), etc.
The authors of almost all Russian-language publications about the creation of such rooms refer to the text in the German edition of Bild. On January 12, 2024, it was published on the tabloid website article with the sensational headline “Kindergarten offers children a place to masturbate.” On the same day in the Telegram channel “Bild in Russian"A translation of the note was also published, which is referred to by the authors of the posts in other sources.
The material says that earlier on the website of the kindergarten of St. Roch posted the concept of sex education in this institution (it was later deleted, but Bild journalists are said to have a copy at their disposal). Attached to the article is a screenshot of a fragment of this concept, in one of the paragraphs of which it is stated: “Children are allowed to go into a protected space in accordance with their needs in order to open up and physically satisfy themselves (this is not allowed in public places or in the presence of other people).” Another thesis states: “We clearly identify the intimate parts of the body as the penis and vagina.” The remaining points of the concept in the screenshot have nothing to do with masturbation and are generally quite harmless (for example, one of them says that children change clothes in a protected space, hidden from prying eyes). However, the journalists cite other passages from the document: “When a small child plays with his genitals and touches them with obvious pleasure, he knows nothing about social taboos, about what actions are unacceptable, not to mention the fact that what he does [this in public] is considered indecent or dirty. He explores and gets to know his body." Also, according to Bild journalists, the document notes: a child’s attempts at masturbation should not be stopped, otherwise he may get the idea that there is something wrong and bad in his body.
AND in Germany itself, And beyond Bild is often classified as a tabloid press and, judging by its main page, the publication as a whole is characterized by loud clickbait headlines that do not always fully correspond to the content of the news. It does not directly follow from the wording cited by the journalist that it is planned to create special rooms for the physical satisfaction of children or that attempts by minors to masturbate are in any way encouraged or initiated by the employees of the institution. Literally, we are talking about the fact that children should not be prohibited from masturbating, but it is worth explaining to them that it is forbidden to do this in public. “Verified” could not find the official website of the kindergarten, only its page on the general portal of Catholic preschool institutions belonging to the Archdiocese of Cologne. There is a PDF document attached there with general information about the kindergarten, and it can be assumed that an educational concept was previously available for download, including the very point about masturbation.
Other German media also wrote about the resonant educational concept of the kindergarten in Kerpen (for example, Focus Online, RTL, t-online And Der Westen), local officials also reacted. Yes, newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger cites comments from representatives of the Ministry of Family of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Kerpen is located, and deputies of the local parliament. They claim that the institution’s initiative does not comply with state policy in the field of sex education for children, and the creation of rooms for masturbation is completely unacceptable. In the Bild article indicated, that the Kerpen authorities inspected the kindergarten and did not find anything suspicious, and the concept was just misinterpreted - it was precisely because of the ambiguous wording that it was removed from the institution’s page back in November 2023. The Cologne archdiocese also claims that there was a misunderstanding and there are no masturbation rooms in the kindergarten.
This is not the first high-profile news about sex education in German kindergartens. So, at the end of June 2023 the same Bild wrote, that a Hanover pre-school run by the Workers' Welfare Association (AWO) was planning to create a "body exploration" room where children could "caress and examine" themselves and their peers. A corresponding information letter was even sent to the parents of the institution’s students. The news caused a great public outcry, and the Youth Office of the Federal State of Lower Saxony stopped this project and also initiated inspections of all AWO kindergartens in Hannover. Representatives of the association stated that this was a private initiative of the kindergarten management and the content of the letter sent to parents was not agreed upon with AWO.
Thus, no real masturbation rooms were organized in German kindergartens. The news trigger for the news, which appeared in an article in the Bild newspaper, was the pedagogical concept of one of the preschool institutions. It talked about the fact that children should not be prohibited from engaging in self-gratification, however, if students show an interest in masturbation, this should be done in closed spaces and not in public. At the same time, the document did not say that we are talking specifically about separate premises that the kindergarten allegedly intends to equip specifically for these purposes, and not, for example, about toilet stalls. Local authorities, in response to the outcry, stated that the concept was removed from the site in the fall due to the ambiguity of the wording, and no one was going to organize any masturbation rooms in kindergarten, since such sex education measures in kindergartens in Germany are considered unacceptable.
Cover photo: pexels.com
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