THE British face a lifetime of sexual inadequacy because of their innate fear of taking love-making seriously, Austria’s leading sex doctor said yesterday.
Bernhard Ludwig, who brought his sex therapy seminar, 100 Per Cent Sex, to the Edinburgh Fringe after a sellout tour of Germany and Austria, walked out of his show on Monday and has returned home. He blamed British culture for trivialising sex problems rather than solving them.
“British attitudes towards sexual permissiveness are ten years behind ours in Germany and Austria,” he said. “You have stupid rules about what you can show in the media and this has an impact on your culture.”
He singled out stand-up comics at the Edinburgh Fringe for treating sex as an embarrassing topic to be laughed at. “In Germany we joke about sex, but it is never the subject of a whole show,” he said. “British stand-up comedians talk about sex because they are frightened of it.”
Dr Ludwig started his sex seminars in Austria 11 years ago to help patients who had suffered from heart attacks, but moved his show from hospitals to theatres to accommodate larger audiences. They are asked questions about their sexual practices and, so that they remain anonymous, are told to hum if they agree.