Update: After the jump, a full English translation in which we learn the meaning of the obscure biological term "Mother-Cake."
BoingBoing reader Hamilton says,
During a "writing for the web" course I was taking, the professor did a Google search for "Untitled Document" to illustrate a point.One of the first results was entitled "Where Babies Come From In Germany."
With a title like that how could I resist clicking further? What I found was one of the strangest picture books I have ever seen.
Link. Look, li'l baby goatse!
Reader comment: Brian Johnson says,
That German sex ed book for kids? I don't know if it was originally German or what, but I first discovered that book in the kids section of a book store in England. I was about 7 or 8 years old at the time and THAT book, weird illustrations and all, clued me in to EXACTLY how babies were conceived. I was stunned at the time. That was a revelation that obliterated the concept of "girl cooties".
One bit of text that stuck with me through the years was something along the lines that "when the man gets a loving feeling, his penis becomes big" and cue the "wokka-chikka wokka-chikka wow wow" music…
What a weird blast from the past!
Till Westermayer says,
What a pity planetdan.net doesn't tell us where this
book is coming from. The text is German, ok, but the visual style of the
pictures (e.g. the flower-power VW Beetle) as well as some elements of the
text suggest for me that this book is from the 1970s. If that is true, I
guess, that explains why it is like it is. I mean, that's the time of
Willy McBride and — I don't know if it was translated, and I can't find
scans on the net — Günter Amendts book "Sexfront" (that's more or less
the same as the scanned childrens book, only without the baby, and with
real photos of naked adults and also naked kids, and more slang in the
text …). Born 1975, I find it quite difficult to image a society were
books like those were accepted by the societal mainstream. Even if
Germany is not as puritanistic as the USA are, as far as I know, someone
who would write such books in such a style today would be looked at
rather strange.So, to cut it short: it would be great if BoingBoing could research from
when the book the pictures are from really is, and what the context is.
Tim says,
It appears that it is originally Danish by Per Holm Kudsen. Here is a cite from WorldCat:
The true story of how babies are made, by Per Holm Knudsen
* Type: English : Book Book : Juvenile audience
* Publisher: Chicago, Childrens Press [1973, ©1971]
* ISBN: 0516036408
* OCLC: 549281
progosk says,
photographer Will (not Willy!) McBride's extraordinary sex-ed book "Zeig Mal!" (Show Me!) had to be hidden when friends from my 1970's German neighborhood came around; yet if there's anything shocking about it, it's its honesty in focussing on the emotional intensity that should surely be highlighted in any sex-ed. the link is to an article (in German) relating the plight of McBride's book; it includes some of the (sadly NSFW) photos. PDF Link.
Update: Whoah, we now have an English translation of the text for anyone who'd like to know how German goatse-babies are made. After the jump…
Kelli says,
This is a translation by a friend of mine named Russell…
"Here you see a baby. Do you know how it came into the world?"
"Here you see a mother and father. They have a baby, and another one coming."
"Here Father and Mother have no clothes on. You can see Mother's breasts and Mother's vagina [lit: slot]. People call the vagina "the Scheide [seperation, slit, chasm]".
"You can see Daddy's little penis [lit: little tail]. People call the little penis 'Penis [/member, equally sterile word]' You can also see the little sack that he has between his legs; it is named 'Scrotum'."
"Mother and Father love each other very much. They kiss each other. Father's penis is growing large. It sticks out rigidly."
"Mother and Father would like for Father's penis to go into Mother's slit. It is indeed beautiful."
"Mother and Father lay themselves upon the bed. They put the penis in the vagina. Thusly can they play with each other. Father and Mother swing [?] back and forth with each other."
"That is what people call 'sleeping together [lit: sleeping by someone]'. That can be very nice. Like so can Mother and Father create a child, when they want to."
"Mother and Father love each other very much. They very much want to have a child. In his little sack of the father are many little sperm. If Father and Mother sleep together, the sperm goes into the vagina."
"The sperm swim inside of the mother's vagina, and come to the hole in Mother's belly."
"This hole [lit: excavation, cavity] is called the uterus. In it, from time to time, is a little egg."
"It has been many, many days. Nine months have passed, since the little sperm and the egg have found each other. Now is the child so large, that is wants to get out."
"Mother's belly is getting so big that she almost doesn't fit into a dress anymore. 'I can feel my uterus contracting,' says the mother to the father. Now it is almost time that I will bring our child into the world."
"Mother lays in the clinic, in the bed. Then comes a doctor and speaks with Mother and Father. The doctor will help Mother with the birth of the child."
"Then the mother begins to give birth [lit: then begins mother to birth]. First comes the head of the child out of Mother's vagina. Then the arms of the child come out."
"Now is the child all the way outside of the mother. The doctor has cut the umbilical cord. Also the placenta. [lit: mother cake] Now is the child born."
"Mother and Child rest themselves for a day. Then they come back home. If the child is hungry [lit: if the child has hunger], it drinks milk from Mother's breasts."
(Mother-cake… MOTHER-CAKE?!?)
Dr. Bethany Nowviskie, Research Scientist at the University of Virginia, says:
Hey, I'm sure you'll hear this again and again, but that's a really crappy translation you've posted of that German sex-ed book. You might consider yanking it. It's generally poor and in several places just plain wrong — well, except for the "mother-cake" part. (Yuck. Am nine months pregnant and extremely disgusted right now.)
Maybe somebody will offer a better translation. If not, I'll dust off my disused Deutsche dirty words and write again!
Marius Schaub says,
while reading the article, i felt like i was back in my kindergarten days, because if my memory serves me right, this book started my sex education when i was maybe 4 or 5 years old. over the years, i sometimes thought of the same grotesque glance mother and father (and the doctor) had in every stupid picture and that it looked like lego character's faces. anyways, because some commenters are intending that it would be quite puritanistic to have a book like this nowadays, i thought it could be an interesting information that i found this in a german kindergarten around 1984 or 1985 (i was born in 1981) and nobody seemed to care about its flower-power elements and such.
in addition, to me the translation seems quite right, except that in the second picture, the text doesn't say "Here you see a mother and father. They have a baby, and another one coming." but more like "Here you see mother and father. They have the baby brought into the world together [lit: They have gotten the baby togehter]." i think the crappy effect comes from the intention to write a text that even small children can understand.
as for "mother-cake", i think it's a german crankiness to prefer dumb word creations that everyone will understand to more sophisticated expressions that don't sound that disgusting. e.g. most germans say "augenarzt" (lit: eye doctor) instead of "oculist" or even "frauenarzt" (lit: woman doctor) instead of "gynecologist". it's a mad country with mad inhabitants… and i am one of them. sigh.
Max Dohle says,
In Dutch we call it like the germans 'moederkoek' But you cannot translate 'koek' or the German 'kuchen' as 'cake'. Koek has also the meaing of 'clot'. So in English it must be 'mother clot'.
George says,
Here is a better translation of the german sex-ed book:
———snip————————————————-
"Here you see a baby.
Do you know how it came into the world ?""Here you see a mother and father.
They are going to have a baby together.""Here Father and Mother have no clothes on. You can see Mother's breasts and Mother's * .
People call it the vagina.
{* word for female genital that a child would use}"You can see Daddy's **.
People call it the penis.
You can also see the little sack that he has between his legs; it is named 'scrotum'."
{** word for male genital that a child would use}"Mother and Father love each other very much. They kiss each other. Father's penis is growing large.
It sticks out rigidly.""Mother and Father would like for Father's penis to go into Mother's vagina.
That is really beautiful.""Mother and Father lie down on the bed.
They put the penis in the vagina.
They play with each other.
Father and Mother rock to and fro.""That is what people call intercourse.
That can be very nice.
That's how Mother and Father create a child, if they want to.""Mother and Father love each other very much.
They would like to have a child.
There are many little sperms in the Father's little sack.
When Father and Mother sleep together, the sperm cells come out of the penis.""The sperm cells swim into the Mother's vagina, and come to a cavity in Mother's belly."
"This cavity is called the uterus.
Sometimes there is is a little egg in it.""Many, many days are passing by.
Nine months have passed, since the little sperm and the egg have found each other.
Now the child is so large that is wants to get out.""Mother's belly has become so big that she almost doesn't fit into a dress anymore.
'I can feel my uterus contracting,' says the Mother to the Father.
'Soon I will give birth to our child.' "Father drives Mother to the hospital.
"Mother lies in the hospital in a bed.
The doctor comes and talks to Mother and Father.
The doctor will help Mother with the birth of the child.""Then the Mother begins to give birth.
First the head of the child comes out of Mother's vagina .
Then the arms of the child come out.""Now the child has come all the way out of the Mother.
The doctor has cut the umbilical cord.
Also the placenta has come out. ""Mother and Child rest for a few days.
Then they come back home.
If the child is hungry , it drinks milk from Mother's breasts."———snip————————————————-
Mutterkuchen (lit. mother's cake) is really the german word for placenta
as is Fruchtwasseer (lit. fruit water) for amniotic fluid.
