No longer held back by a morality that had been comprehensively discredited, no longer believing in anything more than the possibilities of getting laid and getting by, no longer really hoping for anything much, the amorphous sense of self in this postwar society was turned into an immense field for experimentation, and many strange flowers blossomed on this field. Some of them were among the finest German culture had produced; others—from erotic floor shows to paid quickies in public toilets—were signs of another kind of inflation, in which love had lost its currency and was replaced with a
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