Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) has once again shown that ideological priorities come before common sense and citizens’ real problems. Following the path once laid out by Spain’s Podemos party, the SPD in Saxony has proposed a law to criminalize catcalls, whistles, and any “sexualized” verbal expression—even if not explicitly offensive—with penalties of up to one year in prison or monetary fines. The proposal was unanimously approved at the party’s Saxony conference and will be presented at the national conference in Berlin at the end of June.
What has traditionally been seen as flirtation—sometimes distasteful and disturbing, but still culturally recognizable and regulated by basic social norms—is now set to be codified as a criminal offense. The initiative comes from the SPD’s Women’s Working Group (ASF), which claims women are “practically defenseless” against such verbal expressions. The legal foundation is a bill from Lower Saxony that seeks to punish anyone who “significantly harasses” another person in a sexually explicit or implicit way—even without physical contact or overtly sexual language.
The comparison with Spain is no coincidence. Podemos, close allies of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party during the last legislature, pushed for similar regulations that elevated so-called “street harassment” to criminal status, with a special focus on language, gestures, and even looks. Spain’s infamous “Only Yes Means Yes” law effectively declared that any approach lacking verbal consent could be construed as sexual assault. The result was disastrous: thousands of repeat offenders saw their sentences reduced as a result of the sloppy wording of the legislation, and legal uncertainty skyrocketed. Nevertheless, ideology trumped legal precision or absolute victim protection.
Germany now appears to be repeating the same pattern: a hysterical overreaction that addresses the symptoms of a problem while ignoring its root cause. No matter how many new laws are passed or how absurdly broad the definitions become, the origin of much street harassment in Germany doesn’t lie with native citizens or some imagined “patriarchal German culture,” but with the consequences of an uncontrolled immigration policy that has imported cultural norms fundamentally at odds with the respect for women.
According to the Federal Criminal Police Office, over 19,000 sexual harassment cases were investigated in Germany in 2023, though catcalling is not yet separately tracked. So is this truly about protecting women, or is it just another ideological maneuver that ignores the actual sources of insecurity? For critics, the answer is obvious: the SPD is dangerously expanding criminal law into realms of subjective perception, where the speaker’s intent matters less than how their words are received.
Criminalizing ambiguous or culturally rooted behavior fosters legal uncertainty and, more importantly, promotes a climate of constant suspicion and tension between men and women. Rather than confronting the real issue—growing insecurity in public spaces due to years of uncontrolled, unintegrated mass immigration—the German Socialists prefer to manufacture symbolic culprits at home.
