Freunde lieben. (Loving friends.)
Die Revolte in unseren engsten Beziehungen. (The revolt in our closest relationships)
Lesung Talks & Workshops Social/Urban Movements
Friendship and sex do not match. This is the tale told by countless relationship guidebooks, romantic films, and even by our own environment. Yet more and more people are searching for friends with benefits. Traditional family constellations and the ideal of that one great love seem to be totally overwrought with expectation and aspiration.
Ole Liebl looks at “friendship plus” as well as at the development and practice of this unusual form of relationship. He tackles its emotional and ethical conflicts as well as its utopian potential: Is there really no escape from romantic norm and entitlements? Are our intimate relationships subject to sheer market mechanisms? Which sexist narratives characterise our notions of friendship, and where did they originate? Is there a friend-based eroticism? And in what way do we allow ourselves to love amicably?
Radical, critical and visionary, Ole Liebl demonstrates how to rethink friendship while finding a more just communality: Reclaiming agency, devoid of taboo, and deeply familiar.
“Freunde lieben. Die Revolte in unseren engsten Beziehungen” was published by HarperCollins in 2024.
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Ole Liebl, born in a Rhineland-Palatine village in 1992, studied philosophy and computer science at both TU and FU Berlin. On his TikTok and Instagram channels, he illuminates various issues around toxic masculinity, sexuality, gender, and relationships from a queer-feminist and scientific point of view. Ole Liebl lives in Berlin and works in a LGBTIQ care institution.