Candidate Plans Orgy in City Hall to Get Closer to Voters

MANNHEIM, GERMANY — A German politician is pitching group sex inside city hall as the ultimate form of citizen engagement.

Julien Ferrat, a 35-year-old city councilor in Mannheim, has announced plans for a swingers party at the local Rathaus. He says the event would help break taboos around swinging and promote his bigger idea of turning the industrial city into a nudist and swinger paradise modeled after Cap d’Agde in France.

Ferrat, who leads the small local group Die Mannheimer, claims about 50 people have already contacted him about attending. He has described group sex with council members as the highest form of closeness with citizens. He argues there is no local rule that explicitly bans such an event in the government building and has said he is ready to take any refusal to Germany’s highest court if needed.

The city administration has expressed serious doubts about the plan. Ferrat has a history of provocative stunts, including organizing a “political educational trip” to the French naturist and swingers resort Cap d’Agde and posing nude in official publications.

West Texas has its own history of politicians using shock and skin to cut through the noise. In 2022, oil and gas attorney Sarah Stogner of Monahans released a short campaign video of herself nearly nude atop a pumpjack while running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. The clip, captioned “They said I needed money. I have other assets,” drew statewide and national attention. Stogner used the stunt to highlight abandoned oil wells and groundwater contamination. She later won election as District Attorney for the 143rd Judicial District covering Ward, Reeves, and Loving counties and took office in 2025.