About Berlin Guide

My name is Jeff Mannes (pronouns: he/him or they/them). I am a social scientist, speaker, tour guide, sex educator, and freelance writer born in Luxembourg-City, Luxembourg and living in Berlin, Germany.

My Background

I studied sociology and gender studies (B.A.) in Trier and Göttingen (Germany). I focussed my studies mainly on human sexualities, queer studies, and human-animal relations. I wrote my Bachelor Thesis about the social construction of eating meat, and it was chosen for publication in the German sociological magazine. In Berlin, I finished a training to become a certified sex educator in 2023.

Experience and publications

I have more than ten years of experience as a freelance writer and public speaker. I have been speaking publicly and writing for magazines such as SIEGESSÄULE (Berlin’s highest circulating city magazine, as well as Europe’s most-read LGBTIQ magazine) or the
Lëtzebuerger Journal, as well as for non-profits such as the German AIDS Service Organization (Deutsche Aidshilfe).

I have been volunteering and working for several NGOs, including the German AIDS Service Organization (Deutsche Aidshilfe), Luxembourg’s HIV-Berodung and Stop AIDS Now / ACCESS, as well as Beyond Carnism.

Guided city tours and co-operations

Since 2018, I have been successfully hosting my critically acclaimed guided tour Berlin’s History of Sex, supported by the Federal Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld. In 2020, I started offering this tour as an online version, and in 2021, I launched this tour in Augmented
Reality – powered by ZAUBAR. In 2023, I launched my second guided tour about The Story of Berlin’s Clubs, as well as my third tour about Berlin’s Queer & Trans History.

Cooperation with companies and the media

I have been working with companies such as Apple, Mastercard, Siemens, or Tik Tok, and educational institutions like Northwestern University (Illinois, USA) or the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. My work has been featured in global media, such as Germany’s SPIEGEL ONLINE, Berlin’s public broadcaster RBB, Spain’s Yahoo News, Germany’s SWR2, Luxembourg’s RTL, New Zealand’s Herald, or Germany’s Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Deutschlandfunk Nova.