The History of Schambereich
Schambereich has been around longer than YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia. What began in 2000 as a hand-built link directory is now one of the oldest German-speaking erotic communities. This tour shows what survives from 25 years: captures from the Internet Archive, original files from back then, and finds from our own database.
The earliest traces
The earliest surviving capture dates from 18 October 2000: a link directory with categories, a poll, chat and contacts, built with HTML frames, the way it was done back then. The site described itself in three words: erotica with class.
The site turns blue
A year on, the homepage has colour: steel blue with purple bars, dated news and sections from bodypainting to celebrities. And in July 2001 a cmn story contest is already running, eleven years before the homepage spells out the abbreviation CMNF.
A line by Sartre gives the site its name
Three original files survive from 2002: the front-page header image, the wordmark, and a quote card with Jean-Paul Sartre's line about shame, the line that explains the site's name to this day.
The oldest record
On that afternoon today's database begins: picture number 2 is its oldest entry, and the first story follows two minutes later. Everything you see on Schambereich today traces straight back to that day.
ExhibitOldest entry in today's database · Source: Schambereich databaseErotica with ambition
The 2005 homepage cites art history, medieval nude paintings and the artist Vanessa Beecroft rather than mass-produced content. The source code even still carries a workaround for Netscape 4.
A community grows
The site has a face now: a summer beach header, with tabs for forum, chat, polls and flirting. Members upload their own pictures, write stories and debate in the in-house forum, which already had over 18,000 registered profiles.
A new header every year
The headers now change with the seasons and the years. In 2009 the photographer pegs his polaroids to the line. The core motif stays the same through all the years: a naked woman, a clothed man, a camera between them.
CMNF gets a name
The header is wearing New Year's gold and wishing a happy new year. And the homepage spells out, for the first time, the abbreviation that is the heart of the site to this day: CMNF, Clothed Male Naked Female.
The Lounge
In 2015 Schambereich gets the dark, tidy face that will accompany its members for a decade. There is a cam chat, the site's own online radio, and for the first time a design that also works on a phone.
A last look into the Lounge
New Year 2026: the final New Year's capture of the dark design that carried the site for many years. Eight months later came the relaunch, and the Lounge became the site you are reading right now.
Today
The tour ends mid-operation. Schambereich keeps growing a little every day, with pictures, stories and polls from members like you.
The screenshots are reconstructions from the archived HTML and the original stylesheets; image slots the Internet Archive never stored stay empty. Sources: the Wayback Machine (archive.org) for 2000 through 2026, our own database for 2003. Whatever existed in even earlier years is no longer recoverable.