A reporter who goes to San Francisco to write about romance has an affair with a stripper from an all-women's club.

Dorothee, a would-be writer and journalist, leaves Germany for the Oz of San Francisco, searching for her long-lost mother and a cure for the malady of love. Installed in the Tenderloin, she peeps in on neighbors' bizarre sex rituals as well as does sightseeing of the more traditional kind. But encounters with male impersonator Ramona, charming Hungarian bohemian Dominique, and Susie Sexpert, barker for an all-girl strip show, lead to exploratory adventures of self-discovery and fun. When Dorothy surfaces like a dazzled tourist on the wilder shores of the city's lesbian community, she has discovered her true sexuality. . . . and left some illusions behind.—Monika Treut

Dorothee is a journalist in Hamburg investigating romantic love. She interviews experts and examines herself and her own feelings as well. She launches the personal side of her investigation by sleeping with her half-brother. Then she develops a relationship with Heinz, but it goes flat as he grows fat. She dreams of California, and she goes to San Francisco where her mother's living. She doesn't find mom, but she does meet interesting women: Susie Sexpert, who invites her to a women only night of striptease with Dominique, a Uruguayan who works for a local porn king, and Ramona, a love therapist who advertises on TV and has an act in the strip show. In Ramona, has Dorothee found true love?—<[email protected]>