Is there something about being French or living in France that gives women the talent to be their sexual selves, and then to describe female sexuality in such a way that captures the imagination of an international generation?
In TheSexual Life of Catherine M., celebrated French intellectual Catherine Millet gives us pornography that is both high-brow and profound, aswell as literature that is both exciting and filthy. Millet writes with the cool, discerning eye of the artcritic that she is, examining her orgiastic adventures, fantasies, blowjobs, anal probings and orgasms, as shemight a series of sculptures or paintings.
My favorite parts describe the gangbangs. One woman and thirty men sounds like goododds to me. The venues are also exciting: the Bois de Boulogne, a French Villa, various parks and parkinglots. Millet is not the first woman to enjoy having sex with several men (and a few women) at once. Manyladies enjoy and excel at group action: the swinger chick, the town slut, the cheerleader that sucks off thefootball team, the porn starlet who wins the consensual gangbang contest. However, such women tend not to talkabout their experiences much, for a variety of reasons. For one, their mouths are filled with cock.
Even though Millet maintains, in her feminine way, that she is not a feminist, herbook is an eloquent celebration of women's sexual power. No man can do this. A man may have a harem with 100women in it, but hecan't fuck all of them in one night. Whereas Catherine fucks 100 men in a night with some regularity, and withlittle difficulty except a bit of soreness between the thighs. Then, you realize why men have guarded,enslaved and punished women for millennia. Because every woman can do this.
Not that it takes any great physical ability. And certainly no mental talent. Ofcourse, it takes stamina. But just about any reasonably healthy young or middle-aged woman can plunk herselfdown on a coffee table or park bench and spread her legs for numerous men to fuck her as she strokes and sucksand plays with the various cocks that surround her.
And yet it is an achievement. Even a great achievement. Because, though every womancan do this, most women don't--for fear of being labeled a slut, or because no one asks them, or because theyare so indoctrinated into the idea of one man per woman, that it doesn't even occur to them.
Thus, very few women write about it, even fewer writing about it well enough forrespectable people to read. The Sexual Life of Catherine M. serves up an art critic's detailed, almostdispassionate perspective of being in the center of a gigantic gangbang. The book makes you feel that this is,in a way, what women's bodies are built for, to lie like an egg, waiting to be fertilized by millions ofsperm, penetrated by dozens of cocks, fucked by dozens of men, all vying politely to get inside. Or, as Milletherself alludes, like a spider in her very sticky web.
My least favorite parts of the book are the ones about dirt. This is not just"dirty" in a spiritual sense, as in "talking dirty," although Millet covers that subjectpretty well too. This is dirt in the sense of real, physical grime, crud (human and otherwise) and lack of ashower. We Americans already tend to think that the French don't bathe enough (thus, the fabulous perfumes),and Catherine M. confirms all our worst fears about this aspect of the French. She's constantly having sex infilth with dirty disgusting men with rotten teeth and foul smells. It's a wonder she hasn't picked up a lotmore than just "the clap" along the way. She calls it raising herself "above prejudice." Icall it yucky.
But she does seem to know what she's doing. The Sexual Life of Catherine M. solidifiesa belief that Americans already have, that is, that Frenchwomen KNOW about sex, dirty and otherwise. OtherFrenchwomen who wrote about sex from "the woman's point of view," shocking the cultures of theirtime, include Colette, whose novels of the pleasures and pains of love foreshadow Millet with their exactevocation of sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and colors, and Anais Nin who wasn't actually French, but livedin Paris when she wrote her famous Delta of Venus and House of Incest. Then there's Simone de Beauvoir, she ofThe Second Sex, and, Pauline Reage of The Story of O. Now we have Catherine Millet, the gangbang aesthete.
It makes you wonder: Is there something about being French or living in France thatgives women the talent to be their sexual selves, and then to describe female sexuality in such a way thatcaptures the imagination of an international generation? Is it the joie de vivre? Le plaisir? La Cuisine? Theart that is everywhere you turn?
Part of the excitement of The Sexual Life of Catherine M. is that Catherine Millet isa celebrity in France, and she is not a sex celebrity, but a famous, distinguished art critic. That makes itall the more exciting. She is a highly respectable person talking about something not at all respectable.
The other day, I was interviewed for "The Good News," a new show on France'sCanal+ TV, about whether I thought the American publication of The Sexual Life of Catherine M. might set offsome kind of sexual revolution here. It's true that the French have been helping us Americans with ourrevolutions ever since the Revolutionary War that gained our so-called independence from the Brits. "WillMillet's sex memoirs, already on the NY Times Bestseller list, as it has graced the bestseller lists of manyEuropean journals, revolutionize Americans?" Canal+ wanted to know.
Well, we already have consensual gangbangs. We also have quite a few intellectualswriting porn, from Camille Paglia to Carol Queen, not to mention Nicholas Baker. Of course, Americans don'tcelebrate female intellectuals like the French do. And Madonna did her SEX book a decade ago.
Though The Sexual Life of Catherine M. probably won't set off an American revolution,at least not on its own, it may well encourage a lot more intellectuals, artists, writers and celebrities towrite their sex memoirs. Hopefully, this will be a good thing for those of us who appreciate literature and/orporn. Hopefully, we won't be saying "Oh no, not another erotic memoir by a celebrated intellectual!"in a couple of years.
The Canal+ folks asked me if I thought Catherine M. was shocking Americans. I don'tthink it shocks us to see that the French are writing about sex. Isn't that what they specialize in, besidescrepes suzettes?
But what about an American celebrity? I've been fantasizing about which respectedfemale American celebrity might shock us to our all-American cores with a book of sex memoirs. Maybe BarbaraWalters? The Sexual Life of Barbara W? Or how about Julia R? Tina B? Hillary Rodham C? Who will it be?
(Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, host of the Dr. Susan Block radio show, and author of The 10Commandments of Pleasure. For more of her political writings, please visit the TerrorJournals)