French Kissing

French Kissing

Men of every conceivable shape in every conceivable position.

Catherine Millet's book, bluntly called 'The Sexual Life of Catherine M', has sold 400,000 copies in France. Now, it's to be published in English.

It recounts how this otherwise respectable French intellectual had sex with more than five thousand men. Many of her encounters were orgies - she says she can name only forty nine of her partners.

Thanks to her, France has become even more obsessed by sex than usual.

Our Culture Correspondent, Madeleine Holt, talked to the author, and to other writers who've either loved or hated her confessions.

Some viewers may find some of the images and language in this film offensive.

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MADELEINE HOLT:
What happens when a respected French art critic stops writing about situationism and starts writing about her sex life? In the case of Catherine Millet it caused outrage in France. Her book is a distillation three decades of extreme sexual promiscuity. It has no real plot. Instead it recounts some of her experiences in minute detail. It explores in customary French analytical fashion the significance of where her exploits have taken place; in woods, car parks and football stadia. It ruminates on the pleasure of pure sensation taken to excess.

EDMUND WHITE:
Writer
I felt enormous sympathy with her when I was reading the book because I felt like we had had very similar experiences.

CATHERINE BREILLAT:
Film Director
(TRANSLATION)
I think that it was the extreme paradox of a woman who is a major figure in the world of contemporary art, the sophisticated editor of the elegant magazine 'Art Press' who wrote about her sex life in an equally sophisticated way but which was very active and full of things like orgies, that people don't normally admit to.

MICHKA ASSAYAS:
Writer:
In the contemporary world of contemporary art where Catherine Millet lives in, what she does is very accepted. It's like "of course, yeah, writing about orgies. Nothing extraordinary about this, just write about it coldly and it's a work of art". I don't agree. I don't agree because I think a work of art takes much more than that.

MADELEINE HOLT:
Perhaps the French aren't as open minded about sex as we imagine. So what made Millet write her book, let alone live it?

CATHERINE MILLET:
Author:
Everything that has been written about sex is fake. Everyone lies about their sex life. Because there is always an ideological element, either one wants to defend their sexual liberty or a defence that transforms our personal experience. What I really wanted to do was have the most honest and personal debate possible on sexuality - using my own experiences. That is why I wrote the book.

EDMUND WHITE:
I think this is the most explicit book about sex ever written by a woman, at least to my knowledge, perhaps there are others. I think she doesn't resort to the alibi of romance. She doesn't treat it as psycho pathology on her own part. It's not a form of mental illness. She doesn't treat it with theoretical frame work. She's very focused on the sexuality. Her own sexuality as a subject.

CATHERINE MILLET:
True, I certainly do write about my sex life but I'm not a porn star, nor a striptease artist, or a nymphomaniac, just a Madame Anybody, and that reassures my readers.

MICHKA ASSAYAS:
In Catherine Millet's case she starts with "Yesterday I went to a soiree and I met this very hairy guy and he took me and then he did that. After that I went to another soiree and we went in the parking lot and there was a very big man with blonde hair and I had him".

EDMUND WHITE:
I don't think it's pornography in any way because pornography is designed to excite the reader, it would take a perverse reader find this exciting. It's not written according to the rhythms of sex. It's not a page-turner. I'd defy anybody to have an orgasm while reading it. It's much too descriptive. It's not form a sex, it's about sex.

MADELEINE HOLT:
Would you call your book in any sense pornographic?

CATHERINE MILLET:
When I wanted to describe the sexual reality between lovers I used the obscene words one uses when one wants to provoke oneself and one's partner when making love. Of course those passages are pornographic and my readers will say 'Oh la la that is pretty exciting stuff'. I can't deny it. But I didn't write the book with that intention.

MICHKA ASSAYAS:
In her case, it's high brow pornography with a pretension. I think when she tries to intellectualise things, it's not really striking. Her images are very dull, very flat. It's quite conventional.

CATHERINE MILLET:
(READING EXCEPT)
You don't have to be a great psychologist to deduce from this behaviour an inclination for self-abasement, mixed with the perverse intention of taking the other. But this tendency doesn't stop there. I was carried by the conviction that I rejoiced in an extraordinary freedom. To screw above and beyond and sense of disgust was not a way of lowering oneself, it was, in a diametrically opposite move, to raise yourself above all prejudice. There are those who break taboos as powerful as incest. I settled for not having to choose my partners however many of them there have been.

EDMUND WHITE:
I think the kind of world of orgies that she is describing did take place in the late '60s and early 70's and it was exciting for that. It was a real breakthrough from the conventionality of the immediate post-war period.

MICHKA ASSAYAS:
For me, I wouldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I have my fantasies about group sex that some people might have.

CATHERINE BREILLAT:
One is not diminished or different when one has made love to twenty-five anonymous men. You are neither changed physically, mentally nor intellectually. You have not lost your personal dignity.

MADELEINE HOLT:
Catherine Breillat explored some of the Millet themes herself in her film 'Romance' which inspired Millet. Both advanced the idea that a woman can be empowered by choosing to serve almost every man's sexual need. Millet rarely talks about her emotions and admits sometimes she didn't have any feelings during her encounters. Sometimes her language evokes a violence towards women. For Millet, her liberation is in writing whatever she wants. But even she was not expecting to become a cause celebrity in France. What did you think about the reaction in France, the number of books you have sold, the reaction of critics, how surprised were you?

CATHERINE MILLET:
Yes, the fact we sold over 300,000 copies of the book in France was something we could never imagine - not at all. I thought at most that I would establish a dialogue about sex with several intellectuals in my cultural circle. I never thought that I would attract such a wide public. I think I replied, without meaning to, a need that people have to speak more honestly about sex.

MADELEINE HOLT:
In France, Millet's book was critically acclaimed for its literary style. In Britain, it's a fair guess that will get sidelined by the subject matter. How will it go down with the people the French think the most uptight of all?

EDMUND WHITE:
When the English feel nervous about sex, they say it's boring. I'm sure people will think it's boring. Things that actually amuse them and that cause them to be glued to the page nevertheless later when they discuss it will say it's boring. Boredom is a middle class alibi for disgust.

CATHERINE MILLET:
I am always curious to discover what questions people ask about the book when it is published and what kind of reaction in excites.

EDMUND WHITE:
I think the reaction to this book in the UK could be fairly dishonest. I think that the English are pretty hypocritical about sex. I find the English wonderfully sexy personall and I've had some wonderful experiences with them. But I don't think they much like to talk about it.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.