The History of Sex: Berlin -- 'The German Vice' -- (Chapter IX, Part 6)

Like history, for instance.

Sooner or later, while slogging through your umpteenth tome on the erotic past, you realize that practically all modern sex histories share one unquestionable underlying assumption: namely, that Sex Is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Tossing off any pretences of objectivity, even the driest academic works tend to portray 'sexual progress' as being synonymous with 'more sex,' while the only 'good' kind of sexual control is birth control.

As an outsider, it's probably no coincidence that I first noticed this bias while trawling through the literature on homosexuality: I think the book that finally clinched it for me was a university hardback entitled Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400-1600.

By one Helmut Puff.

It was then that I realized: if history is written by the victors, you can practically hear Freddie Mercury caterwauling 'We Are the Champions' when you open your average 'queer studies' text. 

Oddly, though, the genre often overlooks one believe-it-or-not fact: contrary to what I would have guessed, the gay-rights movement didn't begin in New York or London—or even Paris or Amsterdam—but in Berlin at the end of the nineteenth century.

As a matter of fact, it was a German émigré (Henry Gerber) who later founded America's first gay organization, naming the Society for Human Rights after the groups he'd been involved with in Berlin.

Some also credit Germany's gay-rights movement with pioneering the term 'activist'—amid a slew of other world firsts.

And not for nothing.

If spanking was le vice anglais, the French called homosexuality le vice allemand.

Homophobia and chauvinism aside, there were many reasons why the Continent's Germanic core became the home of gay emancipation in the nineteenth century.

Perhaps most importantly, Germany's activists had something concrete to kick against.

The History of Sex: Graz and Vienna -- Hysteria Mysteria -- (Chapter VIII, Part 23)

Having struck out with drugs, Sigmund then tried to make it big with sex (as rock and roll had yet to be invented).

Freud went to study in Paris with a famous neurologist who was now well into his quack years.

Jean-Martin Charcot specialized in a very voguish malady that eventually served as the ersatz foundation of Freud's entire career.

'Hysteria' was a catch-all affliction attributed to women (and a few men) who suffered from complaints ranging from anything as minor as a nervous cough to convulsions, partial paralysis, wild gesticulations known as 'clownism,' and, in female patients, the sensation of being suffocated by their wombs rising into their throats.

One of Charcot's 'hysterical' women

In fact, the definition was so broad that a skeptical American dubbed it 'mysteria.'

Charcot, in contrast, touted hysteria as 'the great neurosis' and argued that its main cause was emotional rather than physical trauma, claiming, in effect, that symptoms like paralysis were all in the mind.

So if a barrowboy was run over and subsequently suffered seizures and nosebleeds, Charcot would attribute his afflictions to the emotional impact of the accident rather than the obvious fact that the poor 'hysteric' probably had brain damage from being knocked stone cold by a carriage.

In fairness, neurologists at the time didn't have the technology to detect minor cerebral lesions.

But the truth is that hysteria was all but impossible to treat because it probably never existed in the first place—certainly not on the scale that Freud and his 'great teacher' diagnosed it.

In all likelihood, most of the unfortunate souls branded as 'hysterics' by Charcot and Freud were actually physically—rather than psychologically—ill.

Indeed, years later, Freud blamed a fourteen-year-old girl's 'noisy manifestations of hysteria' for causing him to overlook her genuine complaint: abdominal pains.

Having been 'cured' by Freud of hysteria, the girl later died of what had really been ailing her: stomach cancer.

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- The Sadeian Dream Made Reality -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 31)

Grinning, Milukman shifts the small desk where the tax inspector has been doing her dirty work to open a cabinet and show me les fucking machines, including 'Le Pump'—an oxygen mask that clamps onto a woman's privates—and the electric bread knife that's been converted into a double-headed dildo.

He also produces the black headdress that the women wear, and agrees to let me photograph him in it—if he can get it on, that is.

'I don't know how to do this,' he says, fumbling with the strings.

After camping it up on the futon where the beurettes take their pleasure, he takes a seat at his laptop next to a poster of Scarface to show me the one Internet flick he's actually proud of.

'It was very funny to do.'

The sadistic premise of No Fixed Address centers on a not overly attractive woman who arrives in a business suit saying she's willing to do anything to work in porn. 

'Anything?' the director asks off camera.

'Anything.'

So the filmmakers decide to test her by luring a homeless man off the streets—the skinheaded actor from Beurettes Rebelles in a dodgy wig and makeup—and hauling him into the studio, where the woman is waiting blindfolded.

'She can't see!' Milukman chuckles.

The filmmakers remove the blindfold, and the woman's so disgusted, she starts to walk out, but the men talk her into having sex with the tramp.

She kneels in front of him only to find that his penis has gunk on it.

'We put cheese on his dick to make it look dirty!' Milukman laughs.

Cut to the homeless man hurriedly washing his penis in the sink.

'Reality,' the director turns to me to make a Very Important Point, 'That's something the Internet can provide: reality.'

In reality, I don't know what he's talking about.

The clip progresses from oral sex to fisting and screwing, climaxing with a 'facial,' to use the trade term.

And throughout all this, the porn impresario is laughing and cackling: if you couldn't see the screen, you'd think he was watching Chaplin's Little Tramp being hit with a cream pie rather than a tramp coming on a woman's face.

Maybe that's the Sadeian dream made reality. In the new age of porn, people don't know when they're being sadistic; cruelty just comes naturally.

* * *

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Muslim Porn: Behind the Scenes -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 30)

Likewise, I don't want to sound libelous, but it would be a scandal—and more than a little ironic—if the secretive entrepreneur behind Beurettes Rebelles were actually a racist enriching himself by exploiting French-Arab women.

And the more time I spend with him, I get the impression that Milukman doesn't hold France's North African population in the highest esteem: maybe it's because he's a Parisian from the upper crust or because his father had to flee Algeria in 1962 and remake his life after the revolution—Milukman still calls De Gaulle a 'traitor' for surrendering Algeria to the Algerians.

None of that makes him inherently racist, of course; in certain circles, it would just prove he's a good Frenchman.

But imagine the outrage if Milukman turned out to be a good Frenchman whose work just happened to rot the minds and reproductive relationships of immigrants to keep both them and their numbers down.

As Milukman says, though, he doesn't see it that way; it's a 'social service.'

Le Drilldo: one of Milukman's tools

'So are you planning to work in porn for the rest of your career?'

'No, no.' He shakes his head vigorously. 'If I want to have children, and they knew I was working in porn, that would be impossible for me. Maybe it's my Italian roots, but when I'm older, I can't look back at my life and say I did sex and porn.'

With that, Milukman offers to show me his studio nearby.

Instead of a professional film set—or even a photographer's studio—the woodbeamed atelier looks like a student's bedsit or, more romantically, an artist's garret, with a small skylight, a futon and a disheveled mattress, as well as DVDs of The Saint and The Da Vinci Code scattered around the TV and stereo.

The walls are decorated with postcards of tasteful nudes—there's nary a nipple in sight—in contrast to the hardcore scenes that are filmed right here.

On one of the Beurettes Rebelles DVDs you can glimpse the postcard nudes in the background—as a veiled woman with a C-section scar sodomizes herself with a massive black dildo.

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- 'I Don't Want to Sound Racist, But...' -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 29)

I'd rather not.

With all that and more under his belt, it's not surprising that Milukman views classic erotica like Emmanuelle as risibly tame.

'I'm from the new generation of producers. There's a gap between Emmanuelle and what I do,' he tells me, by which I think he means that old-school filmmakers tried to hide behind a fig leaf of artistic pretension, whereas his naked ambition is all about money shots.

But that's not what he's getting at.

'People of the old school did it because they loved it,' he explains.

'They were perverts—cochons—pigs. The new generation does it only because it's business. When we get together at meetings, we talk about links and partnerships, not about fucking.'

'You see webmasters who look like choirboys. There are a lot of men like me who didn't think they would work in sex, but sex came to them via the Internet.'

One glorious day I turned on the computer, and lo and behold, sex had come to me via the Internet! 

Likewise, Milukman rejects any notion that he enjoys degrading women, much less that he's a sadist.

'My job is as a businessman. This is just a business opportunity.'

'So if you could make the same money selling potatoes—'

'—then we would do that!' he smiles triumphantly. 'I want to show that you can do porn on the Internet without being a pervert.'

Which sounds perversely puritanical.

And while your mind's reeling from that, I should point out that I have no idea whether the makers of Emmanuelle were cochons.

When I mention another elder veteran of the French hardcore scene, though, Milukman is scathing: 'He's obscene, a pervert. His life is porn. My life is not porn.'

And like a canny drug dealer—or a carb-conscious purveyor of spuds, for that matter—Milukman doesn't partake of his own product.

'I never watch my own movies on the Internet. Except for one. It was very funny to do—I'll show it to you later.'

'What about the beurettes? Do you ever sleep with them?'

'Never.' He rears back. 'When I meet one of the girls, I don't even kiss her. I shake her hand. When you're on set, you're in a business mindset. Also, I have a fiancée.'

'Does she know what you do?'

'Yes.' He grimaces. 'She doesn't like it, but she accepts it. When we're with friends and family, I'm not allowed to say what I do.'

'Also, she knows that I'm not attracted to that kind of woman. I don't want to sound racist, but when you've already fucked that kind of girl, you realize that things will always be complicated with them and their families, and they're hard to put up with.'

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Muslim Porn: 'A Social Service'? -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 28)

And just as Sade disowned most of his work and was ostracized by polite society, Milukman says he's been shunned by some old schoolmates because of his career in porn.

'Do you ever worry about the impact it has on society?'

'We often give the excuse'—I think he means 'justification'—'that we give pleasure to people,' he says, before echoing the ancient sex-as-safety-valve point of view.

'It's better to have boys jacking off in front of a computer than to have them raping girls in a gang-bang in a banlieue. It's a public interest thing.'

He laughs, but he's serious. 'It's true. I really believe that.'

'What about the women? Don't you think it's degrading to them?'

'Yes, it's degrading, but the girls who do it have a choice to do it. This sort of thing has to exist,' he adds. 'It's like prostitution. It's a social service.'

A true public service:
A poster in the Paris Metro for Ni Putes Ni Soumises
(Neither Whores Nor Submissives):
a French feminist movement that fights violence against women
in the banlieues and ghettos where many of France's Muslims live 

Again, he's smiling—but he's not joking.

The closest he comes to showing regret is when he mentions a girl who suddenly asked him to remove all her films from the Internet.

'A lot of Arabian girls say "I want to keep my face hidden. Because if my brother or father sees me, I'm dead." And it's true—they would be dead.'

Unfortunately for the girl in question, her boyfriend was a subscriber to the site.

'And he recognized her body, even though her face was hidden.' Milukman rolls his eyes.

'Is she okay?'

'I don't know,' he laughs. 'I can't really call her to find out.'

'How do you feel about that?'

'I removed the movies. It was her choice.'

'And?'

He finally musters up some token remorse. 'I feel bad because the girl needed the money, and for me, it wasn't so bad because it was just a funny film.' He shrugs. 'She did something very hard—that may be why her boyfriend didn't like it.'

May be.

'Hard' involves household appliances fitted with sex toys: 'fucking machines' with names like 'Le Drilldo' and 'Le Breadbang.'

'We put two dildos on an electric thing you use to cut bread—'

'You mean an electric knife?'

'Yeah. Bzzzzhh!' he's laughing now. 'And she took it in the pussy and the ass at the same time. Can you imagine?'

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Muslim Porn and Darwinian Capitalism -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 27)

Apart from my word to the wise, though, Milukman says his tip-offs have come from Arabic subscribers—not outsiders.

'But surely if you care about Allah and the Dome of the Rock, you're not going to be surfing Muslim porn in the first place?' I suggest.

'All that is about hypocrisy.'

As for himself, Milukman's mother is from Naples and his father French; 'Milukman' is a meaningless nickname, and his heritage has made him a fully indifferent Catholic.

'In my mind, I'm Italian; in my way of being, I'm French,' he says. 'I'm a Christian, but that is not a problem.' 

If anything, like so many people I've met on my journey, Milukman comes across as a Darwinian capitalist, a man whose belief system consists of one brutally simple credo: 'survival of the richest,' with little if any concern for what was once quaintly called the common good.

Superficially, he's as charming as you'd expect a Franco-Italian to be and far more handsome than the stereotypical Nethead.

Fundamentally, though, he must be a pretty nasty piece of work.

Milukman made his first fortune by starting a vengeance website back in 1998, claiming that it was one of the few Internet concepts to originate in Europe and be copied in the US rather than the other way round.

On the site, jilted lovers get their own back by posting compromising photos of their exes, alongside explanations of why they want revenge.

'For me, it was a very funny idea,' he recalls. 'I never believed it would be as successful as it was.'

Now in his mid-thirties, Milukman says he's made enough money from porn to never have to work again.

I have no way of verifying this, but when he mentions that an ongoing tax inspection may cost him €150,000, he doesn't look worried at all.

'My father had a big business,' he says, adding that he didn't know anything about France's slums until he started Beurettes Rebelles.

His dad wanted him to join the family business, but Milukman rebelled. That's how he got into porn.

'It's the best business to make money in,' he shrugs.

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- The Dome of the Rock, Muslim Porn, and Mohammed's Child Bride -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 26)

I ask him about a Web report I've seen that claims one of his sites featured a 'photo of an Arab woman fingering her anus in front of the Dome of the Rock.'

He sighs.

'Yes, it was a mistake.'

That montage was mounted on a US version of the site by his designer, who wanted to use images that were evocative of the Middle East.

So apparently a woman diddling her rectum next to Islam's holiest of holies sprang to mind.

'And immediately people emailed me to tell me it was dangerous.'

The Dome of the Rock was quickly excised, but the beurette and her butthole are still there (or at least they were when I spoke with him), alongside a couple of veiled but otherwise topless women, some palm trees and… a scattering of decorative oil derricks.

Mistake or not, Muslim fundamentalists have harassed and killed people for less.

As we speak, rioters in the banlieues are fighting the police.

And not so long ago, protesters around the world were demanding death for a Danish cartoonist.

Not surprisingly, Milukman is keen to distance himself from those examples.

'I never speak about Allah, and I never speak about Mohammed,' he says. 

Well, except for that one time.

'My designer once put some Arabic writing on the body of a nude girl, and immediately people emailed us that some of the writing contained the name of Allah. It was an honest mistake.' He shrugs. 'How were we to know?'

Possibly by doing some basic research in the first place.

But one of the most surprising aspects about Milukman's potentially life-or-death pastime is just how little he (and his designer) know about Islamic culture.

At one point, I ask him if Aïcha, the half-Moroccan billed as a 'superb brunette' on his site, deliberately based her porn name on the Prophet's beloved child bride.

He looks genuinely shocked—and not a little worried. 

'Aisha was the name of Mohammed's wife?'

I nod.

'There are lots of Aishas in the banlieues,' he mumbles pensively. 'Maybe we'll have to change that on the site.'

Salman Rushdie was ayatollahed for less.

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Provoking Muslims -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 25)

Now, I'm no expert on Islamic headgear, but this seems disingenuous at best, not least because the veil on Milukman's site isn't of the colorful, bellydancing variety but a somber black headdress that covers a woman's hair with a cap and most of her face with a long rectangular piece of cloth, leaving only her eyes exposed.

It looks to me like a close cousin of the hijab known as a niqab.

And given that France is the only major Western country where girls are banned from wearing headscarves in school, wrapping naked Muslim girls in black veils for porn shoots seems deliberately provocative, not least because their usual partner is a young white Frenchman with a shaved head.

Milukman gives me a cagey grin. 'It's not a religion-provoking site—officially.'

Nevertheless, for photos, he insists on hiding behind a veil of his own: sunglasses and a handkerchief.

He hit on the idea of using the veil as the unique selling point for a website in 2003.

'I wanted to do something that had never been done—and something to shock,' he says, emphasizing the last word by fisting the air.

I ask if 9/11 and the Iraq War had anything to do with it.

'I can't officially say Beurettes Rebelles had something to do with terrorism or politics.'

He uses his hands to show the divide between his website and those issues.

'But for me, it is a provocation,' he admits. 'In order to keep the site running, though, I have to say it's about Scheherazade and The Thousand and One Nights.'

The disclaimer on Milukman's site
(courtesy of Google's auto-translator)

Remarkably, Milukman claims he's never had any death threats.

'I've never received even one hate mail,' he says, dead-eyed and earnest. 'I think Arabian people are clever enough to understand the difference between my site and religion.'

In fact, he estimates that 80% of his subscribers are Muslims.

'Chiefly Arabian boys from the banlieues. In France, it's sexual misery for these men. The only way for them to see girls is the Internet, and it's not that expensive for them to pay one to two euros to see a full sex scene online.'

So long as it doesn't offend their religious sensitivities, naturally.

And Milukman—a self-styled 'Web subversive'—has had some close scrapes...

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Milukman and Muslim Porn -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 24)

In analyzing the adventures of the 'new Tintin,' an arch-conservative journalist (and Flemish separatist) noted that the case was the latest in a series of sleaze scandals.

'Morality has gone berserk all over Europe, but nowhere to the same degree as in Belgium,' he claimed. 'If Europe ever "belgianizes", i.e. becomes a state without a real nation, it will end up as the same moral cesspit that Belgium is today.'

As entertaining as Belgium-bashing may be, I'm sure there are plenty of Belguel types in other countries: I've even arranged a rendezvous with one in Paris.

ENTER MILUKMAN

'I think that Belguel guy was mad,' my contact says, though many people would say he's not so sane himself. 

The mystery man across from me is known to hordes of adoring wankers only as 'Milukman,' the founder of websites specializing in what some Westerners refer to as 'Muslim porn'—a deeply offensive term in its own right, especially when pornographers make puns on the word 'submissive' in the S&M sense and the literal meaning of Muslim as 'one who submits.'

Milukman's flagship site is Beurettes Rebelles, a beurette being any French-speaking girl of Arabic or North African extraction, particularly if she hails from one of the immigrant sink estates, or banlieues, on the outskirts of Paris.

For around €350 (less than $500), Milukman's French-Arab 'rebels' willingly subject themselves to varying degrees of humiliation: some masturbate in close-up—with or without the aid of 'fucking machines'—while others limit themselves to oral and anal sex (saving their vaginas for their loved ones), and a hardcore group of wannabe porn stars put their every orifice at the director's disposal.

But all the 'rebel beurettes' have one thing in common: they start off wearing nothing but their birthday suits… and a black veil.

'The veil is my brand—it's my marketing,' Milukman explains.

However, it's not a hijab, he adds.

Although it may look like sacrilege, Beurettes Rebelles features a disclaimer declaring that its inspiration is the (misogynistic) classic, A Thousand and One Nights, in which a courtesan tells a king a cliffhanger each night to avoid execution in the morning:

'Thus no religious character should be attributed to these veils,' the site states.

In fact, Milukman claims the beurettes' black headdress came from a costume store.

'It's a veil like Scheherazade wore.'

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- The Bee Gees and the Terribly Nice Sadists -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 21)

I should point out that all this is taking place to a surreal, disco-riffic soundtrack of ABBA, Barry White and the Bee Gees.

Next door, a greyheaded man has lashed his partner to the X-shaped cross of St. Andrew.

She's pantyless and facing the wall, the taut skin on her face contrasting suspiciously with the flaccidity of her backside—if only they did Botox for buttocks.

As the old boy flails her with twirls and whirlybirds and other tricks of the whip, she gasps 'Oui! Oui!' and even 'Encore! Encore!' while the 'Walrus of Love' croons 'Let the Music Play.'

One voyeur starts grooving in unison—before stopping self-consciously.

Steve and Fanny have disappeared from the bar, and I wander upstairs to see if they're still here.

I turn the corner to have a look in the bedroom and—whoa!—see more of Sex Action Man than I ever wanted.

Steve is naked, kneeling with his butt to the doorway, while Fanny whips him between the legs… and gazes over his shoulder at me.

I shrink away.

TOO MUCH HEAVEN?

By now, the air in the club is the usual Metro stew of alcohol, sweat, smoke and garlic, plus a queasy soupcon of bodily secretions.

Over in the ob-gyn clinic, the bulbous woman with the trussed tits—she of the hot-waxed nipples—is lying on the examination table, her feet in the stirrups.

'Le Marquis Noir' guides a rotund blonde into the room and positions her between the patient's legs.

She begins administering cunnilingus, while the black woman's fat, ponytailed boyfriend kisses and fondles her and the usual crowd gathers round.

One of them starts humming along with the lush melody winding its way up the stairs.

(To answer that timeless question posed by the Bee Gees, I'm guessing the lickee's love is about six inches deep.)

Out in the hall, I've been cornered by a little guy with porthole glasses and a tubby sidekick wearing a toupee that wouldn't fool a blind man.

The elderly fellow in specs pauses to put on a tight leather glove, as if preparing for a rectal probe.

'What's that for?' I ask.

He blinks at me obviously and nods toward the blonde. 'For ze lay-dee.'

Ohhhhh.

Back in his shiny fetishwear, Sex Action Man materializes out of the funk, ready and more than willing to assist in Operation Ecstasy.

Steve's standing behind the kneeling woman with his arms at the ready, and at some mysterious signal—maybe it's a nod from the Marquis, maybe it's the beginning of 'Too Much Heaven (Nobody Gets Too Much Love Anymore)'—Steve sticks his fingers up the latex expanse of the fat woman's skirt.

She doesn't balk—then again, her tongue's otherwise engaged—so he enlists another guy to lift up her skirt with a plastic snap! and Steve's hand disappears up her bottom.

Despite the black woman's moans of ecstasy, after many minutes of lap licking, it becomes clear she can't muster up a crowd-pleasing climax.

Her boyfriend asks the blonde to stop.

'I'm doing my best,' she protests.

'Thank you, but I think she's had enough.'

And with that, the Terribly Nice Sadists disperse.

* * *

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- The Chanel No. 5 of Coition -- (Chap. VII, Pt 20)

Drink Three 

It's taken me a while (maybe I'm not so clever after all), but I finally realize: the Marquis' Tea is basically a sex club with spanking—lots of spanking.

I've been driven out of the writer's room by a couple of old folks who look better suited to sunshine and grandchild-dandling than black leather and shagging in public.

Maybe they're the last big bang of the Baby Boomers, the generation that turned youthfulness into a religion.

As I left, gramps was spasming against granny—Forever young!!!!!—while a younger voyeur with bulgy eyes played with himself in his leotard.

Over in the bedroom, someone has taken up the fellatee's offer and is taking his girlfriend from the rear while remaining fully clothed himself.

He's pounding her so hard she's grunting 'Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' with each impact: it's a wonder the guy on the bed isn't crying 'Teeth! Teeth! Teeth!'

I'm standing right next to the paunchy love machine, but no matter how close I get (close enough to know he's wearing a condom), it's decidedly unsexy.

Mind you, I've never been one for spectator sports.

He and the girl are giving it their porn-star best, with him going 'Unh! Unh!' and her going 'Ooh! Ooh!'—except it comes out as Mlmooh! Mlmooh! because she's moaning with her mouth full.

Maybe it would help if I faked interest, too: Go on, my son! Allez! ALLEZ! ALLEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZ!

But I don't want to throw them off their stride, if only for the sake of the guy with his bits in the sharp end.

And I doubt the Mexican wave would go down well here, either.

The Frenchman at the rear finishes with a rather subdued groan, orgasming in public with the old Unh!-Unh!-UNNNNNNHHHHHHHHH! combination—a classic, that; the Chanel No. 5 of coition—and the black girl collapses with a whimper, pawing at her master's chest, while the other white guy winkles the rubber off his winkie.

Some time later, the girl and her master emerge from the den.

She's surprisingly young and pretty; not so surprisingly, she's a little unsteady on her feet.

'So how did that turn out?' Steve asks me down in the bar.

'Put it this way—it's a miracle she can walk.'

He leans across Fanny's fanny to speak with me, man to man.

'Did you—did you see if she took it up the ass?'

I stare at him dumbstruck. 'I—I honestly couldn't say.'

So much for me and my eye for detail.

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- 'Most Other Clubs Are Sordid' -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 19)

To spare you the literal blow-by-blow—and in homage to the Marquis' love of theatre, I'll call what follows Les Cochons et Moi: A Farce in Three Drinks.

Drink One

In the dingy, red-lit room, a couple of men are beating some faceless woman's backside.

At first, I think she must be wearing tights—I'd certainly want padding—but she's actually black, and while her bare behind is being abused, she's simultaneously going down on a white guy stretched out on the worn, satin bedspread.

The main spanker is beating not just her gluteus maximus but also everything inbetweenus, like a man who can't tell a pussy from a cat-o'-nine tails.

Meanwhile, his compadre is thwacking his penis against the girl's butt to try to get an erection.

And behind them, a gaggle of us are crowding around somberly, in a scene that somehow reminds me of an old oil painting of medical students receiving a lesson in human anatomy: Masters Thumpcock and Witherdick Demonstrating to Esteemed Gentlemen How to Give a Slag a Bloody Good Hiding.

I bump into Steve on my way out.

'It's really good here, isn't it?' he says. 'Most other clubs are sordid.'

Drink Two

Down in the bar, Fanny has a special request for Oda: she wants to borrow the red whip from behind the bar.

'I'd really like to try this on you,' she tells me, her smoke-cured chords doing their best approximation of a purr. 'I like to dominate clever men—not stupid, rubbish men. Men who have something in their heads.'

To which I guess I'm meant to clap my hands to my face and gasp: Well, golly! Seeing's how you've flattered my intelligence, I suppose I could let you take out your anger toward men by whaling on me! But not to a pulp—I'm not stupid, you know!

In the upper room, most of the men are massaging their limp appendages—or maybe they're just really small; it's hard to tell in this light.

One has managed to ejaculate across the black girl's back (note to self: avoid puddles), but she's still noshing away on the white guy and being paddled by all comers.

Even a shy Asian guy gets in an occasional slap, in between spanking his own privates.

On the bed, the recipient of the world's longest blow job lifts his head languorously to address the strangers: 

'Does anybody want to fuck her?'

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Fanny, Sex Action Man, and a Taste of the Marquis de Sade -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 18)

Noting my discomfort, Oda introduces me to a regular from London who lives in Paris.

He's clad in a shiny shirt-and-trousers ensemble made of black plastic-leather.

Blonde and square-jawed, Sex Action Man has a habit of cocking his arms on his hips.

'Hi, I'm Steve,' he says.

Of course it is.

'And this is Fanny.' A French dominatrix with wispy hair, stained teeth and leathery skin.

I tell them I'm writing a book, and Fanny mentions that she was invited to the award ceremony last night for the Prix Sade, a literary prize founded in 2001.

Apparently a gay snuff novel from America won (I'm so proud).

Fanny makes it clear that she and Steve are merely acquaintances; he has a live-in girlfriend.

'But she's not really into this,' he adds vaguely.

After some more perfectly pleasant small talk—they're terribly nice, these sadists—I excuse myself to have a look round.

SPANKING AND SUCKING

The cubbyholes next to the bar have a torture-lite theme, with a leather sex swing and assorted shackles, handcuffs and pulley contraptions, as well as a dildo-equipped chair and a Cross of St. Andrew.

Upstairs, the mood moves from the inspirational (a room with an old-fashioned writing desk and quilled pen) to the clinical (a tiled 'doctor's surgery' featuring an examination bed with gynecological stirrups) and even the ham-handedly comical (a toilet with penis-shaped taps) before reverting to ye-olde dungeon theme in the main room.

A couple of middle-aged blondes are taking it in turns to be spanked and tied to stocks hanging from the ceiling, and in the corner, a topless black woman with ropes around her breasts—a kind of bondage support bra—is mashing mammaries with a white kinkster while her fat, ponytailed boyfriend drips candle wax on their saucer-sized nipples.

Both women are loudly sucking in air, licking their lips and flicking their tongues to let it be known to all and sundry that the hot wax is exquisitely painful.

To me, it just looks painful. 

But I soon spot the real attraction: a little curtained-off bedroom in the corner—the black hole of male lust that keeps the regulars coming back for more.

A couple of men are perving in the doorway, drinks in hand, transfixed by the grimly sexual scene inside.

Not knowing what to expect—though the spanking and sucking noises should be a clue—I take another swig of my drink and peer into the darkness.

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- 'Are You More Dominant or Submissive?' -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 17)

But it turns out that boogie-'n'-bondage is all part of the very special ambience.

Though hardcore by night, every Friday the club hosts an 'afternoon tea' billed as Les Goûters du Divin Marquis: 'A Taste—or Smack—of the Divine Marquis.'

'At night, we play heavy, techno music, but for the teas, we play this to get people relaxed,' explains Philippe's partner, Oda, who's working behind the bar in some sort of corset contraption.

Given her vaguely Teutonic name and frankly Wagnerian proportions, Oda reminds me of an opera singer—the one they wheel out when the show's about to end.

Her cleavage is casting a shadow over a selection of fruit, biscuits and gummy chews on the bar, alongside a bag of body clips.

Thoughtfully, there's also a dispenser of hand sanitizer nearby—though if your average bowl of cocktail peanuts has a bazillion bacteria in it, imagine what's floating around this joint.

'The teas are for new people to the S&M scene,' Oda's explaining. 'They bring together the libertines and the S&M crowd, something no one's ever done before.'

Before I can ask if 'libertines' are the same as 'swingers,' Oda stumps me with a question of her own.

'Are you more dominant or submissive?'

And to think we're barely on fake-first-name terms. 

After some preliminary spluttering, I confess that I've never really thought about it. 'If pushed, I guess I'd rather beat than be beaten,' I smile weakly, though it's akin to asking how I'd like to kill myself: frankly, I'd rather not die at all.

Oda informs me she used to be a dominatrix until she met Philippe, who's now her master.

'I like to dominate men psychologically,' she says, staring hard at me and tapping her temple. 'Especially travestis—that's my game.'

I flap my lips like a fish out of water. You've got to wonder how hard it is to mess with a man who can't even decide whether he's male or female.

More importantly, what kind of creature would get a kick out of confusing him further?

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- BDSM, ABBA, and Me -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 16)

Nevertheless, I've had some doubts about coming here, not least because I wasn't sure what to wear.

I don't really have the body for bondage, and when I consulted my kinky oracle—Lena the Latin South African—her less-than-helpful suggestion was a monosyllabic chant: Gimp! Gimp! Gimp!

Fortunately, the club's dress code has saved me from looking like a big-'n'-tall medicine ball.

Dark clothes are de rigueur, but a good suit will do, so I'm wearing the best one I own—an old Pierre Cardin, as it happens.

The former wine cellar has been converted into a cozy setting for Sadeian fantasies, complete with candelabra, plush furnishings and bondage films projected onto the half-barrel ceiling.

Sadly, the club's habitués don't look anything like the models pouting in patent leather on the ceiling—I'm not even sure they belong to the same species.

BDSM'S OBESITY BOON

The average age in here must be around forty-five and the body-mass index knocking on a hundred.

Not for the first time, it occurs to me that the obesity 'epidemic' has been a boon for BDSM.

Before coming here, while searching for gear for myself, I came across a woman's website listing 'goddess' sizes, including petticoats for a 54-inch waist (I clicked away when she mentioned dressing like a goddess-sized—or was it Godzilla-sized?—Japanese schoolgirl).

Sure enough, a table of corseted vamps in the corner are gobbling their way to deification, alongside a stringy blonde whose voice is so deep I can't tell if she's a pre-op tranny or a post-meno Frenchwoman.

One obvious travesti is a travesty indeed: he's got a weathered, man-of-the-land face, but he's wearing lipstick, a blonde wig and a maid's outfit with chains and BDSM trinkets tied around his waist.

He wanders past a mostly naked man who's kneeling and facing the wall with his hands tied behind his back and a ball-gag in his mouth. And overhead, the sound system is blasting out ABBA.

Which—if you think about it—may just make his humiliation complete.

I mean, if the guy on the floor is into the submissive thing, willingly trussed up in all his flabby luminosity, then he's probably fantasized about the soundtrack being dark and sinister; not the bright aural bellbottoms of ABBA.

You can imagine him eagerly submitting to being bound—oh yes, mistress!—and gagged—moh myef, miftreflbf!

And then, when he's powerless to stop her, the cow turns on 'Dancing Queen.'

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Cochons, Defloration-Mania, and the City of Light -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 15)

Ironically, despite the current bondage boom, S&M clubs are virtually nonexistent in the land of the Marquis.

So I've decided to go to Paris in search of a latter-day Sade—or at least a real, live, squealing cochon (slang for 'pervert').

The City of Light sealed its illicit reputation in the century after the Marquis' death, when pornography became mass market and consumerism fueled the notion that both people and goods could be disposable.

The English had popularized the term 'shopping' during the Marquis' lifetime, while 'defloration-mania'—the sale of virgins—became the rage on both sides of the Channel.

In 1855, a French playwright came up with a new term for the decadent 'half world' that thrived beyond the bounds of prudish 'respectable' society.

Fast-forward to the present, though, and le demimonde could easily describe tout le monde.

In keeping with stereotypes, sex and swinging clubs are as common as poodle muck in Paris, but surprisingly there's only one venue devoted to BDSM.

Cris et Chuchotements—'Cries and Whispers'—is tucked away where the red-light spillover from the Pigalle meets the chi-chi respectability of the seventeenth arrondissement.

Don't believe the hype:
They wish they were this sexy

In fact, the S&M site sits right behind the local town hall and just down the street from a police station and an elementary school.

The kids' laughter is echoing down the street as I approach the dungeonesque door, marked with a flickering candle encased in a glass. It seems fitting that the nearest Metro stop is Rome.

Inside, the entrance is predictably dark, contrasting with the flash of white flesh that greets me.

A chubby blonde is peeling off the last of her street clothes to squeeze into something a little less comfortable, and from what I've seen (without wanting to), I reckon she's at that age just before the physical slide turns into an avalanche.

The guy who takes my coat, on the other hand, is a buff gym bunny who I've been assured is a serious S&M player, despite the friendly lettering on his T-shirt—Philippe—and his codename—Le Marquis Noir—which probably sounds more menacing if you twirl a fake moustache and pronounce it with a villainous stage cackle:

The Marquis Nwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- A Poor Little Aristocrat -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 7)

However, Finn's relativism echoes that of Sade's defenders.

His most acclaimed biographer, Francine du Plessix Gray, spends the first sixty pages of At Home with the Marquis de Sade creating a sympathetic portrait of her subject: a poor little aristocrat with a rich pedigree (one ancestor was Petrarch's muse)… neglected by his frigid mother and bisexual father (they didn't even attend his baptism)… fobbed off on his uncle, a womanizing priest in Provence (who loved the troubadours)… spoiled rotten by his relatives… a brave but laddish officer… and finally married off to a plain wife for money... comme ci, comme ça—pretty much the routine for an eighteenth-century aristo.

Next thing you know, though, little Donatien-Alphonse-Francoise de Sade is tormenting a pregnant prostitute in a rented house outside Paris, boasting about cramming communion wafers up a woman's holiest of holies and wanking into a chalice while blaspheming the Virgin as a 'bugger,' God the Father as a 'motherfucker' and shouting 'If thou art God, avenge thyself!'

That bit of funmaking earned Sade three weeks in the clink in 1763.

Five years later, after much infidelity interspersed with marital bliss (including a few children), Sade was back in Paris, this time picking up a part-timer and taking her to a little house where he proceeded to masturbate while flogging her with a bundle of cane and a cat-o-nine tails; if she refused, he told her, he'd kill her and bury her in the garden.

During a break, the prostitute tied the bedsheets together and escaped out the window to report him to the police.

Glamorized misogyny:
sexing up Sade's crimes

The crime scandalized the nation, not least because he'd done all this on Easter Sunday, seemingly mocking the flagellation of Christ.

Without any aristocratic friends to protect him, Sade's whipping of the prostitute turned him into a whipping boy for the bourgeoisie.

Even so, he spent only seven months in jail.

The History of Sex: South of France -- How Notre Dame Got Its Name -- (Chap. III, Pt. 5)

By the eleventh century, though, the sexual indiscretions of the clergy and their sisters in Christ had become so flagrant that reformist popes tried to force priests to stop fornicating for once and for all: if necessary, with the aid of angry mobs.

The turning point occurred around 1075, when Pope Gregory VII made celibacy the rule for Western clergy (even though many of his successors were less than chaste).

Around the same time, the image of women in the West received a long-overdue makeover.

The Turks' conquest of the Holy Land triggered the Crusades, and many knights who made it back to Europe returned with a newfound admiration for the Virgin Mary.

(from Ominous Ellipses)

The Mother of God had long been venerated in the East, while the Western Church tended to portray her as merely the lowly female vessel for the male God's Immaculate Conception.

However, the newly imported cult of Our Lady helped put all of womankind on a pedestal—Paris even named its new cathedral after Notre Dame.

Whether a renewable virgin was the best role model for women is debatable, but at least it made a change from being judged guilty by association with Eve.

The Virgin's ascendancy also raised the profile of a less-than-virginal Mary, who may or may not have been a fallen woman but was definitely close to Christ.

According to Gallic legend, Mary Magdalene fled Jerusalem after Jesus' death and settled in the south of France (carrying the Holy Grail with her, if you believe the likes of The Da Vinci Code).

Centuries later, this sensual, fractious corner of Europe served as the crucible for the West's first modern love poetry—courtesy of the troubadours—and a sexual rebellion that spawned the Inquisition.

* * *