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 -- The Real-Life Exploitation of 'Emmanuelle' -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 14)

Interestingly, Emmanuelle's liberating degradation—or degrading liberation—parallels that of the film's button-nosed star, who was actually Dutch.

Like most female porn pioneers, Silvia Kristel wound up a casualty of the industry, thanks to drink, drugs and bad decisions.

In her autobiography, she writes that she wanted 'a seminal film'—she certainly got that—'a springboard that would fling wide the door to the movies and the life of my dreams.'

And X has never been the same since...

Her first inkling that it wasn't going to turn out that way came when she was about to fake-fellate an actor and forgot her lines.

'Say whatever you like,' the director told her. 'You'll be dubbed anyway.'

Kristel also clashed with Just Jaeckin on the rape scene that's part of Emmanuelle's 'education;' she says she insisted on pulling faces to make it look unpleasant rather than erotic.

'But it was very hard to explain that to a male director. It was a very humiliating scene, and very difficult to me.'

Mind you, she may have got off lightly.

Jaeckin had lobbied hard to cast the skinny actress in the first place. 'I have a hunch,' he told Yves. 'She's so pure. Pure like her name—Kristel. You could rub shit on her face and she'd look clean.'

But why on earth would you want to? 

To this day, Rousset-Rouard defends Emmanuelle as an example of female lib, arguing that the source novel was reputedly penned by a woman.

At the same time, he somewhat paradoxically appears bemused by the cinema that films like Emmanuelle helped beget.

'I never produced pornographic movies, and I never produced violent movies. Today there are too many violent pictures, and it's difficult to do a movie without a rape scene or something like that. It's awful. But curiously, in the imagination of the people, Emmanuelle is probably much more important than a lot of pictures today, and probably more… pornographic.'

While Yves went on to produce Emmanuelles II and III, Jaeckin directed The Story of O, based on the 1950s novel about a woman who willingly becomes an S&M slave.

The author later admitted that she wrote it to please her Sade-obsessed man.

'I was not interested at all in that,' Yves sniffs. 'Because Emmanuelle is the freedom of a woman. The Story of O is completely the contrary. L'histoire de O is a story of slavery. Emmanuelle is a story of freedom—of liberty of a woman!'

'So you've never been tempted to film the story of the Marquis de Sade?'

He looks appalled.

'No!'

* * *

The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- Emmanuelle and a Most Awkward Threesome -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 13)

Funnily enough, Biblical themes are one of the few titular permutations the franchise hasn't exploited, even after seven films, countless ripoffs and an ever-copulating number of pay-TV spin-offs.

For if Debbie mainly did Dallas, Emmanuelle has done the world and then some (viz: Emmanuelle in Space, Emmanuelle vs. Dracula and Emmanuelle Goes to Hell).

In case you're not one of the 300 million or so who've seen the 1974 original (circa 650 million, counting videos and DVDs), Emmanuelle is the story of an ingénue's induction into the decadent world of French expats in Bangkok.

At the time, the movie was billed as a tale of a young wife's sexual liberation, though that claim seems disingenuous in extremis when you watch it now.

If anything, the film is just a groovy Seventies spin on a theme that was hoary even back in Sade's day: the joy of corrupting innocence, particularly if it leaves the corrupted gagging for more.

SUPER MARIO

In the movie, Emmanuelle is initially repulsed by the predatory men and women around her, but she eventually succumbs to her peers, has a lesbian fling and—at her husband's urging—puts herself in the hands of the local sexpert, a super-experienced roué called Mario (played by the washed-up matinee idol, Alain Cuny, who grimaces throughout as if he's perfected the art of holding his nose without actually touching it).

As he smokes in the shadows and spouts platitudes, Mario offers his protégée up to be fondled by a drunk soldier, raped in an opium den and shagged from behind by a Thai kickboxer—all in the same night.

Upon awakening, Emmanuelle declares in a ludicrously girlish voice: 'You know how I feel? Like when I became a grown woman at the age of twelve. Only I'm a real woman now. I spit on those others—those who think sex is a dirty word! Yes, now I am a woman!'

At which point, Super Mario sweeps her into his arms, takes her back to his place, gets her tarted up, and—with the help of his houseboy—has the most awkward threesome ever committed to celluloid.

Roll credits.

Roger Ebert -- what were you thinking?