Let's Talk About Sex
Email: 
Share: 
Notes From Abroad
February 8, 2008 - 12:00amWhen passing by the metro station Tuileries, I am greeted by a larger-than-life image of Josephine Baker’s breasts. I don’t note this because I have any particular attraction to her breasts. Rather, they are a blatant paradigm of the cultural difference between the French and American attitudes toward sex.
Imagine the reaction in America if posted in a public place — not a museum or gallery, but a subway station or a wall — was a photo of a partially nude woman. I feel that such an image would mark the debut of a regional discussion concerning morality, propriety, modesty and other familiar puritan values. Regardless of the fact that teenagers are enjoying the pleasures of premarital sex on American sitcoms, a certain openness towards sex is evident in the French public that is not tolerated in America.
And this openness does not stop with the metro Tuileries. On numerous metro cars, one can find an advertisement for a “Sex Expo” for those between the ages of nine and 14. On the poster are two adolescents just entering puberty: a girl looks at her chest in a questioning manner while the boy stares down his pants as though … well, I am sure you can imagine.
Obviously, the French feel that children as young as nine — that is to say, the equivalent of third or fourth grade — are ready for an introduction to sex and their bodies. Though I cannot give too accurate a description of this “Sex Expo” (three years of living side-by-side with college students is already a pretty intense “Sex Expo”), compare this explicit poster to America’s discussion of abstinence only sex education.
In France the most evident examples of openness towards sex are public displays of affection. I do not mean to suggest innocent pecks on street corners or sweet little nuzzles on metro cars. No, one is more likely to find couples practically mounted on each other in the park and engaged in intense make-out sessions on the bus. Furthermore, the French are utterly unfazed around these enamored couples: the PDA is as natural as buying a baguette or waiting for the metro. (I would like to remark that though the French do not mind public hookups, they seem utterly flabbergasted — sometimes even offended — by the fact that I jog in the streets.)
Though I hate to declare sentiments of American superiority, I continue to prefer the attitude that intimate acts should be saved for private places: as lovely as it may be to kiss your lover surrounded by flowers in the Jardin de Luxembourg, can it really be that romantic to also be surrounded by anywhere from 20 to 200 camera-wielding tourists?
Even as I write I can feel the predominance of my American sentiments: I wonder, should I really be writing about breasts, sex and hookups in a column that will be seen by numerous students and professors, not to mention my parents, who — like always — will then forward the article to every member of my family? In contrast, were I French, I would probably include photos.