Americans have sex just as much as anybody else - men and women rut in the cornfields, behind the barn, in boardrooms, bathrooms, and the back of cars. It's just that it all seems so, well, tacky.
Emmanuel de Rochefoucauld-Fargues' mistress, chief counsel to the Serbian ambassador, former model, and country representative to the International Court of Justice, met him every Tuesday and Thursday at their shared pied a terre in the 7th, a spacious apartment on Rue Vaneau overlooking the garden of the Prime Minister's residence, appointed in Louis XVI, fresh flowers placed in Lalique crystal vases by the concierge, fire lit in the fireplace, and a bottle of Moet Chandon by the bedside.
'Bonjour, Monsieur, le Conte', said the concierge, opening the door to the apartment and the garden as she heard the familiar footsteps approach. Tuesdays and Thursdays were special days for her. Not every Parisian concierge had the privilege of caring for an aristocrat and his charming lover, and she did everything she could to make their brief stay as welcoming and accommodating as possible.
Emmanuel was indeed a Count, one of a long line of both Rochefoucauld and Fargues aristocrats. His great great uncle, the Viscount of St. Anselm-sur-Laye, a vast property in the Dordogne, had written the authoritative book on Flemish history; and his grandfather was a much decorated officer in the French Army, a hero at the Battle of the Bastogne.
His lover, Teodora Milic, was one of the most beautiful women in Paris, the envy of even the most sophisticated women of the city. She was tall, authoritative, and dressed in the most elegant couture. She was well-known in France but even more so in the European Community where her work with the ICJ was noted for its particular legal rigor and steadfast nonpartisanship.
Everyone in the 7th, Paris's most sought after arrondissement, knew both her and the Count, nodded to them on the street, and greeted them warmly at La Mirabelle, the small neighborhood Michelin starred restaurant on Rue Foche. Many also knew the Count's wife, a beauty in her own right, board member for the Musee du Grand Palais, and professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne.
This was the way sexual affairs should happen, arranged discreetly but never hidden - affairs of incidental love but carried out with taste and allure. There was something aristocratic about the Rochefoucauld-Milic affair - Emmanuel felt that he was carrying on a cultural tradition even more than enjoying a tryst with a beautiful lover.
As the couple walked down the Rue du Bac to buy ripe pears from the fruitier they were acknowledged by both residents and workmen who tipped their hats as the couple walked by, This sexual liaison was as much a part of French tradition as Mouton-Rothschild Grand Cru or the Eiffel Tower.
The affair was about as far from the American experience as can be imagined. While Americans may be between the sheets as often as the French, they feel they have to hide the fact, make apologies when discovered, pay a pound of flesh to their wives, explain to their children in tearful apology, and fight to keep their jobs.
Most of the nearly fifty American presidents who have taken office over the course of the country's 250 years have had affairs, trysts, and sexual encounters. FDR's affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd lasted decades. JFK preferred shorter term affairs with Hollywood stars and international beauties. LBJ was eclectic in his sexual tastes and counted on the Secret Service to satisfy his sexual ambitions.
These men and others did their best to hide their sexual interests from the American public who unlike the French did not consider sexual liaisons to be perks of presidential office. JFK was in fact blackmailed by J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI over his affair with a suspected East German spy. Hoover would keep quiet about this relationship and those with Marilyn Monroe and other women, if the President went slow on Civil Rights ('The Nigra won't get farther than the crosstown bus will take him if I have any say about it').
When Bill Clinton's affairs with various women came to light, American women said that if he cheated on his wife, he would cheat on ordinary Americans. Once a cheater always a cheater they claimed and deserted him in droves.
Hundreds of lesser politicians had affairs, were caught, tearfully apologized and were returned to office. As well as a profoundly Puritanical country, America is a persistently Calvinist one - God forgives sinners if they repent, and repent these politicos did, tearfully begging the public for forgiveness.
Men in America cheat on their wives, 'working late at the office', taking frequent 'business trips' to Boston and Dubuque, and coming home bedraggled after 'eighteen holes of golf'. When discovered, the sound and fury is relentless. There can be no give in a loving marital relationship no matter how desultory the affair.
Sex is everywhere in America - on television programs and in commercials, on the covers of magazines, and in provocative, revealing feminine fashions. If one were to judge by first impressions, America would be the ooh-la-la country, not France; but voila la difference. Sex in America is a smarmy, rutting affair without class or sophistication. Randy sex in the back of a pickup truck just ain't the same as on silk sheets.
There are of course exceptions - wealth confers a certain sexual license, and as long as a CEO stays clear of his co-workers, he's on his own. Movie stars, already on everyone's most desirable list are given a free pass when it comes to serial lovers. Black men are supposed to have sex with any woman who comes their way, so they are not held to any Puritanical moral standard; but for the rest of the country, the Walmart greeters, bass boat and gun rack crackers, and nine-to-five salarymen - it's covered up quickies at best.
'Sexist, privileged white male predatory behavior', say American women observing the French cinq-a-sept liaisons so much a part of Parisian culture; but except for the few chippies from Le Moulin Rouge, afternoon sex is a consensual, shared pleasure. Women are complaisant lovers and deceitful wives no different from the unfaithful men they sleep with. A sexual cabal of two, a five-star smorgasbord, a delightful encounter.
France has been such a tolerant, libertine place that even the excesses of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former presidential candidate, international banker, and man on everyone's A-list were given a shrug. When accused of sexual bacchanals, orgies of prostitution, Strauss-Kahn demurred, saying 'How was I to know they were prostitutes? All women look the same with their clothes off'.
That sexual ethos is disappearing now that France has become more Muslim, more Third World, more conservative, and more socially backward. Muslims get around the fidelity thing by having many wives, but in secular France one must do, so only time will tell how the the community reacts.
Meanwhile Americans are still in the woodpile, the stockroom, and Motel 6, perhaps dreaming of European sophistication and sexual know-how, but happy enough simply to be screwing someone other than their wives.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.