•
Rating: It's not easy to come out about one's sexual deviations.
Even more so if you are a "prominent" figure in certain circles and have a "certain reputation" in the cultural and artistic sphere as the director of one of the most famous Parisian galleries.
But Catherine Millet (then 54 years old) didn't give a damn about all this "prudishness."
We cannot know whether everything described here, in this record-breaking literary debut in France, is truly a product of truth or of skillful literary manipulation to elicit the usual voyeuristic spirit that animates human beings (from Senegal to Canada) in matters of sex, perversion, and intrigue.
And in this book, there is an industrial quantity of sex, intrigue, perversion, orgies, and gang bangs.
Our Catherine (who tells her story in the first person) takes us by the hand to discover her sexual experiences in all their exaggerations: from wild orgies with 10/12 people including painters, literary critics, aspiring models, to blindfolded sex with strangers (without a condom, she proudly points out!) in embarrassing victim and perpetrator scenarios, from certain partner swaps to certain deviations like "golden showers" and more.
Sure, the writing seems sincere and candid, almost like a diary, and the woman (and we with her) is gradually less and less embarrassed about being penetrated in turn by dozens of young men during certain parties or trying out certain bondage pleasures in carefree nights of a sinful and almost unrecognizable Paris.
Millet, however, has nothing to be sorry about. She feels neither like a whore nor a virgin, but tells her story bluntly, sometimes with irony, sometimes boldly, and absolutely naturally without skimping on genuinely hardcore details, bordering on porn (the description of certain multiple fellatios or the technique learned to get penetrated front and back simultaneously is textbook!).
In short: a book that is in some aspects fun and enjoyable but decidedly too long for what it has to say.
In the long run, it indeed bores and not a little.
Like some sex done in a bored and distracted manner, which becomes pure gymnastics. Or like certain hand jobs when they last too long.
I would say "out."
Loading comments slowly
