I was absolutely unaware of our rep­u­ta­tion abroad until I started trav­el­ing. Then, I real­ized that the French were said to have this lit­tle je ne sais quoi. In plain lan­guage: French were lib­er­tine, were doing it all the time, rou­tinely had sev­eral mis­tresses and lovers and had a god-given tal­ent for romance.

Phew, really? Silly me, I hadn’t noticed!

It both­ered me. Was I extremely naive or just blind to my own sex-appeal? At first glance, it seemed to be noth­ing more than a huge misunderstanding.

Now, when I go back to France, I can see why North Amer­i­cans are a lit­tle bit puz­zled with our atti­tude towards sex. Yes, there are nude stat­ues in pretty much every city: we call that erotic art and yes, it is a pop­u­lar sub­ject to write a PHD on. Go buy cig­a­rettes at your local bureau de tabac (which also sell mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers) and you will see plenty of Play­boy with very racy front pages. Cou­ples kiss openly…Ah, French kisses! Don’t for­get the three main French words any­body know: “ménage à trois”, “rendez-vous” “affaire” (say it with a French accent, it’s sup­posed to be sexy). Plus, on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, most peo­ple thought that they were really noth­ing wrong (nor sur­pris­ing for that mat­ters) with Bill Clin­ton fool­ing around with an intern.

Oh, and don’t even get me start­ing on top­less sun­bathing…! I had no idea it was seen as a “sex­ual” thing until… well, until I went to the beach out­side of Europe. This is really weird to me. Yes, in France, it’s per­fectly accept­able to be top­less on the beach. It’s very nor­mal and very com­mon — I mean come on, my mother (and pretty much all the women in my fam­ily, come to think of it) take the top off! It’s just one of these non-spoken rules. Lie down on you towel and read a book or chat with friend equals to remov­ing the top. Go swim or walk around, put it back. And believe it or not, men around don’t stare, unless they are from North Amer­ica (or you have extremely unusual breast… I mean, men are still men!).

So that’s it, it is just a cul­tural misunderstanding?

Because for a lot of French (and Euro­peans in gen­eral), Amer­i­cans are viewed as prud­ish on sex­ual mat­ters. We always make fun of the gen­eral atti­tude of the Anglo-American legal sys­tem toward non-procreative eroti­cism. I mean come on peo­ple, isn’t what hap­pen in the bed­room (or the laun­dry room, the liv­ing room etc.) a pri­vate mat­ter? Appar­ently not. In Utah, “Adul­tery, oral and anal sex, mas­tur­ba­tion are con­sid­ered sodomy and can lead to impris­on­ment.” In 1999, Alabama made it “unlaw­ful to pro­duce, dis­trib­ute or oth­er­wise sell sex­ual devices that are mar­keted pri­mar­ily for the stim­u­la­tion of human gen­i­tal organs.” But then, what would you expect from a coun­try that cen­sors the word “fuck”?

France does not rec­og­nize reli­gious law, nor does it rec­og­nize reli­gious beliefs or moral­ity as a moti­va­tion for the enact­ment of pro­hi­bi­tions. As a con­se­quence, the coun­try has long had nei­ther blas­phemy laws nor sodomy laws. These are seen are quite exotic in Europe!

But some­how, in North Amer­ica, I found things pretty explicit at times. Although it by no means rep­re­sent Amer­i­can TV, I still can’t find words to describe the Jerry Springer Show. Vio­lence and sex is every­where on TV… yet you will have to explain me why the movie Amélie is rated R for sex­ual con­tent! Don’t ever go to the beach top­less… unless you are on spring break. Then, it is totally fine to engage in binge-drinking, casual sex and to end up on a Girls Gone Wild cam­era. A lot of movies pro­mote teenagers sex­u­al­ity (Amer­i­can Pie, to quote just one ) yet the Bush admin­is­tra­tion expended absti­nence pro­grams. Teen “stars” become moth­ers at 16 years old but Miley Cyrus pos­ing Lolita-style in Van­ity Fair was very con­tro­ver­sial. I just don’t get it!

Both sides of the Atlantic Ocean clearly have dif­fer­ent views on what’s accept­able, what should be cen­sored, and how to deal with sex­ual mat­ters in gen­eral. There is no right or wrong, it’s just…cultural. And any­thing cul­tural is bound to have many para­doxes. I remem­ber how sur­prised I was in Brazil last win­ter, where I learned top­less sun­bathing was not accept­able. Yet, it was per­fect fine to wear the tini­est bikini ever, barely cov­er­ing the nip­ples, and to walk around in the city wear­ing a teeshirt and a thong!

So be it. Euro­peans will prob­a­bly always carry this “sexy” image while North Amer­ica will be accused of puritanism.

Oh well. I guess I will have to live with the sexy image. Really, I’m flattered.

Related posts:

1. French Pas­tries
2. Are French Rude?
3. French, Eng­lish and Montréal
4. French-Spotting and Rela­tion­ships in North America
5. A Very French Taboo