Perhaps you experienced how young teenage boys can get a “boner” every few minutes, with no prompting whatsoever? Well ladies, nature was not as generous with us. Women have fewer orgasms than men and a much harder time getting them. Unlike men, for us femmes not only are the parts not all located in the same place, but for the most part men refuse to pull over and ask for directions.

If you are wondering where I am going with this, the answer is Laura Kipnis. Professor in the Department of Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University, recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, contributor to Slate, Harper’s, The Nation, and The New York Times Magazine and author of a number of best selling books.

A professor who writes books… how original or shall I say how boring; easy best sellers by forcing her students’ to buy her books. Non non non mes amis, she is spawning best sellers like they are going out of fashion because her topic of predilection is women and sex and the University survives it without the donors threatening to leave.

So what are her books about? Is she of the Debra Ollivier, Robin Norwood or more of the Histoire d’O type? Well to all you Frenchies who are seeking thrills…. Sorry to disappoint you – this isn’t it. But it’s also not the self-help à la: “Why men love Bitches” either. Let me give you an insight into some of her books just so you can get a taste for the… Demoiselle.

Kipnis wrote Against Love – a Polemic and got a rise out of many people (What more can an author ask for?). She reminded anyone who is married and has children, how sex suddenly is in competition with a good night’s sleep and how more often than not sex loses not only that battle but the war too – as once we get used to not having sex, we stop yearning for it. Her solution to sex becoming a chore? Adultery. Does she advocate it? Well she certainly does not frown upon it. Kipnis discusses many societal taboos, guiding us through leading philosophers and psychoanalysts. The book is saved from turning into a dry, academic treatise by her humorous rendition.

Kipnis then decided to study the “female condition” and gave us: The Female Thing: Dirt, envy, sex, vulnerability bringing us her take on Post “Post Feminism”. You may remember Ze Seducteur’s essay on how women need to be sexy and smart, have great jobs and be fabulous mums. This book takes a look at these issues and lays the blame squarely on… women. Underlying the failure of feminism to achieve full equality for women, Kipnis says, is women’s own ambivalence, wanting both feminism and femininity.

Oui Mesdames, nothing-new here but a more tongue in cheek foray into what makes us… Femme, why we have fewer orgasms than men, why we still focus on rape despite the numbers being down, why spouses get along better when the wife works (money helps but that is not the reason…) and why we want… push up bras.

Kipnis recently came out with her latest book: How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior. We all seem to be waiting for the next scandal: A politician embroiled in an extramarital affair, a heartthrob actor arrested for buying the services of a less-than-attractive prostitute. Is the crime lack of esthetic judgment or dabbling in prostitution? Look at America’s understanding of Kennedy’s affair with Marilyn Monroe – sex icon of all times v. the country’s outrage over Clinton’s transgressions with Monica Lewinski.

Kipnis claims that we, the “outraged public” are as much a part of the scandal as the transgressors themselves. We are the interactive audience that provides a stage for the actors. You are shaking your head in disbelief saying “They did it!” Very true, but if the public did not take an active interest, it would remain what it actually is – a private transgression with implications to a handful of interrelated parties. Look at France for example where such transgressions are accepted as being part and parcel of “normal life” permitting Président Mittérand to be in power for many years, with a well known love child from an illicit affair without the Paparazzi fanfare.

Like the previous two, the book is a highly intellectual study of the phenomenon, wrapped in humor and anecdotes so as to make us forget its academic value and just enjoy the read.  Kipnis further provokes our thought and interest by questioning, rather than offering answers.

Allow me to finish with an old but still relevant proverb: All work and no play make Jack (and Jill) a dull boy (or girl).

~ Shéhérazade

The twentieth Century as we know was a momentous period for women’s liberation. It happened across World and is most famous for its political aspects but the emotional and sexual side of Women’s liberation is no less essential to Woman’s ability to free herself from millenia’s of female rules and regulations.

The femme moderne finds herself in a tremendous “work-life” dilemma. Born at the turn of the 20^th century, Anais Nin made it her life mission to experiment and research what it is to be a woman. Perhaps most telling is her statement:

“Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge, as indispensable as poetry”.

Are you raising an eyebrow at the necessity of poetry? Curb that Anglo-Saxon rationalist materialist train of thought and rather reconnect to the more Gallic idealist movement… Poetry, Thought, Emotion and Passion are all proof of one’s very existence to expand on Rene Descartes’ philosophy.

Anais Nin is fascinating. She was Anne Desclos’s (author of Story of O) contemporary, both lived in France, both had very liberated sexual lives , both were recognized figures of their literary peers Desclos in France, Nin in the US and both wrote erotic novels. One can but wonder if they knew each other…

A woman of great beauty, Anais Nin never had a “normal” upbringing. Her father was a musician and during her first decade, her family followed him around from country to country. When Anais was eleven, he had had enough of family life and decided to continue traipsing around on his own. He had always been a womanizer, and based on Nin’s diary, may have experimented with his own daughter…

Her mother moved with the children to the US, where Anais at 14 dropped out of school but spent all her spare time reading. Once married, her banker turned maker of experimental films husband Ian Hugo, her mother and her siblings moved back to France with her.

She started researching DH Lawrence. In the process she made new friends; the most notorious of these friendships being her torrid affair with Henry Miller. Despite rumors about an affair with his wife June she seems to have kept physical contact to men. She took Miller under her financial wing, to finance all this they found a rich patron willing to pay for erotic stories (like the story of O, Delta was not written to be published). The collection of stories she wrote became the book and was followed by a movie that was filmed by Zalman King (most famous for his erotic movies like 9.5 Weeks and the Red Shoe Diaries).

Delta of Venus, along with the Story of O and Henry Miller’s under the roofs of Paris feature in most erotic bibliophile’s list of top ten best books.

Delta was first published posthumously in 1978 and contains some highly taboo subjects such as abuse, incest, homosexuality, prostitution, infidelity, and pedophilia.

While fulfilling her patron’s requirements she pursued the study of Femme. In her diaries, Anais Nin calls herself “the Madam of this snobbish literary house of prostitution” a reference to how the authors were “prostituting their writing skills” a subject they all had issues with but faced with never ending bills, issues were put aside and as much erotica was written as the benefactor was wiling to pay for. Perhaps the hardest part was separating emotion from action. The “old Man” wanting descriptions of the deeds to be unmarred by poetry.

In the preface to the book are excerpts from Anais Din’s diaries about how she came to be writing for this “old man”:

“But did anyone ever experience pleasure from reading a clinical description? Didn’t the old man know how words carry colors and sounds into the flesh?”

She studied the Kama sutra extensively and listened to her friends’ most outlandish experiences, until she came up with her stories. All the poor authors were talking about it, laughing and discussing, poet Robert Duncan even offering to “try it out”.

Frustrated as the task may have seemed in retrospect she was happy to see a feminine voice still transcended the actions.

I would add some choice quotes from the book… but this website may well be put on trial for obscenity… so I warmly recommend you read it.

Her life was spicy… in 1944 she married Rupert Pole, her junior by sixteen years. She kept the marriage secret as she was still married to Guiler  (Ian Hugo). After 11 years she decided to come clean and got her marriage to Pole annulled. She remained married to Guiler but went on living with Pole.

Mesdames, just to inspire you a little, I will share my favorite Anais Nin quote with you:

“How wrong is it for a woman to expect man to build the world she wants, rather than set out to create it herself”

~ Shéhérazade