The French love to talk (and to listen to themselves talking), so the actual propositioning probably won’t take the form of a lunge across the settee. At dinner or over a drink at a bar, the man will tell the woman that she is the rare orchid that he has been seeking all his life in the jungle of love. Or that an inexplicable emotion has been troubling him ever since he first set eyes on her – it is the feeling that his life will be like an eternal night if she is not there to bring sunlight into it. Or simply that he can no longer resist the temptation to kiss her. All this means, of course, is ‘I’d love to have sex with you’, but as long as the man obeys the conventions of poetry and politeness, the woman will welcome the offer. She won’t sleep with him unless she wants to, of course, but she won’t accuse him of being a sexual predator who takes advantage of women who accept innocent invitations to dinner. In France, there is no 39 such thing as an innocent invitation to dinner.
Homme Is Where the Heart Is
Anyone looking for a French partner has to understand the gender roles involved. And because France is such an old-fashioned country, ladies must naturally come first . . .40 During the opening gambits of the game of amour (and, in theory at least, any subsequent relationship), the man must open doors for the woman, help her on with her coat, tell her she’s beautiful – which is actually a very pleasant rapport to have. When I was at university in England in the early 1980s, I had a girlfriend who, if I held the door open for her, would ask whether I thought she was too weak to open it for herself. And if I told her she was beautiful, she’d ask why I didn’t say she was intelligent. French women want equal rights in the workplace, but they enjoy old-school pampering from their homme. They’re feminine as well as feminist.
French women also manage to be sexy without seeming at all tarty. They rarely show off their navel unless it is a perfectly sculpted navel. They can often be very sensual and provocative, but it’s more of a ballet than a lapdance. Because of the formalized French seduction game, they don’t need to get blind drunk and yell ‘Wanna shag then or what?’ in a man’s ear.
French men are often confused, to say the least, by the forwardness of some (not all, of course) Anglo-Saxon women. An English friend of mine told me that she was kissing a Frenchman in a bar when she noticed that he was getting a bit too excited too soon.
‘Oh no,’ she told him, pushing the poor man away. ‘I only wanted a snog.’
That’s something that a French woman would never say. If she’s decided that she wants to kiss a man, she usually wants to do a lot more, too.
Being fundamentally macho, French men often try classic entrapment techniques. A favourite amongst arty Parisian men is the old ‘come out to dinner and I’ll tell you how I can help you get published/get a film role/work in TV, etc.’ trick. French women pretend to fall for this, but usually go in with their eyes wide open. If the man is cute, they think, why not sleep with him? If he’s not cute but he really can get them a job with a TV channel, why not sleep with him? Les Françaises know what they want and they know how to get it.
A woman who is looking for a relationship naturally hopes that the gallantry the man has shown before they slept together will continue afterwards. The problem with this theory is that one French word for sleeping with someone is conclure, to conclude. ‘Tu as conclu?’ a Frenchman will ask his friend the day after a hot date – meaning ‘Did you get what you wanted?’ But if sleeping with someone is the conclusion, it doesn’t bode well for life après. There is a scene in a film called Gazon Maudit (‘Cursed Lawn’41) by French comedienne and director Josiane Balasko in which an adulterer and his mistress are sitting at a restaurant when a man comes in selling roses. ‘No thanks,’ the adulterer tells the flower-seller, ‘we’ve already screwed.’ French women smile rather wryly at this joke.
Some French men are considerate, good listeners, stylish, funny, and always available to take a woman out for a great evening. As in so many other countries, they are gay. Or they are straight and on their best behaviour because they haven’t yet got the girl into bed.
The others fall into three basic groups. There is the smooth Latin Lover, the Anguished Artist and the Gérard Depardieu. All of whom are pretty macho in their own way.
The Latin Lover is, of course, testosterone on legs, a stylish seducer who will be forgiven for disappearing after the first night or cheating on his partner because it’s in his genes.
The Anguished Artist exists on such a high plane that he can’t do the washing-up. He will, however, be very good at borrowing the woman’s money so that he can buy her lavish presents.
The Gérard Depardieu might give a woman a slap but he loves her really. (I’m talking about the roles Gérard plays, of course, and not the man himself. I am sure that Monsieur Depardieu has never raised a hand to a woman in his life, except to light her cigarette.)
The singer Serge Gainsbourg somehow seemed to combine all three models. And although he was ugly, often drunk, and presumably reeked of tobacco smoke, it worked brilliantly with women. He is even quoted as saying, ‘If I had to choose between a last woman and a last cigarette, I’d choose the cigarette, because you can throw it away more easily.’ French women didn’t love him any
