Girl

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Au Moulin Rouge (1892-95)

Until mid-January, the Musée d'Orsay is hosting an exhibition entitled Splendeurs et misères. Images de la prostitution, 1850-1910 which delves into the lives of prostitutes as represented in art in the early 20th century. The museum's employees were striking, so on the day that I went the museum was overrun with people. The prostitution exhibit was overcrowded and hard to enjoy as everyone bumped past one another. What I got from it was a) to return another day because what I did see was excellently curated, b) that black and white porn films from 1909 are awkward when viewed with about 40 other people with a median age of 60 and c) that in the past 100 years, things have changed as much as they haven't.

By coincidence I live in the area that the exhibition centres around. Montmartre housed most of the brothels and bars where the girls could work, as well as offering cheap housing for artists like Manet, Degas and Picasso. The exhibition also details the world of higher class escorts who catered to the extremely wealthy and mostly managed to marry someone with a title, thus ensuring their livelihood. But for most women, prostitution was what they had to do to survive: in addition to being washerwomen, maids or bar ladies, they had to supplement their income by selling their bodies in order to survive in the city.

Now, a century later, the street between the Moulin Rouge and Anvers consists of sex shops and tourist stores. To the left of my door is the what seems to be the gay leather sex-wrestling outfits store, and to the right the dildo one. Then there is the Sexodrom with various floors (and their are urgently looking for a sales person, judging by the sign that I have walked past daily in the last weeks). All of them somehow have signs that just read 'Sex', so I am not sure about the specific customers that they cater to. It can't just be tourists that get lost on their way from the Sacre Coeur to the Moulin Rouge. These shops must survive because there are actually enough people buying 50-Shades-of-Gray branded handcuffs and pleather suits and porn on DVDs.

There is a certain seediness to it all. As with the red-light districts of other cities, it seems like something to poke fun at, something where tourists can enter and as a joke buy a little somethin-somethin. But just as in the 1900s there must be a social and cultural undercurrent now that accepts the need for prostitution. What is that need though? Is sex really a need, something that should be pencilled into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or added to the Ten Commandments or whatever system of belief it is that humanity adheres to? What are the implications when ever increasingly the body comes at a price? And here, I am not just talking about literally paying for the sexual services of a person, of money exchanging hands. No, what are the consequences of when social media become sexual media? As much as apps such as Grinder, Tinder and here, adopte un mec (jip, "adopt a guy") are used to simply connect with other (mutually interested and interesting) people, one cannot deny that most of them are also used as hook-up apps.

I find it all disingenuous. Everyone searching for easy accompaniment, for no-strings-attached, for emotional uninvolvement and not knowing anothers names, and yet everyone somehow seeming so damn lonely all the time.

Do it like a dude

I never got the birds-and-the-bees speech. Instead, my friend K used to get this magazine called Bravo, where each week(?) one girl and one guy would have a page dedicated to a naked picture of themselves and  a little questionnaire about their sexual experience. There was a "Dr. Sommer"-section where some doctor (or presumably just a staff member) would answer questions pertaining to sex ( something along the lines of "I want to sleep with my boyfriend, but don't know if I should.  - Anna, 13 years old). There was also a page where teenagers could recount their first time and photo-love-stories where inevitably some girl would fall in love with some guy and at some point the would end up anywhere from just kissing to heavy petting to having sex. 

It sounds all dodgy when I re-read it, but actually it was very educational. Even now the website is quite cool if you are a teenager and don't want to ask a real person uncomfortable questions. Actually, it is hilarious. The question of the day is "The sex ended so quickly!". Another one is "Moritz wants to stop constantly masturbating", or "My mom found a condom in my room", or "Pain from too much sex?". I want their problems.  And the images! Here are two gems:

This one had the caption: "My penis itches!" 

Damn. I am almost peeing in my bed (perhaps I should send in :"Why am I incontinent?") it is so funny. But also educational. I mean, most people aren't comfortable with saying 'penis' and 'vagina', never mind talking about what goes on behind closed doors. Real life is not a Sex and the City get-together to talk about the benefits of some sex swing over lunch and a Cosmo. People are embarrassed easily when it comes to anything involving bodily functions. 

In light of over-sexualized advertising, music videos, series and film, I find it quite ironic. I mean, you can't talk to your kid about what's happening in his/her pants, but watching Spartacus or Game of Thrones is fine. Even in more family-friendly shows like Glee, Gossip Girl and Grey's Anatomy people are shagging all the time. 

Funnily, a middle-school teacher in the US has created this blog about questions that her 7th graders drop in the question box. So great. 

Both images via Sex Questions from Seventh Graders

Sidebar: Uhm, when I wrote this last night, the sexquestionsforseventhgraders site was working perfectly, but seems to be failing now. But maybe its just my internet today.