Ms. Sex Toy Afficionado

The other day I received a lovely big red envelope in my letterbox.  There was a picture of chocolates on it.  As I was, at the time, at the mercy of certain PMS hormones, I was looking forward to browsing some delectable food catalog, drooling all over it, and then going out to buy a roast chicken to devour with my bare hands.

http://www.nataliedee.com

No such luck.

It was a catalog of sex toys.

Once I got over the initial shock, I realized that this was a great learning opportunity.

For the most part, the French terms for things are easily recognizable to the average anglophone reader.

However, just for fun, how about some more sexcabulary?

anal plug [m.] – anal plug

boules de geisha [f.] – ben wa balls

clitoridien(ne) - clitoral

en strasse – rhinestoned

gaine [f.] – sheath

gode(miché) [m.] – dildo

jeu action ou vérité [m.] – Truth or Dare

lubrifiant [m.] – lubricant

menottes [f.] – handcuffs

point G [m.] – G-spot

préservatif [m.] – condom

sextoy [m.] – sex toy (Seriously??  The French don’t have their own word for this?)

tenue de soubrette [f.] – french maid outfit

“vibro Jack the Rabbit” – “The Rabbit”

vibro(masseur) [m.] – vibrator

<any lingerie bottom> ouvert(e) - crotchless (lingerie bottom)

Also…

• The French love/obsession with Hello Kitty also extends to sex toys.

• As a general rule, in order to talk about sex toys in French, all you have to do is think of the word in English, and then say it with a silly French accent.  For example, sex toy is le sex toy, “Spanish Fly” is le Spanish Fly, and sexy nurse costume is le costume nurse sexy.

• Most laugh-tacular product name: le vibromasseur Queeny Love Giant Lover.  Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.  An aside about this particular product… it’s German.

This catalog was not exactly the classiest act and definitely showcased a certain lack of discretion and marketing savvy.  However, at the very least, it was entertaining and educational for me… and now for you as well, dear readers!

My advice to fellow expats: buy your sex toys online from either the U.K. or Germany.  Trust me on this.

Ms. Lingerie Goddess

Some of you may recall my thoughts about the Parisian lingerie scene, and you may remember that I observed that Parisian women seem to universally embrace the matching set on a daily basis. I was skeptical.  I didn’t want to admit that these ladies knew something that I didn’t.  However, since then, I’ve decided to give in to peer pressure, and I resolved to try to blend in with the locals.

This is not as easy as you would think.  Here are the obstacles that I foresaw:

• Affordable lingerie is NOT easy to find in Paris.

• I have never owned a matching set in my life.  I understand the idea, I understand the appeal, but I’ve always been pragmatic, and it would take a monumental effort to force myself to give in to a little lacy frivolity.

• It’s winter, and trying on lingerie would necessitate removing all kinds of layers each time.  Highly inconvenient.

• The chances that any given parisian man would have the opportunity to see and appreciate my scanty underthings?  Answer: slim to none.

But I recently had an a crystallizing moment that changed the whole way that I approached the concept of underwear.

This moment changed my life.

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Kate Moss in Agent Provocateur : How can you NOT feel sexy in stuff like this?

I was on my way to the bank when I passed by a shop window that displayed an impressive selection of lacy and satiny underwear.  It was a tiny place, but it exuded a certain old Hollywood glamour.  The furniture was lux, there were huge, gilded mirrors scattered around the one-room shop, and there were flimsy underthings and overthings draped over everything — seemingly haphazardly, yet actually strategically.

I was in a saucy mood that day, so I said to myself, “Why not?”

When I walked in, the salesgirl asked me what I was looking for.  I replied that I was in search of more adventurous and sexier sets in saucy colors.

She looked me up and down.

I froze in terror, expecting her to assess me as a fat non-parisian cow and hand me something eight sizes too big.

But, surprise!  She pegged me straightaway as a 90A and medium on the bottom.  She went on to say, “Don’t worry, I have exactly what you’re looking for.”

She then pulled all  sorts of fantastical things from the racks and hustled me off to the fitting area, which consisted of little more than a corner, a transparent lacy curtain, and an antique mirror.

She insisted that I try everything on, including whatever accoutrements that came with each set.  Lacy fingerless gloves!  Sky-high heels!  Garters!  She was fascinated by my body, commenting on the curvature of my butt and insisting that it should only be clothed in thongs and g-strings in order to show it off to its best advantage.  (Incidentally, she also taught me to avoid balconet bras.)  She made me strut around the entire shop (wearing almost nothing, mind you!) so that I could “get the full effect” in the larger antique mirrors that she had placed around the shop floor.

Christies. I dare any woman to try on stuff like this and not to feel like a salacious goddess.

Let me tell you, dear readers, that I felt TRANSFORMED.  Gone was the awkward nerdy chick, the goddess of man-shopping disaster.

Enter the sex pot.  The slinky, lacy, satiny and barely-clad queen of awesome.  I really was wearing nothing except a few bits of strategically placed, slightly pigmented air.  But these exquisite luxury sets made me feel like something else.

Even my normally insecure, self-conscious self had no problem sashaying around this shop — wearing next to nothing — in full view of anyone who passed by the shop window!

So now I understand.  I understand why parisian women always wear matching sets.

It.

Is.

GLORIOUS.

It’s really too bad that I couldn’t afford to spend 400 euros on lingerie.

That would have been my total for only TWO sets.

On sale.

Le sigh.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I learned quite a bit of new vocabulary on this lingerie adventure, for those of you who are curious.  This may prove useful for some, as Valentine’s Day is coming up!

• balconnet : balconet bra
• bas [m.] : stockings
• body [m.] : bodysuit
• bonnet [m.] : cup
• bretelles [f.] : straps
• bustier [m.] : bustier
• corbeille : underwire bra
• culotte [f.] : panties/knickers (handy wikipedia chart)
• déshabillé [m.] : negligee
• guêpière [f.] : bustier with attached garters
• jarretière [f.] : garter
• nuisette [m.] : baby doll
• peignoir [m.] : peignoir, dressing gown, robe
• porte-jarretelles [m.] : garter belt
• push-up : push-up bra
• sans bretelles : strapless bra
• shorty [m.]: boyshort
• slip [m.] : briefs
• soutien-gorge [m.] : bra
• string [m.] : thong
• tanga [m.] : g-string

 

Ms. Perv-Magnet

I’ve come to the realization that I am a lucky, lucky lady.  It’s been over four months since I signed up on the adopteunmec dating website, and I have not once experienced any the following undesirable situations, all of which people assure me are common occurrences on the site.

As an online-dater, I have never been

• sent photographs of his ass;
• sent photographs of his penis;
• asked for skype sex;
• sexted;
• sent any lewd, inappropriate, or otherwise non-G-rated electronic messages of any kind.

Therefore, I must conclude that there must be something about my profile that deters these fuckers in the first place.

So for the past month, I have been conducting side experiments to answer this question: what will it take to attract pervy internet prowlers?

Thus began Operation Perv-Magnet.

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EXPERIMENT #1

I erased all the text in my profile except “American in Paris”

That means that the man-products don’t know that I work in academia, they don’t know that I like crosswords, and they don’t know that I am looking for someone with “intelligence, humor, ambition, and sincerity.”

RESULT:

The traffic on my profile increased five-fold.  I received three times as many charms per day as I did before.  I saw an increase in the number of emotional and pathetic messages.

Overall, an interesting result, but no pervy messages or pictures as I had hoped.

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EXPERIMENT #2

I slutted it up

I kept the rest of my profile blank, but I filled out the questionnaire section about my sexual preferences — everything from my favorite type of panties to my sexual position of choice.  I was very methodical; I just ticked every single box.

I actually checked so many items that the system refused to acknowledge all of them and kept dropping a bunch of them from my profile.  It was some sort of system bug, and I gave up trying to resolve the issue.

Needless to say, I learned some choice vocabulary from all this…

RESULT:

My profile traffic doubled.  No surprise there.

But the most entertaining outcome of this experience: so many messages that I received included some variation of: “I was attracted to you after reading your profile.”

However, still no perviness!

After all the work I put into sluttifying my profile, this was disappointing, to say the least.

n.b.  Scroll down to the end of this post for the French-English vocabulary breakdown… in case you’re curious or in case you actually need to know.

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EXPERIMENT #3

I went blonde

After the failure of Experiments #1 and #2, I had to pull out all the stops.

I changed my primary profile picture to one in which I was dressed as Marilyn Monroe for Halloween.

In other words, this Asianista went trashtastically platinum.

After many drinks, this also doubled as my Tila Tequila costume... And no, I won't post that picture here.

RESULT:

My blonde profile picture only lasted 24 hours before it was taken down by adopteunmec’s site administration.  Apparently, my photo was flagged for one or more of the following reasons:

• “it does not look like me compared to my other photos”
• “it is not an accurate representation”
• “it contains provocative material”

I was miffed.  But highly amused at the same time.  Provocative?  Who, me?  Or that blonde tart in the photo?

Although Experiment #3 was cut short because some asswad reported me to the authorities, I was at least able to gather some data during the 24 hours that my blonde profile was active.

My profile traffic definitely saw a significant boost, and I did receive quite a number of messages in which the man-products extolled my lovely “hair.”

Men do love blondes.

However, I did not achieve the intended goal of attracting internet riffraff.  Operation Perv-Magnet failed yet again.

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CONCLUSION

Short of begging for pervy pictures in my profile, I did my best to bring out the pervs.  Therefore I must conclude that I may inherently be a perv-deterrent — regardless of whatever my profile says or looks like.

I know that this is a good thing.

So why am I a little disappointed?

Because I am a bored singleton with a twisted sense of humor.

Oh well.  On to the next… non-perv…

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Sexcabulary à la française

boules de geisha [f.] – geisha balls obviously, but also known Ben Wa balls… if you don’t know what these are, here’s a link to a tame wikipedia article

chantilly [f.] -  whipped cream (yum… lactose intolerance, bite me.)

chocolat [m.] – (m.) come on, we’ve all seen that Johnny Depp movie

cordes [f.] – rope

cravache [f.] – whip

foulards [m.] – scarves

fruits et légumes [m.] – fruits and veg (still can’t believe that I ticked that box)

gode [m.] – dildo (the word is ugly regardless of language)

huiles de massage [f.] – massage oils

lingerie [f.] – seriously, virgins and pre-pubescents, stop reading my blog

menottes [f.] – handcuffs

petites culottes en dentelle [f.] – skimpy, lacy panties

sous-vêtements coquins [m.] – racy underwear

soutien gorge [m.] – bra

string en dentelle [m.] – lacy thong

vibro [m.] – vibrator (actually learnt this word ages ago after an embarrassing mistake with the mobile phone guy at Orange)

side note: It’s interesting to see which items are masculine and which are feminine…  Also, dear francophone readers, let me know if I got anything wrong.

Mr. Too Much Information

There are a number of conversation topics that are absolutely forbidden on first dates.  And some of these topics are still forbidden on the second, third, tenth and twentieth dates.

Mr. TMI basically decided that he couldn’t wait to dump his entire life on my head… and he definitely concentrated on divulging the most the sordid bits.  Throughout the date, he alternated between the following topics:

• his ex-girlfriend
• his favorite swingers clubs in Paris
• threesomes
• the gory details about his most recent attack of hives
• the pros and cons of sadomasochism
• god, so much information about his ex-girlfriend
• his thoughts on the brothels that he visited in Southeast Asia (for the record, I am of the Southeast Asian persuasion)

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that he was deliberately trying to sabotage the date.  Perhaps he was conducting a dating experiment, as I am doing.  Perhaps I have met my match in diabolical dating?

I’d like to know whether he is indeed a fellow date-researcher, but I’m not interested enough to sit through a discussion about the best way to maximize sadomasochistic tendencies.

NEXT!

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For those who are interested, Mr. TMI did, at least, expand my vocabulary.

ménage à trois = triolisme [m.] (The French word for “threesome” is actually NOT “ménage à trois,”  which apparently has a different connotation in French.)

swinging – échangisme [m.]

brothel – maison close [f.]