The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

by Catherine Millet

Book Overview

Catherine Millet, una figura de gran prestigio en el ?mbito de la est?tica, autora de ensayos y monograf?as sobre artistas contempor?neos, decidi? explicar su intensa y tumultuosa vida sexual, con una... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802139868
• ISBN13: 9780802139863
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

An honest account of a woman's self realization in pleasure

Catherine Millet's sexual development autobiography is a must-read for all women in the United States who've ever had "dirty thoughts" but failed to act on them for fear of society's labels. This is Millet's true life account of her self discovery, pains and many pleasures that may not ring kosher with US audiences, but should be read by all women as an honest account of a woman's sexual desires and dreams. Tp hell with chopra and "venus and mars" books! This is the real deal! Vive La France!!!

an ocular spectacle

this book is divided into 4 sections. the first section, entitled numbers,describes the numerous, numberless, men with whom catherine has sexual activities in groups, small groups at first, later orgies, the largest about 150 participants. the aggregates done with she moves on to her second section, space, sexual activities outdoors, often while positioned to scan bucolic landscapes. millet writes of pictorial works and how they are 'said to inhabit the cusp between imaginary space and the space we live in, be they barnett newman's vast colored expanses (newman himself said: i declare space), the radiant blues in the work of yves klein (who called himself the 'painter of space') or even alain jacquet's topological surfaces and objects which juxtapose paradoxical abysses. what characterizes these works is not the fact that they open space up, but that they both open and seal it again'. from her inner and outer open space, she proceeds to her third section, confined space. confined space isn't just a room or an elevator or a place, confined space, for millet, is having sexual activities while ill, sexual activities in dirty places, with unclean persons, and acts considered taboo, a few of them, but not many, she would not do. in confined space, jacques, catherine's husband, makes his entrance with his camera, and it's back to open spaces where he frames her in the confined space framed by the camera. in the concluding section, details, millet reflects on forms of objectivism, with observations of her shyness, rigidity after orgasm, her body as willing surface as represented in memory and filmed by a video camera. so there it is, her sexual life through number to canvas to camera to video camera. these days her sexual experiences are reflected by a steady stream of women attracted, for whatever reasons, to act in porn, and women who use online chatrooms. with objectification there is no voice. that's the difference with millet, she voices her interior world, her mental activity, as well as describing in detail, sexual acts and the female orgasm. a good book, a very good book.

A wonderfully detailed memoir of an active sex life.

Catherine Millet has written a thoughtful memoir of her sexual activities with many people over an indeterminate amount of time.Predominately she is descriptive of her activities, her partners, and her thoughts and physical feelings. There are no dialogs or regrets, just a straightforward presentation. The book contains a lot of graphic description of sexual acts that may shock some readers. The author does go into quite a bit of abstract intellectual thought about meanings. This can either enhance or distract from the flow of the narrative.Unlike My Life And Loves by Frank Harris, this book is not a chronological journal. It is arranged into four chapters called Numbers, Space, Confined Space, and Details. In "Numbers" Millet talks about her fondness for many physical relationships. Although she has sexual friendships and lovers, most of her encounters are with anonymous partners. "Space" is a chapter devoted to her joy in making love outdoors. "Confined Space," on the other hand, describes her need to find privacy with her lovers in stairwells, alleys, storerooms, etc. The small intimate facts and observations on lovemaking are saved for the last chapter, "Details."What I find most interesting is how little else there is in the book to provide background or setting. Only a few locations and the first names of a few men are given. Never are dates provided which gives the work a timelessness like an erotic adult fairy tale. I found out through other sources that the author was born in 1948, and has been in a monogamous marriage for over ten years. Ineeded that much of a setting to make some sense of this work. With the current fear of AIDS and herpes, I found it difficult to imagine a person today engaging so freely in the activities described in this book, and began to think of it as an extremely well-detailed fantasy. However, when I realized that the setting for most of the material was probably the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s and the 1970s, then I saw this book as the report of an adventurous explorer giving a meticulous account of that time and its unique morality as it worked itself out in her own life.

A Fine Memoir, If Read for the Right Reasons

It is always fun to have an erotic work presented in a serious way and have it become popular. This was the case with Nicholson Baker's fictional _Vox_ some years back, and of course the short stories of Anaïs Nin. Good old Grove Press has been seriously printing erotic books for decades, and now has produced _The Sexual Life of Catherine M._ (note the ironic homage to _The Story of O_) by Catherine Millet. Millet is the editor of the Paris magazine _Art Press_, and has written several serious books on contemporary art. When her memoir was published in France last year, there were many intellectuals who were nfuriated that she was somehow trying to purge her sexual demons by publishing such a frank memoir about some extraordinary sexual adventures. In the US, her book won't infuriate intellectuals as much as it will infuriate the prudish and those who are offended by a woman of broad sexual appetite satisfying that appetite; but it also may well offend those who buy it thinking that every page will have words to inflame the passion and excite the imagination. This isn't a book for them.Let us be clear: there is plenty of sex in the book. What Millet likes is men, lots of men, often in rapid sequence and simultaneously. Her lifelong hobby seems to have been orgies, swinging clubs, and being passed from one satisfied man to another. She describes plenty of episodes of men, more or less unknown to her, penetrating, licking, caressing; if this is disturbing, one only has to recall that she was enjoying it as were they, and that one has one's own sexual peccadilloes to nurture. The prose here is in translation (by Adriana Hunter), and so it is hard to tell how much to praise Millet for the words themselves, but in this edition they are vivid but also detached. She is not a seductress. She was simply available: "...this note that a friend put in a diary, which still gives me a glow of pride: 'Catherine, who deserves the highest praise for her calmness and availability in every situation.'" She writes often with sly wit; doing a particular stroke on a partner, "With my back bent and my frenetic arm movements, I must have looked very like a housewife desperately trying to stop a sauce from curdling, or someone proudly finishing up a home improvement." Her availability must have served her well: "I have never had to suffer any kind of clumsiness or brutality, and I have generally been lucky with the attentiveness of my partners." Only fleeting parts of this book could serve as sexual stimulants. Millet has obviously enjoyed her sexual life, and has reflected intelligently on it in a non-euphemistic and frank way. Many of the activities described are exhausting, some depressing, but some are as exhilarating as exploring uncharted lands. To have achieved her status in her career, she must have skills in communicating and getting along with people in other than sexual ways, but little of that is on display here. She has had relations with

A remarkable work of non-fiction

Catherine Millet has provided us with a quite remarkable insight into a certain kind of female sexuality. With remarkable frankness, she leads the reader through an extraordinary range of experiences with a good deal of self-reflection, very little moralizing and a total lack of political correctness (hooray!). While there is an obvious inclination to focus on the extremes of her sexual behavior that go well beyond the normal range of experiences of most of us, in fact the majority of the book explores the nitty gritty of the kinds of activity that are much more mainstream. And perhaps we can be grateful that someone else has done the dirty work of accumulating the range of experiences necessary to make the insights authoritative!This is not a work of erotica, in my opinion. And if an open discussion of sexual activity between consenting adults makes you uneasy or worse, or offends your morals, don't read this book. But, if you think you might enjoy an unprecedented, direct and thoughtful consideration of the sexuality of a very interesting woman, this book comes highly recommended