What French Women Know: About Love, Sex, and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind Hardcover - 2009

by Debra Ollivier

A primer on the ineffable, je ne sais quoiappeal of the French woman.

I t's not the shoes, the scarves, or the lipstick that givesFrench women their allure. It's this: French women don'tgive a damn. They don't expect men to understand them.They don't care about being liked or being like everyone else.They generally reject notions of packaged beauty. They acceptthe passage of time, celebrate the immediacy of pleasure, liketo break rules, embrace ambiguity and imperfection, and preferhaving a life to making a living. They are, in other words, completelyunlike us.

Ollivier goes beyond familiar ooh-la-la stereotypes aboutFrench women, challenging cherished notions about sex, love,dating, marriage, motherhood, raising children, body politics,seduction, and flirtation. Less a how-to and more a how-not-to,What French Women Know offers a refreshing counterpoint to thestale love dogma of our times. Peppered with anecdotes from itsFranco-American author and filled with provocative ideas fromFrench sexperts, mistresses and maidens alike, it debunks longstandingmyths, presenting savvy new thinking from an old sexyculture and more realistic, life-affirming alternatives from theland that knows how to love.