Illustration by Garance DoréLately Séb has not been very supportive of my new found desire to expand my French vocabulary. He has been avoiding me like Aubervilliers after midnight as I follow him around the apartment with my notebook of sentences that I have proudly constructed.
Before we write him off as the next MF, let me back up a bit...
So, I'd consider myself a rather chatty, out-going gal. I take pleasure in striking up conversations with complete strangers. I hold no prejudice in my targets can be anyone from my next door neighbor to the elderly man standing next to me at a brasserie, sipping on an espresso. I'm just someone who engages in small talk. However, the one time that I do find myself at a complete loss of words - especially in French - is during (as my mom calls it) "Hotsy Totsy" time. I thought that I was taking advantage of the electives that were offered at Alliance Française by signing up for the Poetry in French, French Slang and (despite my lack of intuition in the kitchen) Cooking in French classes, not realizing that a Gettin' Down n' Dirty en Français class would have been much more helpful and applicable to my real life. I mean really, how many times have I segued a French haiku into any conversation?
In general, I feel really cheesy about talking dirty in my mother tongue, but in French? Forget about it. I mean, seriously, who wants to conjugate their verbs naked? And I don't care what anyone says but grammar does count in bed. I have this growing fear of sounding like Olaf in the film Clerks and saying the French equivalent of "making fuck berserker" and being laughed at in the face by the man who is currently hovering over me. The one time I attempted to get festive in my second language was after several glasses of that white Martini drink that tastes like sweet pepper with one of my first flings in Paris, François (no, really that was his name...amazing, right?) and I ended up humiliating myself. I called him a bellâtre, a word that I heard in an old movie I caught on TV5 Monde one night in Brooklyn.
I later learned that bellâtre means handsome muscular hunk and no one, I mean no one says that anymore. Handsome Muscular Hunk? Seriously. I was mortified! It's no surprise that François was never to be heard from ever again.
Whatever, he was like 22.
Moving on. Since then I never ventured back into the realm of spicing things up where the most I can offer is meek little "oui" as my big sexy response during these heated moments. My mom on the other hand accuses me of talking dirty with all of my French boyfriends because she thinks everything sounds like sex in French. I remember we had once stopped by MF's place while he was at work and I called to tell him that there was a lot of dust at his place from his next door neighbor's kitchen renovation. What could go wrong with this, right? Over the phone, I used the words poussiere and chez toi which my mom self-translated into us talking dirty to each other. "There's hotsie totsies goin' on, I'll go in the other room while you two talk nasty to each otha," she said, stomping off in her Stevie Nicks circa Bella Donna scrunched leather boots. I've told her countless times that poussiere means "dust" and chez toi means "your house", not English slang for the female genitalia. By the way, this argument is approaching its two year anniversary. She's adamant that we were talking dirty to each other that day.
Saying that, I would like to be more creative with my responses, but unfortunately for me and my yearn to learn, Séb who usually finds my commitment in mastering his language charming, is not on board with my self-inflicted as well as extremely dirty and offensive French homework. He thinks it's unnecessary because (in his words) I'm sexy enough without forced pillow talk and something about having an open notebook on the nightstand is starting to freak him out. Also, if he hears me say the idiom "sweet nothings" to him one more time, he may kill me. In short, I'm driving the man insane.
I don't think I'll ever reach fluency in French dirty talk but perhaps some things are best left to the natives. I'm sure the other expat girls have no problem with this and are more secure with themselves when it comes to this craft, but me, I can't do it. Mostly because I start giggling, doubting what I'm saying which then leads me to think of Olaf from Clerks. It always comes back to Olaf and really, who wants to think about that guy while you're having sex?
