Why I love the French bise

To faire la bise; it’s as French as the Eiffel Tower, Bridget Bardott, and picking up some croissants from your local bakery on a Sunday morning. With not one ounce of my anglo-sexton shame, I can solemnly declare that I love it. Air kissing people twice, 3 times, or even 4 times, depending on the French region i’m in, always feels so satisfying to me. It has nothing to do with sexual satisfaction; but rather a human to human, we have both said hello simply, and sweetly, satisfaction. It feels very civilised to be part of a society where certain social etiquette conventions are so practised and accepted. This is coming from growing up in Australia; where when meeting or when being introduced to someone, you are often left standing there with no idea what to do with your hands. For informal situations in Australia at my age (20), i see it being more or less an exchange of a handshake between men, and a hug between women. I like a good hug, but a potentially great hug can quickly turn awkward if someone’s technique is off. Hugs also a provoke many internal questions like: “am i the neck-hugger, and you’re the waist-hugger? Or the other way around? Or we hugging on an angle here? And how long are we doing this for?”

Staying with my french friends in France at the moment, I feel very lucky to experience this country in such an authentic light. Often being the only non-french person at events people forget that i’m Australian, and with that small detail, that i’m not used to how everything operates. One night in the taxi home, my friend Marion asked me if i didn’t like one of her specific friends that was at the party we were preciously at. I was shocked, and I replied, “Of course I like him, why wouldn’t i?” And she said, “well he just texted me, and he said you didn’t give him a bise before you left- he was wondering if he had said something to upset you?”

With my family, and especially with my Turkish-side, we are always hugging, kissing, squeezing each other. As I got older I learnt to yield back on my inherently touchy mannerism, because unfortunately even a single accidental touch between the sexes in Australia can be interpreted as a promiscuous act. If you’re a girl being introduced to someone by a friend in Australia, it’s often that you just stand there, say “hey”, chuck in a friendly smile, and that seems to suffice. When you walk into a room full of people at a party in Australia, it’s very rare that you would go around and acknowledge each person. If I was to go around giving a faire la bise at a party in Australia, the response would probably say something like, “who does this bitch think she is?”.

A couple of weeks ago, a french friend that I was staying with took me to her friends apartment-warming celebration. We were running about 45 minutes late. Let me tell you, arriving to occasions late is not a good idea. When we arrived there was about 15 people sitting in the lounge room, they collectively saw us walk in, smiled, and said “Salut (hey)” at the same time. The same thing would happen in Australia, but the different is, is that all of these Frenchies were all still eagerly awaiting their own personal hello and kisses. This lounge room was not big, and there was not much room to move around at all. I spoke to a couple people and gave them each a bise but then stopped. With too many limbs being crossed and elongated, and after painfully getting my hair caught in a girls jacket button, it was all getting a bit much. My french friend instantly turned around to me with piercing eyes that said, "what are you doing? You must say hi to everyone; you know how this works Taylor".

I took a couple deep breaths, tied my hair up, wished my immune system good luck, and then continued on to the remaining un-kissed cheeks. But it’s not finished there, during/after a faire la bise with someone comes an obligatory, “Salut, ça va?” Ça va is a question of how you are, and also a positive reaffirmation that you’re doing well. The expected small talk usually goes something like: “Salut! ça va? (Hey, how are you), and they reply with a “Ça va, ça va? (I’m good, how are you?”), and then you reply with one more, “ça va (I’m good)”.

There is definitely an art to how the French do it, because most people exchange their 500 “ça va’s” while consecutively taking part in a faire la bise. I need to work on my air way controls because I am yet to master making the air kissing noises while asking how someone how they are at the same time. I also think I need to look less turtle and more Grace Kelly. Having pointless small talk at parties is an international way of saying “hello”; but in french the lack of sincerity becomes extremely apparent when you ask someone how they are and they reply with exactly what you’ve just said. It’s the same in english, it’s the situation when you’re not really ready to hear anything less than that someone is doing: “good, thank you”. So it’s for this reason that you don’t arrive late to parties in France. This is why you arrive on time or even early, and let everyone who arrives later lean over 2 people to greet you hello intend. This is also why you don’t leave earlier than in an hour, because you have to kiss and say goodbye to everyone individually, all. Over. Again.

In the car ride home I asked my friend if that was what her look at me meant at the party when I stopped saying hello to everyone, and she said that is exactly what it meant. I tried to ask her rules about faire la bise, but all I got was a drunken murmer and that she would tell me tomorrow. Since i’ve been in France I’ve tried to ask each of my frenchie friends about faire la bise, and each time they always look as clueless as the last one. When you’ve grown up with something that is so accepted it’s often hard to explain ‘why’; it’s like vegemite for Australians (#teamvegemite). With children younger then 12 in France you are expected to reach down and give them a single cheek kiss; but at any age older, a proper faire la bise is expected. It’s practised in pretty much every informal setting between men and women, but if either party for some reason feels uncomfortable, they will extend their hand for a handshake. An informal setting also expands to virtual communication where kissing still very much has it’s place. In France it’s very common to end a text with ‘bisous’, or ‘je t’embrasse’, literally meaning, ‘i kiss you’. I’ve also learnt that if you want to scare a French person, you hug them. The French don’t hug. If you hug a Frenchie they will either i) stare at you blankly, ii) ask you what you’re doing, iii) play dead standing there waiting till it’s over; or all of the above. There isn’t even a word for it, and the closest is probably ‘un calin’, which has a heavy sexual connotation. To hug someone is seen as far more sexual then a couple of air kisses, because its seen as a complete body-to-body contact.

In Australia it’s normal to stroll in and out of a shop without any exchange of a greeting between the shop keeper and the customer. In France, shopkeepers see it as you’re walking into their home when you enter their shop, so a “Bonjour (hello)” and an “Au revoir (goodbye) is paramount. If you were to address someone who was older than you in the street in Australia as “Sir”, or “Ma’ame”, you would be second looked at in shock (and probably asked how your holiday is going in Australia). If you were to address anyone older then you in the street in France with anything less than a “Monsieur” or “Madame”, you would be looked down up. 

Social etiquette rules in France are vast and plenty, but for the French it is not a chore, it’s the norm. Australia is also a very multicultural place, making it difficult to establish our social customs as a country. The laid-back relaxed lifestyle of Australia and the dislike to anything remotely ‘pretentious’, is also another reason that I think etiquette is not a priority. I don’t enjoy a faire la bise because it makes me feel a oh-look-at-me-i’m-so- easy-breezy-chic-with-my-french-baguette-i'm-so-cultured, I enjoy it because it feels warmer and friendlier. I also enjoy a faire la bise over a hug because i know exactly where i’m supposed to put my hands. 

Sex in France

On my first week at in Nantes, a small city in north west France, I went food shopping with a friend to the markets. As beautiful and non ­ironically French as my friend was, she told me that we must pay a visit her favourite cheese ­man. I don’t necessarily associate a picture of Johnny Depp when someone says ‘cheese ­man’, so as you can imagine I was very pleasantly surprised to be introduced to a handsome, ‘Gabriel’. Gabriel was a very charming Frenchman with a great smile and noticeably big hands. My friend introduced us and then promptly left saying that she had to fetch some other things. As our time together unraveled, Gabriel was undoubtedly one of the smoothest men I have ever met. In French he talked me through each one his beloved cheeses, and closely watched my mouth as I tried each one. After I decided which one I was going to have, my French friend returned. Gabriel then gave me mheese ­man was flirting with me” I said to my friend as we walked away. “Probably,” she laughed, “remember you are in France Taylor, and in regards to Gabriel, I’m pretty sure that man could flirt before he could talk”.

      

In a land far more permissive than Australia when it comes to sexuality, the French act like they were genetically programmed to seduce. When you speak the arguably sexiest language in the world, you can’t blame them for having a good foundation to work off. Anyone who speaks French as a second language will know how it can transform your once dull, and blazé expressions in English, into a passionate declaration of raw human emotion. Sex does not swim in a pool of taboos in France as it does in Australia, and the French have a much higher tolerance as to what shocks them. You’ve just told someone that you’re having an affair? That you’re gay? That you slept with your university professor? The French would give you one of their famous nonchalant shrugs, light a cigarette, and call you out as a cliché. 

If someone in Australia holds a gaze with you for that 10 seconds too long, you would definitely feel a sexual tension with that person. In France, a flirtatious lingering gaze wouldn’t even make a middle aged lollipop lady blush. Flirting is France’s favourite national pastime. If flirting was an international sport, the French would win walking backwards, wearing 2 blindfolds, and drunk off their little wobbly froggy legs. The French are flirting with everyone from their baker, to their bus driver, to their boss. When two people flirt in Australia there is usually a very mutually expected outcome. In France, being sexually suggestive is in no way a direct approach to sexual intercourse. Exchanging empty sexual innuendoes by both sexes in France is seen as being playful, light hearted, and harmless. If everyone in France was having sex with everyone that they flirt with, I can promise you that nothing would ever get done in this country.

Although there are many other men like Gabriel in this fine land, the women are just as persistent. You see the French woman is full of endless contradictions, and this is only one of them. She’ll proudly mention in your conversation (out of nowhere) that she’s reading Simone de Beavoiur’s, Le Deuxieme Sexe for the second time this year, that her mum was one of the 343 feminists in 1971 who marched for ‘ Le Manifeste des 343 Salopes’ (Manifesto of the 343 sluts); and if you ask her if she’s a feminist, she’d reply, “of course I am, I believe in equality­ don’t you?”. But on her other soft, lotioned hand, she finds the word feminist very aggressive to her sexuality. The French woman seizes her sexuality as a woman and without apology, uses it to her advantage to get what she wants. Flirting is vital in maintaining the French woman’s feeling of empowerment and self esteem. The French woman naturally demands equal rights and her ideas to be heard, but at the same time she respects her male counterparts as males, as she knows they are, by nature, different. She believes in gender roles because she enjoys how men take out her seat before her at restaurants, the way they let her walk through the door first, and how she gets addressed as ‘Madame’. France is a competitive dog eat dog land for la femme of France. I count my lucky stars, because i’ve been very lucky to be surrounded by extremely nice French women in my time here; but even so, I can still feel up and down stares when they think I’m not looking. It’s every woman for themselves in France, and the essence of ‘sisterhood’ is not exactly present. People say that French women only stick to a couple of girlfriends because they take longer to trust people, but that’s a lie. Everyone knows that French women only have a few girlfriends because they can’t handle facing constant competition.

‘French women don’t just tolerate their husbands affairs – they expect them’ was the title of Lucy Wadham’s, famous article for the Daily Mail a few years ago. Infidelity in France does not carry the social burden as it does in the anglo world. Literally every single married couple I have met in France has had their own story tell about the twists of turns of their past marriages and relationships. One of my friends in France told me she cheated on her boyfriend with one his best friends to spice up their relationship. In such an individualist society as France, people are more often inclined to act out of personal gain. Look at France’s national motto of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’. Their first and foremost declaration is ‘liberty’, the right to be ‘free’ in their society. The idea of being ‘free’ in France is deeply engrained into the national psyche, and this applies to their sex life where the individual is are free to commit adultery if need be.

        

When Bill Clinton decided to tell the whole world about his affair, France was hysterically laughing from the sidelines. Infidelity and extramarital affairs is nothing new in French Politics. The French couldn’t give two croissants if their President declared their sex life to the whole country. They believe that just because politicians are living in the public eye, that does not mean their private lives are up for national conversation. The French are extremely quiet and discretional people when it comes to their personal lives. They even prefer it if their President has an affair or two on the side, because it normalises them; they become more relatable. Chirac had many affairs, and he was one of the most celebrated French Presidents of the decade. Our ex-­ex Prime Minister in Australia, Julia Gillard (it’s still recent, we’ve have 5 Prime Ministers in the last 5 years), was constantly questioned by our media as to how ‘original’ her decisions as a middle aged women to a) not have children, and b) not be married. The French respect clear divides between work, home, and play. Bill Maher has a great quote about the French where he says, “they have weird ideas about privacy: they think it should be private”.

The French are notoriously emotional characters, and they all have their individual philosophical ideas about why we’re on this earth. They understand that by nature we are complex and curious animals, and that we don’t always know what we want. They were raised to be open and comfortable with their body, and don’t have the same negative stigmas in their sexual decisions as we do in Australia. I’m not saying I prefer France’s ‘liberté’ mentality per se, because hearts are very much still getting broken; but I just think they’re generally more h onest . We are not as sexually free in Australia because our society has an undeniable power over us when it comes to sex. The big anglo beast has completely capitalised on sexuality and has turned it into something it was never meant to be. Even as a Scorpio myself, I have felt like a prude in France, and this is a direct reflection of my social conditioning in Australia. If you think the French are sex­ crazed hooligans, you need to remind yourself of our questionable anglo expressions such as ‘one night stand’, a ‘booty call’, a ‘hookup’, ‘dating’, a ‘DUFF’, a ‘MILF’, ‘a 10’, ‘marriage material’, etc. You’ll be disappointed to know that there is absolutely no translation for these expressions in French. And tell me, which countries in the world lost their housewives to that ‘erotic’ fiction novel, 50 shades of Grey? You can understand that when the book was made into a film in France, it didn’t break the box office. 50 Shades of Grey does not fit France’s genre of ‘erotica’, and that’s why anyone over 12 years old could watch it at the cinemas. The CNC’s president Jean-­Francois Mary called the film, “more of a romance, we could rather call it a ‘bleuette’, rather a sentimental tale” he said. Vive la France.