OPINIONS

Reader Feedback on "'Tis a Pity She's a Bore"

I haven't read the book but I saw some interview with Millet herself and that gave me a really clear idea. She was describing the sexual act just like a Coroner depicts a corpse. I don' have to read her book to see her views on sex are nothing but forensic.
--VB
10/25

thank you for this critique of ms. millet's book. i found it extremely painful to read. i have read both the french and the english translation and to be quite honest, the original french version is worse. the question running through my mind for most of the book was, "gosh, i wonder what her gyne bill looks like?"
--pc
10/22

Sounds like human degradation at its finest, and perhaps the reason Puritans were invented in the first place to try to bridge the human soul with the human body, offering the opportunity to invest a human with some measure of personality and style through which a human can be elevated to something higher than an animal. It worked; men were elevated, women were modified and stifled. And there we remain - stuck in time, in place, and in life. So, to correct the deficiency, men invented pornography - because they could, and because the disparity between themselves and women was so great as to ignore their desire for social equality while maintaining economic inequality that insured their comfort, convenience and efficiency, retreating to the cowardice of unequal treatment as the epitome of economic insurance rather than relying upon the fusion of masculinity and rational thought to provide the mechanism by which both approached life and love, permanently removing the probability that both could exist within the same dimension. The author illustrates how complete a division can exist and the depths to which a person can sink ignoring the need to set the parameters that recognize human value as a measure of dignity and respect that is not ignored but consciously planned and operational. It is unlikely that their are male stories of such distinction but it is probable that they simply haven't yet been written for our illumination and understanding that the phenomenon need not be gender based. Man has forever had the ability to degrade himself to varying degrees with all too willing a voyeuristic audience who not only contemplates his own heights of achievement but also ponders his own depths of despair to which an individual may sink in a world that cares little about how to maintain elevated conscience and dignity to bolster our own ego and praise our own self righteousness when we insulate ourselves from those depths by our industriousness, connections or luck.
--pbr
09/27

i'm wondering how old you are and if it matters how big the guy"s cock is? Would you take on old men, also that cannot really get their cocks up, so would require you to really "work" on them??? How often do YOU have an orgasm with these guys?
--LC
08/31

Your criticism of Ms. Millet's book is similiar to the one that I have of this site. With all of this intellectual power, nerve.com, has managed to make sex about as appealing as dieting. Still, as Americans we are still unable to rationalize or discuss sex with honesty that Ms Millet has without the moral/judgemental brakes being applied.
--BMD
08/09

You're so right! How on earth did this thing become published? Because she's got friends in the print biz? Really; I've got at least one friend whose work is far more suitable, but had to resort to self-publishing. Or, maybe, she screwed her way into print, huh? Any ideas? jannechi@hotmail.com
--JNA
08/03

I think "FUCK THE USA GIRLS" has a point! How could someone that French make that much sex so boring? You'd think one of her endless encouters would resonate with me, just one, one lousy episode I could relate to or understand, just one. I really wanted to like this book but about ten pages in I felt Iwas in a lecture on business accounting methods prior to Enron.She is "completely creasy". But then isn't this book like an opera; some people feel its evocative of the highest aspirations of the human spirit and others think its a bunch of bloated, oddly costumed foreigners, squeaking away in their native gibberish about some wildly implausible happenings dreamed up by drink addled freemasons.
--DGH
07/15

i find that is really good if u she's really bore.
--RAJ
07/10

I'think this women is completly creasy that she her home first without taking premition from somdody .so she is mistaken. FUCK THE USA GIRLS
--
06/30

how incredibly "american" (read puritanical) your review and these "responses" are... i especially enjoyed the guy who bought the book as "wank material" and then advised us not to waste our money, assuming, of course, that we'd only buy it in order to get off... which seems to be why most of you didn't like the book or the sound of it... tell me though, kids, how would a description of twenty strangers fucking a woman in a park be rendered arousing to you? spinning lights and gauzey lens-work? masks of your favourite cute guys painted on the ends of the twenty dicks? make all the guys either movie stars or rock musicians and the woman into janine garofolo(sp?) and have her make sarcastic remarks about each performance as they jam away (i suspect that if an american woman ever wrote such a book, that would be its tone)...and about the laziness/passivity thing? is this a protestant work ethic thing or what? sex, like life itself, is only justified by the work you put into it? her passivity in sex marks her as remarkably UN-passive in life as it marks her active refusal of every one of the conventional attitudes expressed by the crowd of dreary, predictable bores gathered around this sermon disguised as a review... i kind of wish i were interested in reading the book, especially after reading what i've read here, but i'm not... the "idea" of sexual liberation started boring me a long time ago, right around the time i realized that most of the partners i'd had who were into this conscious liberation thing were incredibly mechanical, predictable and oh-so uptight and boring in the act itself... but i do like following the responses that such a book provokes over here, it's like watching sally jesse raphael for the literate middle-classes and realizing that the only real difference is the clothes...
--std
06/27

I haven't read the book and now I won't read it because somehow I believe that the reviewer is completely right. What a waste of time!
--PA
06/27

I concur with your review. I only wish I had read it, (the review), before purchasing the book. It seems odd that a french woman should be so absorbed with quantity, a trait more often assiciated with Americans, and so little concerned with details, something I always thought the europeans were better at. Well, another stereotype exploded.
--J.H.
06/16

Great! In the end, we could ask: is this sex?
--LD
06/15

I totally agree, every night I read it, I end up falling asleep!! This book is devoid of any lust or filth, in fact it's the least sexy book I've read in ages. I was happy to fork out my $24, thinking this book would be good "jack off material" but no such luck. Take my advice & save your money.
--DP
06/12

My own unpublished account is "All the girls I've loved before," and to tell the truth, it reads better then this sounds! I do have a new book just published: A Geezer's Guide to the Universe, written as a gift book for graduates. Real life stories, each with a kernel or two of helpful advice. If you're interested--and by gosh I hope you are--e-mail me at Geezerguide@yahoo.com and I'll send no obligation information.
--dg
06/12

Whew, what a relief. I thought it was just me. Put it down to read the memoirs of US Grant. (The Eightennnth President) I had to take a Viagra to finish it.
--DGH
06/12

Stacey Richter is so right on about this book. My friend sent it to me to read, to see what I thought, and I told her I thought it was the most empty, boring book about sexual "escapades". I put that in quotes, because that word has far too much exuberance for this book. I told my friend to read the "Happy Hooker" by Xaviera Hollander. Now there is a woman who enjoyed herself, and enjoyed her partners. I was 15 when I read that, and enjoyed her stories. Catherine Millet should have at least gotten paid for her time, maybe it would not seemed like sexual anomie. I am 41 now, and was totally put to sleep by Ms Millet. Perhaps it is the notoriety that is selling this book in France, because she certainly is not winning any awards for her use of cunt, suck, cock, fuck, anus, lick, etc. in sentences. Big deal. I am sure there are passages in Screw magazine with more feeling.
--BM
06/10

I bought this book hoping upon hope that it would be filled with great stories that were erotically charged beyond my wildest dreams (or at least I'd be giggling and feel some nostalgic catholic guilt). Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes with disgust or boredom...mostly boredom. I felt like I had been reading the same sentence over and over again only to find out that I basically was.
--LZ
06/10

It depends. The woman who reviewed TSLCM for the Village Voice didn't seem to be unduly disturbed. Stacey (like many if not most) is part of the sex-positive generation (her noting the achievements of Susie Bright and Nina Hartley is testament to that) which makes "Ice Storm"-era sexuality pretty creepy. I do think a lot of women are taking Millet personally ("I just HATE that kind of woman") and wonder how they felt reading Nerve's interview of Sam Delany, the gay science fiction writer who championed sex with anonymous men in the Times Square of Old, or the Village Voice's recent coverage of a new "Black Party" held in homage to the days of the Mineshaft ... The comparisons to AARP and veterinary manuals seem hyperbolic. I find Duras "boring" and icy clinical as all get out. Yet, many think she's capable of great erotic passages. I'd still prefer Nin. Anybody read TSLCM in the original?
--9of9
06/10

Talk about wretched excess! Another pathetic example of performance art. Wasnt there a so called "porno- artist" woman who had sex with dozens of men as a form of "self-expression" a few years ago? There must be porn videos on the market featuring some actress who takes on many men in one movie. I dont think Millet can even begin to match the late basketball star, Wilt Chamberlain. He claimed he had sex with over 20,000 women, a rate of 1.2 a day. Close to 23,500 by the time he died in 1999. Even Casanova had some relationships, as he claimed 132 lovers over 61 years. But then again, two minutes per encounter (thats the average length an American male can last) means that Millet had quite a few "encounters". Did Millet ever accept cash from her "paramours" (significant others? gentleman callers? johns?, what?)? Did she charge for each contact and thus make a lot of francs moonlighting as a gang bang hostess?
--WTR
06/10

God, is this woman pathetic--could she be diagnosed by a shrink as a nymphomaniac? Like most boys in this culture, I had heard of "gang bangs" hosted by older guys when I was in junior high school. Then I remembered the old vulgar saying, "She smelled like an old French whore"--a unbathed woman drenched in cheap cologne. Ah, the stuff one hears as a 19 year old rifleman in a front line army unit in Germany. The reviewer had it down when she said Millet is almost pathologically detached from the men she lies down for. Porn stars such as Nina Hartley have zest, lusty fun and go after the young studs she plays with. Candide Royalle, the porn director, offers hot movies with a plot, beautiful actors and some hot foreplay. But Millet, she reminds me of German women who were gang raped by crazed, vodka soaked Russian troops in Berlin at the end of WWII. Does Millet ever mention any condoms or spermacides to thwart the 25 plus STDs out there? How about being a victim of some drooling psycho, like a fiend who kills after raping?
--TER
06/10

Your critique of the book was extremely well written. Comparisons to similar works are revealing, and your ending -- she's just lazy -- really touched a cord. So many women are so passive, it makes you wonder if they are just lazy, hiding behind words like 'romance' or 'intimacy' to justify doing nothing to make sex hot and fun. A close friend recently told me that his girlfriend is a real 'porn star' -- not that she really IS a porn star (she was a virgin when they started dating, and is a counselor in an elementary school) but that she's active, and takes initiative: she fondles his balls when she's on top, and she tries just about anything from choking to stuff even my friend wont tell. So, at the end, I liked your review more for the point you made than really caring about the book. Thanks for your message -- I hope more women are listening.
--DE
06/07

I have not read the book,nor will I yet there is one marvellous saving grace about said tome.It allowed me to read your terrific Tis a Pity She,s a Bore article. I,m still smiling and the title is so apt with the change of but one letter.[or two...forgot the H.] Merci mille fois et felicitations salut Jonathan Bennetts
--JB
06/07

Justice at last. Here in the Netherlands, a bosses' newspaper (NRC Handelsblad) wrote that Ms. Millet would have been admired my Sade and Aury (R�age). Ridiculous! I never read an erotic novel that was more tedious or more pretentious (the typical French post-modern would-be intellectual production of 'text'). A dried-up literature critic's wet dream, a caricature of libertinism.
--H
06/07

I have barely skimmed Millet's book in the original French (I live in her hometown, Paris), and I'm afraid it's every bit as boring as feared. Perhaps the bourgeois French social types would find her descriptions titillating simply because she dared tell them (yes, the French can be repressed too!). But to me she's just doing her best to board the celebrity train -- an American trait to which, unfortunately, the rest of Europe is not immune. And of course, she's being a slave to the current fashion of swing clubs which are laughingly like the description att he beginnig ofthe article... though the one I went to *did* have quite a few women, and an air of women-as-commodity that rather turned me off. --Copykatparis
--CKP
06/06

Millet is lucky to be alive to even write a memoir. The 13 year old sixth grader, altar girl, cheerleader and good student from Danbury, Conn was not so lucky. At night she trolled chat rooms to meet adult men for sex. Around May 20 she was found dead in a steep ravine in Greenwich, Conn, strangled by a married Brazilian immigrant of 25 she had met in one chat room. He worked in a Port Chester restaurant and his web page claimed he was always "up for adventure" (NYT, 5-22-02). She often had sex with men, hooking them with provocative pictures of herself, looking like a 23 year old hooker. Sure, this is a rare horrifying case, but I think men, women and children who are sexually loose (doesnt promiscous mean NOT discriminating) and have endless partners are more than addicts. They are very sick, not unlike fire starters, rapists and skyjackers who are convinced Castro would welcome them to Havana. Sure, until I met and married a great woman, I had several girlfriends in my 61 years but they were not one night stands!
--PWD
06/06

in response to RG's comment that female reviewers seem to be taking this book "more personally" than their male counterparts: I haven't read any other reviews, but based on this one i would say that women probably don't like this book because they can't identify with Catherine -- not her "libertine" ways, but her passivity and lack of desire and totally unsexy take on sex. maybe men who reviewed this book were satisfied with such a stunted portrayal of feminine sexuality (and the accompanying weird emphasis on male desire and power). maybe women attacked it not for endorsing sexually free behavior but for making it seem so damn boring.
--a.m.
06/06

I think reviewers of books by men are just as critical. I don't think the memoirs of men such as Errol Flynn (My Wicked Wicked Ways), the Marquis de Sade or Wilt Chamberlain (claims he slept with 20,000 or more women) were taken seriously, let alone mentioned in Newsweek or The New Yorker! The latest biography of Howard Hughes goes into some detail of his endless pursuit of young women. JFKs liaisons have been endlessly documented. His ailments and back problems must have curtailed some sessions! Weren't there famous courtesans who had dozens, if not hundreds of men--Elizabeth I of England, Madame Borgia, Cleopatra, and so on? Maybe some women can relate to Woody Allens line--" Sex without love may be an empty experience, but as empty experiences go. it aint bad..."
--ERT
06/06

Having read excerpts of Ms. Millet's memoir, as well as various reviews, it seems to me that female book reviewers have been far more harsh on her than their male counterparts. Yes, considering the subject, stretches of it are arid. A lot of it is just lousy writing. However, the female reviewers appear to be taking Millet's extreme libertine behavior personally. Way too personally. As if they've all spent time thinking 'How dare this woman act in this manner without regret or guilt.' If there is regret or guilt (obviously issues the reviewers should deal with in themselves before approaching someone else's carnality), these ought to be referred against the book, not imposed upon Millet. We've all lived vicariously through literature. However, to despise a writer (far more so than the work itself) because her "transgressions" are unsavory, or as I suspect some perceived offense against womanhood, is entirely unacceptable.
--RG
06/06

The Sagan volume being referred to is "Bonjour Tristesse". I looked at Catherine M and said, in my clumsy, 1st year French, "Bonjour ennui". (Probably not grammatically correct, but you know what I mean.) Remember that awful French flic "Romance"? It reminds me of that--plenty of sex but desperately unsexy.
--CL
06/05

I couldn't agree more! God, I am so glad someone finally came out with it--the book is boring. I found myself skipping ahead to find dirty parts and it was all so clinical in detail that I picked up my mother's AARP magazine. I was waiting for some sort of reason for all this fucking and I haven't gotten a good one so far. There is no "Oh, the pleasure! The pain!" in this book. OK, reality check, I am only 60 pages into the thing and it's as dry as...they come. No need to invoke silly puns here. I have no good reason to finish the book. I am going to need a botox injection as it is--my eyebrows have become permanently knit in a "What? Where's the meat?" fashion.
--KS
06/05

Yikes, this woman was written about in the current Newsweek. Millet must be a nymphomaniac, which must be a very rare condition. I guess there is some porn actress who boasts about having sex with hundreds of men per year, just as there are homosexuals who have hundreds of sex partners (in restrooms, bath houses, parks, etc). Yes, until around 1985 I drank almost every night after work in dank downtown dives in a West Coast city where once in awhile there would be some pathetic woman who would be known as "Radio Station" because after midnight anyone could pick her up for sex in some motel room or back seat. Does Millet ever mention some STD she contracted? There are around 20. I guess there are the female equals of a JFK, an Errol Flynn, Wilt Chamberlain and some male porn actors who are insatiable. Sex addiction is a disorder, I guess. Off the map sex is a topic in the Big Book of AA, along with anger and fear. The cofounder, Bill Wilson, was hung up on newcomer women, and he had affairs. His wife stuck with him. Anyway, Millet strikes me as screwed up, unattractive and pathetic. I have known men who have many sex partners but they are miserable, and could die young in a horrible way from some STD.
--LTF
06/05

There's also another review in this week's New Yorker which, oddly enough is similar to this one. I'll hold off on personal opinion until I actually read it but I too am completely shocked that Catherine M. claims that she got nothing more than a case of the clap from all this promiscuity. BUT I am left to wonder if it was a MAN who wrote this memoir instead of a woman would there be such an outcry about it? Probably not. Sad. -insomniac Girl
--IG
06/05

I am astounded this nympho is still alive, and not suffering from what, one or more of the 20 plus STDs! Back in the late 70s I was in several group sex sessions after smoking some grass and a few glasses of wine. It was new, erotic and fun! The women involved were hesitant than giddy with all the attention! It was two women, one man, one man, two women and then a session with two couples and a young naive guy the two girls met on a nude beach. Lots of laughs, many showers, much foreplay and plenty of munchies. But this Millet sounds and looks boring, hardly attractive, my God. Hasnt anyone remembered Francoise Sagan, Bonjour something or other from over 40 years ago? Millet is not Bardot as in "And God Created Woman", 1956. Yep, some men and women give sex a bad image. Ever notice how bored some porn actors and actresses are? See Jane Fonda in Klute as she keeps looking at her watch as she is being shagged. Bonjour.
--MBD
06/05

send feedback on "'Tis a Pity She's a Bore"

back to "'Tis a Pity She's a Bore"