The Language of Pleasure ©

Spring, early morning.
You’re woken up by the scent of bread baking in the boulangerie below. Still half asleep you progress from the bed to release the double shutters.
You close your eyes momentarily until you feel confident they can adjust to the sun’s glare. You open them again to take in Le Marais.
The most beautiful neighbourhood in Paris.

It’s bursting with ateliers, museums, and petit decadent shops selling every imaginable form of luxury.
You start mapping out the day’s itinerary in the picturesque cafes and eateries that are full of delicate, colourful little treasures made of sugar, milk and flour.
Pleasure is everywhere because it comes from the language that created all this beauty you see around you.

There is an ongoing debate about which is the ultimate language of pleasure.
I don’t think it should ever be settled. When we speak of important issues such as pleasure each person should be allowed to feel and experience according to taste.
For me it is French.

In the film “Dead Poets Society”, Professor Keating reveals to his delighted students that language was developed for one endeavour only and that is............. to WOO women.
I take it one step further. If you can command language you can rule the world.
Humanity has often looked upon certain Leaders favourably because of their skill in rhetoric.
Do you think they might have wooed us?
Words expertly used are like magic.
You set them free to go forth and create life as you decree.

Language is born of the environment and conditions a tribe of people find themselves in during a specific time in history. Then the very words they have created begin to shape them.
Language determines our facial expressions and mannerisms. It even influences how we are perceived as a nation.

When I watch French women speak it fascinates me. They could be talking about the most mundane subject but if you block out the sound and watch their face, it speaks only of sensuality. Every few words the lips come to a suggestive pout and there is a lovely intensity in the eyes that is kept throughout the conversation.
Off course as you delve deeper into the language these beginner's observations are washed away and replaced by the righteous pursuits of syntax, grammar and meaning.

To me French will always be the language Valmont and Merteil used to seduce their “victims” in Dangerous Liaisons. Cyrano De Bergerac made Roxane fall in love with Christian through the power of little French words, perfectly composed.
Irish playwright Samuel Beckett chose to write his plays in French and spend his mornings with coffee and cigarettes, people watching, at the Deux Magots in St.Germain. Though it might not be so obvious on the page, Beckett’s life was full of the pursuit of pleasure. Look it up.

These are some of the reasons that as a newly single Venus in London I choose to spend my Saturday afternoons at the Alliance Francaise learning French.

Of course there are other more base motivations like meeting new people. By people I mean potential dates. There comes a time when a single person becomes obsessed about meeting someone. It’s a phase.

But let me tell you, it’s exactly the sort of energy that is going to bring no one toward you.
So if you ever get the feeling you’re in that place, find something you absolutely enjoy and devote yourself to it.

Just remember, the only thing that will be quick to bring forth pleasure is pleasure itself.