Indeholder "1. Antal", " 'Som en perle...'", " Drømmerier", " Fællesskaber", " Fortælleglæde", " Altid første gang", "2. Rum", " Paris' porte", " Under åben himmel", " Byer og mænd", " På tærsklen", "3. Lukkede rum", " Forskellige nicher", " Sygdom, snavs", " På kontoret", " Tabu", " Troskyldig", "4. Detaljer", " Kroppens forskellige dele", " Evnen til at lade sig opsluge", " Tålmodig", " Lystens forskellige udtryk", " Gennemsyn".

Bogen starter med hendes interesse i at tælle og spekulere over hvad der er passende og hvad der er for meget eller for lidt. Hun går første gang i seng med en mand som 18-årig men allerede nogle uger efter er hun med i gruppesex for første gang. tre drenge og to piger. Vennerne André, Claude og Ringo starter det og senere fortsætter det med gruppesex i Boulogneskoven. Vennen Eric arrangerer og hun følger villigt med. Swingerklubben Chez Aimé er lidt rå, men det kan hun bedre lide end det mere slikkede Les Glycines. Hun kan komme på navnene på mindst 50 elskere ved navn, men mange flere uden navn fra gruppesex-seancerne. Ved de største er der måske 150 til stede og hun knalder med de første 30-40. Claude, Henri og Catherine er fast inventar til festerne. Oplevelserne flyder ind i hinanden og fx kan hun huske en aften, hvor hun kun blev kneppet i røvhullet, men ikke hvorfor.
Allerede som barn fantaserede hun meget og forestillede sig fx blive taget i den lokale biograf. Måske allerede startende i køen. Et gennemgående tema i fantasierne er også at befinde sig blandt en gruppe mænd, der er optaget af noget andet, fx at spise en fin middag. Hun arbejder stadig videre på fantasierne og bruger dem til at onanere efter. Hun fortæller åbent at hun er utryg i omgangen med andre mennesker, hvorfor hun bruger sex som et tilflugtssted.
Hun fortæller hvordan omgangskredsen udvides fra Claude til et par, han kender. Kunstmiljøet består af mange af den slags smågrupper og fællesskaber. En ven Jacques som hun stadig kommer sammen med, var også sammen med hendes bofælle for en stund. Claude opfordrede hende til at læse O's historie, og sammenligne. Catherine har flere gange været sammen med medlemmer af samme familie og fx flere gange med en onkel og to af hans nevøer.
Éric er den, der har introduceret hende for flest mænd. Hun har aldrig taget sig betalt eller bedt om gaver, så udbyttet har været ringe. Og det er hun ofte blevet gjort nar af for. Men sådan er det. Hun og Jacques boede sammen et stykke tid og da lagde hun en dæmper på sig selv.
Der er også lidt om hendes tandlæge, der aldrig har sendt hende en regning.
Afsnittet om Rum handler om de forskellige steder hvor hun har deltaget i orgier eller almindelige samlejer. Steder med god udsigt, hvor hun kan svaje i ryggen og blive taget bagfra, er i høj kurs. En stor lejlighed ved Enzo.
"Lukkede rum" handler om biler, en portnerloge, lastbilers sovekabiner, et telt, en køje i en sovevogn, en kupe hvor en anden familie med børn lå og sov. En kabine i en sexbutik. Migræne. Et kontor.
Afsnittet om Detaljer handler om at sutte pik. Og om de andre kropsdele, balderne, overkroppen, ansigtet. Pornofilm. Klicheerne om orgasmer. Eiffeltårnet som stilling. Onani. En film, hvor hun har en gennemsigtig kjole på, er meget ophidsende.

Spøjs bog. Jacques = Jacques Henric, tror jeg. ( )

I read through some pages, but got caught up with school work and never returned to it...so far it was good.

Catherine Millet, una figura de gran prestigio en el ámbito de la estética, autora de ensayos y monografías sobre artistas contemporáneos, decidió explicar su intensa y tumultuosa vida sexual, con una crudeza y una claridad absolutamente inesperadas. El resultado es sin duda, uno de los libros más audaces y sorprendentes de la literatura francesa en el terreno de la tradición erótica. Y, desde luego, uno de los que ha causado mayor expectación.

Imagine a person who is a gourmand, obsessed with food. They note every single ingredient in every dish, how they were mixed together and how that felt. Then every detail about how those ingredients were cooked and what it smelt like, what it tasted like, what it felt like to eat it and then what it felt like after the meal too. Now imagine that person is also a glutton.

Now substitute food for sex and you have the thread of this book. There is so much descriptive graphic sex in this book that it stood up on its own on the bedside table.

Sounds sleazy I guess but let me assure you that it is anything but. It is really well written and perceptive and engaging. You won't learn any new tricks from this book but you will recognise some honesty and let's face it, honesty about sex is pretty damn rare.

If you are caught up in morality, or even worse sexual politics, you will find much to feed your prejudices here. In fact there is so much to object to here that the church has had to employ eunuchs to read it, not me though!

I once read a very long article by the food critic, A.A. Gill. The article wasn't about food but it was about him going to LA to make a porn film with the industry professionals. Never a man to be afraid to take a wrong step it too was a revelation about the reality and the sheer physical endurance of those he worked with. He described them as athletes. To make a parallel from there to this book is no great step. This woman was gifted at the kind of sex she enjoyed.

Initially there was some much sex that I actually got splashed while reading it. But after a while the sex just fades away and her voice becomes much clearer and a clear voice it is too. I was touched by her bravery and her honesty.

Give how "weirded up" sex is in the media is really surprised me that such a book exists at all. You now what I mean, advertising is full of sex but you wont see and nipples and if anyone actually lets them slip, why, the entire media has a collective ejaculation about it.

This book is a real breath of fresh air and I guess you could say that it is one woman's way of normalising something that has long since ceased being normal and she did that by a most unusual form of sex to boot. ( )

I only got two-thirds of the way through "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." It's not a good book, but that doesn't mean it's not, in its flawed way, an interesting read. In it, Catherine Millet, the editor of a noted French art magazine, describes her swinging exploits in clear-eyed detail. She describes having carnal relations with hundreds, if not thousands, of men in swinger's clubs, parking garages, bachelor apartments, and just about everywhere else in Paris. She doesn't seem to regret her sexual exploits, or, indeed, tell us how she feels about them. Her sexual exploits are presented matter-of-factly: they're just experiences she had. The book has received terrible reviews, both from professional critics and LibraryThing readers, but I think it's this flatness of tone (and perhaps an absence of contrition) that really put readers off. If what I read can be believed, many French folks seem to be able to take sex utterly casually, and this drives a lot of Americans absolutely nuts. Just because orgasms were had doesn't means lessons were necessarily learned: one thing doesn't necessarily follow the other, at least in gay Paree.

There are, in any case, things I genuinely liked about the book. Millet's artistic background shows through in places: she's very cognizant of how she presents her body, and some of the scenes she describes almost are almost reminiscent of artistic tableaux. She also understands what Al Pacino's character in "Glengarry Glen Ross" understood about sex: it's not the orgasms or the mechanical aspect of it that people tend to remember but the fleeting, liminal, ambiguous moments that take place between people in intimate situations: an unexpected caress, a touch, a meaningful glance. "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." contains lots of these little moments, even if the author often follows them up with something like "I had relations with a dozen other men that night as well."

A lot of reviewers here have expressed the opinion that Catherine Millet is an obviously damaged woman, and some have said that they feel sorry for her. I'm undecided on this point. There's a lot that suggests that Catherine did what she did for reasons that weren't altogether healthy: she seems to have used relationships with men to escape her suffocating family life, and she doesn't seem to know how to flirt or seduce her partners. Maybe, like many sex addicts, she got naked and had sex with people because she couldn't figure out how relate to them any other way. But her sexual life also bears an uncanny resemblance to her earliest sexual fantasies and she seldom expresses any regret about what she did or tells the reader that she didn't get what she wanted out of her adventures. It's possible that she's just a highly sexual person and that's all there is to say. And that, really, is the other problem with "The Sexual Life of Catherine M". It lacks any semblance of dramatic structure. It's more of sexual diary than an actual story, so it's not too surprising that it grows tedious after a while, despite all the erotic goings-on. Still, maybe that's the point. The title of this book is "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." However much sex she's had, I suspect that what's described here is just a sliver of her overall experience, and perhaps the only part of herself she intended to show her readers. Reviewers who felt sorry for her might have considered the fact that this lady edits an art magazine, so I'm sure that she's got some other stuff going on in her personality and in her brain. But this book is mostly just about her sex life, and that's both a good thing and a bad thing. ( )