The establishment caters to essentially straight patrons performing traditional sex roles, with women's dress code requiring a skirt and heels.Īn unmarked street entrance leads to a claustrophobic foyer. A club libertin, as the club proclaims itself, is indeed the more accurate description. On the other hand, to call it a club échangiste, as it is popularly known (the toniest one of its kind), is a misnomer. The theory holds water, because love at first site is unlikely chez Les Chandelles.
Versus an adulterous adventure, which is an absolutely acceptable, even encouraged, Frenchy sport for both goose and gander, a club échangiste is in theory, by comparison, shared titillation that lowers the risk of your husband falling in love with another woman. Most chic Parisiennes eventually land up there in an attempt to stave off inevitable deathly couple-sex doldrums.
PARIS – Most women I know won’t own up to having been there. (Anaïs Nin, here's looking at you, kid.) We sent our intrepid reporter to one of the city's best sex clubs - okay, someone took her there on a date - to see what happens behind the ropes at Les Chandelles, the high-class 'club libertin' allegedly frequented by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, that notable French lothario. Paris may be the most romantic city on Earth, but it also has a proud tradition of highbrow kink and naughty pursuits.
