In Paris, sex clubs more hip than ever
It's Valentine's Day in the world's most romantic capital and as some couples cozy up in restaurants around Paris, others furtively slip through a purple tinted door for a night of sexual titillation at a libertine nightclub.
One by one accountants, engineers, businessmen and parents are buzzed into the discreet club on the banks of a Parisian canal, where gently flickering lights play across an interior decorated in warm, sensual reds and violets.
Couples like Nathalie and Antonio, Maxime and Aurelia, enter what appears to be a normal nightclub, with a large bar area where a sumptuous buffet is set up, and a mirrored dancefloor.
But a closer look reveals that alongside buckets full of champagne and peanuts on the bar, are glass jars stuffed with condoms.
Quai 17 is one of nearly 500 libertine, or swingers clubs, across France -- a sexual lifestyle that has come under the spotlight in the trial of former International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
He denies organising prostitutes for private orgies, but admits to being an unabashed libertine who revels in men and women who "come together for the pleasure of sex."
"There are so many well-known people like him (Strauss-Kahn) who come here and to other clubs," Bernard Crouzas, the owner of the club, told AFP.
"I have people I see on television, police, lawyers, magistrates who come here," he said as music softly throbs in the background. "We all have a hidden sexual side," said Crouzas.
'IT HAS BECOME FASHIONABLE' France's reputation as a hotbed of European libertinism dates back to a philosophical backlash against the moral constraints of the church in the 16th century, spawning debaucherous figureheads such as aristocratic novelist Marquis de Sade.
Hundreds of years later it is all about the erotic, and it is at libertine establishments -- ranging from seedy saunas to chic clubs with exorbitant entry fees -- that people from all walks of life come to find sexual thrills.
According to Crouzas, the typical crowd of older couples seeking to spice up a stale marriage has been joined by youngsters looking for excitement.
With Internet and television providing ever more explicit content, and books like 50 Shades of Grey making previously taboo sexual habits mainstream, "it has become fashionable", he said.
'A TOUCH OF MADNESS' Some come dressed as if they are going to a formal dinner, others in revealing leather and lace with garters and towering heels.
The evening starts off slowly, with couples sipping champagne as red and white heart-shaped balloons bob overhead, going back-and-forth to the buffet, their eyes stopping to linger from time to time on another guest.
Nathalie, 46, an accountant, and Antonio, 47, who has a delivery business, have been married for 25 years and with three children were lured to libertine clubs "to break with routine."
"It avoids looking elsewhere, it isn't cheating. I love my wife," said Antonio. "You must take pleasure from life."
Nathalie feels their lifestyle is still taboo, and that there are a lot of misconceptions about it. "Here we respect people," said Antonio. "If you say no it means no," adds Natalie. "Some nights nothing happens."