Folies Pigalle

"Pigalle" is a pretty famous area in Paris, known for being the red light district of the city, even though it has very little to do with other cities such as Amsterdam. However, long after its glory (basically between 1850 and 1970) Pigalle still has a little bit of this raunchy flavor that people from out of town enjoy experiencing when they visit the capital! And Parisians do too, even though they act naive when passing by all these sex shops and cabaret entrances. Last night I went to a Hungarian restaurant close to this place thinking it would make a nice change from yesterday's church photo! BTW. I finally managed to post the LA PDP party photos.

Naughty Paris!

Who said only men are interested in sex? Had you been yesterday evening at the Naughty Paris guidebook launch party you would have been convinced of the contrary... The party took place at Yoba's, a chic shop dedicated to women's pleasure and the queen of the evening was Heather Stimmler-Hall (it's her in the photo!), the author of the book. To quench the guests' thirst, among the erected objects that could be found in the place, there were also a few bottles of Champagne... Funny: tomorrow I'm off to another female gathering: the Women's forum. Should I bring Heather's book with me ;)

Red Light District

Like all big cities Paris has its "red light district". It is located in the 18th arrondissement, around La Place Pigalle (named after Jean-Baptiste Pigalle) where you can still find several cabarets that started it all (eg, Le Moulin Rouge). Of course, nowadays, showing half naked dancers is much less provocative than around 1900, but still, a lot of visitors from out of town enjoy a little ride in Pigalle at dusk! And when they do, they generally don't miss one of the most emblematic places in this area: the Sexodrome! "The largest adult entertainment center in Europe" as they put it, offers absolutely everything to please both genders on almost 3 000 sq meters (32 000 sq feet)! Ahhhh Paris!

Sex workers demonstration

This week's demonstration was held by sex workers yesterday... They want the senate (in front of which the demonstration took place) to abolish a law that prohibits soliciting (in France, prostitution is not illegal, but soliciting is). Let's face it it's not a very popular cause and there were actually more journalists than sex workers at this demonstration, but still, I think it's pretty brave to do this. By the way, don't ask me why this guy's T-shirt is written in English, I swear I took this photo in Paris!