50 Shades of Paris

(Photo: Kirsten Loop)

As Valentine’s Day approaches each year, some couples happily embrace the traditional with bouquets of roses, boxes of chocolates and cuddly teddy bears. But many others steer clear of anything red or heart-shaped, preferring more original ways to celebrate their love. A trip to Paris may seem like the height of romantic clichés, but the City of Light has more than a few naughty surprises for couples seeking something sexier than selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Bondage à la Parisienne

The self-published fan-fiction that became Fifty Shades of Grey introduced elements of BDSM (an umbrella term for anything involving Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, or Sadism/Masochism) into mainstream culture, but the terms ‘Sadism’ and ‘Masochism’ actually come from the 18th-century pornographic writings of the French aristocrat Marquis de Sade and his Austrian contemporary, the novelist Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs. You might think that the only symbols of bondage found in Paris today involve the thousands of rusting padlocks attached to the city’s bridges by clueless tourists. But there’s also a lively and surprisingly accessible Parisian BDSM scene open to anyone intrigued enough for an exploratory dabble. You may find a whole new world of sexy fun awaiting your discovery…or at least a memorable travel tale!

(Photo: Kirsten Loop)

Naughty Nightlife

The most exquisite fetish club is Cris et Chuchotements, or “Screams and Whispers”, a playground to act out all of your favorite bondage and submission role-playing fantasies with all of the right accessories and equipment on-hand. At the milder libertine club Le Mask, men in stylish suits and women in little black dresses wear carnival masks (provided at the entrance) to hide their identity while playing their seduction games. The biggest party of the year, La Nuit Dèmonia, requires a strict leather, latex or fetishwear dress code. What better excuse to shop in the city’s naughty adult boutiques such as the luxurious Mise en Cage or the Ali Baba’s cavern of sexy outfits and accessories at Métamorph’ose. And even if you only wear them in the privacy of your own bedroom, no woman’s wardrobe is complete without a pair of sky-high stilettos. Ernest has been making them for Parisian showgirls for over a century, ooh la la!

Heather Stimmler-Hall is the author of the award-winning "Naughty Paris: A Lady’s Guide to the Sexy City" (www.naughty-guides.com), completely revised and expanded for the second edition, available from January 2015.