Marilyn Stowe Blog

Divorcee and the Gigolo

A new French film explores the conduct of a 51-year-old woman who, following the collapse of her marriage, pays for sex with much younger men.

Cliente stars well-known French actress Nathalie Baye as the divorcee who seeks to escape from her boring life, and turns to a gigolo.

I am sure that the scenario will be regarded by many as pure fantasy. However, the director and writer of the film, Josiane Balasko, says she wants to highlight the plight of real women who separate from their husbands, find it difficult to move on and turn to paid sex with a stranger.

The film deals with the relationship between the woman and her male gigolo as she learns more about him. She falls in love with him – as, I believe, do most women who have regular sex with the same man. Sex is an expression of feeling. It is rare to find a woman who has regular sex with the same man without any emotional involvement.

The film’s premise appears to be rooted in fact. According to an article in The Sunday Times male gigolos, whose traditional hunting ground for rich women is the French Riviera, are now advertising on websites elsewhere in France. One of these men, known as “Earl Grey”, is based in Paris. He offers his services to women who want passionate encounters without strings, for £150 an hour. It’s quite a charge out rate! But while he may be able to remain emotionally unattached, what about his clients?

I have seen a number of mature women whose affairs with men from different socio-economic backgrounds would baffle independent observers. The men concerned may not be particularly attractive. However, they are usually very charming. As for the women, they don’t always fit the stereotype of provocative, heavily made-up matrons who are “ready for it”. Often they have succumbed to the attention without appreciating the likely emotional (and material) consequences of their passion. The lover may be a builder, a gym instructor or a tennis coach. Typically, he will be found at gyms, wine bars and restaurants frequented by “ladies who lunch”, and will make a bee line for a woman who has a glint in her eye and an expensive car parked outside. He may also be involved with other women. For the woman, this relationship may begin as an adventure – but she will end up emotionally attached and unable to end the affair. She may also end up divorced.

This said, such relationships may not always start off through a charm offensive. There are assertive women who can control their emotions and keep their private lives in separate compartments.

One woman, a high flying company director, saw me recently. She has a lover, who is also married, and their affair has continued satisfactorily for the past four years. She told me, with frankness, that her lover fulfills a need. She had come to see me because she wanted to find out about the likely financial settlement that she would have to pay her husband if she decided to leave him. Having told her the likely cost, I suspect she will stay put.  Her lifestyle is cool, clinical and calculated. She says that her husband has no idea about her affair – her lover, too, is apparently content to stay within his marriage.

I do think that she is an exception. Most other women invest a lot of emotions in their relationships; over time they form strong bonds, and want to spend more and more time with their lovers.

So I can understand how Cliente was conceived, and I do not think that the idea is fantastical. It is based on real scenarios and situations in which women who crave relationships try to use sex to quell their loneliness. They can end up emotional wrecks, dependent upon someone whom they would previously have passed in the street with nary a second glance.

Women can be lonely inside and outside of marriage. Sadly as the hundreds of files in my office show, illicit sex – paid for or otherwise – can cause far more heartache than it was ever intended to appease.

I don’t know how Cliente ends – but in real life, there is very rarely a happy ending.

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