I’ve since learned that France is home to over 500 libertine establishments, and most of them are in Paris, right under our feet. I’ve lived in this city a year and a half and I, like many, had heard whispers in the wind about libertines and their hidden establishments, but that was it. I was introduced to this clandestine world when a friend of mine told me about a night he’d spent at a secret sex club in Paris with his ex-cougar a few years ago. They are the equivalent of elite sexual speakeasies. Some of these bright young things are fully immersed in the libertine culture, while some are merely testing the lascivious waters. What used to be a secretive society made up of mainly wealthy middle-aged married people has been infused with dashing millennials. Traditionally, libertine clubs have been thought of as haunts for échangistes (swingers), and échangistes are mainly thought to be of the 40-plus variety. It is Les Chandelles, Paris’s most upscale and elite libertine club.
It is where former French finance minister Dominique Strauss Kahn used to spend his wild evenings, and where many a politician and celebrity still do.
This world is a labyrinth of dark corridors and plush rooms, fine china, chandeliers, and the occasional strip pole. Inhibitions are thrown to the wind as champagne bubbles over glass flutes and the immaculately groomed eye fuck one another while nuzzling their dates. Hidden beneath Paris’s historic cobblestone streets lies an underground world where hedonism is king.