X-rated

It’s not every literary exhibition that comes with a parental warning. It’s a bit of a shock, then, to see that under-16s are forbidden from entering the French National Library’s latest: L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale. And at the risk of sounding prude, it’s a good thing, too!

The exhibition displays some of the racier contents of the library’s “sealed section”: the hell-vault used to protect the reading public from sexually explicit and morally corrupting writing, images and photography. It showcases everything from manuscripts of the Marquis de Sade to Japanese erotic woodblock prints via naughty postcards and early porno films.

Now I’m not suggesting that under-16s should be necessarily excluded because of the saucy nature of the exhibits (and, let’s be clear, some are very saucy indeed). The unfortunate fact is they’ll probably have seen worse on the web, Net Nanny notwithstanding. It’s more because of the sheer blushing, squirming embarrassment of looking at anything of a sexual nature with one’s elders that I think youngsters should stay away.

Even I, at more than double the minimum age, felt exquisitely uncomfortable as I sidled around the display cases, trying not to spend too long in front of any one image, lest the old lady on my left thought I was some drooling deviant. I made such a show of reading the captions and accompanying explanatory notes that I barely even registered the rude pictures themselves, so swift was my nonchalant, “I’m an intellectual not a pervert” scan. Funnily enough, the old lady had no such compunction in inspecting the exhibits in great and appreciative detail. In fact it was quite difficult to get close enough for even a cursory glance at some displays, so thick was the cluster of forthright grey-haired admirers.

It doesn’t matter which side of sixteen you fall on, there is just something deeply disturbing about looking at explicit images of fornication next to someone who could be your grandmother.

Apart from that, the exhibition is most enjoyable. Oh, but not in a dirty, hands-in-pockets sort of way, you understand. Gosh. I mean it’s very instructive and historically edifying. Yes. Edifying.

Look out for the medieval illuminated manuscript with a tiny, colourful drawing in the margin depicting a nun plucking phallic fruit from what can only be described as a penis tree. You’ll find it through the flagellation room and past the bordello guidebooks on the left. You may need to elbow a few grannies out of the way, though.

Image: Création c -album, photographie Alain Goustard/BNF, architecte Dominique Perrault © Adagp, Paris 2007