Paris Journal VIII: Why French Women Don't Go to the Gym

Do Parisian women eat chocolate and tartes, pommes frites, brie oozing with fat, fois gras, canard (à l’orange or otherwise), bifteck au poivre, poulet rôti, épaule d’agneau, cuisses de grenouilles, escargots à la Bourguignonne, coquilles St. Jacques en sauce de crème, soupe à l’oignon au fromage, pain, beurre, café au lait, parfaits profondement plein de calories, petits fours, macarons, éclairs, Napoleons (naturellement), and more pomme frites avec mayonnaise? Do they never exercise or deprive themselves of a single meal, like American women, who eat the calorie-counter cottage cheese with melon and then go Spinning so they can have a big meal at the fancy local French restaurant named after a region of France like Brittany? Do the French have a more sexually liberated culture in which these same ageless women who never worry about indulging their appetites for food also guiltlessly indulge their appetites for romance, thereby liberating their partners to do the same? Does the average French person indulge in transgressive behavior for which there would be punishment in other cultures? Are the French freed from cancer and AIDS, can they drink infinite quantities of red wine without becoming alcoholics, can they smoke like chimneys without getting cancer? Are the French immortal?

[This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.]