No Touching Review

A story of liberation and a heartrending portrayal of a woman’s sense of self, Ketty Rouf’s extraordinary debut shatters tired prejudices about sex, women, and society.

Josephine teaches philosophy in a high school in Drancy, a suburb of Paris. Her life is a balancing act between Xanax, Propranolol and Tupperware lunches in the staff room. The directives of the National Education Board are increasingly absurd and intolerable and she follows them with playfulness at times and derision at others.

When, one evening, Josephine walks into a strip club on the Champs-Elysée, her life is completely overturned. There she learns a secret nocturnal code of conduct; she discovers camaraderie and the joys of female company; and she thrills at the sensation of men’s desire directed toward her. Josephine, a teacher by day, begins to lead a secret existence by night that ultimately allows her to regain control of her life. This delicate balance is shattered one evening by an unexpected visitor to the club where she dances.

General Impressions

In all honesty, I started this book fully prepared to DNF it within 50 pages - the moment this became about seeing women being abused or degraded as a fantasy for the reader/or writer, I was gone. Luckily, in this case, my fears couldn't have been further from the truth and I never read a French book so fast or passionately in my life.

Even though I started this book really afraid of what I might read and with not many expectations beyond that, it took me less than two chapters to realize that this is one of those books that I will never forget and will come back to every few years.

More than about sex work or dancing this is a book about a teacher and particularly a woman, screaming into the void and if you are paying attention, there will be quite a few of those in the next few months. That can only mean great things right?

If you liked the movie Hustlers, I think you will like "No Touching" because a lot of the themes in it overlap: sex work as a way to overcome the class divide, the failure of modern sexual policing, the gender divide, the sense of empowerment and shame that comes with the job and many more.

The major differences are that while "Hustlers" focuses on the darker parts of the clubs such as the dancer's exploitation by the owners of the clubs, the women in no "No Touching" work in an exclusive club in France where the management is not only female but puts the security of the dancers at the forefront. The women are the ones that pick the men, have a lot of control over what they wear and how they look and know that there are always eyes on them, not to police them and their work but to keep them safe and make sure no one goes too far.

With one single exception, all of the most violent, disrespectful and graphic scenes in this book happen to the main character not when she is dancing but when she is working as a teacher. Jo finds the self-respect she lost teaching while dancing. While I doubt that is the experience of everyone that dances, I liked seeing it portrayed with anything other than shame or a tragedy.

Conclusions

I was a bit confused if not let down by the ending but that doesn't eclipse how much I enjoyed the entire book, particularly whenever men tried to justify themselves and their presence and actions inside said clubs.

Thank you to Europa Editions for sending me this copy.

Rating: 4/5