If sex was for sale, would women buy?

The New York Times ran a provocative piece last week about the conversation France is having about female sexuality. It was sparked by the popularity of the movie "Cliente," about a hard-charging, 51-year-old divorcee who wants good sex without strings and is willing to pay good money for it.

Director and author Josiane Balasko, 58, wanted to shatter a long-held taboo in France and to send a positive message to middle-aged women who find themselves alone and wanting sexual fulfillment.

“Prostitution is the last sexual territory owned by men,” Balasko said in an interview. “Men are in control of pleasure and have the right to buy it. Women do not. A lot of my friends are alone, lonely, divorced. They can’t always reinvent themselves with another man and a new family. So I decided to show a female client of a male escort. She’s not a victim. She is a woman who is in control of her life, her feelings, her sexual pleasure.”

Although there are ads for male escorts on the Internet in France, the concept of a woman paying for sex is still a taboo. “If a woman agrees to pay a man for sex, she’s a whore,” said Pascal Bruckner, an intellectual and novelist who has written extensively about sexuality. “If a man pays a woman for sexual services in France, it’s accepted. It’s one of the strange flaws of feminism.”

Historically, the French are much less conflicted than Americans when it comes to sex, so if France is struggling with this topic, can you imagine a national conversation about sexual mores in the U.S.? We can't even talk about sex education or sexual health without people having hissy fits and trying to legislate sexual behavior.

But still ... if prostitution were legal in more states than Nevada and Rhode Island, and you didn't have to go to a brothel to get it, I bet a lot of women would pony up for a few hours of service. (Legalized prostitution has mandatory STD testing, unlike the dudes you pick up at a bar). An attractive man who will cater to your every whim sexually? Whose only goal is to satisfy you, and you don't have to go through an online dating service, or blind date or any kind of date at all -- you just get what you want and go your separate merry ways? Sounds pretty good.

There are times when women, like men, just want sex. It's a natural drive. The sooner we all accept that, the healthier our cultures -- here and France and everywhere else - will be.