Les larmes du sexe (The Tears of Sex) is a mishmash of graphics and text ‘dedicated to the sensuality of women’. The main narrative of the book is called ‘Zones anatomiques’, and its introduction by Varenne says much about both content and artist: ‘The one who is dearest is naked, and poses in the interests of art. Each of us has our own eroticism, our own Venuses, our own odalisques, and our own masturbatory dolls. She offers herself on the operating table to the scalpel of my profound gaze, where I lose myself in the geometry of her forms, and dissect the folds and hollows of her flesh.’ The purple prose matches the skilfully-added pale purple areas of the strong drawings, which work equally well as accompaniments to the text and clear anatomical sex education aids.

The four pages we include at the end actually come at the beginning of Les larmes du sexe, introducing the book – as other artists have done more successfully – as an exploration of the female body. ‘Ah! Vast nature. All those summits to climb, all those valleys to discover, all those gorges to explore.’ An expression of anticipation, or of deep-seated fear?

Les larmes du sexe was published by Les Humanoïdes Associés.