Ex Patriot

He was a leading figure in the European counter-culture scene of the 60s. Born in 1933 in Louisiana, he lost his virginity “around 12” in some Venezuelan brothel. He would later head to Scotland where he helped in the foundation of the Traverse Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In the middle of the “swinging 60s”, he relocated to London and founded UFO (the Underground Freak Out club) where Pink Floyd and Soft Machine were the house bands, the alternative paper International Times (known as I.T.), and the Arts Lab space for mixed-media (where his good friends John and Yoko had a few exhibitions). In ‘69 in Amsterdam, he launched Suck, a newspaper for sexual freedom and the Wet Dreams Festival to “encourage erotic film-making”.

Over the next 30 years Haynes would write countless books, while also teaching Media Studies and Sexual Politics at the University of Paris 8, where he still lives and gives weekly Sunday dinner in his charming house full of great books, strange liquors and beautiful women.

Frank151: How are you doing Jim?
Jim Haynes: Good, but sorry I just woke up, seven women slept at my house last night. Two from Thailand, friends of my son, Jesper Haynes, who’s a photographer in NYC but spends a lot of time in Bangkok. One Russian woman who is living here right now, she’s studying French and has a job at the Ritz Hotel. Three other Russian women, I only knew the daughter but she came with her sister and mother this time. And then there’s a woman that’s half-Philippine and half-American, and I don’t know how she got here! <<Laughs>> She’s here for a week.
F151: Enough room for everybody?
JH: I have three floors, four coaches, and I don’t need any intimacy. My friend who’s a poet in London said, “We were alone for nine months in our mother’s womb, that’s enough,” and I agree.

F151: Why do you like living in Paris?
JH: First I like this house, it was a workshop and I managed to buy it and I have lived very happily in this house, and of course I shared it with as many people as I could, some I know some I don’t know. The three women that were here last night, I never saw them in my life. I gave them keys and told them, “Make yourself at home.”
F151: But what brought you to Paris?
JH: I always joke and say I was running from Scotland Yard, and that’s a little bit true because when I was in London in 1969, I was running a newspaper for sexual freedom called Suck, and of course Scotland Yard closed our English office after the first issues. Then I was offered a professorship at Paris 8 University. I had no desire to teach but this was supposed to be free, experimental, innovative and blah blah blah. They let me teach what I wanted to, so I chose Media Studies and Sexual Politics.

F151: Was it risky to openly talk about sex at the end of the 60s in France?
JH: The only places that were free were Denmark and Holland.  I directed a film festival in Amsterdam that was called the Wet Dreams Festival to encourage erotic filmmaking. But it just lasted three years. Problem was, believe it or not, I’m not really interested in pornography. Erotica is much more subtle. There’s a fine line but it’s a very important line. I was influenced by Wilhelm Reich and Alfred Kinsey, they were analyzing how sexual repression is linked with fascism. And it still is in fundamentalism.

Today, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism are terrified with sexuality. Today this girl from Tchetchenia was beaten up because she slept with a Russian soldier, she was shaved and beaten and lost her child. 

F151:  What do you believe in?
JH: Good food, good sex, good times! I don’t believe in organized religions. We have no idea why we’re on earth, who’s god’s god? My religion is to enjoy myself and not to hurt anybody else. Fortunately in Paris you can eat what you want, drink what you want and live your sex life how you want to. It’s pretty free.

F151: What do you think about the French people’s sexuality?
JH: I don’t think in terms of nationality, for me every person is a country, categorizing is a way of building walls and I want to knock down the walls. My sexual experiences in France were generally good, but I don’t know France, I know Paris and I think women in Paris are more liberated than in many other places in the world, except for Russia. People have a very good sex life in Russia. Sexuality for me has to be tactile, touch each other, that’s why I like the kissing on the cheeks in France.

F151: Do you have a particular sexuality?
JH: I was trying to make everything possible for other people and at the same time live my own dreams and desires.

F151: What were your dreams and desires?
JH: Well, in fact, in one sense, it’s private, in another sense I’m totally unashamed. I happened to be intellectually bisexual because I love my male friends and I happened to have sex with other men, but I prefer to sleep with a man and a woman, three, I like three. I did it many times and I liked it. I also like two women, and I like just one woman too.
F151: And do you like 20 people?
JH: Yes, I’ve done that, I’m not particularly into that, but it’s been fun. I did that in Paris, London, Amsterdam and California in the 60s and 70s. Today I’m not into those experiences anymore for various reasons, I’m a little bit more, I don’t know, I like being in my own house and bed.

F151: “Free your ass and your mind will follow,” was George Clinton, right?
JH: I don’t know, I think there is no formula. Certain people thought the formula was LSD, sexuality, or pop music. I don’t think there is a formula.  Everyone gets to their own bliss in their own way. For me sexuality means being tactile, I’m not talking particularly about orgasm. Orgasm is nice, but just hugging and being tender with an unlimited number of people, unlimited affection. I wrote a book called More Romance Less Romanticism. I’ve never been jealous or possessive, if I love you, I know I can not fulfill all of your needs, but I want all of your needs to be fulfilled. Therefore if you need another person, great! I think romantic love is unfair to both parties. The world needs more, not less affection. I think we’re programmed for marriage and children by our rulers, because they want more people to rule. I have a son, but I think we launch our children like an arrow. I get nervous with possessive pronouns - my son, my wife, my car, my house. My, my, my.

F151: There’s a long tradition of the American writer living in Paris, do you think you tried to live that fantasy?
JH: When I first came to Paris I remember being invited on a TV program about American writers in Paris. They had Henry Miller, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and me. That was very flattering, and very funny because I don’t consider myself as a writer, I never wrote any novels, I write essays. So I said okay, but my French was so bad, it still is, but at that time it was terrible and I would hate to see the footage now. But, no, I don’t think I’m fulfilling any role. I’m unique as everyone else is unique.

F151: How was Paris when you arrived?
JH: It was very poor, prices were low, you could eat a meal or buy this house for nothing. The bourgeois-ization of the city is ongoing. There is a line which is approximately the number 4 metro line, everything west is bourgeois, and everything east used to be popular but now tends to become richer, driving people out of the city.

F151: Why did you stay here?
JH: I always felt being a part of a world culture, instead of American culture. I planned to stay a year and I’ve been here for 35 years now cause I love the city for many reasons.  One is I love to walk in Paris because the car never changed the city, our mayor is doing something against the automobile and that’s great. It’s also a good location in the center of Europe, and I like café life and I love the restaurants. I loved La Coupole, I used to go there almost every night but now they’ve changed. I don’t care about fancy restaurants, I like neighborhood restaurants where I know people and people know me, then I’m happy.

F151: Do you like red wine?
JH: I think wine is bullshit, I don’t like expensive stuff, I have very simple tastes. I like rum and I like strange Balkan, Greek and Russian drinks.

F151: Hope, sex, drugs - your generation had everything. Then most of you changed in the 80s, became greedy, and left us a shitty world and your great memories.  What went wrong?
JH: What happened with the 60s is  that we were promising so much, and then we couldn’t deliver it. The expectation level was very high - great sex, great drugs, great music - and then the people died or became rich, so I’ll try not to paint the picture too rosy. I have my “Jim’s Law of Rising and Falling Expectations”. If I tell you this girl is fantastic, you’ll have expectations, the more I tell you about this book or movie or person, you’ll have expectations. But if I tell you it’s just okay, then you can have your own opinion.

I had a great time and when I look back on it, I was a great entrepreneur. I created a bookshop, a theater, a gallery, magazines, festivals, books, I did many things. But when I say “I”, of course we were a bunch of people. But I’m living in the present. Maybe it’s too easy for me now, maybe I should move to Calcutta. I’m 73 now but I feel 37. We all change, we get older, dumber, smarter. I think I’m evolving, but I’m following the same road I’ve been on since the 50s.

If you’re coming to Paris, write to Jim, and book a reservation to have Sunday dinner with him. Jim-Haynes.com