Marayat Rollet-Andriane, formerly Marayat Krasaesin (Thai: มารยาท กระแสสินธุ์) or her birthname Marayat Bibidh (Thai: มารยาท พิพิธวิรัชชการ; RTGS: Marayat Phiphitwiratchakan; born 19 January 1932 – 12 June 2005), known by the pen name Emmanuelle Arsan, was a Thai-French novelist, best known for the novel featuring the fictional character Emmanuelle, a woman who sets out on a voyage of sexual self-discovery under varying circumstances. It was later claimed that the real author of the book was her husband, Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane.
Early life
Arsan was born Marayat Bibidh on 19 January 1932 in Bangkok, Thailand, into an aristocratic Siamese family closely connected to the royal family.: 130 Marayat's family home was in the affluent Ekkamai District of the Thai capital, where she reportedly discovered her sexuality in the company of her little sister Vasana.: 132
After attending primary school in Thailand, Marayat was sent by her parents to Switzerland to continue her studies at the extremely selective Institut Le Rosey boarding school, located in Rolle, Canton of Vaud. The school offered a bilingual English-French education to the offspring of the international elite. At a ball there in 1948, the 16-year-old Marayat first met her future husband, 30-year-old French diplomat Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane. Although it was love at first sight, they did not marry until 1956, then settled in Thailand, where Louis-Jacques was given a diplomatic posting at the UNESCO mission in Bangkok.
Bangkok in the late 1950s was a relatively small, secretive, and highly respectable city. It was not yet the open-air brothel that it would become during the mid-1960s and early 1970s. That change was partly due to the Vietnam War, when thousands of off-duty U.S. servicemen, assigned to the US Air Force airbases in Thailand, flooded the capital's streets in search of cheap sex. They were soon to be followed by Western tourists.
Within the selective atmosphere of the Sports Club, Louis-Jacques and Marayat, with their hedonistic philosophy of communal sex, quickly created a sensation among the expatriate interlopers, diplomats, pseudospies, bored spouses, and jet-setters who drifted in and out. As a result, the couple's reputation soon spread beyond the restricted circle of the initiated and turned the Thai capital into a popular destination for swingers. At this time, they had their first encounter with the idle Italian Prince Dado Ruspoli, who belonged to the international playboy elite of the 1950s and whose discourse on sex had a profound impact on Marayat and Louis-Jacques. They immediately made Dado their "spiritual guide" and "high priest of love".: 130
In 1963, Louis-Jacques was posted to Italy, and for five years, the couple resided in both Venice and Rome, where they again met Ruspoli. He introduced them to the high society of transalpine libertinage.: 133 From 1968 to 1980, Marayat and her husband often alternated between Paris and Bangkok.
