Emmanuelle and Marie-Anne begin a series of sexual games in which they take turns masturbating while the other watches.

Meanwhile, Ariane makes a series of attempts to seduce Emmanuelle, culminating in a sexual encounter between the two women on a squash court which verges on rape.

At a tea party hosted by Marie-Anne's mother, Emmanuelle meets Bee, the sister of a naval attaché at the American Embassy.

They visit an opium den and then a temple, where Emmanuelle makes two votive offerings; first by masturbating Mario and then by performing oral sex on a boy.

Later, having parted company with Quentin, the two return to Mario's house in a rickshaw pulled by a Thai driver (or sam-lo).

[1] Emmanuelle has erotic encounters in settings that represent stereotypes for the exoticism of the East (a massage parlor,[2] opium den,[3] and temple[4]).

The underlying theme of the novel is the conflict between Emmanuelle's need for love (as typified by her relationships with Jean and Bee) and her innate eroticism (as shown by her anonymous sexual encounters on the plane and her games with Marie-Anne).

Ariane is married and has had numerous male lovers,[8] but is strongly attracted to Emmanuelle and makes several attempts to seduce her, including one quasi-rape.

[9] Successive editions later bore the nom-de-plume Emmanuelle Arsan, who was subsequently revealed to be Marayat Rollet-Andriane.

Though the novel was sometimes hinted to be a quasi-autobiography, it was later claimed that the actual author was her husband Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane, [10] but this false attribution has been widely rejected.

In 1978, Italian artist Guido Crepax produced a graphic adaptation of the novel[11] which faithfully mirrors the plot of the original.

In May 2022, director Audrey Diwan announced her film adaption of the novel to feature French actress Léa Seydoux.