Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality

Woman as Victim: Story of O

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sion to kill herself and receives it. Q . E. D., pornography

is never big on plot.

O f course, like most summaries, the above is somewhat sketchy. I have not mentioned the quantities o f cock that O sucks, or the anal assaults that she sustains,

or the various rapes and tortures perpetrated on her by

minor characters in the book, or the varieties o f whips

used, or described her clothing or the different kinds o f

nipple rouge, or the many ways in which she is chained,

or the shapes and colors o f the welts on her body.

From the course o f O ’s story emerges a clear mythological figure: she is woman, and to name her O, zero, emptiness, says it all. Her ideal state is one o f complete

passivity, nothingness, a submission so absolute that

she transcends human form (in becoming an owl). Only

the hole between her legs is left to define her, and the

symbol o f that hole must surely be O. Much, however,

even in the rarefied environs o f pornography, necessarily interferes with the attainment o f utter passivity.

Given a body which takes up space, has needs, makes

demands, is connected, even symbolically, to a personal

history which is a sequence o f likes, dislikes, skills,

opinions, one is formed, shaped—one exists at the very

least as positive space. And since in addition as a woman

one is born guilty and carnal, personifying the sins o f

Eve and Pandora, the wickedness o f Jezebel and Lucre-

tia Borgia, O ’s transcendence o f the species is truly

phenomenal.

T h e thesis o f O is simple. Woman is cunt, lustful,

wanton. She must be punished, tamed, debased. She

gives the gift o f herself, her body, her well-being,

her life, to her lover. This is as it should be —natural

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Woman Hating

and good. It ends necessarily in her annihilation, which

is also natural and good, as well as beautiful, because

she fulfills her destiny:

As long as I am beaten and ravished on your behalf, I

am naught but the thought of you, the desire of you,

the obsession of you. That, I believe, is what you

wanted. Well, I love you, and that is what I want too. 2

Then let him take her, if only to wound her! O hated

herself for her own desire, and loathed Sir Stephen

for the self-control he was displaying. She wanted him

to love her, there, the truth was out: she wanted him

to be chafing under the urge to touch her lips and

penetrate her body, to devastate her if need be. . . . 3

. . . Yet he was certain that she was guilty and, without

really wanting to, Rene was punishing her for a sin