Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality

he knew nothing about (since it remained completely

internal), although Sir Stephen had immediately detected it: her wantonness. 4

. . . no pleasure, no joy, no figment of her imagination

could ever compete with the happiness she felt at the

way he used her with such utter freedom, at the notion

that he could do anything with her, that there was no

limit, no restriction in the manner with which, on her

body, he might search for pleasure. 5

O is totally possessed. That means that she is an

object, with no control over her own mobility, capable

of no assertion of personality. Her body is a body, in

the same way that a pencil is a pencil, a bucket is a

bucket, or, as Gertrude Stein pointedly said, a rose is

a rose. It also means that O ’s energy, or power, as a

woman, as Woman, is absorbed. Possession here denotes a biological transference o f power which brings

Woman as Victim: Story of O

59

with it a commensurate spiritual strength to the possessor. O does more than offer herself; she is herself the offering. T o offer herself would be prosaic Christian

self-sacrifice, but as the offering she is the vehicle o f

the miraculous— she incorporates the divine.

Here sacrifice has its ancient, primal meaning:

that which was given at the beginning becomes the gift.

T h e first fruits o f the harvest were dedicated to and

consumed by the vegetation spirit which provided them.

T h e destruction o f the victim in human or animal

sacrifice or the consumption o f the offering was the

very definition o f the sacrifice—death was necessary

because the victim was or represented the life-giving

substance, the vital energy source, which had to be

liberated, which only death could liberate. A n actual

death, the sacrifice per se, not only liberated benevolent

energy but also ensured a propagation and increase o f

life energy (concretely expressed as fertility) by a sort

o f magical ecology, a recycling o f basic energy, or raw

power. O ’s victimization is the confirmation o f her

power, a power which is transcendental and which has

as its essence the sacred processes o f life, death, and

regeneration.

But the full significance o f possession, both mystically and mythologically, is not yet clear. In mystic experience communion (wrongly called possession

sometimes) has meant the dissolution o f the ego, the

entry into ecstasy, union with and illumination o f the

godhead. T h e experience o f communion has been the

province o f the mystic, prophet, or visionary, those who

were able to alchemize their energy into pure spirit

and this spirit into a state o f grace. Possession, rightly