o f the earth goddess, and transferred that energy to
those who participated in her rites. T h e cosmic principles, articulated as divine male and divine female, were ritually united in the temple because clearly only through
their continuing and repeated union could the fertility
o f the earth and the well-being o f a people be ensured.
Sacred prostitution was “nothing less than an act o f
communion with god (or godhead) and was as remote
from sensuality as the Christian act o f communion is
remote from gluttony. ” 8 O and all o f the women at
Roissy are distinguished by their sterility and bear no
resemblance whatsoever to any known goddess. No
mention is ever made o f conception or menstruation,
and procreation is never a consequence o f fucking. O ’s
fertility has been rendered O. T here is nothing sacred
about O ’s prostitution.
O ’s degradation is occasioned by the male need for
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Woman Hating
and fear of initiation into manhood. Initiation rites
generally include a period of absolute solitude, isolation, followed by tests of physical courage, mental endurance, often through torture and physical mutilation, resulting in a permanent scar or tattoo which marks the
successful initiate. The process of initiation is designed
to reveal the values, rites, and rules of manhood and
confers on the initiate the responsibilities and privileges
of manhood. What occurs at Roissy is a clear perversion of real initiation. Rene and the others mutilate O’s body, but they are themselves untouched. Her body
substitutes for their bodies. O is marked with the scars
which they should bear. She undergoes their ordeal
for them, endures the solitude and isolation, the torture, the mutilation. In trying to become gods, they have bypassed the necessary rigors of becoming men.
The fact that the tortures must be repeated endlessly,
not only on O but on large numbers of women who are
forced as well as persuaded, demonstrates that the men
o f Roissy never in fact become men, are never initiates,
never achieve the security of realized manhood.
What would be the sign of the initiate, the final mark
or scar, manifests in the case of O as an ultimate expression of sadism. The rings through O ’s cunt with Sir Stephen’s name and heraldry, and the brand on her ass,
are permanent wedding rings rightly placed. They
mark her as an owned object and in no way symbolize
the passage into maturity and freedom. The same might
be said o f the conventional wedding ring.
O,
in her never-ending role as surrogate everything,
also is the direct sexual link between Sir Stephen and
Rene. That the two men love each other and fuck each
Woman as Victim:
