The Story of O

I have debated whether or not to post about this book because I hated everything about it.  Then I thought to myself "If I don't post about it, that could be considered a form of censorship". Since I do not support censorship of books, I finally decided to post something.  I think my opinion is just my opinion and it should not keep anyone from accessing the book if they still wish to read it after I share my two cents.  

First a little background: This book was controversial when it was first published in France in 1954 because it was written by a woman using a pseudonym and it contains very violent scenes of S&M.  There was a big to-do about who was this mystery woman who wrote this book.  Eventually after she revealed herself (40 years later) it turns out she initially wrote the story as a series of love letters to her lover at the time who was an admirer of the Marquis de Sade.

Now with that being said, I think if you like the erotica genre and you want to read a little something something, hey to each his own.  I'm not so much into it, but this is one of those books that has been sitting on my shelf forever and a day.  I think I bought it used when I was in college in the late 90s.  Anyway, I always thought erotic stories were supposed to still include a little bit of love.  This story's main character, O, is beaten, raped in all orifices, gang raped, chained, burned, pierced and made to be submissive in every way.  Apparently she consents to all this, but every time something bad happens she's screaming and crying!  It's violent.  I glossed over most of those scenes.  She does all this because she supposedly loves this guy named Rene, but he just passes her off to the next guy, Sir Stephen, and he does all the same bullsh*t to her. Then she supposedly falls in love with Sir Stephen but he then hands her off to the next guy!  So essentially she is prostituted by the first boyfriend and passed along until by the end of the story she is completely objectified and is no longer really considered a person.  Nobody acknowledges her except to use her body.  It's horrible.  To top it all off, from the middle of the book onward, she is cajoled into trying to "recruit" more women into this sex slave business. If you do some research online you will find many treatises about how this book is an offense to women even though it was written by a woman.  I was disgusted by the degradation of the main character.  The fact that there was actually no real love story just made me feel like I was reading a crime novel because the things that were being done had absolutely nothing to do with love.