The Story of O

This book was given to me as a gift, and the lessons it taught me as I read those ancient pages.

It had me clutching my pearls, and it disgusted me at other parts, but at the same time, I wanted/needed to read that book in order to write a book in that style. 

I was first introduced to The Story of O in a college psychology book, where a three-paragraph exerpt was listed, which I read and reread, over and over.

I needed the entire book, but since this was around 1987, finding one in a bookstore in Chattanooga (also known as the buckle of the bible belt) proved difficult. A friend found me a copy in Atlanta, and I devoured it.

I’d known something wasn’t normal about my sexual tastes, and this told me at least one more person on the planet felt the same as me. I wasn’t certain what to… show more.

She’s a beautiful young fashion photographer. He’s a gentleman of means and very specific tastes. When her lover introduces her to a world of refined tortures and illicit pleasure, the only question is how far she’ll go for love. I love it because who doesn’t love a good banned book? This is one of the most infamous, the French phenomena that inspired the modern kink movement. The Triskelion features prominently here, and can still be found on collars across the world. The novel itself follows a young woman’s self-inflicted enslavement to a mysterious secret society, and is probably the only… show more.

Years ago I was hired to do a tv biopic movie on the inception and writing of this book. Although the movie never got made I did get to meet Pauline the authoress, an extraordinary figure in her eighties who originally wrote the book as an anonymous love letter to her married publisher lover. She deliberately remained anonymous as the writer until the 1970s - up until then a number of men claimed to have written it as it was then considered impossible that a woman could have written such raunchy sadomasochism. I love it for its visual detail –… show more.