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
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
60
Woman Hating
defined, is the perversion of the mystic experience; it is
by its very nature demonic because its goal is power,
its means are violence and oppression. It spills the blood
of its victim and in doing so estranges itself from life-
giving union. O’s lover thinks that she gives herself
freely but if she did not, he would take her anyway.
Their relationship is the incarnation of demonic possession:
Thus he would possess her as a god possesses his
creatures, whom he lays hold of in the guise of a monster or bird, of an invisible spirit or a state of ecstasy.
He did not wish to leave her. The more he surrendered
her, the more he would hold her dear. The fact that
he gave her was to him a proof, and ought to be for
her as well, that she belonged to him: one can only
give what belongs to you. He gave her only to reclaim
her immediately, to reclaim her enriched in his eyes,
like some common object which had been used for some
divine purpose and has thus been consecrated. For a
long time he had wanted to prostitute her, and he was
delighted to feel that the pleasure he was deriving
was even greater than he had hoped, and that it bound
him to her all the more so because, through it, she
would be more humiliated and ravished. Since she
loved him, she could not help loving whatever derived
from him. 6
A precise corollary of possession is prostitution. The
prostitute, the woman as object, is defined by the usage
to which the possessor puts her. Her subjugation is the
signet o f his power. Prostitution means for the woman
the carnal annihilation o f will and choice, but for the
man it once again signifies an increase in power, pure
and simple. To call the power o f the possessor, which he
Woman as Victim: Story of O
61
demonstrates by playing superpimp, divine, or to confuse it with ecstasy or communion, is to grossly misunderstand. “All the mouths that had probed her mouth, all the hands that had seized her breasts and
belly, all the members that had been thrust into her had
so perfectly provided the living proof that she was
worthy o f being prostituted and had, so to speak, sanctified her. ” 7 O f course, it is not O who is sanctified, but Rene, or Sir Stephen, or the others, through her.
O ’s prostitution is a vicious caricature o f old-world
religious prostitution. T h e ancient sacral prostitution
o f the Hebrews, Greeks, Indians, et al., was the ritual
expression o f respect and veneration for the powers o f
fertility and generation. T h e priestesses/prostitutes o f
the temple were literal personifications o f the life energy
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
62
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