The Story of O is an erotic novel published in France in 1954 and written by Pauline Réage (pen name for Anne Desclos). The novel is about a young Parisian fashion photographer known only as O who is taken into a BDSM relationship by her lover, René. The novel depics many acts such as whipping, branding, chaining, and piercing as well as vaginal, oral, and anal intercourse in a BDSM context.
The story describes O's development as a sex slave. In the beginning, she is taken into her lover's car to a mysterious château in Roissy, where she is trained to become a sex slave. After her training, René takes O as his personal slave and eventually shares her with Sir Stephen, his half-brother.
The author wrote this novel as a series of letters to her own lover, Jean Paulhan. Paulhan admired the Marquis de Sade's writings and claimed that no woman could write this way, prompting Desclos to write her own erotic fantasies as a challenge.
The novel has been very influential in erotic literature. As one of the first modern novels to describe women's fantasies in a woman's voice, many young women have been prompted to write their own erotic stories or memoirs after reading it. For many submissive women, reading the Story of O is a rite of passage and discovery.
