Some day ago a friend of mine told me that she found "The Story of O" disturbing after she read the storyline of the movie based on the novel. I first watched the movie and then read the novel when I was dating AN. It was some eight or ten years ago. It really doesn't matter about the exact time, but my point is: I was young and newly explored to sex ( thanks to AN) and I was exthusiastic about any sub-cultural notion of sex, including SM. That was the time when I was reading a lot of Simond Fraud and "The Second Sex".
"Isn't 'The Story of O' about SM?" My friend asked me on Google Chat. I admitted that and added, "It is more than that. It is about Feminism". "Feminism" is a very good excuse when you try to rationale your motivation for viewing erotic movies. Yet deeply in heart I am debating myself on the case of "O". Is it really a feminism? Now that I have given the movie a second thought, I find the main theme is about this idea of ownership, the power struggles between male and female, or that between O and Sir Stephen, in this case. In order to proof her love to Sir Stephen, O has to claimed to be the slave of Sir Stephen. In the name of love, O entered Russie to be trained into a sex slave and accepted group rapes and whippings all the time. In the name of love, she has accepted a permanent mark of "SH" ( Sir Stephen's initials) on her body and continued to be slaved by Sir Stephen. O was proud of what she was doing all the time because she believed that was the way for her to show her persistance of true love. In terms of her homosexual relationship with the model Jacline, O was simply acting as what her previous and her current male lover had done to her. In other words, she was acting patriarchal power upon the poor innocent Jacline. Sex desire has no doubt turned O into an attractive woman, yet is it self-liberation? Is O a feminist warrior or a stubborn victim?
I remembered in the book O was dumpted by Sir Stephen after he had lost his interest on her. Then O asked for his permission to commit suicide and Sir Stephen agreed. The movie, on the contrary, ended with O burnning Sir Stephen's hand by her smoking head. In terms of this, I reassure myself that the movie is a feminist one, but I still find it hard to justify the book though. I also wonder why a female writer would come up with such ending. I guess I need to reaccess to the book, or more important, do some background check on Pauline Réage. For now, the movie just reminds me one thing:
But Love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The follies that themselves commit. -- Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
