Story of O. And questions regarding Return to the Chateau, of the non did Pauline Reage write this variety.

Yes she wrote Return and I wrote O to piss my mother off.

So there we have it.

One thing that I can't get out of my mind, is when O is on the boat to a party, wearing an Owl mask with that beautiful music and the moonlight and wind on her body covered by a simple garment. O looks so free, so graceful, so submissive. I must have mentioned the word free a few times whenever I talk about O, or even submission in general, I suppose by free I mean non repressed, not oppressed. I can't speak about whether she is free because she is no longer human as quoted from someone and also because she is a sexual slave now and she has disengaged from herself. I need to go back to the book and this post is about a few of my thoughts regarding the movie Histoire De O.

Critics talk about glamourising. Movies glamourise guns and they glamourise drugs. Things that are not supposed to be glamourised. But they also glamourise prostituion and sex. O is not about prostitution no matter what a critic will say,and like I have said before no one in their sane mind watches Pretty Woman and then joins a hooker agency.

But there is no reason BDSM should remain seedy. Or "wrong." As if it is like shooting someone or taking heroine. Or even infedility. So if BDSM is glamourised, so be it. For me the movie has moments of beauty and a style that is glamourous no doubt but certainly we see O's pain when she is whipped. When she shakes her head, that comes across as real. I don't feel it is selling BDSM, but the ending of the movie, taking it further than where O is at Sir Stephen's total command and will at the party in her owl mask, and contuining on to her talking to Sir Stephen about Jacqueline's induction at the Chateau ..it goes back to the love theme. I quote from someone else, in love are we, any of us, the Dominant or the submissive ever free?

And it seems like O is more palatable if it is a love story. She is doing this for Rene and then Sir Stephen. She wouldn't just become a sexual slave "just like that," it must be for love! But I'm not going to take issue with the author's idea and with the film maker's ending or even the reason the story of O came into existence.

I enjoyed the movie but for Jacqueline. I think the actress who played Jac has probably the most exquisite bone structure and facial features that I have seen on screen but she was dull. Now perhaps she is like that in the book but I watched this movie called The Image which is based on a somewhat classic BDSM book and the young woman there is a model, a pretty object and a submissive, but the actress who played her was quite good. I just couldn't care less about Jac. One thing I liked was the fact she was no questions asked submissive and I took that in that way rather than the fact that her face just couldn't show us any emotions if it tried. Sorry to sound bitchy but come on O is a little in love with Jac..I as the audience shouldn't be left to wonder how the heck this could possibly be, it would be like falling in love with your favourite Barbie. There's no depth and O I could relate to despite what the critics of the story say, as a woman of depth.

My favourite parts of the movie are the ending I'm on the fence about even though adaptations should have their freedom and the beginning of the movie. The two beginnings. O's journey to total submission and obeying her lover Rene. The beginning and end mark the two points in her journey so far where O has evolved into a sexual slave.

There's a philosophy, another one, that total posession is to give away because you know you can do that, that O is Rene's property, he possesses her completely so he can give her away..to Sir Stephen. Baring in mind, Stephen is no stranger to Rene.

So no more questioning motives, why is O doing this, why is Rene doing this, who is Sir Stephen beyond the older male and Dominant figure, what is the story of O really about...I watched a movie about a woman's journey into becoming a sexual slave. I don't know how accurate it is but I know it wasn't inaccurate and that the actress who played O had grace and charisma. And there was style mixed with substance. It's not like the book, the book is grittier but it wasn't a stupid movie. I liked it as much as The Image because it wasn't The Secretary, because O and The Image is about submission in terms of slavery, in terms of slavery over love in the sense they are both not conventional stories and I'm bored of The Secretary and I'm bored with even the lesser conventional love stories. I'm no cynic and I believe in love, I will fall in love fully I know it, but I'm worried about the importance people place on it, as if we have no worth without it, but that's for another time.

Now, I am interested and curious about Return of Chateau. I have read reviews which say it's more disengaged, the author of O can not have written this! But, I am all the more curious to read a book which is about sexual slavery. Perhaps O is not written well...perhaps the author thinks she has no personality because she is a sexual slave..oh that just makes me more curious because I really have to read it and see a journey of a sexual slave. How has O changed in her personality? And I want to believe that what has been written is that O has changed in her personality but the world has misunderstood a strong sexual slave girl for an disinterested, bored left over of a character. I want to believe someone wrote a sequel in which they gave an account of sexual slavery, full with imperfect characters except the character of O, who knows who she is and will carry on in her mission and the world unless they live it will continue to relate abuse to sexual slavery and unworthiness. As for Sir Stephen, does he leave O? And is this the book that has the "other ending" to O? Where she kills herself seeing as she is no longer Sir Stephen's slave.