Interests
The Story of O
Pauline Regsné
Year read: 1962, my age, approximately 21
I had read a review of this book in the New Yorker, which explained that it was banned in the U. S., but available for travelers in France. When I went to Paris that summer, I picked it up and read it during my motorcycle trip around Europe and North Africa with Matthew, Walter, and Aggie. Matthew read it too and observed that the man were actually O's slaves.Erotically explicit literature was not yet available in the United States. (The Lady Chatterly decision was about a year later, and it took about five more years before there was complete freedom to publish as a result of a series of court decisions pressed for the most part by Barny Rosset of Grove Press and Evergreen Review.) Therefore this was one of the first examples of erotically explicit literature I read, and I was impressed by its delving into the impulses for ecstasy and surrender in the psyche. The Story of O epitomized the literary eroticism of the period.Related works that also influenced me were the short piece, Madame Eduarda and later the novel The Story of the Eye, both by George Bataille, and Victorian pornography such as The Pearl and Romance of Lust. These works influenced me in my erotic activities and in the writing of a book, John and Mimi, A Free Marriage, with my wife.
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