Three Eight One: Performance

 I found a disturbing article the other day. The article was positioned somewhere between sex advice and social criticism, and there was an underlying streak of derision there.

Someone had written for advice (but to where? why didn't I make notes?), asking why he felt so anxious and unhappy about telling his partners what he liked, or what his interests and kinks were. The response began by admonishing him-- by telling him that he was wrong (wrong!) even to bring up those things. The attitude in the response was very, very close to saying "How dare you!" The key moral failure was defined as "performativity". Let's think about that for a minute. 

The idea behind the answer was that any kink, any fetish, any particularized sexual interest was based on "performativity" and was by definition inauthentic. The idea seemed to be that anything that was particularized was asking someone to do something that wasn't real.

I could've understood an argument based on the idea that any kink reduced a partner to playing a role-- that this was exploitative from the beginning. I wouldn't have agreed, but I'd have understood that argument. What I couldn't accept was the idea that there is some essential, real sex that's the only sex anyone should be engaging in. There's some idea here that sex shouldn't involve stories.

I'm not going to talk about my own particular interests, but I'll note that sex for me has always been about stories-- recalling them, comparing them, reenacting them, creating them, shaping them. Our lives are made up of stories, not atoms-- that's an old saying that I've agreed with for years and years.  

Sex for me has always been about role-play. Not so much in the sense of cosplay, but in the sense that sex is a way to be other people, to exist inside stories I've created to share with a partner. Sex for me is always less about bodies than about stories. Sex for me is always about being part of something outside my quotidian self. It's about living inside something crafted. There's always the rush of sharing that crafting with a  lovely young companion-- imagining the setting, the lighting, the dialogue, the soundtrack, the backstories of our characters.

I can't imagine a sexual encounter, let alone an affair, that isn't constructed as a small film or a short story. I can't imagine not getting together with a lover to create characters and settings-- who we are, where we're from, how we got together. We both know who and what we are in quotidian life, but when we're together we're living inside something we've created, something that's...different and better.

I've always said that sex is about class as much as it is about flesh, that it's always threaded through with class signifiers: costume, setting, accessories and accoutrements.  Well-done sex is about being something other than what you've been told you are.

Performativity, yes-- performance, certainly. Sex is a chance to be and do things I can't be in this life. It's a chance to be a character in a book or a film, to be someone or something new and better and different. I may or may not be any good at the physical parts of sex, but I'm very good at creating stories and doing the world building for them. Sex is always performance, no matter how deep the emotions run between my partner and me.  And I can't give that up. 

Three Eight Zero: Conversation

 I've been thinking about the FMTY girl in Berlin who calls herself "Lucy Huxley". No-- not "thinking" in the sense of the Solitary Vice, but "thinking" in the sense of screenplays or stories.  

I've seen photos at Twitter of Ms. Huxley in lingerie, and she's quite lovely. I say that as someone who doesn't like his young companions in lingerie-- I always hope that they habitually sleep naked and wear just a man's dress shirt around their flats. Very good legs, too. Very kissable legs. And her deep-burgundy hair is done in what one of her Twitter admirers called The Short Red Bob of Hotness. Again, very lovely, very elegant.

But in some ways I'd rather see her in a black cocktail dress or a man-tailored suit. I'd rather imagine her sitting across a table from me over drinks. I don't know Berlin; it was never my city. So I can't say what neighborhood the restaurant would be in. I'll have to imagine her across from me in Vienna, at the restaurant at Albertina Passage on the Operngasse. It's all very sleek and sci-fi, and there's a very hip dance club adjoining. Ms. Huxley does write that she likes dance floor dates as part of her Girlfriend Experience services. Well...at least I know where the public transit stops are in that part of the Ring. If everything went bad, I'd least be able to get back to my hotel or my serviced flat.

It's probably far too parasocial, but I do spend time trying to imagine what Ms. H. and I would say to one another. I'm pretty sure that I'd spend a lot of time early on just...apologizing. I'd apologize for a lot of things-- my looks, my age, what I was wearing, my lack of wine knowledge, my ineptness on the dance floor. Yes, I'd try to quietly compliment her on her outfit and her looks. I'd want to acknowledge that she was very strikingly lovely, very professional, and that I was grateful to have been worked into her schedule. I'd try to do those things. But mostly I'd apologize.

There are things I can talk about. Or maybe things I used to be able to talk about. I have post-graduate degrees. I'm a voracious reader. I do know at least something about films and about some kinds of music. Vienna is always my city, and I should be able to talk about its history. These days, though, I find myself becoming increasingly inarticulate. I find myself less and less willing and/or able to actually have a conversation. I have less and less to say, and I'm more and more afraid to say anything at all. 

I have no idea what I'd say to Ms. H., and I'd be very afraid of not responding to the prompts she might offer me. She's a skilled professional, and she prides herself on her GFE skills. I know myself well enough to know that I'd probably miss her prompts. I'd sit there over my drink feeling like I wasn't good enough to be the client of a skilled professional. I'd be terrified that I was making her feel like her professional skills weren't appreciated or weren't good enough.

The actual business part of the evening-- the transfer of the fee --is probably the only thing that I wouldn't feel awkward about. I'd have Ms. Huxley's fee in crisp new bills in an envelope that was either fine Italian stationery or something Japanese and complicated. In a better world, now, I could take out a fountain pen and write a check (though I'd spell it "cheque")...though that might be a bit too niche and arcane even for me. 

Note: I'm an American citizen, which means I'd instantly present problems for any EU or UK bank if ever I tried to open an account. And these days, I think it's only the French who still write checks in Europe. Damn it, the cheque just might be a bad idea, here in the third decade of the century. 

Maybe I'd ask for a handwritten bill. There's nothing illegal about Ms. Huxley's profession in Germany, and I'd treat a handwritten bill for services (letterhead stationery, if possible) as a valued memento, as something I'd keep between the pages of my paper journal. I would enjoy the business part of things. I'd understand it, anyway...and I'd sigh over the idea of origami envelopes and fountain pens. The transfer of the fee would have cinema and literary possibilities, and I'd like those. 

The tip would have to be a separate thing, something done at the end of the evening, and I'd be less sure of handling it. I'm told that with FMTY girls, bank notes placed between the pages of an art book are always seen as well-done. I suppose I could do that. 

I still have no idea what I'd say to someone like Ms. Huxley. I'm not given to dominating conversations, and all I could do is wait for her prompts, follow her lead, and hope that my stories are good enough to make her feel like she's doing her job, and that her GFE skills are being appreciated. 

It matters to me that I don't make someone feel like her skills are wasted. It matters that I could be seen as somebody who understood the GFE idea. Of course it also matters that I don't feel like an idiot or a rube. It matters that I feel like I can be someone who fits into a world of FMTY girls with GFE skills.

Please don't let me look like a rube. I'd be praying to Athena all night over that. Please don't let me make a fool of myself. 

But I don't think I have any idea these days how to do anything social, let alone sexual. Ms. Huxley might not mind if a gentleman of my age and looks declined to be naked, and told her that he preferred just to sip his drink and listen to her tell stories or caress herself. She might not mind, since that would be easier for her. So maybe I would just be quiet and slightly withdrawn and let the music or the lighting or the architecture shape what happens. 

But I'd still miss being able to actually flirt and talk. And I'd still never figure out how to move the evening from the table in the Albertina Passage to my hotel room. Maybe I would just pay Ms. H. her fee and fade away to an S-Bahn stop. Without being able to say a word.

Three Seven Nine: Berlin

Last evening I discovered a new FMTY girl's channel at YouTube. She calls herself "Lucy Huxley" and her channel is called "The Whore's Bedroom". 

She's a Vancouver girl, an ex-ballet student who's ended up as a Berlin-based escort. Her YouTube videos all begin her sitting cross-legged on her bed in Berlin and talking about her life and career:"My name is Lucy. I'm a whore, and this is my bedroom." She talks about how she sees her job and her clients, and she tells stories from her life. 

Lovely girl-- auburn hair, maybe not quite thirty, lovely eyes, wry sense of humor. If I sound like I have a crush on her, well...of course I do. I like her voice, and I love the deadpan introduction: My name is Lucy. I'm a whore. I do like the way she makes the word sound. My own parasocial voices whisper to me that while I'd never have the money to book her, she'd be very likely to be someone I could have a conversation with. 

Huxley, she says-- she chose Aldous Huxley's name for her own work name. Well, I do like that. I like a few of Aldous Huxley's books ("Crome Yellow" and "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan" and "The Devils of Loudon") rather a lot, and for whatever it's worth, Aldous Huxley died on my birthday. How's that for a connection?

She explains in her first video that she has a firm policy-- any booking of three hours or more has to come with lunch or dinner, since she's a girl who gets hungry easily and becomes irritable when hungry. My first thought was...steak or Szechuan? It's all too easy to imagine booking her for four hours and spending half of the time talking over dinner.

She says that she prides herself on her Girlfriend Experience talents, and I have no doubt that she'd make a wonderful companion. Again, this is all very parasocial, but listening to her stories makes me believe that I'd feel secure enough with her to explain what my interests are and ask for the things that would give me pleasure. The sense of humor she has in her videos is dry as the Atacama Desert, and that's exactly to my tastes. 

I did follow the link to her Twitter feed, and she has excellent legs and a very knowing smile. That may well be all GFE marketing, but that's fine. I'd love to be able to talk with someone again, to be able to talk to a lovely girl who'd be willing to listen to me. She says that she's always liked older men-- ever since she was a budding ballerina --because, yes, they have financial security, but also because their stories are better. She says that she's never laughed at or mocked a client, and that she understands that many of her clients are just a bit afraid. Well, that's something that did make me sigh. You've read my last several entries. You'll understand that here in this grim and charmless year 2024 I am anxious and afraid of the idea of telling a lovely Young Companion anything at all about myself and my interests. 

Now one of her videos explained that she's based in Berlin and can visit clients all across the EU, and that she could certainly visit friends and family in Canada-- but that she's excluded by law from ever going to the US. Apparently, if you're a sex worker the US won't allow you entry (even though sex work is legal in Germany). I hadn't known that. Yet one more thing about US law that makes me shake my head in disbelief. It makes me very uncomfortable, too, that US Border Control monitors social media to help identify sex workers (even nude models) who might be trying to enter the US, even as nothing more than tourists. 

Well, I could never afford Ms. Huxley, but I do enjoy her YouTube videos, and I wish I could look across a table at someone like her and just say, This is what and who I am, and this is what I enjoy. Is that something you could work with? 

Here I am tonight, listening to hard rains falling over my city. In some better world Ms. Huxley and I would be talking over Campari-sodas about games and kinks and flirting shamelessly. I really would like to have a girl in my life and bed whose judgment I'm not afraid of, and whose skills and discretion I'd trust.

Three Seven Eight: Numbers

I had a long conversation with an old friend the other night. I've known him since grade school, and so we do know all about each other's lives. The other night he was talking about the incel  obsession with women's body counts. He despises incels on both aesthetic and political grounds, as do I. But he did tell me that he could understand the obsession with body counts, with how many sexual partners (or at least male sexual partners) a woman has had. 

It's not a moral thing for him. Not at all. It's fear of judgment. It's fear that a woman will immediately compare him to the male lovers in her past and that he'll be found wanting. He's competitive, and always has been. He and I have competed with one another over things like books read and films seen since ever we were schoolboys. And so he's always deeply anxious whenever he's involved with a woman who's had more than a bare handful of lovers in her life. He's terrified of being judged as incompetent or (worse) just mediocre in bed.

I can understand that. There's something soul-killing about the idea of a lovely girl in bed with you who's actually just recalling old TV shows in her head so that she won't seem too bored with you. There's something soul-killing about the idea of a girl sitting with her female friends the next day and dismissing you as mediocre.

Yes, I'm competitive. I always have been. I was brought up to believe that making a 95/100 was good, but not good enough. Even 100/100 might not be good enough. And what was worse was being seen to only get 95/100. Being seen to fail in any way would end with your social status being destroyed. 

I've been lucky. No young companion in my life has ever mocked me face to face. I've never had a girl yawn or fumble for the TV remote during sex with me.  I'm bright enough to know that it's possible that girls have been telling me soothing lies all through the years. I know that. But I haven't been mocked for failure. I haven't been mocked (so far as I know) for mediocrity.

But it does get harder to think of myself as worth anything in bed. Far too many Twitter feeds are devoted to sneering at "mediocre men" for their inability to induce pleasure in their partners. I do live in fear that somewhere girls with whom I had affairs years ago are using me as an example of an incompetent lover. 

Now there are other (if related) reasons for being concerned with body count numbers. I'll agree with Muriel Rukeyser that our lives are made up of stories, not atoms. And every affair, every encounter, spins off stories. If a girl has far more stories, or better stories than I do, then I feel my social status crumbling. If she has stories about being with a lover or a hook-up in cool places ("There was that time in the stacks at Sterling Library at Yale" or "There was that time in the back seat of the Aston-Martin") and I don't have similar tales to tell, well then-- why should she bother with me. Sex with me won't generate any stories worth telling.

There's envy here, too. There's always envy. Envy is the Deadly Sin that's always been my companion. If a girl has really good stories to tell about sex and adventures, I'll feel my old friend Envy making his appearance. I'll obsess over doing the things she's done, over having sex in the places that have enlivened her stories. We're not talking so much about the actual numbers in anyone's body count, we're talking about the stories derived from those numbers. We're talking about the fear that I won't have stories of my own that are good enough. We're talking about the fear that she'll have more and better stories than I ever will.

And we're talking about the way that I've always seen stories as social currency, as things that can be exchanged for social status. Good stories can be used to seduce, too. Good stories can build up a world that lovely young companions might want to visit with you.

I have no moral comments to make about a girl who has a high body count. But I do get anxious and envious when I'm afraid that her body count is the raw materials for stories that will only emphasize my own failures.

Three Seven Seven: Positivity

 I haven't been here in two months, and I'm sorry about that. This year hasn't been one where there's a lot to say about sex and romance. Everything this year has been about politics-- the war in Gaza, the upcoming election here. No one has time to think about sex and pleasure.

If there's been anything to say about sex, it's all been about the Trans Wars. That's not something I want to get involved with. After all, I still struggle to define "non-binary". And as someone who's boringly vanilla and cis-het, I have nothing to say about the Trans Wars. Well...I might have something to say about why "cis-het" is regarded as "boring". I might have something to say about why "boring" is the worst possible thing to be in an information economy. But we'll get to that later.

Tonight I'm thinking about why there's so little room for males to think about their bodies or explore their bodies. There's no social room at all for males to be "positive" about their bodies. There's really no way for males to think about their bodies outside of the gym, let alone to see their bodies as instruments for feeling pleasure. 

I can remember being very young and seeing photos from various James Bond films that showed one Bond Girl or another naked in a bed, partially covered by a sheet. I thought that was incredibly hot and alluring, but it never occurred to me that I or any other male could ever sleep naked. It just didn't seem like something anyone male did, and even at eleven or twelve I couldn't imagine why anyone male would ever sleep naked. 

I've always encouraged beautiful girls to sleep naked. That's one of those things-- like lovely Young Companions avoiding all underwear --that's a particular kink (or fetish) of mine. But it's not something I could ever do myself unless I was actually sleeping next to a Young Companion...and even then I'd have an urge to pull on gym shorts and a t-shirt. 

Girls I've spoken to have almost all told me that sleeping naked is one of the most freeing and delicious things they've done, especially with a breeze through a bedroom window. Girls tell me that there's a sense of empowerment (that word!) in being naked under crisp, fresh sheets, that there's a delight in feeling sensation from their bodies. Well, they trust their bodies, and that's not something I can do.

One girl spoke of never wearing underwear in a dress or skirt as feeling like "glory". "Glory" was actually her word.  It made her feel brave and made her feel at home in her body, she said. As a male, I can't feel anything about not wearing underwear except fear at the possibility of an impromptu and/or accidental circumcision. I also have a deep, deep fear based on the possibility of any...ahem...gastric upsets. 

But then...I can't even imagine being comfortable being shirtless. It took years for me to be able to wear shorts or go into a swimming pool. The male body seems to me designed to be something kept well-concealed. I can't imagine anything attractive about a male body, mine or anyone else's. That's just a blank space for me. I have good eyes (dark, brooding) and long, slender hands. Girls have paid me compliments on both. But I would assume that any compliment about my body was meant either in sarcasm or as a way to manipulate me. Worse, it might be a soothing lie. 

I can't think of anything that would be "empowering" about my body, or any male body. Male bodies are too vulnerable to mockery. If a woman tells you that your penis is tiny, it doesn't matter that you might actually be in the global top 1% for penis size-- if a woman says it's tiny, it's tiny. Any mockery of anything about a male body by a woman is alway, always true.  

Tonight I'm thinking that it's not possible to be male and do anything to derive pleasure from your body. There are no male equivalents of sex toys that aren't the stuff of mockery. Any male actions to make oneself feel at home inside one's body are risible.  Even caring about your body-- even being a gym rat --is regarded as suspect. 

Sexual pleasure is not something that society allows males to feel-- or at least not any physical pleasure, There's no male equivalent of the vast array of how-to books and videos about the female orgasm. The male body is regarded as something that allows you to walk, see, eat, sleep. It isn't supposed to be a sexual or sexualized object. 

I can't imagine doing anything to feel pleasure from my body. I can feel a kind of intellectual pleasure about sex-- doing things in a well-crafted story arc, doing things that create a story. But I can't feel anything like physical pleasure. I'll never be at home in my body, and I'll never feel anything like "empowered" by my body.

Three Seven Six: Episodes

 I've been thinking about scenes in s/m novels that have meant something to me over the years. There aren't so very many, and some scenes have just evaporated out of my memory. 

A couple of scenes do stand out. There's the opening chapter of "Story of O.", of course. That chapter marked me for life. I've talked about it before, but it has stayed in my mind. 

You know the scene. O. is in the backseat of a car being driven to Roissy. Her lover tells her to sit with her legs open and then removes her underwear. He tells her to lift up the back of her skirt and sit directly on the seat. She does all this without complaint, without a word. He unbuttons her blouse, produces a penknife, and cuts the straps of her bra. She will never, he tells her, wear either bras or underwear again. 

That small episode has stayed in my mind. It means a lot more to me than the later part of that chapter, where O. is taken and used by the male members at Roissy-- gang-violated I suppose, since she knows none of them, and no one asks for her consent. That part of things is hot enough, although it wasn't done terribly well in the 1973 film version (the Guido Crepax graphic novel did it much better). O. accepting her lover's instruction to be always bare under her skirts or slacks, to always sit so that she's aware that she could be seen-- that has meant a lot to me. O. is vulnerable and available, and perpetually aware of both. I've always liked that, and especially liked it that O. is so aware of how she's dressed. This is why I ask my young ladies to be bra-less and panty-free when they're out with me. Part of that is the sense of vulnerability, that there's nothing between her and the outside world. Part of it is the sense of availability, of her knowing that she could be seen or touched at any moment. I like it that she's aware of her body, aware that how she sits or bends or stands is something she now has to consider.

I've been lucky. My young ladies haven't been appalled by my request. They've been willing to do this thing for me. It's selection bias, I know. Any girl who's willing to be out with me or involved with me to begin with is likely to accept my version of what constitutes an Adventure. I've been lucky, and I'm very clear on that. 

The age difference helps as well. Co-eds and twenty-somethings see themselves (I think) as learning about the world, about checking off lists of new experiences. The age difference helps with that, as does the idea that they now have a Secret. 

There's another scene that I liked a lot-- it's the climactic scene in Joyce MacIver's "The Exquisite Thing". The ice-blonde heroine-- who's six foot two, something that does matter in the story --has always felt alienated from her body. The men and women she's been submissive to sexually throughout her life haven't given her a sense of being a body, of belonging inside her body. 

She's at last taken to a very exclusive, high-end sex club in Barcelona (or maybe Madrid) called La Jaula, The Cage. The man who brings her has her taken up on stage, introduced to the masked audience, stripped, and tied to a wooden horse. (Because I'm like I am, I obsessed over the being stripped part-- was she wearing underwear before she was stripped? did she keep her heels on or was she barefoot?) She's then whipped for the audience. For the first time in her life, she feels like she's inside her own body, that she belongs inside flesh. She of course has a shattering orgasm by candlelight there on the wooden horse. 

I read "The Exquisite Thing" when I was an undergraduate, and I do remember sitting in my window seat and reading it on a rainy summer afternoon. That scene...that scene...I was just amazed and thrilled. I think I envied the girl in the book-- not for the sexual submission, or the exhibitionism, but for the ability to stand up at six-two and walk up to the stage-- for the ability to actually throw herself into an Adventure. I envied her, too, the sense of inhabiting her own body, the sense of being able to feel that her body mattered.

Which of course may be something that all too-bookish academic types long for-- escaping the land of the word for the land of actual sensation.

In any case, you'll have read "Story of O.". If you're reading this at all, you'll have already read "Story of O.". But I'm rather certain that you've never read Joyce MacIver's "The Exquisite Thing". The novel came out c. 1970-- half a century ago. But it's worth your while to find. I think you'll enjoy it (as you might enjoy "The Frog Pond", Ms. MacIver's other novel). As for me, I wonder about how I'd behave as part of the audience at La Jaula, and whether I'd ever have the money or social presentation to be allowed into the club. I'm like that, of course. A club like that would be aspirational for, a chance to become part of a ritual and a story. But I'd never be allowed in. 

So... If you're reading this, what are the scenes in erotica that have meant something to you? Not just in s/m novels, but in any erotica, even the sorts of ghastly and unintentionally hilarious books sold in "adult bookstores" back in the 1970s and 1980s. High-end literary erotica is more my sort of thing, of course. How could it not be? I'm class-aspirational, over-educated, and something of a literary snob. 

But...I hope that if you're reading this, you'll tell me about scenes in novels that have meant something to you, that have shaped your own views of sex and sexual fantasy.

Three Seven Five: Roissy

 In Anne Rice's "Exit to Eden", the heroine recalls that her first glimpse of the world of S/M is finding a copy of Pauline Reage's "Story of O." when she was a high school girl frustrated and trapped by the ordinary world around her. That was something that caught my eye. 

Ms. Rice's heroine talks about finding "Story of O." in a discreet paperback with a white cover. I had to laugh at that, since that's exactly the edition I first read. I remember being fourteen or fifteen and finding an extract from "Story of O." (the notorious first chapter, it was) in an anthology called "The Evergreen Review Reader". You almost certainly won't remember the Evergreen Review. The original journal began its run in 1957 and ceased publication sometime in the early 1980s. It was "re-launched" seven or eight years ago, but I've never seen the new version and expect it's nothing at all like the original. 

The original Review mixed experimental and Beat fiction with leftist politics, but its claim to fame was publishing "dangerous" literature-- e.g., Wm. S. Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, Terry Southern, or Pierre Klossowski's Roberte ce soir. At fourteen or fifteen I was a literary kid, and I was looking for something that was hip and edgy and that might take me out of the world where I grew up.

So I read the extract in Evergreen Review and was...shattered. This was something far past anything I'd thought about at that age. A few months later I saw the full version in paperback at a bookstore near the local university. Just as Ms. Rice's heroine remarked, it was in a plain white cover. All very discreet, mind you. Grove Press (which also published Evergreen Review) did the paperback. I think it was later reprinted by Ballantine, still in that white cover. I bought a copy, and it's something that's been on my shelves ever since. The current softbound edition is in a larger format and has a black cover-- there's one there on my shelves, of course.

"Story of O." introduced me to the idea of S/M, yes. But it introduced me to something else as well. For me, "Story of O." was as much about class as it was about sex. Forever after, sex would be linked in my mind with social class. "Story of O." was originally in French, of course, and anything set in Paris was something that played to all my adolescent fantasies of escape and life overseas. And the action in  the novel takes place in hidden chateaux and exclusive clubs and the world of high fashion (O. is a fashion photographer). That became the world that I associated with sex. The physical part of sex was never as important (or maybe even not as necessary) as the setting. Set and setting became deeply important for me, and sex became something that happened only in settings that were literary and upscale.

Andrew Holleran always wrote that s/m is the intellectuals' kink, and I have to agree with that. S/M requires expensive accoutrements and expensive fashion. It requires a partner who is deeply aware of ritual and symbolism. People have said it before-- I'm pretty certain that I've said it before --that you could set "Story of O." in a middle-class suburb in Terre Haute or Atlanta, but then it would just be about abuse. Setting it in a chateau in a forest outside Paris makes it literary and full of baroque symbolism. I wanted that world, of course. I wanted desperately to escape to someplace, anyplace that wasn't the place where I was living at fourteen or fifteen. S/M done properly is sex that requires lots and lots of literary, religious, and artistic references-- sex with footnotes and an annotated bibliography. And that's what I wanted even then.

Ah-- the religious references? The author of "Story of O."-- Anne Desclos, writing as Pauline Reage and masked as Dominique Aury --told interviewers late in her life that to understand "O." you needed to read "Letters of a Portuguese Nun". I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader, and I'll recommend the documentary "Writer of O." both for its insights into how and why the novel was written and for some very lovely dramatizations of scenes from the book. The c. 1973 French film version of "O." wasn't bad, but the fashions and soundtrack are dreadful Seventies things that haven't held up at all.

I quite empathized with Anne Rice's heroine. "Story of O." sends the teen heroine of "Exit to Eden" off into a life (and career) in a world of moneyed and stylish S/M. I'll never be able to buy the services of a lovely, educated submissive on a private island, but I have told people that the novel made me think of sex as a set of baroque rituals-- that it could never, never be just about bodies. 

In that opening chapter of "O.", O.'s lover cuts off her bra and underwear in the back of a limousine and tells her that she'll never wear either again. That became something I've asked the various young ladies of my acquaintance to do-- it's a signature move for me. So that's one thing I took from the novel, just as "O." made me go read Mark Girouard's "Life in the French Country House". Sex requires the proper architecture-- always.

No girl. they say, was ever ruined by a book, and more's the pity. When I was in graduate school, I worked in a small, independent bookstore, and I made sure that we carried "Story of O." and recommended the novel to many a shy and bookish girl from the nearby Catholic academy. I hope that least a few of them found an older lover who'd help them experiment with silk blindfolds and candle wax and riding crops. I hope at least one or two went on the world of hidden chateaux and baroque dreams.