The irons attached to the left lobe of her belly cleft, proclaiming in bold letters that she was Sir Stephen's personal property, came about a third of the way down her thigh and, at every step, swung back and forth between her legs like the clapper of a bell, the inscribed disk being heavier and longer than the ring to which it was attached. The marks made by the branding iron, about three inches in height and half that in width, had been burned into the flesh as though by a gouging tool, and were almost half an inch deep: the lightest stroke of the finger revealed them. From these irons and these marks, O derived a feeling of inordinate pride. Had Jacqueline been there, instead of trying to conceal from her the fact that she bore them, as she had tried to hide the traces of the welts raised by the riding crop which Sir Stephen had wielded during those last days before her departure, she would have gone running in search of Jacqueline, to show them to her. But Jacqueline was not due back for another week. During that week, O, at Sir Stephen's behest, had several summer dresses made, and a number of evening gowns of a very light material. He allowed her only two models, but let her order variations on both: one with a zipper all the way down the front O already had several like it , the other a full skirt, easy to lift, always with a corselet above, which came up to below the breasts and was worn with a high-necked bolero.

Within a patriarchal society gender is a binary vision of dominant masculinity and a submissive femininity that serves to provide a passive medium upon which the male subject can exercise his desires. Owing to the emergence of feminism the contemporary gender balance has become increasingly equitable and, following their history of subjugation, women have now become enfranchised. To a modern readership female sexual submission is therefore queer owing to its embodiment and re-enactment of anachronistic patterns of gender relation. Through the enforcement of a strict disciplinary programme the men of Roissy attempt to eliminate the threat to their autonomy posed by female emancipation.

Desclos did not reveal herself as the author for forty years after the initial publication. Desclos claims she wrote the novel as a series of love letters to her lover Jean Paulhan , [1] who had admired the work of the Marquis de Sade. The novel shares with the latter themes such as love, dominance and submission.