'... he (Rene) told her it was his intention that henceforth she should be shared by him and those of his choosing .... That she was dependent on him, and on him alone, even though she might receive orders from persons other than himself, whether he was present or absent .... That he would possess her as a god possesses his creatures .... He gave her only to reclaim her immediately, to reclaim her enriched in his eyes, like some common object which had been used for some divine purpose and has thus been consecrated. For a long time he had wanted to prostitute her, and he was delighted to feel that the pleasure he was deriving was even greater than he had hoped, and that it bound him to her all the more, as it bound her to him, all the more so because, through it, she would be more humiliated and ravaged. Since she loved him, she could not help loving whatever derived from him.

'The very idea that Rene could imagine giving up any part of her left O stunned. She had taken it as the sign that her lover cared more about Sir Stephen than he did about her. And too, although he had so often told her that what he loved in her was the object that he had made of her, her absolute availability to him, his freedom with respect to her, as one is free to dispose of a piece of furniture, which one enjoys giving as much as, and sometimes even more than, one may enjoy keeping it for oneself, she realised that she had not believed him completely.'

'... However offensive and insulting his conduct may have been, O's love for Rene remained unchanged. She considered herself fortunate to count enough in his eyes for him to derive pleasure from offending her, as believers give thanks to God for humbling them.'

'What lifts this fascinating book above mere perversity is its movement toward the transcendence of the self through a gift of the self . . . to give the body, to allow it to be ravaged, exploited, and totally possessed can be an act of consequence, if it is done with love for the sake of love.'