[1] It took its name from Samois-sur-Seine, the location of the fictional estate of Anne-Marie, a lesbian dominatrix character in Pauline Réage's erotic novel Story of O, who pierces and brands O.
The co-founders were writer Pat Califia, who identified as a lesbian at the time, Gayle Rubin, and sixteen others.
[2][3] Samois was strongly rebuked (and sometimes picketed) by Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM), an early anti-pornography feminist group.
Samois members felt strongly that their way of practicing sadomasochism was entirely compatible with feminism, and held that the kind of feminist sexuality advocated by WAVPM was conservative and puritanical.
[4] The book Coming to Power, edited by members of the Samois group and published in 1981, was a founding work of the lesbian BDSM movement.