File:Roissy triskelion iron ring signet.png

One depiction or artistic rendering of the Roissy "triskelion" ring, as described in the "Histoire d'O" by Pauline Réage: It was made of "dull grey" polished iron, and lined inside with gold (presumably to avoid staining the skin of the finger). On top, the ring had an iron signet disk that was fairly large (relative to the size of a woman's ring), with a slightly-raised convex shape, which "for design bore a three-spoked wheel inlaid in gold, with each spoke spiraling back upon itself like the solar wheel of the Celts". This is a very basic depiction (using only simple cylinder and disk shapes, shown in a simple "isometric projection" pseudo-perspective) -- in an actual ring, the perpendicular angles should of course be rounded, and the top of the signet disk (here shown flat) should be slightly convex.

In the "Story of O" novel, this is a female sexual submission and recognition symbol. Each woman who has been to Roissy wears such a ring to attest to those in the know that her lover or husband is her master, and that she obeys him and allows him to make use of her body whenever and however he wishes. Theoretically, when any other man who is a member of the book's secret society spots a woman wearing such a ring, then if he shows her the matching disk he usually keeps concealed (at the end of a watch chain etc), he will have the powers of a temporary master over her, and she must obey him as a sex slave during their encounter (though no incident of this type actually occurs among the events recounted in the novel).

For a different symbol somewhat loosely inspired by the Roissy ring, see BDSM Emblem

Licensing

By AnonMoos, released under GFDL (now modified to GFDL/CC-BY-SA dual license by a global licensing update; see File:Roissy_triskelion_iron_ring_signet.svg on Wikimedia Commons ).

I, the author of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this image under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "Text of the GNU Free Documentation License." This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license version 3.0. You may select the license of your choice.