Catherine Robbe-Grillet (née Rstakian; born 24 September 1930 in Paris) is a French writer, dominatrix, photographer, and theatre and film actress who has published sadomasochistic writings under the pseudonyms Jean de Berg and Jeanne de Berg. She is a central figure in postwar European SM literature and in lifestyle dominance as lived practice. For BDSM readers her name links the mid-century Minuit novel L’Image to later ceremonial femdom writing and to documentary attention as a working dominatrix.
Her writing career began with a deliberate identity swap. In 1956 she published the sadomasochistic novel L’Image under the male pen name Jean de Berg at Éditions de Minuit. The dual identity—a woman using a male pen name for a female-coded SM narrative—remains part of the book’s afterlife. Radley Metzger adapted the novel into the 1975 arthouse erotic film The Image, also known as The Punishment of Anne—a clear case of literary SM crossing into cinema.
Her pen-name strategy shifted with the work. As Jeanne de Berg she wrote Cérémonies de femmes (Éditions Grasset, 1985), published in English as Women’s Rites (1987), turning toward ceremonial SM and lifestyle dominance. In 2002 she published Entretien avec Jeanne de Berg under her own name. In 2004, again under her own name, she wrote Jeune mariée: Journal, 1957–1962 (Fayard), an account of the early years of her marriage to French writer and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet; he died in February 2008. Later came Le Petit Carnet Perdu (March 2007, Fayard) as Jeanne de Berg, and Correspondances and Alain (both Fayard, 2012) under her own name. Jean de Berg for the classic Minuit SM novel, Jeanne de Berg for ceremonial and notebook texts, Catherine Robbe-Grillet for interview, marriage journal, correspondence, and memorial writing about Alain.
She had a small part in L’Immortelle (1963) as Catherine Sarayan. Her last appearance as an actress was on stage in 2016, in Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras, directed by Beverly Charpentier—late public life still tied to French literary theatre as well as SM authorship.
She was featured in Maya Gallus’s 1997 documentary Erotica: A Journey Into Female Sexuality. In 2014 she was the subject of The Ceremony, which examines her life as a lifestyle dominatrix and member of the BDSM community. That film treats her dominance as ongoing practice and social world, not only as a literary brand. Core titles remain L’Image (as Jean de Berg, Minuit, 1956); Cérémonies de femmes / Women’s Rites (as Jeanne de Berg, 1985 / English 1987); Entretien avec Jeanne de Berg (2002); Jeune mariée (2004); Le Petit Carnet Perdu (2007); Correspondances and Alain (both 2012). Her legacy for BDSM culture is double: foundational and ceremonial SM texts under carefully chosen masks, and a public dominatrix life whose marriage to Alain Robbe-Grillet, Metzger adaptation, Duras stage work, and The Ceremony keep literature, lifestyle D/s, and French cultural prestige in one biography.
