The book begins with a Biblical story where a powerful woman beheads an Assyrian general. Then, the narrator begins the book with a dream about Venus in furs talking about how a woman’s cruel nature can increase a man’s desire.
The narrator wakes up and goes to meet Severin, a strange man with a temper problem. The narrator tells Severin his dream and while they talk, the narrator sees a painting in Severin’s room depicting Venus in a similar fashion in which the narrator dreamt about her.
Their discussion is interrupted when a woman enters the room with food and drinks and Severin chases her away, saying that it is better is a man breaks a woman before she can break the man. After that, Severin tells the narrator about a manuscript he wrote, entitles ‚’Confessions of a Suprasensual Man’’.
In the manuscript, we find that Severin felt in love with a woman name Wanda at a Carpathian resort. Because Severin loves her, they sign a contract and he becomes Wanda’s slave. At first, because Wanda also loves him, refuses to behave herself in an uncalled for manner but then she slowly starts to like the dominant position she has and becomes more and more sadistic. Even if sometimes she thinks about breaking the contract, the power she has over him stops her from doing so.
They both leave for Florence and there, Wanda falls in love with another man. She expresses his intentions to make Severin her lover’s slave as well but he refuses.
The story is brought back into the actual world where Severin and the narrator talk about the moral of the story, and that is that a woman can only be a man’s slave or despot and that this unbalance can only be solved is the woman has the same rights as the man and is she is his equal both in education and work.
