Le Marquis de Sade

[ProfessorPendark]

I have always found him to be a fascinating study, both in literary terms and in sociopolitical terms. I have made an intense study of his work, with particular interest in his letters from prison. I will post my thoughts about him and his work here. But I'd like to hear from you as well. Have you studied him? What do you think of his writing? And do you believe that it has an impact on the practice of BDSM and its various branches today?

 

[ProfessorPendark]

I think that my favorite quote is

"You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit othere is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being, the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness - it means more to me than my life itself... "

I believe he has struck upon the very nature of independent will and free thinking. He doesn't negate the idea that his mind may change if he changes it according to his conscience; but that it will not be changed because some other person or group demands it. He states that his thinking is the result of his reflections. Introspection and self reflection require that we establish where we stand, what we will and won't do, and our conviction as to why. Who we are, according to our free will, must then become a concrete foundation for our actions. Our lives are the result of who we are and what we do.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

Names that have been applied to me include 'dorph junkie' 'pain pig' .'masochist'. Pain is my freind, carefully controlled sexual pain is the end all and be all.

My issue with MdS is sustainability. You don't buy a Shelby Cobra and then run it off of a cliff. You love and treasure it. You enjoy being in it (wink, wink, nod, nod) you ride it hard, put it away wet and do the same tomorrow and Wednesday...

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[ProfessorPendark]

"How delightful are the pleasures of the imagination! In those delectable moments, the whole world is ours; not a single creature resists us, we devastate the world, we repopulate it with new objects which, in turn, we immolate. The means to every crime is ours, and we employ them all, we multiply the horror a hundredfold."
(Fromrosperities Du Vice)

Here, I believe, is a clue to the question, "Did he really do all those things?" During his day, the literary depiction of torture, sodomy, homosexuality, and the various other "dirty things" about which he wrote, was a jailable offense. I am of the OPINION, that he wrote volumes more than he actually practiced. I think his object was to stir the imagination of the people to things so far outside the law of the time, that they would readily oppose those laws that were oppressive by their very nature.

By harboring and promoting Libertinism, he was also promoting liberty as a whole. I believe he was overzealous and I personally do not share his abject atheism. But, from his words I have taken my belief that any power, whether theistic or governmental of nature, which seeks to suppress the free will, is to be despised. For me, that would include the "other side of the coin." Any Libertarian, Liberal, or Atheist movement, which seeks to circumvent or destroy the free will of others to practice and live as they see fit; is also to be despised. Because to either exteme is the exact opposite of free will and free agency of humankind.

 

[ProfessorPendark]

Names that have been applied to me include 'dolph junkie' 'pain pig' .'masochist'. Pain is my freind, carefully controlled sexual pain is the end all and be all.

My issue with MdS is sustainability. You don't buy a Shelby Cobra and then run it off of a cliff. You love and treasure it. You enjoy being in it (wink, wink, nod, nod) you ride it hard, put it away wet and do the same tomorrow and Wednesday...

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

A fair point. His zealotry for the "dark and filthy" would be unsustainable in today's culture. It is not practical to keep dungeons in the basement, or to simply buy some young girl from a maddame to take home and practice on. In some ways, I believe the political correctness culture has made matters just as "puritanical" as they were then, but for different reasons. Just being known to practice such things can set you up for attack from fringe groups supposedly acting to "protect" people. Announce to the wrong woman that you'd like to flog her and you might get charged with rape in a couple of towns.

Balance definitely depends upon finding the right partner, creating a sustainable practice, and acting within full consent and safety. But, it sure is fun to imagine the darker stuff.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just remember, you asked!

Some time around 2003-2007, my partner and I showed our girlfriend a movie that, to us, was a cinematic milestone, creative and original. But she wasn't impressed. The problem was, we had seen this movie at the time it came out, and by the time we showed it to our girlfriend it was ten years old. By that stage it had spawned a bunch of imitators, and while she hadn't seen the original she'd seen the imitators. So for her there wasn't much new in it.

I suspect that's part of my reaction to de Sade. He casts a long shadow over modern erotica, and whatever he added that was worthwhile has been picked up and developed by countless later writers. Without putting a lot of work into textual analysis it's hard for me to gauge his contribution. I don't feel like doing that work, so I can only go off my impressions.

I tried reading some of his work (either "Justine" or "Juliette", it's been a while) and I bounced off it pretty hard. To me, it felt like a rebellious teenager trying to shock by throwing out all the most obscene ideas he could imagine - "and then we fuck her with a poo!" yada yada. For me, it felt like MdS was trying waaaay too hard and it triggered my eye-roll reflex.

Not being a 17th-century Frenchman or a literary historian, it's hard to gauge how his words would've affected me in their original context. Perhaps it would've been my first encounter with some of the concepts of individualism that you mention? But it wasn't.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

OK, up the down staircase as usual...

No offence, but I’m not sure the Marquis made a lasting dent in either literature or modern sexual practises. There was hardly much in his work sharing the ‘safe, sane and consensual’ concept so important to modern ‘mainstream’ BDSM. And there had certainly been BDSM-themed literature before de Sade. Sorry, but I remain unconvinced.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

A fair point. His zealotry for the "dark and filthy" would be unsustainable in today's culture. It is not practical to keep dungeons in the basement, or to simply buy some young girl from a maddame to take home and practice on. In some ways, I believe the political correctness culture has made matters just as "puritanical" as they were then, but for different reasons. Just being known to practice such things can set you up for attack from fringe groups supposedly acting to "protect" people. Announce to the wrong woman that you'd like to flog her and you might get charged with rape in a couple of towns.

Balance definitely depends upon finding the right partner, creating a sustainable practice, and acting within full consent and safety. But, it sure is fun to imagine the darker stuff.

While I do not disagree with your point there is another one to be made. FSA I am 60, my high school cross country coach introduced me (in a totally non-sexual way) to endorphins 45 years ago. Oh they are yummy. I discovered that I could access endorphins sexually say 40 years ago. My lovers have kept me high and quite damp for 40ish years.

The MdS has a penchant for literarilly (I guess that is better than literally) terminating his lovers. To me that is most decidedly not hot.

The slave who figurativly lives and dies for you is totally hot, actually doing it is not hot at all.

I offered my corporeal being and my soul to another 42 years ago. Our relationship is scorching hot today. I would step off of a cliff if he asked me to. And that is a meaningless statement because he treasures me and would never ask such an idiotic thing.

I am relatively certain that my 90 year old father paddles my 85 year old mothers butt before he buggers her. I plan to follow in thier very kinky footsteps.

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[htester]

Great topic! As a woman, I hated de Sade, but I acknowledge small (very small) parts of him. I loved Philosophy in the Bedroom and saw it as proto-feminist where the female partner felt equal to the male trainer, but I hated the usage of a barely legal teen being prepared for her father. I super-hated Justine as that character barely had any agency. I loved his explicit terminology which shows horniness didn't just exist in the 20th century (and Philosophy is definitely representative of that). I just wish he were a tad more reverential of his female victims -

 

[ProfessorPendark]

OK, up the down staircase as usual...

No offence, but I’m not sure the Marquis made a lasting dent in either literature or modern sexual practises. There was hardly much in his work sharing the ‘safe, sane and consensual’ concept so important to modern ‘mainstream’ BDSM. And there had certainly been BDSM-themed literature before de Sade. Sorry, but I remain unconvinced.

There were several before him. And have been myriad after. But, we tend to judge such things based on our modern times and sensibilities.


Remember, that he was defying a social order wherein the mere discussion of the acts he is said to have practiced, was worthy of the removal of one's liberty.

"Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain." (Marquis de Sade)

 

[ProfessorPendark]

Just remember, you asked!

Some time around 2003-2007, my partner and I showed our girlfriend a movie that, to us, was a cinematic milestone, creative and original. But she wasn't impressed. The problem was, we had seen this movie at the time it came out, and by the time we showed it to our girlfriend it was ten years old. By that stage it had spawned a bunch of imitators, and while she hadn't seen the original she'd seen the imitators. So for her there wasn't much new in it.

I suspect that's part of my reaction to de Sade. He casts a long shadow over modern erotica, and whatever he added that was worthwhile has been picked up and developed by countless later writers. Without putting a lot of work into textual analysis it's hard for me to gauge his contribution. I don't feel like doing that work, so I can only go off my impressions.

I tried reading some of his work (either "Justine" or "Juliette", it's been a while) and I bounced off it pretty hard. To me, it felt like a rebellious teenager trying to shock by throwing out all the most obscene ideas he could imagine - "and then we fuck her with a poo!" yada yada. For me, it felt like MdS was trying waaaay too hard and it triggered my eye-roll reflex.

Not being a 17th-century Frenchman or a literary historian, it's hard to gauge how his words would've affected me in their original context. Perhaps it would've been my first encounter with some of the concepts of individualism that you mention? But it wasn't.

It is most certainly a difficult collection to get through without being offended. I think that was much of his point. His writing was a purposeful mix of vulgarity and philosophy. The concepts were meant to shock. This very message board proves one if his philosophies.

"If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be."

We revel in the dirty. We fantasize, play, we duscuss everything from crossdressing to full on muti-partner BDSM. Thankfully, certain concepts are still taboo here. But the existence of a forum of this nature shows that Libertinism is alive and well.

 

[ProfessorPendark]

Great topic! As a woman, I hated de Sade, but I acknowledge small (very small) parts of him. I loved Philosophy in the Bedroom and saw it as proto-feminist where the female partner felt equal to the male trainer, but I hated the usage of a barely legal teen being prepared for her father. I super-hated Justine as that character barely had any agency. I loved his explicit terminology which shows horniness didn't just exist in the 20th century (and Philosophy is definitely representative of that). I just wish he were a tad more reverential of his female victims -

I don't know. I think he had more respect than he is given credit for.

"When a man loves a woman, as our old troubadours used to say, even if he has heard or seen something that puts his beloved in a bad light, he should believe neither his ears nor his eyes, he should listen to his heart alone."

 

[ProfessorPendark]

"Never may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the possession of slaves; all men are born free, all have equal rights: never should we lose sight of those principles; according to which never may there be granted to one sex the legitimate right to lay monopolizing hands upon the other, and never may one of the sexes, or classes, arbitrarily possess the other."

Marquis de Sade

 

[ProfessorPendark]

From my own writing:

“I am about to put forward some major ideas; they will be heard and pondered. If not all of them please, surely a few will; in some sort, then, I shall have contributed to the progress of our age, and shall be content.” (Marquis de Sade)

Progress begins with the free exchange of ideas. It does not begin, as is assumed by the self-proclaimed progressives of our society, with the banning of certain ideas or words from being spoken. It is only in the honest, mad expression of thought that truth is found.

“They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch.” (de Sade)

The progress of man in our age depends upon the realization that the passions must be embraced and controlled, not allowed to be our controllers. Some will tell you that the passions must be eradicated. They say that we must become completely free of our passions if war, famine, pestilence, and plague are ever to be ended.

What a load of bleeding-heart crap that is! The people telling you to eradicate your passions are usually hypocrites of one nature or another. They either drug their children to make them behave, believe the government should legislate our behaviors, or push a personal agenda of political correctness versus personal victim-hood. (Yeah, I know, I’m a jerk for pointing that out.

“Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash.” (Louis Aragon)

On the other side of our society, we have those that seem to have no control over the passions at all. Far too many people in this day and age have decided that the passions are the only thing we have to answer to. This is the opposite and equally absurd extreme. As to what drives me in my aspirations of business ownership and fame as a performer, the Marquis wrote;

“The pleasure of the senses is always regulated in accordance with the imagination. Man can aspire to felicity only by serving all the whims of his imagination.”

The whims of my imagination compel me to tell stories. The stories I tell may be of virtue, vice, deviance, strict adherence to principle or even all of these aspects combined. At the time of this writing, I am currently re-writing a morality tale in the style of a John Wayne film; a dark horror story of demons and a story about a homeless man that becomes a teacher and guide to a girl in need of advice. As you will read for yourself, I have quite an eclectic imagination.

“Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.” (De Sade)

I write both fiction and truth. I write about things that illustrate the full scope of my beliefs on the matters of sexuality, spirit and relationships. My opinions on these matters will be made plain as you continue to read. I ardently believe that a man may embrace a lifestyle that is steeped in the darker pleasures of the flesh while remaining unto himself and those close to him a man of general virtue and principle. Not only have I have sought to emphasize that principle in this book, but also in my own manner of being and in my work.

----------------------------



I will post my full essay another time.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It is most certainly a difficult collection to get through without being offended. I think that was much of his point.

Indeed. But sometimes less is more. Try too hard to offend people, and there's a risk of coming across as just another edgelord.

 

[ProfessorPendark]

Indeed. But sometimes less is more. Try too hard to offend people, and there's a risk of coming across as just another edgelord.

Indeed. I agree with that ststement. I think we are presented with the same conundrum in other aspects of life as well. We must often get past what offends our sensibilities in order to find the pertinent information. Just listen ti any 10 minutes of political punditry from any side. Even the actual news reports are full of offensive opinions depending on your point of view.

I'll be posting some of my own articles and stories in the coming weeks. I am a proponent of decorum, even in "the darkness." It sounds like an odd concept, but I think you'll get what I mean.

In the case of people like de Sade, Massoch, hell, even Poe, Barker, King, G. R. R. Martin, etc.. I think what we have is a need to express a darkness and a hard nature that they know is offensive and dangerous if acted upon as written. I'm of the opinion that much of Sade's accused physical deeds were exaggerated. I think his major crime was offensive speech. (And, you can probably guess where I stand on that.)

 

[seela]

I've read a few books by de Sade for a poli sci class in university. I found it pretty interesting looking from that point of view.

Never did me a whole lot in the BDSM sense.

 

[AlwaysFara]

Indeed. But sometimes less is more. Try too hard to offend people, and there's a risk of coming across as just another edgelord.

This.
Sorta like Howard Stern stopped being funny when he was allowed to say all the things on Sirius.

 

[ProfessorPendark]

I've read a few books by de Sade for a poli sci class in university. I found it pretty interesting looking from that point of view.

Never did me a whole lot in the BDSM sense.

Yes, I can certainly see how that could be the case. In terms of the BDSM lifestyle, I think that he is an example of raw, unchecked deviance from "societal norms. " We can find multiple examokes across the internet, of the raw, unchecked deviances. There are whole websites dedicated to sexual torture, feces play, and sex with animals. I believe that the "dark web" contains far worse. I personally refuse to delve into it. But I'd imagine that if anyone at all is aroused by it, there is a website or service for it.

So, where do we draw the line? What are the boundaries between simple deviance from accepted societal norms and pure, vile, disregard for decorum, safety, consent, etc. I've written articles on that subject and would like to share them here. What do you suppose is the best section on the board fot that sort of article?

 

[ProfessorPendark]

This.
Sorta like Howard Stern stopped being funny when he was allowed to say all the things on Sirius.

I agree there too... Shock for the sake of shock is why I find many comedians today to be repulsive.

Shocking speech in a truly funny dialogue or diatribe is different.

 

[AlwaysFara]

I agree there too... Shock for the sake of shock is why I find many comedians today to be repulsive.

Shocking speech in a truly funny dialogue or diatribe is different.

The “now I’ll fuck her with some poo!” made me think of that.
Interesting thread.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Indeed. I agree with that ststement. I think we are presented with the same conundrum in other aspects of life as well. We must often get past what offends our sensibilities in order to find the pertinent information.

Indeed, and in my experience a lot of folk are very bad at gauging their own tolerance for offence. I've met plenty of folk who complain about easily-offended politically correct snowflakes etc. etc. but lose their minds the moment somebody challenges one of their own sacred cows.

With that said... listening and discussing takes energy, and much more so for those who are personally involved in the issue than for those to whom it's merely the debating club's topic of the week. Refusing to discuss isn't necessarily closed-mindedness; sometimes it's merely self-care and respect for one's own time, or disrespect for the other side.

Particularly pernicious, it takes far more energy for those who value truth and discuss in good faith than those who don't (Brandolini's Bullshit Asymmetry Principle). The grifters of the world know this and exploit it, and those of us who do value truth sometimes have to be willing to say: nope, you're a grifter, it's not a good use of my time to listen to you.

Yes, I can certainly see how that could be the case. In terms of the BDSM lifestyle, I think that he is an example of raw, unchecked deviance from "societal norms. " We can find multiple examokes across the internet, of the raw, unchecked deviances. There are whole websites dedicated to sexual torture, feces play, and sex with animals. I believe that the "dark web" contains far worse. I personally refuse to delve into it. But I'd imagine that if anyone at all is aroused by it, there is a website or service for it.

So, where do we draw the line? What are the boundaries between simple deviance from accepted societal norms and pure, vile, disregard for decorum, safety, consent, etc.

Meaningful informed consent seems like a good criterion to me. For me, safety considerations are relevant to my consent, but other people get to make their own choices about what risks they're willing to accept.

I've written articles on that subject and would like to share them here. What do you suppose is the best section on the board fot that sort of article?

Rather than posting them on the board, I'd suggest submitting them to the "Reviews and Essays" category on the story side of this site - it does allow for non-fiction of this kind.

 

[ProfessorPendark]

Excellent conversation. Thank you all. And, I will go take a closer look at that section to see if some of my stuff will fit. Thank you.