Kay Prime’s Reviews > Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings > Status Update

Eugenie de Franval is my fave work so far. Unlike PitB, it has tact. It's reminiscent of a classic tragedy. Though, Sade has the bad habit of having his characters state his message rather than leading his readers to it through the action. This ruins part of the journey when reading a social commentary or personal philosophy fiction. Perhaps that's just Sade's ego showing. He believed he was too smart for the room.

Sade sometimes prefaced his writings with a plea that feigned regret and disgust of the topic at hand. "May the reader show himself indulgent for the monstrous details of the hideous crime we are obliged to describe..." Was this to get an audience? To keep from being prosecuted (obviously unsuccessfully)? To expose others to his topics and hope to awaken or identify a fellow Sadist?

At this point, the sex scenes in PitB have become absurd in their depiction to the point of comical. I hope Sade is making some cunning point that I am missing. Perhaps he is being so outrageous in an attempt to desensitize his original audience so that anything less absurd won't be considered depraved? If not, I was wrong about Sade not being in it (at least partially) for the shock value.

For Sade to be so forward thinking when it comes to sexual freedom, I can't get behind Sadism for ideas such as this: "It cannot be denied that we have the right to decree laws that compel women to yield to the flames of him who would have her; violence itself being one of that right's effects..."

And this doesn't even detail his highly enthusiastic support and defense of rape...

Sade spends 6 pages explaining something that can be done in 2. He often uses his own argument to prove a point in another argument, which severely retards his credibility for me. I understand why many considered him to be mad. I may be swayed to agree. (And his "perverse" sexuality is a non-factor in my mind.) Because of these things, he makes for somewhat tedious and dense (albeit interesting) reading.

Sade is quite the narcissist: "Nature, mother to us all, never speaks to us save for ourselves; [...] prefer thyself, love thyself, no matter at whose expense [...] 'tis never but selfishly one should love people; to love them for themselves is nothing but dupery." One of the defining features of Sadism is that it is only your own pleasure that matters. How our pleasure affects others is inconsequential.

On incest: If, in a word, love is born of resemblance, where may it be more perfect than between brother and sister, father and daughter? An ill-founded policy, one produced by the fear lest certain families become too powerful, bans incest from our midst; [...] let us but question [our hearts] and we will notice that nothing is more exquisite than carnal connection within the family[.]

Anarchist (of course!): "When geography alone decides whether an action be worthy of praise or blame, we cannot attach any great importance to ridiculous and frivolous sentiments, [...] to the point, indeed, where we fearlessly prefer the scorn of men if the actions which excite it are for us sources of even the mildest voluptuousness." So, in other words, fuck the police! (and social structure in general)

Atheist (of course!): To allow man to choose was to tempt him; and God's infinite powers very well advised him of what would be the result. Immediately the being was created, it was hence to pleasure that God doomed the creature he had himself formed. A horrible God, this God of yours, a monster! [...] And how would you have me acknowledge as cause of what I do not understand, something that I understand even less?

I do not like Sade much based on personal letters but his literary work is vivid! Philosophy in the Bedroom- with its incest, pedo, scat, orgies, sodomy, gender bending, adultery- has couched within all of its sexual depravity Sadism, which says that anything man can think of, any act he can commit-consensual or not- is natural and therefore permitted. The happiness of an individual is the only thing that matters.