Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by: Andrea ... - Feminish

collection of Sade’s work, point out with grave emphasis that“libertine” comes from the Latin liber, which means “free. ” In fact,originally a libertine was a manumitted slave. Sade’s use of theword contradicts its early meaning, despite the claim of hissycophantic translators. For Sade, libertinage was the cruel use ofothers for one’s own sexual pleasure. Sade’s libertinage demandedslavery; sexual despotism misnamed “freedom” is Sade’s mostenduring legacy.Sade’s work is nearly indescribable. In sheer quantity of horror,it is unparalleled in the history of writing. In its fanatical and fullyrealized commitment to depicting and reveling in torture andmurder to gratify lust, it raises the question so central to pornographyas a genre: why? why did someone do (make) this? In Sade’scase, the motive most often named is revenge against a society thatpersecuted him. This explanation does not take into account the factthat Sade was a sexual predator and that the pornography hecreated was part of that predation.It is not adequate to describe Sade’s ethic as rapist. For Sade,rape was a modest, not fully gratifying mode of violation. In Sade’swork, rape is foreplay, preparation for the main event, which ismaiming unto death. Rape is an essential dimension because force isfundamental to Sade’s conception of sexual action. But over time,with repetition, it pales, becomes boring, a stupendous waste ofenergy unless accompanied by the torture, and often the murder, ofthe victim. Sade is the consummate literary snuff artist: orgasmeventually requires murder. Victims are sliced up, impaled onstakes, burned alive, roasted slowly on spits, eaten, decapitated,flayed until they die. Women’s vaginas and rectums are sewn up tobe torn through. Women are used as tables on which burning foodis served, on which candles are burned. One would require thethousands of pages Sade himself used to list the atrocities hedescribed. Nevertheless, some themes emerge.In Sade’s fiction, men, women, boys and girls are used, violated,destroyed. At the top, in control, are the libertines, mostly oldmen, aristocrats, powerful by virtue of gender, wealth, position,and cruelty. Sade describes the sexuality of these men essentially as