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

sexuality. The shared victim results in the shared orgasm, a bondamong the male characters and between the author and his malereaders.The men on top also share the shit of the victims. They controlelimination and physical cleanliness, a stratagem that suggests theNazi death camps. They eat turds and control the diets of theirvictims to control the quality of the turds. While Freudian valuesapply here—the anal being indicative of greed, of obsession withmaterial wealth— excrement, like blood, like flesh itself, is ingestedbecause these men have gone beyond vampirism toward a sexualitythat is entirely cannibalistic.Much is made of the fact that two of Sade’s main characters,Justine and Juliette, are women. Juliette especially is cited as anemancipated woman because she takes to maiming and murder withall the spectacular ease of Sade’s male characters; she is the one whoknows how to take pleasure, how to transform pain into pleasure,slavery into freedom. It is, Sade’s literary friends claim, a matter ofattitude: here we have Justine, raped, tortured, violated, and shehates it, so she is a victim; here we have Juliette, raped, tortured,violated, and she loves it, so she is free. As expressed by RolandBarthes:The scream is the victim’s mark; she makes herself a victimbecause she chooses to scream; if, under the same vexation shewere to ejaculate [sic], she would cease to be a victim, would betransformed into a libertine: to scream! to discharge, this paradigmis the beginning of choice, i. e. Sadian meaning., 8“Sadian meaning, ” then, reduces to the more familiar preachment:if you can’t do anything about it (and I will see to it that youcannot), lie back and enjoy it. In the critical writings on Sade’spornography, rape in the criminal sense exists mainly as asubjective value judgment of the one who was used, to whomhysteria is always attributed. Women, according to Sade, Barthes,and their ilk, can and should choose to experience the rape ofwomen as men experience it: as pleasure.