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Marquis DeSade Sade defends (or, rather, celebrates) sadomasochism in several ways. First, Nature at its most natural consists in the exercise of crime rather than the suppression of crime. Natural beings (e.g. animals untainted by civilization) are cruelly indifferent to the fate of others, selfishly interested in their own pleasures, concerned to exercise absolute dominance over others, and always inflict pain and destruction and intimidation to achieve that power, and even inflict pain for their own pleasure. (People who hold to a sentimental view of nature were quite shocked by the episode in David Attenborough's Life on Earth which showed the Minke whales tossing about and killing baby seals solely for the sake of their own pleasure.) Second, and perhaps most frequently, Sade argues simply that certain men and women have it in their nature to take pleasure in giving and receiving sexual pain. That is, it is natural behaviour for them, and they are right in acting in accordance with their nature: 'in no case have you the right to be surprised or to reproach me, because I am acting in accordance with the way Nature designed me, am following the bent she imparted to me, and because, in a word, in forcing you to accede to my harsh and brutal lusts, they alone which are capable of leading me to the uppermost pitch of pleasure, I act pursuant to the same principle of delicacy as the tepid swain who knows nought but the roses of a sentiment whereof I recognize only the thorns; for I, torturing you, rending you limb from limb, I am merely doing the one thing that is able to move me, just as he, sorrowfully encunting his mistress, does that which alone moves him agreeably; but he can have his<b> effeminate </font></b>delicacy, it's not for me. (Juliette). Sade acknowledges that this passion is a 'mania', but it is a natural one, and natural grounds are the only grounds on which natural passions can be judged. Third, and most importantly, sadomasochism is the technique or tool for realligning Man with Nature. As Sade explains in Juliette, it provides the 'jolt' which is strong enough to redirect Man from the false path of Civilization into the authentic path of Nature. (If Sade were to use a railroad metaphor, sadomasochism would be the electrical jolt that derails one from the false track sets one on the right track.) The sadistic libertine experiences the keenest, most intense, most poignant, pleasure through the creation of pain and, ultimately, terror in his victim. This literally 'brutal' passion strips all humanity from both participants, the exerciser of absolute POWER as well as the victims reduced to abject POWERLESSNESS, who are thereby enabled to realize themselves as Creatures of Nature, which for Sade is a Good Thing. In other words, sadomasochism is an instrument of revolution. Similarly, blasphemy is used to free oneself from the shackles of religion in exactly the same way that sadomasochism is used to liberate oneself from all anti-natural constraints. That is, though blasphemy does not occur among animal nature, it is nevertheless a justifiable technique used by libertines to reestablish a Natural order rather than the Christian order. Blasphemy and sadomasochism are very much tied together in Sade's world, and I think that the transparent way he uses blasphemy helps us see how he similarly uses sadomasochism as a political tool, a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It is a tool of Enlightenment and self-realization. It has been argued, along with Rousseau, that 'the unbridled and obsessive pursuit of happiness makes us miserable.' But this is not instantiated in Sade's life. Sade was imprisoned for most of his adult life, with pitifully few opportunities to pursue happiness, and whatever misery he experienced was directly linked to his punishment rather than his obsessions. It has also been argued that. far from being free, people are enslaved, degraded and ruined by their appetites. But in fact, Sade was enslaved and ruined by society's response to his appetites, not by his appetites in themselves. Sade is dismissed as a 'wanker', a masturbator. I am rather surprised that in the 21st century it can still be suggested that masturbation is a degrading sexual act, or that it can still be characterized as being obsessive or a poor compensation or a last resort. Unlike the anti-Onanists of the early 18th century and then the 19th century, Sade was one of the first persons to argue that masturbation was wholly natural, and a valuable pleasure in and of itself. I had thought that most of the modern medical profession had come round to Sade's clear-headed view that masturbation was not pathological. |
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7/16/2017 4:14 am |
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer, famous for his libertine sexuality.
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Very natural
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