The Western Gate

The Complete Marquis De Sade
Translated by Dr.Paul Gillette
Holloway House Publishing

Masochism and Sadism play no part in ritual or the path to Understanding let alone Wisdom, that’s what they tell us, those with crisp, orderly precision, certain that their worldview is the only sensible one. Every stray spark of rebellion, creativity, or nonconformity is met with a tight smile and a cutting remark, as though maverick energy were an uncouth stain on a perfectly ironed life. Their perfectly ironed life.
It’s where to begin discourse on the subject of pleasure pain, martial discipline, kink and bondage, that is problematic.
The endurance of pain, the restriction of senses by means of bondage and the austerity of liberty creates in that masochist a rush of all sorts of chemical alchemy, the upshot being bliss, the cosmic orgasm. The well-to-do ‘Wiccans would have us believe that Gardener and his little flagellation exercises and lightly tied initiates are symbolic, nothing more. Indeed the way the cat o’ nine tails is administered with the strength of a church mouse trying to open an iron vault, and the cords wrapped so loosely about the initiate, the slightest tug would set the ‘victim’ free indicates this little bit of theatre is nothing more than symbolic, a tease, a tickle but for whose fancy one wonders? The receiver of such light punishment or the wielder of the feather like touch? Oh Mr Gardener you filthy kinky wretch.
The debasement of the Ego as another concern is not very far, it could be argued, from the ascetic diminishing their Ego by means of contemplation, negating this way of thinking, the self, the want, the aversions and into a creature who is little more than a witness, unhinged by the desires and aversions of want.
The Masochist then in the game, has their sense of self stamped upon, their senses hindered to the point of inability to recognise reality, and their mobility, the fight or flight, restricted.
When the senses are not appeased, they create. We dream, we scream for respite from our inability to experience, the mind floods us with chaos, possibilities. Coupled with fear, that great unknown, and the senses are automatically heightened, the hearing sharper, the eyes with almost rabbit like 360 degrees vision, smell becomes the witness of external emotion visiting the haunted past, every touch and wisp of breeze is felt more vividly. Fear does this. Intuition coming to the fore. In an oppressive environment, at danger, we run. What happens if we cannot, if we are confined, restricted, our vision blindfolded, our hearing subject to cacophony of discordant noise, noxious and unknown incense deliberately mimicking the sense of decay and poison.
Now add into this equation some gratification, some cruel sensual pleasure, which is now heightened as a result of the extreme austere and agony of pain?

DeSade, believed human morality is an artificial imposition that suppresses our true impulses, and nature is cruel- forever in a state of creation and destruction. Individuals should therefore he believes pursue pleasure without moral or social constraint, even when that pleasure involves cruelty, domination, or the suffering of others. It is there the clear distinction between ethics and libertinism lie. An’ it Harm None would demand the grandiose gatekeepers of morality waving their cheap silver pentagrams. A pretty version of nature, a polite path of witchcraft does not reflect nature, like it or not but equally it could be said, as humans we have evolved beyond that animalistic and primal urge, even though the senses and inner alchemy respond to the input it receives in the same manner it always has.

DeSade, goes further, deliberately inflicting pain, not on the consenting though protesting masochist who derives pleasure from the practice, but administers suffering to to the innocent. The virtuous humiliated, tortured and dismissed as nothing more than playthings. The pure and naïve destroyed by the hungry ghouls, what fun. De Sade’s torment of others can be understood as a pathological pursuit of control, transgression, and self-definition through domination. Psychologically, he seemed to derive a sense of power from violating moral boundaries, using cruelty as a way to assert his autonomy in a world he experienced as restrictive and hypocritical. The suffering of others became, for him, a perverse mirror in which he could see his own agency reflected—an externalized stage on which he enacted fantasies of absolute freedom from social, moral, and emotional constraint. Rather than seeking intimacy or connection, he pursued disruption and shock, using cruelty to momentarily silence his own feelings of insignificance and to craft an identity built entirely on defiance. Are these the traits of a psychopath devoid of emotional connection to others, where compassion is seen as weakness. Empathy is lost in him, emotional shallowness but he was hardly just a psychopath that we could dismiss, pat on the head and lock away. Grandiose self-importance, rebellion against moral authority or laws that differ from his own tenets, need for extreme stimulation, philosophical justification of cruelty, desire for total domination. The ideas become more complex and perversely are more akin to the psychology of ol’ Jealous and wrathful Jeohvah than meddling and tinkering‘Devil’.

This two volumes in one book brings together DeSades noted works, unabridged and, so it says, uncensored. Juliette, Justine, 120 Days of Sodom, notes on Perversion and other little oddities.
I wonder why he never got bored with the same topic?
Truth be told in my opinion and I am at the mercy of the translator, his work isn’t that good. I am sure the posh strata of society and the sniggering buffoons who endured public school thought it was hilarious, scandalous, add a bit of Latin in for competency assured. The only people I can really think who would find his works remotely worthy of praise are historians and people who pretend they’re from high society, they probably buy expensive caviar to impress their friends.
The themes are much the same, the plight of the virtuous being tortured by those that spit and curse upon anything sacred. I can well imagine once, once a long time ago, these were notorious books. handed around like guilty secrets and French postcards, health and efficiency magazines stuffed under the mattress. The world has moved on. All literature is accessible, films, photos, media and from the days of ‘Faces of Death’ we can live stream pawns on the battlefield theatre being blown up by drones controlled from paying ‘thrill seekers’.
DeSade doesn’t have much philosophy, or psychology except to deliberately seek to shock, to excite, to pander to our illicit taboos and open Pandoras box- by force. Undoubtably he was a narcissist, and it would be those same, high society wannabe’s clutching caviar who being the same narcissistic parasites are still hanging onto his coat tails.
These stories are worthy of a read, you should read, it’s not fifty shades of grey of course, itself labelled as, to the literary world what dog food is to the culinary.
S&M is far more than Bullies and Pervert predators inflicting pain on the un-consenting. But if that’s your thing, then DeSade has you covered. It reminds me of Aleister Crowley’s bawdy poetry, again the sort of rubbish public schoolboys share around, the odd rude limerick, championed by a saucy bit of prose and topped by a marathon of disgust for the head boy.
If it were a good book, where we could really see inside the soul of Justine or Juliette rather than read about their guts being mashed by internal intrusion, or maybe read about the background of the protagonists, what drives them to commit such acts, didn’t mummy love you?…., then maybe it could be considered, but its not, its just a bit of pleading, a bit of praying and then legs forced akimbo.
Again I am at the mercy of the translation, maybe it is deeper in its original French, we have to remember revolution in the air as a background, Marie Antoinette was being published in saucy scandalous pamphlets indulging in oral, anal and banal disgraces.
However I am intrigued, so I now need to read DeSade’s biography to find out whether he was truly a disgusting libertine or just mercenary. Either way, I think he’s a bit of a wanker.