Recommendation: The Collected Works of the Marquis De Sade

 Dear Reader,

I'll be the first to say it, it is heavy reading and the language is a bit ponderous at times. At the same time, if you're looking to write kinky smut, you get to have a view into the workings of one of the most infamous minds through his writings. It can inspire some scenes or characters with just a cursory reading. If one takes the time to actually chew through the heavy dialogue, there's the reward of understanding just what motivated the Marquis De Sade and an opportunity to take elements from this and apply them to your characters.

Of all the works that the Marquis De Sade wrote, perhaps the most infamous is his novel Justine: Philosophy in the Bed Room. It examines gender roles, power dynamics, and the practical application of various kink oriented concepts. This is not a book for the faint of heart. It is also a product of its time. As a result, there are elements that translate really badly to the modern mindset of readers. If you take the book and examine it as a work of its time and place it into context, you can see just where the Marquis De Sade was standing on the matters of human rights, sexuality, and consent. Again, I warn you, this does not fit the Risk Aware Consensual Kink paradigm. 

The collected works of the Marquis De Sade is not only useful to people who are writing erotica that has a darker edge to it. It can also be useful in writing legit torture scenes for characters in horror stories. The Marquis De Sade had a brilliant mind for inventing scenes that are blood chilling. Given his reputation, it begs the question how many of the scenes that he created for his entertainment in his writings did he put to the test. It also leaves the question of what did he choose to leave out because he decided it was too much.

It was a fascinating and horrifying read all at the same time.